https://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/api.php?action=feedcontributions&feedformat=atom&user=Jason+koziolSGUTranscripts - User contributions [en]2026-04-14T18:33:20ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.43.8https://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_266&diff=9642SGU Episode 2662015-02-06T15:50:46Z<p>Jason koziol: /* Interview with Bruce Hood () */</p>
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<div>{{transcribing all<br />
|transcriber = Jason koziol<br />
|date = 7 Dec 2014<br />
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|episodeNum = 266<br />
|episodeDate = August 19<sup>th</sup> 2010 <!-- broadcast date --><br />
|episodeIcon = File:Magnetar.jpg <!-- use "File:" and file name for image on show notes page--><br />
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|guest1 = BH: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Hood_%28psychologist%29 Bruce Hood] <br />
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|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2010-08-19.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,30118.0.html<br />
|qowText = 'You know that chemistry has an impact on your daily life, but the extent of that impact can be mind-boggling. Consider just the beginning of a typical day from a chemical point of view. Molecules align in the liquid crystal display of your clock, electrons flow through its circuitry to create a rousing sound, and you throw off a thermal insulator of manufactured polymer. You jump in the shower, to emulsify fatty substances on your skin and hair with chemically treated water and formulated detergents. You adorn yourself in an array of processed chemicals - pleasant-smelling pigmented materials suspended in cosmetic gels, dyed polymeric fibers, synthetic footware, and metal-alloyed jewelry. Today, breakfast is a bowl of nutrient-enriched, spoilage-retarded cereal and milk, a piece of fertilizer-grown, pesticide-treated fruit, and a cup of a hot, aqueous solution of neurally stimulating alkaloid. Ready to leave, you collect some books - processed cellulose and plastic, electrically printed with light-and-oxygen-resistant inks - hop in your hydrocarbon-fuelled metal-vinyl-ceramic vehicle, electrically ignite a synchronized series of controlled, gaseous explosions, and you're off to class!' <!-- add quote of the week text--><br />
|qowAuthor = {{w|Martin S. Silberberg}} <!-- add author and link --><br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
== News Items <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== Banning Wi-Fi <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=2215<br />
<br />
=== Psychic Finds Wrong Body <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/psychic-searching-for-kiesha-discovers-womans-torso-20100812-120mf.html?autostart=1<br />
<br />
=== Kurzweil and Brain Complexity <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/08/ray_kurzweil_does_not_understa.php<br />
<br />
=== Magnetars and Black Holes <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/spaceastronomystars<br />
== Who's That Noisy <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Answer to last week - spiney lobster<br />
<br />
== Interview with Bruce Hood <small>(31:06)</small> ==<br />
* Author of SuperSense<br />
<br />
S: We're sitting here at TAM 8 with Bruce Hood, author of "Super Sense", Bruce, welcome back to the Skeptic's Guide.<br />
<br />
Bruce Hood: Hi.<br />
<br />
S: And, I have to say I watched your talk today and, I love the material by the way, I love the talk. The kind of stuff you deal with really is, in my opinion, at the absolute core of skepticism. Which is the knowledge about how our brains function, how they filter information, and deal with the world around us. So, give us a little flavor of your talk today and tell us what are those things that you've learned in your career that really...that you feel are most relevant to what we do as skeptics.<br />
<br />
BH: Okay so, really the talk was trying to draw people's attention to the basic function of a brain, which is to interpret the world and make sense of it, and to build models if you like. Allows you to make predictions, figure out why things are the way they are. It's like a causal inference mechanism. And, it's usually pretty good. It's done us well for all these millions of years. But it has a few built in, uh, flaws. And, sometimes it makes errors, and those errors, I think, could underpin a lot of supernatural beliefs.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: The assumption that there are hidden forces or dimensions, or things operating which can't be explained by science.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: Okay? I think one of the critical points I was making in the demonstrations throughout the talk was showing how people shouldn't even trust their own senses. Because, you know the phrase, "seeing is believing"? Well, I hopefully demonstrated today that that's not the case.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: Believing is seeing in many cases.<br />
<br />
BH: Indeed. Yeah, so that's an example where your models of the world really color the way that you interpret the world. The late Richard Gregory was a great friend of mine he said this 50 years ago that, you need these models of the world to interpret it. And that of course, sort of, constrains the sorts of things that you pay attention to.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So believing very much you're seeing its the way that you go out and you sample information...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...to fit. And, part of that process occasionally produces these explanations...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...which don't really hold up under the scrutiny of evidence. <br />
<br />
S: Right. Now you said one word during your talk that caught my attention which I thought was for me a core concept. You didn't focus on it but I knew what you were saying and you said that the...our perception of the world is a “constructive” process.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm-hm, mm-hm.<br />
<br />
S: That's a deceptively deep little concept you threw in there in the middle of your talk it's not something that we passively...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...are perceiving, we're constructing it with tons of assumptions.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: Can you elaborate that a little bit?<br />
<br />
BH: You don't have any privileged, direct access to reality. Your brain is always extrapolating on the basis of information it's receiving, and then it's constructing that into a framework. To try and make the best fitting model to what you think you're seeing. <br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: And so one of the very simple visual illusions I talked about are these ones where you think you see a geometric shape which is basically an illusory subjective contour. Now the interesting thing about that it's a very simple demonstration everyone sees the illusory shape but what they may not appreciate is that if you go into the brain we can find cells which are firing as if that object really was there.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So it doesn't make the distinction between the fact of reality and the illusion because the brain, if it's come up with that solution, it says, well, there really should be a shape there, so fire as if it really is there. So that was the basic point, that all of our phenomenological experience is really extrapolated, is really constructed...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...from the information. And of course your models that you apply to interpret information will allow you to imagine all sorts of things, so...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: When I said someone thinks they've seen a ghost, at the neuronal level it's really indistinguishable.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, the problem is a lot of people think that...they equate the eyes with a movie camera, or...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: ...the brain with a hard drive, filling up with information that it stores that doesn't change over time ...<br />
<br />
BH: Exactly <br />
<br />
B: ...and all that and they can't...a lot of people just don't get past that. And they can't relate to the idea that we're constructing what we see. They think it's a window, but it's not it's a window that, you know, that we change and manipulate and...<br />
<br />
BH: Right<br />
<br />
B: ... deal with.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think if there's like...often if there's one thing I try to get across to non-skeptics is extrapolating from the optical illusion.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: People...Everyone knows what an optical illusion is and it's cool, it's fun, but they don't learn the lesson from that. It's like your whole brain operates that way.<br />
<br />
BH: Yes.<br />
<br />
S: Everything you think and remember and... It's all constructed in the same flawed way that your visual...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm-hm<br />
<br />
S: ...images are and they're subject to the same kind of illusions.<br />
<br />
BH: Absolutely, I mean if you can demonstrate that at the very basic simple level of the system that these flaws are there, then you can imagine that when you're dealing with even more complex, sort of, representations then, yeah, the scope for errors is much more obvious.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So, yeah that's the whole point... <br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
BH: ...that the whole brain is designed to try and interpret and build models.<br />
<br />
S: Exactly. Now I think last time you were on the show we focused a lot on the notion of essence.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: That we assume that things have an essence, and that goes a long way to giving us our sense that there is...a lot of our supernatural beliefs flow from that. I don't know that we talked about a related concept, and you did allude to it earlier, just now which was agency, so something else that we assume is not only that things have an essence, but there are agents operating in the world and...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: I try to understand the way our brains treat the concept of agency, so help me out, tell me… <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: … if you can summarize your understanding of that, where we are with that.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, so, it would appear to be a system which emerges very early. We know this from the work from Paul Bloom's lab, and Karen Wynn. They do work with very young babies, and...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: …Val Kumar in particular is the lady who really has been doing this work. And they've shown these simple, geometric, little videos of objects moving around the screen, and what...we see them as adults, we see them as being purposeful. They seem to have goals...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...you know, even though they’re just kind of random movements. And um, with some of their sequences they look as if they’re, you know, playing out some sort of scenario. We’re giving them a rich interpretation, so we’re seeing them as agents, as having purposes and intents. So agency is really this default...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...that we seem to slip into when we’re trying to give a causal explanation for why things are the way they are...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...You know if a plate falls off the table, it had to be caused by something. So agency is again a kind of default way of interpreting the presence of something, which is causing it.<br />
<br />
S: Right. But it’s also my understanding that we do...our brains will, do make a hard distinction between things that we think are agents and things that we think are not agents. We sort of...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: ...we know that a rock is not an agent so we categorize it differently in our brains...<br />
<br />
BH: That’s right.<br />
<br />
S: ...but that division is not between real agents and non-agents, or things that are alive and that are not alive, it’s things that act like agents and that don’t act like agents. But that’s another way in which we’re constructing based upon lots of assumptions and we get it wrong a lot of times. <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, so Dan Dennett made this point, he called it “intentionality” default. And basically... so this is when you kind of treat your computer as being vindictive...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: ...when it crashes on you, or your car is being malevolent because it breaks down on the way to...and he’s argued that we adopt this position, as a kind of convenient way of interacting with things which clearly aren’t agents. We kind of know this at one level, but at another level if we treat it as if did have purpose and goals and intentions it allows us to kind of interact with it...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...in a meaningful way. That may be the case, but you know, I certainly know that people seem to lose all rationality when machinery breaks around them and it...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
E: (laughs)<br />
<br />
BH: ...does seem as if it was deliberate. And we, you know (laughs), it just seems as if... <br />
<br />
E: Guilty as charged, here, yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: Michael Shermer gave a really great story yesterday. I don’t know if you caught this, but he was on the lift shaft, and he was using his iPhone, and this lady was exiting the lift, and he gestured to her to leave the lift before him, and the iPhone slipped out of his hand, and it fell into the gap between the lift shaft and the door…<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BH: ...and he watched as it raffled down and then disappeared down the shaft.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BH: And he stood there with his mouth open watching that, and it was very difficult not to see that as a vindictive piece of nons… He didn’t see…<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, it’s like this thing just escaped.<br />
<br />
S: Right, right.<br />
<br />
BH: And that’s just our tendency to see things as being purposeful, doing things.<br />
<br />
B: Wow.<br />
<br />
S: Do you hold with those who say that this tendency to seek agency is all...leads to things like conspiracy thinking and even religious beliefs about there being a God, for example?<br />
<br />
BH: Oh sure, I mean yeah, I mean it can operate in any sphere where you’re trying to apply some causal mechanism, some causal… why do things happen, well someone did it. Someone was responsible. Trouble with that of course is you get into an infinite regress of causes...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...you know because, it’s very difficult to even conceive random events. The brain can’t conceive randomness. If I asked you to press on your keyboard ones and zeros and try and create a random pattern, very soon, you’d just fall into a sequence. If I take coffee beans and I throw them on the table, you can’t see them as random, you already, automatically organize them into some pattern. And I think that’s the same with sequences of events. You see them as being a chain of agency.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm. Right. And conspiracy thinking as well? I mean... <br />
<br />
BH: Exactly.<br />
<br />
S: ...that’s something we talk about a lot, and it seems like there’s this inherent sense of the invisible hand operating...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...behind events.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah. The notion that it might just be a kind of coincidence is something that we just don’t readily accept. Coincidence...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...we’re not really good at our statistical reasoning. The brain was never really designed to do that. We’re not Bayesians, we can’t do probability analysis.<br />
<br />
B: It’s not intuitive at all.<br />
<br />
BH: It’s not intuitive. And that’s why statistics is really difficult for people to accept.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah. We suck at probability.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah. Probability, you know there’s all these beautiful examples of illusions of probability, and people just never get it.<br />
<br />
S: This is a little off what you typically talk about, at least as far as I’m aware, but I’m interested in what you’re thinking is about evolutionary psychology. So do you involve yourself at all in asking that deeper question about why our brains evolved to be the way they are? Or you think it just not an answerable question? Or not interesting?<br />
<br />
BH: Well I think the problem about evolutionary psychology is it’s often disregarded as a “just so” story.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: Because it’s very difficult to look back into the mists of early civilization, or early man to figure out why we have evolved our behaviors and our thought patterns. But, you know I believe the mind is a product of the brain, and the brain is a physical system, a biological system, which evolved under selective pressure. So ultimately I would have to contend that a lot of it is constrained by evolutionary pressure. The difference of course is when culture comes in, and then, you know, the degrees of freedom, to give an engineering term, become huge. <br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: You can’t really, you know, figure out exactly, what the causal...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: ...chain of events was which led to our predispositions to think or behave in certain ways. So I suppose what I’m saying is that clearly… I think that evolutionary psychology must be true to some extent, but to apply it as an explanatory framework to make sense of modern day behaviors is difficult. And it leads to a lot of simplistic notions, naivete, you know, men being more aggressive and wanting to have sex with more women, these are typical things which are...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...said to... obviously have an evolutionary adaptation. But again that’s really hard to...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...say in a scientific sort of way. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah, so you kind of have to assume a hyper-adaptationalist position which is not tenable in order to…<br />
<br />
BH: Exactly, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: be an evolutionary psychologist, so...‘cause culture and, just randomness...behavior’s meant to be so diverse and adaptive…<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: that you can’t say A led to B led to C.<br />
<br />
BH: We weren’t around at the time that the various gene was selected, and so we just have to kind of make a after-the-fact kind of analysis. And that can be, obviously, driven by your own expectations and models of what you think was happening, but we don’t know for a certainty. <br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: So evolutionary psychology I think is useful, because it gets you to kind of think about if there’s something there why would it, you know, what possibly could’ve done, but then you definitely need to have other lines of evidence...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...maybe it’s genetic, or maybe it’s something to do with anthropology or...you’d have to have more than one line of evidence, rather than an argument based on an evolutionary perspective. That’s my opinion.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
E: It’s complex.<br />
<br />
BH: It’s complex, and it’s after the fact.<br />
<br />
S: Can I ask what your experience has been as an academic with the degree to which you’ve been popularizing your research in science?<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, I’ve reached a sort of crossroads. Well, I think I’ve already set down the path actually now, it’s no longer a crossroads, I’ve been doing this now for two years. And um, I think that I’m transforming somewhat from your mainstream kind of academic to someone who is increasingly spending more time talking to the general public and, I used to have some real reservations about that, because for many, many years it was felt that that was somehow not being a real academic to do this. But I think the landscape has changed somewhat and I’ve got to keep reminding myself that, certainly in the UK, I’m a public servant. I’m paid for by the taxes. And, you know I have a duty to, you know I’m paid for by other people’s tax money so, I feel I’ve got a duty to try and communicate information which I feel is of relevance to them. And clearly there are situations where there’s not enough communication happening. And science is under threat as well. I don’t know what it’s like in this country but certainly in the UK at the moment we’re facing terrible cuts. And so I feel there’s a real role now for people who are willing to step into the limelight, who are willing to talk, and to give opinions, so long as they don’t go too far beyond their areas of expertise. But just to try and open up those channels of communication, maybe encourage some youngsters listening in that, you know these are cool things. Science is cool....<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: And we need to get more, kind of, pop stars of science. We’ve seen it in every other realm, in athletics, and music. But why not science? You know, it can be absolutely absorbing and fascinating. So, there are some great people out there doing it and I think that we should just encourage it. So I’m much more comfortable with my position now....<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...I still have the luxury of engaging in real research, and I do that, and I would hate to lose that entirely. But that’s becoming less of a characteristic of what my day job is. <br />
<br />
S: How do you find that your colleagues and institution respond to that?<br />
<br />
BH: Well surprisingly they’re very positive towards it. Well not surprising. It’s just that fact that university system in the UK is changing somewhat. We’re moving more towards the American system. So college fees are going to start increasing and I think that we now have to compete with each other. To get the best students, to raise our profiles, to become more corporate, if you like.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: And that requires a degree of marketing. That requires academics getting out there, speaking, telling the kids about what we’re doing, getting the foreign students to come visit.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: These are all changes to the system. We’ve lost the nice cozy, insular, kind of ivory tower image that was so common in the UK for many decades. We’re now being forced by the change in economic circumstances to become more accountable, to become more corporate, and so, what I do promotes the university.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm. Yeah I think the culture’s still a little different in the United States. I think there isn’t as much recognition of the need to popularize science or to communicate...<br />
<br />
BH: Right.<br />
<br />
S: ...with the public or engage on a lot of issues. So, maybe it’s ironic, but I think there may be more of an ivory tower attitude over here. <br />
<br />
BH: Yes, well of course, the US, you’re very familiar with paying large college fees, and...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...you’ve always had a system of, you know, setting up the college fund when the kid’s born, and mum, grandparents feed the money into it. This idea of paying for your education has been in your culture for many decades.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: But, of course in the UK, this has just recently come in, because we always had a kind of social system which allowed for higher education. And what happened is that they’ve just increased the numbers of students going to university without any additional funding. So this has now put a lot of pressure on the system to try and teach more students for less money, and we’ve now reached an impasse, where in fact we now charge for our fees, and they’ve been moderate amounts about five thousand dollars a year. But all the signs and indications show that that’s going to increase.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So um...and this is what people are finding very difficult to accept, because they’ve had it for so many decades...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: ...where they don’t pay for education. But you know, I think that a college education, a university education as we say, opens up so many doors, gives you better job opportunities, better salaries, and therefore it has to be paid for. I would prefer that we did have a social system which allowed everybody to go, but we’ve tried that and it seems to be failing very badly. The univ...the government is just not giving us the support....<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
E: Well it’s not that they’re not paying for it, they are paying for it through taxes. <br />
<br />
BH: Taxes.<br />
<br />
E: Value… VAT Taxes and these sort of things. <br />
<br />
BH: That’s true. That is true. It’s just that that doesn’t immediately feed back to the university systems, it goes into the economy.<br />
<br />
E: Yes. Right. Heh.<br />
<br />
BH: I think the expenditure on science in the UK is something like 0.04% of the GDP, which is pretty pathetic. <br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
E: Are there like lobby groups or something? That get together and try to get larger percentages?<br />
<br />
BH: No, is the simple answer to that. We do have some individuals who are trying to draw the public’s attention to it. Brian Cox, for example is a very popular, young physicist, very successful. And he’s being very vocal about this. Especially with the cancellation of many departments… we’re losing chemistry departments right across British universities. ‘Cause they’re too expensive to run. But we’ve just had a change in government and, I don’t know if your listeners are aware, but we have a huge deficit in our budget, and so they’re operating draconian kind of cuts. A quarter, twenty-five percent of cuts right across the board from public sectors, so that means huge pressure on us to try and find other sources of money, so it’s difficult.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm. Well we’re certainly running huge deficits over here but, so far they’re not cutting anything, they’re just, sort of…<br />
<br />
BH: No no, it’s interesting…<br />
<br />
S:...spending more money.<br />
<br />
BH: I think what you guys are doing right because you’re stimulating it and by… because basically, economies grow out of innovations...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...and I think that you can’t cut off your life-blood....<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: ...because the long term consequences of not supporting higher education is that you create this huge gap. Because who are you going to fill it with if you don’t have the youngsters being trained up with degrees and that. So it’s really important not to kill off your life-blood.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it’s the difference between investing and spending.<br />
<br />
BH: Exactly. <br />
<br />
S: Right, and higher education’s an investment. <br />
<br />
BH: I think so.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, especially in… I do think that in this country, there’s been a recognition of so-called STEM education, which is the Science, Technology, Engineering. And I think, it seems that that came out of the cold war.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: And continues to a lesser degree even ‘til today, otherwise the more threatened we feel the more we sort of go back to, oh we gotta get...be competing in science in education.<br />
<br />
BH: Well wars are very good for stimulating technology.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
E: That’s true. That is true they are. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah it’s true.<br />
<br />
E: Space race…<br />
<br />
BH: But don’t get me wrong I’m not saying let’s go to war again.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
E: No, no, no.<br />
<br />
S: No, it’s just a historical fact. <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, it focuses the attention of the politicians, you know.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: But unfortunately, they’re not really that sympathetic to science otherwise. In our country, very few of our politicians have a science background. <br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So they don’t respond to it.<br />
<br />
E: Same here. <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah.<br />
<br />
E: Same here.<br />
<br />
S: Speaking of which, so what kind of science vs. pseudoscience conflicts are common over in the UK? You’ve traveled back and forth between the UK and the US enough. Do you have a sense of like, what the similarities and differences are?<br />
<br />
BH: Well obviously in your country religion is one of the big controversies and the extent of the religious right...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...the power they wield. We have a bit of a problem in the UK, but nowhere near as much, and that’s simply because we don’t have as many extreme religious people in control. Although, they do seem to be on the increase again, so...You have to be, kind of… I’m not going to pass comment on them, but you know, it is not such an issue in this countr... in the UK. Where we have problems are basically issues on alternative therapies.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: Homeopathy is something which gets up a lot of people’s noses. I actually controversially don’t feel so, you know, upset by it, which really annoys my fellow skeptics. <br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: They think that we shouldn’t tolerate anything which is basically peddling water as a cure. But I happen to have a, you know, belief in the placebo effect, and so I think we have to really question...and I’m not saying that there’s a simple answer here, by the way. Whether or not we should allow people to pay for water if they think it makes them get better, and they’re not a drain on public money.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: I can see a good argument for that actually, if they’re not sort of cluttering up the diagnostic…<br />
<br />
B: (laughs)<br />
<br />
BH: ...expense bills, because you know, otherwise they want to be sent off for scans, and they want to send off and have every other thing done. So I actually, I’m, you know, if people are happy to pay for that, that’s fine.<br />
<br />
E: But is that science though? I mean, are we...how does that fit in?<br />
<br />
BH: Well, um, the placebo effect is very real.<br />
<br />
E: Well, yes.<br />
<br />
S: But it depends on what you’re talking about though.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm.<br />
<br />
S: It’s interesting that you say that because Ben Goldacre has a very similar opinion on it.<br />
<br />
BH: Indeed<br />
<br />
S: I don’t know if you’re familiar with that. And I don’t know if that’s because you’re both from the UK, or if its just that you know each other.<br />
<br />
BH: No, Ben and I, we were, no Ben and I do actually agree on this. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH: And actually so does...Richard Wiseman has said something very similar as well. And that’s actually, a lot of people have got very upset by that because the 10-23 campaign...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH:...has been very successful and, it seemed very likely that public support for the homeopathic hospices… there are five of them in the UK…<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH: ...is going to be cut. And that sounds like a great success. But that actually, in terms of pounds, is four million pounds for the entire program.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah <br />
<br />
BH: A series of investigations for neurological conditions, fMRI scanning, all that, pales in comparison…<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH: ...to the costs, so, I think that, and I have to be careful here, because I know the cases...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...and they’re very distressing cases where people have deliberately gone to seek out alternative therapy and not engaged in conventional therapy, and especially with kids. <br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: So we have cases around the world where people have died.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: Because of their belief in homeopathy. And so I’m not saying that I’m an apologist for it, I’m just a realist in terms of maybe there is scope for people who want to do that, so long as they’re not denying access to conventional medicine, so...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...it’s a difficult area, I suppose.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah I think where I’d disagree with… I mean I’ve heard Ben Goldacre articulate the issues.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: I’m not aware of… I’ve never had this conversation with Richard Wiseman. <br />
<br />
BH: Mm.<br />
<br />
S: But I think Ben overestimates the effect of the placebo effect.<br />
<br />
BH: Really.<br />
<br />
S: It’s been, I mean I’ve written about it I’ve reviewed the literature...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: ...on the placebo effect and it’s pretty clear actually that there isn’t really much of a placebo effect.<br />
<br />
BH: Really? Wow.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it’s really limited to subjective complaints.<br />
<br />
BH: Right, of course, yeah. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah, so, but if you ask the question is there any measurable biological effect that can be attributed to placebo effects, the answer’s a pretty clear no. <br />
<br />
BH: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: So, you have to put that into context. The other argument that my colleagues and I make is that, well, whatever psychological benefit or non-specific benefit you get from placebo effects, which are essentially non-specific therapeutic effects, you get them from real treatments too....<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: And, so it’s not like homeopathy or whatever can provide something that getting some minimalist but rational and science-based treatment can also deliver. <br />
<br />
BH: Right<br />
<br />
S: And then there’s the harm of homeopathy, which, even if you buy the notion that I think 99% of the stuff that’s sold that’s homeopathy is completely inert...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: ...and therefore, there’s no direct harm, the indirect harm is kind of hard to quantify.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, I agree.<br />
<br />
S: And so I’m not so complacent about saying there isn’t much of an indirect harm from legitimizing and peddling really abject nonsense as if it were medicine.<br />
<br />
BH: But this is the beauty of skepticism.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: The point is if we’re not dogmatic...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...and we can take apart these arguments and consider all the factors which are feeding into it...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: Seems to me that what you’re telling me about the size of the effect of placebo. I’m not an expert in it...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: ...but I think as skeptics we’re allowed to sit down and say okay, let’s evaluate the evidence.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, absolutely.<br />
<br />
BH: Let’s look at the budgets, let’s do the analysis. And I think that Phil Plait made an issue yesterday about, skepticism should try and be a little bit, not more tolerant, but just kind of stop being so dogma-...or categorical, that there’s a right and wrong…<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...to every issue. Because, very rarely is that the case.<br />
<br />
S: Right. <br />
<br />
BH: And so, maybe what I’m saying is that let’s look at all the costs and benefits of that. The issue about homeopathy is whether it is effective, well, everyone knows it’s water, I mean…<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it’s not effective. That, we could agree on that.<br />
<br />
BH: We can all agree on that. It’s the other issue, about whether or not allowing people to pay for water...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...is either morally right, ethically right...these are the complex issues.<br />
<br />
S: Absolutely, and they’re definitely issues that we don’t take for granted.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: And that’s probably one of the most frequent questions I get as a skeptical physician is, well if this treatment is benign and comes with a placebo effect and makes people feel better…<br />
<br />
E: What’s the harm.<br />
<br />
S: Not only what’s the harm, but isn’t there some benefit to that. And that’s a very important question. <br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: There’s many sub-questions in there like how can we optimize...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...the beneficial aspects of placebo effects within the framework of not lying to patients. <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, so well that of course is, the hippocratic oath is... <br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH: ...has to be maintained, and you’re absolutely right. <br />
<br />
S: So, I acknowledge all the complexities, I do think it’s a great conversation to have, but I’ll just say that we’ve been having that conversation...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm-hm<br />
<br />
S: ...and I like to think that we have developed nuanced opinion…<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...about it, but...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: I’ve recently become aware of the fact that there’s sort of a different sort of...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: ...opinion developing among my UK colleagues, which interests me...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...which is why I wanted to…<br />
<br />
BH: Well let’s...<br />
<br />
S: you know, explore a little bit.<br />
<br />
BH: Let’s consider some future scenarios.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH: Let’s say okay, so we ban homeopathy, or let’s say we cut funding for it.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, yeah, which is the more, yeah...<br />
<br />
BH: That’s more likely.<br />
<br />
S: Banning it’s... <br />
<br />
BH: Banning it is never going to work. (laughs)<br />
<br />
S: Right. It’s like prohibition. <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah. We know that the same people who seek out a lot of this are generally chronic patients, you know.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: This is usually why they’ve...quite often it’s testimony hearing from someone else, but very often it’s people who’ve not responded. We then have to say well what replaces it, because I think that some people are inclined towards this way of thinking.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: And so, in many ways water is just water, but then when they start getting into all the other stuff then there’s...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...I mean for example Chinese alternative therapies.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: That’s really worrisome, ‘cause a lot of these…<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. Oh there’s definitely a lot more worse things.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, absolutely, so…<br />
<br />
S: And, I do… whenever people start to say that, well, you know, there’s this huge population of people with chronic symptoms.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: And, this notion that if we service their chronic complaints with benign, inexpensive and simple treatments that make them feel better, this puts a tremendous relief on the system.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: Because we can’t send them off for MRI’s and complicated workups…<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, thats, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: I understand that but that’s, that was the “barefoot doctor” campaign that Mao-Tse Tung underwent.<br />
<br />
BH: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: We can’t afford to give scientific medicine to a billion people so we’re going to have this...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...sort of, army of barefoot doctors who are going to give them the traditional stuff that we know doesn’t work, but who cares it’s cheap and they can do it and...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: It kinda rubs me a little bit the wrong way but I understand the dilemma there that, and I do think this is exactly the problem that America is having, is that we have the technology, to, and the science, to provide...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...more healthcare than we can afford. So I think this is a very important that needs to be addressed. I’m not willing to say let’s just give them sugar pills and make them go away so we don’t have to pay for them. I’m not saying that was your position, but I’m saying that is kind of...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: ...sort of, where it can lead to. I think rather, we need to figure out as a profession, how to efficiently deal with these people within a more reasonable science-based and ethical framework. And maybe there are lots of lessons to be learned from these alternative practitioners who have found a way to sort of optimize the more what I call “touchy-feely” aspects...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: ...of medicine. Right? So maybe we don’t need physicians doing the million-dollar workup on everybody who has these chronic complaints, and maybe we can have allied professionals, like nurse practitioners or whatever that are able to approach these problems in a way that is more minimalist and...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm-hm<br />
<br />
S: Again there’s a lot of complexities here. I think though, that we get off on a very ultimately destructive tangent if we say that these non-scientific modalities have a useful role to play directly in dealing with that issue. But I don’t have the ultimate solution either cause I understand that it’s...that we’re in the process of going bankrupt paying for the medicine that we have the technology to deliver. We’re victims of our own success. Now what do we do...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...You know. It’s tough.<br />
<br />
BH: Indeed, indeed.<br />
<br />
B: I don’t have a solution, but I admire the problem.<br />
<br />
S: (laughs) Right.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BH: But at least we can talk about it, and that’s...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
E: Oh yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. <br />
<br />
S: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Bruce, for joining us.<br />
<br />
BH: You’re very welcome.<br />
<br />
E: Thank you, Bruce.<br />
<br />
BH: Cheers, bye.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>()</small> ==<br />
[http://www.physorg.com/news201266386.html Item #1]: A new analysis confirms that the so-called mitochondrial eve lived about 200,000 years ago.<br />
[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100816095615.htm Item #2]: New research indicates that for adults internet access at home is significantly associated with a decreased probability of being involved in a romantic relationship.<br />
[http://www.physorg.com/news201427392.html Item #3]: New images of the Moon's surface indicate that the Moon is shrinking - by about 100 meters in the recent past.<br />
== Quote of the Week <small>()</small> ==<br />
<blockquote>'You know that chemistry has an impact on your daily life, but the extent of that impact can be mind-boggling. Consider just the beginning of a typical day from a chemical point of view. Molecules align in the liquid crystal display of your clock, electrons flow through its circuitry to create a rousing sound, and you throw off a thermal insulator of manufactured polymer. You jump in the shower, to emulsify fatty substances on your skin and hair with chemically treated water and formulated detergents. You adorn yourself in an array of processed chemicals - pleasant-smelling pigmented materials suspended in cosmetic gels, dyed polymeric fibers, synthetic footware, and metal-alloyed jewelry. Today, breakfast is a bowl of nutrient-enriched, spoilage-retarded cereal and milk, a piece of fertilizer-grown, pesticide-treated fruit, and a cup of a hot, aqueous solution of neurally stimulating alkaloid. Ready to leave, you collect some books - processed cellulose and plastic, electrically printed with light-and-oxygen-resistant inks - hop in your hydrocarbon-fuelled metal-vinyl-ceramic vehicle, electrically ignite a synchronized series of controlled, gaseous explosions, and you're off to class!' Martin S. Silberberg</blockquote><br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_165&diff=9641SGU Episode 1652015-02-06T03:08:56Z<p>Jason koziol: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Proof reading all<br />
|proofer = Jason koziol<br />
|date = 5 Feb 2015<br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox <br />
|episodeNum = 165<br />
|episodeDate = 17<sup>th</sup> September 2008<br />
|episodeIcon = File:goldacre.jpg<br />
|rebecca = y<br />
|bob = y<br />
|jay = y<br />
|evan = y<br />
|guest1 = BG: [http://www.badscience.net/ Ben Goldacre]<br />
|guest2 = JR: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi James Randi]<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2008-09-17.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com//index.php/topic,14234.0.html<br />
|qowText = When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.<br />
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume David Hume]<br />
|}}<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.<br />
<br />
S: Hello, and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday September 17<sup>th</sup> 2008, and this is your host, Steven Novella, President of the [http://www.theness.com/ New England Skeptical Society]. Joining me this evening are Bob Novella,<br />
<br />
B: Hey everybody<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca Watson<br />
<br />
R: Hello, everyone<br />
<br />
S: Jay Novella<br />
<br />
J: Hey guys<br />
<br />
S: And Evan Bernstein<br />
<br />
E: Hi everyone, how's everyone doin' tonight?<br />
<br />
J: Good<br />
<br />
S: Good<br />
<br />
R: Great<br />
<br />
B: What's goin' on<br />
<br />
E: Good!<br />
<br />
== This Day in Skepticism <small>(0:36)</small> ==<br />
<br />
R: What's the day, Evan?<br />
<br />
E: 1976, the first space shuttle, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Enterprise Enterprise], unveiled by NASA.<br />
<br />
B: Ah, that's awesome<br />
<br />
E: Not launched, just unveiled<br />
<br />
S: Just unveiled?<br />
<br />
J: I remember being a kid, watching the TV, seeing a bunch of people standing on the tarmac, watching it be unveiled, then playing the theme to the Enterprise, you know, Star Trek.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
E: (laughs)<br />
<br />
J: Remember that?<br />
<br />
S: But I was devastated when I learned the Enterprise was never going to go into orbit.<br />
<br />
B: No <br />
<br />
J: What a gip!<br />
<br />
E: That's right<br />
<br />
B: Just a mock-up<br />
<br />
S: They should've saved the name for the first one to launch, not just the training module.<br />
<br />
R: I know a better day that's coming up, and that would be Friday, the 19<sup>th</sup>. You guys know what Friday is?<br />
<br />
J: Friday, um…<br />
<br />
S: September 19<sup>th</sup>?<br />
<br />
R: Uh-huh, you give up?<br />
<br />
B: Sorry<br />
<br />
S: The start of fall<br />
<br />
R: (complete with accent) Aaar, it's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day talk-like-a-pirate day]! Ye land-lubbers!<br />
<br />
B: Yes! How could I forget?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Didn't we just have that?<br />
<br />
J: That's a great day!<br />
<br />
E: Last year we mentioned that.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Aaaar<br />
<br />
B: It's an awesome day<br />
<br />
S: Has it been a year already?<br />
<br />
R: It has<br />
<br />
E: Aaaar, matey, it has.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Good thing we're not doing the podcast on Friday.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, can't we ''pretend''?<br />
<br />
B: Oh, the whole- the whole days as pirates?<br />
<br />
E: Today is talk like a ninja day<br />
<br />
S: Knock yourself out<br />
<br />
R: You can't talk like a ninja!<br />
<br />
S: Actually, ''today''-<br />
<br />
E: Sure you can,<br />
<br />
R: They just sneak up and stab you<br />
<br />
S: Today is international talk like a skeptic day<br />
<br />
B: Ha!<br />
<br />
R: (laughing) You made that up<br />
<br />
E: (with accent) I doubt that, har-har-har<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Well, we have an interview that we recorded at TAM 6 with Ben Goldacre coming up later in the show.<br />
<br />
B: Ben!<br />
<br />
R: That's aaaaar-some, Steve. I can't wait<br />
<br />
S: Ben is a cool guy. Our first new item is about Ben<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Ben Goldacre Defends Libel Case <small>(2:17)</small>===<br />
[http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=377 Neurologica: An Important Victory Against HIV Quackery]<br />
<br />
S: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Goldacre Ben Goldacre], who writes for the Guardian, and is one of the guys in the UK who's writing about science and medicine. He had written a piece about [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthias_Rath Matthias Rath], you guys familiar with this guy?<br />
<br />
R: Only in that I know he's a douche<br />
<br />
B: Er, no<br />
<br />
S: Right, he is a ''giant'' douche, he really is. So he has an organisation-<br />
<br />
R: (in the background) Am I gonna get sued for that?<br />
<br />
S: -that sells ''all kinds'' of snake oil, and what Ben wrote about was Rath selling vitamins in South Africa to AIDS victims, telling them ''not'' to take their anti-HIV medications, but instead, to take his vitamins. You know, there's an actual death count that you can attach to that kinda behaviour.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: So, Ben called him out on that. Now, Rath has a history of suing anyone who criticizes him, he has many, many lawsuits in many countries. You know, anyone who says that what he's doing is not legitimate, his response is to sue them.<br />
<br />
R: Including in South Africa where he's causing the most damage.<br />
<br />
S: Yes, South Africa, Germany, and again against the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian Guardian] and Ben Goldacre. And he's won some of those suits, unfortunately. But this, recently he had to withdraw his suit against the Guardian and Ben Goldacre ''and'' he's going to have to pay about half a million pounds in legal fees as a result as well. So that was a very good outcome. Of course, we all congratulate Ben on seeing that through, you know, it's obviously something that cuts very close to home. We spend a lot of our time dishing out very harsh criticism to a lot of people. Some of whom are heartless charlatans who will kill people if it lines their pockets, and who have a history of defending themselves by intimidating others with lawsuits and-<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, and you know, it's very different in England, where the laws aren't quite as much on the side of people who are making the statements, it's not quite on the side of free-speech as it is in the US.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
R: I think that, you know, we have a certain amount of protection going for us, but in the UK, it's fairly easy for someone to sue for libel slander, because once they do, the burden is on the defendant, as opposed to in the US, where the burden of proof is on the plaintive, and I am ''not'' a lawyer.<br />
<br />
S: No, that's correct. Although, in England, the one advantage in the UK, is that it's pretty standard, if you lose such a lawsuit, it's almost automatic that you pay the other side's legal fees. So that's the disincentive for frivolous lawsuits.<br />
<br />
R: Right, and so sure enough, he's had to cough up, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: These are ''critical'' victories for free-speech for sceptics everywhere who are trying to, you know, point out, especially this kind of really destructive behaviour. So, this is, I think, a very important victory. So, congratulations Ben!<br />
<br />
E: Good job, Ben<br />
<br />
R: Yay Ben!<br />
<br />
=== Hubble Finds Mystery Object <small>(5:20)</small>===<br />
[http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/newsblog/28244844.html?pageSize=0 Sky & Telescope article]<br />
<br />
S: The next news item, the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope Hubble] finds a mystery object that ''genuinely'' has astronomers ''baffled''<br />
<br />
R: Astronomers are baffled!<br />
<br />
S: They are<br />
<br />
J: They're baffled!<br />
<br />
S: They're generally baffled.<br />
<br />
E: are they flummoxed?<br />
<br />
S: And flummoxed.<br />
<br />
J: So what is it, Steve?<br />
<br />
S: Now, this is pretty interesting<br />
<br />
B: That's the question, Jay, it's- really nobody knows, according to a paper that's about to appear in the Astrophysical journal.<ref name="Barbary">Barbary et al. (2009) [http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/690/2/1358/ Discovery of an unusual optical transient with the hubble space telescope ] ApJ 690 1358 doi:10.1088/0004-637X/690/2/1358 </ref> Something extraordinary, never been seen before by astronomers appeared in 2006, so I was a little disappointed that it was two years ago, like, 'what? We're just hearing about this ''now''?'. But to this day, it is not known what the hell it was, or if it will ever appear again. It started with the Supernova Cosmology Project in February 2006 using Hubble, looking for Supernovae in February. A previously unknown object started getting brighter and brighter, and brighter, and it just did not stop. And this continued for about 100 days, at that point, it pretty much stopped getting brighter and bigger, and then just started to symmetrically dim for the next 100 days. So it was really, perfectly symmetrical light curve where the dimming is perfectly matched by the brightening in the beginning. The spectrum of light was also an enigma, the spectrum basically just shows the rainbow of colors from a light source, but also, of course, includes the non-visible light, like UV or radio. And ''typically'', these certain pieces of the spectrum are missing from a spectrum. And the lines that are missing shows you what elements must have been near the light source, or in the intervening space that absorbed it. So you've got these emission lines, but these emission lines made no sense.<br />
<br />
S: Don't you mean 'absorption lines'? Just to be clear, emission lines are different from absorption lines. Emission lines are when- are from the body itself that's glowing, absorption lines are from something intervening that's absorbing the light that was emitted.<br />
<br />
B: That's right, you were right. So this is a key deficit in our knowledge about this object, because if you can't determine what the elements are, what the arrangement of elements are in the spectrum, then you don't know how red-shifted the object is. That's one of the reasons why quasars were such a puzzle to astronomers early on, because quasars are so red-shifted, they're billions of light years distant, therefore, their red-shift is gargantuan, and it took a while for astronomers to realize 'wait a second, hydrogen's way over here, if it's way over here, it's gotta be immensely distant'. And that's gotta be one of the key insights that made them realize that these objects were so far away. So if we don't have this information, if we can't kinda get a picture of what's going on with the spectrum of this object, then you have no idea how far away this is. Is it in our galaxy?<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Is it in ''another'' galaxy? We don't know!<br />
<br />
J: Is that like a ball of hydrogen, or some hot-pocket of air, or expanding space somewhere?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: All we know is what we saw. It was some sort of stellar object that got brighter and brighter, like a Supernova, and then dimmed. But it was not typical of any other object that they've ever seen before.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they said it's specifically ''not'' a supernova.<br />
<br />
R: And if you were a pirate, would you call it a quasaaaaarrr?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: Quasaaaarr! Yes! Good one.<br />
<br />
E: No!<br />
<br />
R: I suspect that they call it quasaarrr<br />
<br />
S: That's not a (inaudible)<br />
<br />
B: We do have a range though, this thing must be within a certain range by other measurements, and one of them is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax parallax]. Parallax is the movement of one object due to movement of a foreground object, so if an object is close enough away, say less than 130 light years, you would see obvious parallax. We're not seeing that, so that means that this object is ''more'' than 130 light years away. So that's the ''bottom'' limit right there. So, what's the upper limit? Well, the only upper limit I came across for this thing has to do with hydrogen absorption. Because it's lacking hydrogen absorption in the spectrum, that means that it has to be less than 11 billion light years away. So our range is greater than 120 light years, less than 11 billion light years.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Nice range<br />
<br />
E: Oh, narrowed it down, that's great<br />
<br />
B: That's the best they've come up with in ''two years''. So, it could be anywhere in the intervening space.<br />
<br />
S: But interestingly, given that it could be- there's such a huge range for how far away it could be, they said that it's not ''in'' any known galaxy. So there's no galaxy, I guess, on that-<br />
<br />
B: I have a problem with that. I have a problem with that because there's been mention of this [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo%C3%B6tes Bo&ouml;tes constellation] they referred to, which is just a constellation of stars within our galaxy. But they refer to it as a void where there's really nothing around it for many light years, apparently. Now, there is a ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo%C3%B6tes_void Bo&ouml;tes super-void], it's a void, one of the biggest voids in the known universe, it's 250 million light years wide. Now I ''think'' they are possibly referring to this, they're saying that it's within this specific void. If it could be 130 light years away or 11 billion light years away, why do they think it's in a void 250 million light years across?<br />
<br />
S: I don't think it's ''just'' that, my reading was that it's not in any ''known'' galaxy, if it were in a galaxy, they're not seeing the galaxy that it's in.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, but why even mention this specific Bo&ouml;tes void or concept? Cos that, to me, just seems like a red herring.<br />
<br />
J: Bob, do we know if it's heading in a direction? Like, what direction it was moving in?<br />
<br />
B: No, there was no- you know, 200 days is not gonna be any- there wasn't really any discernable movement. Now, could it be a new type of Supernova? Scientists don't ''think'' so, there's a problem with that, because it doesn't match any of the known Supernova types and the brightening took much longer than normal, typically, Supernovas will brighten for 20 days, this one lasted for 100 days, and the spectrum didn't make any sense. The light curve should be asymmetrical for a Supernova, they fade more slowly than they brighten, it didn't make any sense.<br />
<br />
S: They also said it was ''not'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_microlensing microlensing]<br />
<br />
B: Right, the light curve doesn't match a microlensing event. Microlensing occurs when light is distorted as it travels over a gravitational source. They've ruled that out as well. It doesn't look like a quasar, I mean nothing that-<br />
<br />
R&E: Aaaarrr<br />
<br />
B: They put this spectrum through the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloan_Digital_Sky_Survey Sloan Digital Sky Survey] database, which has just a ''vast'' number of objects, and it didn't match anything in there. This is really quite a mystery and I-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, so this thing is probably a whole new class of object – which is cool!<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, some people have speculated that it's some sort of- because it's so symmetrical and blah, blah, blah that it could be-<br />
<br />
R: Aliens<br />
<br />
B: -some sort of sign from an intelligence, but obviously there's nothing that would really give you any confidence in that sort of conclusion. Not yet, anyway. But that would be interesting, if evidence pointed that way, but, man, I'm not counting on that at all.<br />
<br />
S: You don't think it's like a Death Star blowing up or something?<br />
<br />
B: They were talking about it in the comments.<br />
<br />
J: We would need so much more freakin evidence, you can't jump to ''that'', that's incredible<br />
<br />
B: No, that's ridiculous<br />
<br />
S: Well they thought that about pulsars when they first saw them, they were called LGM<br />
<br />
B: LGM, little green men, it was so regular<br />
<br />
E: Cos it was too regular, right? It could only have been created or something<br />
<br />
S: But sometimes, nature is really regular and symmetrical<br />
<br />
E: Aah, when nature is regular<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, you can't jump to an artificial hypothesis just because it's so symmetrical<br />
<br />
J: I'm pretty regular<br />
<br />
E: And symmetrical<br />
<br />
R: That's not what I heard<br />
<br />
=== Creationism in the UK <small>(13:00)</small>===<br />
[http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=376 Neurologica: Teaching Creationism in Schools]<br />
<br>[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4768820.ece TimesOnline article] (login required)<br />
<!-- dead link: http://www.cofe.anglican.org/darwin <br />
possible alternative: http://www.churchofengland.org/our-views/medical-ethics-health-social-care-policy/darwin.aspx<br />
--><br />
<br>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7613403.stm BBC article: Who are the British creationists?]<br />
<br />
S: Well, creationism is creeping into the UK, traditionally, the United States has had a problem with creationists trying to infiltrate public schools and etc. But now, apparently, it's becoming more of a problem in the United Kingdom. And this came to a head recently by comments made by reverend professor [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Reiss Michael Reiss] who was, until very recently, the Director of Education at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society Royal Society]. The Royal Society, I think is the ''oldest'' scientific institution and has a very important position in the UK science community. He made some controversial statements, and this is a quote from them<br />
<blockquote>An increasing percentage of children in the UK come from families that do not accept the scientific version of the history of the universe and the evolution of species. What are we to do with those children? My experience after having tried to teach biology for 20 years is if one simply gives the impression that such children are wrong, then they are not likely to learn much about the science that one really wants them to learn. I think a better way forward is to say to them 'look, I simply want to present you with the scientific understanding of the history of the universe and how animals and plants and other organisms evolved'.<ref>BBC news: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7612152.stm Call for creationism in science]</ref></blockquote><br />
S: He made other comments as well that really sparked a controversy over what ''exactly'' is this guy advocating? And because he's actually a literalist, not just a reverend, but a ''literalist'', a lot of people sort of had their eye on this guy, and were sort of waiting for this kind of thing to happen, this kind of controversy to crop up. So this, perhaps as much as anything else, is what lead to this incredible controversy, but ''I'' still have a hard time knowing ''really'' what this guy was advocating. <br />
<br />
R: Well, you know what the Society, a spokesman for the Society stepped forward and confirmed that, you know, what he was saying was inline with what they believed, and their exact quote was <br />
<blockquote>Our position is that if young people put forward a creationist perspective in the classroom, it should be discussed.<ref>Royal Society spokesperson statement &ndash; [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4760967.ece Times Online article] (login required)</ref></blockquote><br />
R: Their whole thing, they're talking about science, so we can assume they're talking about the science classroom, and it's kind of ridiculous just to put it like that. I mean, if you're going to talk about that subject, then let's be specific, ''how'' should it be discussed? Should it be discussed in terms of showing them that, for instance, a belief in god can be compatible with evolution? Or should you be telling them that there's no way in hell the Earth was created in six days?<br />
<br />
S: (agreeing) mm-hmm<br />
<br />
R: It's not very educational, it's not very helpful to just throw that out there like that. It sounds like a big case of covering of asses<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they definitely- the Royal Society put out ''clarifications'', 'quote-unquote', the next day saying 'creationism is ''not'' science, it should ''not'' be taught as science in the science classroom, and we whole-heartedly defend the teaching of evolution'. But this guy, Reiss, you know, he's just made other statements that were very, very squirly, for example, he said 'I do believe in taking seriously and respectfully the concerns of students who do not believe the theory of evolution, while still introducing them to it'. He also made some comments about treating creationism and ID, intelligent design, and evolution as different ''world-views''. So, you know, he's kinda dancing around this topic, and I think that, given that he's a literalist, and that he's making these squirly comments, it certainly ''seems'' like he's trying to squeeze in a little 'teach the controversy' through the back door there, just by saying 'we need to be respectful of the students, and we need to address their concerns and talk about creationism- oh, we believe in evolution, I'm not saying evolution is ''wrong'', but, you know, we really need to take- we can't just teach evolution, we have to address their concerns'<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it almost sounds like he's going for the catching more flies with honey defense, but-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
R: And there's something to be said for exploring different ways of reaching kids who are unfortunately growing up in households where their parents are ignorant of the basic tenants of science. And, you know, it ''is'' going to be difficult if they've been raised to believe in something wholly incompatible with what you're teaching them. You know, we ''do'' need to look at how we're teaching them. But to make a vague statement that just doesn't jibe at all with anything we're actually aiming for, and then to run away from it-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
R: Is kinda cowardly and suspicious.<br />
<br />
E: It's just a case of this person, I ''think'', trying to be somewhat politically correct, not taking a firm stance one way or the other, trying to please the most people possible with his statement to try and quell any controversy, it just did the opposite, apparently.<br />
<br />
J: He stepped down from his position too, ''because'' of the controversy.<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
R: He did, and the really cool thing is that he stepped down when British members of parliament stood up and said 'Hey, what the hell are you guys talking about? That's not science' and can you imagine that happening in the US, where an actual congress person steps up and bats somebody in line and defends science?<br />
<br />
B: No!<br />
<br />
J: No!<br />
<br />
R: It seems kind of foreign (laughs) So, I think that the UK kind of scores one on that point.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, although again this is in the context of increasing sort of insurgence of creationism into the UK, and increasing concerns. This controversy was all around the science blogosphere for the last week, the last few days, and some of the comments, like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PZ_Myers P. Z Myers] for example wrote a lot about this, and he said that 'you can teach students how we know the Earth isn't 6,000 years old. How we know there is common descent, you know, we know the Earth is 14 billion years old, etc, etc'. you can say ''historically'' they used to think this, you know 150 years ago, and this is how we- our thinking of our origins changed over time and developed with evidence. So, you can teach students everything students need to know about ''how'' science works, about how specific scientific beliefs came to be. But based upon what evidence, what logic. Without ever talking about a religious belief, or talking about creationism, you don't ''have'' to do that. I think that confronting something that is a ''religious'' belief in the science classroom is the wrong approach, you're better off saying 'in ''this'' classroom, we're talking about science, ''this'' is what science is. This is how scientists come to the conclusions that they come to. And you could achieve all of the objectives that Reiss claims he was really talking about, without respecting creationism as a world-view. That has no place in a science classroom. Some other things that have been going on, though, I don't know if this is a coincidence, but the Church of England, the C of E<br />
<br />
E: (with English accent) C of E<br />
<br />
S: Apologised to Darwin!<br />
<br />
R: I think that is-<br />
<br />
J: Now that blew my mind<br />
<br />
B: Ha!<br />
<br />
J: I can't believe that<br />
<br />
E: Did he accept?<br />
<br />
S: Good for them<br />
<br />
E: Did he accept?<br />
<br />
R: He couldn't accept, he was roasting in hell for his evil Darwinist ideas!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: (with English accent) So sorry, Darwin, sorry about that, old chap<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: So, yeah, they said it was basically the wrong thing to do, to basically oppress Darwin's views at the time. And, it turns out, that whole evolution thing was probably a good idea. Now, in response to that, the pope said 'yeah, evolution is fine, but we're not ''apologising'''. <br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: He ''refused'' to apologise.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: He basically said 'Oh, yeah?'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: 'You pansies in England can apologise to Darwin, the pope's not apologising to ''nobody'''. But, yeah, evolution's fine, you know, they<br />
<br />
J: The pope's tired<br />
<br />
S: Right, but the UK's got their own creationist museum now.<br />
<br />
R: (flatly) Good for them.<br />
<br />
J: It was just a matter of time<br />
<br />
E: Has the UK largely over the years been, not influenced by creationism, and it's only making some recent advances and strides?<br />
<br />
S: Yes, that's exactly correct, and it really has been, at least in the West, a US phenomenon. But now it is spreading to the UK.<br />
<br />
E: Do we know how much of it is influenced by Islam? Because the Islam population is on a great rise.<br />
<br />
S: That is a factor I know that Richard Dawkins has pointed that out as a factor, that they are creating ''faith'' schools, and teaching creationism from their religious perspective. Others have pointed to, you know, specifically political influence from the US have pointed to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Templeton_Foundation Templeton foundation], which is dedicated to-<br />
<br />
E: Oh yeah<br />
<br />
S: Connecting science and religion, and they have a lot of money behind that, so they give money to anybody who will-<br />
<br />
B: A million dollars, a million dollars a year to the person who does the most to join science and religion, right?<br />
<br />
R: I've seen rich people die and leave mansions to their ''cats'', and it's a better use of money than that prize.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, I agree<br />
<br />
J: and is it that general? The criteria is that general?<br />
<br />
S: Yes. The goal is for science to validate faith, that is the goal.<br />
<br />
E: So, is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Egnor Michael Egnor] in the running for that prize?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: I wouldn't be surprised.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, right?<br />
<br />
S: He definitely wants to intermingle those two<br />
<br />
R: You know who pirates' favourite scientist is?<br />
<br />
B: Oh boy,<br />
<br />
S: I can't wait to hear<br />
<br />
R: Daarrrrwin!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: Daarrrrwin<br />
<br />
B: Oh god<br />
<br />
J: Rebecca, get back on your medication as soon as possible.<br />
<br />
R: I ran out of gin!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: Keep up some rum, aarrr<br />
<br />
B: Keep it up, Rebecca, I'm loving it<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
== Questions and Emails <small>(22:52)</small> ==<br />
<big>Big Pharma</big><br />
<br />
S: Well, let's go on to your email, do you know what the first email's about?<br />
<br />
R: Daaarrrwin?<br />
<br />
E: It's about 15 sentences<br />
<br />
S: It's about 'big phaaaarrrma'!<br />
<br />
R&E: Phaarrrma!<br />
<br />
S: This one comes from Nick Vockrodt, from Arlington, Virgina. And he writes a very long email, I'm going to cut to the question: (see [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=165 show notes] for full email)<br />
<blockquote>My question is regarding "Big Pharma" and specifically [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibromyalgia fibromyalgia]-</blockquote><br />
R: I'm sorry, Steve, about big what?<br />
<br />
S: big phaarrrghma<br />
<br />
R: Thank you<br />
<blockquote>S: and specifically fibromyalgia I was discussing the pharmaceutical industry with a friend who claimed that diseases are-</blockquote><br />
J: What was that, Steve? Fibro- what?<br />
<br />
S: Alright, enough!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<blockquote>S: who claimed that diseases are being "made up" by drug companies for the sole purpose of creating a market for their medicines. He mentioned fibromyalgia as a perfect example, claiming it to be a disease that anyone can convince themselves they have. This sounded like what Dr. Novella describes as symptoms of life … I wasn't very familiar with the malady at the time to argue, but I tend to defend the pharmaceutical industry when faced with what sounds like a conspiracy theory. In my subsequent research, I found that there is some debate on it, but that the disease is generally accepted by the medical community as being "real".</blockquote><br />
S: Well, this is actually a complicated question because there's a few components to it. Let's take the first component of it: 'Does the pharma company make up diseases that they could then market their drugs for?'. I think there, in my opinion, the answer is a pretty unequivocal ''no''. The pharmaceutical industry in this country, regulated by the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_and_Drug_Administration FDA], when they market a drug, by definition, if you are marketing ''anything'' and claiming that it treats or cures or modifies a disease, it's regulated as a drug. Right, so things are regulated based on the kinds of claims that are made for them. But you don't get to make up your own diseases though, you know, to say that your drug is gonna treat something that you yourself get to make up, or that a ''company'' makes up. Companies are not in a position to ''create'' or will into existence a new disease. Things like fibromyalgia are- that is a diagnosis that emerged from the medical community. Now, I think that fibromyalgia is a very complicated disease entity that I have a lot of doubts about the way it's classified and diagnosed right now. First of all, it's not a disease, ''really'', even though-<br />
<br />
B: a syndrome?<br />
<br />
S: -it is recog- so what the-<br />
<br />
E: It's a 'condition'?<br />
<br />
S: Like for regulatory purposes, what the FDA will consider a disease is not necessarily what we would, in medicine, use the term specifically 'disease' for, meaning a pathophysiological entity. Sometimes there are clinical ''syndromes'', or a recognised entity, but we don't understand the pathophysiology, so it may be described purely by the clinical picture that it creates. So like 'chronic fatigue syndrome' is a syndrome, not really a disease. Fibromyalgia, I think, is better understood that way, although there are some thoughts about what might be ''causing'' it, it's actually not well understood. In fact, recent evidence suggests that a lot of people who have the symptoms of fibromyalgia may just be the symptoms of an underlying problem, like a sleep disorder. In fact, I think a lot of people who have the symptoms that are used to make the diagnosis fibromyalgia, actually have an underlying sleep disorder. Others may have an underlying anxiety disorder.<br />
<br />
J: Really?<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
J: Interesting<br />
<br />
S: And if you treat people for the sleep disorder, the fibromyalgia symptoms go away, so that's a pretty good indication. At least ''some'' of them. Other people may have a simmering auto-immune inflammation of the muscles. And that may be ''really''- if there ''is'' something that's really fibromyalgia, I think that's what it is. But a lot of people get similar symptoms for other reasons.<br />
<br />
J: Would you consider fibromyalgia kind of like a 'catch-all' for a bunch of different types of symptoms then?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think it's what we call a 'garbage-pail diagnosis', you know, you just get people who have symptoms in this area, then this is the label you attach to it. But there isn't any way to specifically say 'yes, this is a discrete pathological entity that they ''have'' '. I also see the diagnosis made on ''non-specific'' symptoms, without the specific symptoms that are supposed to be there. So if you are fatigued and achy, and etc., and you call that fibromyalgia, well that's just attaching a label to non-specific symptoms. You're supposed to have what we call 'trigger points', that are specific places in the muscles that are very tender. And if you have that pattern of 'trigger points' then I think it's ''meaningful'' to say 'well that pattern is called fibromyalgia. We still don't know what it is, we have some ideas, but that's the way we use the diagnosis'. If you call everybody who is fatigued and achey fibromylagia, then the diagnosis has no meaning. <br />
<br />
Now, I believe that the pharmaceutical industry has targeted fibromyalgia for a couple of drugs because it ''is'' such a easy diagnosis to make, because you can attach it to these vague symptoms, so I think if they're guilty of anything, it's choosing a marketable disease. But they didn't make it up, they weren't the ones to make it up. But that's just, you know, when pharmaceutical companies look for an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indication_%28medicine%29 indication] for their drug, that's based purely on marketing. They want to decide 'what's the biggest market? What drugs are going to sell the most? Which indication will allow us to speak to which specialty of physicians that we want to be able to market to?'. It's all really a marketing decision, of course the science has to be there as well. But often, with many drugs, there are different indications that you could go for. For example, if a drug treats pain, or treats nerve pain, now nerve pain is not a disease, so you have to pick a disease that causes nerve pain. Now, what diseases cause nerve pain are you gonna pick? Postherpetic neuralgia or diabetic neuropathy? They're gonna make a marketing decision, They're gonna choose the one with the biggest sales, the biggest marketing options for their drug, but again, they don't get to make up the disease. The other disease for which I hear this claim the most frequently is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restless_legs_syndrome restless leg syndrome] (RLS).<br />
<br />
E: Oh yeah<br />
<br />
S: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Carrey Jim Carrey] made that comment, that pharmaceutical made up restless leg syndrome in order to market a drug for it. Well, first of all, the drugs that have the indication for treating RLS, already have other indications, they were already on the market for legitimate indications, so it wasn't a way of rescuing a failed drug, that's a ''demonstrable'' myth. The other thing is, restless leg syndrom has existed in the medical literature for ''decades''. I was able to go onto my bookshelf and find an old neurology text with a ''40 year old'' reference to restless leg syndrome.<br />
<br />
E: Wow!<br />
<br />
S: 40 years before there was ever a drug marketed for it.<br />
<br />
E: Is that what they called it back then?<br />
<br />
S: Yes! Yes, and, in fact, if you dig deeper into the literature, the references go back even farther, ''and'' I forget what- it was known by other names even before the term restless leg syndrome came into being. So, yeah, it's basically like 100 years we've known that this has existed.<br />
<br />
J: (squeaky Irish voice?) 'Let me show you something'. (normal voice) A perfect example of why I ''don't'' wanna know what famous people think.<br />
<br />
(laughter) <br />
<br />
R: Right? At all<br />
<br />
E: Well, ''some''<br />
<br />
J: It ruined it for me, I ''loved'' that guy, now I have to hate him<br />
<br />
S: Oh, you do have to hate Jim Carrey, he is totally now on board with the anti-vaccinationist kooks.<br />
<br />
R: But he was so good in 'Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind'!<br />
<br />
S: He was<br />
<br />
B: (laughs)<br />
<br />
E: Sorry, so sorry.<br />
<br />
J: Oh well<br />
<br />
E: Move on<br />
<br />
S: Terrible, terrible, terrible.<br />
<br />
J: (singing) 'another one bites the dust'<br />
<br />
S: So, anyway, this is just unfounded conspiracy theories. Now, again, that doesn't mean that the pharmaceutical industry is ''not'' an industry that, they're not companies looking at their bottom line, and that the companies are beyond reproach. I'm not saying that, ''this'' notion that they make up diseases is nonsense. That is just made up conspiracy thinking.<br />
<br />
== Name That Logical Fallacy <small>(30:53)</small> == <br />
S: We do have a 'Name that logical fallacy' this week, we actually got our first piece of hard-core hate-mail in a long time. And it's just so chock-full of logical fallacies, I thought it would make good example for us to examine this week. So here we go, this one comes from Melvin Lee, who gives his-<br />
<br />
R: Melvin!... sorry<br />
<br />
S: Melvin<br />
<br />
J: Melvins!<br />
<br />
(Laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Gives his location as America. Thanks for being helpful. Now, Melvin writes (all indented quotes taken from [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=165 show notes] as written):<br />
<blockquote>I think that u and all those mofos on that show are full of shit. </blockquote><br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Wait, can you say that? You can't say that on the show.<br />
<br />
(inaudible)<br />
<br />
J: Steve-<br />
<br />
E: Should you say 'mofo'? <br />
<br />
<blockquote>S: How can u honestly say NO! there is no bigfoot just because I've never seen it, NO! crop circles aren't real because I'm obviously the creator of this world and I know EVERYTHING about. </blockquote><br />
(laughter)<br />
<blockquote>U pussies or just.......ugh, words can't describe how I feel about u guys. WHO R U-</blockquote><br />
<br />
S: Now, you also have to- we'll obviously publish the-<br />
<br />
R: All the "are"s are just the letter, all the "you"s are<br />
<br />
S: Capital 'R', capital 'U', " WHO R U"<br />
<br />
R: Melvin, actually ''texted'' this to us, it took him 16 texts<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: You know, if you're ''gonna'' write a critical email-<br />
<br />
R: Cost him 35 cents<br />
<br />
S: -take the time to spell out the words<br />
<br />
E: You have to assume that the person crafting it ''can'' spell the words<br />
<br />
B: Nah, this is a young kid, this is just a kid. <br />
<blockquote>S: WHO R U to tell some that they didn't see something with their own eyes and what they saw was an illusion. plz reread over WHO R U. U r human, u r not some all knowing god. U cannot get mad at someone for jus reporting what they saw, where u there too?, so how could u possibly say they didn't see that they thought they saw. </blockquote><br />
R: Wait, can you just do that sentence one more time?<br />
<br />
S&E: No<br />
<blockquote>Their just reporting it. This world is full of secrets and jus because it seems mundane doesn't mean its fake. Another thing. if hundreds of people AROUND THE WORLD r seeing something (bigfoot, ufos, ghost), then it ''has'' to be true. Not every situation was a hoax r the product of an over active mind. all I'm saying is WE R ALL HUMANS u have the same brain as me, u r not the god who created this world, therefore u cannot say confidently that something's not there, when it obviously is. </blockquote><br />
<br />
(sound clip of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman – Full Metal Jacket)"Holy jesus!"<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B?: Thanks for that email, Melvin <br />
<br />
E: Thank you Gunnery Sergeant Hartman<br />
<br />
R: Thanks Melvin, it's good to hear from you<br />
<br />
S: Thank you. All say 'thanks Melvin' <br />
<br />
E: Keep on listening!<br />
<br />
J: Honestly, let's honestly answer the email. Because if the guy-<br />
<br />
S: That's what we're gonna do!<br />
<br />
R: How? It's gonna take us all day. I think that's one good example of '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum argument from popularity]'. He said that, you know, if hundreds of people around the world believe in something, then it has to be true. But that is not correct because, you know, think about it this way: entire countries think that other entire countries should be obliterated off the map, and that doesn't make it ''true''.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, or millions of people, ''billions'' sometimes, hold beliefs that are mutually exclusive to beliefs that other millions of people believe. So, either one or both of those groups of millions of people ''have'' to be wrong.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, and look at all the people that bought the Milli Vanilli albums.<br />
<br />
S: That's true!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: They all believed they were really singing, they were wrooong<br />
<br />
B: There's a lotta '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man straw men]', he keeps throwing around tons of 'straw men'<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: Like "there's no Bigfoot because I've never ''seen'' it", "you can not get mad at someone for just reporting what they ''saw''", "not every situation was a hoax, or the product of an overactive mind". It's a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dichotomy false dichotomy],<ref>SGU 5x5 episode 54 [[5X5 Episode 54|Skepticism 101 - False Dichotomy]]</ref> I mean it's ''full'' of this stuff. <br />
<br />
S&B: There's a lotta 'straw men'.<br />
<br />
B: Mischaracterisations of what our arguments are, he's not even paying ''attention''!<br />
<br />
S: Right, so first of all, we ''don't'' say 'there is no Bigfoot, there are no aliens visiting the Earth, there are no ghosts'. What we say is there's no evidence compelling acceptance or belief in any of those things, the people who say that there ''is'' Bigfoot, have not met anywhere ''near'' a reasonable burden of proof.<br />
<br />
R: The invisible pink unicorn ''could'' exist, we are simply agnostic as to its existence.<br />
<br />
S: Right, where it's unfalsifiable, we're agnostic, if it's a scientific proposition, they haven't met the burden of proof, or the burden of evidence. And therefore, we do not accept it as an established or a proven scientific hypothesis, given the current state of evidence. But hey, if someone actually did find a Bigfoot body, and it stood up to peer review<br />
<br />
R: And it wasn't a costume <!--reference to Bigfoot costume hoax --><br />
<br />
S: It ''wasn't'' a costume <br />
<br />
R: Sold by hoaxters<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: We'd accept compelling evidence as compelling<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, and add to it, we'd actually be excited about it!<br />
<br />
S: Sure<br />
<br />
R: That would be mega-cool!<br />
<br />
B: I don't know, it would smash my world view, and I would deny it to my dying day.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Well only if Bigfoot wasn't riding atop a magical unicorn.<br />
<br />
E: Or a sacred cow<br />
<br />
S: Now hang on, there's some other logical fallacies in here, the challenge is in finding all of them.-<br />
<br />
R: Oh, we're not done yet, are we?<br />
<br />
S: You guys are just picking the low-hanging fruit.<br />
<br />
R: Alright, alright, alright. Well there's an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance argument from ignorance], saying that we can't say that it doesn't exist because we're not gods who created everything and everything.<br />
<br />
S: Right, that's good, it's an argument from ignorance, he's basically saying that because we don't have perfect infinite knowledge, that we therefore have no knowledge, that we can't make ''any'' factual judgments about what's likely to be true or not likely to be true, scientifically. And I'll say that, you know, we don't know ''for sure'', because we're not god, that Bigfoot doesn't exist, therefore, Bigfoot exists. And we should also then adhere to the argument ad populum, that other people say that they believe it, so that's enough.<br />
<br />
E: Well there's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem ad hominem] attacks all over the place.<br />
<br />
S: Oh yeah, 'pussies'<br />
<br />
R: Well, yeah, and not all of us are 'mofos', technically, only Jay.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, actually, I'm a proud mofo.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah<br />
<br />
J: That one didn't bother me.<br />
<br />
S: He also implies that, you know, the only way to assess someone's eye-witness testimony is to be an eye-witness ourselves, <br />
<br />
E: Wrong<br />
<br />
S: When in fact, you can assess eye-witness testimony by putting it into context. And also if you're -<br />
<br />
J: There are court rooms all over the world do that every day<br />
<br />
S: (laughs) Right, we're just saying there's more than one hypothesis. If somebody claims they saw a flying-saucer, there's multiple hypotheses you can derive from that. One is that they saw a flying saucer, but another one is that they were mistaken, or they're lying, or they were simply confusing a more mundane object, or their memory was contaminated by the testimony of another person. There's lots of-<br />
<br />
E: Or the alcohol they drank.<br />
<br />
S: They were in a compromised condition, sleep-deprived or drunk, or whatever. There's ''lots'' of hypotheses, and we want all- you know, any good scientist should consider ''all'' of them, and accept the ones that are most supported by the evidence, and also, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor Occam's razor], you don't accept the one that requires the introduction of a major new assumption, that we're being visited by aliens, when you haven't ruled out the far more likely, simple ones.<br />
<br />
R: Bigfoot<br />
<br />
S: Right, the guy simply made a mistake, or maybe he's pulling your leg. That's all, so<br />
<br />
J: I think Melvin's email actually, as poorly written as it is and everything, and he's got a negative attitude and he's just like sounding off at us. It's not that far away from where a lot of people stand. I think a lot of people ''agree'' with this.<br />
<br />
S: You're absolutely right, Jay, and that's what, even though, yeah, we're kinda poking fun at Melvin, partly because of his atrocious grammar and the way he constructed this email. But in fact, the same arguments, he's poorly constructed it, but these same logical fallacies, and these same arguments are the absolute bread and butter of the true-believers, or the anti-skeptics. We hear this ''all'' the time, the 'you don't know everything', equating 'not having infinite knowledge' with having 'no knowledge', the argument from ignorance, the appeal to popularity. We encounter these on a daily basis when confronting people who believe things that are not supported by the scientific evidence. So, we're not just attacking an easy target, this is absolutely bread and butter anti-skepticism.<br />
<br />
J: And I would take it one step further and ask Melvin, if he's listening: write us back, pick any topic that you mention in here, like Bigfoot as an example, and we'll have a real email exchange discussion about it. I promise to do that. If you wanna have a discussion, I'll tell you everything I think, and you can tell me everything you think, and we'll just vet it out over time without swearing at each other. Or at least keeping it down<br />
<br />
R: Eh<br />
<br />
S: And also, my advice to, just generic advice to people who are going to send a ranting email, actually the title of the email was 'rant', so Melvin knew this was a rant. But, if you're gonna do that, make a ''real'' effort to understand the position of the person you're disagreeing with. That's ''always'', generically, a good idea. Because there's nothing more worthless than arguing against a position that the other person doesn't even hold, because then you're just completely wasting your time, and all you're really declaring is 'I don't understand what's going on, I didn't take the time to even understand your position. I'm arguing against a "straw man"', basically that's the only thing you're accomplishing. Well, let's go on to our interview.<br />
<br />
== Interview with Ben Goldacre <small>(40:18)</small> ==<br />
(jingle)<br />
<br />
S: Ok, we're sitting here now with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Goldacre Ben Goldacre],Ben, welcome to the Skeptics' Guide<br />
<br />
BG: Hi<br />
<br />
S: You run a website in the UK called 'Bad Science', is it .net?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, [http://www.badscience.net/ BadScience.net], available all around the world!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Tell us about that<br />
<br />
R: The world-''wide'' web, Steve<br />
<br />
S: Oh yeah, I keep forgetting<br />
<br />
BG: (mocking) 'Ah yes, you're from the United Kingdom'. (normal voice) Well, it's a sort of mixture of my columns in the Guardian and other bits and bobs that I come across, and it's- maybe about sort of a quarter of it is about quackery, and most of it is about bad science reporting in mainstream media. I don't know if that's as much a problem in the US as it is in the UK.<br />
<br />
S: It's ''more'' of a problem in the US than the UK<br />
<br />
BG: Is that right? (laughs) I mean, in the UK, there have been some phenomenal bogus scare stories. I mean, there was one about theMRSA 'killer bacteria' that was essentially a bogus lab that was giving bogus results to undercover journalists, and of course the media's MMR hoax in the UK. Which I think you're about to get a run of in the US, with the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal thiomersal] thing, which is going to be very interesting.<br />
<br />
S: Well we're already- that's already passed its peak, the thimerosal (common name for thiomersal in US)<br />
<br />
BG: Do you think so?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, well, it was removed, you know, from vaccines in the United States by the end of 2002<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, but –<br />
<br />
S: Autism hasn't gone up<br />
<br />
BG: But the media storm didn't seem to start until what, this year, really. There was that case-<br />
<br />
S: It had a resurgence because of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_McCarthy Jenny McCarthy],<ref>Jenny McCarthy body count [http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com website]</ref> and Jim Carrey, and because of the mitochondrial DNA case<ref>Neurologica article: [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/has-the-government-conceded-vaccines-cause-autism/ Has the Government Conceded Vaccines Cause Autism?]</ref>. Yeah, so in the UK, I think the MMR was a bigger story. Thimerosal was bigger in the United States.<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: Is that still big over there? The MMR, are they still-<br />
<br />
BG: It's dwindling, the Observer did a bogus front page story about how autism was now up to one in 58, basically misunderstanding an unpublished piece of research which was looking at comparing different ways of measuring the prevalence of autism. So obviously, if you use the widest net, then you get the biggest number. But what I actually find interesting about vaccine scare is how poorly they propagate between different territories. So for example, in the UK we had the 'MMR causes autism' because of the measles virus, that was the scare, and that was mostly, that kind of peaked in 2001, 2002. But it didn't propagate outside of the UK. In America, you have your thiomersal scare, in France, they have a story about the hepatitis-B vaccine causing multiple sclerosis, but nobody's heard of that outside of France. In the UK in the 80s, we had 'whooping cough vaccine causing neurological problems' driven by ''one'' fairly eccentric doctor from Scotland, and obviously in Nigeria at the moment in Kano province, the imams have issued a pronouncement saying that the polio vaccine is a plot by the Americans to make Muslims infertile and stop them from having children.<ref>PlosMedicine article: [http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0040073#pmed-0040073-b0017 What Led to the Nigerian Boycott of the Polio Vaccination Campaign?]</ref><br />
<br />
S: And spread HIV.<br />
<br />
BG: Is that part of the scare as well?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: Oh no, yeah, you're absolutely right, yeah. And, you know, what's interesting about that, I ''guess'', is the WHO's polio medication program was on target to eradicate polio from around the world by now. But it's not, and people have, you know, you can do [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction PCR] on polio outbreaks around the world and they've found that the specific polio virus from Nigeria, from Kano province, has triggered outbreaks of polio elsewhere in the world. It's very interesting to me how these vaccine scares are all, you know, structurally quite similar, but they propagate very poorly, and I don't think the thiomersal scare could take off in the UK, just because the MMR story has been debunked in the UK. So, it would seem ridiculous to the media- it just wouldn't fit the natural tempo of the stories to then suddenly go 'oh no, but it does, actually cause these problems'<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, right<br />
<br />
R: So does that mean you think you're pretty much past the worst of all of those kind of stories in the UK? Or do you think there's another one on the horizon?<br />
<br />
BG: Certainly not, and actually for very interesting reasons, definitely not. If you look at France and Austria, you can see that they've come very close to electing, in the case of Austria, they ''did'' elect some seriously sort of right-wing fruitcakes, you know, bordering on fascism. Whereas in Germany, where they had to face up to what they did in World War II, there was a kind of truth and reconciliation process, and they have kind of green and liberal governments. There's no way, I don't think that Germany could re-elect a fascist government. I think that you have to go through the process of recognizing where you've gone wrong, in order to stop going wrong in the future. What I find fascinating about the termination of the MMR hoax, in the UK, is that it came to an end, not because the media suddenly went 'well actually, a 12 subject case series report isn't sufficient grounds to say that MMR causes autism'. It wasn't because they made a kind of critical appraisal of ''all'' of the literature for and against and went 'well actually, it just doesn't look like MMR causes autism, this was a storm in a tea-cup'. It came to an end because an investigative journalist called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Deer Brian Deer], for whom I've got a lot of respect, from the Sunday Times came along and revealed that the lead doctor who was driving the story had received half a million pounds, a million dollars, in legal sort of, you know, expert witness costs. And so he had, one could argue, a competing interest there. Now, I don't think for one moment that that's the reason why [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield Wakefield] held the views that he held, and I don't think that one man can drive a story. But now the media are all queued up to say 'oh, the original research has been debunked', when the original research was a 12 subject case series report that never meant anything about anything. And they're saying 'oh, you know, the MMR story has been disproven because Andrew Wakefield had half a million quid', so they're all queuing up to blame this one doctor for the hoax that was the media's work.<br />
<br />
S: (agreeing) mm-hmm<br />
<br />
BG: Collectively, the British media community have created this story, and they drove it for many, many years. And the fact that they're now trying to pin it on one doctor, I have to say, I'm not a big ''fan'' of Wakefield, but I think it's very healthy that there are, you know, doctors with idiosyncratic views on medicine, I think it's an absolute bizarre travesty that they're pinning it all on him.<br />
<br />
B: So they're all right, but for the wrong reasons?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, I think that's why they're not inoculated against future cock-ups<br />
<br />
R: Well, you're doing a lot to help media, scientific literacy amongst the media in the UK, but do you ever think they'll get that realisation? Do you ever think they'll finally realise what they're doing wrong?<br />
<br />
BG: I don't think you can stop people from producing stupid stories, but I think you can add some sense into the mix. So often, when I talk, people say- I do lots of talks in epidemiology departments and some medical statisticians, just cos the jokes can be a bit more interesting and sophisticated that way.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And people are often outraged, and they say 'well we need some laws to- these people need to be- we should be able to chop the fingers off bad journalists', and I just don't think it's realistic. But what you ''can'' do, is approach newspapers, and I just rang one up one day and said, you know, 'can I write for you?', and they said yes. You know, there's no great mystery, I think you can add in more sense to dilute the nonsense, or at least give people an opportunity to see some sense. Cos otherwise, unless people who understand the evidence get in there and explain the mechanics of why it is that you hold a belief on the back of some published evidence, then science, at least in Britain, is only being portrayed as being about authoritative truth statements from arbitrary cultural figures called scientists in white coats, you know, "scientists today said-", "scientists today deny-", "scientists today refuted-". But it's never, you know, "scientists today said 'well, there's this study, and it shows this, and for ''that'' reason, we think this'". That ''doesn't'' happen<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
BG: And by adding that into the mix, you do something very powerful<br />
<br />
S: And the Wakefield story reflects that, because it was about the authority of Wakefield, and when that was knocked down, the story was knocked down. Not about the evidence and the logic of whether or not there's any link between vaccines and autism.<br />
<br />
BG: It was about the authority of Wakefield, but it was also about human interest versus these white coat guys saying 'there's nothing to worry about'. So on one hand you had a worried parent, and on the other side you had a scientist saying, you know 'there's nothing to worry about', and that wouldn't reassure ''me''!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: You know, it would look like a cover-up, or it would look dismissive<br />
<br />
S: Right, so like us, you're using new media blogs to try to fight this bad journalism in the UK. How do you think that's going? How much play does your blog get?<br />
<br />
BG: It gets a lot of visitors, and it gets a lot of links, and the thing that's most exciting is there are lots of other people who are now blogging in the UK who do a really, really great job of pulling apart just sort of silly bit and bobs, but it's great when there's this kind of mass effect. Cos somebody will publish a tedious 'memory of water' paper, you know, homeopathy, and you'll be like, I can't be bothered to pull this apart. But someone somewhere will, you know, that burning sense of 'someone ''somewhere'' is wrong on the internet, I must put them right!'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And that's ''fantastic''. The only thing that disappoints me a little bit, I guess, is that I'm not as agitated about quackery as some people are, you get a lot of quite sanctimonious stuff from people kinda saying 'homeopathy is this public health ''scandal'' ', and I don't think that's true. I think homeopathy is really interesting, I think it's a really fascinating cultural phenomenon. I think it's really interesting that at a time when doctors are trying really hard to work collaboratively with patients, explain evidence with them and make decisions in concert with their patients, I think it's a tragedy that while doctors are trying to do that, quacks and the media are really kind of undermining the public's understanding of evidence. But I don't think that quackery is ''practically'' really dangerous, I think it's funny and interesting. I think it's interesting that there's a lot of bloggers who are keen to pick up on mocking quacks, which is funny, and it's great, and it produces great content. The thing that I wish that there was more of, is people taking down bogus news stories, because ''that's'' the thing that needs to be done so much more, because that's kind of the more culturally influential end of stuff, you know?<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
BG: But, I guess they're not such easy hits or, yeah, I don't know why it is.<br />
<br />
S: Well, the news cycle is quick, you've got to do it very quickly. Right? You find a new story hits, you've got to get your blog that day or you're going to get missed by the news cycle.<br />
<br />
BG: I ''guess'' so, although I'm not sure that's true, actually. I mean, I'm often cheerfully writing on things a couple of weeks after they've gone, but that's because I'm just smug enough to imagine that I can stand outside of the news thing. I actually think that's really interesting example of one of the more subtle aspects of how the media misrepresents science. I don’t think science makes a very good ''news'' subject, I think science is naturally a feature subject, because it's about emerging themes supported by a whole raft of evidence from a number of different disciplines that emerges over the course of many years. When you focus all your science reporting about a news story, a sudden breakthrough, a ''single'' piece of research, that's actually quite misrepresenting in a subtle way. Firstly because the stuff that makes a finding newsworthy, actually make it quite likely to be wrong, you know, it's incongruent with previous results, for example. And so it misrepresents stuff in that way. Obsessing over stuff being ''newsy'' is actually a bit of a mistake, I think people who are communicating science should feel cool with just sitting back and going 'what do we know about functional brain imaging and schizophrenia? There's a really interesting story there'<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
BG: It doesn't have to be ''new''<br />
<br />
S: I totally agree, I think the news cycle and the obsession with the story is really antithetical to the way science really works, which is taking your time and putting it together into the big picture. Often times I think you do that well, and that's we try to do, sort of take the news story and back up now into context, which is what the journalists ''don't'' do, right?<br />
<br />
BG: Well, sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't, I think there's a really interesting split in certain British news media, which has been studied quite carefully, which is: specialist health and science reporters are actually very good at their job, they know a lot of background, they know how to critically appraise research, and they will often make a fairly good stab at doing that with their articles, as long as they can get it past the desk. But what you find is, whenever a story becomes a big, political hot potato, whenever it becomes a big news story, like the MMR vaccine, or the GM food, the 'Frankenstein' food front pages of 1998, you find that the stories get taken out of the hands of the specialists, and put into the hands of the generalists, so the MMR story, especially after the question became 'did Tony Blair's son have the MMR vaccine?' – a fact that was mentioned in 33% of the news stories about MMR in 2002, when Andrew Wakefield's name was only in 25%, so Tony Blair's son was a bigger figure in our media coverage than Andrew Wakefield was. What you find is that, also, when there's a big story like MMR, also MMR was twice as likely to be written about by generalist journalists as a story about cloning, for example. And in the first two days after the Frankenstein food story hit the news stands, not a single one of the news or comment pieces in the ''entirity'' of the British news media, was written by a science columnist.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, that's definitely a big problem. Ben, you have a book coming out based on your blog, why don't you tell us about that?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, it's called '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Science_%28book%29 Bad Science]', maintaining brand homogeneity. And that's coming out with Fourth Estate, Harper Collins in September, and it should be very good, although it's very, very UK-centric, because I write about misrepresentation of science in the media, and the media I know very well is UK media. And I have this huge raft of examples from a ''thousand'' stories now, that's not an estimate, that's like, the number. And I've kinda been able to- it kinda grew out of this bet with a friend where, like, we both teach epidemiology, and I was like 'I bet I could teach the whole of epi' – or epidemiholiday As the medical students call it=<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Epidemiholiday?<br />
<br />
BG: 'I bet I can teach the whole of epi, only using exaples of people getting things wrong in broadsheet national news papers'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And it turned out to be true, but what I'd really like, actually, is to get a better handle on the ways that science is misrepresented in the media in America, cos it would be great to branch out and I'm not mercenary about selling the book, I accept that I will lead a life of obscurity in academia in a rented ex-council flat-<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: I fear that would be a volume of books if you attempted to do that, not just a single book.<br />
<br />
BG: Right, that would be like Churchill's history of World War I<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: But, I'm telling you, following your blog, that the examples are completely applicable to the United States, I think they'd be very-<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, well, actually, if there are people out there listening who know about this stuff, what I'd really like – ben@badscience.net - what I'd really like is for people to send me sort of examples from American media that mirror the cock-ups in British media. Are we allowed to say cock-ups in a Christian country?<br />
<br />
R: Oh, we're allowed to say it ''twice'', gosh<br />
<br />
BG: Have I said cock twice?<br />
<br />
E: You British are allowed to say anything you want<br />
<br />
R: That's three now.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Alright, well sometimes the stories are the same, like I think you covered the regenerating finger story.<ref>Ben Goldacre's Guardian article: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may/03/medicalresearch.health The missing finger that never was]</ref><br />
<br />
BG: That was hilarious! I mean that was-<br />
<br />
S: And we covered that too, <!--internal reference???--><br />
<br />
R: Yeah, that was great<br />
<br />
BG: Out of nowhere, and it was like three years old too<br />
<br />
S&R: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: But it was the BBC who reignited that story! And again, it was not a science or health correspondent, it was the BBC's New York correspondent, and you could see he was like, he was ''beside himself'' with excitement.<ref>BBC article & video: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7354458.stm The man who grew back his finger tip]</ref> He really thought he had found Nobel prize winning stuff with this, like, backwards guy in his model shop, who's finger had grown back. And he, this sense of holy reverence as he talked about the science, was just extraordinary, and just disproportionate to the reality, which was that, lop the top of your finger off and it just grows back, that's just nature<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it healed naturally<br />
<br />
R: It just happens<br />
<br />
S: You're hawking your brother's new product.<br />
<br />
BG: New company, yeah<br />
<br />
R: I should tell him about the holes for my earrings that closed up after I didn't wear earrings for a while.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: I mean, it's really interesting that there's this recurring theme in all of these stories in bad science and the media, and also in quackery, where we're sort of bringing all these childish fables, we're letting them take the credit for the amazing things that the body does, you know. Like when people were bringing in that placebo pill, and I'm like, I'm in sort of two minds about the ethics of giving placebos, I think it might be useful in ''some'' situations, but giving placebos to kids when they've got a cold, and I kinda think 'well, ok, you wanna tell your kid a reassuring story: here's a pill, you'll get better'. But how more empowering is it to say 'look, at the moment, there's this small, ''tiny'' microscopic organism that's gone into your body, it's called a virus, and it's really clever. What it does, is it exploits the machinery in your body that makes new parts for you, and it uses that to make copies of itself, and also it releases these other things that irritate the other parts of your body, and that's why you've got a cough and a sore throat, but your body's really clever, because on the surface of every cell, is holding out copies of all the stuff that's happening inside, and the immune system cells are floating around, and they have a look at what's in every cell by looking at this stuff that's being held out on the surface. And when they see something that's alien like that, they go in and they call all of their friends who arrive, following like a smoke trail to the source of the fire, along a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemotaxis chemotactic] path, and then they go in, and they find the bad guys, and they wrap them up in, like, a little ball, and they squirt bleach at them, and they kill them'. Now that, to me, why is that a sugar pill?<br />
<br />
J: I finally understand!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: Why let a sugar pill take credit for that? It's just insane, you know, and why let a ''healer'' take credit for that. But why let some magic powder take credit for the totally amazing fact that, if you cut the top of your finger off, it grows back like ''new'', I mean ''that'', that's a miracle, you know!<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: Quite apart from the fact that in the stories they were sort of talking about powder made out of (mystically) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endothelial_cells ''endothelial'' cells]!<br />
<br />
E,B&S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: As if like-<br />
<br />
S: It's some exotic thing, pig's bladder<br />
<br />
BG: No, it was (laughing)<br />
<br />
BG&S: 'extra-cellular matrix'<br />
<br />
BG: and it was like 'and these are made of 'extra-cellular matrix', and you're like extra-cellular matrix surrounds the cells of every single cell in all of the bodies of all of the people in the world, extra-cellular, you know, there's ''more'' extra-cellular matrix in the world than you could shake a stick at.<br />
<br />
J: That's like 'the super spectacular!'<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: 'Space-age technology', that's 50 years old!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Well, Ben, we certainly appreciate what you're doing, we love your blog and your articles for the Guardian, I fell like we're just getting started, maybe we'll have a chance to sit down again, if not here, some time in the future.<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, cool<br />
<br />
S: And thanks again for sitting with us.<br />
<br />
R: Thanks, Ben<br />
<br />
BG: Cheers, thank you.<br />
<br />
== Randi Speaks: The Media <small>(59:20)</small> ==<br />
(jingle) And now, Randi speaks.<br />
<br />
S: Randi, tell us how you think the media deals with issues of science and skepticism.<br />
<br />
JR: Rather badly, generally speaking, because the media is interested in a sensational story. Well, they say they want news, but they want ''sensationa''l news. You know very well that puppy dog down a sewer is going to get much more attention than some political hack in the local community, unless he has something to do with puppies going down sewers. The media's that way, and it's understandable, they want to sell newspapers and programs and wot-not. I've said it before and I'll say it again: most people in the media are educated in the humanities, and they don't have a good grasp of science and reality, and how things work. They're very easily deceived, they're very na&iuml;ve in some respects, and they're purposefully na&iuml;ve perhaps because they want the story to be there. Now, an excellent example of that on a very high level is an ABC TV program that I did, I guess last year. They got me all the way in to New York city to discuss the '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo%C3%A3o_de_Deus_%28medium%29 John of god]' situation. Now, 'John of god' is a so-called psychic healer and wot-not in Brazil, and he's doing very simple tricks that, kind of what people have known for a long time, sticking sticks up your nose and wot-not, and he actually sticks forceps up the patients' noses. I went armed for bear, I went to New York City, and they stuck me in the studio in front of a video camera. I had with me video tapes, props and wot-not, and I spoke with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Qui%C3%B1ones John Qui&ntilde;ones], he was the host on the show. They interviewed me for two and a half hours, ''two and a half hours'' they interviewed me! <br />
<br />
I was on with a man called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehmet_Oz Dr Mehmet Oz], a very, very famous cardiac surgeon in New York city, a great reputation, but totally woo-woo. He actually has nurses specially trained in the art of balancing the aura, walking around in his ''operating room'' while he's got a patient on the table with his chest cavity open and his heart being fixed! And Mehmet Oz will throw up his hands when told by the nurse that she's coming through to balance the aura by passing her hands over it! Incredible! Incredible that a man in this day and age, let alone a very highly educated man like Mehmet Oz, would be involved in such quackery! Such absolute foolishness, such a juvenile approach to reality. But, nonetheless, he is a great cardiac surgeon, and I would trust myself to him ''any'' time. (quietly and suspiciously) As long as he kept the woman with the funny gloves out of the place. (in normal voice) But, he was on the program as well, it ended up that the program used nine seconds of what I said. Nine seconds out of two and a half hours. They didn't use any other recorded material, any other references to the video tapes with demonstrations of how the forceps up the nose trick is done, as I say, it's an old carnival stunt. But they used a great deal of Mehmet Oz, they used quotations from him, and he even said something – for a Dr, very foolish – he said that sticking up the nose came close to certain glands in the head and wot-not, but he didn't notice – because he doesn't operate on the head, I guess, that there's a half-inch layer of ''bone'' in between where the forceps go up. Now, is it supposed to be a magnetic influence? A proximity influence? A capacity effect? I don't know, but he mentioned that as a possibility. He really is a woo-woo artist. Unfortunately, with all of that education and very extensive training and great expertise. <br />
<br />
So they used all of nine seconds, but they used it so unfairly, they had me saying – and this took nine seconds, "there are no greater liars in the world than quacks, except for their patients". Now, that was broadcast like that, but the complete quotation was "As that early American philosopher [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin Ben Franklin] once said, there are no greater liars in the world than quacks, except for their patients". So, I was attributing it to Ben Franklin, but they cut that out, because that made it look as if I was stealing it from Ben Franklin. I got emails, Steve, from all over the world, saying "you're quoting Ben Franklin, you stole that! You should have attributed it to them". I did! But they edited it out, and they edited out the complete explanation of how the forceps up the nose trick was done, and the various other things that 'John of God' does. Now this is totally irresponsible, it borders on the criminal, because what that does, ABC television in a feature program had this number about 'John of God', and that, I'm sure, brought ''hundreds'' of Americans to travel off to Brazil and spend their hard-earned money on this quackery. And 'John of God', I'm sure, was very happy with it. And they never did a retraction of any kind.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(1:04:43)</small> ==<br />
(jingle)<br />
<br />
S: Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two genuine, and one fictitious. And then, my panel of skeptics tries to tell me which one they think is the fake. Are you guys ready for this week?<br />
<br />
B:…yes<br />
<br />
S: Here we go, number one: 'Astrophysicists have discovered the upper limit for the mass of a black hole'. Item number two: 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge'. And item number three 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells'. Bob, go first.<br />
<br />
B: (quietly) you ''bastard''<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: 'upper limit for the mass of a black hole', it does sound kinda bizarre, I mean, what's preventing a black hole from just getting bigger and bigger? Um, so on the surface, that doesn't sound right, if you think about it. Dinosaur dominance 'due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge', I mean, that makes sense on the surface, absolutely. A lot of evolution and whether you go extinct or not has to do with luck. That definitely can play a part, maybe that makes too much sense. 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells', that sounds pretty cool, and that would be awesome, I'm gonna say that's science. I'm gonna say that… that the dinosaur dominance being luck, that sounds a little fishy, I'm gonna say that that is fiction.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, Evan?<br />
<br />
E: Well, 'upper limit for the mass of a black hole'… I mean, there would have to be some kind of upper limit, wouldn't there? It's just a matter of discovering it, one would ''think'', but I'm not too sure about that. Dinosaurs having an advantage over contemporaries 'was due to luck'… yeah. But how were they able to determine that, you know, how do you equate 'luck' in a scientific context? I'm not quite sure ''really'' what's being said there. And then the 'improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells', sure, yes, finding out all kinds of new things about all stem cells these days, cutting edge science, totally plausible. So I'll agree with Bob that the dinosaur one is fiction.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: See now, I'm not so sure, because I'm pretty sure I read something about this, and that they actually found these skeletons of an elderly pack of velocoraptors, surrounded by a field of four-leafed clovers, and a small pile of rabbit's feet next to them. So, I believe that that's actually science, and I also think that a black hole should have an upper limit, cos otherwise, well, you know, that's too scary to compliment- er, contemplate. So I think that transplanting muscle stem cells, I don't think we're quite to the point where we can improve strength and performance doing that, and that sounds like, are we doing studies on humans with muscle stem cells? That doesn't seem like it's going to work, I don't know. I think that's fiction, so-<br />
<br />
S: Ok, alright? Jay?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, the upper limit to the black hole- the upper limit to the ''mass'' of a black hole, I would just assume that it makes a lot of sense, like Evan said, that someone would be able to sit down and run the math and be able to theoretically figure that out. 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge'. Mmm, that one seems … fishy to me for some reason, how could they determine it was just luck? I wonder how the fossil record could demonstrate that. And the last one, 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells'. Yeah, you know, I think I would've heard this. If that happened, I think that it would be much bigger news, you know, definitely above the water line, or ''I'' would've read it, with the amount of reading I do on science news. I don't think that one is science, I think that one was altered by Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, so you all agree that 'Astrophysicists have discovered the upper limit for the mass of a black hole', correct?<br />
<br />
J,B&E: Yes<br />
<br />
S:Yeah, actually, ''this'' was the most counter-intuitive one for me when I first read it. This is science, and, you know, like Bob, my reaction was 'what would stop it from absorbing more mass? What would happen if a black hole reached it's upper limit, and then, you know, there was more material to suck in, what would happen?' Well, it turns out astrophysicists-<br />
<br />
B: More to it.<br />
<br />
S: -have calculated the theoretical upper limit for the mass of a black hole, it's a Yale astronomer in fact, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priyamvada_Natarajan Priyamvada Natarajan]. What (s)he suspects is, there's a mechanism that, as the black hole gets to about 10 billion solar masses-<br />
<br />
E: Wow<br />
<br />
S: -that any matter falling into it would cause the radiation away of an equal amount of mass. <ref name="Yale">Yale news: [http://news.yale.edu/2008/09/04/yale-astronomer-discovers-upper-mass-limit-black-holes Yale Astronomer Discovers Upper Mass Limit for Black Holes]</ref> So it reaches an equilibrium point, you know-<br />
<br />
J: baaahh (?)<br />
<br />
S: -evaporate or radiate away the same amount of mass that was pulled into it-<br />
<br />
B: Wait, but you're not talking about [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation Hawking radiation] though. ''My'' interpretation was that-<br />
<br />
S: No, no<br />
<br />
B: -you've got [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accretion_disc accretion disk] radiation<br />
<br />
S: Yes, that's right<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, that's a big difference. And my understanding, though, Steve, was that this isn't a hard rule. If you've got so much in-falling matter, you would reach a point where the radiation being generated by the heat of the accretion disk would actually blow away solar ma- any material that would've fallen into the black hole, so you gotta kinda like a soft limitation in that way. But if you've got a 10 billion solar mass black hole, and it bumps into a neutron star, or a smaller black hole, nothing's going to stop that from getting bigger than 10 billion-<br />
<br />
S: Well, see, I was not clear on that point from the article that I read. That was my question too.<br />
<br />
B: That was my understanding from reading some articles, and reading a lot of the comments from people who seem to know what they were talking about. What I know about black holes, what is going to stop it, to go above it if it's as I described.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, but the press release makes it sound like that's just one possible explanation, but that other things were used to derive this upper limit. You know, we might have to do some follow-up to try and sort that out, but that was exactly the question that I had: is that a ''hard'' limit? Or is it a ''soft'' limit? You seem to think that it was a soft limit, right?<br />
<br />
B: Absolutely<br />
<br />
S: And my interpretation was that this was a ''hard'' limit, and one of the mechanisms proposed for that would prevent the black hole from getting bigger than about 10 billion solar masses, but, interesting either way. So let's go on to number two: 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge', and Bob and Evan, you both said that this one was fiction.<br />
<br />
J: So it's down to Bob and Evan, and me and Rebecca, teaming up again<br />
<br />
S: Jay and Rebecca thought this one is science, and this one… is… ''science''!<br />
<br />
J: Ah-ha!<br />
<br />
(high-five sound)<br />
<br />
J: You guys suck.<br />
<br />
S: But you guys did ask-<br />
<br />
B: There goes my run.<br />
<br />
S: an excellent question, which is- 'how would-<br />
<br />
E: mofos<br />
<br />
S: -'how would they know?'. How would you even make this determination?<br />
<br />
E: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: I don't know, you dominate the planet for 200 million years, there's gotta be some competitive edge in there.<br />
<br />
E: Well explain what ''luck'' is, in this context.<br />
<br />
J: Talk to us, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Well, luck would be that there was an environmental change, and you ''happened'' to benefit from that change, as opposed to-<br />
<br />
B: Like ''humans'', mammals<br />
<br />
S: -you just out-competed, you out-competed your contemporaries. Now, what they did, was they, this is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_L._Brusatte Steve Brusatte] from Bristol University, department of Earth Sciences. And they looked at the species that were around early in the career of the dinosaurs. They found that the other major group at the time were the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crurotarsi crurotarsans], which were alligator-like reptiles. At that time, they were a more diverse group, with greater disparity, and actually were dominant over the early dinosaurs at their time. He said, if you were, you know, in the early [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triassic triassic], for example, and you looked at these two groups, you would predict, based upon their diversity, disparity and dominance, that the crurotarsans would have a much greater chance of dominating the future than the dinosaurs would.<ref name="SM">Science magazine: [http://www.sciencemag.org/content/321/5895/1485.short Superiority, Competition, and Opportunism in the Evolutionary Radiation of Dinosaurs] DOI: 10.1126/science.1161833</ref><ref name="SA">Scientific American: [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=was-the-dinosaurs-long-reign-a-fluke Was the Dinosaurs' Long Reign on Earth a Fluke?]</ref> So by any measure of 'who was winning', the crurotarsans seemed to be winning in terms of spreading into more ecosystems and, you know, having greater numbers, etc. But then two things happened, there was the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnian carnian]-norian event 228 million years ago, which caused a lot of extinctions, with both the dinosaurs and the crurotarsans survived that, but it did eliminate a lot of competition, and then 200 million years ago, there was the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triassic#Late_Triassic_extinction_event end Triassic extinction], which resulted from a period of significant global warming, increase in temperature, and the dinosaurs weathered the increase in temperature, and the crurotarsans didn't. But until that climate change occurred, the crurotarsans were out-competing the dinosaurs, if anything. So that's what they mean by luck, they just ''happened'' to benefit from a change in the climate when, if, all things being equal, they were not directly out-competing their contemporaries. Which means that number three: 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells' is fiction.<br />
<br />
B: Whatever.<br />
<br />
S: But what ''is'' true, is that they just identified what the muscle stem cell ''is''. They didn't really know which muscle was ''in fact'' the muscle stem cell.<br />
<br />
B: Crap, that's what I read.<br />
<br />
S: Yes, perhaps that's what you'd read. So, and it turns out to be the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myosatellite_cell satellite] cell which is a type of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progenitor_cells progenitor] cell that exists near the muscles, or in the muscle tissue, and, you know, in repair or exercise, etc. will generate new muscle tissue. But we haven't successfully transplanted muscle cells into people. That's not happened yet.<br />
<br />
J: (mimicking) Stem cells are made of people!<br />
<br />
B: Man, I hate when a vague memory of reading an article totally kills you<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I know, that's what got me<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, sucks to be you, Bob<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: You gotta stop reading, guys.<br />
<br />
J: So, Steve really is the bastard tonight<br />
<br />
B: Jay, you bastard, you ended the run I had, it was like a nine-winning streak run (actually 10). How long was your run?<br />
<br />
J: Four foot one<br />
<br />
E: Four foot one<br />
<br />
S: Well, congratulations Jay and Rebecca, good job.<br />
<br />
J: Yay! Rebecca!<br />
<br />
E: Yay!<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:16:28)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: Jay, do you have a quote for us this week?<br />
<br />
J: I have a quote this week from a man called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume David Hume], he lived 1711-1776, that was a pretty good year, wasn't it? And I'm always surprised when I read quotes from people that lived centuries ago, especially ones that are exceptionally logical or rational, maybe I'm skewed, or maybe just from reading quotes from a lot of very smart people during that time, I don't know. I'd like to know if I'm just thinking that they're overly rational for their time, or maybe people were more rational in the past.<br />
<br />
S: Well it was the age of enlightenment for a reason, Jay.<br />
<br />
J: David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, an economist, historian, and an important figure in western philosophy, and he said, or wrote:<br />
<blockquote>When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.</blockquote><br />
J: DAVID HUME! … I think this is also a good quote to go with Melvin's email to us. MELVIN LEE! (even louder) MELVIN LEE!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: CONFUSED LISTENER!<br />
<br />
R: Ok, the David Hume one didn't make me laugh, but...<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Right, just a quick reminder that October 10<sup>th</sup>, New York city is the New York city's skeptic's first annual anniversary event, they're going to have James Randi speak for them, and then October 11<sup>th</sup>, in Fairfield Connecticut, Perry's home town, we're going to have the first annual Perry DeAngelis memorial lecture!<br />
<br />
E,B&J: Yay!<br />
<br />
S: October 11<sup>th</sup>, noon to three at the Fairfield theatre company, we have the information on our message-board, and on our facebook page, and Jay, can we put that on the website? I know we're in the middle of the update and everything, but can we put that up?<br />
<br />
J: I will put it on the homepage<br />
<br />
S: ''and'' we have confirmed guests Steve Mirsky, from Scientific American-<br />
<br />
J: He's awesome<br />
<br />
S: -and Terence Hines-<br />
<br />
E: Nice<br />
<br />
S: -excellent skeptic and neuroscientist, and author of 'Pseudoscience and the paranormal', ain't it cool?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, he's a good dude<br />
<br />
S: Well, thank you all again for joining me this week<br />
<br />
(someone singing "going crazy"?)<br />
<br />
R: Thanks Steve<br />
<br />
E: Yes, it was good joining you<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Fun as always, and until next week, this is your Skeptics' guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
<br />
== Today I learned... ==<br />
*The first space shuttle, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Enterprise Enterprise] was unveiled by NASA on September 17th 1976. <br />
<br />
*September 19th is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day international talk like a pirate day].<br />
<br />
*In February 2006, astronomers using the Hubble space telescope spotted a mystery object that continually brightened for about 100 days, after which, it dimmed symmetrically for the next 100 days.<ref name="Barbary"/> The distance to the object has been said to be between 120 and 11 billion light years away, and does not match any object in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloan_Digital_Sky_Survey Sloan Digital Sky Survey] at the time of the podcast.<br />
<br />
*Church of England offered a formal apology to Darwin in September 2008! ([http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7613403.stm BBC article])<br />
<br />
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restless_legs_syndrome Restless leg syndrome]has been documented for over 100 years.<br />
<br />
*Astrophysicists at Yale have calculated the upper limit for the mass of a black hole, stating that as a black hole gets to about 10 billion solar masses, any subsequent matter falling into it would cause the radiation away of an equal amount of mass.<ref name="Yale"/><br />
<br />
*New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge. It is thought that global warming in the late Triassic era may have led to the extinction of the previously dominant [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crurotarsi crurotarsans], whilst the dinosaurs survived.<ref name="SM"/><ref name="SA"/> <br />
<br />
*The muscle stem cell is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myosatellite_cell satellite] cell which is a type of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progenitor_cells progenitor] cell that exist near the muscles, or in the muscle tissue, and will generate new muscle tissue in repair or exercise, etc.<br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation<br />
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}}</div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_218&diff=9640SGU Episode 2182015-02-06T01:19:11Z<p>Jason koziol: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{transcribing all<br />
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|episodeDate = September 23<sup>rd</sup> 2009 <!-- broadcast date --><br />
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|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2009-09-23.mp3<br />
|forumLink = <br />
|qowText = 'Yo Oprah, I'm really happy for you, and I'm gonna let you finish, but Jenny McCarthy is one of the biggest idiots of all time.' <!-- add quote of the week text--><br />
|qowAuthor = {{w|Kanye West}} (a parody of the MTV Music Awards) <!-- add author and link --><br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
== News Items <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== Raptorex <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://news.uchicago.edu/news.php?asset_id=1710<br />
<br />
=== Bill Maher Antiscience <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/09/is_bill_maher_really_that_ignorant_part_2.php<br />
<br />
=== Panama Monster <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://skepchick.org/blog/2009/09/the-panama-monster-is-not-a-monster/<br />
<br />
== Interview with Michael Vassar <small>(26:13)</small> ==<br />
* President, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/people/Michael-Vassar/ Singularity Summit http://www.singularitysummit.com/<br />
<br />
S: We are joined now by Michale Vasser. Michael, welcome to the Skeptic's Guide.<br />
<br />
M: Yes, nice to speak to you. I'm glad to be here.<br />
<br />
S: Michael is the president of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, and you are widely published on futurist.com, kurzweilai.net, you're also involved with the Lifeboat Foundation website, you've published there as well. And, we're talking today because next weekend, the week after this podcast comes out, is a conference called the singularity summit. Can you tell us about that?<br />
<br />
M: Okay. The Singularity Institute has an annual event called the Singularity Summit. We had the first one in 2006. It has had a great number of prominent speakers over the years, including Hofstadter, and Rodney Brooks, Peter Norvig, The CTO of Intel, Justin Rattner. And this year we're going to have Ray Kurzweil, and Aubrey DeGray, David Tralmbers, Stephen Wolfram, and a number of other pretty prominent scientists. <br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm. It's also the first year it's going to be on the east coast, right?<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>()</small> ==<br />
[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090922095814.htm Item # 1]: A new study finds that use of texting, or so-called chat-speak, is significantly correlated with poorer spelling ability in students. Don't forget to check the box to tell us which one was the Fiction.<br />
[http://www.sciencecentric.com/news/article.php?q=09092317-new-research-shows-small-increase-hospital-mortality-rates-the-first-week-august Item # 2]: New research finds that mortality rates increase by 6% in UK hospitals in the first week of August – when new doctors begin training.<br />
[http://www.escardio.org/about/press/press-releases/pr-09/Pages/ESC-statement-smoking-bans.aspx Item # 3]: A meta-analysis finds that community smoking bans decrease heart attack admissions by 36% at three years.<br />
== Who's That Noisy <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Answer to last week: translation of brain wave activity into sound<br />
== Quote of the Week <small>()</small> ==<br />
<blockquote>'Yo Oprah, I'm really happy for you, and I'm gonna let you finish, but Jenny McCarthy is one of the biggest idiots of all time.' - Kanye West (a parody of the MTV Music Awards)</blockquote><br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/> <br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_165&diff=9639SGU Episode 1652015-02-06T01:08:45Z<p>Jason koziol: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Proof reading all<br />
|proofer = Jason koziol<br />
|date = 7 Jan 2015<br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox <br />
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|episodeDate = 17<sup>th</sup> September 2008<br />
|episodeIcon = File:goldacre.jpg<br />
|rebecca = y<br />
|bob = y<br />
|jay = y<br />
|evan = y<br />
|guest1 = BG: [http://www.badscience.net/ Ben Goldacre]<br />
|guest2 = JR: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi James Randi]<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2008-09-17.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com//index.php/topic,14234.0.html<br />
|qowText = When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.<br />
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume David Hume]<br />
|}}<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.<br />
<br />
S: Hello, and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday September 17<sup>th</sup> 2008, and this is your host, Steven Novella, President of the [http://www.theness.com/ New England Skeptical Society]. Joining me this evening are Bob Novella,<br />
<br />
B: Hey everybody<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca Watson<br />
<br />
R: Hello, everyone<br />
<br />
S: Jay Novella<br />
<br />
J: Hey guys<br />
<br />
S: And Evan Bernstein<br />
<br />
E: Hi everyone, how's everyone doin' tonight?<br />
<br />
J: Good<br />
<br />
S: Good<br />
<br />
R: Great<br />
<br />
B: What's goin' on<br />
<br />
E: Good!<br />
<br />
== This Day in Skepticism <small>(0:36)</small> ==<br />
<br />
R: What's the day, Evan?<br />
<br />
E: 1976, the first space shuttle, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Enterprise Enterprise], unveiled by NASA.<br />
<br />
B: Ah, that's awesome<br />
<br />
E: Not launched, just unveiled<br />
<br />
S: Just unveiled?<br />
<br />
J: I remember being a kid, watching the TV, seeing a bunch of people standing on the tarmac, watching it be unveiled, then playing the theme to the Enterprise, you know, Star Trek.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
E: (laughs)<br />
<br />
J: Remember that?<br />
<br />
S: But I was devastated when I learned the Enterprise was never going to go into orbit.<br />
<br />
B: No <br />
<br />
J: What a gip!<br />
<br />
E: That's right<br />
<br />
B: Just a mock-up<br />
<br />
S: They should've saved the name for the first one to launch, not just the training module.<br />
<br />
R: I know a better day that's coming up, and that would be Friday, the 19<sup>th</sup>. You guys know what Friday is?<br />
<br />
J: Friday, um…<br />
<br />
S: September 19<sup>th</sup>?<br />
<br />
R: Uh-huh, you give up?<br />
<br />
B: Sorry<br />
<br />
S: The start of fall<br />
<br />
R: (complete with accent) Aaar, it's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day talk-like-a-pirate day]! Ye land-lubbers!<br />
<br />
B: Yes! How could I forget?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Didn't we just have that?<br />
<br />
J: That's a great day!<br />
<br />
E: Last year we mentioned that.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Aaaar<br />
<br />
B: It's an awesome day<br />
<br />
S: Has it been a year already?<br />
<br />
R: It has<br />
<br />
E: Aaaar, matey, it has.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Good thing we're not doing the podcast on Friday.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, can't we ''pretend''?<br />
<br />
B: Oh, the whole- the whole days as pirates?<br />
<br />
E: Today is talk like a ninja day<br />
<br />
S: Knock yourself out<br />
<br />
R: You can't talk like a ninja!<br />
<br />
S: Actually, ''today''-<br />
<br />
E: Sure you can,<br />
<br />
R: They just sneak up and stab you<br />
<br />
S: Today is international talk like a skeptic day<br />
<br />
B: Ha!<br />
<br />
R: (laughing) You made that up<br />
<br />
E: (with accent) I doubt that, har-har-har<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Well, we have an interview that we recorded at TAM 6 with Ben Goldacre coming up later in the show.<br />
<br />
B: Ben!<br />
<br />
R: That's aaaaar-some, Steve. I can't wait<br />
<br />
S: Ben is a cool guy. Our first new item is about Ben<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Ben Goldacre Defends Libel Case <small>(2:17)</small>===<br />
[http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=377 Neurologica: An Important Victory Against HIV Quackery]<br />
<br />
S: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Goldacre Ben Goldacre], who writes for the Guardian, and is one of the guys in the UK who's writing about science and medicine. He had written a piece about [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthias_Rath Matthias Rath], you guys familiar with this guy?<br />
<br />
R: Only in that I know he's a douche<br />
<br />
B: Er, no<br />
<br />
S: Right, he is a ''giant'' douche, he really is. So he has an organisation-<br />
<br />
R: (in the background) Am I gonna get sued for that?<br />
<br />
S: -that sells ''all kinds'' of snake oil, and what Ben wrote about was Rath selling vitamins in South Africa to AIDS victims, telling them ''not'' to take their anti-HIV medications, but instead, to take his vitamins. You know, there's an actual death count that you can attach to that kinda behaviour.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: So, Ben called him out on that. Now, Rath has a history of suing anyone who criticizes him, he has many, many lawsuits in many countries. You know, anyone who says that what he's doing is not legitimate, his response is to sue them.<br />
<br />
R: Including in South Africa where he's causing the most damage.<br />
<br />
S: Yes, South Africa, Germany, and again against the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian Guardian] and Ben Goldacre. And he's won some of those suits, unfortunately. But this, recently he had to withdraw his suit against the Guardian and Ben Goldacre ''and'' he's going to have to pay about half a million pounds in legal fees as a result as well. So that was a very good outcome. Of course, we all congratulate Ben on seeing that through, you know, it's obviously something that cuts very close to home. We spend a lot of our time dishing out very harsh criticism to a lot of people. Some of whom are heartless charlatans who will kill people if it lines their pockets, and who have a history of defending themselves by intimidating others with lawsuits and-<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, and you know, it's very different in England, where the laws aren't quite as much on the side of people who are making the statements, it's not quite on the side of free-speech as it is in the US.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
R: I think that, you know, we have a certain amount of protection going for us, but in the UK, it's fairly easy for someone to sue for libel slander, because once they do, the burden is on the defendant, as opposed to in the US, where the burden of proof is on the plaintive, and I am ''not'' a lawyer.<br />
<br />
S: No, that's correct. Although, in England, the one advantage in the UK, is that it's pretty standard, if you lose such a lawsuit, it's almost automatic that you pay the other side's legal fees. So that's the disincentive for frivolous lawsuits.<br />
<br />
R: Right, and so sure enough, he's had to cough up, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: These are ''critical'' victories for free-speech for sceptics everywhere who are trying to, you know, point out, especially this kind of really destructive behaviour. So, this is, I think, a very important victory. So, congratulations Ben!<br />
<br />
E: Good job, Ben<br />
<br />
R: Yay Ben!<br />
<br />
=== Hubble Finds Mystery Object <small>(5:20)</small>===<br />
[http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/newsblog/28244844.html?pageSize=0 Sky & Telescope article]<br />
<br />
S: The next news item, the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope Hubble] finds a mystery object that ''genuinely'' has astronomers ''baffled''<br />
<br />
R: Astronomers are baffled!<br />
<br />
S: They are<br />
<br />
J: They're baffled!<br />
<br />
S: They're generally baffled.<br />
<br />
E: are they flummoxed?<br />
<br />
S: And flummoxed.<br />
<br />
J: So what is it, Steve?<br />
<br />
S: Now, this is pretty interesting<br />
<br />
B: That's the question, Jay, it's- really nobody knows, according to a paper that's about to appear in the Astrophysical journal.<ref name="Barbary">Barbary et al. (2009) [http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/690/2/1358/ Discovery of an unusual optical transient with the hubble space telescope ] ApJ 690 1358 doi:10.1088/0004-637X/690/2/1358 </ref> Something extraordinary, never been seen before by astronomers appeared in 2006, so I was a little disappointed that it was two years ago, like, 'what? We're just hearing about this ''now''?'. But to this day, it is not known what the hell it was, or if it will ever appear again. It started with the Supernova Cosmology Project in February 2006 using Hubble, looking for Supernovae in February. A previously unknown object started getting brighter and brighter, and brighter, and it just did not stop. And this continued for about 100 days, at that point, it pretty much stopped getting brighter and bigger, and then just started to symmetrically dim for the next 100 days. So it was really, perfectly symmetrical light curve where the dimming is perfectly matched by the brightening in the beginning. The spectrum of light was also an enigma, the spectrum basically just shows the rainbow of colors from a light source, but also, of course, includes the non-visible light, like UV or radio. And ''typically'', these certain pieces of the spectrum are missing from a spectrum. And the lines that are missing shows you what elements must have been near the light source, or in the intervening space that absorbed it. So you've got these emission lines, but these emission lines made no sense.<br />
<br />
S: Don't you mean 'absorption lines'? Just to be clear, emission lines are different from absorption lines. Emission lines are when- are from the body itself that's glowing, absorption lines are from something intervening that's absorbing the light that was emitted.<br />
<br />
B: That's right, you were right. So this is a key deficit in our knowledge about this object, because if you can't determine what the elements are, what the arrangement of elements are in the spectrum, then you don't know how red-shifted the object is. That's one of the reasons why quasars were such a puzzle to astronomers early on, because quasars are so red-shifted, they're billions of light years distant, therefore, their red-shift is gargantuan, and it took a while for astronomers to realize 'wait a second, hydrogen's way over here, if it's way over here, it's gotta be immensely distant'. And that's gotta be one of the key insights that made them realize that these objects were so far away. So if we don't have this information, if we can't kinda get a picture of what's going on with the spectrum of this object, then you have no idea how far away this is. Is it in our galaxy?<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Is it in ''another'' galaxy? We don't know!<br />
<br />
J: Is that like a ball of hydrogen, or some hot-pocket of air, or expanding space somewhere?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: All we know is what we saw. It was some sort of stellar object that got brighter and brighter, like a Supernova, and then dimmed. But it was not typical of any other object that they've ever seen before.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they said it's specifically ''not'' a supernova.<br />
<br />
R: And if you were a pirate, would you call it a quasaaaaarrr?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: Quasaaaarr! Yes! Good one.<br />
<br />
E: No!<br />
<br />
R: I suspect that they call it quasaarrr<br />
<br />
S: That's not a (inaudible)<br />
<br />
B: We do have a range though, this thing must be within a certain range by other measurements, and one of them is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax parallax]. Parallax is the movement of one object due to movement of a foreground object, so if an object is close enough away, say less than 130 light years, you would see obvious parallax. We're not seeing that, so that means that this object is ''more'' than 130 light years away. So that's the ''bottom'' limit right there. So, what's the upper limit? Well, the only upper limit I came across for this thing has to do with hydrogen absorption. Because it's lacking hydrogen absorption in the spectrum, that means that it has to be less than 11 billion light years away. So our range is greater than 120 light years, less than 11 billion light years.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Nice range<br />
<br />
E: Oh, narrowed it down, that's great<br />
<br />
B: That's the best they've come up with in ''two years''. So, it could be anywhere in the intervening space.<br />
<br />
S: But interestingly, given that it could be- there's such a huge range for how far away it could be, they said that it's not ''in'' any known galaxy. So there's no galaxy, I guess, on that-<br />
<br />
B: I have a problem with that. I have a problem with that because there's been mention of this [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo%C3%B6tes Bo&ouml;tes constellation] they referred to, which is just a constellation of stars within our galaxy. But they refer to it as a void where there's really nothing around it for many light years, apparently. Now, there is a ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo%C3%B6tes_void Bo&ouml;tes super-void], it's a void, one of the biggest voids in the known universe, it's 250 million light years wide. Now I ''think'' they are possibly referring to this, they're saying that it's within this specific void. If it could be 130 light years away or 11 billion light years away, why do they think it's in a void 250 million light years across?<br />
<br />
S: I don't think it's ''just'' that, my reading was that it's not in any ''known'' galaxy, if it were in a galaxy, they're not seeing the galaxy that it's in.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, but why even mention this specific Bo&ouml;tes void or concept? Cos that, to me, just seems like a red herring.<br />
<br />
J: Bob, do we know if it's heading in a direction? Like, what direction it was moving in?<br />
<br />
B: No, there was no- you know, 200 days is not gonna be any- there wasn't really any discernable movement. Now, could it be a new type of Supernova? Scientists don't ''think'' so, there's a problem with that, because it doesn't match any of the known Supernova types and the brightening took much longer than normal, typically, Supernovas will brighten for 20 days, this one lasted for 100 days, and the spectrum didn't make any sense. The light curve should be asymmetrical for a Supernova, they fade more slowly than they brighten, it didn't make any sense.<br />
<br />
S: They also said it was ''not'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_microlensing microlensing]<br />
<br />
B: Right, the light curve doesn't match a microlensing event. Microlensing occurs when light is distorted as it travels over a gravitational source. They've ruled that out as well. It doesn't look like a quasar, I mean nothing that-<br />
<br />
R&E: Aaaarrr<br />
<br />
B: They put this spectrum through the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloan_Digital_Sky_Survey Sloan Digital Sky Survey] database, which has just a ''vast'' number of objects, and it didn't match anything in there. This is really quite a mystery and I-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, so this thing is probably a whole new class of object – which is cool!<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, some people have speculated that it's some sort of- because it's so symmetrical and blah, blah, blah that it could be-<br />
<br />
R: Aliens<br />
<br />
B: -some sort of sign from an intelligence, but obviously there's nothing that would really give you any confidence in that sort of conclusion. Not yet, anyway. But that would be interesting, if evidence pointed that way, but, man, I'm not counting on that at all.<br />
<br />
S: You don't think it's like a Death Star blowing up or something?<br />
<br />
B: They were talking about it in the comments.<br />
<br />
J: We would need so much more freakin evidence, you can't jump to ''that'', that's incredible<br />
<br />
B: No, that's ridiculous<br />
<br />
S: Well they thought that about pulsars when they first saw them, they were called LGM<br />
<br />
B: LGM, little green men, it was so regular<br />
<br />
E: Cos it was too regular, right? It could only have been created or something<br />
<br />
S: But sometimes, nature is really regular and symmetrical<br />
<br />
E: Aah, when nature is regular<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, you can't jump to an artificial hypothesis just because it's so symmetrical<br />
<br />
J: I'm pretty regular<br />
<br />
E: And symmetrical<br />
<br />
R: That's not what I heard<br />
<br />
=== Creationism in the UK <small>(13:00)</small>===<br />
[http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=376 Neurologica: Teaching Creationism in Schools]<br />
<br>[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4768820.ece TimesOnline article] (login required)<br />
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possible alternative: http://www.churchofengland.org/our-views/medical-ethics-health-social-care-policy/darwin.aspx<br />
--><br />
<br>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7613403.stm BBC article: Who are the British creationists?]<br />
<br />
S: Well, creationism is creeping into the UK, traditionally, the United States has had a problem with creationists trying to infiltrate public schools and etc. But now, apparently, it's becoming more of a problem in the United Kingdom. And this came to a head recently by comments made by reverend professor [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Reiss Michael Reiss] who was, until very recently, the Director of Education at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society Royal Society]. The Royal Society, I think is the ''oldest'' scientific institution and has a very important position in the UK science community. He made some controversial statements, and this is a quote from them<br />
<blockquote>An increasing percentage of children in the UK come from families that do not accept the scientific version of the history of the universe and the evolution of species. What are we to do with those children? My experience after having tried to teach biology for 20 years is if one simply gives the impression that such children are wrong, then they are not likely to learn much about the science that one really wants them to learn. I think a better way forward is to say to them 'look, I simply want to present you with the scientific understanding of the history of the universe and how animals and plants and other organisms evolved'.<ref>BBC news: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7612152.stm Call for creationism in science]</ref></blockquote><br />
S: He made other comments as well that really sparked a controversy over what ''exactly'' is this guy advocating? And because he's actually a literalist, not just a reverend, but a ''literalist'', a lot of people sort of had their eye on this guy, and were sort of waiting for this kind of thing to happen, this kind of controversy to crop up. So this, perhaps as much as anything else, is what lead to this incredible controversy, but ''I'' still have a hard time knowing ''really'' what this guy was advocating. <br />
<br />
R: Well, you know what the Society, a spokesman for the Society stepped forward and confirmed that, you know, what he was saying was inline with what they believed, and their exact quote was <br />
<blockquote>Our position is that if young people put forward a creationist perspective in the classroom, it should be discussed.<ref>Royal Society spokesperson statement &ndash; [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4760967.ece Times Online article] (login required)</ref></blockquote><br />
R: Their whole thing, they're talking about science, so we can assume they're talking about the science classroom, and it's kind of ridiculous just to put it like that. I mean, if you're going to talk about that subject, then let's be specific, ''how'' should it be discussed? Should it be discussed in terms of showing them that, for instance, a belief in god can be compatible with evolution? Or should you be telling them that there's no way in hell the Earth was created in six days?<br />
<br />
S: (agreeing) mm-hmm<br />
<br />
R: It's not very educational, it's not very helpful to just throw that out there like that. It sounds like a big case of covering of asses<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they definitely- the Royal Society put out ''clarifications'', 'quote-unquote', the next day saying 'creationism is ''not'' science, it should ''not'' be taught as science in the science classroom, and we whole-heartedly defend the teaching of evolution'. But this guy, Reiss, you know, he's just made other statements that were very, very squirly, for example, he said 'I do believe in taking seriously and respectfully the concerns of students who do not believe the theory of evolution, while still introducing them to it'. He also made some comments about treating creationism and ID, intelligent design, and evolution as different ''world-views''. So, you know, he's kinda dancing around this topic, and I think that, given that he's a literalist, and that he's making these squirly comments, it certainly ''seems'' like he's trying to squeeze in a little 'teach the controversy' through the back door there, just by saying 'we need to be respectful of the students, and we need to address their concerns and talk about creationism- oh, we believe in evolution, I'm not saying evolution is ''wrong'', but, you know, we really need to take- we can't just teach evolution, we have to address their concerns'<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it almost sounds like he's going for the catching more flies with honey defense, but-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
R: And there's something to be said for exploring different ways of reaching kids who are unfortunately growing up in households where their parents are ignorant of the basic tenants of science. And, you know, it ''is'' going to be difficult if they've been raised to believe in something wholly incompatible with what you're teaching them. You know, we ''do'' need to look at how we're teaching them. But to make a vague statement that just doesn't jibe at all with anything we're actually aiming for, and then to run away from it-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
R: Is kinda cowardly and suspicious.<br />
<br />
E: It's just a case of this person, I ''think'', trying to be somewhat politically correct, not taking a firm stance one way or the other, trying to please the most people possible with his statement to try and quell any controversy, it just did the opposite, apparently.<br />
<br />
J: He stepped down from his position too, ''because'' of the controversy.<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
R: He did, and the really cool thing is that he stepped down when British members of parliament stood up and said 'Hey, what the hell are you guys talking about? That's not science' and can you imagine that happening in the US, where an actual congress person steps up and bats somebody in line and defends science?<br />
<br />
B: No!<br />
<br />
J: No!<br />
<br />
R: It seems kind of foreign (laughs) So, I think that the UK kind of scores one on that point.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, although again this is in the context of increasing sort of insurgence of creationism into the UK, and increasing concerns. This controversy was all around the science blogosphere for the last week, the last few days, and some of the comments, like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PZ_Myers P. Z Myers] for example wrote a lot about this, and he said that 'you can teach students how we know the Earth isn't 6,000 years old. How we know there is common descent, you know, we know the Earth is 14 billion years old, etc, etc'. you can say ''historically'' they used to think this, you know 150 years ago, and this is how we- our thinking of our origins changed over time and developed with evidence. So, you can teach students everything students need to know about ''how'' science works, about how specific scientific beliefs came to be. But based upon what evidence, what logic. Without ever talking about a religious belief, or talking about creationism, you don't ''have'' to do that. I think that confronting something that is a ''religious'' belief in the science classroom is the wrong approach, you're better off saying 'in ''this'' classroom, we're talking about science, ''this'' is what science is. This is how scientists come to the conclusions that they come to. And you could achieve all of the objectives that Reiss claims he was really talking about, without respecting creationism as a world-view. That has no place in a science classroom. Some other things that have been going on, though, I don't know if this is a coincidence, but the Church of England, the C of E<br />
<br />
E: (with English accent) C of E<br />
<br />
S: Apologised to Darwin!<br />
<br />
R: I think that is-<br />
<br />
J: Now that blew my mind<br />
<br />
B: Ha!<br />
<br />
J: I can't believe that<br />
<br />
E: Did he accept?<br />
<br />
S: Good for them<br />
<br />
E: Did he accept?<br />
<br />
R: He couldn't accept, he was roasting in hell for his evil Darwinist ideas!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: (with English accent) So sorry, Darwin, sorry about that, old chap<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: So, yeah, they said it was basically the wrong thing to do, to basically oppress Darwin's views at the time. And, it turns out, that whole evolution thing was probably a good idea. Now, in response to that, the pope said 'yeah, evolution is fine, but we're not ''apologising'''. <br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: He ''refused'' to apologise.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: He basically said 'Oh, yeah?'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: 'You pansies in England can apologise to Darwin, the pope's not apologising to ''nobody'''. But, yeah, evolution's fine, you know, they<br />
<br />
J: The pope's tired<br />
<br />
S: Right, but the UK's got their own creationist museum now.<br />
<br />
R: (flatly) Good for them.<br />
<br />
J: It was just a matter of time<br />
<br />
E: Has the UK largely over the years been, not influenced by creationism, and it's only making some recent advances and strides?<br />
<br />
S: Yes, that's exactly correct, and it really has been, at least in the West, a US phenomenon. But now it is spreading to the UK.<br />
<br />
E: Do we know how much of it is influenced by Islam? Because the Islam population is on a great rise.<br />
<br />
S: That is a factor I know that Richard Dawkins has pointed that out as a factor, that they are creating ''faith'' schools, and teaching creationism from their religious perspective. Others have pointed to, you know, specifically political influence from the US have pointed to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Templeton_Foundation Templeton foundation], which is dedicated to-<br />
<br />
E: Oh yeah<br />
<br />
S: Connecting science and religion, and they have a lot of money behind that, so they give money to anybody who will-<br />
<br />
B: A million dollars, a million dollars a year to the person who does the most to join science and religion, right?<br />
<br />
R: I've seen rich people die and leave mansions to their ''cats'', and it's a better use of money than that prize.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, I agree<br />
<br />
J: and is it that general? The criteria is that general?<br />
<br />
S: Yes. The goal is for science to validate faith, that is the goal.<br />
<br />
E: So, is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Egnor Michael Egnor] in the running for that prize?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: I wouldn't be surprised.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, right?<br />
<br />
S: He definitely wants to intermingle those two<br />
<br />
R: You know who pirates' favourite scientist is?<br />
<br />
B: Oh boy,<br />
<br />
S: I can't wait to hear<br />
<br />
R: Daarrrrwin!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: Daarrrrwin<br />
<br />
B: Oh god<br />
<br />
J: Rebecca, get back on your medication as soon as possible.<br />
<br />
R: I ran out of gin!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: Keep up some rum, aarrr<br />
<br />
B: Keep it up, Rebecca, I'm loving it<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
== Questions and Emails <small>(22:52)</small> ==<br />
<big>Big Pharma</big><br />
<br />
S: Well, let's go on to your email, do you know what the first email's about?<br />
<br />
R: Daaarrrwin?<br />
<br />
E: It's about 15 sentences<br />
<br />
S: It's about 'big phaaaarrrma'!<br />
<br />
R&E: Phaarrrma!<br />
<br />
S: This one comes from Nick Vockrodt, from Arlington, Virgina. And he writes a very long email, I'm going to cut to the question: (see [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=165 show notes] for full email)<br />
<blockquote>My question is regarding "Big Pharma" and specifically [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibromyalgia fibromyalgia]-</blockquote><br />
R: I'm sorry, Steve, about big what?<br />
<br />
S: big phaarrrghma<br />
<br />
R: Thank you<br />
<blockquote>S: and specifically fibromyalgia I was discussing the pharmaceutical industry with a friend who claimed that diseases are-</blockquote><br />
J: What was that, Steve? Fibro- what?<br />
<br />
S: Alright, enough!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<blockquote>S: who claimed that diseases are being "made up" by drug companies for the sole purpose of creating a market for their medicines. He mentioned fibromyalgia as a perfect example, claiming it to be a disease that anyone can convince themselves they have. This sounded like what Dr. Novella describes as symptoms of life … I wasn't very familiar with the malady at the time to argue, but I tend to defend the pharmaceutical industry when faced with what sounds like a conspiracy theory. In my subsequent research, I found that there is some debate on it, but that the disease is generally accepted by the medical community as being "real".</blockquote><br />
S: Well, this is actually a complicated question because there's a few components to it. Let's take the first component of it: 'Does the pharma company make up diseases that they could then market their drugs for?'. I think there, in my opinion, the answer is a pretty unequivocal ''no''. The pharmaceutical industry in this country, regulated by the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_and_Drug_Administration FDA], when they market a drug, by definition, if you are marketing ''anything'' and claiming that it treats or cures or modifies a disease, it's regulated as a drug. Right, so things are regulated based on the kinds of claims that are made for them. But you don't get to make up your own diseases though, you know, to say that your drug is gonna treat something that you yourself get to make up, or that a ''company'' makes up. Companies are not in a position to ''create'' or will into existence a new disease. Things like fibromyalgia are- that is a diagnosis that emerged from the medical community. Now, I think that fibromyalgia is a very complicated disease entity that I have a lot of doubts about the way it's classified and diagnosed right now. First of all, it's not a disease, ''really'', even though-<br />
<br />
B: a syndrome?<br />
<br />
S: -it is recog- so what the-<br />
<br />
E: It's a 'condition'?<br />
<br />
S: Like for regulatory purposes, what the FDA will consider a disease is not necessarily what we would, in medicine, use the term specifically 'disease' for, meaning a pathophysiological entity. Sometimes there are clinical ''syndromes'', or a recognised entity, but we don't understand the pathophysiology, so it may be described purely by the clinical picture that it creates. So like 'chronic fatigue syndrome' is a syndrome, not really a disease. Fibromyalgia, I think, is better understood that way, although there are some thoughts about what might be ''causing'' it, it's actually not well understood. In fact, recent evidence suggests that a lot of people who have the symptoms of fibromyalgia may just be the symptoms of an underlying problem, like a sleep disorder. In fact, I think a lot of people who have the symptoms that are used to make the diagnosis fibromyalgia, actually have an underlying sleep disorder. Others may have an underlying anxiety disorder.<br />
<br />
J: Really?<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
J: Interesting<br />
<br />
S: And if you treat people for the sleep disorder, the fibromyalgia symptoms go away, so that's a pretty good indication. At least ''some'' of them. Other people may have a simmering auto-immune inflammation of the muscles. And that may be ''really''- if there ''is'' something that's really fibromyalgia, I think that's what it is. But a lot of people get similar symptoms for other reasons.<br />
<br />
J: Would you consider fibromyalgia kind of like a 'catch-all' for a bunch of different types of symptoms then?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think it's what we call a 'garbage-pail diagnosis', you know, you just get people who have symptoms in this area, then this is the label you attach to it. But there isn't any way to specifically say 'yes, this is a discrete pathological entity that they ''have'' '. I also see the diagnosis made on ''non-specific'' symptoms, without the specific symptoms that are supposed to be there. So if you are fatigued and achy, and etc., and you call that fibromyalgia, well that's just attaching a label to non-specific symptoms. You're supposed to have what we call 'trigger points', that are specific places in the muscles that are very tender. And if you have that pattern of 'trigger points' then I think it's ''meaningful'' to say 'well that pattern is called fibromyalgia. We still don't know what it is, we have some ideas, but that's the way we use the diagnosis'. If you call everybody who is fatigued and achey fibromylagia, then the diagnosis has no meaning. <br />
<br />
Now, I believe that the pharmaceutical industry has targeted fibromyalgia for a couple of drugs because it ''is'' such a easy diagnosis to make, because you can attach it to these vague symptoms, so I think if they're guilty of anything, it's choosing a marketable disease. But they didn't make it up, they weren't the ones to make it up. But that's just, you know, when pharmaceutical companies look for an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indication_%28medicine%29 indication] for their drug, that's based purely on marketing. They want to decide 'what's the biggest market? What drugs are going to sell the most? Which indication will allow us to speak to which specialty of physicians that we want to be able to market to?'. It's all really a marketing decision, of course the science has to be there as well. But often, with many drugs, there are different indications that you could go for. For example, if a drug treats pain, or treats nerve pain, now nerve pain is not a disease, so you have to pick a disease that causes nerve pain. Now, what diseases cause nerve pain are you gonna pick? Postherpetic neuralgia or diabetic neuropathy? They're gonna make a marketing decision, They're gonna choose the one with the biggest sales, the biggest marketing options for their drug, but again, they don't get to make up the disease. The other disease for which I hear this claim the most frequently is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restless_legs_syndrome restless leg syndrome] (RLS).<br />
<br />
E: Oh yeah<br />
<br />
S: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Carrey Jim Carrey] made that comment, that pharmaceutical made up restless leg syndrome in order to market a drug for it. Well, first of all, the drugs that have the indication for treating RLS, already have other indications, they were already on the market for legitimate indications, so it wasn't a way of rescuing a failed drug, that's a ''demonstrable'' myth. The other thing is, restless leg syndrom has existed in the medical literature for ''decades''. I was able to go onto my bookshelf and find an old neurology text with a ''40 year old'' reference to restless leg syndrome.<br />
<br />
E: Wow!<br />
<br />
S: 40 years before there was ever a drug marketed for it.<br />
<br />
E: Is that what they called it back then?<br />
<br />
S: Yes! Yes, and, in fact, if you dig deeper into the literature, the references go back even farther, ''and'' I forget what- it was known by other names even before the term restless leg syndrome came into being. So, yeah, it's basically like 100 years we've known that this has existed.<br />
<br />
J: (squeaky Irish voice?) 'Let me show you something'. (normal voice) A perfect example of why I ''don't'' wanna know what famous people think.<br />
<br />
(laughter) <br />
<br />
R: Right? At all<br />
<br />
E: Well, ''some''<br />
<br />
J: It ruined it for me, I ''loved'' that guy, now I have to hate him<br />
<br />
S: Oh, you do have to hate Jim Carrey, he is totally now on board with the anti-vaccinationist kooks.<br />
<br />
R: But he was so good in 'Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind'!<br />
<br />
S: He was<br />
<br />
B: (laughs)<br />
<br />
E: Sorry, so sorry.<br />
<br />
J: Oh well<br />
<br />
E: Move on<br />
<br />
S: Terrible, terrible, terrible.<br />
<br />
J: (singing) 'another one bites the dust'<br />
<br />
S: So, anyway, this is just unfounded conspiracy theories. Now, again, that doesn't mean that the pharmaceutical industry is ''not'' an industry that, they're not companies looking at their bottom line, and that the companies are beyond reproach. I'm not saying that, ''this'' notion that they make up diseases is nonsense. That is just made up conspiracy thinking.<br />
<br />
== Name That Logical Fallacy <small>(30:53)</small> == <br />
S: We do have a 'Name that logical fallacy' this week, we actually got our first piece of hard-core hate-mail in a long time. And it's just so chock-full of logical fallacies, I thought it would make good example for us to examine this week. So here we go, this one comes from Melvin Lee, who gives his-<br />
<br />
R: Melvin!... sorry<br />
<br />
S: Melvin<br />
<br />
J: Melvins!<br />
<br />
(Laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Gives his location as America. Thanks for being helpful. Now, Melvin writes (all indented quotes taken from [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=165 show notes] as written):<br />
<blockquote>I think that u and all those mofos on that show are full of shit. </blockquote><br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Wait, can you say that? You can't say that on the show.<br />
<br />
(inaudible)<br />
<br />
J: Steve-<br />
<br />
E: Should you say 'mofo'? <br />
<br />
<blockquote>S: How can u honestly say NO! there is no bigfoot just because I've never seen it, NO! crop circles aren't real because I'm obviously the creator of this world and I know EVERYTHING about. </blockquote><br />
(laughter)<br />
<blockquote>U pussies or just.......ugh, words can't describe how I feel about u guys. WHO R U-</blockquote><br />
<br />
S: Now, you also have to- we'll obviously publish the-<br />
<br />
R: All the "are"s are just the letter, all the "you"s are<br />
<br />
S: Capital 'R', capital 'U', " WHO R U"<br />
<br />
R: Melvin, actually ''texted'' this to us, it took him 16 texts<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: You know, if you're ''gonna'' write a critical email-<br />
<br />
R: Cost him 35 cents<br />
<br />
S: -take the time to spell out the words<br />
<br />
E: You have to assume that the person crafting it ''can'' spell the words<br />
<br />
B: Nah, this is a young kid, this is just a kid. <br />
<blockquote>S: WHO R U to tell some that they didn't see something with their own eyes and what they saw was an illusion. plz reread over WHO R U. U r human, u r not some all knowing god. U cannot get mad at someone for jus reporting what they saw, where u there too?, so how could u possibly say they didn't see that they thought they saw. </blockquote><br />
R: Wait, can you just do that sentence one more time?<br />
<br />
S&E: No<br />
<blockquote>Their just reporting it. This world is full of secrets and jus because it seems mundane doesn't mean its fake. Another thing. if hundreds of people AROUND THE WORLD r seeing something (bigfoot, ufos, ghost), then it ''has'' to be true. Not every situation was a hoax r the product of an over active mind. all I'm saying is WE R ALL HUMANS u have the same brain as me, u r not the god who created this world, therefore u cannot say confidently that something's not there, when it obviously is. </blockquote><br />
<br />
(sound clip of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman – Full Metal Jacket)"Holy jesus!"<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B?: Thanks for that email, Melvin <br />
<br />
E: Thank you Gunnery Sergeant Hartman<br />
<br />
R: Thanks Melvin, it's good to hear from you<br />
<br />
S: Thank you. All say 'thanks Melvin' <br />
<br />
E: Keep on listening!<br />
<br />
J: Honestly, let's honestly answer the email. Because if the guy-<br />
<br />
S: That's what we're gonna do!<br />
<br />
R: How? It's gonna take us all day. I think that's one good example of '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum argument from popularity]'. He said that, you know, if hundreds of people around the world believe in something, then it has to be true. But that is not correct because, you know, think about it this way: entire countries think that other entire countries should be obliterated off the map, and that doesn't make it ''true''.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, or millions of people, ''billions'' sometimes, hold beliefs that are mutually exclusive to beliefs that other millions of people believe. So, either one or both of those groups of millions of people ''have'' to be wrong.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, and look at all the people that bought the Milli Vanilli albums.<br />
<br />
S: That's true!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: They all believed they were really singing, they were wrooong<br />
<br />
B: There's a lotta '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man straw men]', he keeps throwing around tons of 'straw men'<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: Like "there's no Bigfoot because I've never ''seen'' it", "you can not get mad at someone for just reporting what they ''saw''", "not every situation was a hoax, or the product of an overactive mind". It's a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dichotomy false dichotomy],<ref>SGU 5x5 episode 54 [[5X5 Episode 54|Skepticism 101 - False Dichotomy]]</ref> I mean it's ''full'' of this stuff. <br />
<br />
S&B: There's a lotta 'straw men'.<br />
<br />
B: Mischaracterisations of what our arguments are, he's not even paying ''attention''!<br />
<br />
S: Right, so first of all, we ''don't'' say 'there is no Bigfoot, there are no aliens visiting the Earth, there are no ghosts'. What we say is there's no evidence compelling acceptance or belief in any of those things, the people who say that there ''is'' Bigfoot, have not met anywhere ''near'' a reasonable burden of proof.<br />
<br />
R: The invisible pink unicorn ''could'' exist, we are simply agnostic as to its existence.<br />
<br />
S: Right, where it's unfalsifiable, we're agnostic, if it's a scientific proposition, they haven't met the burden of proof, or the burden of evidence. And therefore, we do not accept it as an established or a proven scientific hypothesis, given the current state of evidence. But hey, if someone actually did find a Bigfoot body, and it stood up to peer review<br />
<br />
R: And it wasn't a costume <!--reference to Bigfoot costume hoax --><br />
<br />
S: It ''wasn't'' a costume <br />
<br />
R: Sold by hoaxters<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: We'd accept compelling evidence as compelling<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, and add to it, we'd actually be excited about it!<br />
<br />
S: Sure<br />
<br />
R: That would be mega-cool!<br />
<br />
B: I don't know, it would smash my world view, and I would deny it to my dying day.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Well only if Bigfoot wasn't riding atop a magical unicorn.<br />
<br />
E: Or a sacred cow<br />
<br />
S: Now hang on, there's some other logical fallacies in here, the challenge is in finding all of them.-<br />
<br />
R: Oh, we're not done yet, are we?<br />
<br />
S: You guys are just picking the low-hanging fruit.<br />
<br />
R: Alright, alright, alright. Well there's an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance argument from ignorance], saying that we can't say that it doesn't exist because we're not gods who created everything and everything.<br />
<br />
S: Right, that's good, it's an argument from ignorance, he's basically saying that because we don't have perfect infinite knowledge, that we therefore have no knowledge, that we can't make ''any'' factual judgments about what's likely to be true or not likely to be true, scientifically. And I'll say that, you know, we don't know ''for sure'', because we're not god, that Bigfoot doesn't exist, therefore, Bigfoot exists. And we should also then adhere to the argument ad populum, that other people say that they believe it, so that's enough.<br />
<br />
E: Well there's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem ad hominem] attacks all over the place.<br />
<br />
S: Oh yeah, 'pussies'<br />
<br />
R: Well, yeah, and not all of us are 'mofos', technically, only Jay.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, actually, I'm a proud mofo.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah<br />
<br />
J: That one didn't bother me.<br />
<br />
S: He also implies that, you know, the only way to assess someone's eye-witness testimony is to be an eye-witness ourselves, <br />
<br />
E: Wrong<br />
<br />
S: When in fact, you can assess eye-witness testimony by putting it into context. And also if you're -<br />
<br />
J: There are court rooms all over the world do that every day<br />
<br />
S: (laughs) Right, we're just saying there's more than one hypothesis. If somebody claims they saw a flying-saucer, there's multiple hypotheses you can derive from that. One is that they saw a flying saucer, but another one is that they were mistaken, or they're lying, or they were simply confusing a more mundane object, or their memory was contaminated by the testimony of another person. There's lots of-<br />
<br />
E: Or the alcohol they drank.<br />
<br />
S: They were in a compromised condition, sleep-deprived or drunk, or whatever. There's ''lots'' of hypotheses, and we want all- you know, any good scientist should consider ''all'' of them, and accept the ones that are most supported by the evidence, and also, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor Occam's razor], you don't accept the one that requires the introduction of a major new assumption, that we're being visited by aliens, when you haven't ruled out the far more likely, simple ones.<br />
<br />
R: Bigfoot<br />
<br />
S: Right, the guy simply made a mistake, or maybe he's pulling your leg. That's all, so<br />
<br />
J: I think Melvin's email actually, as poorly written as it is and everything, and he's got a negative attitude and he's just like sounding off at us. It's not that far away from where a lot of people stand. I think a lot of people ''agree'' with this.<br />
<br />
S: You're absolutely right, Jay, and that's what, even though, yeah, we're kinda poking fun at Melvin, partly because of his atrocious grammar and the way he constructed this email. But in fact, the same arguments, he's poorly constructed it, but these same logical fallacies, and these same arguments are the absolute bread and butter of the true-believers, or the anti-skeptics. We hear this ''all'' the time, the 'you don't know everything', equating 'not having infinite knowledge' with having 'no knowledge', the argument from ignorance, the appeal to popularity. We encounter these on a daily basis when confronting people who believe things that are not supported by the scientific evidence. So, we're not just attacking an easy target, this is absolutely bread and butter anti-skepticism.<br />
<br />
J: And I would take it one step further and ask Melvin, if he's listening: write us back, pick any topic that you mention in here, like Bigfoot as an example, and we'll have a real email exchange discussion about it. I promise to do that. If you wanna have a discussion, I'll tell you everything I think, and you can tell me everything you think, and we'll just vet it out over time without swearing at each other. Or at least keeping it down<br />
<br />
R: Eh<br />
<br />
S: And also, my advice to, just generic advice to people who are going to send a ranting email, actually the title of the email was 'rant', so Melvin knew this was a rant. But, if you're gonna do that, make a ''real'' effort to understand the position of the person you're disagreeing with. That's ''always'', generically, a good idea. Because there's nothing more worthless than arguing against a position that the other person doesn't even hold, because then you're just completely wasting your time, and all you're really declaring is 'I don't understand what's going on, I didn't take the time to even understand your position. I'm arguing against a "straw man"', basically that's the only thing you're accomplishing. Well, let's go on to our interview.<br />
<br />
== Interview with Ben Goldacre <small>(40:18)</small> ==<br />
(jingle)<br />
<br />
S: Ok, we're sitting here now with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Goldacre Ben Goldacre],Ben, welcome to the Skeptics' Guide<br />
<br />
BG: Hi<br />
<br />
S: You run a website in the UK called 'Bad Science', is it .net?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, [http://www.badscience.net/ BadScience.net], available all around the world!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Tell us about that<br />
<br />
R: The world-''wide'' web, Steve<br />
<br />
S: Oh yeah, I keep forgetting<br />
<br />
BG: (mocking) 'Ah yes, you're from the United Kingdom'. (normal voice) Well, it's a sort of mixture of my columns in the Guardian and other bits and bobs that I come across, and it's- maybe about sort of a quarter of it is about quackery, and most of it is about bad science reporting in mainstream media. I don't know if that's as much a problem in the US as it is in the UK.<br />
<br />
S: It's ''more'' of a problem in the US than the UK<br />
<br />
BG: Is that right? (laughs) I mean, in the UK, there have been some phenomenal bogus scare stories. I mean, there was one about theMRSA 'killer bacteria' that was essentially a bogus lab that was giving bogus results to undercover journalists, and of course the media's MMR hoax in the UK. Which I think you're about to get a run of in the US, with the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal thiomersal] thing, which is going to be very interesting.<br />
<br />
S: Well we're already- that's already passed its peak, the thimerosal (common name for thiomersal in US)<br />
<br />
BG: Do you think so?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, well, it was removed, you know, from vaccines in the United States by the end of 2002<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, but –<br />
<br />
S: Autism hasn't gone up<br />
<br />
BG: But the media storm didn't seem to start until what, this year, really. There was that case-<br />
<br />
S: It had a resurgence because of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_McCarthy Jenny McCarthy],<ref>Jenny McCarthy body count [http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com website]</ref> and Jim Carrey, and because of the mitochondrial DNA case<ref>Neurologica article: [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/has-the-government-conceded-vaccines-cause-autism/ Has the Government Conceded Vaccines Cause Autism?]</ref>. Yeah, so in the UK, I think the MMR was a bigger story. Thimerosal was bigger in the United States.<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: Is that still big over there? The MMR, are they still-<br />
<br />
BG: It's dwindling, the Observer did a bogus front page story about how autism was now up to one in 58, basically misunderstanding an unpublished piece of research which was looking at comparing different ways of measuring the prevalence of autism. So obviously, if you use the widest net, then you get the biggest number. But what I actually find interesting about vaccine scare is how poorly they propagate between different territories. So for example, in the UK we had the 'MMR causes autism' because of the measles virus, that was the scare, and that was mostly, that kind of peaked in 2001, 2002. But it didn't propagate outside of the UK. In America, you have your thiomersal scare, in France, they have a story about the hepatitis-B vaccine causing multiple sclerosis, but nobody's heard of that outside of France. In the UK in the 80s, we had 'whooping cough vaccine causing neurological problems' driven by ''one'' fairly eccentric doctor from Scotland, and obviously in Nigeria at the moment in Kano province, the imams have issued a pronouncement saying that the polio vaccine is a plot by the Americans to make Muslims infertile and stop them from having children.<ref>PlosMedicine article: [http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0040073#pmed-0040073-b0017 What Led to the Nigerian Boycott of the Polio Vaccination Campaign?]</ref><br />
<br />
S: And spread HIV.<br />
<br />
BG: Is that part of the scare as well?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: Oh no, yeah, you're absolutely right, yeah. And, you know, what's interesting about that, I ''guess'', is the WHO's polio medication program was on target to eradicate polio from around the world by now. But it's not, and people have, you know, you can do [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction PCR] on polio outbreaks around the world and they've found that the specific polio virus from Nigeria, from Kano province, has triggered outbreaks of polio elsewhere in the world. It's very interesting to me how these vaccine scares are all, you know, structurally quite similar, but they propagate very poorly, and I don't think the thiomersal scare could take off in the UK, just because the MMR story has been debunked in the UK. So, it would seem ridiculous to the media- it just wouldn't fit the natural tempo of the stories to then suddenly go 'oh no, but it does, actually cause these problems'<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, right<br />
<br />
R: So does that mean you think you're pretty much past the worst of all of those kind of stories in the UK? Or do you think there's another one on the horizon?<br />
<br />
BG: Certainly not, and actually for very interesting reasons, definitely not. If you look at France and Austria, you can see that they've come very close to electing, in the case of Austria, they ''did'' elect some seriously sort of right-wing fruitcakes, you know, bordering on fascism. Whereas in Germany, where they had to face up to what they did in World War II, there was a kind of truth and reconciliation process, and they have kind of green and liberal governments. There's no way, I don't think that Germany could re-elect a fascist government. I think that you have to go through the process of recognizing where you've gone wrong, in order to stop going wrong in the future. What I find fascinating about the termination of the MMR hoax, in the UK, is that it came to an end, not because the media suddenly went 'well actually, a 12 subject case series report isn't sufficient grounds to say that MMR causes autism'. It wasn't because they made a kind of critical appraisal of ''all'' of the literature for and against and went 'well actually, it just doesn't look like MMR causes autism, this was a storm in a tea-cup'. It came to an end because an investigative journalist called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Deer Brian Deer], for whom I've got a lot of respect, from the Sunday Times came along and revealed that the lead doctor who was driving the story had received half a million pounds, a million dollars, in legal sort of, you know, expert witness costs. And so he had, one could argue, a competing interest there. Now, I don't think for one moment that that's the reason why [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield Wakefield] held the views that he held, and I don't think that one man can drive a story. But now the media are all queued up to say 'oh, the original research has been debunked', when the original research was a 12 subject case series report that never meant anything about anything. And they're saying 'oh, you know, the MMR story has been disproven because Andrew Wakefield had half a million quid', so they're all queuing up to blame this one doctor for the hoax that was the media's work.<br />
<br />
S: (agreeing) mm-hmm<br />
<br />
BG: Collectively, the British media community have created this story, and they drove it for many, many years. And the fact that they're now trying to pin it on one doctor, I have to say, I'm not a big ''fan'' of Wakefield, but I think it's very healthy that there are, you know, doctors with idiosyncratic views on medicine, I think it's an absolute bizarre travesty that they're pinning it all on him.<br />
<br />
B: So they're all right, but for the wrong reasons?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, I think that's why they're not inoculated against future cock-ups<br />
<br />
R: Well, you're doing a lot to help media, scientific literacy amongst the media in the UK, but do you ever think they'll get that realisation? Do you ever think they'll finally realise what they're doing wrong?<br />
<br />
BG: I don't think you can stop people from producing stupid stories, but I think you can add some sense into the mix. So often, when I talk, people say- I do lots of talks in epidemiology departments and some medical statisticians, just cos the jokes can be a bit more interesting and sophisticated that way.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And people are often outraged, and they say 'well we need some laws to- these people need to be- we should be able to chop the fingers off bad journalists', and I just don't think it's realistic. But what you ''can'' do, is approach newspapers, and I just rang one up one day and said, you know, 'can I write for you?', and they said yes. You know, there's no great mystery, I think you can add in more sense to dilute the nonsense, or at least give people an opportunity to see some sense. Cos otherwise, unless people who understand the evidence get in there and explain the mechanics of why it is that you hold a belief on the back of some published evidence, then science, at least in Britain, is only being portrayed as being about authoritative truth statements from arbitrary cultural figures called scientists in white coats, you know, "scientists today said-", "scientists today deny-", "scientists today refuted-". But it's never, you know, "scientists today said 'well, there's this study, and it shows this, and for ''that'' reason, we think this'". That ''doesn't'' happen<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
BG: And by adding that into the mix, you do something very powerful<br />
<br />
S: And the Wakefield story reflects that, because it was about the authority of Wakefield, and when that was knocked down, the story was knocked down. Not about the evidence and the logic of whether or not there's any link between vaccines and autism.<br />
<br />
BG: It was about the authority of Wakefield, but it was also about human interest versus these white coat guys saying 'there's nothing to worry about'. So on one hand you had a worried parent, and on the other side you had a scientist saying, you know 'there's nothing to worry about', and that wouldn't reassure ''me''!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: You know, it would look like a cover-up, or it would look dismissive<br />
<br />
S: Right, so like us, you're using new media blogs to try to fight this bad journalism in the UK. How do you think that's going? How much play does your blog get?<br />
<br />
BG: It gets a lot of visitors, and it gets a lot of links, and the thing that's most exciting is there are lots of other people who are now blogging in the UK who do a really, really great job of pulling apart just sort of silly bit and bobs, but it's great when there's this kind of mass effect. Cos somebody will publish a tedious 'memory of water' paper, you know, homeopathy, and you'll be like, I can't be bothered to pull this apart. But someone somewhere will, you know, that burning sense of 'someone ''somewhere'' is wrong on the internet, I must put them right!'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And that's ''fantastic''. The only thing that disappoints me a little bit, I guess, is that I'm not as agitated about quackery as some people are, you get a lot of quite sanctimonious stuff from people kinda saying 'homeopathy is this public health ''scandal'' ', and I don't think that's true. I think homeopathy is really interesting, I think it's a really fascinating cultural phenomenon. I think it's really interesting that at a time when doctors are trying really hard to work collaboratively with patients, explain evidence with them and make decisions in concert with their patients, I think it's a tragedy that while doctors are trying to do that, quacks and the media are really kind of undermining the public's understanding of evidence. But I don't think that quackery is ''practically'' really dangerous, I think it's funny and interesting. I think it's interesting that there's a lot of bloggers who are keen to pick up on mocking quacks, which is funny, and it's great, and it produces great content. The thing that I wish that there was more of, is people taking down bogus news stories, because ''that's'' the thing that needs to be done so much more, because that's kind of the more culturally influential end of stuff, you know?<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
BG: But, I guess they're not such easy hits or, yeah, I don't know why it is.<br />
<br />
S: Well, the news cycle is quick, you've got to do it very quickly. Right? You find a new story hits, you've got to get your blog that day or you're going to get missed by the news cycle.<br />
<br />
BG: I ''guess'' so, although I'm not sure that's true, actually. I mean, I'm often cheerfully writing on things a couple of weeks after they've gone, but that's because I'm just smug enough to imagine that I can stand outside of the news thing. I actually think that's really interesting example of one of the more subtle aspects of how the media misrepresents science. I don’t think science makes a very good ''news'' subject, I think science is naturally a feature subject, because it's about emerging themes supported by a whole raft of evidence from a number of different disciplines that emerges over the course of many years. When you focus all your science reporting about a news story, a sudden breakthrough, a ''single'' piece of research, that's actually quite misrepresenting in a subtle way. Firstly because the stuff that makes a finding newsworthy, actually make it quite likely to be wrong, you know, it's incongruent with previous results, for example. And so it misrepresents stuff in that way. Obsessing over stuff being ''newsy'' is actually a bit of a mistake, I think people who are communicating science should feel cool with just sitting back and going 'what do we know about functional brain imaging and schizophrenia? There's a really interesting story there'<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
BG: It doesn't have to be ''new''<br />
<br />
S: I totally agree, I think the news cycle and the obsession with the story is really antithetical to the way science really works, which is taking your time and putting it together into the big picture. Often times I think you do that well, and that's we try to do, sort of take the news story and back up now into context, which is what the journalists ''don't'' do, right?<br />
<br />
BG: Well, sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't, I think there's a really interesting split in certain British news media, which has been studied quite carefully, which is: specialist health and science reporters are actually very good at their job, they know a lot of background, they know how to critically appraise research, and they will often make a fairly good stab at doing that with their articles, as long as they can get it past the desk. But what you find is, whenever a story becomes a big, political hot potato, whenever it becomes a big news story, like the MMR vaccine, or the GM food, the 'Frankenstein' food front pages of 1998, you find that the stories get taken out of the hands of the specialists, and put into the hands of the generalists, so the MMR story, especially after the question became 'did Tony Blair's son have the MMR vaccine?' – a fact that was mentioned in 33% of the news stories about MMR in 2002, when Andrew Wakefield's name was only in 25%, so Tony Blair's son was a bigger figure in our media coverage than Andrew Wakefield was. What you find is that, also, when there's a big story like MMR, also MMR was twice as likely to be written about by generalist journalists as a story about cloning, for example. And in the first two days after the Frankenstein food story hit the news stands, not a single one of the news or comment pieces in the ''entirity'' of the British news media, was written by a science columnist.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, that's definitely a big problem. Ben, you have a book coming out based on your blog, why don't you tell us about that?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, it's called '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Science_%28book%29 Bad Science]', maintaining brand homogeneity. And that's coming out with Fourth Estate, Harper Collins in September, and it should be very good, although it's very, very UK-centric, because I write about misrepresentation of science in the media, and the media I know very well is UK media. And I have this huge raft of examples from a ''thousand'' stories now, that's not an estimate, that's like, the number. And I've kinda been able to- it kinda grew out of this bet with a friend where, like, we both teach epidemiology, and I was like 'I bet I could teach the whole of epi' – or epidemiholiday As the medical students call it=<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Epidemiholiday?<br />
<br />
BG: 'I bet I can teach the whole of epi, only using exaples of people getting things wrong in broadsheet national news papers'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And it turned out to be true, but what I'd really like, actually, is to get a better handle on the ways that science is misrepresented in the media in America, cos it would be great to branch out and I'm not mercenary about selling the book, I accept that I will lead a life of obscurity in academia in a rented ex-council flat-<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: I fear that would be a volume of books if you attempted to do that, not just a single book.<br />
<br />
BG: Right, that would be like Churchill's history of World War I<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: But, I'm telling you, following your blog, that the examples are completely applicable to the United States, I think they'd be very-<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, well, actually, if there are people out there listening who know about this stuff, what I'd really like – ben@badscience.net - what I'd really like is for people to send me sort of examples from American media that mirror the cock-ups in British media. Are we allowed to say cock-ups in a Christian country?<br />
<br />
R: Oh, we're allowed to say it ''twice'', gosh<br />
<br />
BG: Have I said cock twice?<br />
<br />
E: You British are allowed to say anything you want<br />
<br />
R: That's three now.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Alright, well sometimes the stories are the same, like I think you covered the regenerating finger story.<ref>Ben Goldacre's Guardian article: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may/03/medicalresearch.health The missing finger that never was]</ref><br />
<br />
BG: That was hilarious! I mean that was-<br />
<br />
S: And we covered that too, <!--internal reference???--><br />
<br />
R: Yeah, that was great<br />
<br />
BG: Out of nowhere, and it was like three years old too<br />
<br />
S&R: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: But it was the BBC who reignited that story! And again, it was not a science or health correspondent, it was the BBC's New York correspondent, and you could see he was like, he was ''beside himself'' with excitement.<ref>BBC article & video: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7354458.stm The man who grew back his finger tip]</ref> He really thought he had found Nobel prize winning stuff with this, like, backwards guy in his model shop, who's finger had grown back. And he, this sense of holy reverence as he talked about the science, was just extraordinary, and just disproportionate to the reality, which was that, lop the top of your finger off and it just grows back, that's just nature<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it healed naturally<br />
<br />
R: It just happens<br />
<br />
S: You're hawking your brother's new product.<br />
<br />
BG: New company, yeah<br />
<br />
R: I should tell him about the holes for my earrings that closed up after I didn't wear earrings for a while.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: I mean, it's really interesting that there's this recurring theme in all of these stories in bad science and the media, and also in quackery, where we're sort of bringing all these childish fables, we're letting them take the credit for the amazing things that the body does, you know. Like when people were bringing in that placebo pill, and I'm like, I'm in sort of two minds about the ethics of giving placebos, I think it might be useful in ''some'' situations, but giving placebos to kids when they've got a cold, and I kinda think 'well, ok, you wanna tell your kid a reassuring story: here's a pill, you'll get better'. But how more empowering is it to say 'look, at the moment, there's this small, ''tiny'' microscopic organism that's gone into your body, it's called a virus, and it's really clever. What it does, is it exploits the machinery in your body that makes new parts for you, and it uses that to make copies of itself, and also it releases these other things that irritate the other parts of your body, and that's why you've got a cough and a sore throat, but your body's really clever, because on the surface of every cell, is holding out copies of all the stuff that's happening inside, and the immune system cells are floating around, and they have a look at what's in every cell by looking at this stuff that's being held out on the surface. And when they see something that's alien like that, they go in and they call all of their friends who arrive, following like a smoke trail to the source of the fire, along a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemotaxis chemotactic] path, and then they go in, and they find the bad guys, and they wrap them up in, like, a little ball, and they squirt bleach at them, and they kill them'. Now that, to me, why is that a sugar pill?<br />
<br />
J: I finally understand!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: Why let a sugar pill take credit for that? It's just insane, you know, and why let a ''healer'' take credit for that. But why let some magic powder take credit for the totally amazing fact that, if you cut the top of your finger off, it grows back like ''new'', I mean ''that'', that's a miracle, you know!<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: Quite apart from the fact that in the stories they were sort of talking about powder made out of (mystically) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endothelial_cells ''endothelial'' cells]!<br />
<br />
E,B&S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: As if like-<br />
<br />
S: It's some exotic thing, pig's bladder<br />
<br />
BG: No, it was (laughing)<br />
<br />
BG&S: 'extra-cellular matrix'<br />
<br />
BG: and it was like 'and these are made of 'extra-cellular matrix', and you're like extra-cellular matrix surrounds the cells of every single cell in all of the bodies of all of the people in the world, extra-cellular, you know, there's ''more'' extra-cellular matrix in the world than you could shake a stick at.<br />
<br />
J: That's like 'the super spectacular!'<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: 'Space-age technology', that's 50 years old!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Well, Ben, we certainly appreciate what you're doing, we love your blog and your articles for the Guardian, I fell like we're just getting started, maybe we'll have a chance to sit down again, if not here, some time in the future.<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, cool<br />
<br />
S: And thanks again for sitting with us.<br />
<br />
R: Thanks, Ben<br />
<br />
BG: Cheers, thank you.<br />
<br />
== Randi Speaks: The Media <small>(59:20)</small> ==<br />
(jingle) And now, Randi speaks.<br />
<br />
S: Randi, tell us how you think the media deals with issues of science and skepticism.<br />
<br />
JR: Rather badly, generally speaking, because the media is interested in a sensational story. Well, they say they want news, but they want ''sensationa''l news. You know very well that puppy dog down a sewer is going to get much more attention than some political hack in the local community, unless he has something to do with puppies going down sewers. The media's that way, and it's understandable, they want to sell newspapers and programs and wot-not. I've said it before and I'll say it again: most people in the media are educated in the humanities, and they don't have a good grasp of science and reality, and how things work. They're very easily deceived, they're very na&iuml;ve in some respects, and they're purposefully na&iuml;ve perhaps because they want the story to be there. Now, an excellent example of that on a very high level is an ABC TV program that I did, I guess last year. They got me all the way in to New York city to discuss the '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo%C3%A3o_de_Deus_%28medium%29 John of god]' situation. Now, 'John of god' is a so-called psychic healer and wot-not in Brazil, and he's doing very simple tricks that, kind of what people have known for a long time, sticking sticks up your nose and wot-not, and he actually sticks forceps up the patients' noses. I went armed for bear, I went to New York City, and they stuck me in the studio in front of a video camera. I had with me video tapes, props and wot-not, and I spoke with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Qui%C3%B1ones John Qui&ntilde;ones], he was the host on the show. They interviewed me for two and a half hours, ''two and a half hours'' they interviewed me! <br />
<br />
I was on with a man called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehmet_Oz Dr Mehmet Oz], a very, very famous cardiac surgeon in New York city, a great reputation, but totally woo-woo. He actually has nurses specially trained in the art of balancing the aura, walking around in his ''operating room'' while he's got a patient on the table with his chest cavity open and his heart being fixed! And Mehmet Oz will throw up his hands when told by the nurse that she's coming through to balance the aura by passing her hands over it! Incredible! Incredible that a man in this day and age, let alone a very highly educated man like Mehmet Oz, would be involved in such quackery! Such absolute foolishness, such a juvenile approach to reality. But, nonetheless, he is a great cardiac surgeon, and I would trust myself to him ''any'' time. (quietly and suspiciously) As long as he kept the woman with the funny gloves out of the place. (in normal voice) But, he was on the program as well, it ended up that the program used nine seconds of what I said. Nine seconds out of two and a half hours. They didn't use any other recorded material, any other references to the video tapes with demonstrations of how the forceps up the nose trick is done, as I say, it's an old carnival stunt. But they used a great deal of Mehmet Oz, they used quotations from him, and he even said something – for a Dr, very foolish – he said that sticking up the nose came close to certain glands in the head and wot-not, but he didn't notice – because he doesn't operate on the head, I guess, that there's a half-inch layer of ''bone'' in between where the forceps go up. Now, is it supposed to be a magnetic influence? A proximity influence? A capacity effect? I don't know, but he mentioned that as a possibility. He really is a woo-woo artist. Unfortunately, with all of that education and very extensive training and great expertise. <br />
<br />
So they used all of nine seconds, but they used it so unfairly, they had me saying – and this took nine seconds, "there are no greater liars in the world than quacks, except for their patients". Now, that was broadcast like that, but the complete quotation was "As that early American philosopher [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin Ben Franklin] once said, there are no greater liars in the world than quacks, except for their patients". So, I was attributing it to Ben Franklin, but they cut that out, because that made it look as if I was stealing it from Ben Franklin. I got emails, Steve, from all over the world, saying "you're quoting Ben Franklin, you stole that! You should have attributed it to them". I did! But they edited it out, and they edited out the complete explanation of how the forceps up the nose trick was done, and the various other things that 'John of God' does. Now this is totally irresponsible, it borders on the criminal, because what that does, ABC television in a feature program had this number about 'John of God', and that, I'm sure, brought ''hundreds'' of Americans to travel off to Brazil and spend their hard-earned money on this quackery. And 'John of God', I'm sure, was very happy with it. And they never did a retraction of any kind.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(1:04:43)</small> ==<br />
(jingle)<br />
<br />
S: Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two genuine, and one fictitious. And then, my panel of skeptics tries to tell me which one they think is the fake. Are you guys ready for this week?<br />
<br />
B:…yes<br />
<br />
S: Here we go, number one: 'Astrophysicists have discovered the upper limit for the mass of a black hole'. Item number two: 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge'. And item number three 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells'. Bob, go first.<br />
<br />
B: (quietly) you ''bastard''<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: 'upper limit for the mass of a black hole', it does sound kinda bizarre, I mean, what's preventing a black hole from just getting bigger and bigger? Um, so on the surface, that doesn't sound right, if you think about it. Dinosaur dominance 'due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge', I mean, that makes sense on the surface, absolutely. A lot of evolution and whether you go extinct or not has to do with luck. That definitely can play a part, maybe that makes too much sense. 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells', that sounds pretty cool, and that would be awesome, I'm gonna say that's science. I'm gonna say that… that the dinosaur dominance being luck, that sounds a little fishy, I'm gonna say that that is fiction.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, Evan?<br />
<br />
E: Well, 'upper limit for the mass of a black hole'… I mean, there would have to be some kind of upper limit, wouldn't there? It's just a matter of discovering it, one would ''think'', but I'm not too sure about that. Dinosaurs having an advantage over contemporaries 'was due to luck'… yeah. But how were they able to determine that, you know, how do you equate 'luck' in a scientific context? I'm not quite sure ''really'' what's being said there. And then the 'improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells', sure, yes, finding out all kinds of new things about all stem cells these days, cutting edge science, totally plausible. So I'll agree with Bob that the dinosaur one is fiction.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: See now, I'm not so sure, because I'm pretty sure I read something about this, and that they actually found these skeletons of an elderly pack of velocoraptors, surrounded by a field of four-leafed clovers, and a small pile of rabbit's feet next to them. So, I believe that that's actually science, and I also think that a black hole should have an upper limit, cos otherwise, well, you know, that's too scary to compliment- er, contemplate. So I think that transplanting muscle stem cells, I don't think we're quite to the point where we can improve strength and performance doing that, and that sounds like, are we doing studies on humans with muscle stem cells? That doesn't seem like it's going to work, I don't know. I think that's fiction, so-<br />
<br />
S: Ok, alright? Jay?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, the upper limit to the black hole- the upper limit to the ''mass'' of a black hole, I would just assume that it makes a lot of sense, like Evan said, that someone would be able to sit down and run the math and be able to theoretically figure that out. 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge'. Mmm, that one seems … fishy to me for some reason, how could they determine it was just luck? I wonder how the fossil record could demonstrate that. And the last one, 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells'. Yeah, you know, I think I would've heard this. If that happened, I think that it would be much bigger news, you know, definitely above the water line, or ''I'' would've read it, with the amount of reading I do on science news. I don't think that one is science, I think that one was altered by Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, so you all agree that 'Astrophysicists have discovered the upper limit for the mass of a black hole', correct?<br />
<br />
J,B&E: Yes<br />
<br />
S:Yeah, actually, ''this'' was the most counter-intuitive one for me when I first read it. This is science, and, you know, like Bob, my reaction was 'what would stop it from absorbing more mass? What would happen if a black hole reached it's upper limit, and then, you know, there was more material to suck in, what would happen?' Well, it turns out astrophysicists-<br />
<br />
B: More to it.<br />
<br />
S: -have calculated the theoretical upper limit for the mass of a black hole, it's a Yale astronomer in fact, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priyamvada_Natarajan Priyamvada Natarajan]. What (s)he suspects is, there's a mechanism that, as the black hole gets to about 10 billion solar masses-<br />
<br />
E: Wow<br />
<br />
S: -that any matter falling into it would cause the radiation away of an equal amount of mass. <ref name="Yale">Yale news: [http://news.yale.edu/2008/09/04/yale-astronomer-discovers-upper-mass-limit-black-holes Yale Astronomer Discovers Upper Mass Limit for Black Holes]</ref> So it reaches an equilibrium point, you know-<br />
<br />
J: baaahh (?)<br />
<br />
S: -evaporate or radiate away the same amount of mass that was pulled into it-<br />
<br />
B: Wait, but you're not talking about [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation Hawking radiation] though. ''My'' interpretation was that-<br />
<br />
S: No, no<br />
<br />
B: -you've got [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accretion_disc accretion disk] radiation<br />
<br />
S: Yes, that's right<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, that's a big difference. And my understanding, though, Steve, was that this isn't a hard rule. If you've got so much in-falling matter, you would reach a point where the radiation being generated by the heat of the accretion disk would actually blow away solar ma- any material that would've fallen into the black hole, so you gotta kinda like a soft limitation in that way. But if you've got a 10 billion solar mass black hole, and it bumps into a neutron star, or a smaller black hole, nothing's going to stop that from getting bigger than 10 billion-<br />
<br />
S: Well, see, I was not clear on that point from the article that I read. That was my question too.<br />
<br />
B: That was my understanding from reading some articles, and reading a lot of the comments from people who seem to know what they were talking about. What I know about black holes, what is going to stop it, to go above it if it's as I described.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, but the press release makes it sound like that's just one possible explanation, but that other things were used to derive this upper limit. You know, we might have to do some follow-up to try and sort that out, but that was exactly the question that I had: is that a ''hard'' limit? Or is it a ''soft'' limit? You seem to think that it was a soft limit, right?<br />
<br />
B: Absolutely<br />
<br />
S: And my interpretation was that this was a ''hard'' limit, and one of the mechanisms proposed for that would prevent the black hole from getting bigger than about 10 billion solar masses, but, interesting either way. So let's go on to number two: 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge', and Bob and Evan, you both said that this one was fiction.<br />
<br />
J: So it's down to Bob and Evan, and me and Rebecca, teaming up again<br />
<br />
S: Jay and Rebecca thought this one is science, and this one… is… ''science''!<br />
<br />
J: Ah-ha!<br />
<br />
(high-five sound)<br />
<br />
J: You guys suck.<br />
<br />
S: But you guys did ask-<br />
<br />
B: There goes my run.<br />
<br />
S: an excellent question, which is- 'how would-<br />
<br />
E: mofos<br />
<br />
S: -'how would they know?'. How would you even make this determination?<br />
<br />
E: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: I don't know, you dominate the planet for 200 million years, there's gotta be some competitive edge in there.<br />
<br />
E: Well explain what ''luck'' is, in this context.<br />
<br />
J: Talk to us, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Well, luck would be that there was an environmental change, and you ''happened'' to benefit from that change, as opposed to-<br />
<br />
B: Like ''humans'', mammals<br />
<br />
S: -you just out-competed, you out-competed your contemporaries. Now, what they did, was they, this is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_L._Brusatte Steve Brusatte] from Bristol University, department of Earth Sciences. And they looked at the species that were around early in the career of the dinosaurs. They found that the other major group at the time were the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crurotarsi crurotarsans], which were alligator-like reptiles. At that time, they were a more diverse group, with greater disparity, and actually were dominant over the early dinosaurs at their time. He said, if you were, you know, in the early [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triassic triassic], for example, and you looked at these two groups, you would predict, based upon their diversity, disparity and dominance, that the crurotarsans would have a much greater chance of dominating the future than the dinosaurs would.<ref name="SM">Science magazine: [http://www.sciencemag.org/content/321/5895/1485.short Superiority, Competition, and Opportunism in the Evolutionary Radiation of Dinosaurs] DOI: 10.1126/science.1161833</ref><ref name="SA">Scientific American: [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=was-the-dinosaurs-long-reign-a-fluke Was the Dinosaurs' Long Reign on Earth a Fluke?]</ref> So by any measure of 'who was winning', the crurotarsans seemed to be winning in terms of spreading into more ecosystems and, you know, having greater numbers, etc. But then two things happened, there was the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnian carnian]-norian event 228 million years ago, which caused a lot of extinctions, with both the dinosaurs and the crurotarsans survived that, but it did eliminate a lot of competition, and then 200 million years ago, there was the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triassic#Late_Triassic_extinction_event end Triassic extinction], which resulted from a period of significant global warming, increase in temperature, and the dinosaurs weathered the increase in temperature, and the crurotarsans didn't. But until that climate change occurred, the crurotarsans were out-competing the dinosaurs, if anything. So that's what they mean by luck, they just ''happened'' to benefit from a change in the climate when, if, all things being equal, they were not directly out-competing their contemporaries. Which means that number three: 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells' is fiction.<br />
<br />
B: Whatever.<br />
<br />
S: But what ''is'' true, is that they just identified what the muscle stem cell ''is''. They didn't really know which muscle was ''in fact'' the muscle stem cell.<br />
<br />
B: Crap, that's what I read.<br />
<br />
S: Yes, perhaps that's what you'd read. So, and it turns out to be the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myosatellite_cell satellite] cell which is a type of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progenitor_cells progenitor] cell that exists near the muscles, or in the muscle tissue, and, you know, in repair or exercise, etc. will generate new muscle tissue. But we haven't successfully transplanted muscle cells into people. That's not happened yet.<br />
<br />
J: (mimicking) Stem cells are made of people!<br />
<br />
B: Man, I hate when a vague memory of reading an article totally kills you<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I know, that's what got me<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, sucks to be you, Bob<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: You gotta stop reading, guys.<br />
<br />
J: So, Steve really is the bastard tonight<br />
<br />
B: Jay, you bastard, you ended the run I had, it was like a nine-winning streak run (actually 10). How long was your run?<br />
<br />
J: Four foot one<br />
<br />
E: Four foot one<br />
<br />
S: Well, congratulations Jay and Rebecca, good job.<br />
<br />
J: Yay! Rebecca!<br />
<br />
E: Yay!<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:16:28)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: Jay, do you have a quote for us this week?<br />
<br />
J: I have a quote this week from a man called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume David Hume], he lived 1711-1776, that was a pretty good year, wasn't it? And I'm always surprised when I read quotes from people that lived centuries ago, especially ones that are exceptionally logical or rational, maybe I'm skewed, or maybe just from reading quotes from a lot of very smart people during that time, I don't know. I'd like to know if I'm just thinking that they're overly rational for their time, or maybe people were more rational in the past.<br />
<br />
S: Well it was the age of enlightenment for a reason, Jay.<br />
<br />
J: David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, an economist, historian, and an important figure in western philosophy, and he said, or wrote:<br />
<blockquote>When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.</blockquote><br />
J: DAVID HUME! … I think this is also a good quote to go with Melvin's email to us. MELVIN LEE! (even louder) MELVIN LEE!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: CONFUSED LISTENER!<br />
<br />
R: Ok, the David Hume one didn't make me laugh, but...<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Right, just a quick reminder that October 10<sup>th</sup>, New York city is the New York city's skeptic's first annual anniversary event, they're going to have James Randi speak for them, and then October 11<sup>th</sup>, in Fairfield Connecticut, Perry's home town, we're going to have the first annual Perry DeAngelis memorial lecture!<br />
<br />
E,B&J: Yay!<br />
<br />
S: October 11<sup>th</sup>, noon to three at the Fairfield theatre company, we have the information on our message-board, and on our facebook page, and Jay, can we put that on the website? I know we're in the middle of the update and everything, but can we put that up?<br />
<br />
J: I will put it on the homepage<br />
<br />
S: ''and'' we have confirmed guests Steve Mirsky, from Scientific American-<br />
<br />
J: He's awesome<br />
<br />
S: -and Terence Hines-<br />
<br />
E: Nice<br />
<br />
S: -excellent skeptic and neuroscientist, and author of 'Pseudoscience and the paranormal', ain't it cool?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, he's a good dude<br />
<br />
S: Well, thank you all again for joining me this week<br />
<br />
(someone singing "going crazy"?)<br />
<br />
R: Thanks Steve<br />
<br />
E: Yes, it was good joining you<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Fun as always, and until next week, this is your Skeptics' guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
<br />
== Today I learned... ==<br />
*The first space shuttle, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Enterprise Enterprise] was unveiled by NASA on September 17th 1976. <br />
<br />
*September 19th is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day international talk like a pirate day].<br />
<br />
*In February 2006, astronomers using the Hubble space telescope spotted a mystery object that continually brightened for about 100 days, after which, it dimmed symmetrically for the next 100 days.<ref name="Barbary"/> The distance to the object has been said to be between 120 and 11 billion light years away, and does not match any object in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloan_Digital_Sky_Survey Sloan Digital Sky Survey] at the time of the podcast.<br />
<br />
*Church of England offered a formal apology to Darwin in September 2008! ([http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7613403.stm BBC article])<br />
<br />
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restless_legs_syndrome Restless leg syndrome]has been documented for over 100 years.<br />
<br />
*Astrophysicists at Yale have calculated the upper limit for the mass of a black hole, stating that as a black hole gets to about 10 billion solar masses, any subsequent matter falling into it would cause the radiation away of an equal amount of mass.<ref name="Yale"/><br />
<br />
*New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge. It is thought that global warming in the late Triassic era may have led to the extinction of the previously dominant [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crurotarsi crurotarsans], whilst the dinosaurs survived.<ref name="SM"/><ref name="SA"/> <br />
<br />
*The muscle stem cell is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myosatellite_cell satellite] cell which is a type of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progenitor_cells progenitor] cell that exist near the muscles, or in the muscle tissue, and will generate new muscle tissue in repair or exercise, etc.<br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation<br />
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}}</div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_165&diff=9638SGU Episode 1652015-02-06T01:06:36Z<p>Jason koziol: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{proofreading all<br />
|proofreader = Jason koziol<br />
|date = 7 Jan 2015<br />
|proof-reading = y<br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox <br />
|episodeNum = 165<br />
|episodeDate = 17<sup>th</sup> September 2008<br />
|episodeIcon = File:goldacre.jpg<br />
|rebecca = y<br />
|bob = y<br />
|jay = y<br />
|evan = y<br />
|guest1 = BG: [http://www.badscience.net/ Ben Goldacre]<br />
|guest2 = JR: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi James Randi]<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2008-09-17.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com//index.php/topic,14234.0.html<br />
|qowText = When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.<br />
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume David Hume]<br />
|}}<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.<br />
<br />
S: Hello, and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday September 17<sup>th</sup> 2008, and this is your host, Steven Novella, President of the [http://www.theness.com/ New England Skeptical Society]. Joining me this evening are Bob Novella,<br />
<br />
B: Hey everybody<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca Watson<br />
<br />
R: Hello, everyone<br />
<br />
S: Jay Novella<br />
<br />
J: Hey guys<br />
<br />
S: And Evan Bernstein<br />
<br />
E: Hi everyone, how's everyone doin' tonight?<br />
<br />
J: Good<br />
<br />
S: Good<br />
<br />
R: Great<br />
<br />
B: What's goin' on<br />
<br />
E: Good!<br />
<br />
== This Day in Skepticism <small>(0:36)</small> ==<br />
<br />
R: What's the day, Evan?<br />
<br />
E: 1976, the first space shuttle, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Enterprise Enterprise], unveiled by NASA.<br />
<br />
B: Ah, that's awesome<br />
<br />
E: Not launched, just unveiled<br />
<br />
S: Just unveiled?<br />
<br />
J: I remember being a kid, watching the TV, seeing a bunch of people standing on the tarmac, watching it be unveiled, then playing the theme to the Enterprise, you know, Star Trek.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
E: (laughs)<br />
<br />
J: Remember that?<br />
<br />
S: But I was devastated when I learned the Enterprise was never going to go into orbit.<br />
<br />
B: No <br />
<br />
J: What a gip!<br />
<br />
E: That's right<br />
<br />
B: Just a mock-up<br />
<br />
S: They should've saved the name for the first one to launch, not just the training module.<br />
<br />
R: I know a better day that's coming up, and that would be Friday, the 19<sup>th</sup>. You guys know what Friday is?<br />
<br />
J: Friday, um…<br />
<br />
S: September 19<sup>th</sup>?<br />
<br />
R: Uh-huh, you give up?<br />
<br />
B: Sorry<br />
<br />
S: The start of fall<br />
<br />
R: (complete with accent) Aaar, it's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day talk-like-a-pirate day]! Ye land-lubbers!<br />
<br />
B: Yes! How could I forget?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Didn't we just have that?<br />
<br />
J: That's a great day!<br />
<br />
E: Last year we mentioned that.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Aaaar<br />
<br />
B: It's an awesome day<br />
<br />
S: Has it been a year already?<br />
<br />
R: It has<br />
<br />
E: Aaaar, matey, it has.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Good thing we're not doing the podcast on Friday.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, can't we ''pretend''?<br />
<br />
B: Oh, the whole- the whole days as pirates?<br />
<br />
E: Today is talk like a ninja day<br />
<br />
S: Knock yourself out<br />
<br />
R: You can't talk like a ninja!<br />
<br />
S: Actually, ''today''-<br />
<br />
E: Sure you can,<br />
<br />
R: They just sneak up and stab you<br />
<br />
S: Today is international talk like a skeptic day<br />
<br />
B: Ha!<br />
<br />
R: (laughing) You made that up<br />
<br />
E: (with accent) I doubt that, har-har-har<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Well, we have an interview that we recorded at TAM 6 with Ben Goldacre coming up later in the show.<br />
<br />
B: Ben!<br />
<br />
R: That's aaaaar-some, Steve. I can't wait<br />
<br />
S: Ben is a cool guy. Our first new item is about Ben<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Ben Goldacre Defends Libel Case <small>(2:17)</small>===<br />
[http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=377 Neurologica: An Important Victory Against HIV Quackery]<br />
<br />
S: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Goldacre Ben Goldacre], who writes for the Guardian, and is one of the guys in the UK who's writing about science and medicine. He had written a piece about [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthias_Rath Matthias Rath], you guys familiar with this guy?<br />
<br />
R: Only in that I know he's a douche<br />
<br />
B: Er, no<br />
<br />
S: Right, he is a ''giant'' douche, he really is. So he has an organisation-<br />
<br />
R: (in the background) Am I gonna get sued for that?<br />
<br />
S: -that sells ''all kinds'' of snake oil, and what Ben wrote about was Rath selling vitamins in South Africa to AIDS victims, telling them ''not'' to take their anti-HIV medications, but instead, to take his vitamins. You know, there's an actual death count that you can attach to that kinda behaviour.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: So, Ben called him out on that. Now, Rath has a history of suing anyone who criticizes him, he has many, many lawsuits in many countries. You know, anyone who says that what he's doing is not legitimate, his response is to sue them.<br />
<br />
R: Including in South Africa where he's causing the most damage.<br />
<br />
S: Yes, South Africa, Germany, and again against the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian Guardian] and Ben Goldacre. And he's won some of those suits, unfortunately. But this, recently he had to withdraw his suit against the Guardian and Ben Goldacre ''and'' he's going to have to pay about half a million pounds in legal fees as a result as well. So that was a very good outcome. Of course, we all congratulate Ben on seeing that through, you know, it's obviously something that cuts very close to home. We spend a lot of our time dishing out very harsh criticism to a lot of people. Some of whom are heartless charlatans who will kill people if it lines their pockets, and who have a history of defending themselves by intimidating others with lawsuits and-<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, and you know, it's very different in England, where the laws aren't quite as much on the side of people who are making the statements, it's not quite on the side of free-speech as it is in the US.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
R: I think that, you know, we have a certain amount of protection going for us, but in the UK, it's fairly easy for someone to sue for libel slander, because once they do, the burden is on the defendant, as opposed to in the US, where the burden of proof is on the plaintive, and I am ''not'' a lawyer.<br />
<br />
S: No, that's correct. Although, in England, the one advantage in the UK, is that it's pretty standard, if you lose such a lawsuit, it's almost automatic that you pay the other side's legal fees. So that's the disincentive for frivolous lawsuits.<br />
<br />
R: Right, and so sure enough, he's had to cough up, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: These are ''critical'' victories for free-speech for sceptics everywhere who are trying to, you know, point out, especially this kind of really destructive behaviour. So, this is, I think, a very important victory. So, congratulations Ben!<br />
<br />
E: Good job, Ben<br />
<br />
R: Yay Ben!<br />
<br />
=== Hubble Finds Mystery Object <small>(5:20)</small>===<br />
[http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/newsblog/28244844.html?pageSize=0 Sky & Telescope article]<br />
<br />
S: The next news item, the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope Hubble] finds a mystery object that ''genuinely'' has astronomers ''baffled''<br />
<br />
R: Astronomers are baffled!<br />
<br />
S: They are<br />
<br />
J: They're baffled!<br />
<br />
S: They're generally baffled.<br />
<br />
E: are they flummoxed?<br />
<br />
S: And flummoxed.<br />
<br />
J: So what is it, Steve?<br />
<br />
S: Now, this is pretty interesting<br />
<br />
B: That's the question, Jay, it's- really nobody knows, according to a paper that's about to appear in the Astrophysical journal.<ref name="Barbary">Barbary et al. (2009) [http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/690/2/1358/ Discovery of an unusual optical transient with the hubble space telescope ] ApJ 690 1358 doi:10.1088/0004-637X/690/2/1358 </ref> Something extraordinary, never been seen before by astronomers appeared in 2006, so I was a little disappointed that it was two years ago, like, 'what? We're just hearing about this ''now''?'. But to this day, it is not known what the hell it was, or if it will ever appear again. It started with the Supernova Cosmology Project in February 2006 using Hubble, looking for Supernovae in February. A previously unknown object started getting brighter and brighter, and brighter, and it just did not stop. And this continued for about 100 days, at that point, it pretty much stopped getting brighter and bigger, and then just started to symmetrically dim for the next 100 days. So it was really, perfectly symmetrical light curve where the dimming is perfectly matched by the brightening in the beginning. The spectrum of light was also an enigma, the spectrum basically just shows the rainbow of colors from a light source, but also, of course, includes the non-visible light, like UV or radio. And ''typically'', these certain pieces of the spectrum are missing from a spectrum. And the lines that are missing shows you what elements must have been near the light source, or in the intervening space that absorbed it. So you've got these emission lines, but these emission lines made no sense.<br />
<br />
S: Don't you mean 'absorption lines'? Just to be clear, emission lines are different from absorption lines. Emission lines are when- are from the body itself that's glowing, absorption lines are from something intervening that's absorbing the light that was emitted.<br />
<br />
B: That's right, you were right. So this is a key deficit in our knowledge about this object, because if you can't determine what the elements are, what the arrangement of elements are in the spectrum, then you don't know how red-shifted the object is. That's one of the reasons why quasars were such a puzzle to astronomers early on, because quasars are so red-shifted, they're billions of light years distant, therefore, their red-shift is gargantuan, and it took a while for astronomers to realize 'wait a second, hydrogen's way over here, if it's way over here, it's gotta be immensely distant'. And that's gotta be one of the key insights that made them realize that these objects were so far away. So if we don't have this information, if we can't kinda get a picture of what's going on with the spectrum of this object, then you have no idea how far away this is. Is it in our galaxy?<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Is it in ''another'' galaxy? We don't know!<br />
<br />
J: Is that like a ball of hydrogen, or some hot-pocket of air, or expanding space somewhere?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: All we know is what we saw. It was some sort of stellar object that got brighter and brighter, like a Supernova, and then dimmed. But it was not typical of any other object that they've ever seen before.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they said it's specifically ''not'' a supernova.<br />
<br />
R: And if you were a pirate, would you call it a quasaaaaarrr?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: Quasaaaarr! Yes! Good one.<br />
<br />
E: No!<br />
<br />
R: I suspect that they call it quasaarrr<br />
<br />
S: That's not a (inaudible)<br />
<br />
B: We do have a range though, this thing must be within a certain range by other measurements, and one of them is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax parallax]. Parallax is the movement of one object due to movement of a foreground object, so if an object is close enough away, say less than 130 light years, you would see obvious parallax. We're not seeing that, so that means that this object is ''more'' than 130 light years away. So that's the ''bottom'' limit right there. So, what's the upper limit? Well, the only upper limit I came across for this thing has to do with hydrogen absorption. Because it's lacking hydrogen absorption in the spectrum, that means that it has to be less than 11 billion light years away. So our range is greater than 120 light years, less than 11 billion light years.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Nice range<br />
<br />
E: Oh, narrowed it down, that's great<br />
<br />
B: That's the best they've come up with in ''two years''. So, it could be anywhere in the intervening space.<br />
<br />
S: But interestingly, given that it could be- there's such a huge range for how far away it could be, they said that it's not ''in'' any known galaxy. So there's no galaxy, I guess, on that-<br />
<br />
B: I have a problem with that. I have a problem with that because there's been mention of this [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo%C3%B6tes Bo&ouml;tes constellation] they referred to, which is just a constellation of stars within our galaxy. But they refer to it as a void where there's really nothing around it for many light years, apparently. Now, there is a ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo%C3%B6tes_void Bo&ouml;tes super-void], it's a void, one of the biggest voids in the known universe, it's 250 million light years wide. Now I ''think'' they are possibly referring to this, they're saying that it's within this specific void. If it could be 130 light years away or 11 billion light years away, why do they think it's in a void 250 million light years across?<br />
<br />
S: I don't think it's ''just'' that, my reading was that it's not in any ''known'' galaxy, if it were in a galaxy, they're not seeing the galaxy that it's in.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, but why even mention this specific Bo&ouml;tes void or concept? Cos that, to me, just seems like a red herring.<br />
<br />
J: Bob, do we know if it's heading in a direction? Like, what direction it was moving in?<br />
<br />
B: No, there was no- you know, 200 days is not gonna be any- there wasn't really any discernable movement. Now, could it be a new type of Supernova? Scientists don't ''think'' so, there's a problem with that, because it doesn't match any of the known Supernova types and the brightening took much longer than normal, typically, Supernovas will brighten for 20 days, this one lasted for 100 days, and the spectrum didn't make any sense. The light curve should be asymmetrical for a Supernova, they fade more slowly than they brighten, it didn't make any sense.<br />
<br />
S: They also said it was ''not'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_microlensing microlensing]<br />
<br />
B: Right, the light curve doesn't match a microlensing event. Microlensing occurs when light is distorted as it travels over a gravitational source. They've ruled that out as well. It doesn't look like a quasar, I mean nothing that-<br />
<br />
R&E: Aaaarrr<br />
<br />
B: They put this spectrum through the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloan_Digital_Sky_Survey Sloan Digital Sky Survey] database, which has just a ''vast'' number of objects, and it didn't match anything in there. This is really quite a mystery and I-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, so this thing is probably a whole new class of object – which is cool!<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, some people have speculated that it's some sort of- because it's so symmetrical and blah, blah, blah that it could be-<br />
<br />
R: Aliens<br />
<br />
B: -some sort of sign from an intelligence, but obviously there's nothing that would really give you any confidence in that sort of conclusion. Not yet, anyway. But that would be interesting, if evidence pointed that way, but, man, I'm not counting on that at all.<br />
<br />
S: You don't think it's like a Death Star blowing up or something?<br />
<br />
B: They were talking about it in the comments.<br />
<br />
J: We would need so much more freakin evidence, you can't jump to ''that'', that's incredible<br />
<br />
B: No, that's ridiculous<br />
<br />
S: Well they thought that about pulsars when they first saw them, they were called LGM<br />
<br />
B: LGM, little green men, it was so regular<br />
<br />
E: Cos it was too regular, right? It could only have been created or something<br />
<br />
S: But sometimes, nature is really regular and symmetrical<br />
<br />
E: Aah, when nature is regular<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, you can't jump to an artificial hypothesis just because it's so symmetrical<br />
<br />
J: I'm pretty regular<br />
<br />
E: And symmetrical<br />
<br />
R: That's not what I heard<br />
<br />
=== Creationism in the UK <small>(13:00)</small>===<br />
[http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=376 Neurologica: Teaching Creationism in Schools]<br />
<br>[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4768820.ece TimesOnline article] (login required)<br />
<!-- dead link: http://www.cofe.anglican.org/darwin <br />
possible alternative: http://www.churchofengland.org/our-views/medical-ethics-health-social-care-policy/darwin.aspx<br />
--><br />
<br>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7613403.stm BBC article: Who are the British creationists?]<br />
<br />
S: Well, creationism is creeping into the UK, traditionally, the United States has had a problem with creationists trying to infiltrate public schools and etc. But now, apparently, it's becoming more of a problem in the United Kingdom. And this came to a head recently by comments made by reverend professor [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Reiss Michael Reiss] who was, until very recently, the Director of Education at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society Royal Society]. The Royal Society, I think is the ''oldest'' scientific institution and has a very important position in the UK science community. He made some controversial statements, and this is a quote from them<br />
<blockquote>An increasing percentage of children in the UK come from families that do not accept the scientific version of the history of the universe and the evolution of species. What are we to do with those children? My experience after having tried to teach biology for 20 years is if one simply gives the impression that such children are wrong, then they are not likely to learn much about the science that one really wants them to learn. I think a better way forward is to say to them 'look, I simply want to present you with the scientific understanding of the history of the universe and how animals and plants and other organisms evolved'.<ref>BBC news: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7612152.stm Call for creationism in science]</ref></blockquote><br />
S: He made other comments as well that really sparked a controversy over what ''exactly'' is this guy advocating? And because he's actually a literalist, not just a reverend, but a ''literalist'', a lot of people sort of had their eye on this guy, and were sort of waiting for this kind of thing to happen, this kind of controversy to crop up. So this, perhaps as much as anything else, is what lead to this incredible controversy, but ''I'' still have a hard time knowing ''really'' what this guy was advocating. <br />
<br />
R: Well, you know what the Society, a spokesman for the Society stepped forward and confirmed that, you know, what he was saying was inline with what they believed, and their exact quote was <br />
<blockquote>Our position is that if young people put forward a creationist perspective in the classroom, it should be discussed.<ref>Royal Society spokesperson statement &ndash; [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4760967.ece Times Online article] (login required)</ref></blockquote><br />
R: Their whole thing, they're talking about science, so we can assume they're talking about the science classroom, and it's kind of ridiculous just to put it like that. I mean, if you're going to talk about that subject, then let's be specific, ''how'' should it be discussed? Should it be discussed in terms of showing them that, for instance, a belief in god can be compatible with evolution? Or should you be telling them that there's no way in hell the Earth was created in six days?<br />
<br />
S: (agreeing) mm-hmm<br />
<br />
R: It's not very educational, it's not very helpful to just throw that out there like that. It sounds like a big case of covering of asses<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they definitely- the Royal Society put out ''clarifications'', 'quote-unquote', the next day saying 'creationism is ''not'' science, it should ''not'' be taught as science in the science classroom, and we whole-heartedly defend the teaching of evolution'. But this guy, Reiss, you know, he's just made other statements that were very, very squirly, for example, he said 'I do believe in taking seriously and respectfully the concerns of students who do not believe the theory of evolution, while still introducing them to it'. He also made some comments about treating creationism and ID, intelligent design, and evolution as different ''world-views''. So, you know, he's kinda dancing around this topic, and I think that, given that he's a literalist, and that he's making these squirly comments, it certainly ''seems'' like he's trying to squeeze in a little 'teach the controversy' through the back door there, just by saying 'we need to be respectful of the students, and we need to address their concerns and talk about creationism- oh, we believe in evolution, I'm not saying evolution is ''wrong'', but, you know, we really need to take- we can't just teach evolution, we have to address their concerns'<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it almost sounds like he's going for the catching more flies with honey defense, but-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
R: And there's something to be said for exploring different ways of reaching kids who are unfortunately growing up in households where their parents are ignorant of the basic tenants of science. And, you know, it ''is'' going to be difficult if they've been raised to believe in something wholly incompatible with what you're teaching them. You know, we ''do'' need to look at how we're teaching them. But to make a vague statement that just doesn't jibe at all with anything we're actually aiming for, and then to run away from it-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
R: Is kinda cowardly and suspicious.<br />
<br />
E: It's just a case of this person, I ''think'', trying to be somewhat politically correct, not taking a firm stance one way or the other, trying to please the most people possible with his statement to try and quell any controversy, it just did the opposite, apparently.<br />
<br />
J: He stepped down from his position too, ''because'' of the controversy.<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
R: He did, and the really cool thing is that he stepped down when British members of parliament stood up and said 'Hey, what the hell are you guys talking about? That's not science' and can you imagine that happening in the US, where an actual congress person steps up and bats somebody in line and defends science?<br />
<br />
B: No!<br />
<br />
J: No!<br />
<br />
R: It seems kind of foreign (laughs) So, I think that the UK kind of scores one on that point.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, although again this is in the context of increasing sort of insurgence of creationism into the UK, and increasing concerns. This controversy was all around the science blogosphere for the last week, the last few days, and some of the comments, like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PZ_Myers P. Z Myers] for example wrote a lot about this, and he said that 'you can teach students how we know the Earth isn't 6,000 years old. How we know there is common descent, you know, we know the Earth is 14 billion years old, etc, etc'. you can say ''historically'' they used to think this, you know 150 years ago, and this is how we- our thinking of our origins changed over time and developed with evidence. So, you can teach students everything students need to know about ''how'' science works, about how specific scientific beliefs came to be. But based upon what evidence, what logic. Without ever talking about a religious belief, or talking about creationism, you don't ''have'' to do that. I think that confronting something that is a ''religious'' belief in the science classroom is the wrong approach, you're better off saying 'in ''this'' classroom, we're talking about science, ''this'' is what science is. This is how scientists come to the conclusions that they come to. And you could achieve all of the objectives that Reiss claims he was really talking about, without respecting creationism as a world-view. That has no place in a science classroom. Some other things that have been going on, though, I don't know if this is a coincidence, but the Church of England, the C of E<br />
<br />
E: (with English accent) C of E<br />
<br />
S: Apologised to Darwin!<br />
<br />
R: I think that is-<br />
<br />
J: Now that blew my mind<br />
<br />
B: Ha!<br />
<br />
J: I can't believe that<br />
<br />
E: Did he accept?<br />
<br />
S: Good for them<br />
<br />
E: Did he accept?<br />
<br />
R: He couldn't accept, he was roasting in hell for his evil Darwinist ideas!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: (with English accent) So sorry, Darwin, sorry about that, old chap<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: So, yeah, they said it was basically the wrong thing to do, to basically oppress Darwin's views at the time. And, it turns out, that whole evolution thing was probably a good idea. Now, in response to that, the pope said 'yeah, evolution is fine, but we're not ''apologising'''. <br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: He ''refused'' to apologise.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: He basically said 'Oh, yeah?'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: 'You pansies in England can apologise to Darwin, the pope's not apologising to ''nobody'''. But, yeah, evolution's fine, you know, they<br />
<br />
J: The pope's tired<br />
<br />
S: Right, but the UK's got their own creationist museum now.<br />
<br />
R: (flatly) Good for them.<br />
<br />
J: It was just a matter of time<br />
<br />
E: Has the UK largely over the years been, not influenced by creationism, and it's only making some recent advances and strides?<br />
<br />
S: Yes, that's exactly correct, and it really has been, at least in the West, a US phenomenon. But now it is spreading to the UK.<br />
<br />
E: Do we know how much of it is influenced by Islam? Because the Islam population is on a great rise.<br />
<br />
S: That is a factor I know that Richard Dawkins has pointed that out as a factor, that they are creating ''faith'' schools, and teaching creationism from their religious perspective. Others have pointed to, you know, specifically political influence from the US have pointed to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Templeton_Foundation Templeton foundation], which is dedicated to-<br />
<br />
E: Oh yeah<br />
<br />
S: Connecting science and religion, and they have a lot of money behind that, so they give money to anybody who will-<br />
<br />
B: A million dollars, a million dollars a year to the person who does the most to join science and religion, right?<br />
<br />
R: I've seen rich people die and leave mansions to their ''cats'', and it's a better use of money than that prize.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, I agree<br />
<br />
J: and is it that general? The criteria is that general?<br />
<br />
S: Yes. The goal is for science to validate faith, that is the goal.<br />
<br />
E: So, is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Egnor Michael Egnor] in the running for that prize?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: I wouldn't be surprised.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, right?<br />
<br />
S: He definitely wants to intermingle those two<br />
<br />
R: You know who pirates' favourite scientist is?<br />
<br />
B: Oh boy,<br />
<br />
S: I can't wait to hear<br />
<br />
R: Daarrrrwin!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: Daarrrrwin<br />
<br />
B: Oh god<br />
<br />
J: Rebecca, get back on your medication as soon as possible.<br />
<br />
R: I ran out of gin!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: Keep up some rum, aarrr<br />
<br />
B: Keep it up, Rebecca, I'm loving it<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
== Questions and Emails <small>(22:52)</small> ==<br />
<big>Big Pharma</big><br />
<br />
S: Well, let's go on to your email, do you know what the first email's about?<br />
<br />
R: Daaarrrwin?<br />
<br />
E: It's about 15 sentences<br />
<br />
S: It's about 'big phaaaarrrma'!<br />
<br />
R&E: Phaarrrma!<br />
<br />
S: This one comes from Nick Vockrodt, from Arlington, Virgina. And he writes a very long email, I'm going to cut to the question: (see [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=165 show notes] for full email)<br />
<blockquote>My question is regarding "Big Pharma" and specifically [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibromyalgia fibromyalgia]-</blockquote><br />
R: I'm sorry, Steve, about big what?<br />
<br />
S: big phaarrrghma<br />
<br />
R: Thank you<br />
<blockquote>S: and specifically fibromyalgia I was discussing the pharmaceutical industry with a friend who claimed that diseases are-</blockquote><br />
J: What was that, Steve? Fibro- what?<br />
<br />
S: Alright, enough!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<blockquote>S: who claimed that diseases are being "made up" by drug companies for the sole purpose of creating a market for their medicines. He mentioned fibromyalgia as a perfect example, claiming it to be a disease that anyone can convince themselves they have. This sounded like what Dr. Novella describes as symptoms of life … I wasn't very familiar with the malady at the time to argue, but I tend to defend the pharmaceutical industry when faced with what sounds like a conspiracy theory. In my subsequent research, I found that there is some debate on it, but that the disease is generally accepted by the medical community as being "real".</blockquote><br />
S: Well, this is actually a complicated question because there's a few components to it. Let's take the first component of it: 'Does the pharma company make up diseases that they could then market their drugs for?'. I think there, in my opinion, the answer is a pretty unequivocal ''no''. The pharmaceutical industry in this country, regulated by the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_and_Drug_Administration FDA], when they market a drug, by definition, if you are marketing ''anything'' and claiming that it treats or cures or modifies a disease, it's regulated as a drug. Right, so things are regulated based on the kinds of claims that are made for them. But you don't get to make up your own diseases though, you know, to say that your drug is gonna treat something that you yourself get to make up, or that a ''company'' makes up. Companies are not in a position to ''create'' or will into existence a new disease. Things like fibromyalgia are- that is a diagnosis that emerged from the medical community. Now, I think that fibromyalgia is a very complicated disease entity that I have a lot of doubts about the way it's classified and diagnosed right now. First of all, it's not a disease, ''really'', even though-<br />
<br />
B: a syndrome?<br />
<br />
S: -it is recog- so what the-<br />
<br />
E: It's a 'condition'?<br />
<br />
S: Like for regulatory purposes, what the FDA will consider a disease is not necessarily what we would, in medicine, use the term specifically 'disease' for, meaning a pathophysiological entity. Sometimes there are clinical ''syndromes'', or a recognised entity, but we don't understand the pathophysiology, so it may be described purely by the clinical picture that it creates. So like 'chronic fatigue syndrome' is a syndrome, not really a disease. Fibromyalgia, I think, is better understood that way, although there are some thoughts about what might be ''causing'' it, it's actually not well understood. In fact, recent evidence suggests that a lot of people who have the symptoms of fibromyalgia may just be the symptoms of an underlying problem, like a sleep disorder. In fact, I think a lot of people who have the symptoms that are used to make the diagnosis fibromyalgia, actually have an underlying sleep disorder. Others may have an underlying anxiety disorder.<br />
<br />
J: Really?<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
J: Interesting<br />
<br />
S: And if you treat people for the sleep disorder, the fibromyalgia symptoms go away, so that's a pretty good indication. At least ''some'' of them. Other people may have a simmering auto-immune inflammation of the muscles. And that may be ''really''- if there ''is'' something that's really fibromyalgia, I think that's what it is. But a lot of people get similar symptoms for other reasons.<br />
<br />
J: Would you consider fibromyalgia kind of like a 'catch-all' for a bunch of different types of symptoms then?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think it's what we call a 'garbage-pail diagnosis', you know, you just get people who have symptoms in this area, then this is the label you attach to it. But there isn't any way to specifically say 'yes, this is a discrete pathological entity that they ''have'' '. I also see the diagnosis made on ''non-specific'' symptoms, without the specific symptoms that are supposed to be there. So if you are fatigued and achy, and etc., and you call that fibromyalgia, well that's just attaching a label to non-specific symptoms. You're supposed to have what we call 'trigger points', that are specific places in the muscles that are very tender. And if you have that pattern of 'trigger points' then I think it's ''meaningful'' to say 'well that pattern is called fibromyalgia. We still don't know what it is, we have some ideas, but that's the way we use the diagnosis'. If you call everybody who is fatigued and achey fibromylagia, then the diagnosis has no meaning. <br />
<br />
Now, I believe that the pharmaceutical industry has targeted fibromyalgia for a couple of drugs because it ''is'' such a easy diagnosis to make, because you can attach it to these vague symptoms, so I think if they're guilty of anything, it's choosing a marketable disease. But they didn't make it up, they weren't the ones to make it up. But that's just, you know, when pharmaceutical companies look for an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indication_%28medicine%29 indication] for their drug, that's based purely on marketing. They want to decide 'what's the biggest market? What drugs are going to sell the most? Which indication will allow us to speak to which specialty of physicians that we want to be able to market to?'. It's all really a marketing decision, of course the science has to be there as well. But often, with many drugs, there are different indications that you could go for. For example, if a drug treats pain, or treats nerve pain, now nerve pain is not a disease, so you have to pick a disease that causes nerve pain. Now, what diseases cause nerve pain are you gonna pick? Postherpetic neuralgia or diabetic neuropathy? They're gonna make a marketing decision, They're gonna choose the one with the biggest sales, the biggest marketing options for their drug, but again, they don't get to make up the disease. The other disease for which I hear this claim the most frequently is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restless_legs_syndrome restless leg syndrome] (RLS).<br />
<br />
E: Oh yeah<br />
<br />
S: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Carrey Jim Carrey] made that comment, that pharmaceutical made up restless leg syndrome in order to market a drug for it. Well, first of all, the drugs that have the indication for treating RLS, already have other indications, they were already on the market for legitimate indications, so it wasn't a way of rescuing a failed drug, that's a ''demonstrable'' myth. The other thing is, restless leg syndrom has existed in the medical literature for ''decades''. I was able to go onto my bookshelf and find an old neurology text with a ''40 year old'' reference to restless leg syndrome.<br />
<br />
E: Wow!<br />
<br />
S: 40 years before there was ever a drug marketed for it.<br />
<br />
E: Is that what they called it back then?<br />
<br />
S: Yes! Yes, and, in fact, if you dig deeper into the literature, the references go back even farther, ''and'' I forget what- it was known by other names even before the term restless leg syndrome came into being. So, yeah, it's basically like 100 years we've known that this has existed.<br />
<br />
J: (squeaky Irish voice?) 'Let me show you something'. (normal voice) A perfect example of why I ''don't'' wanna know what famous people think.<br />
<br />
(laughter) <br />
<br />
R: Right? At all<br />
<br />
E: Well, ''some''<br />
<br />
J: It ruined it for me, I ''loved'' that guy, now I have to hate him<br />
<br />
S: Oh, you do have to hate Jim Carrey, he is totally now on board with the anti-vaccinationist kooks.<br />
<br />
R: But he was so good in 'Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind'!<br />
<br />
S: He was<br />
<br />
B: (laughs)<br />
<br />
E: Sorry, so sorry.<br />
<br />
J: Oh well<br />
<br />
E: Move on<br />
<br />
S: Terrible, terrible, terrible.<br />
<br />
J: (singing) 'another one bites the dust'<br />
<br />
S: So, anyway, this is just unfounded conspiracy theories. Now, again, that doesn't mean that the pharmaceutical industry is ''not'' an industry that, they're not companies looking at their bottom line, and that the companies are beyond reproach. I'm not saying that, ''this'' notion that they make up diseases is nonsense. That is just made up conspiracy thinking.<br />
<br />
== Name That Logical Fallacy <small>(30:53)</small> == <br />
S: We do have a 'Name that logical fallacy' this week, we actually got our first piece of hard-core hate-mail in a long time. And it's just so chock-full of logical fallacies, I thought it would make good example for us to examine this week. So here we go, this one comes from Melvin Lee, who gives his-<br />
<br />
R: Melvin!... sorry<br />
<br />
S: Melvin<br />
<br />
J: Melvins!<br />
<br />
(Laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Gives his location as America. Thanks for being helpful. Now, Melvin writes (all indented quotes taken from [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=165 show notes] as written):<br />
<blockquote>I think that u and all those mofos on that show are full of shit. </blockquote><br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Wait, can you say that? You can't say that on the show.<br />
<br />
(inaudible)<br />
<br />
J: Steve-<br />
<br />
E: Should you say 'mofo'? <br />
<br />
<blockquote>S: How can u honestly say NO! there is no bigfoot just because I've never seen it, NO! crop circles aren't real because I'm obviously the creator of this world and I know EVERYTHING about. </blockquote><br />
(laughter)<br />
<blockquote>U pussies or just.......ugh, words can't describe how I feel about u guys. WHO R U-</blockquote><br />
<br />
S: Now, you also have to- we'll obviously publish the-<br />
<br />
R: All the "are"s are just the letter, all the "you"s are<br />
<br />
S: Capital 'R', capital 'U', " WHO R U"<br />
<br />
R: Melvin, actually ''texted'' this to us, it took him 16 texts<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: You know, if you're ''gonna'' write a critical email-<br />
<br />
R: Cost him 35 cents<br />
<br />
S: -take the time to spell out the words<br />
<br />
E: You have to assume that the person crafting it ''can'' spell the words<br />
<br />
B: Nah, this is a young kid, this is just a kid. <br />
<blockquote>S: WHO R U to tell some that they didn't see something with their own eyes and what they saw was an illusion. plz reread over WHO R U. U r human, u r not some all knowing god. U cannot get mad at someone for jus reporting what they saw, where u there too?, so how could u possibly say they didn't see that they thought they saw. </blockquote><br />
R: Wait, can you just do that sentence one more time?<br />
<br />
S&E: No<br />
<blockquote>Their just reporting it. This world is full of secrets and jus because it seems mundane doesn't mean its fake. Another thing. if hundreds of people AROUND THE WORLD r seeing something (bigfoot, ufos, ghost), then it ''has'' to be true. Not every situation was a hoax r the product of an over active mind. all I'm saying is WE R ALL HUMANS u have the same brain as me, u r not the god who created this world, therefore u cannot say confidently that something's not there, when it obviously is. </blockquote><br />
<br />
(sound clip of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman – Full Metal Jacket)"Holy jesus!"<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B?: Thanks for that email, Melvin <br />
<br />
E: Thank you Gunnery Sergeant Hartman<br />
<br />
R: Thanks Melvin, it's good to hear from you<br />
<br />
S: Thank you. All say 'thanks Melvin' <br />
<br />
E: Keep on listening!<br />
<br />
J: Honestly, let's honestly answer the email. Because if the guy-<br />
<br />
S: That's what we're gonna do!<br />
<br />
R: How? It's gonna take us all day. I think that's one good example of '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum argument from popularity]'. He said that, you know, if hundreds of people around the world believe in something, then it has to be true. But that is not correct because, you know, think about it this way: entire countries think that other entire countries should be obliterated off the map, and that doesn't make it ''true''.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, or millions of people, ''billions'' sometimes, hold beliefs that are mutually exclusive to beliefs that other millions of people believe. So, either one or both of those groups of millions of people ''have'' to be wrong.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, and look at all the people that bought the Milli Vanilli albums.<br />
<br />
S: That's true!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: They all believed they were really singing, they were wrooong<br />
<br />
B: There's a lotta '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man straw men]', he keeps throwing around tons of 'straw men'<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: Like "there's no Bigfoot because I've never ''seen'' it", "you can not get mad at someone for just reporting what they ''saw''", "not every situation was a hoax, or the product of an overactive mind". It's a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dichotomy false dichotomy],<ref>SGU 5x5 episode 54 [[5X5 Episode 54|Skepticism 101 - False Dichotomy]]</ref> I mean it's ''full'' of this stuff. <br />
<br />
S&B: There's a lotta 'straw men'.<br />
<br />
B: Mischaracterisations of what our arguments are, he's not even paying ''attention''!<br />
<br />
S: Right, so first of all, we ''don't'' say 'there is no Bigfoot, there are no aliens visiting the Earth, there are no ghosts'. What we say is there's no evidence compelling acceptance or belief in any of those things, the people who say that there ''is'' Bigfoot, have not met anywhere ''near'' a reasonable burden of proof.<br />
<br />
R: The invisible pink unicorn ''could'' exist, we are simply agnostic as to its existence.<br />
<br />
S: Right, where it's unfalsifiable, we're agnostic, if it's a scientific proposition, they haven't met the burden of proof, or the burden of evidence. And therefore, we do not accept it as an established or a proven scientific hypothesis, given the current state of evidence. But hey, if someone actually did find a Bigfoot body, and it stood up to peer review<br />
<br />
R: And it wasn't a costume <!--reference to Bigfoot costume hoax --><br />
<br />
S: It ''wasn't'' a costume <br />
<br />
R: Sold by hoaxters<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: We'd accept compelling evidence as compelling<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, and add to it, we'd actually be excited about it!<br />
<br />
S: Sure<br />
<br />
R: That would be mega-cool!<br />
<br />
B: I don't know, it would smash my world view, and I would deny it to my dying day.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Well only if Bigfoot wasn't riding atop a magical unicorn.<br />
<br />
E: Or a sacred cow<br />
<br />
S: Now hang on, there's some other logical fallacies in here, the challenge is in finding all of them.-<br />
<br />
R: Oh, we're not done yet, are we?<br />
<br />
S: You guys are just picking the low-hanging fruit.<br />
<br />
R: Alright, alright, alright. Well there's an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance argument from ignorance], saying that we can't say that it doesn't exist because we're not gods who created everything and everything.<br />
<br />
S: Right, that's good, it's an argument from ignorance, he's basically saying that because we don't have perfect infinite knowledge, that we therefore have no knowledge, that we can't make ''any'' factual judgments about what's likely to be true or not likely to be true, scientifically. And I'll say that, you know, we don't know ''for sure'', because we're not god, that Bigfoot doesn't exist, therefore, Bigfoot exists. And we should also then adhere to the argument ad populum, that other people say that they believe it, so that's enough.<br />
<br />
E: Well there's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem ad hominem] attacks all over the place.<br />
<br />
S: Oh yeah, 'pussies'<br />
<br />
R: Well, yeah, and not all of us are 'mofos', technically, only Jay.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, actually, I'm a proud mofo.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah<br />
<br />
J: That one didn't bother me.<br />
<br />
S: He also implies that, you know, the only way to assess someone's eye-witness testimony is to be an eye-witness ourselves, <br />
<br />
E: Wrong<br />
<br />
S: When in fact, you can assess eye-witness testimony by putting it into context. And also if you're -<br />
<br />
J: There are court rooms all over the world do that every day<br />
<br />
S: (laughs) Right, we're just saying there's more than one hypothesis. If somebody claims they saw a flying-saucer, there's multiple hypotheses you can derive from that. One is that they saw a flying saucer, but another one is that they were mistaken, or they're lying, or they were simply confusing a more mundane object, or their memory was contaminated by the testimony of another person. There's lots of-<br />
<br />
E: Or the alcohol they drank.<br />
<br />
S: They were in a compromised condition, sleep-deprived or drunk, or whatever. There's ''lots'' of hypotheses, and we want all- you know, any good scientist should consider ''all'' of them, and accept the ones that are most supported by the evidence, and also, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor Occam's razor], you don't accept the one that requires the introduction of a major new assumption, that we're being visited by aliens, when you haven't ruled out the far more likely, simple ones.<br />
<br />
R: Bigfoot<br />
<br />
S: Right, the guy simply made a mistake, or maybe he's pulling your leg. That's all, so<br />
<br />
J: I think Melvin's email actually, as poorly written as it is and everything, and he's got a negative attitude and he's just like sounding off at us. It's not that far away from where a lot of people stand. I think a lot of people ''agree'' with this.<br />
<br />
S: You're absolutely right, Jay, and that's what, even though, yeah, we're kinda poking fun at Melvin, partly because of his atrocious grammar and the way he constructed this email. But in fact, the same arguments, he's poorly constructed it, but these same logical fallacies, and these same arguments are the absolute bread and butter of the true-believers, or the anti-skeptics. We hear this ''all'' the time, the 'you don't know everything', equating 'not having infinite knowledge' with having 'no knowledge', the argument from ignorance, the appeal to popularity. We encounter these on a daily basis when confronting people who believe things that are not supported by the scientific evidence. So, we're not just attacking an easy target, this is absolutely bread and butter anti-skepticism.<br />
<br />
J: And I would take it one step further and ask Melvin, if he's listening: write us back, pick any topic that you mention in here, like Bigfoot as an example, and we'll have a real email exchange discussion about it. I promise to do that. If you wanna have a discussion, I'll tell you everything I think, and you can tell me everything you think, and we'll just vet it out over time without swearing at each other. Or at least keeping it down<br />
<br />
R: Eh<br />
<br />
S: And also, my advice to, just generic advice to people who are going to send a ranting email, actually the title of the email was 'rant', so Melvin knew this was a rant. But, if you're gonna do that, make a ''real'' effort to understand the position of the person you're disagreeing with. That's ''always'', generically, a good idea. Because there's nothing more worthless than arguing against a position that the other person doesn't even hold, because then you're just completely wasting your time, and all you're really declaring is 'I don't understand what's going on, I didn't take the time to even understand your position. I'm arguing against a "straw man"', basically that's the only thing you're accomplishing. Well, let's go on to our interview.<br />
<br />
== Interview with Ben Goldacre <small>(40:18)</small> ==<br />
(jingle)<br />
<br />
S: Ok, we're sitting here now with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Goldacre Ben Goldacre],Ben, welcome to the Skeptics' Guide<br />
<br />
BG: Hi<br />
<br />
S: You run a website in the UK called 'Bad Science', is it .net?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, [http://www.badscience.net/ BadScience.net], available all around the world!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Tell us about that<br />
<br />
R: The world-''wide'' web, Steve<br />
<br />
S: Oh yeah, I keep forgetting<br />
<br />
BG: (mocking) 'Ah yes, you're from the United Kingdom'. (normal voice) Well, it's a sort of mixture of my columns in the Guardian and other bits and bobs that I come across, and it's- maybe about sort of a quarter of it is about quackery, and most of it is about bad science reporting in mainstream media. I don't know if that's as much a problem in the US as it is in the UK.<br />
<br />
S: It's ''more'' of a problem in the US than the UK<br />
<br />
BG: Is that right? (laughs) I mean, in the UK, there have been some phenomenal bogus scare stories. I mean, there was one about theMRSA 'killer bacteria' that was essentially a bogus lab that was giving bogus results to undercover journalists, and of course the media's MMR hoax in the UK. Which I think you're about to get a run of in the US, with the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal thiomersal] thing, which is going to be very interesting.<br />
<br />
S: Well we're already- that's already passed its peak, the thimerosal (common name for thiomersal in US)<br />
<br />
BG: Do you think so?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, well, it was removed, you know, from vaccines in the United States by the end of 2002<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, but –<br />
<br />
S: Autism hasn't gone up<br />
<br />
BG: But the media storm didn't seem to start until what, this year, really. There was that case-<br />
<br />
S: It had a resurgence because of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_McCarthy Jenny McCarthy],<ref>Jenny McCarthy body count [http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com website]</ref> and Jim Carrey, and because of the mitochondrial DNA case<ref>Neurologica article: [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/has-the-government-conceded-vaccines-cause-autism/ Has the Government Conceded Vaccines Cause Autism?]</ref>. Yeah, so in the UK, I think the MMR was a bigger story. Thimerosal was bigger in the United States.<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: Is that still big over there? The MMR, are they still-<br />
<br />
BG: It's dwindling, the Observer did a bogus front page story about how autism was now up to one in 58, basically misunderstanding an unpublished piece of research which was looking at comparing different ways of measuring the prevalence of autism. So obviously, if you use the widest net, then you get the biggest number. But what I actually find interesting about vaccine scare is how poorly they propagate between different territories. So for example, in the UK we had the 'MMR causes autism' because of the measles virus, that was the scare, and that was mostly, that kind of peaked in 2001, 2002. But it didn't propagate outside of the UK. In America, you have your thiomersal scare, in France, they have a story about the hepatitis-B vaccine causing multiple sclerosis, but nobody's heard of that outside of France. In the UK in the 80s, we had 'whooping cough vaccine causing neurological problems' driven by ''one'' fairly eccentric doctor from Scotland, and obviously in Nigeria at the moment in Kano province, the imams have issued a pronouncement saying that the polio vaccine is a plot by the Americans to make Muslims infertile and stop them from having children.<ref>PlosMedicine article: [http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0040073#pmed-0040073-b0017 What Led to the Nigerian Boycott of the Polio Vaccination Campaign?]</ref><br />
<br />
S: And spread HIV.<br />
<br />
BG: Is that part of the scare as well?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: Oh no, yeah, you're absolutely right, yeah. And, you know, what's interesting about that, I ''guess'', is the WHO's polio medication program was on target to eradicate polio from around the world by now. But it's not, and people have, you know, you can do [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction PCR] on polio outbreaks around the world and they've found that the specific polio virus from Nigeria, from Kano province, has triggered outbreaks of polio elsewhere in the world. It's very interesting to me how these vaccine scares are all, you know, structurally quite similar, but they propagate very poorly, and I don't think the thiomersal scare could take off in the UK, just because the MMR story has been debunked in the UK. So, it would seem ridiculous to the media- it just wouldn't fit the natural tempo of the stories to then suddenly go 'oh no, but it does, actually cause these problems'<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, right<br />
<br />
R: So does that mean you think you're pretty much past the worst of all of those kind of stories in the UK? Or do you think there's another one on the horizon?<br />
<br />
BG: Certainly not, and actually for very interesting reasons, definitely not. If you look at France and Austria, you can see that they've come very close to electing, in the case of Austria, they ''did'' elect some seriously sort of right-wing fruitcakes, you know, bordering on fascism. Whereas in Germany, where they had to face up to what they did in World War II, there was a kind of truth and reconciliation process, and they have kind of green and liberal governments. There's no way, I don't think that Germany could re-elect a fascist government. I think that you have to go through the process of recognizing where you've gone wrong, in order to stop going wrong in the future. What I find fascinating about the termination of the MMR hoax, in the UK, is that it came to an end, not because the media suddenly went 'well actually, a 12 subject case series report isn't sufficient grounds to say that MMR causes autism'. It wasn't because they made a kind of critical appraisal of ''all'' of the literature for and against and went 'well actually, it just doesn't look like MMR causes autism, this was a storm in a tea-cup'. It came to an end because an investigative journalist called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Deer Brian Deer], for whom I've got a lot of respect, from the Sunday Times came along and revealed that the lead doctor who was driving the story had received half a million pounds, a million dollars, in legal sort of, you know, expert witness costs. And so he had, one could argue, a competing interest there. Now, I don't think for one moment that that's the reason why [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield Wakefield] held the views that he held, and I don't think that one man can drive a story. But now the media are all queued up to say 'oh, the original research has been debunked', when the original research was a 12 subject case series report that never meant anything about anything. And they're saying 'oh, you know, the MMR story has been disproven because Andrew Wakefield had half a million quid', so they're all queuing up to blame this one doctor for the hoax that was the media's work.<br />
<br />
S: (agreeing) mm-hmm<br />
<br />
BG: Collectively, the British media community have created this story, and they drove it for many, many years. And the fact that they're now trying to pin it on one doctor, I have to say, I'm not a big ''fan'' of Wakefield, but I think it's very healthy that there are, you know, doctors with idiosyncratic views on medicine, I think it's an absolute bizarre travesty that they're pinning it all on him.<br />
<br />
B: So they're all right, but for the wrong reasons?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, I think that's why they're not inoculated against future cock-ups<br />
<br />
R: Well, you're doing a lot to help media, scientific literacy amongst the media in the UK, but do you ever think they'll get that realisation? Do you ever think they'll finally realise what they're doing wrong?<br />
<br />
BG: I don't think you can stop people from producing stupid stories, but I think you can add some sense into the mix. So often, when I talk, people say- I do lots of talks in epidemiology departments and some medical statisticians, just cos the jokes can be a bit more interesting and sophisticated that way.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And people are often outraged, and they say 'well we need some laws to- these people need to be- we should be able to chop the fingers off bad journalists', and I just don't think it's realistic. But what you ''can'' do, is approach newspapers, and I just rang one up one day and said, you know, 'can I write for you?', and they said yes. You know, there's no great mystery, I think you can add in more sense to dilute the nonsense, or at least give people an opportunity to see some sense. Cos otherwise, unless people who understand the evidence get in there and explain the mechanics of why it is that you hold a belief on the back of some published evidence, then science, at least in Britain, is only being portrayed as being about authoritative truth statements from arbitrary cultural figures called scientists in white coats, you know, "scientists today said-", "scientists today deny-", "scientists today refuted-". But it's never, you know, "scientists today said 'well, there's this study, and it shows this, and for ''that'' reason, we think this'". That ''doesn't'' happen<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
BG: And by adding that into the mix, you do something very powerful<br />
<br />
S: And the Wakefield story reflects that, because it was about the authority of Wakefield, and when that was knocked down, the story was knocked down. Not about the evidence and the logic of whether or not there's any link between vaccines and autism.<br />
<br />
BG: It was about the authority of Wakefield, but it was also about human interest versus these white coat guys saying 'there's nothing to worry about'. So on one hand you had a worried parent, and on the other side you had a scientist saying, you know 'there's nothing to worry about', and that wouldn't reassure ''me''!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: You know, it would look like a cover-up, or it would look dismissive<br />
<br />
S: Right, so like us, you're using new media blogs to try to fight this bad journalism in the UK. How do you think that's going? How much play does your blog get?<br />
<br />
BG: It gets a lot of visitors, and it gets a lot of links, and the thing that's most exciting is there are lots of other people who are now blogging in the UK who do a really, really great job of pulling apart just sort of silly bit and bobs, but it's great when there's this kind of mass effect. Cos somebody will publish a tedious 'memory of water' paper, you know, homeopathy, and you'll be like, I can't be bothered to pull this apart. But someone somewhere will, you know, that burning sense of 'someone ''somewhere'' is wrong on the internet, I must put them right!'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And that's ''fantastic''. The only thing that disappoints me a little bit, I guess, is that I'm not as agitated about quackery as some people are, you get a lot of quite sanctimonious stuff from people kinda saying 'homeopathy is this public health ''scandal'' ', and I don't think that's true. I think homeopathy is really interesting, I think it's a really fascinating cultural phenomenon. I think it's really interesting that at a time when doctors are trying really hard to work collaboratively with patients, explain evidence with them and make decisions in concert with their patients, I think it's a tragedy that while doctors are trying to do that, quacks and the media are really kind of undermining the public's understanding of evidence. But I don't think that quackery is ''practically'' really dangerous, I think it's funny and interesting. I think it's interesting that there's a lot of bloggers who are keen to pick up on mocking quacks, which is funny, and it's great, and it produces great content. The thing that I wish that there was more of, is people taking down bogus news stories, because ''that's'' the thing that needs to be done so much more, because that's kind of the more culturally influential end of stuff, you know?<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
BG: But, I guess they're not such easy hits or, yeah, I don't know why it is.<br />
<br />
S: Well, the news cycle is quick, you've got to do it very quickly. Right? You find a new story hits, you've got to get your blog that day or you're going to get missed by the news cycle.<br />
<br />
BG: I ''guess'' so, although I'm not sure that's true, actually. I mean, I'm often cheerfully writing on things a couple of weeks after they've gone, but that's because I'm just smug enough to imagine that I can stand outside of the news thing. I actually think that's really interesting example of one of the more subtle aspects of how the media misrepresents science. I don’t think science makes a very good ''news'' subject, I think science is naturally a feature subject, because it's about emerging themes supported by a whole raft of evidence from a number of different disciplines that emerges over the course of many years. When you focus all your science reporting about a news story, a sudden breakthrough, a ''single'' piece of research, that's actually quite misrepresenting in a subtle way. Firstly because the stuff that makes a finding newsworthy, actually make it quite likely to be wrong, you know, it's incongruent with previous results, for example. And so it misrepresents stuff in that way. Obsessing over stuff being ''newsy'' is actually a bit of a mistake, I think people who are communicating science should feel cool with just sitting back and going 'what do we know about functional brain imaging and schizophrenia? There's a really interesting story there'<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
BG: It doesn't have to be ''new''<br />
<br />
S: I totally agree, I think the news cycle and the obsession with the story is really antithetical to the way science really works, which is taking your time and putting it together into the big picture. Often times I think you do that well, and that's we try to do, sort of take the news story and back up now into context, which is what the journalists ''don't'' do, right?<br />
<br />
BG: Well, sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't, I think there's a really interesting split in certain British news media, which has been studied quite carefully, which is: specialist health and science reporters are actually very good at their job, they know a lot of background, they know how to critically appraise research, and they will often make a fairly good stab at doing that with their articles, as long as they can get it past the desk. But what you find is, whenever a story becomes a big, political hot potato, whenever it becomes a big news story, like the MMR vaccine, or the GM food, the 'Frankenstein' food front pages of 1998, you find that the stories get taken out of the hands of the specialists, and put into the hands of the generalists, so the MMR story, especially after the question became 'did Tony Blair's son have the MMR vaccine?' – a fact that was mentioned in 33% of the news stories about MMR in 2002, when Andrew Wakefield's name was only in 25%, so Tony Blair's son was a bigger figure in our media coverage than Andrew Wakefield was. What you find is that, also, when there's a big story like MMR, also MMR was twice as likely to be written about by generalist journalists as a story about cloning, for example. And in the first two days after the Frankenstein food story hit the news stands, not a single one of the news or comment pieces in the ''entirity'' of the British news media, was written by a science columnist.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, that's definitely a big problem. Ben, you have a book coming out based on your blog, why don't you tell us about that?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, it's called '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Science_%28book%29 Bad Science]', maintaining brand homogeneity. And that's coming out with Fourth Estate, Harper Collins in September, and it should be very good, although it's very, very UK-centric, because I write about misrepresentation of science in the media, and the media I know very well is UK media. And I have this huge raft of examples from a ''thousand'' stories now, that's not an estimate, that's like, the number. And I've kinda been able to- it kinda grew out of this bet with a friend where, like, we both teach epidemiology, and I was like 'I bet I could teach the whole of epi' – or epidemiholiday As the medical students call it=<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Epidemiholiday?<br />
<br />
BG: 'I bet I can teach the whole of epi, only using exaples of people getting things wrong in broadsheet national news papers'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And it turned out to be true, but what I'd really like, actually, is to get a better handle on the ways that science is misrepresented in the media in America, cos it would be great to branch out and I'm not mercenary about selling the book, I accept that I will lead a life of obscurity in academia in a rented ex-council flat-<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: I fear that would be a volume of books if you attempted to do that, not just a single book.<br />
<br />
BG: Right, that would be like Churchill's history of World War I<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: But, I'm telling you, following your blog, that the examples are completely applicable to the United States, I think they'd be very-<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, well, actually, if there are people out there listening who know about this stuff, what I'd really like – ben@badscience.net - what I'd really like is for people to send me sort of examples from American media that mirror the cock-ups in British media. Are we allowed to say cock-ups in a Christian country?<br />
<br />
R: Oh, we're allowed to say it ''twice'', gosh<br />
<br />
BG: Have I said cock twice?<br />
<br />
E: You British are allowed to say anything you want<br />
<br />
R: That's three now.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Alright, well sometimes the stories are the same, like I think you covered the regenerating finger story.<ref>Ben Goldacre's Guardian article: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may/03/medicalresearch.health The missing finger that never was]</ref><br />
<br />
BG: That was hilarious! I mean that was-<br />
<br />
S: And we covered that too, <!--internal reference???--><br />
<br />
R: Yeah, that was great<br />
<br />
BG: Out of nowhere, and it was like three years old too<br />
<br />
S&R: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: But it was the BBC who reignited that story! And again, it was not a science or health correspondent, it was the BBC's New York correspondent, and you could see he was like, he was ''beside himself'' with excitement.<ref>BBC article & video: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7354458.stm The man who grew back his finger tip]</ref> He really thought he had found Nobel prize winning stuff with this, like, backwards guy in his model shop, who's finger had grown back. And he, this sense of holy reverence as he talked about the science, was just extraordinary, and just disproportionate to the reality, which was that, lop the top of your finger off and it just grows back, that's just nature<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it healed naturally<br />
<br />
R: It just happens<br />
<br />
S: You're hawking your brother's new product.<br />
<br />
BG: New company, yeah<br />
<br />
R: I should tell him about the holes for my earrings that closed up after I didn't wear earrings for a while.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: I mean, it's really interesting that there's this recurring theme in all of these stories in bad science and the media, and also in quackery, where we're sort of bringing all these childish fables, we're letting them take the credit for the amazing things that the body does, you know. Like when people were bringing in that placebo pill, and I'm like, I'm in sort of two minds about the ethics of giving placebos, I think it might be useful in ''some'' situations, but giving placebos to kids when they've got a cold, and I kinda think 'well, ok, you wanna tell your kid a reassuring story: here's a pill, you'll get better'. But how more empowering is it to say 'look, at the moment, there's this small, ''tiny'' microscopic organism that's gone into your body, it's called a virus, and it's really clever. What it does, is it exploits the machinery in your body that makes new parts for you, and it uses that to make copies of itself, and also it releases these other things that irritate the other parts of your body, and that's why you've got a cough and a sore throat, but your body's really clever, because on the surface of every cell, is holding out copies of all the stuff that's happening inside, and the immune system cells are floating around, and they have a look at what's in every cell by looking at this stuff that's being held out on the surface. And when they see something that's alien like that, they go in and they call all of their friends who arrive, following like a smoke trail to the source of the fire, along a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemotaxis chemotactic] path, and then they go in, and they find the bad guys, and they wrap them up in, like, a little ball, and they squirt bleach at them, and they kill them'. Now that, to me, why is that a sugar pill?<br />
<br />
J: I finally understand!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: Why let a sugar pill take credit for that? It's just insane, you know, and why let a ''healer'' take credit for that. But why let some magic powder take credit for the totally amazing fact that, if you cut the top of your finger off, it grows back like ''new'', I mean ''that'', that's a miracle, you know!<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: Quite apart from the fact that in the stories they were sort of talking about powder made out of (mystically) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endothelial_cells ''endothelial'' cells]!<br />
<br />
E,B&S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: As if like-<br />
<br />
S: It's some exotic thing, pig's bladder<br />
<br />
BG: No, it was (laughing)<br />
<br />
BG&S: 'extra-cellular matrix'<br />
<br />
BG: and it was like 'and these are made of 'extra-cellular matrix', and you're like extra-cellular matrix surrounds the cells of every single cell in all of the bodies of all of the people in the world, extra-cellular, you know, there's ''more'' extra-cellular matrix in the world than you could shake a stick at.<br />
<br />
J: That's like 'the super spectacular!'<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: 'Space-age technology', that's 50 years old!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Well, Ben, we certainly appreciate what you're doing, we love your blog and your articles for the Guardian, I fell like we're just getting started, maybe we'll have a chance to sit down again, if not here, some time in the future.<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, cool<br />
<br />
S: And thanks again for sitting with us.<br />
<br />
R: Thanks, Ben<br />
<br />
BG: Cheers, thank you.<br />
<br />
== Randi Speaks: The Media <small>(59:20)</small> ==<br />
(jingle) And now, Randi speaks.<br />
<br />
S: Randi, tell us how you think the media deals with issues of science and skepticism.<br />
<br />
JR: Rather badly, generally speaking, because the media is interested in a sensational story. Well, they say they want news, but they want ''sensationa''l news. You know very well that puppy dog down a sewer is going to get much more attention than some political hack in the local community, unless he has something to do with puppies going down sewers. The media's that way, and it's understandable, they want to sell newspapers and programs and wot-not. I've said it before and I'll say it again: most people in the media are educated in the humanities, and they don't have a good grasp of science and reality, and how things work. They're very easily deceived, they're very na&iuml;ve in some respects, and they're purposefully na&iuml;ve perhaps because they want the story to be there. Now, an excellent example of that on a very high level is an ABC TV program that I did, I guess last year. They got me all the way in to New York city to discuss the '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo%C3%A3o_de_Deus_%28medium%29 John of god]' situation. Now, 'John of god' is a so-called psychic healer and wot-not in Brazil, and he's doing very simple tricks that, kind of what people have known for a long time, sticking sticks up your nose and wot-not, and he actually sticks forceps up the patients' noses. I went armed for bear, I went to New York City, and they stuck me in the studio in front of a video camera. I had with me video tapes, props and wot-not, and I spoke with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Qui%C3%B1ones John Qui&ntilde;ones], he was the host on the show. They interviewed me for two and a half hours, ''two and a half hours'' they interviewed me! <br />
<br />
I was on with a man called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehmet_Oz Dr Mehmet Oz], a very, very famous cardiac surgeon in New York city, a great reputation, but totally woo-woo. He actually has nurses specially trained in the art of balancing the aura, walking around in his ''operating room'' while he's got a patient on the table with his chest cavity open and his heart being fixed! And Mehmet Oz will throw up his hands when told by the nurse that she's coming through to balance the aura by passing her hands over it! Incredible! Incredible that a man in this day and age, let alone a very highly educated man like Mehmet Oz, would be involved in such quackery! Such absolute foolishness, such a juvenile approach to reality. But, nonetheless, he is a great cardiac surgeon, and I would trust myself to him ''any'' time. (quietly and suspiciously) As long as he kept the woman with the funny gloves out of the place. (in normal voice) But, he was on the program as well, it ended up that the program used nine seconds of what I said. Nine seconds out of two and a half hours. They didn't use any other recorded material, any other references to the video tapes with demonstrations of how the forceps up the nose trick is done, as I say, it's an old carnival stunt. But they used a great deal of Mehmet Oz, they used quotations from him, and he even said something – for a Dr, very foolish – he said that sticking up the nose came close to certain glands in the head and wot-not, but he didn't notice – because he doesn't operate on the head, I guess, that there's a half-inch layer of ''bone'' in between where the forceps go up. Now, is it supposed to be a magnetic influence? A proximity influence? A capacity effect? I don't know, but he mentioned that as a possibility. He really is a woo-woo artist. Unfortunately, with all of that education and very extensive training and great expertise. <br />
<br />
So they used all of nine seconds, but they used it so unfairly, they had me saying – and this took nine seconds, "there are no greater liars in the world than quacks, except for their patients". Now, that was broadcast like that, but the complete quotation was "As that early American philosopher [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin Ben Franklin] once said, there are no greater liars in the world than quacks, except for their patients". So, I was attributing it to Ben Franklin, but they cut that out, because that made it look as if I was stealing it from Ben Franklin. I got emails, Steve, from all over the world, saying "you're quoting Ben Franklin, you stole that! You should have attributed it to them". I did! But they edited it out, and they edited out the complete explanation of how the forceps up the nose trick was done, and the various other things that 'John of God' does. Now this is totally irresponsible, it borders on the criminal, because what that does, ABC television in a feature program had this number about 'John of God', and that, I'm sure, brought ''hundreds'' of Americans to travel off to Brazil and spend their hard-earned money on this quackery. And 'John of God', I'm sure, was very happy with it. And they never did a retraction of any kind.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(1:04:43)</small> ==<br />
(jingle)<br />
<br />
S: Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two genuine, and one fictitious. And then, my panel of skeptics tries to tell me which one they think is the fake. Are you guys ready for this week?<br />
<br />
B:…yes<br />
<br />
S: Here we go, number one: 'Astrophysicists have discovered the upper limit for the mass of a black hole'. Item number two: 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge'. And item number three 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells'. Bob, go first.<br />
<br />
B: (quietly) you ''bastard''<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: 'upper limit for the mass of a black hole', it does sound kinda bizarre, I mean, what's preventing a black hole from just getting bigger and bigger? Um, so on the surface, that doesn't sound right, if you think about it. Dinosaur dominance 'due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge', I mean, that makes sense on the surface, absolutely. A lot of evolution and whether you go extinct or not has to do with luck. That definitely can play a part, maybe that makes too much sense. 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells', that sounds pretty cool, and that would be awesome, I'm gonna say that's science. I'm gonna say that… that the dinosaur dominance being luck, that sounds a little fishy, I'm gonna say that that is fiction.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, Evan?<br />
<br />
E: Well, 'upper limit for the mass of a black hole'… I mean, there would have to be some kind of upper limit, wouldn't there? It's just a matter of discovering it, one would ''think'', but I'm not too sure about that. Dinosaurs having an advantage over contemporaries 'was due to luck'… yeah. But how were they able to determine that, you know, how do you equate 'luck' in a scientific context? I'm not quite sure ''really'' what's being said there. And then the 'improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells', sure, yes, finding out all kinds of new things about all stem cells these days, cutting edge science, totally plausible. So I'll agree with Bob that the dinosaur one is fiction.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: See now, I'm not so sure, because I'm pretty sure I read something about this, and that they actually found these skeletons of an elderly pack of velocoraptors, surrounded by a field of four-leafed clovers, and a small pile of rabbit's feet next to them. So, I believe that that's actually science, and I also think that a black hole should have an upper limit, cos otherwise, well, you know, that's too scary to compliment- er, contemplate. So I think that transplanting muscle stem cells, I don't think we're quite to the point where we can improve strength and performance doing that, and that sounds like, are we doing studies on humans with muscle stem cells? That doesn't seem like it's going to work, I don't know. I think that's fiction, so-<br />
<br />
S: Ok, alright? Jay?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, the upper limit to the black hole- the upper limit to the ''mass'' of a black hole, I would just assume that it makes a lot of sense, like Evan said, that someone would be able to sit down and run the math and be able to theoretically figure that out. 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge'. Mmm, that one seems … fishy to me for some reason, how could they determine it was just luck? I wonder how the fossil record could demonstrate that. And the last one, 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells'. Yeah, you know, I think I would've heard this. If that happened, I think that it would be much bigger news, you know, definitely above the water line, or ''I'' would've read it, with the amount of reading I do on science news. I don't think that one is science, I think that one was altered by Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, so you all agree that 'Astrophysicists have discovered the upper limit for the mass of a black hole', correct?<br />
<br />
J,B&E: Yes<br />
<br />
S:Yeah, actually, ''this'' was the most counter-intuitive one for me when I first read it. This is science, and, you know, like Bob, my reaction was 'what would stop it from absorbing more mass? What would happen if a black hole reached it's upper limit, and then, you know, there was more material to suck in, what would happen?' Well, it turns out astrophysicists-<br />
<br />
B: More to it.<br />
<br />
S: -have calculated the theoretical upper limit for the mass of a black hole, it's a Yale astronomer in fact, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priyamvada_Natarajan Priyamvada Natarajan]. What (s)he suspects is, there's a mechanism that, as the black hole gets to about 10 billion solar masses-<br />
<br />
E: Wow<br />
<br />
S: -that any matter falling into it would cause the radiation away of an equal amount of mass. <ref name="Yale">Yale news: [http://news.yale.edu/2008/09/04/yale-astronomer-discovers-upper-mass-limit-black-holes Yale Astronomer Discovers Upper Mass Limit for Black Holes]</ref> So it reaches an equilibrium point, you know-<br />
<br />
J: baaahh (?)<br />
<br />
S: -evaporate or radiate away the same amount of mass that was pulled into it-<br />
<br />
B: Wait, but you're not talking about [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation Hawking radiation] though. ''My'' interpretation was that-<br />
<br />
S: No, no<br />
<br />
B: -you've got [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accretion_disc accretion disk] radiation<br />
<br />
S: Yes, that's right<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, that's a big difference. And my understanding, though, Steve, was that this isn't a hard rule. If you've got so much in-falling matter, you would reach a point where the radiation being generated by the heat of the accretion disk would actually blow away solar ma- any material that would've fallen into the black hole, so you gotta kinda like a soft limitation in that way. But if you've got a 10 billion solar mass black hole, and it bumps into a neutron star, or a smaller black hole, nothing's going to stop that from getting bigger than 10 billion-<br />
<br />
S: Well, see, I was not clear on that point from the article that I read. That was my question too.<br />
<br />
B: That was my understanding from reading some articles, and reading a lot of the comments from people who seem to know what they were talking about. What I know about black holes, what is going to stop it, to go above it if it's as I described.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, but the press release makes it sound like that's just one possible explanation, but that other things were used to derive this upper limit. You know, we might have to do some follow-up to try and sort that out, but that was exactly the question that I had: is that a ''hard'' limit? Or is it a ''soft'' limit? You seem to think that it was a soft limit, right?<br />
<br />
B: Absolutely<br />
<br />
S: And my interpretation was that this was a ''hard'' limit, and one of the mechanisms proposed for that would prevent the black hole from getting bigger than about 10 billion solar masses, but, interesting either way. So let's go on to number two: 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge', and Bob and Evan, you both said that this one was fiction.<br />
<br />
J: So it's down to Bob and Evan, and me and Rebecca, teaming up again<br />
<br />
S: Jay and Rebecca thought this one is science, and this one… is… ''science''!<br />
<br />
J: Ah-ha!<br />
<br />
(high-five sound)<br />
<br />
J: You guys suck.<br />
<br />
S: But you guys did ask-<br />
<br />
B: There goes my run.<br />
<br />
S: an excellent question, which is- 'how would-<br />
<br />
E: mofos<br />
<br />
S: -'how would they know?'. How would you even make this determination?<br />
<br />
E: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: I don't know, you dominate the planet for 200 million years, there's gotta be some competitive edge in there.<br />
<br />
E: Well explain what ''luck'' is, in this context.<br />
<br />
J: Talk to us, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Well, luck would be that there was an environmental change, and you ''happened'' to benefit from that change, as opposed to-<br />
<br />
B: Like ''humans'', mammals<br />
<br />
S: -you just out-competed, you out-competed your contemporaries. Now, what they did, was they, this is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_L._Brusatte Steve Brusatte] from Bristol University, department of Earth Sciences. And they looked at the species that were around early in the career of the dinosaurs. They found that the other major group at the time were the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crurotarsi crurotarsans], which were alligator-like reptiles. At that time, they were a more diverse group, with greater disparity, and actually were dominant over the early dinosaurs at their time. He said, if you were, you know, in the early [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triassic triassic], for example, and you looked at these two groups, you would predict, based upon their diversity, disparity and dominance, that the crurotarsans would have a much greater chance of dominating the future than the dinosaurs would.<ref name="SM">Science magazine: [http://www.sciencemag.org/content/321/5895/1485.short Superiority, Competition, and Opportunism in the Evolutionary Radiation of Dinosaurs] DOI: 10.1126/science.1161833</ref><ref name="SA">Scientific American: [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=was-the-dinosaurs-long-reign-a-fluke Was the Dinosaurs' Long Reign on Earth a Fluke?]</ref> So by any measure of 'who was winning', the crurotarsans seemed to be winning in terms of spreading into more ecosystems and, you know, having greater numbers, etc. But then two things happened, there was the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnian carnian]-norian event 228 million years ago, which caused a lot of extinctions, with both the dinosaurs and the crurotarsans survived that, but it did eliminate a lot of competition, and then 200 million years ago, there was the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triassic#Late_Triassic_extinction_event end Triassic extinction], which resulted from a period of significant global warming, increase in temperature, and the dinosaurs weathered the increase in temperature, and the crurotarsans didn't. But until that climate change occurred, the crurotarsans were out-competing the dinosaurs, if anything. So that's what they mean by luck, they just ''happened'' to benefit from a change in the climate when, if, all things being equal, they were not directly out-competing their contemporaries. Which means that number three: 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells' is fiction.<br />
<br />
B: Whatever.<br />
<br />
S: But what ''is'' true, is that they just identified what the muscle stem cell ''is''. They didn't really know which muscle was ''in fact'' the muscle stem cell.<br />
<br />
B: Crap, that's what I read.<br />
<br />
S: Yes, perhaps that's what you'd read. So, and it turns out to be the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myosatellite_cell satellite] cell which is a type of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progenitor_cells progenitor] cell that exists near the muscles, or in the muscle tissue, and, you know, in repair or exercise, etc. will generate new muscle tissue. But we haven't successfully transplanted muscle cells into people. That's not happened yet.<br />
<br />
J: (mimicking) Stem cells are made of people!<br />
<br />
B: Man, I hate when a vague memory of reading an article totally kills you<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I know, that's what got me<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, sucks to be you, Bob<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: You gotta stop reading, guys.<br />
<br />
J: So, Steve really is the bastard tonight<br />
<br />
B: Jay, you bastard, you ended the run I had, it was like a nine-winning streak run (actually 10). How long was your run?<br />
<br />
J: Four foot one<br />
<br />
E: Four foot one<br />
<br />
S: Well, congratulations Jay and Rebecca, good job.<br />
<br />
J: Yay! Rebecca!<br />
<br />
E: Yay!<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:16:28)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: Jay, do you have a quote for us this week?<br />
<br />
J: I have a quote this week from a man called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume David Hume], he lived 1711-1776, that was a pretty good year, wasn't it? And I'm always surprised when I read quotes from people that lived centuries ago, especially ones that are exceptionally logical or rational, maybe I'm skewed, or maybe just from reading quotes from a lot of very smart people during that time, I don't know. I'd like to know if I'm just thinking that they're overly rational for their time, or maybe people were more rational in the past.<br />
<br />
S: Well it was the age of enlightenment for a reason, Jay.<br />
<br />
J: David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, an economist, historian, and an important figure in western philosophy, and he said, or wrote:<br />
<blockquote>When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.</blockquote><br />
J: DAVID HUME! … I think this is also a good quote to go with Melvin's email to us. MELVIN LEE! (even louder) MELVIN LEE!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: CONFUSED LISTENER!<br />
<br />
R: Ok, the David Hume one didn't make me laugh, but...<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Right, just a quick reminder that October 10<sup>th</sup>, New York city is the New York city's skeptic's first annual anniversary event, they're going to have James Randi speak for them, and then October 11<sup>th</sup>, in Fairfield Connecticut, Perry's home town, we're going to have the first annual Perry DeAngelis memorial lecture!<br />
<br />
E,B&J: Yay!<br />
<br />
S: October 11<sup>th</sup>, noon to three at the Fairfield theatre company, we have the information on our message-board, and on our facebook page, and Jay, can we put that on the website? I know we're in the middle of the update and everything, but can we put that up?<br />
<br />
J: I will put it on the homepage<br />
<br />
S: ''and'' we have confirmed guests Steve Mirsky, from Scientific American-<br />
<br />
J: He's awesome<br />
<br />
S: -and Terence Hines-<br />
<br />
E: Nice<br />
<br />
S: -excellent skeptic and neuroscientist, and author of 'Pseudoscience and the paranormal', ain't it cool?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, he's a good dude<br />
<br />
S: Well, thank you all again for joining me this week<br />
<br />
(someone singing "going crazy"?)<br />
<br />
R: Thanks Steve<br />
<br />
E: Yes, it was good joining you<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Fun as always, and until next week, this is your Skeptics' guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
<br />
== Today I learned... ==<br />
*The first space shuttle, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Enterprise Enterprise] was unveiled by NASA on September 17th 1976. <br />
<br />
*September 19th is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day international talk like a pirate day].<br />
<br />
*In February 2006, astronomers using the Hubble space telescope spotted a mystery object that continually brightened for about 100 days, after which, it dimmed symmetrically for the next 100 days.<ref name="Barbary"/> The distance to the object has been said to be between 120 and 11 billion light years away, and does not match any object in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloan_Digital_Sky_Survey Sloan Digital Sky Survey] at the time of the podcast.<br />
<br />
*Church of England offered a formal apology to Darwin in September 2008! ([http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7613403.stm BBC article])<br />
<br />
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restless_legs_syndrome Restless leg syndrome]has been documented for over 100 years.<br />
<br />
*Astrophysicists at Yale have calculated the upper limit for the mass of a black hole, stating that as a black hole gets to about 10 billion solar masses, any subsequent matter falling into it would cause the radiation away of an equal amount of mass.<ref name="Yale"/><br />
<br />
*New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge. It is thought that global warming in the late Triassic era may have led to the extinction of the previously dominant [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crurotarsi crurotarsans], whilst the dinosaurs survived.<ref name="SM"/><ref name="SA"/> <br />
<br />
*The muscle stem cell is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myosatellite_cell satellite] cell which is a type of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progenitor_cells progenitor] cell that exist near the muscles, or in the muscle tissue, and will generate new muscle tissue in repair or exercise, etc.<br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation<br />
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}}</div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_165&diff=9637SGU Episode 1652015-02-06T00:58:56Z<p>Jason koziol: proof-reading</p>
<hr />
<div>{{proof-reading all<br />
|proof-reader = Jason koziol<br />
|date = 7 Jan 2015<br />
|proof-reading = y<br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox <br />
|episodeNum = 165<br />
|episodeDate = 17<sup>th</sup> September 2008<br />
|episodeIcon = File:goldacre.jpg<br />
|rebecca = y<br />
|bob = y<br />
|jay = y<br />
|evan = y<br />
|guest1 = BG: [http://www.badscience.net/ Ben Goldacre]<br />
|guest2 = JR: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi James Randi]<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2008-09-17.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com//index.php/topic,14234.0.html<br />
|qowText = When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.<br />
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume David Hume]<br />
|}}<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.<br />
<br />
S: Hello, and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday September 17<sup>th</sup> 2008, and this is your host, Steven Novella, President of the [http://www.theness.com/ New England Skeptical Society]. Joining me this evening are Bob Novella,<br />
<br />
B: Hey everybody<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca Watson<br />
<br />
R: Hello, everyone<br />
<br />
S: Jay Novella<br />
<br />
J: Hey guys<br />
<br />
S: And Evan Bernstein<br />
<br />
E: Hi everyone, how's everyone doin' tonight?<br />
<br />
J: Good<br />
<br />
S: Good<br />
<br />
R: Great<br />
<br />
B: What's goin' on<br />
<br />
E: Good!<br />
<br />
== This Day in Skepticism <small>(0:36)</small> ==<br />
<br />
R: What's the day, Evan?<br />
<br />
E: 1976, the first space shuttle, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Enterprise Enterprise], unveiled by NASA.<br />
<br />
B: Ah, that's awesome<br />
<br />
E: Not launched, just unveiled<br />
<br />
S: Just unveiled?<br />
<br />
J: I remember being a kid, watching the TV, seeing a bunch of people standing on the tarmac, watching it be unveiled, then playing the theme to the Enterprise, you know, Star Trek.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
E: (laughs)<br />
<br />
J: Remember that?<br />
<br />
S: But I was devastated when I learned the Enterprise was never going to go into orbit.<br />
<br />
B: No <br />
<br />
J: What a gip!<br />
<br />
E: That's right<br />
<br />
B: Just a mock-up<br />
<br />
S: They should've saved the name for the first one to launch, not just the training module.<br />
<br />
R: I know a better day that's coming up, and that would be Friday, the 19<sup>th</sup>. You guys know what Friday is?<br />
<br />
J: Friday, um…<br />
<br />
S: September 19<sup>th</sup>?<br />
<br />
R: Uh-huh, you give up?<br />
<br />
B: Sorry<br />
<br />
S: The start of fall<br />
<br />
R: (complete with accent) Aaar, it's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day talk-like-a-pirate day]! Ye land-lubbers!<br />
<br />
B: Yes! How could I forget?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Didn't we just have that?<br />
<br />
J: That's a great day!<br />
<br />
E: Last year we mentioned that.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Aaaar<br />
<br />
B: It's an awesome day<br />
<br />
S: Has it been a year already?<br />
<br />
R: It has<br />
<br />
E: Aaaar, matey, it has.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Good thing we're not doing the podcast on Friday.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, can't we ''pretend''?<br />
<br />
B: Oh, the whole- the whole days as pirates?<br />
<br />
E: Today is talk like a ninja day<br />
<br />
S: Knock yourself out<br />
<br />
R: You can't talk like a ninja!<br />
<br />
S: Actually, ''today''-<br />
<br />
E: Sure you can,<br />
<br />
R: They just sneak up and stab you<br />
<br />
S: Today is international talk like a skeptic day<br />
<br />
B: Ha!<br />
<br />
R: (laughing) You made that up<br />
<br />
E: (with accent) I doubt that, har-har-har<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Well, we have an interview that we recorded at TAM 6 with Ben Goldacre coming up later in the show.<br />
<br />
B: Ben!<br />
<br />
R: That's aaaaar-some, Steve. I can't wait<br />
<br />
S: Ben is a cool guy. Our first new item is about Ben<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Ben Goldacre Defends Libel Case <small>(2:17)</small>===<br />
[http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=377 Neurologica: An Important Victory Against HIV Quackery]<br />
<br />
S: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Goldacre Ben Goldacre], who writes for the Guardian, and is one of the guys in the UK who's writing about science and medicine. He had written a piece about [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthias_Rath Matthias Rath], you guys familiar with this guy?<br />
<br />
R: Only in that I know he's a douche<br />
<br />
B: Er, no<br />
<br />
S: Right, he is a ''giant'' douche, he really is. So he has an organisation-<br />
<br />
R: (in the background) Am I gonna get sued for that?<br />
<br />
S: -that sells ''all kinds'' of snake oil, and what Ben wrote about was Rath selling vitamins in South Africa to AIDS victims, telling them ''not'' to take their anti-HIV medications, but instead, to take his vitamins. You know, there's an actual death count that you can attach to that kinda behaviour.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: So, Ben called him out on that. Now, Rath has a history of suing anyone who criticizes him, he has many, many lawsuits in many countries. You know, anyone who says that what he's doing is not legitimate, his response is to sue them.<br />
<br />
R: Including in South Africa where he's causing the most damage.<br />
<br />
S: Yes, South Africa, Germany, and again against the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian Guardian] and Ben Goldacre. And he's won some of those suits, unfortunately. But this, recently he had to withdraw his suit against the Guardian and Ben Goldacre ''and'' he's going to have to pay about half a million pounds in legal fees as a result as well. So that was a very good outcome. Of course, we all congratulate Ben on seeing that through, you know, it's obviously something that cuts very close to home. We spend a lot of our time dishing out very harsh criticism to a lot of people. Some of whom are heartless charlatans who will kill people if it lines their pockets, and who have a history of defending themselves by intimidating others with lawsuits and-<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, and you know, it's very different in England, where the laws aren't quite as much on the side of people who are making the statements, it's not quite on the side of free-speech as it is in the US.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
R: I think that, you know, we have a certain amount of protection going for us, but in the UK, it's fairly easy for someone to sue for libel slander, because once they do, the burden is on the defendant, as opposed to in the US, where the burden of proof is on the plaintive, and I am ''not'' a lawyer.<br />
<br />
S: No, that's correct. Although, in England, the one advantage in the UK, is that it's pretty standard, if you lose such a lawsuit, it's almost automatic that you pay the other side's legal fees. So that's the disincentive for frivolous lawsuits.<br />
<br />
R: Right, and so sure enough, he's had to cough up, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: These are ''critical'' victories for free-speech for sceptics everywhere who are trying to, you know, point out, especially this kind of really destructive behaviour. So, this is, I think, a very important victory. So, congratulations Ben!<br />
<br />
E: Good job, Ben<br />
<br />
R: Yay Ben!<br />
<br />
=== Hubble Finds Mystery Object <small>(5:20)</small>===<br />
[http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/newsblog/28244844.html?pageSize=0 Sky & Telescope article]<br />
<br />
S: The next news item, the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope Hubble] finds a mystery object that ''genuinely'' has astronomers ''baffled''<br />
<br />
R: Astronomers are baffled!<br />
<br />
S: They are<br />
<br />
J: They're baffled!<br />
<br />
S: They're generally baffled.<br />
<br />
E: are they flummoxed?<br />
<br />
S: And flummoxed.<br />
<br />
J: So what is it, Steve?<br />
<br />
S: Now, this is pretty interesting<br />
<br />
B: That's the question, Jay, it's- really nobody knows, according to a paper that's about to appear in the Astrophysical journal.<ref name="Barbary">Barbary et al. (2009) [http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/690/2/1358/ Discovery of an unusual optical transient with the hubble space telescope ] ApJ 690 1358 doi:10.1088/0004-637X/690/2/1358 </ref> Something extraordinary, never been seen before by astronomers appeared in 2006, so I was a little disappointed that it was two years ago, like, 'what? We're just hearing about this ''now''?'. But to this day, it is not known what the hell it was, or if it will ever appear again. It started with the Supernova Cosmology Project in February 2006 using Hubble, looking for Supernovae in February. A previously unknown object started getting brighter and brighter, and brighter, and it just did not stop. And this continued for about 100 days, at that point, it pretty much stopped getting brighter and bigger, and then just started to symmetrically dim for the next 100 days. So it was really, perfectly symmetrical light curve where the dimming is perfectly matched by the brightening in the beginning. The spectrum of light was also an enigma, the spectrum basically just shows the rainbow of colors from a light source, but also, of course, includes the non-visible light, like UV or radio. And ''typically'', these certain pieces of the spectrum are missing from a spectrum. And the lines that are missing shows you what elements must have been near the light source, or in the intervening space that absorbed it. So you've got these emission lines, but these emission lines made no sense.<br />
<br />
S: Don't you mean 'absorption lines'? Just to be clear, emission lines are different from absorption lines. Emission lines are when- are from the body itself that's glowing, absorption lines are from something intervening that's absorbing the light that was emitted.<br />
<br />
B: That's right, you were right. So this is a key deficit in our knowledge about this object, because if you can't determine what the elements are, what the arrangement of elements are in the spectrum, then you don't know how red-shifted the object is. That's one of the reasons why quasars were such a puzzle to astronomers early on, because quasars are so red-shifted, they're billions of light years distant, therefore, their red-shift is gargantuan, and it took a while for astronomers to realize 'wait a second, hydrogen's way over here, if it's way over here, it's gotta be immensely distant'. And that's gotta be one of the key insights that made them realize that these objects were so far away. So if we don't have this information, if we can't kinda get a picture of what's going on with the spectrum of this object, then you have no idea how far away this is. Is it in our galaxy?<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Is it in ''another'' galaxy? We don't know!<br />
<br />
J: Is that like a ball of hydrogen, or some hot-pocket of air, or expanding space somewhere?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: All we know is what we saw. It was some sort of stellar object that got brighter and brighter, like a Supernova, and then dimmed. But it was not typical of any other object that they've ever seen before.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they said it's specifically ''not'' a supernova.<br />
<br />
R: And if you were a pirate, would you call it a quasaaaaarrr?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: Quasaaaarr! Yes! Good one.<br />
<br />
E: No!<br />
<br />
R: I suspect that they call it quasaarrr<br />
<br />
S: That's not a (inaudible)<br />
<br />
B: We do have a range though, this thing must be within a certain range by other measurements, and one of them is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax parallax]. Parallax is the movement of one object due to movement of a foreground object, so if an object is close enough away, say less than 130 light years, you would see obvious parallax. We're not seeing that, so that means that this object is ''more'' than 130 light years away. So that's the ''bottom'' limit right there. So, what's the upper limit? Well, the only upper limit I came across for this thing has to do with hydrogen absorption. Because it's lacking hydrogen absorption in the spectrum, that means that it has to be less than 11 billion light years away. So our range is greater than 120 light years, less than 11 billion light years.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Nice range<br />
<br />
E: Oh, narrowed it down, that's great<br />
<br />
B: That's the best they've come up with in ''two years''. So, it could be anywhere in the intervening space.<br />
<br />
S: But interestingly, given that it could be- there's such a huge range for how far away it could be, they said that it's not ''in'' any known galaxy. So there's no galaxy, I guess, on that-<br />
<br />
B: I have a problem with that. I have a problem with that because there's been mention of this [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo%C3%B6tes Bo&ouml;tes constellation] they referred to, which is just a constellation of stars within our galaxy. But they refer to it as a void where there's really nothing around it for many light years, apparently. Now, there is a ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo%C3%B6tes_void Bo&ouml;tes super-void], it's a void, one of the biggest voids in the known universe, it's 250 million light years wide. Now I ''think'' they are possibly referring to this, they're saying that it's within this specific void. If it could be 130 light years away or 11 billion light years away, why do they think it's in a void 250 million light years across?<br />
<br />
S: I don't think it's ''just'' that, my reading was that it's not in any ''known'' galaxy, if it were in a galaxy, they're not seeing the galaxy that it's in.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, but why even mention this specific Bo&ouml;tes void or concept? Cos that, to me, just seems like a red herring.<br />
<br />
J: Bob, do we know if it's heading in a direction? Like, what direction it was moving in?<br />
<br />
B: No, there was no- you know, 200 days is not gonna be any- there wasn't really any discernable movement. Now, could it be a new type of Supernova? Scientists don't ''think'' so, there's a problem with that, because it doesn't match any of the known Supernova types and the brightening took much longer than normal, typically, Supernovas will brighten for 20 days, this one lasted for 100 days, and the spectrum didn't make any sense. The light curve should be asymmetrical for a Supernova, they fade more slowly than they brighten, it didn't make any sense.<br />
<br />
S: They also said it was ''not'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_microlensing microlensing]<br />
<br />
B: Right, the light curve doesn't match a microlensing event. Microlensing occurs when light is distorted as it travels over a gravitational source. They've ruled that out as well. It doesn't look like a quasar, I mean nothing that-<br />
<br />
R&E: Aaaarrr<br />
<br />
B: They put this spectrum through the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloan_Digital_Sky_Survey Sloan Digital Sky Survey] database, which has just a ''vast'' number of objects, and it didn't match anything in there. This is really quite a mystery and I-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, so this thing is probably a whole new class of object – which is cool!<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, some people have speculated that it's some sort of- because it's so symmetrical and blah, blah, blah that it could be-<br />
<br />
R: Aliens<br />
<br />
B: -some sort of sign from an intelligence, but obviously there's nothing that would really give you any confidence in that sort of conclusion. Not yet, anyway. But that would be interesting, if evidence pointed that way, but, man, I'm not counting on that at all.<br />
<br />
S: You don't think it's like a Death Star blowing up or something?<br />
<br />
B: They were talking about it in the comments.<br />
<br />
J: We would need so much more freakin evidence, you can't jump to ''that'', that's incredible<br />
<br />
B: No, that's ridiculous<br />
<br />
S: Well they thought that about pulsars when they first saw them, they were called LGM<br />
<br />
B: LGM, little green men, it was so regular<br />
<br />
E: Cos it was too regular, right? It could only have been created or something<br />
<br />
S: But sometimes, nature is really regular and symmetrical<br />
<br />
E: Aah, when nature is regular<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, you can't jump to an artificial hypothesis just because it's so symmetrical<br />
<br />
J: I'm pretty regular<br />
<br />
E: And symmetrical<br />
<br />
R: That's not what I heard<br />
<br />
=== Creationism in the UK <small>(13:00)</small>===<br />
[http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=376 Neurologica: Teaching Creationism in Schools]<br />
<br>[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4768820.ece TimesOnline article] (login required)<br />
<!-- dead link: http://www.cofe.anglican.org/darwin <br />
possible alternative: http://www.churchofengland.org/our-views/medical-ethics-health-social-care-policy/darwin.aspx<br />
--><br />
<br>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7613403.stm BBC article: Who are the British creationists?]<br />
<br />
S: Well, creationism is creeping into the UK, traditionally, the United States has had a problem with creationists trying to infiltrate public schools and etc. But now, apparently, it's becoming more of a problem in the United Kingdom. And this came to a head recently by comments made by reverend professor [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Reiss Michael Reiss] who was, until very recently, the Director of Education at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society Royal Society]. The Royal Society, I think is the ''oldest'' scientific institution and has a very important position in the UK science community. He made some controversial statements, and this is a quote from them<br />
<blockquote>An increasing percentage of children in the UK come from families that do not accept the scientific version of the history of the universe and the evolution of species. What are we to do with those children? My experience after having tried to teach biology for 20 years is if one simply gives the impression that such children are wrong, then they are not likely to learn much about the science that one really wants them to learn. I think a better way forward is to say to them 'look, I simply want to present you with the scientific understanding of the history of the universe and how animals and plants and other organisms evolved'.<ref>BBC news: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7612152.stm Call for creationism in science]</ref></blockquote><br />
S: He made other comments as well that really sparked a controversy over what ''exactly'' is this guy advocating? And because he's actually a literalist, not just a reverend, but a ''literalist'', a lot of people sort of had their eye on this guy, and were sort of waiting for this kind of thing to happen, this kind of controversy to crop up. So this, perhaps as much as anything else, is what lead to this incredible controversy, but ''I'' still have a hard time knowing ''really'' what this guy was advocating. <br />
<br />
R: Well, you know what the Society, a spokesman for the Society stepped forward and confirmed that, you know, what he was saying was inline with what they believed, and their exact quote was <br />
<blockquote>Our position is that if young people put forward a creationist perspective in the classroom, it should be discussed.<ref>Royal Society spokesperson statement &ndash; [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4760967.ece Times Online article] (login required)</ref></blockquote><br />
R: Their whole thing, they're talking about science, so we can assume they're talking about the science classroom, and it's kind of ridiculous just to put it like that. I mean, if you're going to talk about that subject, then let's be specific, ''how'' should it be discussed? Should it be discussed in terms of showing them that, for instance, a belief in god can be compatible with evolution? Or should you be telling them that there's no way in hell the Earth was created in six days?<br />
<br />
S: (agreeing) mm-hmm<br />
<br />
R: It's not very educational, it's not very helpful to just throw that out there like that. It sounds like a big case of covering of asses<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they definitely- the Royal Society put out ''clarifications'', 'quote-unquote', the next day saying 'creationism is ''not'' science, it should ''not'' be taught as science in the science classroom, and we whole-heartedly defend the teaching of evolution'. But this guy, Reiss, you know, he's just made other statements that were very, very squirly, for example, he said 'I do believe in taking seriously and respectfully the concerns of students who do not believe the theory of evolution, while still introducing them to it'. He also made some comments about treating creationism and ID, intelligent design, and evolution as different ''world-views''. So, you know, he's kinda dancing around this topic, and I think that, given that he's a literalist, and that he's making these squirly comments, it certainly ''seems'' like he's trying to squeeze in a little 'teach the controversy' through the back door there, just by saying 'we need to be respectful of the students, and we need to address their concerns and talk about creationism- oh, we believe in evolution, I'm not saying evolution is ''wrong'', but, you know, we really need to take- we can't just teach evolution, we have to address their concerns'<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it almost sounds like he's going for the catching more flies with honey defense, but-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
R: And there's something to be said for exploring different ways of reaching kids who are unfortunately growing up in households where their parents are ignorant of the basic tenants of science. And, you know, it ''is'' going to be difficult if they've been raised to believe in something wholly incompatible with what you're teaching them. You know, we ''do'' need to look at how we're teaching them. But to make a vague statement that just doesn't jibe at all with anything we're actually aiming for, and then to run away from it-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
R: Is kinda cowardly and suspicious.<br />
<br />
E: It's just a case of this person, I ''think'', trying to be somewhat politically correct, not taking a firm stance one way or the other, trying to please the most people possible with his statement to try and quell any controversy, it just did the opposite, apparently.<br />
<br />
J: He stepped down from his position too, ''because'' of the controversy.<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
R: He did, and the really cool thing is that he stepped down when British members of parliament stood up and said 'Hey, what the hell are you guys talking about? That's not science' and can you imagine that happening in the US, where an actual congress person steps up and bats somebody in line and defends science?<br />
<br />
B: No!<br />
<br />
J: No!<br />
<br />
R: It seems kind of foreign (laughs) So, I think that the UK kind of scores one on that point.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, although again this is in the context of increasing sort of insurgence of creationism into the UK, and increasing concerns. This controversy was all around the science blogosphere for the last week, the last few days, and some of the comments, like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PZ_Myers P. Z Myers] for example wrote a lot about this, and he said that 'you can teach students how we know the Earth isn't 6,000 years old. How we know there is common descent, you know, we know the Earth is 14 billion years old, etc, etc'. you can say ''historically'' they used to think this, you know 150 years ago, and this is how we- our thinking of our origins changed over time and developed with evidence. So, you can teach students everything students need to know about ''how'' science works, about how specific scientific beliefs came to be. But based upon what evidence, what logic. Without ever talking about a religious belief, or talking about creationism, you don't ''have'' to do that. I think that confronting something that is a ''religious'' belief in the science classroom is the wrong approach, you're better off saying 'in ''this'' classroom, we're talking about science, ''this'' is what science is. This is how scientists come to the conclusions that they come to. And you could achieve all of the objectives that Reiss claims he was really talking about, without respecting creationism as a world-view. That has no place in a science classroom. Some other things that have been going on, though, I don't know if this is a coincidence, but the Church of England, the C of E<br />
<br />
E: (with English accent) C of E<br />
<br />
S: Apologised to Darwin!<br />
<br />
R: I think that is-<br />
<br />
J: Now that blew my mind<br />
<br />
B: Ha!<br />
<br />
J: I can't believe that<br />
<br />
E: Did he accept?<br />
<br />
S: Good for them<br />
<br />
E: Did he accept?<br />
<br />
R: He couldn't accept, he was roasting in hell for his evil Darwinist ideas!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: (with English accent) So sorry, Darwin, sorry about that, old chap<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: So, yeah, they said it was basically the wrong thing to do, to basically oppress Darwin's views at the time. And, it turns out, that whole evolution thing was probably a good idea. Now, in response to that, the pope said 'yeah, evolution is fine, but we're not ''apologising'''. <br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: He ''refused'' to apologise.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: He basically said 'Oh, yeah?'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: 'You pansies in England can apologise to Darwin, the pope's not apologising to ''nobody'''. But, yeah, evolution's fine, you know, they<br />
<br />
J: The pope's tired<br />
<br />
S: Right, but the UK's got their own creationist museum now.<br />
<br />
R: (flatly) Good for them.<br />
<br />
J: It was just a matter of time<br />
<br />
E: Has the UK largely over the years been, not influenced by creationism, and it's only making some recent advances and strides?<br />
<br />
S: Yes, that's exactly correct, and it really has been, at least in the West, a US phenomenon. But now it is spreading to the UK.<br />
<br />
E: Do we know how much of it is influenced by Islam? Because the Islam population is on a great rise.<br />
<br />
S: That is a factor I know that Richard Dawkins has pointed that out as a factor, that they are creating ''faith'' schools, and teaching creationism from their religious perspective. Others have pointed to, you know, specifically political influence from the US have pointed to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Templeton_Foundation Templeton foundation], which is dedicated to-<br />
<br />
E: Oh yeah<br />
<br />
S: Connecting science and religion, and they have a lot of money behind that, so they give money to anybody who will-<br />
<br />
B: A million dollars, a million dollars a year to the person who does the most to join science and religion, right?<br />
<br />
R: I've seen rich people die and leave mansions to their ''cats'', and it's a better use of money than that prize.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, I agree<br />
<br />
J: and is it that general? The criteria is that general?<br />
<br />
S: Yes. The goal is for science to validate faith, that is the goal.<br />
<br />
E: So, is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Egnor Michael Egnor] in the running for that prize?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: I wouldn't be surprised.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, right?<br />
<br />
S: He definitely wants to intermingle those two<br />
<br />
R: You know who pirates' favourite scientist is?<br />
<br />
B: Oh boy,<br />
<br />
S: I can't wait to hear<br />
<br />
R: Daarrrrwin!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: Daarrrrwin<br />
<br />
B: Oh god<br />
<br />
J: Rebecca, get back on your medication as soon as possible.<br />
<br />
R: I ran out of gin!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: Keep up some rum, aarrr<br />
<br />
B: Keep it up, Rebecca, I'm loving it<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
== Questions and Emails <small>(22:52)</small> ==<br />
<big>Big Pharma</big><br />
<br />
S: Well, let's go on to your email, do you know what the first email's about?<br />
<br />
R: Daaarrrwin?<br />
<br />
E: It's about 15 sentences<br />
<br />
S: It's about 'big phaaaarrrma'!<br />
<br />
R&E: Phaarrrma!<br />
<br />
S: This one comes from Nick Vockrodt, from Arlington, Virgina. And he writes a very long email, I'm going to cut to the question: (see [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=165 show notes] for full email)<br />
<blockquote>My question is regarding "Big Pharma" and specifically [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibromyalgia fibromyalgia]-</blockquote><br />
R: I'm sorry, Steve, about big what?<br />
<br />
S: big phaarrrghma<br />
<br />
R: Thank you<br />
<blockquote>S: and specifically fibromyalgia I was discussing the pharmaceutical industry with a friend who claimed that diseases are-</blockquote><br />
J: What was that, Steve? Fibro- what?<br />
<br />
S: Alright, enough!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<blockquote>S: who claimed that diseases are being "made up" by drug companies for the sole purpose of creating a market for their medicines. He mentioned fibromyalgia as a perfect example, claiming it to be a disease that anyone can convince themselves they have. This sounded like what Dr. Novella describes as symptoms of life … I wasn't very familiar with the malady at the time to argue, but I tend to defend the pharmaceutical industry when faced with what sounds like a conspiracy theory. In my subsequent research, I found that there is some debate on it, but that the disease is generally accepted by the medical community as being "real".</blockquote><br />
S: Well, this is actually a complicated question because there's a few components to it. Let's take the first component of it: 'Does the pharma company make up diseases that they could then market their drugs for?'. I think there, in my opinion, the answer is a pretty unequivocal ''no''. The pharmaceutical industry in this country, regulated by the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_and_Drug_Administration FDA], when they market a drug, by definition, if you are marketing ''anything'' and claiming that it treats or cures or modifies a disease, it's regulated as a drug. Right, so things are regulated based on the kinds of claims that are made for them. But you don't get to make up your own diseases though, you know, to say that your drug is gonna treat something that you yourself get to make up, or that a ''company'' makes up. Companies are not in a position to ''create'' or will into existence a new disease. Things like fibromyalgia are- that is a diagnosis that emerged from the medical community. Now, I think that fibromyalgia is a very complicated disease entity that I have a lot of doubts about the way it's classified and diagnosed right now. First of all, it's not a disease, ''really'', even though-<br />
<br />
B: a syndrome?<br />
<br />
S: -it is recog- so what the-<br />
<br />
E: It's a 'condition'?<br />
<br />
S: Like for regulatory purposes, what the FDA will consider a disease is not necessarily what we would, in medicine, use the term specifically 'disease' for, meaning a pathophysiological entity. Sometimes there are clinical ''syndromes'', or a recognised entity, but we don't understand the pathophysiology, so it may be described purely by the clinical picture that it creates. So like 'chronic fatigue syndrome' is a syndrome, not really a disease. Fibromyalgia, I think, is better understood that way, although there are some thoughts about what might be ''causing'' it, it's actually not well understood. In fact, recent evidence suggests that a lot of people who have the symptoms of fibromyalgia may just be the symptoms of an underlying problem, like a sleep disorder. In fact, I think a lot of people who have the symptoms that are used to make the diagnosis fibromyalgia, actually have an underlying sleep disorder. Others may have an underlying anxiety disorder.<br />
<br />
J: Really?<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
J: Interesting<br />
<br />
S: And if you treat people for the sleep disorder, the fibromyalgia symptoms go away, so that's a pretty good indication. At least ''some'' of them. Other people may have a simmering auto-immune inflammation of the muscles. And that may be ''really''- if there ''is'' something that's really fibromyalgia, I think that's what it is. But a lot of people get similar symptoms for other reasons.<br />
<br />
J: Would you consider fibromyalgia kind of like a 'catch-all' for a bunch of different types of symptoms then?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think it's what we call a 'garbage-pail diagnosis', you know, you just get people who have symptoms in this area, then this is the label you attach to it. But there isn't any way to specifically say 'yes, this is a discrete pathological entity that they ''have'' '. I also see the diagnosis made on ''non-specific'' symptoms, without the specific symptoms that are supposed to be there. So if you are fatigued and achy, and etc., and you call that fibromyalgia, well that's just attaching a label to non-specific symptoms. You're supposed to have what we call 'trigger points', that are specific places in the muscles that are very tender. And if you have that pattern of 'trigger points' then I think it's ''meaningful'' to say 'well that pattern is called fibromyalgia. We still don't know what it is, we have some ideas, but that's the way we use the diagnosis'. If you call everybody who is fatigued and achey fibromylagia, then the diagnosis has no meaning. <br />
<br />
Now, I believe that the pharmaceutical industry has targeted fibromyalgia for a couple of drugs because it ''is'' such a easy diagnosis to make, because you can attach it to these vague symptoms, so I think if they're guilty of anything, it's choosing a marketable disease. But they didn't make it up, they weren't the ones to make it up. But that's just, you know, when pharmaceutical companies look for an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indication_%28medicine%29 indication] for their drug, that's based purely on marketing. They want to decide 'what's the biggest market? What drugs are going to sell the most? Which indication will allow us to speak to which specialty of physicians that we want to be able to market to?'. It's all really a marketing decision, of course the science has to be there as well. But often, with many drugs, there are different indications that you could go for. For example, if a drug treats pain, or treats nerve pain, now nerve pain is not a disease, so you have to pick a disease that causes nerve pain. Now, what diseases cause nerve pain are you gonna pick? Postherpetic neuralgia or diabetic neuropathy? They're gonna make a marketing decision, They're gonna choose the one with the biggest sales, the biggest marketing options for their drug, but again, they don't get to make up the disease. The other disease for which I hear this claim the most frequently is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restless_legs_syndrome restless leg syndrome] (RLS).<br />
<br />
E: Oh yeah<br />
<br />
S: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Carrey Jim Carrey] made that comment, that pharmaceutical made up restless leg syndrome in order to market a drug for it. Well, first of all, the drugs that have the indication for treating RLS, already have other indications, they were already on the market for legitimate indications, so it wasn't a way of rescuing a failed drug, that's a ''demonstrable'' myth. The other thing is, restless leg syndrom has existed in the medical literature for ''decades''. I was able to go onto my bookshelf and find an old neurology text with a ''40 year old'' reference to restless leg syndrome.<br />
<br />
E: Wow!<br />
<br />
S: 40 years before there was ever a drug marketed for it.<br />
<br />
E: Is that what they called it back then?<br />
<br />
S: Yes! Yes, and, in fact, if you dig deeper into the literature, the references go back even farther, ''and'' I forget what- it was known by other names even before the term restless leg syndrome came into being. So, yeah, it's basically like 100 years we've known that this has existed.<br />
<br />
J: (squeaky Irish voice?) 'Let me show you something'. (normal voice) A perfect example of why I ''don't'' wanna know what famous people think.<br />
<br />
(laughter) <br />
<br />
R: Right? At all<br />
<br />
E: Well, ''some''<br />
<br />
J: It ruined it for me, I ''loved'' that guy, now I have to hate him<br />
<br />
S: Oh, you do have to hate Jim Carrey, he is totally now on board with the anti-vaccinationist kooks.<br />
<br />
R: But he was so good in 'Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind'!<br />
<br />
S: He was<br />
<br />
B: (laughs)<br />
<br />
E: Sorry, so sorry.<br />
<br />
J: Oh well<br />
<br />
E: Move on<br />
<br />
S: Terrible, terrible, terrible.<br />
<br />
J: (singing) 'another one bites the dust'<br />
<br />
S: So, anyway, this is just unfounded conspiracy theories. Now, again, that doesn't mean that the pharmaceutical industry is ''not'' an industry that, they're not companies looking at their bottom line, and that the companies are beyond reproach. I'm not saying that, ''this'' notion that they make up diseases is nonsense. That is just made up conspiracy thinking.<br />
<br />
== Name That Logical Fallacy <small>(30:53)</small> == <br />
S: We do have a 'Name that logical fallacy' this week, we actually got our first piece of hard-core hate-mail in a long time. And it's just so chock-full of logical fallacies, I thought it would make good example for us to examine this week. So here we go, this one comes from Melvin Lee, who gives his-<br />
<br />
R: Melvin!... sorry<br />
<br />
S: Melvin<br />
<br />
J: Melvins!<br />
<br />
(Laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Gives his location as America. Thanks for being helpful. Now, Melvin writes (all indented quotes taken from [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=165 show notes] as written):<br />
<blockquote>I think that u and all those mofos on that show are full of shit. </blockquote><br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Wait, can you say that? You can't say that on the show.<br />
<br />
(inaudible)<br />
<br />
J: Steve-<br />
<br />
E: Should you say 'mofo'? <br />
<br />
<blockquote>S: How can u honestly say NO! there is no bigfoot just because I've never seen it, NO! crop circles aren't real because I'm obviously the creator of this world and I know EVERYTHING about. </blockquote><br />
(laughter)<br />
<blockquote>U pussies or just.......ugh, words can't describe how I feel about u guys. WHO R U-</blockquote><br />
<br />
S: Now, you also have to- we'll obviously publish the-<br />
<br />
R: All the "are"s are just the letter, all the "you"s are<br />
<br />
S: Capital 'R', capital 'U', " WHO R U"<br />
<br />
R: Melvin, actually ''texted'' this to us, it took him 16 texts<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: You know, if you're ''gonna'' write a critical email-<br />
<br />
R: Cost him 35 cents<br />
<br />
S: -take the time to spell out the words<br />
<br />
E: You have to assume that the person crafting it ''can'' spell the words<br />
<br />
B: Nah, this is a young kid, this is just a kid. <br />
<blockquote>S: WHO R U to tell some that they didn't see something with their own eyes and what they saw was an illusion. plz reread over WHO R U. U r human, u r not some all knowing god. U cannot get mad at someone for jus reporting what they saw, where u there too?, so how could u possibly say they didn't see that they thought they saw. </blockquote><br />
R: Wait, can you just do that sentence one more time?<br />
<br />
S&E: No<br />
<blockquote>Their just reporting it. This world is full of secrets and jus because it seems mundane doesn't mean its fake. Another thing. if hundreds of people AROUND THE WORLD r seeing something (bigfoot, ufos, ghost), then it ''has'' to be true. Not every situation was a hoax r the product of an over active mind. all I'm saying is WE R ALL HUMANS u have the same brain as me, u r not the god who created this world, therefore u cannot say confidently that something's not there, when it obviously is. </blockquote><br />
<br />
(sound clip of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman – Full Metal Jacket)"Holy jesus!"<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B?: Thanks for that email, Melvin <br />
<br />
E: Thank you Gunnery Sergeant Hartman<br />
<br />
R: Thanks Melvin, it's good to hear from you<br />
<br />
S: Thank you. All say 'thanks Melvin' <br />
<br />
E: Keep on listening!<br />
<br />
J: Honestly, let's honestly answer the email. Because if the guy-<br />
<br />
S: That's what we're gonna do!<br />
<br />
R: How? It's gonna take us all day. I think that's one good example of '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum argument from popularity]'. He said that, you know, if hundreds of people around the world believe in something, then it has to be true. But that is not correct because, you know, think about it this way: entire countries think that other entire countries should be obliterated off the map, and that doesn't make it ''true''.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, or millions of people, ''billions'' sometimes, hold beliefs that are mutually exclusive to beliefs that other millions of people believe. So, either one or both of those groups of millions of people ''have'' to be wrong.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, and look at all the people that bought the Milli Vanilli albums.<br />
<br />
S: That's true!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: They all believed they were really singing, they were wrooong<br />
<br />
B: There's a lotta '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man straw men]', he keeps throwing around tons of 'straw men'<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: Like "there's no Bigfoot because I've never ''seen'' it", "you can not get mad at someone for just reporting what they ''saw''", "not every situation was a hoax, or the product of an overactive mind". It's a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dichotomy false dichotomy],<ref>SGU 5x5 episode 54 [[5X5 Episode 54|Skepticism 101 - False Dichotomy]]</ref> I mean it's ''full'' of this stuff. <br />
<br />
S&B: There's a lotta 'straw men'.<br />
<br />
B: Mischaracterisations of what our arguments are, he's not even paying ''attention''!<br />
<br />
S: Right, so first of all, we ''don't'' say 'there is no Bigfoot, there are no aliens visiting the Earth, there are no ghosts'. What we say is there's no evidence compelling acceptance or belief in any of those things, the people who say that there ''is'' Bigfoot, have not met anywhere ''near'' a reasonable burden of proof.<br />
<br />
R: The invisible pink unicorn ''could'' exist, we are simply agnostic as to its existence.<br />
<br />
S: Right, where it's unfalsifiable, we're agnostic, if it's a scientific proposition, they haven't met the burden of proof, or the burden of evidence. And therefore, we do not accept it as an established or a proven scientific hypothesis, given the current state of evidence. But hey, if someone actually did find a Bigfoot body, and it stood up to peer review<br />
<br />
R: And it wasn't a costume <!--reference to Bigfoot costume hoax --><br />
<br />
S: It ''wasn't'' a costume <br />
<br />
R: Sold by hoaxters<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: We'd accept compelling evidence as compelling<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, and add to it, we'd actually be excited about it!<br />
<br />
S: Sure<br />
<br />
R: That would be mega-cool!<br />
<br />
B: I don't know, it would smash my world view, and I would deny it to my dying day.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Well only if Bigfoot wasn't riding atop a magical unicorn.<br />
<br />
E: Or a sacred cow<br />
<br />
S: Now hang on, there's some other logical fallacies in here, the challenge is in finding all of them.-<br />
<br />
R: Oh, we're not done yet, are we?<br />
<br />
S: You guys are just picking the low-hanging fruit.<br />
<br />
R: Alright, alright, alright. Well there's an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance argument from ignorance], saying that we can't say that it doesn't exist because we're not gods who created everything and everything.<br />
<br />
S: Right, that's good, it's an argument from ignorance, he's basically saying that because we don't have perfect infinite knowledge, that we therefore have no knowledge, that we can't make ''any'' factual judgments about what's likely to be true or not likely to be true, scientifically. And I'll say that, you know, we don't know ''for sure'', because we're not god, that Bigfoot doesn't exist, therefore, Bigfoot exists. And we should also then adhere to the argument ad populum, that other people say that they believe it, so that's enough.<br />
<br />
E: Well there's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem ad hominem] attacks all over the place.<br />
<br />
S: Oh yeah, 'pussies'<br />
<br />
R: Well, yeah, and not all of us are 'mofos', technically, only Jay.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, actually, I'm a proud mofo.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah<br />
<br />
J: That one didn't bother me.<br />
<br />
S: He also implies that, you know, the only way to assess someone's eye-witness testimony is to be an eye-witness ourselves, <br />
<br />
E: Wrong<br />
<br />
S: When in fact, you can assess eye-witness testimony by putting it into context. And also if you're -<br />
<br />
J: There are court rooms all over the world do that every day<br />
<br />
S: (laughs) Right, we're just saying there's more than one hypothesis. If somebody claims they saw a flying-saucer, there's multiple hypotheses you can derive from that. One is that they saw a flying saucer, but another one is that they were mistaken, or they're lying, or they were simply confusing a more mundane object, or their memory was contaminated by the testimony of another person. There's lots of-<br />
<br />
E: Or the alcohol they drank.<br />
<br />
S: They were in a compromised condition, sleep-deprived or drunk, or whatever. There's ''lots'' of hypotheses, and we want all- you know, any good scientist should consider ''all'' of them, and accept the ones that are most supported by the evidence, and also, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor Occam's razor], you don't accept the one that requires the introduction of a major new assumption, that we're being visited by aliens, when you haven't ruled out the far more likely, simple ones.<br />
<br />
R: Bigfoot<br />
<br />
S: Right, the guy simply made a mistake, or maybe he's pulling your leg. That's all, so<br />
<br />
J: I think Melvin's email actually, as poorly written as it is and everything, and he's got a negative attitude and he's just like sounding off at us. It's not that far away from where a lot of people stand. I think a lot of people ''agree'' with this.<br />
<br />
S: You're absolutely right, Jay, and that's what, even though, yeah, we're kinda poking fun at Melvin, partly because of his atrocious grammar and the way he constructed this email. But in fact, the same arguments, he's poorly constructed it, but these same logical fallacies, and these same arguments are the absolute bread and butter of the true-believers, or the anti-skeptics. We hear this ''all'' the time, the 'you don't know everything', equating 'not having infinite knowledge' with having 'no knowledge', the argument from ignorance, the appeal to popularity. We encounter these on a daily basis when confronting people who believe things that are not supported by the scientific evidence. So, we're not just attacking an easy target, this is absolutely bread and butter anti-skepticism.<br />
<br />
J: And I would take it one step further and ask Melvin, if he's listening: write us back, pick any topic that you mention in here, like Bigfoot as an example, and we'll have a real email exchange discussion about it. I promise to do that. If you wanna have a discussion, I'll tell you everything I think, and you can tell me everything you think, and we'll just vet it out over time without swearing at each other. Or at least keeping it down<br />
<br />
R: Eh<br />
<br />
S: And also, my advice to, just generic advice to people who are going to send a ranting email, actually the title of the email was 'rant', so Melvin knew this was a rant. But, if you're gonna do that, make a ''real'' effort to understand the position of the person you're disagreeing with. That's ''always'', generically, a good idea. Because there's nothing more worthless than arguing against a position that the other person doesn't even hold, because then you're just completely wasting your time, and all you're really declaring is 'I don't understand what's going on, I didn't take the time to even understand your position. I'm arguing against a "straw man"', basically that's the only thing you're accomplishing. Well, let's go on to our interview.<br />
<br />
== Interview with Ben Goldacre <small>(40:18)</small> ==<br />
(jingle)<br />
<br />
S: Ok, we're sitting here now with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Goldacre Ben Goldacre],Ben, welcome to the Skeptics' Guide<br />
<br />
BG: Hi<br />
<br />
S: You run a website in the UK called 'Bad Science', is it .net?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, [http://www.badscience.net/ BadScience.net], available all around the world!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Tell us about that<br />
<br />
R: The world-''wide'' web, Steve<br />
<br />
S: Oh yeah, I keep forgetting<br />
<br />
BG: (mocking) 'Ah yes, you're from the United Kingdom'. (normal voice) Well, it's a sort of mixture of my columns in the Guardian and other bits and bobs that I come across, and it's- maybe about sort of a quarter of it is about quackery, and most of it is about bad science reporting in mainstream media. I don't know if that's as much a problem in the US as it is in the UK.<br />
<br />
S: It's ''more'' of a problem in the US than the UK<br />
<br />
BG: Is that right? (laughs) I mean, in the UK, there have been some phenomenal bogus scare stories. I mean, there was one about theMRSA 'killer bacteria' that was essentially a bogus lab that was giving bogus results to undercover journalists, and of course the media's MMR hoax in the UK. Which I think you're about to get a run of in the US, with the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal thiomersal] thing, which is going to be very interesting.<br />
<br />
S: Well we're already- that's already passed its peak, the thimerosal (common name for thiomersal in US)<br />
<br />
BG: Do you think so?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, well, it was removed, you know, from vaccines in the United States by the end of 2002<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, but –<br />
<br />
S: Autism hasn't gone up<br />
<br />
BG: But the media storm didn't seem to start until what, this year, really. There was that case-<br />
<br />
S: It had a resurgence because of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_McCarthy Jenny McCarthy],<ref>Jenny McCarthy body count [http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com website]</ref> and Jim Carrey, and because of the mitochondrial DNA case<ref>Neurologica article: [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/has-the-government-conceded-vaccines-cause-autism/ Has the Government Conceded Vaccines Cause Autism?]</ref>. Yeah, so in the UK, I think the MMR was a bigger story. Thimerosal was bigger in the United States.<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: Is that still big over there? The MMR, are they still-<br />
<br />
BG: It's dwindling, the Observer did a bogus front page story about how autism was now up to one in 58, basically misunderstanding an unpublished piece of research which was looking at comparing different ways of measuring the prevalence of autism. So obviously, if you use the widest net, then you get the biggest number. But what I actually find interesting about vaccine scare is how poorly they propagate between different territories. So for example, in the UK we had the 'MMR causes autism' because of the measles virus, that was the scare, and that was mostly, that kind of peaked in 2001, 2002. But it didn't propagate outside of the UK. In America, you have your thiomersal scare, in France, they have a story about the hepatitis-B vaccine causing multiple sclerosis, but nobody's heard of that outside of France. In the UK in the 80s, we had 'whooping cough vaccine causing neurological problems' driven by ''one'' fairly eccentric doctor from Scotland, and obviously in Nigeria at the moment in Kano province, the imams have issued a pronouncement saying that the polio vaccine is a plot by the Americans to make Muslims infertile and stop them from having children.<ref>PlosMedicine article: [http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0040073#pmed-0040073-b0017 What Led to the Nigerian Boycott of the Polio Vaccination Campaign?]</ref><br />
<br />
S: And spread HIV.<br />
<br />
BG: Is that part of the scare as well?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: Oh no, yeah, you're absolutely right, yeah. And, you know, what's interesting about that, I ''guess'', is the WHO's polio medication program was on target to eradicate polio from around the world by now. But it's not, and people have, you know, you can do [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction PCR] on polio outbreaks around the world and they've found that the specific polio virus from Nigeria, from Kano province, has triggered outbreaks of polio elsewhere in the world. It's very interesting to me how these vaccine scares are all, you know, structurally quite similar, but they propagate very poorly, and I don't think the thiomersal scare could take off in the UK, just because the MMR story has been debunked in the UK. So, it would seem ridiculous to the media- it just wouldn't fit the natural tempo of the stories to then suddenly go 'oh no, but it does, actually cause these problems'<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, right<br />
<br />
R: So does that mean you think you're pretty much past the worst of all of those kind of stories in the UK? Or do you think there's another one on the horizon?<br />
<br />
BG: Certainly not, and actually for very interesting reasons, definitely not. If you look at France and Austria, you can see that they've come very close to electing, in the case of Austria, they ''did'' elect some seriously sort of right-wing fruitcakes, you know, bordering on fascism. Whereas in Germany, where they had to face up to what they did in World War II, there was a kind of truth and reconciliation process, and they have kind of green and liberal governments. There's no way, I don't think that Germany could re-elect a fascist government. I think that you have to go through the process of recognizing where you've gone wrong, in order to stop going wrong in the future. What I find fascinating about the termination of the MMR hoax, in the UK, is that it came to an end, not because the media suddenly went 'well actually, a 12 subject case series report isn't sufficient grounds to say that MMR causes autism'. It wasn't because they made a kind of critical appraisal of ''all'' of the literature for and against and went 'well actually, it just doesn't look like MMR causes autism, this was a storm in a tea-cup'. It came to an end because an investigative journalist called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Deer Brian Deer], for whom I've got a lot of respect, from the Sunday Times came along and revealed that the lead doctor who was driving the story had received half a million pounds, a million dollars, in legal sort of, you know, expert witness costs. And so he had, one could argue, a competing interest there. Now, I don't think for one moment that that's the reason why [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield Wakefield] held the views that he held, and I don't think that one man can drive a story. But now the media are all queued up to say 'oh, the original research has been debunked', when the original research was a 12 subject case series report that never meant anything about anything. And they're saying 'oh, you know, the MMR story has been disproven because Andrew Wakefield had half a million quid', so they're all queuing up to blame this one doctor for the hoax that was the media's work.<br />
<br />
S: (agreeing) mm-hmm<br />
<br />
BG: Collectively, the British media community have created this story, and they drove it for many, many years. And the fact that they're now trying to pin it on one doctor, I have to say, I'm not a big ''fan'' of Wakefield, but I think it's very healthy that there are, you know, doctors with idiosyncratic views on medicine, I think it's an absolute bizarre travesty that they're pinning it all on him.<br />
<br />
B: So they're all right, but for the wrong reasons?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, I think that's why they're not inoculated against future cock-ups<br />
<br />
R: Well, you're doing a lot to help media, scientific literacy amongst the media in the UK, but do you ever think they'll get that realisation? Do you ever think they'll finally realise what they're doing wrong?<br />
<br />
BG: I don't think you can stop people from producing stupid stories, but I think you can add some sense into the mix. So often, when I talk, people say- I do lots of talks in epidemiology departments and some medical statisticians, just cos the jokes can be a bit more interesting and sophisticated that way.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And people are often outraged, and they say 'well we need some laws to- these people need to be- we should be able to chop the fingers off bad journalists', and I just don't think it's realistic. But what you ''can'' do, is approach newspapers, and I just rang one up one day and said, you know, 'can I write for you?', and they said yes. You know, there's no great mystery, I think you can add in more sense to dilute the nonsense, or at least give people an opportunity to see some sense. Cos otherwise, unless people who understand the evidence get in there and explain the mechanics of why it is that you hold a belief on the back of some published evidence, then science, at least in Britain, is only being portrayed as being about authoritative truth statements from arbitrary cultural figures called scientists in white coats, you know, "scientists today said-", "scientists today deny-", "scientists today refuted-". But it's never, you know, "scientists today said 'well, there's this study, and it shows this, and for ''that'' reason, we think this'". That ''doesn't'' happen<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
BG: And by adding that into the mix, you do something very powerful<br />
<br />
S: And the Wakefield story reflects that, because it was about the authority of Wakefield, and when that was knocked down, the story was knocked down. Not about the evidence and the logic of whether or not there's any link between vaccines and autism.<br />
<br />
BG: It was about the authority of Wakefield, but it was also about human interest versus these white coat guys saying 'there's nothing to worry about'. So on one hand you had a worried parent, and on the other side you had a scientist saying, you know 'there's nothing to worry about', and that wouldn't reassure ''me''!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: You know, it would look like a cover-up, or it would look dismissive<br />
<br />
S: Right, so like us, you're using new media blogs to try to fight this bad journalism in the UK. How do you think that's going? How much play does your blog get?<br />
<br />
BG: It gets a lot of visitors, and it gets a lot of links, and the thing that's most exciting is there are lots of other people who are now blogging in the UK who do a really, really great job of pulling apart just sort of silly bit and bobs, but it's great when there's this kind of mass effect. Cos somebody will publish a tedious 'memory of water' paper, you know, homeopathy, and you'll be like, I can't be bothered to pull this apart. But someone somewhere will, you know, that burning sense of 'someone ''somewhere'' is wrong on the internet, I must put them right!'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And that's ''fantastic''. The only thing that disappoints me a little bit, I guess, is that I'm not as agitated about quackery as some people are, you get a lot of quite sanctimonious stuff from people kinda saying 'homeopathy is this public health ''scandal'' ', and I don't think that's true. I think homeopathy is really interesting, I think it's a really fascinating cultural phenomenon. I think it's really interesting that at a time when doctors are trying really hard to work collaboratively with patients, explain evidence with them and make decisions in concert with their patients, I think it's a tragedy that while doctors are trying to do that, quacks and the media are really kind of undermining the public's understanding of evidence. But I don't think that quackery is ''practically'' really dangerous, I think it's funny and interesting. I think it's interesting that there's a lot of bloggers who are keen to pick up on mocking quacks, which is funny, and it's great, and it produces great content. The thing that I wish that there was more of, is people taking down bogus news stories, because ''that's'' the thing that needs to be done so much more, because that's kind of the more culturally influential end of stuff, you know?<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
BG: But, I guess they're not such easy hits or, yeah, I don't know why it is.<br />
<br />
S: Well, the news cycle is quick, you've got to do it very quickly. Right? You find a new story hits, you've got to get your blog that day or you're going to get missed by the news cycle.<br />
<br />
BG: I ''guess'' so, although I'm not sure that's true, actually. I mean, I'm often cheerfully writing on things a couple of weeks after they've gone, but that's because I'm just smug enough to imagine that I can stand outside of the news thing. I actually think that's really interesting example of one of the more subtle aspects of how the media misrepresents science. I don’t think science makes a very good ''news'' subject, I think science is naturally a feature subject, because it's about emerging themes supported by a whole raft of evidence from a number of different disciplines that emerges over the course of many years. When you focus all your science reporting about a news story, a sudden breakthrough, a ''single'' piece of research, that's actually quite misrepresenting in a subtle way. Firstly because the stuff that makes a finding newsworthy, actually make it quite likely to be wrong, you know, it's incongruent with previous results, for example. And so it misrepresents stuff in that way. Obsessing over stuff being ''newsy'' is actually a bit of a mistake, I think people who are communicating science should feel cool with just sitting back and going 'what do we know about functional brain imaging and schizophrenia? There's a really interesting story there'<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
BG: It doesn't have to be ''new''<br />
<br />
S: I totally agree, I think the news cycle and the obsession with the story is really antithetical to the way science really works, which is taking your time and putting it together into the big picture. Often times I think you do that well, and that's we try to do, sort of take the news story and back up now into context, which is what the journalists ''don't'' do, right?<br />
<br />
BG: Well, sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't, I think there's a really interesting split in certain British news media, which has been studied quite carefully, which is: specialist health and science reporters are actually very good at their job, they know a lot of background, they know how to critically appraise research, and they will often make a fairly good stab at doing that with their articles, as long as they can get it past the desk. But what you find is, whenever a story becomes a big, political hot potato, whenever it becomes a big news story, like the MMR vaccine, or the GM food, the 'Frankenstein' food front pages of 1998, you find that the stories get taken out of the hands of the specialists, and put into the hands of the generalists, so the MMR story, especially after the question became 'did Tony Blair's son have the MMR vaccine?' – a fact that was mentioned in 33% of the news stories about MMR in 2002, when Andrew Wakefield's name was only in 25%, so Tony Blair's son was a bigger figure in our media coverage than Andrew Wakefield was. What you find is that, also, when there's a big story like MMR, also MMR was twice as likely to be written about by generalist journalists as a story about cloning, for example. And in the first two days after the Frankenstein food story hit the news stands, not a single one of the news or comment pieces in the ''entirity'' of the British news media, was written by a science columnist.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, that's definitely a big problem. Ben, you have a book coming out based on your blog, why don't you tell us about that?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, it's called '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Science_%28book%29 Bad Science]', maintaining brand homogeneity. And that's coming out with Fourth Estate, Harper Collins in September, and it should be very good, although it's very, very UK-centric, because I write about misrepresentation of science in the media, and the media I know very well is UK media. And I have this huge raft of examples from a ''thousand'' stories now, that's not an estimate, that's like, the number. And I've kinda been able to- it kinda grew out of this bet with a friend where, like, we both teach epidemiology, and I was like 'I bet I could teach the whole of epi' – or epidemiholiday As the medical students call it=<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Epidemiholiday?<br />
<br />
BG: 'I bet I can teach the whole of epi, only using exaples of people getting things wrong in broadsheet national news papers'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And it turned out to be true, but what I'd really like, actually, is to get a better handle on the ways that science is misrepresented in the media in America, cos it would be great to branch out and I'm not mercenary about selling the book, I accept that I will lead a life of obscurity in academia in a rented ex-council flat-<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: I fear that would be a volume of books if you attempted to do that, not just a single book.<br />
<br />
BG: Right, that would be like Churchill's history of World War I<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: But, I'm telling you, following your blog, that the examples are completely applicable to the United States, I think they'd be very-<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, well, actually, if there are people out there listening who know about this stuff, what I'd really like – ben@badscience.net - what I'd really like is for people to send me sort of examples from American media that mirror the cock-ups in British media. Are we allowed to say cock-ups in a Christian country?<br />
<br />
R: Oh, we're allowed to say it ''twice'', gosh<br />
<br />
BG: Have I said cock twice?<br />
<br />
E: You British are allowed to say anything you want<br />
<br />
R: That's three now.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Alright, well sometimes the stories are the same, like I think you covered the regenerating finger story.<ref>Ben Goldacre's Guardian article: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may/03/medicalresearch.health The missing finger that never was]</ref><br />
<br />
BG: That was hilarious! I mean that was-<br />
<br />
S: And we covered that too, <!--internal reference???--><br />
<br />
R: Yeah, that was great<br />
<br />
BG: Out of nowhere, and it was like three years old too<br />
<br />
S&R: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: But it was the BBC who reignited that story! And again, it was not a science or health correspondent, it was the BBC's New York correspondent, and you could see he was like, he was ''beside himself'' with excitement.<ref>BBC article & video: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7354458.stm The man who grew back his finger tip]</ref> He really thought he had found Nobel prize winning stuff with this, like, backwards guy in his model shop, who's finger had grown back. And he, this sense of holy reverence as he talked about the science, was just extraordinary, and just disproportionate to the reality, which was that, lop the top of your finger off and it just grows back, that's just nature<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it healed naturally<br />
<br />
R: It just happens<br />
<br />
S: You're hawking your brother's new product.<br />
<br />
BG: New company, yeah<br />
<br />
R: I should tell him about the holes for my earrings that closed up after I didn't wear earrings for a while.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: I mean, it's really interesting that there's this recurring theme in all of these stories in bad science and the media, and also in quackery, where we're sort of bringing all these childish fables, we're letting them take the credit for the amazing things that the body does, you know. Like when people were bringing in that placebo pill, and I'm like, I'm in sort of two minds about the ethics of giving placebos, I think it might be useful in ''some'' situations, but giving placebos to kids when they've got a cold, and I kinda think 'well, ok, you wanna tell your kid a reassuring story: here's a pill, you'll get better'. But how more empowering is it to say 'look, at the moment, there's this small, ''tiny'' microscopic organism that's gone into your body, it's called a virus, and it's really clever. What it does, is it exploits the machinery in your body that makes new parts for you, and it uses that to make copies of itself, and also it releases these other things that irritate the other parts of your body, and that's why you've got a cough and a sore throat, but your body's really clever, because on the surface of every cell, is holding out copies of all the stuff that's happening inside, and the immune system cells are floating around, and they have a look at what's in every cell by looking at this stuff that's being held out on the surface. And when they see something that's alien like that, they go in and they call all of their friends who arrive, following like a smoke trail to the source of the fire, along a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemotaxis chemotactic] path, and then they go in, and they find the bad guys, and they wrap them up in, like, a little ball, and they squirt bleach at them, and they kill them'. Now that, to me, why is that a sugar pill?<br />
<br />
J: I finally understand!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: Why let a sugar pill take credit for that? It's just insane, you know, and why let a ''healer'' take credit for that. But why let some magic powder take credit for the totally amazing fact that, if you cut the top of your finger off, it grows back like ''new'', I mean ''that'', that's a miracle, you know!<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: Quite apart from the fact that in the stories they were sort of talking about powder made out of (mystically) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endothelial_cells ''endothelial'' cells]!<br />
<br />
E,B&S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: As if like-<br />
<br />
S: It's some exotic thing, pig's bladder<br />
<br />
BG: No, it was (laughing)<br />
<br />
BG&S: 'extra-cellular matrix'<br />
<br />
BG: and it was like 'and these are made of 'extra-cellular matrix', and you're like extra-cellular matrix surrounds the cells of every single cell in all of the bodies of all of the people in the world, extra-cellular, you know, there's ''more'' extra-cellular matrix in the world than you could shake a stick at.<br />
<br />
J: That's like 'the super spectacular!'<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: 'Space-age technology', that's 50 years old!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Well, Ben, we certainly appreciate what you're doing, we love your blog and your articles for the Guardian, I fell like we're just getting started, maybe we'll have a chance to sit down again, if not here, some time in the future.<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, cool<br />
<br />
S: And thanks again for sitting with us.<br />
<br />
R: Thanks, Ben<br />
<br />
BG: Cheers, thank you.<br />
<br />
== Randi Speaks: The Media <small>(59:20)</small> ==<br />
(jingle) And now, Randi speaks.<br />
<br />
S: Randi, tell us how you think the media deals with issues of science and skepticism.<br />
<br />
JR: Rather badly, generally speaking, because the media is interested in a sensational story. Well, they say they want news, but they want ''sensationa''l news. You know very well that puppy dog down a sewer is going to get much more attention than some political hack in the local community, unless he has something to do with puppies going down sewers. The media's that way, and it's understandable, they want to sell newspapers and programs and wot-not. I've said it before and I'll say it again: most people in the media are educated in the humanities, and they don't have a good grasp of science and reality, and how things work. They're very easily deceived, they're very na&iuml;ve in some respects, and they're purposefully na&iuml;ve perhaps because they want the story to be there. Now, an excellent example of that on a very high level is an ABC TV program that I did, I guess last year. They got me all the way in to New York city to discuss the '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo%C3%A3o_de_Deus_%28medium%29 John of god]' situation. Now, 'John of god' is a so-called psychic healer and wot-not in Brazil, and he's doing very simple tricks that, kind of what people have known for a long time, sticking sticks up your nose and wot-not, and he actually sticks forceps up the patients' noses. I went armed for bear, I went to New York City, and they stuck me in the studio in front of a video camera. I had with me video tapes, props and wot-not, and I spoke with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Qui%C3%B1ones John Qui&ntilde;ones], he was the host on the show. They interviewed me for two and a half hours, ''two and a half hours'' they interviewed me! <br />
<br />
I was on with a man called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehmet_Oz Dr Mehmet Oz], a very, very famous cardiac surgeon in New York city, a great reputation, but totally woo-woo. He actually has nurses specially trained in the art of balancing the aura, walking around in his ''operating room'' while he's got a patient on the table with his chest cavity open and his heart being fixed! And Mehmet Oz will throw up his hands when told by the nurse that she's coming through to balance the aura by passing her hands over it! Incredible! Incredible that a man in this day and age, let alone a very highly educated man like Mehmet Oz, would be involved in such quackery! Such absolute foolishness, such a juvenile approach to reality. But, nonetheless, he is a great cardiac surgeon, and I would trust myself to him ''any'' time. (quietly and suspiciously) As long as he kept the woman with the funny gloves out of the place. (in normal voice) But, he was on the program as well, it ended up that the program used nine seconds of what I said. Nine seconds out of two and a half hours. They didn't use any other recorded material, any other references to the video tapes with demonstrations of how the forceps up the nose trick is done, as I say, it's an old carnival stunt. But they used a great deal of Mehmet Oz, they used quotations from him, and he even said something – for a Dr, very foolish – he said that sticking up the nose came close to certain glands in the head and wot-not, but he didn't notice – because he doesn't operate on the head, I guess, that there's a half-inch layer of ''bone'' in between where the forceps go up. Now, is it supposed to be a magnetic influence? A proximity influence? A capacity effect? I don't know, but he mentioned that as a possibility. He really is a woo-woo artist. Unfortunately, with all of that education and very extensive training and great expertise. <br />
<br />
So they used all of nine seconds, but they used it so unfairly, they had me saying – and this took nine seconds, "there are no greater liars in the world than quacks, except for their patients". Now, that was broadcast like that, but the complete quotation was "As that early American philosopher [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin Ben Franklin] once said, there are no greater liars in the world than quacks, except for their patients". So, I was attributing it to Ben Franklin, but they cut that out, because that made it look as if I was stealing it from Ben Franklin. I got emails, Steve, from all over the world, saying "you're quoting Ben Franklin, you stole that! You should have attributed it to them". I did! But they edited it out, and they edited out the complete explanation of how the forceps up the nose trick was done, and the various other things that 'John of God' does. Now this is totally irresponsible, it borders on the criminal, because what that does, ABC television in a feature program had this number about 'John of God', and that, I'm sure, brought ''hundreds'' of Americans to travel off to Brazil and spend their hard-earned money on this quackery. And 'John of God', I'm sure, was very happy with it. And they never did a retraction of any kind.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(1:04:43)</small> ==<br />
(jingle)<br />
<br />
S: Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two genuine, and one fictitious. And then, my panel of skeptics tries to tell me which one they think is the fake. Are you guys ready for this week?<br />
<br />
B:…yes<br />
<br />
S: Here we go, number one: 'Astrophysicists have discovered the upper limit for the mass of a black hole'. Item number two: 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge'. And item number three 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells'. Bob, go first.<br />
<br />
B: (quietly) you ''bastard''<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: 'upper limit for the mass of a black hole', it does sound kinda bizarre, I mean, what's preventing a black hole from just getting bigger and bigger? Um, so on the surface, that doesn't sound right, if you think about it. Dinosaur dominance 'due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge', I mean, that makes sense on the surface, absolutely. A lot of evolution and whether you go extinct or not has to do with luck. That definitely can play a part, maybe that makes too much sense. 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells', that sounds pretty cool, and that would be awesome, I'm gonna say that's science. I'm gonna say that… that the dinosaur dominance being luck, that sounds a little fishy, I'm gonna say that that is fiction.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, Evan?<br />
<br />
E: Well, 'upper limit for the mass of a black hole'… I mean, there would have to be some kind of upper limit, wouldn't there? It's just a matter of discovering it, one would ''think'', but I'm not too sure about that. Dinosaurs having an advantage over contemporaries 'was due to luck'… yeah. But how were they able to determine that, you know, how do you equate 'luck' in a scientific context? I'm not quite sure ''really'' what's being said there. And then the 'improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells', sure, yes, finding out all kinds of new things about all stem cells these days, cutting edge science, totally plausible. So I'll agree with Bob that the dinosaur one is fiction.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: See now, I'm not so sure, because I'm pretty sure I read something about this, and that they actually found these skeletons of an elderly pack of velocoraptors, surrounded by a field of four-leafed clovers, and a small pile of rabbit's feet next to them. So, I believe that that's actually science, and I also think that a black hole should have an upper limit, cos otherwise, well, you know, that's too scary to compliment- er, contemplate. So I think that transplanting muscle stem cells, I don't think we're quite to the point where we can improve strength and performance doing that, and that sounds like, are we doing studies on humans with muscle stem cells? That doesn't seem like it's going to work, I don't know. I think that's fiction, so-<br />
<br />
S: Ok, alright? Jay?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, the upper limit to the black hole- the upper limit to the ''mass'' of a black hole, I would just assume that it makes a lot of sense, like Evan said, that someone would be able to sit down and run the math and be able to theoretically figure that out. 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge'. Mmm, that one seems … fishy to me for some reason, how could they determine it was just luck? I wonder how the fossil record could demonstrate that. And the last one, 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells'. Yeah, you know, I think I would've heard this. If that happened, I think that it would be much bigger news, you know, definitely above the water line, or ''I'' would've read it, with the amount of reading I do on science news. I don't think that one is science, I think that one was altered by Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, so you all agree that 'Astrophysicists have discovered the upper limit for the mass of a black hole', correct?<br />
<br />
J,B&E: Yes<br />
<br />
S:Yeah, actually, ''this'' was the most counter-intuitive one for me when I first read it. This is science, and, you know, like Bob, my reaction was 'what would stop it from absorbing more mass? What would happen if a black hole reached it's upper limit, and then, you know, there was more material to suck in, what would happen?' Well, it turns out astrophysicists-<br />
<br />
B: More to it.<br />
<br />
S: -have calculated the theoretical upper limit for the mass of a black hole, it's a Yale astronomer in fact, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priyamvada_Natarajan Priyamvada Natarajan]. What (s)he suspects is, there's a mechanism that, as the black hole gets to about 10 billion solar masses-<br />
<br />
E: Wow<br />
<br />
S: -that any matter falling into it would cause the radiation away of an equal amount of mass. <ref name="Yale">Yale news: [http://news.yale.edu/2008/09/04/yale-astronomer-discovers-upper-mass-limit-black-holes Yale Astronomer Discovers Upper Mass Limit for Black Holes]</ref> So it reaches an equilibrium point, you know-<br />
<br />
J: baaahh (?)<br />
<br />
S: -evaporate or radiate away the same amount of mass that was pulled into it-<br />
<br />
B: Wait, but you're not talking about [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation Hawking radiation] though. ''My'' interpretation was that-<br />
<br />
S: No, no<br />
<br />
B: -you've got [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accretion_disc accretion disk] radiation<br />
<br />
S: Yes, that's right<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, that's a big difference. And my understanding, though, Steve, was that this isn't a hard rule. If you've got so much in-falling matter, you would reach a point where the radiation being generated by the heat of the accretion disk would actually blow away solar ma- any material that would've fallen into the black hole, so you gotta kinda like a soft limitation in that way. But if you've got a 10 billion solar mass black hole, and it bumps into a neutron star, or a smaller black hole, nothing's going to stop that from getting bigger than 10 billion-<br />
<br />
S: Well, see, I was not clear on that point from the article that I read. That was my question too.<br />
<br />
B: That was my understanding from reading some articles, and reading a lot of the comments from people who seem to know what they were talking about. What I know about black holes, what is going to stop it, to go above it if it's as I described.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, but the press release makes it sound like that's just one possible explanation, but that other things were used to derive this upper limit. You know, we might have to do some follow-up to try and sort that out, but that was exactly the question that I had: is that a ''hard'' limit? Or is it a ''soft'' limit? You seem to think that it was a soft limit, right?<br />
<br />
B: Absolutely<br />
<br />
S: And my interpretation was that this was a ''hard'' limit, and one of the mechanisms proposed for that would prevent the black hole from getting bigger than about 10 billion solar masses, but, interesting either way. So let's go on to number two: 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge', and Bob and Evan, you both said that this one was fiction.<br />
<br />
J: So it's down to Bob and Evan, and me and Rebecca, teaming up again<br />
<br />
S: Jay and Rebecca thought this one is science, and this one… is… ''science''!<br />
<br />
J: Ah-ha!<br />
<br />
(high-five sound)<br />
<br />
J: You guys suck.<br />
<br />
S: But you guys did ask-<br />
<br />
B: There goes my run.<br />
<br />
S: an excellent question, which is- 'how would-<br />
<br />
E: mofos<br />
<br />
S: -'how would they know?'. How would you even make this determination?<br />
<br />
E: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: I don't know, you dominate the planet for 200 million years, there's gotta be some competitive edge in there.<br />
<br />
E: Well explain what ''luck'' is, in this context.<br />
<br />
J: Talk to us, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Well, luck would be that there was an environmental change, and you ''happened'' to benefit from that change, as opposed to-<br />
<br />
B: Like ''humans'', mammals<br />
<br />
S: -you just out-competed, you out-competed your contemporaries. Now, what they did, was they, this is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_L._Brusatte Steve Brusatte] from Bristol University, department of Earth Sciences. And they looked at the species that were around early in the career of the dinosaurs. They found that the other major group at the time were the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crurotarsi crurotarsans], which were alligator-like reptiles. At that time, they were a more diverse group, with greater disparity, and actually were dominant over the early dinosaurs at their time. He said, if you were, you know, in the early [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triassic triassic], for example, and you looked at these two groups, you would predict, based upon their diversity, disparity and dominance, that the crurotarsans would have a much greater chance of dominating the future than the dinosaurs would.<ref name="SM">Science magazine: [http://www.sciencemag.org/content/321/5895/1485.short Superiority, Competition, and Opportunism in the Evolutionary Radiation of Dinosaurs] DOI: 10.1126/science.1161833</ref><ref name="SA">Scientific American: [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=was-the-dinosaurs-long-reign-a-fluke Was the Dinosaurs' Long Reign on Earth a Fluke?]</ref> So by any measure of 'who was winning', the crurotarsans seemed to be winning in terms of spreading into more ecosystems and, you know, having greater numbers, etc. But then two things happened, there was the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnian carnian]-norian event 228 million years ago, which caused a lot of extinctions, with both the dinosaurs and the crurotarsans survived that, but it did eliminate a lot of competition, and then 200 million years ago, there was the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triassic#Late_Triassic_extinction_event end Triassic extinction], which resulted from a period of significant global warming, increase in temperature, and the dinosaurs weathered the increase in temperature, and the crurotarsans didn't. But until that climate change occurred, the crurotarsans were out-competing the dinosaurs, if anything. So that's what they mean by luck, they just ''happened'' to benefit from a change in the climate when, if, all things being equal, they were not directly out-competing their contemporaries. Which means that number three: 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells' is fiction.<br />
<br />
B: Whatever.<br />
<br />
S: But what ''is'' true, is that they just identified what the muscle stem cell ''is''. They didn't really know which muscle was ''in fact'' the muscle stem cell.<br />
<br />
B: Crap, that's what I read.<br />
<br />
S: Yes, perhaps that's what you'd read. So, and it turns out to be the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myosatellite_cell satellite] cell which is a type of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progenitor_cells progenitor] cell that exists near the muscles, or in the muscle tissue, and, you know, in repair or exercise, etc. will generate new muscle tissue. But we haven't successfully transplanted muscle cells into people. That's not happened yet.<br />
<br />
J: (mimicking) Stem cells are made of people!<br />
<br />
B: Man, I hate when a vague memory of reading an article totally kills you<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I know, that's what got me<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, sucks to be you, Bob<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: You gotta stop reading, guys.<br />
<br />
J: So, Steve really is the bastard tonight<br />
<br />
B: Jay, you bastard, you ended the run I had, it was like a nine-winning streak run (actually 10). How long was your run?<br />
<br />
J: Four foot one<br />
<br />
E: Four foot one<br />
<br />
S: Well, congratulations Jay and Rebecca, good job.<br />
<br />
J: Yay! Rebecca!<br />
<br />
E: Yay!<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:16:28)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: Jay, do you have a quote for us this week?<br />
<br />
J: I have a quote this week from a man called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume David Hume], he lived 1711-1776, that was a pretty good year, wasn't it? And I'm always surprised when I read quotes from people that lived centuries ago, especially ones that are exceptionally logical or rational, maybe I'm skewed, or maybe just from reading quotes from a lot of very smart people during that time, I don't know. I'd like to know if I'm just thinking that they're overly rational for their time, or maybe people were more rational in the past.<br />
<br />
S: Well it was the age of enlightenment for a reason, Jay.<br />
<br />
J: David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, an economist, historian, and an important figure in western philosophy, and he said, or wrote:<br />
<blockquote>When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.</blockquote><br />
J: DAVID HUME! … I think this is also a good quote to go with Melvin's email to us. MELVIN LEE! (even louder) MELVIN LEE!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: CONFUSED LISTENER!<br />
<br />
R: Ok, the David Hume one didn't make me laugh, but...<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Right, just a quick reminder that October 10<sup>th</sup>, New York city is the New York city's skeptic's first annual anniversary event, they're going to have James Randi speak for them, and then October 11<sup>th</sup>, in Fairfield Connecticut, Perry's home town, we're going to have the first annual Perry DeAngelis memorial lecture!<br />
<br />
E,B&J: Yay!<br />
<br />
S: October 11<sup>th</sup>, noon to three at the Fairfield theatre company, we have the information on our message-board, and on our facebook page, and Jay, can we put that on the website? I know we're in the middle of the update and everything, but can we put that up?<br />
<br />
J: I will put it on the homepage<br />
<br />
S: ''and'' we have confirmed guests Steve Mirsky, from Scientific American-<br />
<br />
J: He's awesome<br />
<br />
S: -and Terence Hines-<br />
<br />
E: Nice<br />
<br />
S: -excellent skeptic and neuroscientist, and author of 'Pseudoscience and the paranormal', ain't it cool?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, he's a good dude<br />
<br />
S: Well, thank you all again for joining me this week<br />
<br />
(someone singing "going crazy"?)<br />
<br />
R: Thanks Steve<br />
<br />
E: Yes, it was good joining you<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Fun as always, and until next week, this is your Skeptics' guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
<br />
== Today I learned... ==<br />
*The first space shuttle, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Enterprise Enterprise] was unveiled by NASA on September 17th 1976. <br />
<br />
*September 19th is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day international talk like a pirate day].<br />
<br />
*In February 2006, astronomers using the Hubble space telescope spotted a mystery object that continually brightened for about 100 days, after which, it dimmed symmetrically for the next 100 days.<ref name="Barbary"/> The distance to the object has been said to be between 120 and 11 billion light years away, and does not match any object in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloan_Digital_Sky_Survey Sloan Digital Sky Survey] at the time of the podcast.<br />
<br />
*Church of England offered a formal apology to Darwin in September 2008! ([http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7613403.stm BBC article])<br />
<br />
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restless_legs_syndrome Restless leg syndrome]has been documented for over 100 years.<br />
<br />
*Astrophysicists at Yale have calculated the upper limit for the mass of a black hole, stating that as a black hole gets to about 10 billion solar masses, any subsequent matter falling into it would cause the radiation away of an equal amount of mass.<ref name="Yale"/><br />
<br />
*New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge. It is thought that global warming in the late Triassic era may have led to the extinction of the previously dominant [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crurotarsi crurotarsans], whilst the dinosaurs survived.<ref name="SM"/><ref name="SA"/> <br />
<br />
*The muscle stem cell is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myosatellite_cell satellite] cell which is a type of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progenitor_cells progenitor] cell that exist near the muscles, or in the muscle tissue, and will generate new muscle tissue in repair or exercise, etc.<br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
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}}</div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_165&diff=9636SGU Episode 1652015-02-06T00:56:48Z<p>Jason koziol: /* Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:16:28) */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Editing required<br />
|proof-reading = y<br />
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{{InfoBox <br />
|episodeNum = 165<br />
|episodeDate = 17<sup>th</sup> September 2008<br />
|episodeIcon = File:goldacre.jpg<br />
|rebecca = y<br />
|bob = y<br />
|jay = y<br />
|evan = y<br />
|guest1 = BG: [http://www.badscience.net/ Ben Goldacre]<br />
|guest2 = JR: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi James Randi]<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2008-09-17.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com//index.php/topic,14234.0.html<br />
|qowText = When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.<br />
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume David Hume]<br />
|}}<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.<br />
<br />
S: Hello, and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday September 17<sup>th</sup> 2008, and this is your host, Steven Novella, President of the [http://www.theness.com/ New England Skeptical Society]. Joining me this evening are Bob Novella,<br />
<br />
B: Hey everybody<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca Watson<br />
<br />
R: Hello, everyone<br />
<br />
S: Jay Novella<br />
<br />
J: Hey guys<br />
<br />
S: And Evan Bernstein<br />
<br />
E: Hi everyone, how's everyone doin' tonight?<br />
<br />
J: Good<br />
<br />
S: Good<br />
<br />
R: Great<br />
<br />
B: What's goin' on<br />
<br />
E: Good!<br />
<br />
== This Day in Skepticism <small>(0:36)</small> ==<br />
<br />
R: What's the day, Evan?<br />
<br />
E: 1976, the first space shuttle, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Enterprise Enterprise], unveiled by NASA.<br />
<br />
B: Ah, that's awesome<br />
<br />
E: Not launched, just unveiled<br />
<br />
S: Just unveiled?<br />
<br />
J: I remember being a kid, watching the TV, seeing a bunch of people standing on the tarmac, watching it be unveiled, then playing the theme to the Enterprise, you know, Star Trek.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
E: (laughs)<br />
<br />
J: Remember that?<br />
<br />
S: But I was devastated when I learned the Enterprise was never going to go into orbit.<br />
<br />
B: No <br />
<br />
J: What a gip!<br />
<br />
E: That's right<br />
<br />
B: Just a mock-up<br />
<br />
S: They should've saved the name for the first one to launch, not just the training module.<br />
<br />
R: I know a better day that's coming up, and that would be Friday, the 19<sup>th</sup>. You guys know what Friday is?<br />
<br />
J: Friday, um…<br />
<br />
S: September 19<sup>th</sup>?<br />
<br />
R: Uh-huh, you give up?<br />
<br />
B: Sorry<br />
<br />
S: The start of fall<br />
<br />
R: (complete with accent) Aaar, it's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day talk-like-a-pirate day]! Ye land-lubbers!<br />
<br />
B: Yes! How could I forget?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Didn't we just have that?<br />
<br />
J: That's a great day!<br />
<br />
E: Last year we mentioned that.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Aaaar<br />
<br />
B: It's an awesome day<br />
<br />
S: Has it been a year already?<br />
<br />
R: It has<br />
<br />
E: Aaaar, matey, it has.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Good thing we're not doing the podcast on Friday.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, can't we ''pretend''?<br />
<br />
B: Oh, the whole- the whole days as pirates?<br />
<br />
E: Today is talk like a ninja day<br />
<br />
S: Knock yourself out<br />
<br />
R: You can't talk like a ninja!<br />
<br />
S: Actually, ''today''-<br />
<br />
E: Sure you can,<br />
<br />
R: They just sneak up and stab you<br />
<br />
S: Today is international talk like a skeptic day<br />
<br />
B: Ha!<br />
<br />
R: (laughing) You made that up<br />
<br />
E: (with accent) I doubt that, har-har-har<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Well, we have an interview that we recorded at TAM 6 with Ben Goldacre coming up later in the show.<br />
<br />
B: Ben!<br />
<br />
R: That's aaaaar-some, Steve. I can't wait<br />
<br />
S: Ben is a cool guy. Our first new item is about Ben<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Ben Goldacre Defends Libel Case <small>(2:17)</small>===<br />
[http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=377 Neurologica: An Important Victory Against HIV Quackery]<br />
<br />
S: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Goldacre Ben Goldacre], who writes for the Guardian, and is one of the guys in the UK who's writing about science and medicine. He had written a piece about [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthias_Rath Matthias Rath], you guys familiar with this guy?<br />
<br />
R: Only in that I know he's a douche<br />
<br />
B: Er, no<br />
<br />
S: Right, he is a ''giant'' douche, he really is. So he has an organisation-<br />
<br />
R: (in the background) Am I gonna get sued for that?<br />
<br />
S: -that sells ''all kinds'' of snake oil, and what Ben wrote about was Rath selling vitamins in South Africa to AIDS victims, telling them ''not'' to take their anti-HIV medications, but instead, to take his vitamins. You know, there's an actual death count that you can attach to that kinda behaviour.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: So, Ben called him out on that. Now, Rath has a history of suing anyone who criticizes him, he has many, many lawsuits in many countries. You know, anyone who says that what he's doing is not legitimate, his response is to sue them.<br />
<br />
R: Including in South Africa where he's causing the most damage.<br />
<br />
S: Yes, South Africa, Germany, and again against the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian Guardian] and Ben Goldacre. And he's won some of those suits, unfortunately. But this, recently he had to withdraw his suit against the Guardian and Ben Goldacre ''and'' he's going to have to pay about half a million pounds in legal fees as a result as well. So that was a very good outcome. Of course, we all congratulate Ben on seeing that through, you know, it's obviously something that cuts very close to home. We spend a lot of our time dishing out very harsh criticism to a lot of people. Some of whom are heartless charlatans who will kill people if it lines their pockets, and who have a history of defending themselves by intimidating others with lawsuits and-<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, and you know, it's very different in England, where the laws aren't quite as much on the side of people who are making the statements, it's not quite on the side of free-speech as it is in the US.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
R: I think that, you know, we have a certain amount of protection going for us, but in the UK, it's fairly easy for someone to sue for libel slander, because once they do, the burden is on the defendant, as opposed to in the US, where the burden of proof is on the plaintive, and I am ''not'' a lawyer.<br />
<br />
S: No, that's correct. Although, in England, the one advantage in the UK, is that it's pretty standard, if you lose such a lawsuit, it's almost automatic that you pay the other side's legal fees. So that's the disincentive for frivolous lawsuits.<br />
<br />
R: Right, and so sure enough, he's had to cough up, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: These are ''critical'' victories for free-speech for sceptics everywhere who are trying to, you know, point out, especially this kind of really destructive behaviour. So, this is, I think, a very important victory. So, congratulations Ben!<br />
<br />
E: Good job, Ben<br />
<br />
R: Yay Ben!<br />
<br />
=== Hubble Finds Mystery Object <small>(5:20)</small>===<br />
[http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/newsblog/28244844.html?pageSize=0 Sky & Telescope article]<br />
<br />
S: The next news item, the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope Hubble] finds a mystery object that ''genuinely'' has astronomers ''baffled''<br />
<br />
R: Astronomers are baffled!<br />
<br />
S: They are<br />
<br />
J: They're baffled!<br />
<br />
S: They're generally baffled.<br />
<br />
E: are they flummoxed?<br />
<br />
S: And flummoxed.<br />
<br />
J: So what is it, Steve?<br />
<br />
S: Now, this is pretty interesting<br />
<br />
B: That's the question, Jay, it's- really nobody knows, according to a paper that's about to appear in the Astrophysical journal.<ref name="Barbary">Barbary et al. (2009) [http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/690/2/1358/ Discovery of an unusual optical transient with the hubble space telescope ] ApJ 690 1358 doi:10.1088/0004-637X/690/2/1358 </ref> Something extraordinary, never been seen before by astronomers appeared in 2006, so I was a little disappointed that it was two years ago, like, 'what? We're just hearing about this ''now''?'. But to this day, it is not known what the hell it was, or if it will ever appear again. It started with the Supernova Cosmology Project in February 2006 using Hubble, looking for Supernovae in February. A previously unknown object started getting brighter and brighter, and brighter, and it just did not stop. And this continued for about 100 days, at that point, it pretty much stopped getting brighter and bigger, and then just started to symmetrically dim for the next 100 days. So it was really, perfectly symmetrical light curve where the dimming is perfectly matched by the brightening in the beginning. The spectrum of light was also an enigma, the spectrum basically just shows the rainbow of colors from a light source, but also, of course, includes the non-visible light, like UV or radio. And ''typically'', these certain pieces of the spectrum are missing from a spectrum. And the lines that are missing shows you what elements must have been near the light source, or in the intervening space that absorbed it. So you've got these emission lines, but these emission lines made no sense.<br />
<br />
S: Don't you mean 'absorption lines'? Just to be clear, emission lines are different from absorption lines. Emission lines are when- are from the body itself that's glowing, absorption lines are from something intervening that's absorbing the light that was emitted.<br />
<br />
B: That's right, you were right. So this is a key deficit in our knowledge about this object, because if you can't determine what the elements are, what the arrangement of elements are in the spectrum, then you don't know how red-shifted the object is. That's one of the reasons why quasars were such a puzzle to astronomers early on, because quasars are so red-shifted, they're billions of light years distant, therefore, their red-shift is gargantuan, and it took a while for astronomers to realize 'wait a second, hydrogen's way over here, if it's way over here, it's gotta be immensely distant'. And that's gotta be one of the key insights that made them realize that these objects were so far away. So if we don't have this information, if we can't kinda get a picture of what's going on with the spectrum of this object, then you have no idea how far away this is. Is it in our galaxy?<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Is it in ''another'' galaxy? We don't know!<br />
<br />
J: Is that like a ball of hydrogen, or some hot-pocket of air, or expanding space somewhere?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: All we know is what we saw. It was some sort of stellar object that got brighter and brighter, like a Supernova, and then dimmed. But it was not typical of any other object that they've ever seen before.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they said it's specifically ''not'' a supernova.<br />
<br />
R: And if you were a pirate, would you call it a quasaaaaarrr?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: Quasaaaarr! Yes! Good one.<br />
<br />
E: No!<br />
<br />
R: I suspect that they call it quasaarrr<br />
<br />
S: That's not a (inaudible)<br />
<br />
B: We do have a range though, this thing must be within a certain range by other measurements, and one of them is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax parallax]. Parallax is the movement of one object due to movement of a foreground object, so if an object is close enough away, say less than 130 light years, you would see obvious parallax. We're not seeing that, so that means that this object is ''more'' than 130 light years away. So that's the ''bottom'' limit right there. So, what's the upper limit? Well, the only upper limit I came across for this thing has to do with hydrogen absorption. Because it's lacking hydrogen absorption in the spectrum, that means that it has to be less than 11 billion light years away. So our range is greater than 120 light years, less than 11 billion light years.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Nice range<br />
<br />
E: Oh, narrowed it down, that's great<br />
<br />
B: That's the best they've come up with in ''two years''. So, it could be anywhere in the intervening space.<br />
<br />
S: But interestingly, given that it could be- there's such a huge range for how far away it could be, they said that it's not ''in'' any known galaxy. So there's no galaxy, I guess, on that-<br />
<br />
B: I have a problem with that. I have a problem with that because there's been mention of this [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo%C3%B6tes Bo&ouml;tes constellation] they referred to, which is just a constellation of stars within our galaxy. But they refer to it as a void where there's really nothing around it for many light years, apparently. Now, there is a ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo%C3%B6tes_void Bo&ouml;tes super-void], it's a void, one of the biggest voids in the known universe, it's 250 million light years wide. Now I ''think'' they are possibly referring to this, they're saying that it's within this specific void. If it could be 130 light years away or 11 billion light years away, why do they think it's in a void 250 million light years across?<br />
<br />
S: I don't think it's ''just'' that, my reading was that it's not in any ''known'' galaxy, if it were in a galaxy, they're not seeing the galaxy that it's in.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, but why even mention this specific Bo&ouml;tes void or concept? Cos that, to me, just seems like a red herring.<br />
<br />
J: Bob, do we know if it's heading in a direction? Like, what direction it was moving in?<br />
<br />
B: No, there was no- you know, 200 days is not gonna be any- there wasn't really any discernable movement. Now, could it be a new type of Supernova? Scientists don't ''think'' so, there's a problem with that, because it doesn't match any of the known Supernova types and the brightening took much longer than normal, typically, Supernovas will brighten for 20 days, this one lasted for 100 days, and the spectrum didn't make any sense. The light curve should be asymmetrical for a Supernova, they fade more slowly than they brighten, it didn't make any sense.<br />
<br />
S: They also said it was ''not'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_microlensing microlensing]<br />
<br />
B: Right, the light curve doesn't match a microlensing event. Microlensing occurs when light is distorted as it travels over a gravitational source. They've ruled that out as well. It doesn't look like a quasar, I mean nothing that-<br />
<br />
R&E: Aaaarrr<br />
<br />
B: They put this spectrum through the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloan_Digital_Sky_Survey Sloan Digital Sky Survey] database, which has just a ''vast'' number of objects, and it didn't match anything in there. This is really quite a mystery and I-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, so this thing is probably a whole new class of object – which is cool!<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, some people have speculated that it's some sort of- because it's so symmetrical and blah, blah, blah that it could be-<br />
<br />
R: Aliens<br />
<br />
B: -some sort of sign from an intelligence, but obviously there's nothing that would really give you any confidence in that sort of conclusion. Not yet, anyway. But that would be interesting, if evidence pointed that way, but, man, I'm not counting on that at all.<br />
<br />
S: You don't think it's like a Death Star blowing up or something?<br />
<br />
B: They were talking about it in the comments.<br />
<br />
J: We would need so much more freakin evidence, you can't jump to ''that'', that's incredible<br />
<br />
B: No, that's ridiculous<br />
<br />
S: Well they thought that about pulsars when they first saw them, they were called LGM<br />
<br />
B: LGM, little green men, it was so regular<br />
<br />
E: Cos it was too regular, right? It could only have been created or something<br />
<br />
S: But sometimes, nature is really regular and symmetrical<br />
<br />
E: Aah, when nature is regular<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, you can't jump to an artificial hypothesis just because it's so symmetrical<br />
<br />
J: I'm pretty regular<br />
<br />
E: And symmetrical<br />
<br />
R: That's not what I heard<br />
<br />
=== Creationism in the UK <small>(13:00)</small>===<br />
[http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=376 Neurologica: Teaching Creationism in Schools]<br />
<br>[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4768820.ece TimesOnline article] (login required)<br />
<!-- dead link: http://www.cofe.anglican.org/darwin <br />
possible alternative: http://www.churchofengland.org/our-views/medical-ethics-health-social-care-policy/darwin.aspx<br />
--><br />
<br>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7613403.stm BBC article: Who are the British creationists?]<br />
<br />
S: Well, creationism is creeping into the UK, traditionally, the United States has had a problem with creationists trying to infiltrate public schools and etc. But now, apparently, it's becoming more of a problem in the United Kingdom. And this came to a head recently by comments made by reverend professor [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Reiss Michael Reiss] who was, until very recently, the Director of Education at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society Royal Society]. The Royal Society, I think is the ''oldest'' scientific institution and has a very important position in the UK science community. He made some controversial statements, and this is a quote from them<br />
<blockquote>An increasing percentage of children in the UK come from families that do not accept the scientific version of the history of the universe and the evolution of species. What are we to do with those children? My experience after having tried to teach biology for 20 years is if one simply gives the impression that such children are wrong, then they are not likely to learn much about the science that one really wants them to learn. I think a better way forward is to say to them 'look, I simply want to present you with the scientific understanding of the history of the universe and how animals and plants and other organisms evolved'.<ref>BBC news: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7612152.stm Call for creationism in science]</ref></blockquote><br />
S: He made other comments as well that really sparked a controversy over what ''exactly'' is this guy advocating? And because he's actually a literalist, not just a reverend, but a ''literalist'', a lot of people sort of had their eye on this guy, and were sort of waiting for this kind of thing to happen, this kind of controversy to crop up. So this, perhaps as much as anything else, is what lead to this incredible controversy, but ''I'' still have a hard time knowing ''really'' what this guy was advocating. <br />
<br />
R: Well, you know what the Society, a spokesman for the Society stepped forward and confirmed that, you know, what he was saying was inline with what they believed, and their exact quote was <br />
<blockquote>Our position is that if young people put forward a creationist perspective in the classroom, it should be discussed.<ref>Royal Society spokesperson statement &ndash; [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4760967.ece Times Online article] (login required)</ref></blockquote><br />
R: Their whole thing, they're talking about science, so we can assume they're talking about the science classroom, and it's kind of ridiculous just to put it like that. I mean, if you're going to talk about that subject, then let's be specific, ''how'' should it be discussed? Should it be discussed in terms of showing them that, for instance, a belief in god can be compatible with evolution? Or should you be telling them that there's no way in hell the Earth was created in six days?<br />
<br />
S: (agreeing) mm-hmm<br />
<br />
R: It's not very educational, it's not very helpful to just throw that out there like that. It sounds like a big case of covering of asses<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they definitely- the Royal Society put out ''clarifications'', 'quote-unquote', the next day saying 'creationism is ''not'' science, it should ''not'' be taught as science in the science classroom, and we whole-heartedly defend the teaching of evolution'. But this guy, Reiss, you know, he's just made other statements that were very, very squirly, for example, he said 'I do believe in taking seriously and respectfully the concerns of students who do not believe the theory of evolution, while still introducing them to it'. He also made some comments about treating creationism and ID, intelligent design, and evolution as different ''world-views''. So, you know, he's kinda dancing around this topic, and I think that, given that he's a literalist, and that he's making these squirly comments, it certainly ''seems'' like he's trying to squeeze in a little 'teach the controversy' through the back door there, just by saying 'we need to be respectful of the students, and we need to address their concerns and talk about creationism- oh, we believe in evolution, I'm not saying evolution is ''wrong'', but, you know, we really need to take- we can't just teach evolution, we have to address their concerns'<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it almost sounds like he's going for the catching more flies with honey defense, but-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
R: And there's something to be said for exploring different ways of reaching kids who are unfortunately growing up in households where their parents are ignorant of the basic tenants of science. And, you know, it ''is'' going to be difficult if they've been raised to believe in something wholly incompatible with what you're teaching them. You know, we ''do'' need to look at how we're teaching them. But to make a vague statement that just doesn't jibe at all with anything we're actually aiming for, and then to run away from it-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
R: Is kinda cowardly and suspicious.<br />
<br />
E: It's just a case of this person, I ''think'', trying to be somewhat politically correct, not taking a firm stance one way or the other, trying to please the most people possible with his statement to try and quell any controversy, it just did the opposite, apparently.<br />
<br />
J: He stepped down from his position too, ''because'' of the controversy.<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
R: He did, and the really cool thing is that he stepped down when British members of parliament stood up and said 'Hey, what the hell are you guys talking about? That's not science' and can you imagine that happening in the US, where an actual congress person steps up and bats somebody in line and defends science?<br />
<br />
B: No!<br />
<br />
J: No!<br />
<br />
R: It seems kind of foreign (laughs) So, I think that the UK kind of scores one on that point.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, although again this is in the context of increasing sort of insurgence of creationism into the UK, and increasing concerns. This controversy was all around the science blogosphere for the last week, the last few days, and some of the comments, like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PZ_Myers P. Z Myers] for example wrote a lot about this, and he said that 'you can teach students how we know the Earth isn't 6,000 years old. How we know there is common descent, you know, we know the Earth is 14 billion years old, etc, etc'. you can say ''historically'' they used to think this, you know 150 years ago, and this is how we- our thinking of our origins changed over time and developed with evidence. So, you can teach students everything students need to know about ''how'' science works, about how specific scientific beliefs came to be. But based upon what evidence, what logic. Without ever talking about a religious belief, or talking about creationism, you don't ''have'' to do that. I think that confronting something that is a ''religious'' belief in the science classroom is the wrong approach, you're better off saying 'in ''this'' classroom, we're talking about science, ''this'' is what science is. This is how scientists come to the conclusions that they come to. And you could achieve all of the objectives that Reiss claims he was really talking about, without respecting creationism as a world-view. That has no place in a science classroom. Some other things that have been going on, though, I don't know if this is a coincidence, but the Church of England, the C of E<br />
<br />
E: (with English accent) C of E<br />
<br />
S: Apologised to Darwin!<br />
<br />
R: I think that is-<br />
<br />
J: Now that blew my mind<br />
<br />
B: Ha!<br />
<br />
J: I can't believe that<br />
<br />
E: Did he accept?<br />
<br />
S: Good for them<br />
<br />
E: Did he accept?<br />
<br />
R: He couldn't accept, he was roasting in hell for his evil Darwinist ideas!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: (with English accent) So sorry, Darwin, sorry about that, old chap<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: So, yeah, they said it was basically the wrong thing to do, to basically oppress Darwin's views at the time. And, it turns out, that whole evolution thing was probably a good idea. Now, in response to that, the pope said 'yeah, evolution is fine, but we're not ''apologising'''. <br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: He ''refused'' to apologise.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: He basically said 'Oh, yeah?'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: 'You pansies in England can apologise to Darwin, the pope's not apologising to ''nobody'''. But, yeah, evolution's fine, you know, they<br />
<br />
J: The pope's tired<br />
<br />
S: Right, but the UK's got their own creationist museum now.<br />
<br />
R: (flatly) Good for them.<br />
<br />
J: It was just a matter of time<br />
<br />
E: Has the UK largely over the years been, not influenced by creationism, and it's only making some recent advances and strides?<br />
<br />
S: Yes, that's exactly correct, and it really has been, at least in the West, a US phenomenon. But now it is spreading to the UK.<br />
<br />
E: Do we know how much of it is influenced by Islam? Because the Islam population is on a great rise.<br />
<br />
S: That is a factor I know that Richard Dawkins has pointed that out as a factor, that they are creating ''faith'' schools, and teaching creationism from their religious perspective. Others have pointed to, you know, specifically political influence from the US have pointed to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Templeton_Foundation Templeton foundation], which is dedicated to-<br />
<br />
E: Oh yeah<br />
<br />
S: Connecting science and religion, and they have a lot of money behind that, so they give money to anybody who will-<br />
<br />
B: A million dollars, a million dollars a year to the person who does the most to join science and religion, right?<br />
<br />
R: I've seen rich people die and leave mansions to their ''cats'', and it's a better use of money than that prize.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, I agree<br />
<br />
J: and is it that general? The criteria is that general?<br />
<br />
S: Yes. The goal is for science to validate faith, that is the goal.<br />
<br />
E: So, is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Egnor Michael Egnor] in the running for that prize?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: I wouldn't be surprised.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, right?<br />
<br />
S: He definitely wants to intermingle those two<br />
<br />
R: You know who pirates' favourite scientist is?<br />
<br />
B: Oh boy,<br />
<br />
S: I can't wait to hear<br />
<br />
R: Daarrrrwin!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: Daarrrrwin<br />
<br />
B: Oh god<br />
<br />
J: Rebecca, get back on your medication as soon as possible.<br />
<br />
R: I ran out of gin!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: Keep up some rum, aarrr<br />
<br />
B: Keep it up, Rebecca, I'm loving it<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
== Questions and Emails <small>(22:52)</small> ==<br />
<big>Big Pharma</big><br />
<br />
S: Well, let's go on to your email, do you know what the first email's about?<br />
<br />
R: Daaarrrwin?<br />
<br />
E: It's about 15 sentences<br />
<br />
S: It's about 'big phaaaarrrma'!<br />
<br />
R&E: Phaarrrma!<br />
<br />
S: This one comes from Nick Vockrodt, from Arlington, Virgina. And he writes a very long email, I'm going to cut to the question: (see [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=165 show notes] for full email)<br />
<blockquote>My question is regarding "Big Pharma" and specifically [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibromyalgia fibromyalgia]-</blockquote><br />
R: I'm sorry, Steve, about big what?<br />
<br />
S: big phaarrrghma<br />
<br />
R: Thank you<br />
<blockquote>S: and specifically fibromyalgia I was discussing the pharmaceutical industry with a friend who claimed that diseases are-</blockquote><br />
J: What was that, Steve? Fibro- what?<br />
<br />
S: Alright, enough!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<blockquote>S: who claimed that diseases are being "made up" by drug companies for the sole purpose of creating a market for their medicines. He mentioned fibromyalgia as a perfect example, claiming it to be a disease that anyone can convince themselves they have. This sounded like what Dr. Novella describes as symptoms of life … I wasn't very familiar with the malady at the time to argue, but I tend to defend the pharmaceutical industry when faced with what sounds like a conspiracy theory. In my subsequent research, I found that there is some debate on it, but that the disease is generally accepted by the medical community as being "real".</blockquote><br />
S: Well, this is actually a complicated question because there's a few components to it. Let's take the first component of it: 'Does the pharma company make up diseases that they could then market their drugs for?'. I think there, in my opinion, the answer is a pretty unequivocal ''no''. The pharmaceutical industry in this country, regulated by the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_and_Drug_Administration FDA], when they market a drug, by definition, if you are marketing ''anything'' and claiming that it treats or cures or modifies a disease, it's regulated as a drug. Right, so things are regulated based on the kinds of claims that are made for them. But you don't get to make up your own diseases though, you know, to say that your drug is gonna treat something that you yourself get to make up, or that a ''company'' makes up. Companies are not in a position to ''create'' or will into existence a new disease. Things like fibromyalgia are- that is a diagnosis that emerged from the medical community. Now, I think that fibromyalgia is a very complicated disease entity that I have a lot of doubts about the way it's classified and diagnosed right now. First of all, it's not a disease, ''really'', even though-<br />
<br />
B: a syndrome?<br />
<br />
S: -it is recog- so what the-<br />
<br />
E: It's a 'condition'?<br />
<br />
S: Like for regulatory purposes, what the FDA will consider a disease is not necessarily what we would, in medicine, use the term specifically 'disease' for, meaning a pathophysiological entity. Sometimes there are clinical ''syndromes'', or a recognised entity, but we don't understand the pathophysiology, so it may be described purely by the clinical picture that it creates. So like 'chronic fatigue syndrome' is a syndrome, not really a disease. Fibromyalgia, I think, is better understood that way, although there are some thoughts about what might be ''causing'' it, it's actually not well understood. In fact, recent evidence suggests that a lot of people who have the symptoms of fibromyalgia may just be the symptoms of an underlying problem, like a sleep disorder. In fact, I think a lot of people who have the symptoms that are used to make the diagnosis fibromyalgia, actually have an underlying sleep disorder. Others may have an underlying anxiety disorder.<br />
<br />
J: Really?<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
J: Interesting<br />
<br />
S: And if you treat people for the sleep disorder, the fibromyalgia symptoms go away, so that's a pretty good indication. At least ''some'' of them. Other people may have a simmering auto-immune inflammation of the muscles. And that may be ''really''- if there ''is'' something that's really fibromyalgia, I think that's what it is. But a lot of people get similar symptoms for other reasons.<br />
<br />
J: Would you consider fibromyalgia kind of like a 'catch-all' for a bunch of different types of symptoms then?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think it's what we call a 'garbage-pail diagnosis', you know, you just get people who have symptoms in this area, then this is the label you attach to it. But there isn't any way to specifically say 'yes, this is a discrete pathological entity that they ''have'' '. I also see the diagnosis made on ''non-specific'' symptoms, without the specific symptoms that are supposed to be there. So if you are fatigued and achy, and etc., and you call that fibromyalgia, well that's just attaching a label to non-specific symptoms. You're supposed to have what we call 'trigger points', that are specific places in the muscles that are very tender. And if you have that pattern of 'trigger points' then I think it's ''meaningful'' to say 'well that pattern is called fibromyalgia. We still don't know what it is, we have some ideas, but that's the way we use the diagnosis'. If you call everybody who is fatigued and achey fibromylagia, then the diagnosis has no meaning. <br />
<br />
Now, I believe that the pharmaceutical industry has targeted fibromyalgia for a couple of drugs because it ''is'' such a easy diagnosis to make, because you can attach it to these vague symptoms, so I think if they're guilty of anything, it's choosing a marketable disease. But they didn't make it up, they weren't the ones to make it up. But that's just, you know, when pharmaceutical companies look for an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indication_%28medicine%29 indication] for their drug, that's based purely on marketing. They want to decide 'what's the biggest market? What drugs are going to sell the most? Which indication will allow us to speak to which specialty of physicians that we want to be able to market to?'. It's all really a marketing decision, of course the science has to be there as well. But often, with many drugs, there are different indications that you could go for. For example, if a drug treats pain, or treats nerve pain, now nerve pain is not a disease, so you have to pick a disease that causes nerve pain. Now, what diseases cause nerve pain are you gonna pick? Postherpetic neuralgia or diabetic neuropathy? They're gonna make a marketing decision, They're gonna choose the one with the biggest sales, the biggest marketing options for their drug, but again, they don't get to make up the disease. The other disease for which I hear this claim the most frequently is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restless_legs_syndrome restless leg syndrome] (RLS).<br />
<br />
E: Oh yeah<br />
<br />
S: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Carrey Jim Carrey] made that comment, that pharmaceutical made up restless leg syndrome in order to market a drug for it. Well, first of all, the drugs that have the indication for treating RLS, already have other indications, they were already on the market for legitimate indications, so it wasn't a way of rescuing a failed drug, that's a ''demonstrable'' myth. The other thing is, restless leg syndrom has existed in the medical literature for ''decades''. I was able to go onto my bookshelf and find an old neurology text with a ''40 year old'' reference to restless leg syndrome.<br />
<br />
E: Wow!<br />
<br />
S: 40 years before there was ever a drug marketed for it.<br />
<br />
E: Is that what they called it back then?<br />
<br />
S: Yes! Yes, and, in fact, if you dig deeper into the literature, the references go back even farther, ''and'' I forget what- it was known by other names even before the term restless leg syndrome came into being. So, yeah, it's basically like 100 years we've known that this has existed.<br />
<br />
J: (squeaky Irish voice?) 'Let me show you something'. (normal voice) A perfect example of why I ''don't'' wanna know what famous people think.<br />
<br />
(laughter) <br />
<br />
R: Right? At all<br />
<br />
E: Well, ''some''<br />
<br />
J: It ruined it for me, I ''loved'' that guy, now I have to hate him<br />
<br />
S: Oh, you do have to hate Jim Carrey, he is totally now on board with the anti-vaccinationist kooks.<br />
<br />
R: But he was so good in 'Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind'!<br />
<br />
S: He was<br />
<br />
B: (laughs)<br />
<br />
E: Sorry, so sorry.<br />
<br />
J: Oh well<br />
<br />
E: Move on<br />
<br />
S: Terrible, terrible, terrible.<br />
<br />
J: (singing) 'another one bites the dust'<br />
<br />
S: So, anyway, this is just unfounded conspiracy theories. Now, again, that doesn't mean that the pharmaceutical industry is ''not'' an industry that, they're not companies looking at their bottom line, and that the companies are beyond reproach. I'm not saying that, ''this'' notion that they make up diseases is nonsense. That is just made up conspiracy thinking.<br />
<br />
== Name That Logical Fallacy <small>(30:53)</small> == <br />
S: We do have a 'Name that logical fallacy' this week, we actually got our first piece of hard-core hate-mail in a long time. And it's just so chock-full of logical fallacies, I thought it would make good example for us to examine this week. So here we go, this one comes from Melvin Lee, who gives his-<br />
<br />
R: Melvin!... sorry<br />
<br />
S: Melvin<br />
<br />
J: Melvins!<br />
<br />
(Laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Gives his location as America. Thanks for being helpful. Now, Melvin writes (all indented quotes taken from [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=165 show notes] as written):<br />
<blockquote>I think that u and all those mofos on that show are full of shit. </blockquote><br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Wait, can you say that? You can't say that on the show.<br />
<br />
(inaudible)<br />
<br />
J: Steve-<br />
<br />
E: Should you say 'mofo'? <br />
<br />
<blockquote>S: How can u honestly say NO! there is no bigfoot just because I've never seen it, NO! crop circles aren't real because I'm obviously the creator of this world and I know EVERYTHING about. </blockquote><br />
(laughter)<br />
<blockquote>U pussies or just.......ugh, words can't describe how I feel about u guys. WHO R U-</blockquote><br />
<br />
S: Now, you also have to- we'll obviously publish the-<br />
<br />
R: All the "are"s are just the letter, all the "you"s are<br />
<br />
S: Capital 'R', capital 'U', " WHO R U"<br />
<br />
R: Melvin, actually ''texted'' this to us, it took him 16 texts<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: You know, if you're ''gonna'' write a critical email-<br />
<br />
R: Cost him 35 cents<br />
<br />
S: -take the time to spell out the words<br />
<br />
E: You have to assume that the person crafting it ''can'' spell the words<br />
<br />
B: Nah, this is a young kid, this is just a kid. <br />
<blockquote>S: WHO R U to tell some that they didn't see something with their own eyes and what they saw was an illusion. plz reread over WHO R U. U r human, u r not some all knowing god. U cannot get mad at someone for jus reporting what they saw, where u there too?, so how could u possibly say they didn't see that they thought they saw. </blockquote><br />
R: Wait, can you just do that sentence one more time?<br />
<br />
S&E: No<br />
<blockquote>Their just reporting it. This world is full of secrets and jus because it seems mundane doesn't mean its fake. Another thing. if hundreds of people AROUND THE WORLD r seeing something (bigfoot, ufos, ghost), then it ''has'' to be true. Not every situation was a hoax r the product of an over active mind. all I'm saying is WE R ALL HUMANS u have the same brain as me, u r not the god who created this world, therefore u cannot say confidently that something's not there, when it obviously is. </blockquote><br />
<br />
(sound clip of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman – Full Metal Jacket)"Holy jesus!"<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B?: Thanks for that email, Melvin <br />
<br />
E: Thank you Gunnery Sergeant Hartman<br />
<br />
R: Thanks Melvin, it's good to hear from you<br />
<br />
S: Thank you. All say 'thanks Melvin' <br />
<br />
E: Keep on listening!<br />
<br />
J: Honestly, let's honestly answer the email. Because if the guy-<br />
<br />
S: That's what we're gonna do!<br />
<br />
R: How? It's gonna take us all day. I think that's one good example of '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum argument from popularity]'. He said that, you know, if hundreds of people around the world believe in something, then it has to be true. But that is not correct because, you know, think about it this way: entire countries think that other entire countries should be obliterated off the map, and that doesn't make it ''true''.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, or millions of people, ''billions'' sometimes, hold beliefs that are mutually exclusive to beliefs that other millions of people believe. So, either one or both of those groups of millions of people ''have'' to be wrong.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, and look at all the people that bought the Milli Vanilli albums.<br />
<br />
S: That's true!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: They all believed they were really singing, they were wrooong<br />
<br />
B: There's a lotta '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man straw men]', he keeps throwing around tons of 'straw men'<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: Like "there's no Bigfoot because I've never ''seen'' it", "you can not get mad at someone for just reporting what they ''saw''", "not every situation was a hoax, or the product of an overactive mind". It's a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dichotomy false dichotomy],<ref>SGU 5x5 episode 54 [[5X5 Episode 54|Skepticism 101 - False Dichotomy]]</ref> I mean it's ''full'' of this stuff. <br />
<br />
S&B: There's a lotta 'straw men'.<br />
<br />
B: Mischaracterisations of what our arguments are, he's not even paying ''attention''!<br />
<br />
S: Right, so first of all, we ''don't'' say 'there is no Bigfoot, there are no aliens visiting the Earth, there are no ghosts'. What we say is there's no evidence compelling acceptance or belief in any of those things, the people who say that there ''is'' Bigfoot, have not met anywhere ''near'' a reasonable burden of proof.<br />
<br />
R: The invisible pink unicorn ''could'' exist, we are simply agnostic as to its existence.<br />
<br />
S: Right, where it's unfalsifiable, we're agnostic, if it's a scientific proposition, they haven't met the burden of proof, or the burden of evidence. And therefore, we do not accept it as an established or a proven scientific hypothesis, given the current state of evidence. But hey, if someone actually did find a Bigfoot body, and it stood up to peer review<br />
<br />
R: And it wasn't a costume <!--reference to Bigfoot costume hoax --><br />
<br />
S: It ''wasn't'' a costume <br />
<br />
R: Sold by hoaxters<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: We'd accept compelling evidence as compelling<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, and add to it, we'd actually be excited about it!<br />
<br />
S: Sure<br />
<br />
R: That would be mega-cool!<br />
<br />
B: I don't know, it would smash my world view, and I would deny it to my dying day.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Well only if Bigfoot wasn't riding atop a magical unicorn.<br />
<br />
E: Or a sacred cow<br />
<br />
S: Now hang on, there's some other logical fallacies in here, the challenge is in finding all of them.-<br />
<br />
R: Oh, we're not done yet, are we?<br />
<br />
S: You guys are just picking the low-hanging fruit.<br />
<br />
R: Alright, alright, alright. Well there's an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance argument from ignorance], saying that we can't say that it doesn't exist because we're not gods who created everything and everything.<br />
<br />
S: Right, that's good, it's an argument from ignorance, he's basically saying that because we don't have perfect infinite knowledge, that we therefore have no knowledge, that we can't make ''any'' factual judgments about what's likely to be true or not likely to be true, scientifically. And I'll say that, you know, we don't know ''for sure'', because we're not god, that Bigfoot doesn't exist, therefore, Bigfoot exists. And we should also then adhere to the argument ad populum, that other people say that they believe it, so that's enough.<br />
<br />
E: Well there's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem ad hominem] attacks all over the place.<br />
<br />
S: Oh yeah, 'pussies'<br />
<br />
R: Well, yeah, and not all of us are 'mofos', technically, only Jay.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, actually, I'm a proud mofo.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah<br />
<br />
J: That one didn't bother me.<br />
<br />
S: He also implies that, you know, the only way to assess someone's eye-witness testimony is to be an eye-witness ourselves, <br />
<br />
E: Wrong<br />
<br />
S: When in fact, you can assess eye-witness testimony by putting it into context. And also if you're -<br />
<br />
J: There are court rooms all over the world do that every day<br />
<br />
S: (laughs) Right, we're just saying there's more than one hypothesis. If somebody claims they saw a flying-saucer, there's multiple hypotheses you can derive from that. One is that they saw a flying saucer, but another one is that they were mistaken, or they're lying, or they were simply confusing a more mundane object, or their memory was contaminated by the testimony of another person. There's lots of-<br />
<br />
E: Or the alcohol they drank.<br />
<br />
S: They were in a compromised condition, sleep-deprived or drunk, or whatever. There's ''lots'' of hypotheses, and we want all- you know, any good scientist should consider ''all'' of them, and accept the ones that are most supported by the evidence, and also, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor Occam's razor], you don't accept the one that requires the introduction of a major new assumption, that we're being visited by aliens, when you haven't ruled out the far more likely, simple ones.<br />
<br />
R: Bigfoot<br />
<br />
S: Right, the guy simply made a mistake, or maybe he's pulling your leg. That's all, so<br />
<br />
J: I think Melvin's email actually, as poorly written as it is and everything, and he's got a negative attitude and he's just like sounding off at us. It's not that far away from where a lot of people stand. I think a lot of people ''agree'' with this.<br />
<br />
S: You're absolutely right, Jay, and that's what, even though, yeah, we're kinda poking fun at Melvin, partly because of his atrocious grammar and the way he constructed this email. But in fact, the same arguments, he's poorly constructed it, but these same logical fallacies, and these same arguments are the absolute bread and butter of the true-believers, or the anti-skeptics. We hear this ''all'' the time, the 'you don't know everything', equating 'not having infinite knowledge' with having 'no knowledge', the argument from ignorance, the appeal to popularity. We encounter these on a daily basis when confronting people who believe things that are not supported by the scientific evidence. So, we're not just attacking an easy target, this is absolutely bread and butter anti-skepticism.<br />
<br />
J: And I would take it one step further and ask Melvin, if he's listening: write us back, pick any topic that you mention in here, like Bigfoot as an example, and we'll have a real email exchange discussion about it. I promise to do that. If you wanna have a discussion, I'll tell you everything I think, and you can tell me everything you think, and we'll just vet it out over time without swearing at each other. Or at least keeping it down<br />
<br />
R: Eh<br />
<br />
S: And also, my advice to, just generic advice to people who are going to send a ranting email, actually the title of the email was 'rant', so Melvin knew this was a rant. But, if you're gonna do that, make a ''real'' effort to understand the position of the person you're disagreeing with. That's ''always'', generically, a good idea. Because there's nothing more worthless than arguing against a position that the other person doesn't even hold, because then you're just completely wasting your time, and all you're really declaring is 'I don't understand what's going on, I didn't take the time to even understand your position. I'm arguing against a "straw man"', basically that's the only thing you're accomplishing. Well, let's go on to our interview.<br />
<br />
== Interview with Ben Goldacre <small>(40:18)</small> ==<br />
(jingle)<br />
<br />
S: Ok, we're sitting here now with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Goldacre Ben Goldacre],Ben, welcome to the Skeptics' Guide<br />
<br />
BG: Hi<br />
<br />
S: You run a website in the UK called 'Bad Science', is it .net?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, [http://www.badscience.net/ BadScience.net], available all around the world!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Tell us about that<br />
<br />
R: The world-''wide'' web, Steve<br />
<br />
S: Oh yeah, I keep forgetting<br />
<br />
BG: (mocking) 'Ah yes, you're from the United Kingdom'. (normal voice) Well, it's a sort of mixture of my columns in the Guardian and other bits and bobs that I come across, and it's- maybe about sort of a quarter of it is about quackery, and most of it is about bad science reporting in mainstream media. I don't know if that's as much a problem in the US as it is in the UK.<br />
<br />
S: It's ''more'' of a problem in the US than the UK<br />
<br />
BG: Is that right? (laughs) I mean, in the UK, there have been some phenomenal bogus scare stories. I mean, there was one about theMRSA 'killer bacteria' that was essentially a bogus lab that was giving bogus results to undercover journalists, and of course the media's MMR hoax in the UK. Which I think you're about to get a run of in the US, with the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal thiomersal] thing, which is going to be very interesting.<br />
<br />
S: Well we're already- that's already passed its peak, the thimerosal (common name for thiomersal in US)<br />
<br />
BG: Do you think so?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, well, it was removed, you know, from vaccines in the United States by the end of 2002<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, but –<br />
<br />
S: Autism hasn't gone up<br />
<br />
BG: But the media storm didn't seem to start until what, this year, really. There was that case-<br />
<br />
S: It had a resurgence because of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_McCarthy Jenny McCarthy],<ref>Jenny McCarthy body count [http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com website]</ref> and Jim Carrey, and because of the mitochondrial DNA case<ref>Neurologica article: [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/has-the-government-conceded-vaccines-cause-autism/ Has the Government Conceded Vaccines Cause Autism?]</ref>. Yeah, so in the UK, I think the MMR was a bigger story. Thimerosal was bigger in the United States.<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: Is that still big over there? The MMR, are they still-<br />
<br />
BG: It's dwindling, the Observer did a bogus front page story about how autism was now up to one in 58, basically misunderstanding an unpublished piece of research which was looking at comparing different ways of measuring the prevalence of autism. So obviously, if you use the widest net, then you get the biggest number. But what I actually find interesting about vaccine scare is how poorly they propagate between different territories. So for example, in the UK we had the 'MMR causes autism' because of the measles virus, that was the scare, and that was mostly, that kind of peaked in 2001, 2002. But it didn't propagate outside of the UK. In America, you have your thiomersal scare, in France, they have a story about the hepatitis-B vaccine causing multiple sclerosis, but nobody's heard of that outside of France. In the UK in the 80s, we had 'whooping cough vaccine causing neurological problems' driven by ''one'' fairly eccentric doctor from Scotland, and obviously in Nigeria at the moment in Kano province, the imams have issued a pronouncement saying that the polio vaccine is a plot by the Americans to make Muslims infertile and stop them from having children.<ref>PlosMedicine article: [http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0040073#pmed-0040073-b0017 What Led to the Nigerian Boycott of the Polio Vaccination Campaign?]</ref><br />
<br />
S: And spread HIV.<br />
<br />
BG: Is that part of the scare as well?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: Oh no, yeah, you're absolutely right, yeah. And, you know, what's interesting about that, I ''guess'', is the WHO's polio medication program was on target to eradicate polio from around the world by now. But it's not, and people have, you know, you can do [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction PCR] on polio outbreaks around the world and they've found that the specific polio virus from Nigeria, from Kano province, has triggered outbreaks of polio elsewhere in the world. It's very interesting to me how these vaccine scares are all, you know, structurally quite similar, but they propagate very poorly, and I don't think the thiomersal scare could take off in the UK, just because the MMR story has been debunked in the UK. So, it would seem ridiculous to the media- it just wouldn't fit the natural tempo of the stories to then suddenly go 'oh no, but it does, actually cause these problems'<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, right<br />
<br />
R: So does that mean you think you're pretty much past the worst of all of those kind of stories in the UK? Or do you think there's another one on the horizon?<br />
<br />
BG: Certainly not, and actually for very interesting reasons, definitely not. If you look at France and Austria, you can see that they've come very close to electing, in the case of Austria, they ''did'' elect some seriously sort of right-wing fruitcakes, you know, bordering on fascism. Whereas in Germany, where they had to face up to what they did in World War II, there was a kind of truth and reconciliation process, and they have kind of green and liberal governments. There's no way, I don't think that Germany could re-elect a fascist government. I think that you have to go through the process of recognizing where you've gone wrong, in order to stop going wrong in the future. What I find fascinating about the termination of the MMR hoax, in the UK, is that it came to an end, not because the media suddenly went 'well actually, a 12 subject case series report isn't sufficient grounds to say that MMR causes autism'. It wasn't because they made a kind of critical appraisal of ''all'' of the literature for and against and went 'well actually, it just doesn't look like MMR causes autism, this was a storm in a tea-cup'. It came to an end because an investigative journalist called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Deer Brian Deer], for whom I've got a lot of respect, from the Sunday Times came along and revealed that the lead doctor who was driving the story had received half a million pounds, a million dollars, in legal sort of, you know, expert witness costs. And so he had, one could argue, a competing interest there. Now, I don't think for one moment that that's the reason why [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield Wakefield] held the views that he held, and I don't think that one man can drive a story. But now the media are all queued up to say 'oh, the original research has been debunked', when the original research was a 12 subject case series report that never meant anything about anything. And they're saying 'oh, you know, the MMR story has been disproven because Andrew Wakefield had half a million quid', so they're all queuing up to blame this one doctor for the hoax that was the media's work.<br />
<br />
S: (agreeing) mm-hmm<br />
<br />
BG: Collectively, the British media community have created this story, and they drove it for many, many years. And the fact that they're now trying to pin it on one doctor, I have to say, I'm not a big ''fan'' of Wakefield, but I think it's very healthy that there are, you know, doctors with idiosyncratic views on medicine, I think it's an absolute bizarre travesty that they're pinning it all on him.<br />
<br />
B: So they're all right, but for the wrong reasons?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, I think that's why they're not inoculated against future cock-ups<br />
<br />
R: Well, you're doing a lot to help media, scientific literacy amongst the media in the UK, but do you ever think they'll get that realisation? Do you ever think they'll finally realise what they're doing wrong?<br />
<br />
BG: I don't think you can stop people from producing stupid stories, but I think you can add some sense into the mix. So often, when I talk, people say- I do lots of talks in epidemiology departments and some medical statisticians, just cos the jokes can be a bit more interesting and sophisticated that way.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And people are often outraged, and they say 'well we need some laws to- these people need to be- we should be able to chop the fingers off bad journalists', and I just don't think it's realistic. But what you ''can'' do, is approach newspapers, and I just rang one up one day and said, you know, 'can I write for you?', and they said yes. You know, there's no great mystery, I think you can add in more sense to dilute the nonsense, or at least give people an opportunity to see some sense. Cos otherwise, unless people who understand the evidence get in there and explain the mechanics of why it is that you hold a belief on the back of some published evidence, then science, at least in Britain, is only being portrayed as being about authoritative truth statements from arbitrary cultural figures called scientists in white coats, you know, "scientists today said-", "scientists today deny-", "scientists today refuted-". But it's never, you know, "scientists today said 'well, there's this study, and it shows this, and for ''that'' reason, we think this'". That ''doesn't'' happen<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
BG: And by adding that into the mix, you do something very powerful<br />
<br />
S: And the Wakefield story reflects that, because it was about the authority of Wakefield, and when that was knocked down, the story was knocked down. Not about the evidence and the logic of whether or not there's any link between vaccines and autism.<br />
<br />
BG: It was about the authority of Wakefield, but it was also about human interest versus these white coat guys saying 'there's nothing to worry about'. So on one hand you had a worried parent, and on the other side you had a scientist saying, you know 'there's nothing to worry about', and that wouldn't reassure ''me''!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: You know, it would look like a cover-up, or it would look dismissive<br />
<br />
S: Right, so like us, you're using new media blogs to try to fight this bad journalism in the UK. How do you think that's going? How much play does your blog get?<br />
<br />
BG: It gets a lot of visitors, and it gets a lot of links, and the thing that's most exciting is there are lots of other people who are now blogging in the UK who do a really, really great job of pulling apart just sort of silly bit and bobs, but it's great when there's this kind of mass effect. Cos somebody will publish a tedious 'memory of water' paper, you know, homeopathy, and you'll be like, I can't be bothered to pull this apart. But someone somewhere will, you know, that burning sense of 'someone ''somewhere'' is wrong on the internet, I must put them right!'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And that's ''fantastic''. The only thing that disappoints me a little bit, I guess, is that I'm not as agitated about quackery as some people are, you get a lot of quite sanctimonious stuff from people kinda saying 'homeopathy is this public health ''scandal'' ', and I don't think that's true. I think homeopathy is really interesting, I think it's a really fascinating cultural phenomenon. I think it's really interesting that at a time when doctors are trying really hard to work collaboratively with patients, explain evidence with them and make decisions in concert with their patients, I think it's a tragedy that while doctors are trying to do that, quacks and the media are really kind of undermining the public's understanding of evidence. But I don't think that quackery is ''practically'' really dangerous, I think it's funny and interesting. I think it's interesting that there's a lot of bloggers who are keen to pick up on mocking quacks, which is funny, and it's great, and it produces great content. The thing that I wish that there was more of, is people taking down bogus news stories, because ''that's'' the thing that needs to be done so much more, because that's kind of the more culturally influential end of stuff, you know?<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
BG: But, I guess they're not such easy hits or, yeah, I don't know why it is.<br />
<br />
S: Well, the news cycle is quick, you've got to do it very quickly. Right? You find a new story hits, you've got to get your blog that day or you're going to get missed by the news cycle.<br />
<br />
BG: I ''guess'' so, although I'm not sure that's true, actually. I mean, I'm often cheerfully writing on things a couple of weeks after they've gone, but that's because I'm just smug enough to imagine that I can stand outside of the news thing. I actually think that's really interesting example of one of the more subtle aspects of how the media misrepresents science. I don’t think science makes a very good ''news'' subject, I think science is naturally a feature subject, because it's about emerging themes supported by a whole raft of evidence from a number of different disciplines that emerges over the course of many years. When you focus all your science reporting about a news story, a sudden breakthrough, a ''single'' piece of research, that's actually quite misrepresenting in a subtle way. Firstly because the stuff that makes a finding newsworthy, actually make it quite likely to be wrong, you know, it's incongruent with previous results, for example. And so it misrepresents stuff in that way. Obsessing over stuff being ''newsy'' is actually a bit of a mistake, I think people who are communicating science should feel cool with just sitting back and going 'what do we know about functional brain imaging and schizophrenia? There's a really interesting story there'<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
BG: It doesn't have to be ''new''<br />
<br />
S: I totally agree, I think the news cycle and the obsession with the story is really antithetical to the way science really works, which is taking your time and putting it together into the big picture. Often times I think you do that well, and that's we try to do, sort of take the news story and back up now into context, which is what the journalists ''don't'' do, right?<br />
<br />
BG: Well, sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't, I think there's a really interesting split in certain British news media, which has been studied quite carefully, which is: specialist health and science reporters are actually very good at their job, they know a lot of background, they know how to critically appraise research, and they will often make a fairly good stab at doing that with their articles, as long as they can get it past the desk. But what you find is, whenever a story becomes a big, political hot potato, whenever it becomes a big news story, like the MMR vaccine, or the GM food, the 'Frankenstein' food front pages of 1998, you find that the stories get taken out of the hands of the specialists, and put into the hands of the generalists, so the MMR story, especially after the question became 'did Tony Blair's son have the MMR vaccine?' – a fact that was mentioned in 33% of the news stories about MMR in 2002, when Andrew Wakefield's name was only in 25%, so Tony Blair's son was a bigger figure in our media coverage than Andrew Wakefield was. What you find is that, also, when there's a big story like MMR, also MMR was twice as likely to be written about by generalist journalists as a story about cloning, for example. And in the first two days after the Frankenstein food story hit the news stands, not a single one of the news or comment pieces in the ''entirity'' of the British news media, was written by a science columnist.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, that's definitely a big problem. Ben, you have a book coming out based on your blog, why don't you tell us about that?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, it's called '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Science_%28book%29 Bad Science]', maintaining brand homogeneity. And that's coming out with Fourth Estate, Harper Collins in September, and it should be very good, although it's very, very UK-centric, because I write about misrepresentation of science in the media, and the media I know very well is UK media. And I have this huge raft of examples from a ''thousand'' stories now, that's not an estimate, that's like, the number. And I've kinda been able to- it kinda grew out of this bet with a friend where, like, we both teach epidemiology, and I was like 'I bet I could teach the whole of epi' – or epidemiholiday As the medical students call it=<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Epidemiholiday?<br />
<br />
BG: 'I bet I can teach the whole of epi, only using exaples of people getting things wrong in broadsheet national news papers'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And it turned out to be true, but what I'd really like, actually, is to get a better handle on the ways that science is misrepresented in the media in America, cos it would be great to branch out and I'm not mercenary about selling the book, I accept that I will lead a life of obscurity in academia in a rented ex-council flat-<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: I fear that would be a volume of books if you attempted to do that, not just a single book.<br />
<br />
BG: Right, that would be like Churchill's history of World War I<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: But, I'm telling you, following your blog, that the examples are completely applicable to the United States, I think they'd be very-<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, well, actually, if there are people out there listening who know about this stuff, what I'd really like – ben@badscience.net - what I'd really like is for people to send me sort of examples from American media that mirror the cock-ups in British media. Are we allowed to say cock-ups in a Christian country?<br />
<br />
R: Oh, we're allowed to say it ''twice'', gosh<br />
<br />
BG: Have I said cock twice?<br />
<br />
E: You British are allowed to say anything you want<br />
<br />
R: That's three now.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Alright, well sometimes the stories are the same, like I think you covered the regenerating finger story.<ref>Ben Goldacre's Guardian article: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may/03/medicalresearch.health The missing finger that never was]</ref><br />
<br />
BG: That was hilarious! I mean that was-<br />
<br />
S: And we covered that too, <!--internal reference???--><br />
<br />
R: Yeah, that was great<br />
<br />
BG: Out of nowhere, and it was like three years old too<br />
<br />
S&R: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: But it was the BBC who reignited that story! And again, it was not a science or health correspondent, it was the BBC's New York correspondent, and you could see he was like, he was ''beside himself'' with excitement.<ref>BBC article & video: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7354458.stm The man who grew back his finger tip]</ref> He really thought he had found Nobel prize winning stuff with this, like, backwards guy in his model shop, who's finger had grown back. And he, this sense of holy reverence as he talked about the science, was just extraordinary, and just disproportionate to the reality, which was that, lop the top of your finger off and it just grows back, that's just nature<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it healed naturally<br />
<br />
R: It just happens<br />
<br />
S: You're hawking your brother's new product.<br />
<br />
BG: New company, yeah<br />
<br />
R: I should tell him about the holes for my earrings that closed up after I didn't wear earrings for a while.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: I mean, it's really interesting that there's this recurring theme in all of these stories in bad science and the media, and also in quackery, where we're sort of bringing all these childish fables, we're letting them take the credit for the amazing things that the body does, you know. Like when people were bringing in that placebo pill, and I'm like, I'm in sort of two minds about the ethics of giving placebos, I think it might be useful in ''some'' situations, but giving placebos to kids when they've got a cold, and I kinda think 'well, ok, you wanna tell your kid a reassuring story: here's a pill, you'll get better'. But how more empowering is it to say 'look, at the moment, there's this small, ''tiny'' microscopic organism that's gone into your body, it's called a virus, and it's really clever. What it does, is it exploits the machinery in your body that makes new parts for you, and it uses that to make copies of itself, and also it releases these other things that irritate the other parts of your body, and that's why you've got a cough and a sore throat, but your body's really clever, because on the surface of every cell, is holding out copies of all the stuff that's happening inside, and the immune system cells are floating around, and they have a look at what's in every cell by looking at this stuff that's being held out on the surface. And when they see something that's alien like that, they go in and they call all of their friends who arrive, following like a smoke trail to the source of the fire, along a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemotaxis chemotactic] path, and then they go in, and they find the bad guys, and they wrap them up in, like, a little ball, and they squirt bleach at them, and they kill them'. Now that, to me, why is that a sugar pill?<br />
<br />
J: I finally understand!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: Why let a sugar pill take credit for that? It's just insane, you know, and why let a ''healer'' take credit for that. But why let some magic powder take credit for the totally amazing fact that, if you cut the top of your finger off, it grows back like ''new'', I mean ''that'', that's a miracle, you know!<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: Quite apart from the fact that in the stories they were sort of talking about powder made out of (mystically) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endothelial_cells ''endothelial'' cells]!<br />
<br />
E,B&S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: As if like-<br />
<br />
S: It's some exotic thing, pig's bladder<br />
<br />
BG: No, it was (laughing)<br />
<br />
BG&S: 'extra-cellular matrix'<br />
<br />
BG: and it was like 'and these are made of 'extra-cellular matrix', and you're like extra-cellular matrix surrounds the cells of every single cell in all of the bodies of all of the people in the world, extra-cellular, you know, there's ''more'' extra-cellular matrix in the world than you could shake a stick at.<br />
<br />
J: That's like 'the super spectacular!'<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: 'Space-age technology', that's 50 years old!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Well, Ben, we certainly appreciate what you're doing, we love your blog and your articles for the Guardian, I fell like we're just getting started, maybe we'll have a chance to sit down again, if not here, some time in the future.<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, cool<br />
<br />
S: And thanks again for sitting with us.<br />
<br />
R: Thanks, Ben<br />
<br />
BG: Cheers, thank you.<br />
<br />
== Randi Speaks: The Media <small>(59:20)</small> ==<br />
(jingle) And now, Randi speaks.<br />
<br />
S: Randi, tell us how you think the media deals with issues of science and skepticism.<br />
<br />
JR: Rather badly, generally speaking, because the media is interested in a sensational story. Well, they say they want news, but they want ''sensationa''l news. You know very well that puppy dog down a sewer is going to get much more attention than some political hack in the local community, unless he has something to do with puppies going down sewers. The media's that way, and it's understandable, they want to sell newspapers and programs and wot-not. I've said it before and I'll say it again: most people in the media are educated in the humanities, and they don't have a good grasp of science and reality, and how things work. They're very easily deceived, they're very na&iuml;ve in some respects, and they're purposefully na&iuml;ve perhaps because they want the story to be there. Now, an excellent example of that on a very high level is an ABC TV program that I did, I guess last year. They got me all the way in to New York city to discuss the '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo%C3%A3o_de_Deus_%28medium%29 John of god]' situation. Now, 'John of god' is a so-called psychic healer and wot-not in Brazil, and he's doing very simple tricks that, kind of what people have known for a long time, sticking sticks up your nose and wot-not, and he actually sticks forceps up the patients' noses. I went armed for bear, I went to New York City, and they stuck me in the studio in front of a video camera. I had with me video tapes, props and wot-not, and I spoke with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Qui%C3%B1ones John Qui&ntilde;ones], he was the host on the show. They interviewed me for two and a half hours, ''two and a half hours'' they interviewed me! <br />
<br />
I was on with a man called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehmet_Oz Dr Mehmet Oz], a very, very famous cardiac surgeon in New York city, a great reputation, but totally woo-woo. He actually has nurses specially trained in the art of balancing the aura, walking around in his ''operating room'' while he's got a patient on the table with his chest cavity open and his heart being fixed! And Mehmet Oz will throw up his hands when told by the nurse that she's coming through to balance the aura by passing her hands over it! Incredible! Incredible that a man in this day and age, let alone a very highly educated man like Mehmet Oz, would be involved in such quackery! Such absolute foolishness, such a juvenile approach to reality. But, nonetheless, he is a great cardiac surgeon, and I would trust myself to him ''any'' time. (quietly and suspiciously) As long as he kept the woman with the funny gloves out of the place. (in normal voice) But, he was on the program as well, it ended up that the program used nine seconds of what I said. Nine seconds out of two and a half hours. They didn't use any other recorded material, any other references to the video tapes with demonstrations of how the forceps up the nose trick is done, as I say, it's an old carnival stunt. But they used a great deal of Mehmet Oz, they used quotations from him, and he even said something – for a Dr, very foolish – he said that sticking up the nose came close to certain glands in the head and wot-not, but he didn't notice – because he doesn't operate on the head, I guess, that there's a half-inch layer of ''bone'' in between where the forceps go up. Now, is it supposed to be a magnetic influence? A proximity influence? A capacity effect? I don't know, but he mentioned that as a possibility. He really is a woo-woo artist. Unfortunately, with all of that education and very extensive training and great expertise. <br />
<br />
So they used all of nine seconds, but they used it so unfairly, they had me saying – and this took nine seconds, "there are no greater liars in the world than quacks, except for their patients". Now, that was broadcast like that, but the complete quotation was "As that early American philosopher [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin Ben Franklin] once said, there are no greater liars in the world than quacks, except for their patients". So, I was attributing it to Ben Franklin, but they cut that out, because that made it look as if I was stealing it from Ben Franklin. I got emails, Steve, from all over the world, saying "you're quoting Ben Franklin, you stole that! You should have attributed it to them". I did! But they edited it out, and they edited out the complete explanation of how the forceps up the nose trick was done, and the various other things that 'John of God' does. Now this is totally irresponsible, it borders on the criminal, because what that does, ABC television in a feature program had this number about 'John of God', and that, I'm sure, brought ''hundreds'' of Americans to travel off to Brazil and spend their hard-earned money on this quackery. And 'John of God', I'm sure, was very happy with it. And they never did a retraction of any kind.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(1:04:43)</small> ==<br />
(jingle)<br />
<br />
S: Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two genuine, and one fictitious. And then, my panel of skeptics tries to tell me which one they think is the fake. Are you guys ready for this week?<br />
<br />
B:…yes<br />
<br />
S: Here we go, number one: 'Astrophysicists have discovered the upper limit for the mass of a black hole'. Item number two: 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge'. And item number three 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells'. Bob, go first.<br />
<br />
B: (quietly) you ''bastard''<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: 'upper limit for the mass of a black hole', it does sound kinda bizarre, I mean, what's preventing a black hole from just getting bigger and bigger? Um, so on the surface, that doesn't sound right, if you think about it. Dinosaur dominance 'due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge', I mean, that makes sense on the surface, absolutely. A lot of evolution and whether you go extinct or not has to do with luck. That definitely can play a part, maybe that makes too much sense. 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells', that sounds pretty cool, and that would be awesome, I'm gonna say that's science. I'm gonna say that… that the dinosaur dominance being luck, that sounds a little fishy, I'm gonna say that that is fiction.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, Evan?<br />
<br />
E: Well, 'upper limit for the mass of a black hole'… I mean, there would have to be some kind of upper limit, wouldn't there? It's just a matter of discovering it, one would ''think'', but I'm not too sure about that. Dinosaurs having an advantage over contemporaries 'was due to luck'… yeah. But how were they able to determine that, you know, how do you equate 'luck' in a scientific context? I'm not quite sure ''really'' what's being said there. And then the 'improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells', sure, yes, finding out all kinds of new things about all stem cells these days, cutting edge science, totally plausible. So I'll agree with Bob that the dinosaur one is fiction.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: See now, I'm not so sure, because I'm pretty sure I read something about this, and that they actually found these skeletons of an elderly pack of velocoraptors, surrounded by a field of four-leafed clovers, and a small pile of rabbit's feet next to them. So, I believe that that's actually science, and I also think that a black hole should have an upper limit, cos otherwise, well, you know, that's too scary to compliment- er, contemplate. So I think that transplanting muscle stem cells, I don't think we're quite to the point where we can improve strength and performance doing that, and that sounds like, are we doing studies on humans with muscle stem cells? That doesn't seem like it's going to work, I don't know. I think that's fiction, so-<br />
<br />
S: Ok, alright? Jay?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, the upper limit to the black hole- the upper limit to the ''mass'' of a black hole, I would just assume that it makes a lot of sense, like Evan said, that someone would be able to sit down and run the math and be able to theoretically figure that out. 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge'. Mmm, that one seems … fishy to me for some reason, how could they determine it was just luck? I wonder how the fossil record could demonstrate that. And the last one, 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells'. Yeah, you know, I think I would've heard this. If that happened, I think that it would be much bigger news, you know, definitely above the water line, or ''I'' would've read it, with the amount of reading I do on science news. I don't think that one is science, I think that one was altered by Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, so you all agree that 'Astrophysicists have discovered the upper limit for the mass of a black hole', correct?<br />
<br />
J,B&E: Yes<br />
<br />
S:Yeah, actually, ''this'' was the most counter-intuitive one for me when I first read it. This is science, and, you know, like Bob, my reaction was 'what would stop it from absorbing more mass? What would happen if a black hole reached it's upper limit, and then, you know, there was more material to suck in, what would happen?' Well, it turns out astrophysicists-<br />
<br />
B: More to it.<br />
<br />
S: -have calculated the theoretical upper limit for the mass of a black hole, it's a Yale astronomer in fact, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priyamvada_Natarajan Priyamvada Natarajan]. What (s)he suspects is, there's a mechanism that, as the black hole gets to about 10 billion solar masses-<br />
<br />
E: Wow<br />
<br />
S: -that any matter falling into it would cause the radiation away of an equal amount of mass. <ref name="Yale">Yale news: [http://news.yale.edu/2008/09/04/yale-astronomer-discovers-upper-mass-limit-black-holes Yale Astronomer Discovers Upper Mass Limit for Black Holes]</ref> So it reaches an equilibrium point, you know-<br />
<br />
J: baaahh (?)<br />
<br />
S: -evaporate or radiate away the same amount of mass that was pulled into it-<br />
<br />
B: Wait, but you're not talking about [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation Hawking radiation] though. ''My'' interpretation was that-<br />
<br />
S: No, no<br />
<br />
B: -you've got [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accretion_disc accretion disk] radiation<br />
<br />
S: Yes, that's right<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, that's a big difference. And my understanding, though, Steve, was that this isn't a hard rule. If you've got so much in-falling matter, you would reach a point where the radiation being generated by the heat of the accretion disk would actually blow away solar ma- any material that would've fallen into the black hole, so you gotta kinda like a soft limitation in that way. But if you've got a 10 billion solar mass black hole, and it bumps into a neutron star, or a smaller black hole, nothing's going to stop that from getting bigger than 10 billion-<br />
<br />
S: Well, see, I was not clear on that point from the article that I read. That was my question too.<br />
<br />
B: That was my understanding from reading some articles, and reading a lot of the comments from people who seem to know what they were talking about. What I know about black holes, what is going to stop it, to go above it if it's as I described.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, but the press release makes it sound like that's just one possible explanation, but that other things were used to derive this upper limit. You know, we might have to do some follow-up to try and sort that out, but that was exactly the question that I had: is that a ''hard'' limit? Or is it a ''soft'' limit? You seem to think that it was a soft limit, right?<br />
<br />
B: Absolutely<br />
<br />
S: And my interpretation was that this was a ''hard'' limit, and one of the mechanisms proposed for that would prevent the black hole from getting bigger than about 10 billion solar masses, but, interesting either way. So let's go on to number two: 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge', and Bob and Evan, you both said that this one was fiction.<br />
<br />
J: So it's down to Bob and Evan, and me and Rebecca, teaming up again<br />
<br />
S: Jay and Rebecca thought this one is science, and this one… is… ''science''!<br />
<br />
J: Ah-ha!<br />
<br />
(high-five sound)<br />
<br />
J: You guys suck.<br />
<br />
S: But you guys did ask-<br />
<br />
B: There goes my run.<br />
<br />
S: an excellent question, which is- 'how would-<br />
<br />
E: mofos<br />
<br />
S: -'how would they know?'. How would you even make this determination?<br />
<br />
E: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: I don't know, you dominate the planet for 200 million years, there's gotta be some competitive edge in there.<br />
<br />
E: Well explain what ''luck'' is, in this context.<br />
<br />
J: Talk to us, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Well, luck would be that there was an environmental change, and you ''happened'' to benefit from that change, as opposed to-<br />
<br />
B: Like ''humans'', mammals<br />
<br />
S: -you just out-competed, you out-competed your contemporaries. Now, what they did, was they, this is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_L._Brusatte Steve Brusatte] from Bristol University, department of Earth Sciences. And they looked at the species that were around early in the career of the dinosaurs. They found that the other major group at the time were the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crurotarsi crurotarsans], which were alligator-like reptiles. At that time, they were a more diverse group, with greater disparity, and actually were dominant over the early dinosaurs at their time. He said, if you were, you know, in the early [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triassic triassic], for example, and you looked at these two groups, you would predict, based upon their diversity, disparity and dominance, that the crurotarsans would have a much greater chance of dominating the future than the dinosaurs would.<ref name="SM">Science magazine: [http://www.sciencemag.org/content/321/5895/1485.short Superiority, Competition, and Opportunism in the Evolutionary Radiation of Dinosaurs] DOI: 10.1126/science.1161833</ref><ref name="SA">Scientific American: [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=was-the-dinosaurs-long-reign-a-fluke Was the Dinosaurs' Long Reign on Earth a Fluke?]</ref> So by any measure of 'who was winning', the crurotarsans seemed to be winning in terms of spreading into more ecosystems and, you know, having greater numbers, etc. But then two things happened, there was the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnian carnian]-norian event 228 million years ago, which caused a lot of extinctions, with both the dinosaurs and the crurotarsans survived that, but it did eliminate a lot of competition, and then 200 million years ago, there was the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triassic#Late_Triassic_extinction_event end Triassic extinction], which resulted from a period of significant global warming, increase in temperature, and the dinosaurs weathered the increase in temperature, and the crurotarsans didn't. But until that climate change occurred, the crurotarsans were out-competing the dinosaurs, if anything. So that's what they mean by luck, they just ''happened'' to benefit from a change in the climate when, if, all things being equal, they were not directly out-competing their contemporaries. Which means that number three: 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells' is fiction.<br />
<br />
B: Whatever.<br />
<br />
S: But what ''is'' true, is that they just identified what the muscle stem cell ''is''. They didn't really know which muscle was ''in fact'' the muscle stem cell.<br />
<br />
B: Crap, that's what I read.<br />
<br />
S: Yes, perhaps that's what you'd read. So, and it turns out to be the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myosatellite_cell satellite] cell which is a type of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progenitor_cells progenitor] cell that exists near the muscles, or in the muscle tissue, and, you know, in repair or exercise, etc. will generate new muscle tissue. But we haven't successfully transplanted muscle cells into people. That's not happened yet.<br />
<br />
J: (mimicking) Stem cells are made of people!<br />
<br />
B: Man, I hate when a vague memory of reading an article totally kills you<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I know, that's what got me<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, sucks to be you, Bob<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: You gotta stop reading, guys.<br />
<br />
J: So, Steve really is the bastard tonight<br />
<br />
B: Jay, you bastard, you ended the run I had, it was like a nine-winning streak run (actually 10). How long was your run?<br />
<br />
J: Four foot one<br />
<br />
E: Four foot one<br />
<br />
S: Well, congratulations Jay and Rebecca, good job.<br />
<br />
J: Yay! Rebecca!<br />
<br />
E: Yay!<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:16:28)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: Jay, do you have a quote for us this week?<br />
<br />
J: I have a quote this week from a man called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume David Hume], he lived 1711-1776, that was a pretty good year, wasn't it? And I'm always surprised when I read quotes from people that lived centuries ago, especially ones that are exceptionally logical or rational, maybe I'm skewed, or maybe just from reading quotes from a lot of very smart people during that time, I don't know. I'd like to know if I'm just thinking that they're overly rational for their time, or maybe people were more rational in the past.<br />
<br />
S: Well it was the age of enlightenment for a reason, Jay.<br />
<br />
J: David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, an economist, historian, and an important figure in western philosophy, and he said, or wrote:<br />
<blockquote>When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.</blockquote><br />
J: DAVID HUME! … I think this is also a good quote to go with Melvin's email to us. MELVIN LEE! (even louder) MELVIN LEE!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: CONFUSED LISTENER!<br />
<br />
R: Ok, the David Hume one didn't make me laugh, but...<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Right, just a quick reminder that October 10<sup>th</sup>, New York city is the New York city's skeptic's first annual anniversary event, they're going to have James Randi speak for them, and then October 11<sup>th</sup>, in Fairfield Connecticut, Perry's home town, we're going to have the first annual Perry DeAngelis memorial lecture!<br />
<br />
E,B&J: Yay!<br />
<br />
S: October 11<sup>th</sup>, noon to three at the Fairfield theatre company, we have the information on our message-board, and on our facebook page, and Jay, can we put that on the website? I know we're in the middle of the update and everything, but can we put that up?<br />
<br />
J: I will put it on the homepage<br />
<br />
S: ''and'' we have confirmed guests Steve Mirsky, from Scientific American-<br />
<br />
J: He's awesome<br />
<br />
S: -and Terence Hines-<br />
<br />
E: Nice<br />
<br />
S: -excellent skeptic and neuroscientist, and author of 'Pseudoscience and the paranormal', ain't it cool?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, he's a good dude<br />
<br />
S: Well, thank you all again for joining me this week<br />
<br />
(someone singing "going crazy"?)<br />
<br />
R: Thanks Steve<br />
<br />
E: Yes, it was good joining you<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Fun as always, and until next week, this is your Skeptics' guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
<br />
== Today I learned... ==<br />
*The first space shuttle, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Enterprise Enterprise] was unveiled by NASA on September 17th 1976. <br />
<br />
*September 19th is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day international talk like a pirate day].<br />
<br />
*In February 2006, astronomers using the Hubble space telescope spotted a mystery object that continually brightened for about 100 days, after which, it dimmed symmetrically for the next 100 days.<ref name="Barbary"/> The distance to the object has been said to be between 120 and 11 billion light years away, and does not match any object in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloan_Digital_Sky_Survey Sloan Digital Sky Survey] at the time of the podcast.<br />
<br />
*Church of England offered a formal apology to Darwin in September 2008! ([http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7613403.stm BBC article])<br />
<br />
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restless_legs_syndrome Restless leg syndrome]has been documented for over 100 years.<br />
<br />
*Astrophysicists at Yale have calculated the upper limit for the mass of a black hole, stating that as a black hole gets to about 10 billion solar masses, any subsequent matter falling into it would cause the radiation away of an equal amount of mass.<ref name="Yale"/><br />
<br />
*New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge. It is thought that global warming in the late Triassic era may have led to the extinction of the previously dominant [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crurotarsi crurotarsans], whilst the dinosaurs survived.<ref name="SM"/><ref name="SA"/> <br />
<br />
*The muscle stem cell is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myosatellite_cell satellite] cell which is a type of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progenitor_cells progenitor] cell that exist near the muscles, or in the muscle tissue, and will generate new muscle tissue in repair or exercise, etc.<br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation<br />
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}}</div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_165&diff=9635SGU Episode 1652015-02-06T00:56:08Z<p>Jason koziol: /* Science or Fiction (1:04:43) */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Editing required<br />
|proof-reading = y<br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox <br />
|episodeNum = 165<br />
|episodeDate = 17<sup>th</sup> September 2008<br />
|episodeIcon = File:goldacre.jpg<br />
|rebecca = y<br />
|bob = y<br />
|jay = y<br />
|evan = y<br />
|guest1 = BG: [http://www.badscience.net/ Ben Goldacre]<br />
|guest2 = JR: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi James Randi]<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2008-09-17.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com//index.php/topic,14234.0.html<br />
|qowText = When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.<br />
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume David Hume]<br />
|}}<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.<br />
<br />
S: Hello, and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday September 17<sup>th</sup> 2008, and this is your host, Steven Novella, President of the [http://www.theness.com/ New England Skeptical Society]. Joining me this evening are Bob Novella,<br />
<br />
B: Hey everybody<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca Watson<br />
<br />
R: Hello, everyone<br />
<br />
S: Jay Novella<br />
<br />
J: Hey guys<br />
<br />
S: And Evan Bernstein<br />
<br />
E: Hi everyone, how's everyone doin' tonight?<br />
<br />
J: Good<br />
<br />
S: Good<br />
<br />
R: Great<br />
<br />
B: What's goin' on<br />
<br />
E: Good!<br />
<br />
== This Day in Skepticism <small>(0:36)</small> ==<br />
<br />
R: What's the day, Evan?<br />
<br />
E: 1976, the first space shuttle, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Enterprise Enterprise], unveiled by NASA.<br />
<br />
B: Ah, that's awesome<br />
<br />
E: Not launched, just unveiled<br />
<br />
S: Just unveiled?<br />
<br />
J: I remember being a kid, watching the TV, seeing a bunch of people standing on the tarmac, watching it be unveiled, then playing the theme to the Enterprise, you know, Star Trek.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
E: (laughs)<br />
<br />
J: Remember that?<br />
<br />
S: But I was devastated when I learned the Enterprise was never going to go into orbit.<br />
<br />
B: No <br />
<br />
J: What a gip!<br />
<br />
E: That's right<br />
<br />
B: Just a mock-up<br />
<br />
S: They should've saved the name for the first one to launch, not just the training module.<br />
<br />
R: I know a better day that's coming up, and that would be Friday, the 19<sup>th</sup>. You guys know what Friday is?<br />
<br />
J: Friday, um…<br />
<br />
S: September 19<sup>th</sup>?<br />
<br />
R: Uh-huh, you give up?<br />
<br />
B: Sorry<br />
<br />
S: The start of fall<br />
<br />
R: (complete with accent) Aaar, it's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day talk-like-a-pirate day]! Ye land-lubbers!<br />
<br />
B: Yes! How could I forget?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Didn't we just have that?<br />
<br />
J: That's a great day!<br />
<br />
E: Last year we mentioned that.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Aaaar<br />
<br />
B: It's an awesome day<br />
<br />
S: Has it been a year already?<br />
<br />
R: It has<br />
<br />
E: Aaaar, matey, it has.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Good thing we're not doing the podcast on Friday.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, can't we ''pretend''?<br />
<br />
B: Oh, the whole- the whole days as pirates?<br />
<br />
E: Today is talk like a ninja day<br />
<br />
S: Knock yourself out<br />
<br />
R: You can't talk like a ninja!<br />
<br />
S: Actually, ''today''-<br />
<br />
E: Sure you can,<br />
<br />
R: They just sneak up and stab you<br />
<br />
S: Today is international talk like a skeptic day<br />
<br />
B: Ha!<br />
<br />
R: (laughing) You made that up<br />
<br />
E: (with accent) I doubt that, har-har-har<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Well, we have an interview that we recorded at TAM 6 with Ben Goldacre coming up later in the show.<br />
<br />
B: Ben!<br />
<br />
R: That's aaaaar-some, Steve. I can't wait<br />
<br />
S: Ben is a cool guy. Our first new item is about Ben<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Ben Goldacre Defends Libel Case <small>(2:17)</small>===<br />
[http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=377 Neurologica: An Important Victory Against HIV Quackery]<br />
<br />
S: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Goldacre Ben Goldacre], who writes for the Guardian, and is one of the guys in the UK who's writing about science and medicine. He had written a piece about [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthias_Rath Matthias Rath], you guys familiar with this guy?<br />
<br />
R: Only in that I know he's a douche<br />
<br />
B: Er, no<br />
<br />
S: Right, he is a ''giant'' douche, he really is. So he has an organisation-<br />
<br />
R: (in the background) Am I gonna get sued for that?<br />
<br />
S: -that sells ''all kinds'' of snake oil, and what Ben wrote about was Rath selling vitamins in South Africa to AIDS victims, telling them ''not'' to take their anti-HIV medications, but instead, to take his vitamins. You know, there's an actual death count that you can attach to that kinda behaviour.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: So, Ben called him out on that. Now, Rath has a history of suing anyone who criticizes him, he has many, many lawsuits in many countries. You know, anyone who says that what he's doing is not legitimate, his response is to sue them.<br />
<br />
R: Including in South Africa where he's causing the most damage.<br />
<br />
S: Yes, South Africa, Germany, and again against the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian Guardian] and Ben Goldacre. And he's won some of those suits, unfortunately. But this, recently he had to withdraw his suit against the Guardian and Ben Goldacre ''and'' he's going to have to pay about half a million pounds in legal fees as a result as well. So that was a very good outcome. Of course, we all congratulate Ben on seeing that through, you know, it's obviously something that cuts very close to home. We spend a lot of our time dishing out very harsh criticism to a lot of people. Some of whom are heartless charlatans who will kill people if it lines their pockets, and who have a history of defending themselves by intimidating others with lawsuits and-<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, and you know, it's very different in England, where the laws aren't quite as much on the side of people who are making the statements, it's not quite on the side of free-speech as it is in the US.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
R: I think that, you know, we have a certain amount of protection going for us, but in the UK, it's fairly easy for someone to sue for libel slander, because once they do, the burden is on the defendant, as opposed to in the US, where the burden of proof is on the plaintive, and I am ''not'' a lawyer.<br />
<br />
S: No, that's correct. Although, in England, the one advantage in the UK, is that it's pretty standard, if you lose such a lawsuit, it's almost automatic that you pay the other side's legal fees. So that's the disincentive for frivolous lawsuits.<br />
<br />
R: Right, and so sure enough, he's had to cough up, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: These are ''critical'' victories for free-speech for sceptics everywhere who are trying to, you know, point out, especially this kind of really destructive behaviour. So, this is, I think, a very important victory. So, congratulations Ben!<br />
<br />
E: Good job, Ben<br />
<br />
R: Yay Ben!<br />
<br />
=== Hubble Finds Mystery Object <small>(5:20)</small>===<br />
[http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/newsblog/28244844.html?pageSize=0 Sky & Telescope article]<br />
<br />
S: The next news item, the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope Hubble] finds a mystery object that ''genuinely'' has astronomers ''baffled''<br />
<br />
R: Astronomers are baffled!<br />
<br />
S: They are<br />
<br />
J: They're baffled!<br />
<br />
S: They're generally baffled.<br />
<br />
E: are they flummoxed?<br />
<br />
S: And flummoxed.<br />
<br />
J: So what is it, Steve?<br />
<br />
S: Now, this is pretty interesting<br />
<br />
B: That's the question, Jay, it's- really nobody knows, according to a paper that's about to appear in the Astrophysical journal.<ref name="Barbary">Barbary et al. (2009) [http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/690/2/1358/ Discovery of an unusual optical transient with the hubble space telescope ] ApJ 690 1358 doi:10.1088/0004-637X/690/2/1358 </ref> Something extraordinary, never been seen before by astronomers appeared in 2006, so I was a little disappointed that it was two years ago, like, 'what? We're just hearing about this ''now''?'. But to this day, it is not known what the hell it was, or if it will ever appear again. It started with the Supernova Cosmology Project in February 2006 using Hubble, looking for Supernovae in February. A previously unknown object started getting brighter and brighter, and brighter, and it just did not stop. And this continued for about 100 days, at that point, it pretty much stopped getting brighter and bigger, and then just started to symmetrically dim for the next 100 days. So it was really, perfectly symmetrical light curve where the dimming is perfectly matched by the brightening in the beginning. The spectrum of light was also an enigma, the spectrum basically just shows the rainbow of colors from a light source, but also, of course, includes the non-visible light, like UV or radio. And ''typically'', these certain pieces of the spectrum are missing from a spectrum. And the lines that are missing shows you what elements must have been near the light source, or in the intervening space that absorbed it. So you've got these emission lines, but these emission lines made no sense.<br />
<br />
S: Don't you mean 'absorption lines'? Just to be clear, emission lines are different from absorption lines. Emission lines are when- are from the body itself that's glowing, absorption lines are from something intervening that's absorbing the light that was emitted.<br />
<br />
B: That's right, you were right. So this is a key deficit in our knowledge about this object, because if you can't determine what the elements are, what the arrangement of elements are in the spectrum, then you don't know how red-shifted the object is. That's one of the reasons why quasars were such a puzzle to astronomers early on, because quasars are so red-shifted, they're billions of light years distant, therefore, their red-shift is gargantuan, and it took a while for astronomers to realize 'wait a second, hydrogen's way over here, if it's way over here, it's gotta be immensely distant'. And that's gotta be one of the key insights that made them realize that these objects were so far away. So if we don't have this information, if we can't kinda get a picture of what's going on with the spectrum of this object, then you have no idea how far away this is. Is it in our galaxy?<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Is it in ''another'' galaxy? We don't know!<br />
<br />
J: Is that like a ball of hydrogen, or some hot-pocket of air, or expanding space somewhere?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: All we know is what we saw. It was some sort of stellar object that got brighter and brighter, like a Supernova, and then dimmed. But it was not typical of any other object that they've ever seen before.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they said it's specifically ''not'' a supernova.<br />
<br />
R: And if you were a pirate, would you call it a quasaaaaarrr?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: Quasaaaarr! Yes! Good one.<br />
<br />
E: No!<br />
<br />
R: I suspect that they call it quasaarrr<br />
<br />
S: That's not a (inaudible)<br />
<br />
B: We do have a range though, this thing must be within a certain range by other measurements, and one of them is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax parallax]. Parallax is the movement of one object due to movement of a foreground object, so if an object is close enough away, say less than 130 light years, you would see obvious parallax. We're not seeing that, so that means that this object is ''more'' than 130 light years away. So that's the ''bottom'' limit right there. So, what's the upper limit? Well, the only upper limit I came across for this thing has to do with hydrogen absorption. Because it's lacking hydrogen absorption in the spectrum, that means that it has to be less than 11 billion light years away. So our range is greater than 120 light years, less than 11 billion light years.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Nice range<br />
<br />
E: Oh, narrowed it down, that's great<br />
<br />
B: That's the best they've come up with in ''two years''. So, it could be anywhere in the intervening space.<br />
<br />
S: But interestingly, given that it could be- there's such a huge range for how far away it could be, they said that it's not ''in'' any known galaxy. So there's no galaxy, I guess, on that-<br />
<br />
B: I have a problem with that. I have a problem with that because there's been mention of this [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo%C3%B6tes Bo&ouml;tes constellation] they referred to, which is just a constellation of stars within our galaxy. But they refer to it as a void where there's really nothing around it for many light years, apparently. Now, there is a ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo%C3%B6tes_void Bo&ouml;tes super-void], it's a void, one of the biggest voids in the known universe, it's 250 million light years wide. Now I ''think'' they are possibly referring to this, they're saying that it's within this specific void. If it could be 130 light years away or 11 billion light years away, why do they think it's in a void 250 million light years across?<br />
<br />
S: I don't think it's ''just'' that, my reading was that it's not in any ''known'' galaxy, if it were in a galaxy, they're not seeing the galaxy that it's in.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, but why even mention this specific Bo&ouml;tes void or concept? Cos that, to me, just seems like a red herring.<br />
<br />
J: Bob, do we know if it's heading in a direction? Like, what direction it was moving in?<br />
<br />
B: No, there was no- you know, 200 days is not gonna be any- there wasn't really any discernable movement. Now, could it be a new type of Supernova? Scientists don't ''think'' so, there's a problem with that, because it doesn't match any of the known Supernova types and the brightening took much longer than normal, typically, Supernovas will brighten for 20 days, this one lasted for 100 days, and the spectrum didn't make any sense. The light curve should be asymmetrical for a Supernova, they fade more slowly than they brighten, it didn't make any sense.<br />
<br />
S: They also said it was ''not'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_microlensing microlensing]<br />
<br />
B: Right, the light curve doesn't match a microlensing event. Microlensing occurs when light is distorted as it travels over a gravitational source. They've ruled that out as well. It doesn't look like a quasar, I mean nothing that-<br />
<br />
R&E: Aaaarrr<br />
<br />
B: They put this spectrum through the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloan_Digital_Sky_Survey Sloan Digital Sky Survey] database, which has just a ''vast'' number of objects, and it didn't match anything in there. This is really quite a mystery and I-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, so this thing is probably a whole new class of object – which is cool!<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, some people have speculated that it's some sort of- because it's so symmetrical and blah, blah, blah that it could be-<br />
<br />
R: Aliens<br />
<br />
B: -some sort of sign from an intelligence, but obviously there's nothing that would really give you any confidence in that sort of conclusion. Not yet, anyway. But that would be interesting, if evidence pointed that way, but, man, I'm not counting on that at all.<br />
<br />
S: You don't think it's like a Death Star blowing up or something?<br />
<br />
B: They were talking about it in the comments.<br />
<br />
J: We would need so much more freakin evidence, you can't jump to ''that'', that's incredible<br />
<br />
B: No, that's ridiculous<br />
<br />
S: Well they thought that about pulsars when they first saw them, they were called LGM<br />
<br />
B: LGM, little green men, it was so regular<br />
<br />
E: Cos it was too regular, right? It could only have been created or something<br />
<br />
S: But sometimes, nature is really regular and symmetrical<br />
<br />
E: Aah, when nature is regular<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, you can't jump to an artificial hypothesis just because it's so symmetrical<br />
<br />
J: I'm pretty regular<br />
<br />
E: And symmetrical<br />
<br />
R: That's not what I heard<br />
<br />
=== Creationism in the UK <small>(13:00)</small>===<br />
[http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=376 Neurologica: Teaching Creationism in Schools]<br />
<br>[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4768820.ece TimesOnline article] (login required)<br />
<!-- dead link: http://www.cofe.anglican.org/darwin <br />
possible alternative: http://www.churchofengland.org/our-views/medical-ethics-health-social-care-policy/darwin.aspx<br />
--><br />
<br>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7613403.stm BBC article: Who are the British creationists?]<br />
<br />
S: Well, creationism is creeping into the UK, traditionally, the United States has had a problem with creationists trying to infiltrate public schools and etc. But now, apparently, it's becoming more of a problem in the United Kingdom. And this came to a head recently by comments made by reverend professor [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Reiss Michael Reiss] who was, until very recently, the Director of Education at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society Royal Society]. The Royal Society, I think is the ''oldest'' scientific institution and has a very important position in the UK science community. He made some controversial statements, and this is a quote from them<br />
<blockquote>An increasing percentage of children in the UK come from families that do not accept the scientific version of the history of the universe and the evolution of species. What are we to do with those children? My experience after having tried to teach biology for 20 years is if one simply gives the impression that such children are wrong, then they are not likely to learn much about the science that one really wants them to learn. I think a better way forward is to say to them 'look, I simply want to present you with the scientific understanding of the history of the universe and how animals and plants and other organisms evolved'.<ref>BBC news: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7612152.stm Call for creationism in science]</ref></blockquote><br />
S: He made other comments as well that really sparked a controversy over what ''exactly'' is this guy advocating? And because he's actually a literalist, not just a reverend, but a ''literalist'', a lot of people sort of had their eye on this guy, and were sort of waiting for this kind of thing to happen, this kind of controversy to crop up. So this, perhaps as much as anything else, is what lead to this incredible controversy, but ''I'' still have a hard time knowing ''really'' what this guy was advocating. <br />
<br />
R: Well, you know what the Society, a spokesman for the Society stepped forward and confirmed that, you know, what he was saying was inline with what they believed, and their exact quote was <br />
<blockquote>Our position is that if young people put forward a creationist perspective in the classroom, it should be discussed.<ref>Royal Society spokesperson statement &ndash; [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4760967.ece Times Online article] (login required)</ref></blockquote><br />
R: Their whole thing, they're talking about science, so we can assume they're talking about the science classroom, and it's kind of ridiculous just to put it like that. I mean, if you're going to talk about that subject, then let's be specific, ''how'' should it be discussed? Should it be discussed in terms of showing them that, for instance, a belief in god can be compatible with evolution? Or should you be telling them that there's no way in hell the Earth was created in six days?<br />
<br />
S: (agreeing) mm-hmm<br />
<br />
R: It's not very educational, it's not very helpful to just throw that out there like that. It sounds like a big case of covering of asses<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they definitely- the Royal Society put out ''clarifications'', 'quote-unquote', the next day saying 'creationism is ''not'' science, it should ''not'' be taught as science in the science classroom, and we whole-heartedly defend the teaching of evolution'. But this guy, Reiss, you know, he's just made other statements that were very, very squirly, for example, he said 'I do believe in taking seriously and respectfully the concerns of students who do not believe the theory of evolution, while still introducing them to it'. He also made some comments about treating creationism and ID, intelligent design, and evolution as different ''world-views''. So, you know, he's kinda dancing around this topic, and I think that, given that he's a literalist, and that he's making these squirly comments, it certainly ''seems'' like he's trying to squeeze in a little 'teach the controversy' through the back door there, just by saying 'we need to be respectful of the students, and we need to address their concerns and talk about creationism- oh, we believe in evolution, I'm not saying evolution is ''wrong'', but, you know, we really need to take- we can't just teach evolution, we have to address their concerns'<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it almost sounds like he's going for the catching more flies with honey defense, but-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
R: And there's something to be said for exploring different ways of reaching kids who are unfortunately growing up in households where their parents are ignorant of the basic tenants of science. And, you know, it ''is'' going to be difficult if they've been raised to believe in something wholly incompatible with what you're teaching them. You know, we ''do'' need to look at how we're teaching them. But to make a vague statement that just doesn't jibe at all with anything we're actually aiming for, and then to run away from it-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
R: Is kinda cowardly and suspicious.<br />
<br />
E: It's just a case of this person, I ''think'', trying to be somewhat politically correct, not taking a firm stance one way or the other, trying to please the most people possible with his statement to try and quell any controversy, it just did the opposite, apparently.<br />
<br />
J: He stepped down from his position too, ''because'' of the controversy.<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
R: He did, and the really cool thing is that he stepped down when British members of parliament stood up and said 'Hey, what the hell are you guys talking about? That's not science' and can you imagine that happening in the US, where an actual congress person steps up and bats somebody in line and defends science?<br />
<br />
B: No!<br />
<br />
J: No!<br />
<br />
R: It seems kind of foreign (laughs) So, I think that the UK kind of scores one on that point.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, although again this is in the context of increasing sort of insurgence of creationism into the UK, and increasing concerns. This controversy was all around the science blogosphere for the last week, the last few days, and some of the comments, like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PZ_Myers P. Z Myers] for example wrote a lot about this, and he said that 'you can teach students how we know the Earth isn't 6,000 years old. How we know there is common descent, you know, we know the Earth is 14 billion years old, etc, etc'. you can say ''historically'' they used to think this, you know 150 years ago, and this is how we- our thinking of our origins changed over time and developed with evidence. So, you can teach students everything students need to know about ''how'' science works, about how specific scientific beliefs came to be. But based upon what evidence, what logic. Without ever talking about a religious belief, or talking about creationism, you don't ''have'' to do that. I think that confronting something that is a ''religious'' belief in the science classroom is the wrong approach, you're better off saying 'in ''this'' classroom, we're talking about science, ''this'' is what science is. This is how scientists come to the conclusions that they come to. And you could achieve all of the objectives that Reiss claims he was really talking about, without respecting creationism as a world-view. That has no place in a science classroom. Some other things that have been going on, though, I don't know if this is a coincidence, but the Church of England, the C of E<br />
<br />
E: (with English accent) C of E<br />
<br />
S: Apologised to Darwin!<br />
<br />
R: I think that is-<br />
<br />
J: Now that blew my mind<br />
<br />
B: Ha!<br />
<br />
J: I can't believe that<br />
<br />
E: Did he accept?<br />
<br />
S: Good for them<br />
<br />
E: Did he accept?<br />
<br />
R: He couldn't accept, he was roasting in hell for his evil Darwinist ideas!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: (with English accent) So sorry, Darwin, sorry about that, old chap<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: So, yeah, they said it was basically the wrong thing to do, to basically oppress Darwin's views at the time. And, it turns out, that whole evolution thing was probably a good idea. Now, in response to that, the pope said 'yeah, evolution is fine, but we're not ''apologising'''. <br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: He ''refused'' to apologise.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: He basically said 'Oh, yeah?'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: 'You pansies in England can apologise to Darwin, the pope's not apologising to ''nobody'''. But, yeah, evolution's fine, you know, they<br />
<br />
J: The pope's tired<br />
<br />
S: Right, but the UK's got their own creationist museum now.<br />
<br />
R: (flatly) Good for them.<br />
<br />
J: It was just a matter of time<br />
<br />
E: Has the UK largely over the years been, not influenced by creationism, and it's only making some recent advances and strides?<br />
<br />
S: Yes, that's exactly correct, and it really has been, at least in the West, a US phenomenon. But now it is spreading to the UK.<br />
<br />
E: Do we know how much of it is influenced by Islam? Because the Islam population is on a great rise.<br />
<br />
S: That is a factor I know that Richard Dawkins has pointed that out as a factor, that they are creating ''faith'' schools, and teaching creationism from their religious perspective. Others have pointed to, you know, specifically political influence from the US have pointed to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Templeton_Foundation Templeton foundation], which is dedicated to-<br />
<br />
E: Oh yeah<br />
<br />
S: Connecting science and religion, and they have a lot of money behind that, so they give money to anybody who will-<br />
<br />
B: A million dollars, a million dollars a year to the person who does the most to join science and religion, right?<br />
<br />
R: I've seen rich people die and leave mansions to their ''cats'', and it's a better use of money than that prize.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, I agree<br />
<br />
J: and is it that general? The criteria is that general?<br />
<br />
S: Yes. The goal is for science to validate faith, that is the goal.<br />
<br />
E: So, is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Egnor Michael Egnor] in the running for that prize?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: I wouldn't be surprised.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, right?<br />
<br />
S: He definitely wants to intermingle those two<br />
<br />
R: You know who pirates' favourite scientist is?<br />
<br />
B: Oh boy,<br />
<br />
S: I can't wait to hear<br />
<br />
R: Daarrrrwin!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: Daarrrrwin<br />
<br />
B: Oh god<br />
<br />
J: Rebecca, get back on your medication as soon as possible.<br />
<br />
R: I ran out of gin!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: Keep up some rum, aarrr<br />
<br />
B: Keep it up, Rebecca, I'm loving it<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
== Questions and Emails <small>(22:52)</small> ==<br />
<big>Big Pharma</big><br />
<br />
S: Well, let's go on to your email, do you know what the first email's about?<br />
<br />
R: Daaarrrwin?<br />
<br />
E: It's about 15 sentences<br />
<br />
S: It's about 'big phaaaarrrma'!<br />
<br />
R&E: Phaarrrma!<br />
<br />
S: This one comes from Nick Vockrodt, from Arlington, Virgina. And he writes a very long email, I'm going to cut to the question: (see [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=165 show notes] for full email)<br />
<blockquote>My question is regarding "Big Pharma" and specifically [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibromyalgia fibromyalgia]-</blockquote><br />
R: I'm sorry, Steve, about big what?<br />
<br />
S: big phaarrrghma<br />
<br />
R: Thank you<br />
<blockquote>S: and specifically fibromyalgia I was discussing the pharmaceutical industry with a friend who claimed that diseases are-</blockquote><br />
J: What was that, Steve? Fibro- what?<br />
<br />
S: Alright, enough!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<blockquote>S: who claimed that diseases are being "made up" by drug companies for the sole purpose of creating a market for their medicines. He mentioned fibromyalgia as a perfect example, claiming it to be a disease that anyone can convince themselves they have. This sounded like what Dr. Novella describes as symptoms of life … I wasn't very familiar with the malady at the time to argue, but I tend to defend the pharmaceutical industry when faced with what sounds like a conspiracy theory. In my subsequent research, I found that there is some debate on it, but that the disease is generally accepted by the medical community as being "real".</blockquote><br />
S: Well, this is actually a complicated question because there's a few components to it. Let's take the first component of it: 'Does the pharma company make up diseases that they could then market their drugs for?'. I think there, in my opinion, the answer is a pretty unequivocal ''no''. The pharmaceutical industry in this country, regulated by the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_and_Drug_Administration FDA], when they market a drug, by definition, if you are marketing ''anything'' and claiming that it treats or cures or modifies a disease, it's regulated as a drug. Right, so things are regulated based on the kinds of claims that are made for them. But you don't get to make up your own diseases though, you know, to say that your drug is gonna treat something that you yourself get to make up, or that a ''company'' makes up. Companies are not in a position to ''create'' or will into existence a new disease. Things like fibromyalgia are- that is a diagnosis that emerged from the medical community. Now, I think that fibromyalgia is a very complicated disease entity that I have a lot of doubts about the way it's classified and diagnosed right now. First of all, it's not a disease, ''really'', even though-<br />
<br />
B: a syndrome?<br />
<br />
S: -it is recog- so what the-<br />
<br />
E: It's a 'condition'?<br />
<br />
S: Like for regulatory purposes, what the FDA will consider a disease is not necessarily what we would, in medicine, use the term specifically 'disease' for, meaning a pathophysiological entity. Sometimes there are clinical ''syndromes'', or a recognised entity, but we don't understand the pathophysiology, so it may be described purely by the clinical picture that it creates. So like 'chronic fatigue syndrome' is a syndrome, not really a disease. Fibromyalgia, I think, is better understood that way, although there are some thoughts about what might be ''causing'' it, it's actually not well understood. In fact, recent evidence suggests that a lot of people who have the symptoms of fibromyalgia may just be the symptoms of an underlying problem, like a sleep disorder. In fact, I think a lot of people who have the symptoms that are used to make the diagnosis fibromyalgia, actually have an underlying sleep disorder. Others may have an underlying anxiety disorder.<br />
<br />
J: Really?<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
J: Interesting<br />
<br />
S: And if you treat people for the sleep disorder, the fibromyalgia symptoms go away, so that's a pretty good indication. At least ''some'' of them. Other people may have a simmering auto-immune inflammation of the muscles. And that may be ''really''- if there ''is'' something that's really fibromyalgia, I think that's what it is. But a lot of people get similar symptoms for other reasons.<br />
<br />
J: Would you consider fibromyalgia kind of like a 'catch-all' for a bunch of different types of symptoms then?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think it's what we call a 'garbage-pail diagnosis', you know, you just get people who have symptoms in this area, then this is the label you attach to it. But there isn't any way to specifically say 'yes, this is a discrete pathological entity that they ''have'' '. I also see the diagnosis made on ''non-specific'' symptoms, without the specific symptoms that are supposed to be there. So if you are fatigued and achy, and etc., and you call that fibromyalgia, well that's just attaching a label to non-specific symptoms. You're supposed to have what we call 'trigger points', that are specific places in the muscles that are very tender. And if you have that pattern of 'trigger points' then I think it's ''meaningful'' to say 'well that pattern is called fibromyalgia. We still don't know what it is, we have some ideas, but that's the way we use the diagnosis'. If you call everybody who is fatigued and achey fibromylagia, then the diagnosis has no meaning. <br />
<br />
Now, I believe that the pharmaceutical industry has targeted fibromyalgia for a couple of drugs because it ''is'' such a easy diagnosis to make, because you can attach it to these vague symptoms, so I think if they're guilty of anything, it's choosing a marketable disease. But they didn't make it up, they weren't the ones to make it up. But that's just, you know, when pharmaceutical companies look for an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indication_%28medicine%29 indication] for their drug, that's based purely on marketing. They want to decide 'what's the biggest market? What drugs are going to sell the most? Which indication will allow us to speak to which specialty of physicians that we want to be able to market to?'. It's all really a marketing decision, of course the science has to be there as well. But often, with many drugs, there are different indications that you could go for. For example, if a drug treats pain, or treats nerve pain, now nerve pain is not a disease, so you have to pick a disease that causes nerve pain. Now, what diseases cause nerve pain are you gonna pick? Postherpetic neuralgia or diabetic neuropathy? They're gonna make a marketing decision, They're gonna choose the one with the biggest sales, the biggest marketing options for their drug, but again, they don't get to make up the disease. The other disease for which I hear this claim the most frequently is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restless_legs_syndrome restless leg syndrome] (RLS).<br />
<br />
E: Oh yeah<br />
<br />
S: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Carrey Jim Carrey] made that comment, that pharmaceutical made up restless leg syndrome in order to market a drug for it. Well, first of all, the drugs that have the indication for treating RLS, already have other indications, they were already on the market for legitimate indications, so it wasn't a way of rescuing a failed drug, that's a ''demonstrable'' myth. The other thing is, restless leg syndrom has existed in the medical literature for ''decades''. I was able to go onto my bookshelf and find an old neurology text with a ''40 year old'' reference to restless leg syndrome.<br />
<br />
E: Wow!<br />
<br />
S: 40 years before there was ever a drug marketed for it.<br />
<br />
E: Is that what they called it back then?<br />
<br />
S: Yes! Yes, and, in fact, if you dig deeper into the literature, the references go back even farther, ''and'' I forget what- it was known by other names even before the term restless leg syndrome came into being. So, yeah, it's basically like 100 years we've known that this has existed.<br />
<br />
J: (squeaky Irish voice?) 'Let me show you something'. (normal voice) A perfect example of why I ''don't'' wanna know what famous people think.<br />
<br />
(laughter) <br />
<br />
R: Right? At all<br />
<br />
E: Well, ''some''<br />
<br />
J: It ruined it for me, I ''loved'' that guy, now I have to hate him<br />
<br />
S: Oh, you do have to hate Jim Carrey, he is totally now on board with the anti-vaccinationist kooks.<br />
<br />
R: But he was so good in 'Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind'!<br />
<br />
S: He was<br />
<br />
B: (laughs)<br />
<br />
E: Sorry, so sorry.<br />
<br />
J: Oh well<br />
<br />
E: Move on<br />
<br />
S: Terrible, terrible, terrible.<br />
<br />
J: (singing) 'another one bites the dust'<br />
<br />
S: So, anyway, this is just unfounded conspiracy theories. Now, again, that doesn't mean that the pharmaceutical industry is ''not'' an industry that, they're not companies looking at their bottom line, and that the companies are beyond reproach. I'm not saying that, ''this'' notion that they make up diseases is nonsense. That is just made up conspiracy thinking.<br />
<br />
== Name That Logical Fallacy <small>(30:53)</small> == <br />
S: We do have a 'Name that logical fallacy' this week, we actually got our first piece of hard-core hate-mail in a long time. And it's just so chock-full of logical fallacies, I thought it would make good example for us to examine this week. So here we go, this one comes from Melvin Lee, who gives his-<br />
<br />
R: Melvin!... sorry<br />
<br />
S: Melvin<br />
<br />
J: Melvins!<br />
<br />
(Laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Gives his location as America. Thanks for being helpful. Now, Melvin writes (all indented quotes taken from [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=165 show notes] as written):<br />
<blockquote>I think that u and all those mofos on that show are full of shit. </blockquote><br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Wait, can you say that? You can't say that on the show.<br />
<br />
(inaudible)<br />
<br />
J: Steve-<br />
<br />
E: Should you say 'mofo'? <br />
<br />
<blockquote>S: How can u honestly say NO! there is no bigfoot just because I've never seen it, NO! crop circles aren't real because I'm obviously the creator of this world and I know EVERYTHING about. </blockquote><br />
(laughter)<br />
<blockquote>U pussies or just.......ugh, words can't describe how I feel about u guys. WHO R U-</blockquote><br />
<br />
S: Now, you also have to- we'll obviously publish the-<br />
<br />
R: All the "are"s are just the letter, all the "you"s are<br />
<br />
S: Capital 'R', capital 'U', " WHO R U"<br />
<br />
R: Melvin, actually ''texted'' this to us, it took him 16 texts<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: You know, if you're ''gonna'' write a critical email-<br />
<br />
R: Cost him 35 cents<br />
<br />
S: -take the time to spell out the words<br />
<br />
E: You have to assume that the person crafting it ''can'' spell the words<br />
<br />
B: Nah, this is a young kid, this is just a kid. <br />
<blockquote>S: WHO R U to tell some that they didn't see something with their own eyes and what they saw was an illusion. plz reread over WHO R U. U r human, u r not some all knowing god. U cannot get mad at someone for jus reporting what they saw, where u there too?, so how could u possibly say they didn't see that they thought they saw. </blockquote><br />
R: Wait, can you just do that sentence one more time?<br />
<br />
S&E: No<br />
<blockquote>Their just reporting it. This world is full of secrets and jus because it seems mundane doesn't mean its fake. Another thing. if hundreds of people AROUND THE WORLD r seeing something (bigfoot, ufos, ghost), then it ''has'' to be true. Not every situation was a hoax r the product of an over active mind. all I'm saying is WE R ALL HUMANS u have the same brain as me, u r not the god who created this world, therefore u cannot say confidently that something's not there, when it obviously is. </blockquote><br />
<br />
(sound clip of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman – Full Metal Jacket)"Holy jesus!"<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B?: Thanks for that email, Melvin <br />
<br />
E: Thank you Gunnery Sergeant Hartman<br />
<br />
R: Thanks Melvin, it's good to hear from you<br />
<br />
S: Thank you. All say 'thanks Melvin' <br />
<br />
E: Keep on listening!<br />
<br />
J: Honestly, let's honestly answer the email. Because if the guy-<br />
<br />
S: That's what we're gonna do!<br />
<br />
R: How? It's gonna take us all day. I think that's one good example of '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum argument from popularity]'. He said that, you know, if hundreds of people around the world believe in something, then it has to be true. But that is not correct because, you know, think about it this way: entire countries think that other entire countries should be obliterated off the map, and that doesn't make it ''true''.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, or millions of people, ''billions'' sometimes, hold beliefs that are mutually exclusive to beliefs that other millions of people believe. So, either one or both of those groups of millions of people ''have'' to be wrong.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, and look at all the people that bought the Milli Vanilli albums.<br />
<br />
S: That's true!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: They all believed they were really singing, they were wrooong<br />
<br />
B: There's a lotta '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man straw men]', he keeps throwing around tons of 'straw men'<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: Like "there's no Bigfoot because I've never ''seen'' it", "you can not get mad at someone for just reporting what they ''saw''", "not every situation was a hoax, or the product of an overactive mind". It's a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dichotomy false dichotomy],<ref>SGU 5x5 episode 54 [[5X5 Episode 54|Skepticism 101 - False Dichotomy]]</ref> I mean it's ''full'' of this stuff. <br />
<br />
S&B: There's a lotta 'straw men'.<br />
<br />
B: Mischaracterisations of what our arguments are, he's not even paying ''attention''!<br />
<br />
S: Right, so first of all, we ''don't'' say 'there is no Bigfoot, there are no aliens visiting the Earth, there are no ghosts'. What we say is there's no evidence compelling acceptance or belief in any of those things, the people who say that there ''is'' Bigfoot, have not met anywhere ''near'' a reasonable burden of proof.<br />
<br />
R: The invisible pink unicorn ''could'' exist, we are simply agnostic as to its existence.<br />
<br />
S: Right, where it's unfalsifiable, we're agnostic, if it's a scientific proposition, they haven't met the burden of proof, or the burden of evidence. And therefore, we do not accept it as an established or a proven scientific hypothesis, given the current state of evidence. But hey, if someone actually did find a Bigfoot body, and it stood up to peer review<br />
<br />
R: And it wasn't a costume <!--reference to Bigfoot costume hoax --><br />
<br />
S: It ''wasn't'' a costume <br />
<br />
R: Sold by hoaxters<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: We'd accept compelling evidence as compelling<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, and add to it, we'd actually be excited about it!<br />
<br />
S: Sure<br />
<br />
R: That would be mega-cool!<br />
<br />
B: I don't know, it would smash my world view, and I would deny it to my dying day.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Well only if Bigfoot wasn't riding atop a magical unicorn.<br />
<br />
E: Or a sacred cow<br />
<br />
S: Now hang on, there's some other logical fallacies in here, the challenge is in finding all of them.-<br />
<br />
R: Oh, we're not done yet, are we?<br />
<br />
S: You guys are just picking the low-hanging fruit.<br />
<br />
R: Alright, alright, alright. Well there's an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance argument from ignorance], saying that we can't say that it doesn't exist because we're not gods who created everything and everything.<br />
<br />
S: Right, that's good, it's an argument from ignorance, he's basically saying that because we don't have perfect infinite knowledge, that we therefore have no knowledge, that we can't make ''any'' factual judgments about what's likely to be true or not likely to be true, scientifically. And I'll say that, you know, we don't know ''for sure'', because we're not god, that Bigfoot doesn't exist, therefore, Bigfoot exists. And we should also then adhere to the argument ad populum, that other people say that they believe it, so that's enough.<br />
<br />
E: Well there's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem ad hominem] attacks all over the place.<br />
<br />
S: Oh yeah, 'pussies'<br />
<br />
R: Well, yeah, and not all of us are 'mofos', technically, only Jay.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, actually, I'm a proud mofo.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah<br />
<br />
J: That one didn't bother me.<br />
<br />
S: He also implies that, you know, the only way to assess someone's eye-witness testimony is to be an eye-witness ourselves, <br />
<br />
E: Wrong<br />
<br />
S: When in fact, you can assess eye-witness testimony by putting it into context. And also if you're -<br />
<br />
J: There are court rooms all over the world do that every day<br />
<br />
S: (laughs) Right, we're just saying there's more than one hypothesis. If somebody claims they saw a flying-saucer, there's multiple hypotheses you can derive from that. One is that they saw a flying saucer, but another one is that they were mistaken, or they're lying, or they were simply confusing a more mundane object, or their memory was contaminated by the testimony of another person. There's lots of-<br />
<br />
E: Or the alcohol they drank.<br />
<br />
S: They were in a compromised condition, sleep-deprived or drunk, or whatever. There's ''lots'' of hypotheses, and we want all- you know, any good scientist should consider ''all'' of them, and accept the ones that are most supported by the evidence, and also, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor Occam's razor], you don't accept the one that requires the introduction of a major new assumption, that we're being visited by aliens, when you haven't ruled out the far more likely, simple ones.<br />
<br />
R: Bigfoot<br />
<br />
S: Right, the guy simply made a mistake, or maybe he's pulling your leg. That's all, so<br />
<br />
J: I think Melvin's email actually, as poorly written as it is and everything, and he's got a negative attitude and he's just like sounding off at us. It's not that far away from where a lot of people stand. I think a lot of people ''agree'' with this.<br />
<br />
S: You're absolutely right, Jay, and that's what, even though, yeah, we're kinda poking fun at Melvin, partly because of his atrocious grammar and the way he constructed this email. But in fact, the same arguments, he's poorly constructed it, but these same logical fallacies, and these same arguments are the absolute bread and butter of the true-believers, or the anti-skeptics. We hear this ''all'' the time, the 'you don't know everything', equating 'not having infinite knowledge' with having 'no knowledge', the argument from ignorance, the appeal to popularity. We encounter these on a daily basis when confronting people who believe things that are not supported by the scientific evidence. So, we're not just attacking an easy target, this is absolutely bread and butter anti-skepticism.<br />
<br />
J: And I would take it one step further and ask Melvin, if he's listening: write us back, pick any topic that you mention in here, like Bigfoot as an example, and we'll have a real email exchange discussion about it. I promise to do that. If you wanna have a discussion, I'll tell you everything I think, and you can tell me everything you think, and we'll just vet it out over time without swearing at each other. Or at least keeping it down<br />
<br />
R: Eh<br />
<br />
S: And also, my advice to, just generic advice to people who are going to send a ranting email, actually the title of the email was 'rant', so Melvin knew this was a rant. But, if you're gonna do that, make a ''real'' effort to understand the position of the person you're disagreeing with. That's ''always'', generically, a good idea. Because there's nothing more worthless than arguing against a position that the other person doesn't even hold, because then you're just completely wasting your time, and all you're really declaring is 'I don't understand what's going on, I didn't take the time to even understand your position. I'm arguing against a "straw man"', basically that's the only thing you're accomplishing. Well, let's go on to our interview.<br />
<br />
== Interview with Ben Goldacre <small>(40:18)</small> ==<br />
(jingle)<br />
<br />
S: Ok, we're sitting here now with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Goldacre Ben Goldacre],Ben, welcome to the Skeptics' Guide<br />
<br />
BG: Hi<br />
<br />
S: You run a website in the UK called 'Bad Science', is it .net?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, [http://www.badscience.net/ BadScience.net], available all around the world!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Tell us about that<br />
<br />
R: The world-''wide'' web, Steve<br />
<br />
S: Oh yeah, I keep forgetting<br />
<br />
BG: (mocking) 'Ah yes, you're from the United Kingdom'. (normal voice) Well, it's a sort of mixture of my columns in the Guardian and other bits and bobs that I come across, and it's- maybe about sort of a quarter of it is about quackery, and most of it is about bad science reporting in mainstream media. I don't know if that's as much a problem in the US as it is in the UK.<br />
<br />
S: It's ''more'' of a problem in the US than the UK<br />
<br />
BG: Is that right? (laughs) I mean, in the UK, there have been some phenomenal bogus scare stories. I mean, there was one about theMRSA 'killer bacteria' that was essentially a bogus lab that was giving bogus results to undercover journalists, and of course the media's MMR hoax in the UK. Which I think you're about to get a run of in the US, with the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal thiomersal] thing, which is going to be very interesting.<br />
<br />
S: Well we're already- that's already passed its peak, the thimerosal (common name for thiomersal in US)<br />
<br />
BG: Do you think so?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, well, it was removed, you know, from vaccines in the United States by the end of 2002<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, but –<br />
<br />
S: Autism hasn't gone up<br />
<br />
BG: But the media storm didn't seem to start until what, this year, really. There was that case-<br />
<br />
S: It had a resurgence because of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_McCarthy Jenny McCarthy],<ref>Jenny McCarthy body count [http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com website]</ref> and Jim Carrey, and because of the mitochondrial DNA case<ref>Neurologica article: [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/has-the-government-conceded-vaccines-cause-autism/ Has the Government Conceded Vaccines Cause Autism?]</ref>. Yeah, so in the UK, I think the MMR was a bigger story. Thimerosal was bigger in the United States.<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: Is that still big over there? The MMR, are they still-<br />
<br />
BG: It's dwindling, the Observer did a bogus front page story about how autism was now up to one in 58, basically misunderstanding an unpublished piece of research which was looking at comparing different ways of measuring the prevalence of autism. So obviously, if you use the widest net, then you get the biggest number. But what I actually find interesting about vaccine scare is how poorly they propagate between different territories. So for example, in the UK we had the 'MMR causes autism' because of the measles virus, that was the scare, and that was mostly, that kind of peaked in 2001, 2002. But it didn't propagate outside of the UK. In America, you have your thiomersal scare, in France, they have a story about the hepatitis-B vaccine causing multiple sclerosis, but nobody's heard of that outside of France. In the UK in the 80s, we had 'whooping cough vaccine causing neurological problems' driven by ''one'' fairly eccentric doctor from Scotland, and obviously in Nigeria at the moment in Kano province, the imams have issued a pronouncement saying that the polio vaccine is a plot by the Americans to make Muslims infertile and stop them from having children.<ref>PlosMedicine article: [http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0040073#pmed-0040073-b0017 What Led to the Nigerian Boycott of the Polio Vaccination Campaign?]</ref><br />
<br />
S: And spread HIV.<br />
<br />
BG: Is that part of the scare as well?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: Oh no, yeah, you're absolutely right, yeah. And, you know, what's interesting about that, I ''guess'', is the WHO's polio medication program was on target to eradicate polio from around the world by now. But it's not, and people have, you know, you can do [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction PCR] on polio outbreaks around the world and they've found that the specific polio virus from Nigeria, from Kano province, has triggered outbreaks of polio elsewhere in the world. It's very interesting to me how these vaccine scares are all, you know, structurally quite similar, but they propagate very poorly, and I don't think the thiomersal scare could take off in the UK, just because the MMR story has been debunked in the UK. So, it would seem ridiculous to the media- it just wouldn't fit the natural tempo of the stories to then suddenly go 'oh no, but it does, actually cause these problems'<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, right<br />
<br />
R: So does that mean you think you're pretty much past the worst of all of those kind of stories in the UK? Or do you think there's another one on the horizon?<br />
<br />
BG: Certainly not, and actually for very interesting reasons, definitely not. If you look at France and Austria, you can see that they've come very close to electing, in the case of Austria, they ''did'' elect some seriously sort of right-wing fruitcakes, you know, bordering on fascism. Whereas in Germany, where they had to face up to what they did in World War II, there was a kind of truth and reconciliation process, and they have kind of green and liberal governments. There's no way, I don't think that Germany could re-elect a fascist government. I think that you have to go through the process of recognizing where you've gone wrong, in order to stop going wrong in the future. What I find fascinating about the termination of the MMR hoax, in the UK, is that it came to an end, not because the media suddenly went 'well actually, a 12 subject case series report isn't sufficient grounds to say that MMR causes autism'. It wasn't because they made a kind of critical appraisal of ''all'' of the literature for and against and went 'well actually, it just doesn't look like MMR causes autism, this was a storm in a tea-cup'. It came to an end because an investigative journalist called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Deer Brian Deer], for whom I've got a lot of respect, from the Sunday Times came along and revealed that the lead doctor who was driving the story had received half a million pounds, a million dollars, in legal sort of, you know, expert witness costs. And so he had, one could argue, a competing interest there. Now, I don't think for one moment that that's the reason why [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield Wakefield] held the views that he held, and I don't think that one man can drive a story. But now the media are all queued up to say 'oh, the original research has been debunked', when the original research was a 12 subject case series report that never meant anything about anything. And they're saying 'oh, you know, the MMR story has been disproven because Andrew Wakefield had half a million quid', so they're all queuing up to blame this one doctor for the hoax that was the media's work.<br />
<br />
S: (agreeing) mm-hmm<br />
<br />
BG: Collectively, the British media community have created this story, and they drove it for many, many years. And the fact that they're now trying to pin it on one doctor, I have to say, I'm not a big ''fan'' of Wakefield, but I think it's very healthy that there are, you know, doctors with idiosyncratic views on medicine, I think it's an absolute bizarre travesty that they're pinning it all on him.<br />
<br />
B: So they're all right, but for the wrong reasons?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, I think that's why they're not inoculated against future cock-ups<br />
<br />
R: Well, you're doing a lot to help media, scientific literacy amongst the media in the UK, but do you ever think they'll get that realisation? Do you ever think they'll finally realise what they're doing wrong?<br />
<br />
BG: I don't think you can stop people from producing stupid stories, but I think you can add some sense into the mix. So often, when I talk, people say- I do lots of talks in epidemiology departments and some medical statisticians, just cos the jokes can be a bit more interesting and sophisticated that way.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And people are often outraged, and they say 'well we need some laws to- these people need to be- we should be able to chop the fingers off bad journalists', and I just don't think it's realistic. But what you ''can'' do, is approach newspapers, and I just rang one up one day and said, you know, 'can I write for you?', and they said yes. You know, there's no great mystery, I think you can add in more sense to dilute the nonsense, or at least give people an opportunity to see some sense. Cos otherwise, unless people who understand the evidence get in there and explain the mechanics of why it is that you hold a belief on the back of some published evidence, then science, at least in Britain, is only being portrayed as being about authoritative truth statements from arbitrary cultural figures called scientists in white coats, you know, "scientists today said-", "scientists today deny-", "scientists today refuted-". But it's never, you know, "scientists today said 'well, there's this study, and it shows this, and for ''that'' reason, we think this'". That ''doesn't'' happen<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
BG: And by adding that into the mix, you do something very powerful<br />
<br />
S: And the Wakefield story reflects that, because it was about the authority of Wakefield, and when that was knocked down, the story was knocked down. Not about the evidence and the logic of whether or not there's any link between vaccines and autism.<br />
<br />
BG: It was about the authority of Wakefield, but it was also about human interest versus these white coat guys saying 'there's nothing to worry about'. So on one hand you had a worried parent, and on the other side you had a scientist saying, you know 'there's nothing to worry about', and that wouldn't reassure ''me''!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: You know, it would look like a cover-up, or it would look dismissive<br />
<br />
S: Right, so like us, you're using new media blogs to try to fight this bad journalism in the UK. How do you think that's going? How much play does your blog get?<br />
<br />
BG: It gets a lot of visitors, and it gets a lot of links, and the thing that's most exciting is there are lots of other people who are now blogging in the UK who do a really, really great job of pulling apart just sort of silly bit and bobs, but it's great when there's this kind of mass effect. Cos somebody will publish a tedious 'memory of water' paper, you know, homeopathy, and you'll be like, I can't be bothered to pull this apart. But someone somewhere will, you know, that burning sense of 'someone ''somewhere'' is wrong on the internet, I must put them right!'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And that's ''fantastic''. The only thing that disappoints me a little bit, I guess, is that I'm not as agitated about quackery as some people are, you get a lot of quite sanctimonious stuff from people kinda saying 'homeopathy is this public health ''scandal'' ', and I don't think that's true. I think homeopathy is really interesting, I think it's a really fascinating cultural phenomenon. I think it's really interesting that at a time when doctors are trying really hard to work collaboratively with patients, explain evidence with them and make decisions in concert with their patients, I think it's a tragedy that while doctors are trying to do that, quacks and the media are really kind of undermining the public's understanding of evidence. But I don't think that quackery is ''practically'' really dangerous, I think it's funny and interesting. I think it's interesting that there's a lot of bloggers who are keen to pick up on mocking quacks, which is funny, and it's great, and it produces great content. The thing that I wish that there was more of, is people taking down bogus news stories, because ''that's'' the thing that needs to be done so much more, because that's kind of the more culturally influential end of stuff, you know?<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
BG: But, I guess they're not such easy hits or, yeah, I don't know why it is.<br />
<br />
S: Well, the news cycle is quick, you've got to do it very quickly. Right? You find a new story hits, you've got to get your blog that day or you're going to get missed by the news cycle.<br />
<br />
BG: I ''guess'' so, although I'm not sure that's true, actually. I mean, I'm often cheerfully writing on things a couple of weeks after they've gone, but that's because I'm just smug enough to imagine that I can stand outside of the news thing. I actually think that's really interesting example of one of the more subtle aspects of how the media misrepresents science. I don’t think science makes a very good ''news'' subject, I think science is naturally a feature subject, because it's about emerging themes supported by a whole raft of evidence from a number of different disciplines that emerges over the course of many years. When you focus all your science reporting about a news story, a sudden breakthrough, a ''single'' piece of research, that's actually quite misrepresenting in a subtle way. Firstly because the stuff that makes a finding newsworthy, actually make it quite likely to be wrong, you know, it's incongruent with previous results, for example. And so it misrepresents stuff in that way. Obsessing over stuff being ''newsy'' is actually a bit of a mistake, I think people who are communicating science should feel cool with just sitting back and going 'what do we know about functional brain imaging and schizophrenia? There's a really interesting story there'<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
BG: It doesn't have to be ''new''<br />
<br />
S: I totally agree, I think the news cycle and the obsession with the story is really antithetical to the way science really works, which is taking your time and putting it together into the big picture. Often times I think you do that well, and that's we try to do, sort of take the news story and back up now into context, which is what the journalists ''don't'' do, right?<br />
<br />
BG: Well, sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't, I think there's a really interesting split in certain British news media, which has been studied quite carefully, which is: specialist health and science reporters are actually very good at their job, they know a lot of background, they know how to critically appraise research, and they will often make a fairly good stab at doing that with their articles, as long as they can get it past the desk. But what you find is, whenever a story becomes a big, political hot potato, whenever it becomes a big news story, like the MMR vaccine, or the GM food, the 'Frankenstein' food front pages of 1998, you find that the stories get taken out of the hands of the specialists, and put into the hands of the generalists, so the MMR story, especially after the question became 'did Tony Blair's son have the MMR vaccine?' – a fact that was mentioned in 33% of the news stories about MMR in 2002, when Andrew Wakefield's name was only in 25%, so Tony Blair's son was a bigger figure in our media coverage than Andrew Wakefield was. What you find is that, also, when there's a big story like MMR, also MMR was twice as likely to be written about by generalist journalists as a story about cloning, for example. And in the first two days after the Frankenstein food story hit the news stands, not a single one of the news or comment pieces in the ''entirity'' of the British news media, was written by a science columnist.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, that's definitely a big problem. Ben, you have a book coming out based on your blog, why don't you tell us about that?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, it's called '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Science_%28book%29 Bad Science]', maintaining brand homogeneity. And that's coming out with Fourth Estate, Harper Collins in September, and it should be very good, although it's very, very UK-centric, because I write about misrepresentation of science in the media, and the media I know very well is UK media. And I have this huge raft of examples from a ''thousand'' stories now, that's not an estimate, that's like, the number. And I've kinda been able to- it kinda grew out of this bet with a friend where, like, we both teach epidemiology, and I was like 'I bet I could teach the whole of epi' – or epidemiholiday As the medical students call it=<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Epidemiholiday?<br />
<br />
BG: 'I bet I can teach the whole of epi, only using exaples of people getting things wrong in broadsheet national news papers'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And it turned out to be true, but what I'd really like, actually, is to get a better handle on the ways that science is misrepresented in the media in America, cos it would be great to branch out and I'm not mercenary about selling the book, I accept that I will lead a life of obscurity in academia in a rented ex-council flat-<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: I fear that would be a volume of books if you attempted to do that, not just a single book.<br />
<br />
BG: Right, that would be like Churchill's history of World War I<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: But, I'm telling you, following your blog, that the examples are completely applicable to the United States, I think they'd be very-<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, well, actually, if there are people out there listening who know about this stuff, what I'd really like – ben@badscience.net - what I'd really like is for people to send me sort of examples from American media that mirror the cock-ups in British media. Are we allowed to say cock-ups in a Christian country?<br />
<br />
R: Oh, we're allowed to say it ''twice'', gosh<br />
<br />
BG: Have I said cock twice?<br />
<br />
E: You British are allowed to say anything you want<br />
<br />
R: That's three now.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Alright, well sometimes the stories are the same, like I think you covered the regenerating finger story.<ref>Ben Goldacre's Guardian article: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may/03/medicalresearch.health The missing finger that never was]</ref><br />
<br />
BG: That was hilarious! I mean that was-<br />
<br />
S: And we covered that too, <!--internal reference???--><br />
<br />
R: Yeah, that was great<br />
<br />
BG: Out of nowhere, and it was like three years old too<br />
<br />
S&R: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: But it was the BBC who reignited that story! And again, it was not a science or health correspondent, it was the BBC's New York correspondent, and you could see he was like, he was ''beside himself'' with excitement.<ref>BBC article & video: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7354458.stm The man who grew back his finger tip]</ref> He really thought he had found Nobel prize winning stuff with this, like, backwards guy in his model shop, who's finger had grown back. And he, this sense of holy reverence as he talked about the science, was just extraordinary, and just disproportionate to the reality, which was that, lop the top of your finger off and it just grows back, that's just nature<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it healed naturally<br />
<br />
R: It just happens<br />
<br />
S: You're hawking your brother's new product.<br />
<br />
BG: New company, yeah<br />
<br />
R: I should tell him about the holes for my earrings that closed up after I didn't wear earrings for a while.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: I mean, it's really interesting that there's this recurring theme in all of these stories in bad science and the media, and also in quackery, where we're sort of bringing all these childish fables, we're letting them take the credit for the amazing things that the body does, you know. Like when people were bringing in that placebo pill, and I'm like, I'm in sort of two minds about the ethics of giving placebos, I think it might be useful in ''some'' situations, but giving placebos to kids when they've got a cold, and I kinda think 'well, ok, you wanna tell your kid a reassuring story: here's a pill, you'll get better'. But how more empowering is it to say 'look, at the moment, there's this small, ''tiny'' microscopic organism that's gone into your body, it's called a virus, and it's really clever. What it does, is it exploits the machinery in your body that makes new parts for you, and it uses that to make copies of itself, and also it releases these other things that irritate the other parts of your body, and that's why you've got a cough and a sore throat, but your body's really clever, because on the surface of every cell, is holding out copies of all the stuff that's happening inside, and the immune system cells are floating around, and they have a look at what's in every cell by looking at this stuff that's being held out on the surface. And when they see something that's alien like that, they go in and they call all of their friends who arrive, following like a smoke trail to the source of the fire, along a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemotaxis chemotactic] path, and then they go in, and they find the bad guys, and they wrap them up in, like, a little ball, and they squirt bleach at them, and they kill them'. Now that, to me, why is that a sugar pill?<br />
<br />
J: I finally understand!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: Why let a sugar pill take credit for that? It's just insane, you know, and why let a ''healer'' take credit for that. But why let some magic powder take credit for the totally amazing fact that, if you cut the top of your finger off, it grows back like ''new'', I mean ''that'', that's a miracle, you know!<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: Quite apart from the fact that in the stories they were sort of talking about powder made out of (mystically) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endothelial_cells ''endothelial'' cells]!<br />
<br />
E,B&S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: As if like-<br />
<br />
S: It's some exotic thing, pig's bladder<br />
<br />
BG: No, it was (laughing)<br />
<br />
BG&S: 'extra-cellular matrix'<br />
<br />
BG: and it was like 'and these are made of 'extra-cellular matrix', and you're like extra-cellular matrix surrounds the cells of every single cell in all of the bodies of all of the people in the world, extra-cellular, you know, there's ''more'' extra-cellular matrix in the world than you could shake a stick at.<br />
<br />
J: That's like 'the super spectacular!'<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: 'Space-age technology', that's 50 years old!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Well, Ben, we certainly appreciate what you're doing, we love your blog and your articles for the Guardian, I fell like we're just getting started, maybe we'll have a chance to sit down again, if not here, some time in the future.<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, cool<br />
<br />
S: And thanks again for sitting with us.<br />
<br />
R: Thanks, Ben<br />
<br />
BG: Cheers, thank you.<br />
<br />
== Randi Speaks: The Media <small>(59:20)</small> ==<br />
(jingle) And now, Randi speaks.<br />
<br />
S: Randi, tell us how you think the media deals with issues of science and skepticism.<br />
<br />
JR: Rather badly, generally speaking, because the media is interested in a sensational story. Well, they say they want news, but they want ''sensationa''l news. You know very well that puppy dog down a sewer is going to get much more attention than some political hack in the local community, unless he has something to do with puppies going down sewers. The media's that way, and it's understandable, they want to sell newspapers and programs and wot-not. I've said it before and I'll say it again: most people in the media are educated in the humanities, and they don't have a good grasp of science and reality, and how things work. They're very easily deceived, they're very na&iuml;ve in some respects, and they're purposefully na&iuml;ve perhaps because they want the story to be there. Now, an excellent example of that on a very high level is an ABC TV program that I did, I guess last year. They got me all the way in to New York city to discuss the '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo%C3%A3o_de_Deus_%28medium%29 John of god]' situation. Now, 'John of god' is a so-called psychic healer and wot-not in Brazil, and he's doing very simple tricks that, kind of what people have known for a long time, sticking sticks up your nose and wot-not, and he actually sticks forceps up the patients' noses. I went armed for bear, I went to New York City, and they stuck me in the studio in front of a video camera. I had with me video tapes, props and wot-not, and I spoke with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Qui%C3%B1ones John Qui&ntilde;ones], he was the host on the show. They interviewed me for two and a half hours, ''two and a half hours'' they interviewed me! <br />
<br />
I was on with a man called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehmet_Oz Dr Mehmet Oz], a very, very famous cardiac surgeon in New York city, a great reputation, but totally woo-woo. He actually has nurses specially trained in the art of balancing the aura, walking around in his ''operating room'' while he's got a patient on the table with his chest cavity open and his heart being fixed! And Mehmet Oz will throw up his hands when told by the nurse that she's coming through to balance the aura by passing her hands over it! Incredible! Incredible that a man in this day and age, let alone a very highly educated man like Mehmet Oz, would be involved in such quackery! Such absolute foolishness, such a juvenile approach to reality. But, nonetheless, he is a great cardiac surgeon, and I would trust myself to him ''any'' time. (quietly and suspiciously) As long as he kept the woman with the funny gloves out of the place. (in normal voice) But, he was on the program as well, it ended up that the program used nine seconds of what I said. Nine seconds out of two and a half hours. They didn't use any other recorded material, any other references to the video tapes with demonstrations of how the forceps up the nose trick is done, as I say, it's an old carnival stunt. But they used a great deal of Mehmet Oz, they used quotations from him, and he even said something – for a Dr, very foolish – he said that sticking up the nose came close to certain glands in the head and wot-not, but he didn't notice – because he doesn't operate on the head, I guess, that there's a half-inch layer of ''bone'' in between where the forceps go up. Now, is it supposed to be a magnetic influence? A proximity influence? A capacity effect? I don't know, but he mentioned that as a possibility. He really is a woo-woo artist. Unfortunately, with all of that education and very extensive training and great expertise. <br />
<br />
So they used all of nine seconds, but they used it so unfairly, they had me saying – and this took nine seconds, "there are no greater liars in the world than quacks, except for their patients". Now, that was broadcast like that, but the complete quotation was "As that early American philosopher [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin Ben Franklin] once said, there are no greater liars in the world than quacks, except for their patients". So, I was attributing it to Ben Franklin, but they cut that out, because that made it look as if I was stealing it from Ben Franklin. I got emails, Steve, from all over the world, saying "you're quoting Ben Franklin, you stole that! You should have attributed it to them". I did! But they edited it out, and they edited out the complete explanation of how the forceps up the nose trick was done, and the various other things that 'John of God' does. Now this is totally irresponsible, it borders on the criminal, because what that does, ABC television in a feature program had this number about 'John of God', and that, I'm sure, brought ''hundreds'' of Americans to travel off to Brazil and spend their hard-earned money on this quackery. And 'John of God', I'm sure, was very happy with it. And they never did a retraction of any kind.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(1:04:43)</small> ==<br />
(jingle)<br />
<br />
S: Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two genuine, and one fictitious. And then, my panel of skeptics tries to tell me which one they think is the fake. Are you guys ready for this week?<br />
<br />
B:…yes<br />
<br />
S: Here we go, number one: 'Astrophysicists have discovered the upper limit for the mass of a black hole'. Item number two: 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge'. And item number three 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells'. Bob, go first.<br />
<br />
B: (quietly) you ''bastard''<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: 'upper limit for the mass of a black hole', it does sound kinda bizarre, I mean, what's preventing a black hole from just getting bigger and bigger? Um, so on the surface, that doesn't sound right, if you think about it. Dinosaur dominance 'due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge', I mean, that makes sense on the surface, absolutely. A lot of evolution and whether you go extinct or not has to do with luck. That definitely can play a part, maybe that makes too much sense. 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells', that sounds pretty cool, and that would be awesome, I'm gonna say that's science. I'm gonna say that… that the dinosaur dominance being luck, that sounds a little fishy, I'm gonna say that that is fiction.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, Evan?<br />
<br />
E: Well, 'upper limit for the mass of a black hole'… I mean, there would have to be some kind of upper limit, wouldn't there? It's just a matter of discovering it, one would ''think'', but I'm not too sure about that. Dinosaurs having an advantage over contemporaries 'was due to luck'… yeah. But how were they able to determine that, you know, how do you equate 'luck' in a scientific context? I'm not quite sure ''really'' what's being said there. And then the 'improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells', sure, yes, finding out all kinds of new things about all stem cells these days, cutting edge science, totally plausible. So I'll agree with Bob that the dinosaur one is fiction.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: See now, I'm not so sure, because I'm pretty sure I read something about this, and that they actually found these skeletons of an elderly pack of velocoraptors, surrounded by a field of four-leafed clovers, and a small pile of rabbit's feet next to them. So, I believe that that's actually science, and I also think that a black hole should have an upper limit, cos otherwise, well, you know, that's too scary to compliment- er, contemplate. So I think that transplanting muscle stem cells, I don't think we're quite to the point where we can improve strength and performance doing that, and that sounds like, are we doing studies on humans with muscle stem cells? That doesn't seem like it's going to work, I don't know. I think that's fiction, so-<br />
<br />
S: Ok, alright? Jay?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, the upper limit to the black hole- the upper limit to the ''mass'' of a black hole, I would just assume that it makes a lot of sense, like Evan said, that someone would be able to sit down and run the math and be able to theoretically figure that out. 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge'. Mmm, that one seems … fishy to me for some reason, how could they determine it was just luck? I wonder how the fossil record could demonstrate that. And the last one, 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells'. Yeah, you know, I think I would've heard this. If that happened, I think that it would be much bigger news, you know, definitely above the water line, or ''I'' would've read it, with the amount of reading I do on science news. I don't think that one is science, I think that one was altered by Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, so you all agree that 'Astrophysicists have discovered the upper limit for the mass of a black hole', correct?<br />
<br />
J,B&E: Yes<br />
<br />
S:Yeah, actually, ''this'' was the most counter-intuitive one for me when I first read it. This is science, and, you know, like Bob, my reaction was 'what would stop it from absorbing more mass? What would happen if a black hole reached it's upper limit, and then, you know, there was more material to suck in, what would happen?' Well, it turns out astrophysicists-<br />
<br />
B: More to it.<br />
<br />
S: -have calculated the theoretical upper limit for the mass of a black hole, it's a Yale astronomer in fact, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priyamvada_Natarajan Priyamvada Natarajan]. What (s)he suspects is, there's a mechanism that, as the black hole gets to about 10 billion solar masses-<br />
<br />
E: Wow<br />
<br />
S: -that any matter falling into it would cause the radiation away of an equal amount of mass. <ref name="Yale">Yale news: [http://news.yale.edu/2008/09/04/yale-astronomer-discovers-upper-mass-limit-black-holes Yale Astronomer Discovers Upper Mass Limit for Black Holes]</ref> So it reaches an equilibrium point, you know-<br />
<br />
J: baaahh (?)<br />
<br />
S: -evaporate or radiate away the same amount of mass that was pulled into it-<br />
<br />
B: Wait, but you're not talking about [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation Hawking radiation] though. ''My'' interpretation was that-<br />
<br />
S: No, no<br />
<br />
B: -you've got [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accretion_disc accretion disk] radiation<br />
<br />
S: Yes, that's right<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, that's a big difference. And my understanding, though, Steve, was that this isn't a hard rule. If you've got so much in-falling matter, you would reach a point where the radiation being generated by the heat of the accretion disk would actually blow away solar ma- any material that would've fallen into the black hole, so you gotta kinda like a soft limitation in that way. But if you've got a 10 billion solar mass black hole, and it bumps into a neutron star, or a smaller black hole, nothing's going to stop that from getting bigger than 10 billion-<br />
<br />
S: Well, see, I was not clear on that point from the article that I read. That was my question too.<br />
<br />
B: That was my understanding from reading some articles, and reading a lot of the comments from people who seem to know what they were talking about. What I know about black holes, what is going to stop it, to go above it if it's as I described.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, but the press release makes it sound like that's just one possible explanation, but that other things were used to derive this upper limit. You know, we might have to do some follow-up to try and sort that out, but that was exactly the question that I had: is that a ''hard'' limit? Or is it a ''soft'' limit? You seem to think that it was a soft limit, right?<br />
<br />
B: Absolutely<br />
<br />
S: And my interpretation was that this was a ''hard'' limit, and one of the mechanisms proposed for that would prevent the black hole from getting bigger than about 10 billion solar masses, but, interesting either way. So let's go on to number two: 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge', and Bob and Evan, you both said that this one was fiction.<br />
<br />
J: So it's down to Bob and Evan, and me and Rebecca, teaming up again<br />
<br />
S: Jay and Rebecca thought this one is science, and this one… is… ''science''!<br />
<br />
J: Ah-ha!<br />
<br />
(high-five sound)<br />
<br />
J: You guys suck.<br />
<br />
S: But you guys did ask-<br />
<br />
B: There goes my run.<br />
<br />
S: an excellent question, which is- 'how would-<br />
<br />
E: mofos<br />
<br />
S: -'how would they know?'. How would you even make this determination?<br />
<br />
E: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: I don't know, you dominate the planet for 200 million years, there's gotta be some competitive edge in there.<br />
<br />
E: Well explain what ''luck'' is, in this context.<br />
<br />
J: Talk to us, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Well, luck would be that there was an environmental change, and you ''happened'' to benefit from that change, as opposed to-<br />
<br />
B: Like ''humans'', mammals<br />
<br />
S: -you just out-competed, you out-competed your contemporaries. Now, what they did, was they, this is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_L._Brusatte Steve Brusatte] from Bristol University, department of Earth Sciences. And they looked at the species that were around early in the career of the dinosaurs. They found that the other major group at the time were the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crurotarsi crurotarsans], which were alligator-like reptiles. At that time, they were a more diverse group, with greater disparity, and actually were dominant over the early dinosaurs at their time. He said, if you were, you know, in the early [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triassic triassic], for example, and you looked at these two groups, you would predict, based upon their diversity, disparity and dominance, that the crurotarsans would have a much greater chance of dominating the future than the dinosaurs would.<ref name="SM">Science magazine: [http://www.sciencemag.org/content/321/5895/1485.short Superiority, Competition, and Opportunism in the Evolutionary Radiation of Dinosaurs] DOI: 10.1126/science.1161833</ref><ref name="SA">Scientific American: [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=was-the-dinosaurs-long-reign-a-fluke Was the Dinosaurs' Long Reign on Earth a Fluke?]</ref> So by any measure of 'who was winning', the crurotarsans seemed to be winning in terms of spreading into more ecosystems and, you know, having greater numbers, etc. But then two things happened, there was the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnian carnian]-norian event 228 million years ago, which caused a lot of extinctions, with both the dinosaurs and the crurotarsans survived that, but it did eliminate a lot of competition, and then 200 million years ago, there was the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triassic#Late_Triassic_extinction_event end Triassic extinction], which resulted from a period of significant global warming, increase in temperature, and the dinosaurs weathered the increase in temperature, and the crurotarsans didn't. But until that climate change occurred, the crurotarsans were out-competing the dinosaurs, if anything. So that's what they mean by luck, they just ''happened'' to benefit from a change in the climate when, if, all things being equal, they were not directly out-competing their contemporaries. Which means that number three: 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells' is fiction.<br />
<br />
B: Whatever.<br />
<br />
S: But what ''is'' true, is that they just identified what the muscle stem cell ''is''. They didn't really know which muscle was ''in fact'' the muscle stem cell.<br />
<br />
B: Crap, that's what I read.<br />
<br />
S: Yes, perhaps that's what you'd read. So, and it turns out to be the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myosatellite_cell satellite] cell which is a type of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progenitor_cells progenitor] cell that exists near the muscles, or in the muscle tissue, and, you know, in repair or exercise, etc. will generate new muscle tissue. But we haven't successfully transplanted muscle cells into people. That's not happened yet.<br />
<br />
J: (mimicking) Stem cells are made of people!<br />
<br />
B: Man, I hate when a vague memory of reading an article totally kills you<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I know, that's what got me<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, sucks to be you, Bob<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: You gotta stop reading, guys.<br />
<br />
J: So, Steve really is the bastard tonight<br />
<br />
B: Jay, you bastard, you ended the run I had, it was like a nine-winning streak run (actually 10). How long was your run?<br />
<br />
J: Four foot one<br />
<br />
E: Four foot one<br />
<br />
S: Well, congratulations Jay and Rebecca, good job.<br />
<br />
J: Yay! Rebecca!<br />
<br />
E: Yay!<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:16:28)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: Jay, do you have a quote for us this week?<br />
<br />
J: I have a quote this week from a man called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume David Hume], he lived 1711-1776, that was a pretty good year, wasn't it? And I'm always surprised when I read quotes from people that lived centuries ago, especially ones that are exceptionally logical or rational, maybe I'm skewed, or maybe just from reading quotes from a lot of very smart people during that time, I don't know. I'd like to know if I'm just thinking that they're overly rational for their time, or maybe people were more rational in the past.<br />
<br />
S: Well it was the age of enlightenment for a reason, Jay.<br />
<br />
J: David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, an economist, historian, and an important figure in western philosophy, and he said, or wrote:<br />
<blockquote>When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.</blockquote><br />
J: DAVID HUME! … I think this is also a good quote to go with Melvin's email to us. MELVIN LEE! (even louder) MELVIN LEE!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: CONFUSED LISTENER!<br />
<br />
R: Ok, the David Hume one didn't make me (inaudible – upset?)<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Right, just a quick reminder that October 10<sup>th</sup>, New York city is the New York city's skeptic's first annual anniversary event, they're going to have James Randi speak for them, and then October 11<sup>th</sup>, in Fairfield Connecticut, Perry's home town, we're going to have the first annual Perry DeAngelis memorial lecture!<br />
<br />
E,B&J: Yay!<br />
<br />
S: October 11<sup>th</sup>, noon to three at the Fairfield theatre company, we have the information on our message-board, and on our facebook page, and Jay, can we put that on the website? I know we're in the middle of the update and everything, but can we put that up?<br />
<br />
J: I will put it on the homepage<br />
<br />
S: ''and'' we have confirmed guests Steve Mirsky, from Scientific American-<br />
<br />
J: He's awesome<br />
<br />
S: -and Terence Hines-<br />
<br />
E: Nice<br />
<br />
S: -excellent skeptic and neuroscientist, and author of 'Pseudoscience and the paranormal', ain't it cool?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, he's a good dude<br />
<br />
S: Well, thank you all again for joining me this week<br />
<br />
(someone singing "going crazy"?)<br />
<br />
R: Thanks Steve<br />
<br />
E: Yes, it was good joining you<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Fun as always, and until next week, this is your Skeptics' guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
<br />
== Today I learned... ==<br />
*The first space shuttle, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Enterprise Enterprise] was unveiled by NASA on September 17th 1976. <br />
<br />
*September 19th is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day international talk like a pirate day].<br />
<br />
*In February 2006, astronomers using the Hubble space telescope spotted a mystery object that continually brightened for about 100 days, after which, it dimmed symmetrically for the next 100 days.<ref name="Barbary"/> The distance to the object has been said to be between 120 and 11 billion light years away, and does not match any object in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloan_Digital_Sky_Survey Sloan Digital Sky Survey] at the time of the podcast.<br />
<br />
*Church of England offered a formal apology to Darwin in September 2008! ([http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7613403.stm BBC article])<br />
<br />
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restless_legs_syndrome Restless leg syndrome]has been documented for over 100 years.<br />
<br />
*Astrophysicists at Yale have calculated the upper limit for the mass of a black hole, stating that as a black hole gets to about 10 billion solar masses, any subsequent matter falling into it would cause the radiation away of an equal amount of mass.<ref name="Yale"/><br />
<br />
*New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge. It is thought that global warming in the late Triassic era may have led to the extinction of the previously dominant [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crurotarsi crurotarsans], whilst the dinosaurs survived.<ref name="SM"/><ref name="SA"/> <br />
<br />
*The muscle stem cell is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myosatellite_cell satellite] cell which is a type of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progenitor_cells progenitor] cell that exist near the muscles, or in the muscle tissue, and will generate new muscle tissue in repair or exercise, etc.<br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
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}}</div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_165&diff=9634SGU Episode 1652015-02-06T00:44:41Z<p>Jason koziol: /* Randi Speaks: The Media (59:20) */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Editing required<br />
|proof-reading = y<br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox <br />
|episodeNum = 165<br />
|episodeDate = 17<sup>th</sup> September 2008<br />
|episodeIcon = File:goldacre.jpg<br />
|rebecca = y<br />
|bob = y<br />
|jay = y<br />
|evan = y<br />
|guest1 = BG: [http://www.badscience.net/ Ben Goldacre]<br />
|guest2 = JR: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi James Randi]<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2008-09-17.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com//index.php/topic,14234.0.html<br />
|qowText = When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.<br />
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume David Hume]<br />
|}}<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.<br />
<br />
S: Hello, and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday September 17<sup>th</sup> 2008, and this is your host, Steven Novella, President of the [http://www.theness.com/ New England Skeptical Society]. Joining me this evening are Bob Novella,<br />
<br />
B: Hey everybody<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca Watson<br />
<br />
R: Hello, everyone<br />
<br />
S: Jay Novella<br />
<br />
J: Hey guys<br />
<br />
S: And Evan Bernstein<br />
<br />
E: Hi everyone, how's everyone doin' tonight?<br />
<br />
J: Good<br />
<br />
S: Good<br />
<br />
R: Great<br />
<br />
B: What's goin' on<br />
<br />
E: Good!<br />
<br />
== This Day in Skepticism <small>(0:36)</small> ==<br />
<br />
R: What's the day, Evan?<br />
<br />
E: 1976, the first space shuttle, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Enterprise Enterprise], unveiled by NASA.<br />
<br />
B: Ah, that's awesome<br />
<br />
E: Not launched, just unveiled<br />
<br />
S: Just unveiled?<br />
<br />
J: I remember being a kid, watching the TV, seeing a bunch of people standing on the tarmac, watching it be unveiled, then playing the theme to the Enterprise, you know, Star Trek.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
E: (laughs)<br />
<br />
J: Remember that?<br />
<br />
S: But I was devastated when I learned the Enterprise was never going to go into orbit.<br />
<br />
B: No <br />
<br />
J: What a gip!<br />
<br />
E: That's right<br />
<br />
B: Just a mock-up<br />
<br />
S: They should've saved the name for the first one to launch, not just the training module.<br />
<br />
R: I know a better day that's coming up, and that would be Friday, the 19<sup>th</sup>. You guys know what Friday is?<br />
<br />
J: Friday, um…<br />
<br />
S: September 19<sup>th</sup>?<br />
<br />
R: Uh-huh, you give up?<br />
<br />
B: Sorry<br />
<br />
S: The start of fall<br />
<br />
R: (complete with accent) Aaar, it's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day talk-like-a-pirate day]! Ye land-lubbers!<br />
<br />
B: Yes! How could I forget?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Didn't we just have that?<br />
<br />
J: That's a great day!<br />
<br />
E: Last year we mentioned that.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Aaaar<br />
<br />
B: It's an awesome day<br />
<br />
S: Has it been a year already?<br />
<br />
R: It has<br />
<br />
E: Aaaar, matey, it has.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Good thing we're not doing the podcast on Friday.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, can't we ''pretend''?<br />
<br />
B: Oh, the whole- the whole days as pirates?<br />
<br />
E: Today is talk like a ninja day<br />
<br />
S: Knock yourself out<br />
<br />
R: You can't talk like a ninja!<br />
<br />
S: Actually, ''today''-<br />
<br />
E: Sure you can,<br />
<br />
R: They just sneak up and stab you<br />
<br />
S: Today is international talk like a skeptic day<br />
<br />
B: Ha!<br />
<br />
R: (laughing) You made that up<br />
<br />
E: (with accent) I doubt that, har-har-har<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Well, we have an interview that we recorded at TAM 6 with Ben Goldacre coming up later in the show.<br />
<br />
B: Ben!<br />
<br />
R: That's aaaaar-some, Steve. I can't wait<br />
<br />
S: Ben is a cool guy. Our first new item is about Ben<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Ben Goldacre Defends Libel Case <small>(2:17)</small>===<br />
[http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=377 Neurologica: An Important Victory Against HIV Quackery]<br />
<br />
S: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Goldacre Ben Goldacre], who writes for the Guardian, and is one of the guys in the UK who's writing about science and medicine. He had written a piece about [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthias_Rath Matthias Rath], you guys familiar with this guy?<br />
<br />
R: Only in that I know he's a douche<br />
<br />
B: Er, no<br />
<br />
S: Right, he is a ''giant'' douche, he really is. So he has an organisation-<br />
<br />
R: (in the background) Am I gonna get sued for that?<br />
<br />
S: -that sells ''all kinds'' of snake oil, and what Ben wrote about was Rath selling vitamins in South Africa to AIDS victims, telling them ''not'' to take their anti-HIV medications, but instead, to take his vitamins. You know, there's an actual death count that you can attach to that kinda behaviour.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: So, Ben called him out on that. Now, Rath has a history of suing anyone who criticizes him, he has many, many lawsuits in many countries. You know, anyone who says that what he's doing is not legitimate, his response is to sue them.<br />
<br />
R: Including in South Africa where he's causing the most damage.<br />
<br />
S: Yes, South Africa, Germany, and again against the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian Guardian] and Ben Goldacre. And he's won some of those suits, unfortunately. But this, recently he had to withdraw his suit against the Guardian and Ben Goldacre ''and'' he's going to have to pay about half a million pounds in legal fees as a result as well. So that was a very good outcome. Of course, we all congratulate Ben on seeing that through, you know, it's obviously something that cuts very close to home. We spend a lot of our time dishing out very harsh criticism to a lot of people. Some of whom are heartless charlatans who will kill people if it lines their pockets, and who have a history of defending themselves by intimidating others with lawsuits and-<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, and you know, it's very different in England, where the laws aren't quite as much on the side of people who are making the statements, it's not quite on the side of free-speech as it is in the US.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
R: I think that, you know, we have a certain amount of protection going for us, but in the UK, it's fairly easy for someone to sue for libel slander, because once they do, the burden is on the defendant, as opposed to in the US, where the burden of proof is on the plaintive, and I am ''not'' a lawyer.<br />
<br />
S: No, that's correct. Although, in England, the one advantage in the UK, is that it's pretty standard, if you lose such a lawsuit, it's almost automatic that you pay the other side's legal fees. So that's the disincentive for frivolous lawsuits.<br />
<br />
R: Right, and so sure enough, he's had to cough up, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: These are ''critical'' victories for free-speech for sceptics everywhere who are trying to, you know, point out, especially this kind of really destructive behaviour. So, this is, I think, a very important victory. So, congratulations Ben!<br />
<br />
E: Good job, Ben<br />
<br />
R: Yay Ben!<br />
<br />
=== Hubble Finds Mystery Object <small>(5:20)</small>===<br />
[http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/newsblog/28244844.html?pageSize=0 Sky & Telescope article]<br />
<br />
S: The next news item, the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope Hubble] finds a mystery object that ''genuinely'' has astronomers ''baffled''<br />
<br />
R: Astronomers are baffled!<br />
<br />
S: They are<br />
<br />
J: They're baffled!<br />
<br />
S: They're generally baffled.<br />
<br />
E: are they flummoxed?<br />
<br />
S: And flummoxed.<br />
<br />
J: So what is it, Steve?<br />
<br />
S: Now, this is pretty interesting<br />
<br />
B: That's the question, Jay, it's- really nobody knows, according to a paper that's about to appear in the Astrophysical journal.<ref name="Barbary">Barbary et al. (2009) [http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/690/2/1358/ Discovery of an unusual optical transient with the hubble space telescope ] ApJ 690 1358 doi:10.1088/0004-637X/690/2/1358 </ref> Something extraordinary, never been seen before by astronomers appeared in 2006, so I was a little disappointed that it was two years ago, like, 'what? We're just hearing about this ''now''?'. But to this day, it is not known what the hell it was, or if it will ever appear again. It started with the Supernova Cosmology Project in February 2006 using Hubble, looking for Supernovae in February. A previously unknown object started getting brighter and brighter, and brighter, and it just did not stop. And this continued for about 100 days, at that point, it pretty much stopped getting brighter and bigger, and then just started to symmetrically dim for the next 100 days. So it was really, perfectly symmetrical light curve where the dimming is perfectly matched by the brightening in the beginning. The spectrum of light was also an enigma, the spectrum basically just shows the rainbow of colors from a light source, but also, of course, includes the non-visible light, like UV or radio. And ''typically'', these certain pieces of the spectrum are missing from a spectrum. And the lines that are missing shows you what elements must have been near the light source, or in the intervening space that absorbed it. So you've got these emission lines, but these emission lines made no sense.<br />
<br />
S: Don't you mean 'absorption lines'? Just to be clear, emission lines are different from absorption lines. Emission lines are when- are from the body itself that's glowing, absorption lines are from something intervening that's absorbing the light that was emitted.<br />
<br />
B: That's right, you were right. So this is a key deficit in our knowledge about this object, because if you can't determine what the elements are, what the arrangement of elements are in the spectrum, then you don't know how red-shifted the object is. That's one of the reasons why quasars were such a puzzle to astronomers early on, because quasars are so red-shifted, they're billions of light years distant, therefore, their red-shift is gargantuan, and it took a while for astronomers to realize 'wait a second, hydrogen's way over here, if it's way over here, it's gotta be immensely distant'. And that's gotta be one of the key insights that made them realize that these objects were so far away. So if we don't have this information, if we can't kinda get a picture of what's going on with the spectrum of this object, then you have no idea how far away this is. Is it in our galaxy?<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Is it in ''another'' galaxy? We don't know!<br />
<br />
J: Is that like a ball of hydrogen, or some hot-pocket of air, or expanding space somewhere?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: All we know is what we saw. It was some sort of stellar object that got brighter and brighter, like a Supernova, and then dimmed. But it was not typical of any other object that they've ever seen before.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they said it's specifically ''not'' a supernova.<br />
<br />
R: And if you were a pirate, would you call it a quasaaaaarrr?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: Quasaaaarr! Yes! Good one.<br />
<br />
E: No!<br />
<br />
R: I suspect that they call it quasaarrr<br />
<br />
S: That's not a (inaudible)<br />
<br />
B: We do have a range though, this thing must be within a certain range by other measurements, and one of them is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax parallax]. Parallax is the movement of one object due to movement of a foreground object, so if an object is close enough away, say less than 130 light years, you would see obvious parallax. We're not seeing that, so that means that this object is ''more'' than 130 light years away. So that's the ''bottom'' limit right there. So, what's the upper limit? Well, the only upper limit I came across for this thing has to do with hydrogen absorption. Because it's lacking hydrogen absorption in the spectrum, that means that it has to be less than 11 billion light years away. So our range is greater than 120 light years, less than 11 billion light years.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Nice range<br />
<br />
E: Oh, narrowed it down, that's great<br />
<br />
B: That's the best they've come up with in ''two years''. So, it could be anywhere in the intervening space.<br />
<br />
S: But interestingly, given that it could be- there's such a huge range for how far away it could be, they said that it's not ''in'' any known galaxy. So there's no galaxy, I guess, on that-<br />
<br />
B: I have a problem with that. I have a problem with that because there's been mention of this [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo%C3%B6tes Bo&ouml;tes constellation] they referred to, which is just a constellation of stars within our galaxy. But they refer to it as a void where there's really nothing around it for many light years, apparently. Now, there is a ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo%C3%B6tes_void Bo&ouml;tes super-void], it's a void, one of the biggest voids in the known universe, it's 250 million light years wide. Now I ''think'' they are possibly referring to this, they're saying that it's within this specific void. If it could be 130 light years away or 11 billion light years away, why do they think it's in a void 250 million light years across?<br />
<br />
S: I don't think it's ''just'' that, my reading was that it's not in any ''known'' galaxy, if it were in a galaxy, they're not seeing the galaxy that it's in.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, but why even mention this specific Bo&ouml;tes void or concept? Cos that, to me, just seems like a red herring.<br />
<br />
J: Bob, do we know if it's heading in a direction? Like, what direction it was moving in?<br />
<br />
B: No, there was no- you know, 200 days is not gonna be any- there wasn't really any discernable movement. Now, could it be a new type of Supernova? Scientists don't ''think'' so, there's a problem with that, because it doesn't match any of the known Supernova types and the brightening took much longer than normal, typically, Supernovas will brighten for 20 days, this one lasted for 100 days, and the spectrum didn't make any sense. The light curve should be asymmetrical for a Supernova, they fade more slowly than they brighten, it didn't make any sense.<br />
<br />
S: They also said it was ''not'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_microlensing microlensing]<br />
<br />
B: Right, the light curve doesn't match a microlensing event. Microlensing occurs when light is distorted as it travels over a gravitational source. They've ruled that out as well. It doesn't look like a quasar, I mean nothing that-<br />
<br />
R&E: Aaaarrr<br />
<br />
B: They put this spectrum through the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloan_Digital_Sky_Survey Sloan Digital Sky Survey] database, which has just a ''vast'' number of objects, and it didn't match anything in there. This is really quite a mystery and I-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, so this thing is probably a whole new class of object – which is cool!<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, some people have speculated that it's some sort of- because it's so symmetrical and blah, blah, blah that it could be-<br />
<br />
R: Aliens<br />
<br />
B: -some sort of sign from an intelligence, but obviously there's nothing that would really give you any confidence in that sort of conclusion. Not yet, anyway. But that would be interesting, if evidence pointed that way, but, man, I'm not counting on that at all.<br />
<br />
S: You don't think it's like a Death Star blowing up or something?<br />
<br />
B: They were talking about it in the comments.<br />
<br />
J: We would need so much more freakin evidence, you can't jump to ''that'', that's incredible<br />
<br />
B: No, that's ridiculous<br />
<br />
S: Well they thought that about pulsars when they first saw them, they were called LGM<br />
<br />
B: LGM, little green men, it was so regular<br />
<br />
E: Cos it was too regular, right? It could only have been created or something<br />
<br />
S: But sometimes, nature is really regular and symmetrical<br />
<br />
E: Aah, when nature is regular<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, you can't jump to an artificial hypothesis just because it's so symmetrical<br />
<br />
J: I'm pretty regular<br />
<br />
E: And symmetrical<br />
<br />
R: That's not what I heard<br />
<br />
=== Creationism in the UK <small>(13:00)</small>===<br />
[http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=376 Neurologica: Teaching Creationism in Schools]<br />
<br>[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4768820.ece TimesOnline article] (login required)<br />
<!-- dead link: http://www.cofe.anglican.org/darwin <br />
possible alternative: http://www.churchofengland.org/our-views/medical-ethics-health-social-care-policy/darwin.aspx<br />
--><br />
<br>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7613403.stm BBC article: Who are the British creationists?]<br />
<br />
S: Well, creationism is creeping into the UK, traditionally, the United States has had a problem with creationists trying to infiltrate public schools and etc. But now, apparently, it's becoming more of a problem in the United Kingdom. And this came to a head recently by comments made by reverend professor [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Reiss Michael Reiss] who was, until very recently, the Director of Education at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society Royal Society]. The Royal Society, I think is the ''oldest'' scientific institution and has a very important position in the UK science community. He made some controversial statements, and this is a quote from them<br />
<blockquote>An increasing percentage of children in the UK come from families that do not accept the scientific version of the history of the universe and the evolution of species. What are we to do with those children? My experience after having tried to teach biology for 20 years is if one simply gives the impression that such children are wrong, then they are not likely to learn much about the science that one really wants them to learn. I think a better way forward is to say to them 'look, I simply want to present you with the scientific understanding of the history of the universe and how animals and plants and other organisms evolved'.<ref>BBC news: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7612152.stm Call for creationism in science]</ref></blockquote><br />
S: He made other comments as well that really sparked a controversy over what ''exactly'' is this guy advocating? And because he's actually a literalist, not just a reverend, but a ''literalist'', a lot of people sort of had their eye on this guy, and were sort of waiting for this kind of thing to happen, this kind of controversy to crop up. So this, perhaps as much as anything else, is what lead to this incredible controversy, but ''I'' still have a hard time knowing ''really'' what this guy was advocating. <br />
<br />
R: Well, you know what the Society, a spokesman for the Society stepped forward and confirmed that, you know, what he was saying was inline with what they believed, and their exact quote was <br />
<blockquote>Our position is that if young people put forward a creationist perspective in the classroom, it should be discussed.<ref>Royal Society spokesperson statement &ndash; [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4760967.ece Times Online article] (login required)</ref></blockquote><br />
R: Their whole thing, they're talking about science, so we can assume they're talking about the science classroom, and it's kind of ridiculous just to put it like that. I mean, if you're going to talk about that subject, then let's be specific, ''how'' should it be discussed? Should it be discussed in terms of showing them that, for instance, a belief in god can be compatible with evolution? Or should you be telling them that there's no way in hell the Earth was created in six days?<br />
<br />
S: (agreeing) mm-hmm<br />
<br />
R: It's not very educational, it's not very helpful to just throw that out there like that. It sounds like a big case of covering of asses<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they definitely- the Royal Society put out ''clarifications'', 'quote-unquote', the next day saying 'creationism is ''not'' science, it should ''not'' be taught as science in the science classroom, and we whole-heartedly defend the teaching of evolution'. But this guy, Reiss, you know, he's just made other statements that were very, very squirly, for example, he said 'I do believe in taking seriously and respectfully the concerns of students who do not believe the theory of evolution, while still introducing them to it'. He also made some comments about treating creationism and ID, intelligent design, and evolution as different ''world-views''. So, you know, he's kinda dancing around this topic, and I think that, given that he's a literalist, and that he's making these squirly comments, it certainly ''seems'' like he's trying to squeeze in a little 'teach the controversy' through the back door there, just by saying 'we need to be respectful of the students, and we need to address their concerns and talk about creationism- oh, we believe in evolution, I'm not saying evolution is ''wrong'', but, you know, we really need to take- we can't just teach evolution, we have to address their concerns'<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it almost sounds like he's going for the catching more flies with honey defense, but-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
R: And there's something to be said for exploring different ways of reaching kids who are unfortunately growing up in households where their parents are ignorant of the basic tenants of science. And, you know, it ''is'' going to be difficult if they've been raised to believe in something wholly incompatible with what you're teaching them. You know, we ''do'' need to look at how we're teaching them. But to make a vague statement that just doesn't jibe at all with anything we're actually aiming for, and then to run away from it-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
R: Is kinda cowardly and suspicious.<br />
<br />
E: It's just a case of this person, I ''think'', trying to be somewhat politically correct, not taking a firm stance one way or the other, trying to please the most people possible with his statement to try and quell any controversy, it just did the opposite, apparently.<br />
<br />
J: He stepped down from his position too, ''because'' of the controversy.<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
R: He did, and the really cool thing is that he stepped down when British members of parliament stood up and said 'Hey, what the hell are you guys talking about? That's not science' and can you imagine that happening in the US, where an actual congress person steps up and bats somebody in line and defends science?<br />
<br />
B: No!<br />
<br />
J: No!<br />
<br />
R: It seems kind of foreign (laughs) So, I think that the UK kind of scores one on that point.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, although again this is in the context of increasing sort of insurgence of creationism into the UK, and increasing concerns. This controversy was all around the science blogosphere for the last week, the last few days, and some of the comments, like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PZ_Myers P. Z Myers] for example wrote a lot about this, and he said that 'you can teach students how we know the Earth isn't 6,000 years old. How we know there is common descent, you know, we know the Earth is 14 billion years old, etc, etc'. you can say ''historically'' they used to think this, you know 150 years ago, and this is how we- our thinking of our origins changed over time and developed with evidence. So, you can teach students everything students need to know about ''how'' science works, about how specific scientific beliefs came to be. But based upon what evidence, what logic. Without ever talking about a religious belief, or talking about creationism, you don't ''have'' to do that. I think that confronting something that is a ''religious'' belief in the science classroom is the wrong approach, you're better off saying 'in ''this'' classroom, we're talking about science, ''this'' is what science is. This is how scientists come to the conclusions that they come to. And you could achieve all of the objectives that Reiss claims he was really talking about, without respecting creationism as a world-view. That has no place in a science classroom. Some other things that have been going on, though, I don't know if this is a coincidence, but the Church of England, the C of E<br />
<br />
E: (with English accent) C of E<br />
<br />
S: Apologised to Darwin!<br />
<br />
R: I think that is-<br />
<br />
J: Now that blew my mind<br />
<br />
B: Ha!<br />
<br />
J: I can't believe that<br />
<br />
E: Did he accept?<br />
<br />
S: Good for them<br />
<br />
E: Did he accept?<br />
<br />
R: He couldn't accept, he was roasting in hell for his evil Darwinist ideas!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: (with English accent) So sorry, Darwin, sorry about that, old chap<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: So, yeah, they said it was basically the wrong thing to do, to basically oppress Darwin's views at the time. And, it turns out, that whole evolution thing was probably a good idea. Now, in response to that, the pope said 'yeah, evolution is fine, but we're not ''apologising'''. <br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: He ''refused'' to apologise.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: He basically said 'Oh, yeah?'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: 'You pansies in England can apologise to Darwin, the pope's not apologising to ''nobody'''. But, yeah, evolution's fine, you know, they<br />
<br />
J: The pope's tired<br />
<br />
S: Right, but the UK's got their own creationist museum now.<br />
<br />
R: (flatly) Good for them.<br />
<br />
J: It was just a matter of time<br />
<br />
E: Has the UK largely over the years been, not influenced by creationism, and it's only making some recent advances and strides?<br />
<br />
S: Yes, that's exactly correct, and it really has been, at least in the West, a US phenomenon. But now it is spreading to the UK.<br />
<br />
E: Do we know how much of it is influenced by Islam? Because the Islam population is on a great rise.<br />
<br />
S: That is a factor I know that Richard Dawkins has pointed that out as a factor, that they are creating ''faith'' schools, and teaching creationism from their religious perspective. Others have pointed to, you know, specifically political influence from the US have pointed to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Templeton_Foundation Templeton foundation], which is dedicated to-<br />
<br />
E: Oh yeah<br />
<br />
S: Connecting science and religion, and they have a lot of money behind that, so they give money to anybody who will-<br />
<br />
B: A million dollars, a million dollars a year to the person who does the most to join science and religion, right?<br />
<br />
R: I've seen rich people die and leave mansions to their ''cats'', and it's a better use of money than that prize.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, I agree<br />
<br />
J: and is it that general? The criteria is that general?<br />
<br />
S: Yes. The goal is for science to validate faith, that is the goal.<br />
<br />
E: So, is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Egnor Michael Egnor] in the running for that prize?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: I wouldn't be surprised.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, right?<br />
<br />
S: He definitely wants to intermingle those two<br />
<br />
R: You know who pirates' favourite scientist is?<br />
<br />
B: Oh boy,<br />
<br />
S: I can't wait to hear<br />
<br />
R: Daarrrrwin!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: Daarrrrwin<br />
<br />
B: Oh god<br />
<br />
J: Rebecca, get back on your medication as soon as possible.<br />
<br />
R: I ran out of gin!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: Keep up some rum, aarrr<br />
<br />
B: Keep it up, Rebecca, I'm loving it<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
== Questions and Emails <small>(22:52)</small> ==<br />
<big>Big Pharma</big><br />
<br />
S: Well, let's go on to your email, do you know what the first email's about?<br />
<br />
R: Daaarrrwin?<br />
<br />
E: It's about 15 sentences<br />
<br />
S: It's about 'big phaaaarrrma'!<br />
<br />
R&E: Phaarrrma!<br />
<br />
S: This one comes from Nick Vockrodt, from Arlington, Virgina. And he writes a very long email, I'm going to cut to the question: (see [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=165 show notes] for full email)<br />
<blockquote>My question is regarding "Big Pharma" and specifically [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibromyalgia fibromyalgia]-</blockquote><br />
R: I'm sorry, Steve, about big what?<br />
<br />
S: big phaarrrghma<br />
<br />
R: Thank you<br />
<blockquote>S: and specifically fibromyalgia I was discussing the pharmaceutical industry with a friend who claimed that diseases are-</blockquote><br />
J: What was that, Steve? Fibro- what?<br />
<br />
S: Alright, enough!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<blockquote>S: who claimed that diseases are being "made up" by drug companies for the sole purpose of creating a market for their medicines. He mentioned fibromyalgia as a perfect example, claiming it to be a disease that anyone can convince themselves they have. This sounded like what Dr. Novella describes as symptoms of life … I wasn't very familiar with the malady at the time to argue, but I tend to defend the pharmaceutical industry when faced with what sounds like a conspiracy theory. In my subsequent research, I found that there is some debate on it, but that the disease is generally accepted by the medical community as being "real".</blockquote><br />
S: Well, this is actually a complicated question because there's a few components to it. Let's take the first component of it: 'Does the pharma company make up diseases that they could then market their drugs for?'. I think there, in my opinion, the answer is a pretty unequivocal ''no''. The pharmaceutical industry in this country, regulated by the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_and_Drug_Administration FDA], when they market a drug, by definition, if you are marketing ''anything'' and claiming that it treats or cures or modifies a disease, it's regulated as a drug. Right, so things are regulated based on the kinds of claims that are made for them. But you don't get to make up your own diseases though, you know, to say that your drug is gonna treat something that you yourself get to make up, or that a ''company'' makes up. Companies are not in a position to ''create'' or will into existence a new disease. Things like fibromyalgia are- that is a diagnosis that emerged from the medical community. Now, I think that fibromyalgia is a very complicated disease entity that I have a lot of doubts about the way it's classified and diagnosed right now. First of all, it's not a disease, ''really'', even though-<br />
<br />
B: a syndrome?<br />
<br />
S: -it is recog- so what the-<br />
<br />
E: It's a 'condition'?<br />
<br />
S: Like for regulatory purposes, what the FDA will consider a disease is not necessarily what we would, in medicine, use the term specifically 'disease' for, meaning a pathophysiological entity. Sometimes there are clinical ''syndromes'', or a recognised entity, but we don't understand the pathophysiology, so it may be described purely by the clinical picture that it creates. So like 'chronic fatigue syndrome' is a syndrome, not really a disease. Fibromyalgia, I think, is better understood that way, although there are some thoughts about what might be ''causing'' it, it's actually not well understood. In fact, recent evidence suggests that a lot of people who have the symptoms of fibromyalgia may just be the symptoms of an underlying problem, like a sleep disorder. In fact, I think a lot of people who have the symptoms that are used to make the diagnosis fibromyalgia, actually have an underlying sleep disorder. Others may have an underlying anxiety disorder.<br />
<br />
J: Really?<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
J: Interesting<br />
<br />
S: And if you treat people for the sleep disorder, the fibromyalgia symptoms go away, so that's a pretty good indication. At least ''some'' of them. Other people may have a simmering auto-immune inflammation of the muscles. And that may be ''really''- if there ''is'' something that's really fibromyalgia, I think that's what it is. But a lot of people get similar symptoms for other reasons.<br />
<br />
J: Would you consider fibromyalgia kind of like a 'catch-all' for a bunch of different types of symptoms then?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think it's what we call a 'garbage-pail diagnosis', you know, you just get people who have symptoms in this area, then this is the label you attach to it. But there isn't any way to specifically say 'yes, this is a discrete pathological entity that they ''have'' '. I also see the diagnosis made on ''non-specific'' symptoms, without the specific symptoms that are supposed to be there. So if you are fatigued and achy, and etc., and you call that fibromyalgia, well that's just attaching a label to non-specific symptoms. You're supposed to have what we call 'trigger points', that are specific places in the muscles that are very tender. And if you have that pattern of 'trigger points' then I think it's ''meaningful'' to say 'well that pattern is called fibromyalgia. We still don't know what it is, we have some ideas, but that's the way we use the diagnosis'. If you call everybody who is fatigued and achey fibromylagia, then the diagnosis has no meaning. <br />
<br />
Now, I believe that the pharmaceutical industry has targeted fibromyalgia for a couple of drugs because it ''is'' such a easy diagnosis to make, because you can attach it to these vague symptoms, so I think if they're guilty of anything, it's choosing a marketable disease. But they didn't make it up, they weren't the ones to make it up. But that's just, you know, when pharmaceutical companies look for an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indication_%28medicine%29 indication] for their drug, that's based purely on marketing. They want to decide 'what's the biggest market? What drugs are going to sell the most? Which indication will allow us to speak to which specialty of physicians that we want to be able to market to?'. It's all really a marketing decision, of course the science has to be there as well. But often, with many drugs, there are different indications that you could go for. For example, if a drug treats pain, or treats nerve pain, now nerve pain is not a disease, so you have to pick a disease that causes nerve pain. Now, what diseases cause nerve pain are you gonna pick? Postherpetic neuralgia or diabetic neuropathy? They're gonna make a marketing decision, They're gonna choose the one with the biggest sales, the biggest marketing options for their drug, but again, they don't get to make up the disease. The other disease for which I hear this claim the most frequently is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restless_legs_syndrome restless leg syndrome] (RLS).<br />
<br />
E: Oh yeah<br />
<br />
S: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Carrey Jim Carrey] made that comment, that pharmaceutical made up restless leg syndrome in order to market a drug for it. Well, first of all, the drugs that have the indication for treating RLS, already have other indications, they were already on the market for legitimate indications, so it wasn't a way of rescuing a failed drug, that's a ''demonstrable'' myth. The other thing is, restless leg syndrom has existed in the medical literature for ''decades''. I was able to go onto my bookshelf and find an old neurology text with a ''40 year old'' reference to restless leg syndrome.<br />
<br />
E: Wow!<br />
<br />
S: 40 years before there was ever a drug marketed for it.<br />
<br />
E: Is that what they called it back then?<br />
<br />
S: Yes! Yes, and, in fact, if you dig deeper into the literature, the references go back even farther, ''and'' I forget what- it was known by other names even before the term restless leg syndrome came into being. So, yeah, it's basically like 100 years we've known that this has existed.<br />
<br />
J: (squeaky Irish voice?) 'Let me show you something'. (normal voice) A perfect example of why I ''don't'' wanna know what famous people think.<br />
<br />
(laughter) <br />
<br />
R: Right? At all<br />
<br />
E: Well, ''some''<br />
<br />
J: It ruined it for me, I ''loved'' that guy, now I have to hate him<br />
<br />
S: Oh, you do have to hate Jim Carrey, he is totally now on board with the anti-vaccinationist kooks.<br />
<br />
R: But he was so good in 'Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind'!<br />
<br />
S: He was<br />
<br />
B: (laughs)<br />
<br />
E: Sorry, so sorry.<br />
<br />
J: Oh well<br />
<br />
E: Move on<br />
<br />
S: Terrible, terrible, terrible.<br />
<br />
J: (singing) 'another one bites the dust'<br />
<br />
S: So, anyway, this is just unfounded conspiracy theories. Now, again, that doesn't mean that the pharmaceutical industry is ''not'' an industry that, they're not companies looking at their bottom line, and that the companies are beyond reproach. I'm not saying that, ''this'' notion that they make up diseases is nonsense. That is just made up conspiracy thinking.<br />
<br />
== Name That Logical Fallacy <small>(30:53)</small> == <br />
S: We do have a 'Name that logical fallacy' this week, we actually got our first piece of hard-core hate-mail in a long time. And it's just so chock-full of logical fallacies, I thought it would make good example for us to examine this week. So here we go, this one comes from Melvin Lee, who gives his-<br />
<br />
R: Melvin!... sorry<br />
<br />
S: Melvin<br />
<br />
J: Melvins!<br />
<br />
(Laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Gives his location as America. Thanks for being helpful. Now, Melvin writes (all indented quotes taken from [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=165 show notes] as written):<br />
<blockquote>I think that u and all those mofos on that show are full of shit. </blockquote><br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Wait, can you say that? You can't say that on the show.<br />
<br />
(inaudible)<br />
<br />
J: Steve-<br />
<br />
E: Should you say 'mofo'? <br />
<br />
<blockquote>S: How can u honestly say NO! there is no bigfoot just because I've never seen it, NO! crop circles aren't real because I'm obviously the creator of this world and I know EVERYTHING about. </blockquote><br />
(laughter)<br />
<blockquote>U pussies or just.......ugh, words can't describe how I feel about u guys. WHO R U-</blockquote><br />
<br />
S: Now, you also have to- we'll obviously publish the-<br />
<br />
R: All the "are"s are just the letter, all the "you"s are<br />
<br />
S: Capital 'R', capital 'U', " WHO R U"<br />
<br />
R: Melvin, actually ''texted'' this to us, it took him 16 texts<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: You know, if you're ''gonna'' write a critical email-<br />
<br />
R: Cost him 35 cents<br />
<br />
S: -take the time to spell out the words<br />
<br />
E: You have to assume that the person crafting it ''can'' spell the words<br />
<br />
B: Nah, this is a young kid, this is just a kid. <br />
<blockquote>S: WHO R U to tell some that they didn't see something with their own eyes and what they saw was an illusion. plz reread over WHO R U. U r human, u r not some all knowing god. U cannot get mad at someone for jus reporting what they saw, where u there too?, so how could u possibly say they didn't see that they thought they saw. </blockquote><br />
R: Wait, can you just do that sentence one more time?<br />
<br />
S&E: No<br />
<blockquote>Their just reporting it. This world is full of secrets and jus because it seems mundane doesn't mean its fake. Another thing. if hundreds of people AROUND THE WORLD r seeing something (bigfoot, ufos, ghost), then it ''has'' to be true. Not every situation was a hoax r the product of an over active mind. all I'm saying is WE R ALL HUMANS u have the same brain as me, u r not the god who created this world, therefore u cannot say confidently that something's not there, when it obviously is. </blockquote><br />
<br />
(sound clip of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman – Full Metal Jacket)"Holy jesus!"<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B?: Thanks for that email, Melvin <br />
<br />
E: Thank you Gunnery Sergeant Hartman<br />
<br />
R: Thanks Melvin, it's good to hear from you<br />
<br />
S: Thank you. All say 'thanks Melvin' <br />
<br />
E: Keep on listening!<br />
<br />
J: Honestly, let's honestly answer the email. Because if the guy-<br />
<br />
S: That's what we're gonna do!<br />
<br />
R: How? It's gonna take us all day. I think that's one good example of '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum argument from popularity]'. He said that, you know, if hundreds of people around the world believe in something, then it has to be true. But that is not correct because, you know, think about it this way: entire countries think that other entire countries should be obliterated off the map, and that doesn't make it ''true''.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, or millions of people, ''billions'' sometimes, hold beliefs that are mutually exclusive to beliefs that other millions of people believe. So, either one or both of those groups of millions of people ''have'' to be wrong.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, and look at all the people that bought the Milli Vanilli albums.<br />
<br />
S: That's true!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: They all believed they were really singing, they were wrooong<br />
<br />
B: There's a lotta '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man straw men]', he keeps throwing around tons of 'straw men'<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: Like "there's no Bigfoot because I've never ''seen'' it", "you can not get mad at someone for just reporting what they ''saw''", "not every situation was a hoax, or the product of an overactive mind". It's a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dichotomy false dichotomy],<ref>SGU 5x5 episode 54 [[5X5 Episode 54|Skepticism 101 - False Dichotomy]]</ref> I mean it's ''full'' of this stuff. <br />
<br />
S&B: There's a lotta 'straw men'.<br />
<br />
B: Mischaracterisations of what our arguments are, he's not even paying ''attention''!<br />
<br />
S: Right, so first of all, we ''don't'' say 'there is no Bigfoot, there are no aliens visiting the Earth, there are no ghosts'. What we say is there's no evidence compelling acceptance or belief in any of those things, the people who say that there ''is'' Bigfoot, have not met anywhere ''near'' a reasonable burden of proof.<br />
<br />
R: The invisible pink unicorn ''could'' exist, we are simply agnostic as to its existence.<br />
<br />
S: Right, where it's unfalsifiable, we're agnostic, if it's a scientific proposition, they haven't met the burden of proof, or the burden of evidence. And therefore, we do not accept it as an established or a proven scientific hypothesis, given the current state of evidence. But hey, if someone actually did find a Bigfoot body, and it stood up to peer review<br />
<br />
R: And it wasn't a costume <!--reference to Bigfoot costume hoax --><br />
<br />
S: It ''wasn't'' a costume <br />
<br />
R: Sold by hoaxters<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: We'd accept compelling evidence as compelling<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, and add to it, we'd actually be excited about it!<br />
<br />
S: Sure<br />
<br />
R: That would be mega-cool!<br />
<br />
B: I don't know, it would smash my world view, and I would deny it to my dying day.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Well only if Bigfoot wasn't riding atop a magical unicorn.<br />
<br />
E: Or a sacred cow<br />
<br />
S: Now hang on, there's some other logical fallacies in here, the challenge is in finding all of them.-<br />
<br />
R: Oh, we're not done yet, are we?<br />
<br />
S: You guys are just picking the low-hanging fruit.<br />
<br />
R: Alright, alright, alright. Well there's an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance argument from ignorance], saying that we can't say that it doesn't exist because we're not gods who created everything and everything.<br />
<br />
S: Right, that's good, it's an argument from ignorance, he's basically saying that because we don't have perfect infinite knowledge, that we therefore have no knowledge, that we can't make ''any'' factual judgments about what's likely to be true or not likely to be true, scientifically. And I'll say that, you know, we don't know ''for sure'', because we're not god, that Bigfoot doesn't exist, therefore, Bigfoot exists. And we should also then adhere to the argument ad populum, that other people say that they believe it, so that's enough.<br />
<br />
E: Well there's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem ad hominem] attacks all over the place.<br />
<br />
S: Oh yeah, 'pussies'<br />
<br />
R: Well, yeah, and not all of us are 'mofos', technically, only Jay.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, actually, I'm a proud mofo.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah<br />
<br />
J: That one didn't bother me.<br />
<br />
S: He also implies that, you know, the only way to assess someone's eye-witness testimony is to be an eye-witness ourselves, <br />
<br />
E: Wrong<br />
<br />
S: When in fact, you can assess eye-witness testimony by putting it into context. And also if you're -<br />
<br />
J: There are court rooms all over the world do that every day<br />
<br />
S: (laughs) Right, we're just saying there's more than one hypothesis. If somebody claims they saw a flying-saucer, there's multiple hypotheses you can derive from that. One is that they saw a flying saucer, but another one is that they were mistaken, or they're lying, or they were simply confusing a more mundane object, or their memory was contaminated by the testimony of another person. There's lots of-<br />
<br />
E: Or the alcohol they drank.<br />
<br />
S: They were in a compromised condition, sleep-deprived or drunk, or whatever. There's ''lots'' of hypotheses, and we want all- you know, any good scientist should consider ''all'' of them, and accept the ones that are most supported by the evidence, and also, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor Occam's razor], you don't accept the one that requires the introduction of a major new assumption, that we're being visited by aliens, when you haven't ruled out the far more likely, simple ones.<br />
<br />
R: Bigfoot<br />
<br />
S: Right, the guy simply made a mistake, or maybe he's pulling your leg. That's all, so<br />
<br />
J: I think Melvin's email actually, as poorly written as it is and everything, and he's got a negative attitude and he's just like sounding off at us. It's not that far away from where a lot of people stand. I think a lot of people ''agree'' with this.<br />
<br />
S: You're absolutely right, Jay, and that's what, even though, yeah, we're kinda poking fun at Melvin, partly because of his atrocious grammar and the way he constructed this email. But in fact, the same arguments, he's poorly constructed it, but these same logical fallacies, and these same arguments are the absolute bread and butter of the true-believers, or the anti-skeptics. We hear this ''all'' the time, the 'you don't know everything', equating 'not having infinite knowledge' with having 'no knowledge', the argument from ignorance, the appeal to popularity. We encounter these on a daily basis when confronting people who believe things that are not supported by the scientific evidence. So, we're not just attacking an easy target, this is absolutely bread and butter anti-skepticism.<br />
<br />
J: And I would take it one step further and ask Melvin, if he's listening: write us back, pick any topic that you mention in here, like Bigfoot as an example, and we'll have a real email exchange discussion about it. I promise to do that. If you wanna have a discussion, I'll tell you everything I think, and you can tell me everything you think, and we'll just vet it out over time without swearing at each other. Or at least keeping it down<br />
<br />
R: Eh<br />
<br />
S: And also, my advice to, just generic advice to people who are going to send a ranting email, actually the title of the email was 'rant', so Melvin knew this was a rant. But, if you're gonna do that, make a ''real'' effort to understand the position of the person you're disagreeing with. That's ''always'', generically, a good idea. Because there's nothing more worthless than arguing against a position that the other person doesn't even hold, because then you're just completely wasting your time, and all you're really declaring is 'I don't understand what's going on, I didn't take the time to even understand your position. I'm arguing against a "straw man"', basically that's the only thing you're accomplishing. Well, let's go on to our interview.<br />
<br />
== Interview with Ben Goldacre <small>(40:18)</small> ==<br />
(jingle)<br />
<br />
S: Ok, we're sitting here now with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Goldacre Ben Goldacre],Ben, welcome to the Skeptics' Guide<br />
<br />
BG: Hi<br />
<br />
S: You run a website in the UK called 'Bad Science', is it .net?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, [http://www.badscience.net/ BadScience.net], available all around the world!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Tell us about that<br />
<br />
R: The world-''wide'' web, Steve<br />
<br />
S: Oh yeah, I keep forgetting<br />
<br />
BG: (mocking) 'Ah yes, you're from the United Kingdom'. (normal voice) Well, it's a sort of mixture of my columns in the Guardian and other bits and bobs that I come across, and it's- maybe about sort of a quarter of it is about quackery, and most of it is about bad science reporting in mainstream media. I don't know if that's as much a problem in the US as it is in the UK.<br />
<br />
S: It's ''more'' of a problem in the US than the UK<br />
<br />
BG: Is that right? (laughs) I mean, in the UK, there have been some phenomenal bogus scare stories. I mean, there was one about theMRSA 'killer bacteria' that was essentially a bogus lab that was giving bogus results to undercover journalists, and of course the media's MMR hoax in the UK. Which I think you're about to get a run of in the US, with the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal thiomersal] thing, which is going to be very interesting.<br />
<br />
S: Well we're already- that's already passed its peak, the thimerosal (common name for thiomersal in US)<br />
<br />
BG: Do you think so?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, well, it was removed, you know, from vaccines in the United States by the end of 2002<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, but –<br />
<br />
S: Autism hasn't gone up<br />
<br />
BG: But the media storm didn't seem to start until what, this year, really. There was that case-<br />
<br />
S: It had a resurgence because of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_McCarthy Jenny McCarthy],<ref>Jenny McCarthy body count [http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com website]</ref> and Jim Carrey, and because of the mitochondrial DNA case<ref>Neurologica article: [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/has-the-government-conceded-vaccines-cause-autism/ Has the Government Conceded Vaccines Cause Autism?]</ref>. Yeah, so in the UK, I think the MMR was a bigger story. Thimerosal was bigger in the United States.<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: Is that still big over there? The MMR, are they still-<br />
<br />
BG: It's dwindling, the Observer did a bogus front page story about how autism was now up to one in 58, basically misunderstanding an unpublished piece of research which was looking at comparing different ways of measuring the prevalence of autism. So obviously, if you use the widest net, then you get the biggest number. But what I actually find interesting about vaccine scare is how poorly they propagate between different territories. So for example, in the UK we had the 'MMR causes autism' because of the measles virus, that was the scare, and that was mostly, that kind of peaked in 2001, 2002. But it didn't propagate outside of the UK. In America, you have your thiomersal scare, in France, they have a story about the hepatitis-B vaccine causing multiple sclerosis, but nobody's heard of that outside of France. In the UK in the 80s, we had 'whooping cough vaccine causing neurological problems' driven by ''one'' fairly eccentric doctor from Scotland, and obviously in Nigeria at the moment in Kano province, the imams have issued a pronouncement saying that the polio vaccine is a plot by the Americans to make Muslims infertile and stop them from having children.<ref>PlosMedicine article: [http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0040073#pmed-0040073-b0017 What Led to the Nigerian Boycott of the Polio Vaccination Campaign?]</ref><br />
<br />
S: And spread HIV.<br />
<br />
BG: Is that part of the scare as well?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: Oh no, yeah, you're absolutely right, yeah. And, you know, what's interesting about that, I ''guess'', is the WHO's polio medication program was on target to eradicate polio from around the world by now. But it's not, and people have, you know, you can do [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction PCR] on polio outbreaks around the world and they've found that the specific polio virus from Nigeria, from Kano province, has triggered outbreaks of polio elsewhere in the world. It's very interesting to me how these vaccine scares are all, you know, structurally quite similar, but they propagate very poorly, and I don't think the thiomersal scare could take off in the UK, just because the MMR story has been debunked in the UK. So, it would seem ridiculous to the media- it just wouldn't fit the natural tempo of the stories to then suddenly go 'oh no, but it does, actually cause these problems'<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, right<br />
<br />
R: So does that mean you think you're pretty much past the worst of all of those kind of stories in the UK? Or do you think there's another one on the horizon?<br />
<br />
BG: Certainly not, and actually for very interesting reasons, definitely not. If you look at France and Austria, you can see that they've come very close to electing, in the case of Austria, they ''did'' elect some seriously sort of right-wing fruitcakes, you know, bordering on fascism. Whereas in Germany, where they had to face up to what they did in World War II, there was a kind of truth and reconciliation process, and they have kind of green and liberal governments. There's no way, I don't think that Germany could re-elect a fascist government. I think that you have to go through the process of recognizing where you've gone wrong, in order to stop going wrong in the future. What I find fascinating about the termination of the MMR hoax, in the UK, is that it came to an end, not because the media suddenly went 'well actually, a 12 subject case series report isn't sufficient grounds to say that MMR causes autism'. It wasn't because they made a kind of critical appraisal of ''all'' of the literature for and against and went 'well actually, it just doesn't look like MMR causes autism, this was a storm in a tea-cup'. It came to an end because an investigative journalist called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Deer Brian Deer], for whom I've got a lot of respect, from the Sunday Times came along and revealed that the lead doctor who was driving the story had received half a million pounds, a million dollars, in legal sort of, you know, expert witness costs. And so he had, one could argue, a competing interest there. Now, I don't think for one moment that that's the reason why [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield Wakefield] held the views that he held, and I don't think that one man can drive a story. But now the media are all queued up to say 'oh, the original research has been debunked', when the original research was a 12 subject case series report that never meant anything about anything. And they're saying 'oh, you know, the MMR story has been disproven because Andrew Wakefield had half a million quid', so they're all queuing up to blame this one doctor for the hoax that was the media's work.<br />
<br />
S: (agreeing) mm-hmm<br />
<br />
BG: Collectively, the British media community have created this story, and they drove it for many, many years. And the fact that they're now trying to pin it on one doctor, I have to say, I'm not a big ''fan'' of Wakefield, but I think it's very healthy that there are, you know, doctors with idiosyncratic views on medicine, I think it's an absolute bizarre travesty that they're pinning it all on him.<br />
<br />
B: So they're all right, but for the wrong reasons?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, I think that's why they're not inoculated against future cock-ups<br />
<br />
R: Well, you're doing a lot to help media, scientific literacy amongst the media in the UK, but do you ever think they'll get that realisation? Do you ever think they'll finally realise what they're doing wrong?<br />
<br />
BG: I don't think you can stop people from producing stupid stories, but I think you can add some sense into the mix. So often, when I talk, people say- I do lots of talks in epidemiology departments and some medical statisticians, just cos the jokes can be a bit more interesting and sophisticated that way.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And people are often outraged, and they say 'well we need some laws to- these people need to be- we should be able to chop the fingers off bad journalists', and I just don't think it's realistic. But what you ''can'' do, is approach newspapers, and I just rang one up one day and said, you know, 'can I write for you?', and they said yes. You know, there's no great mystery, I think you can add in more sense to dilute the nonsense, or at least give people an opportunity to see some sense. Cos otherwise, unless people who understand the evidence get in there and explain the mechanics of why it is that you hold a belief on the back of some published evidence, then science, at least in Britain, is only being portrayed as being about authoritative truth statements from arbitrary cultural figures called scientists in white coats, you know, "scientists today said-", "scientists today deny-", "scientists today refuted-". But it's never, you know, "scientists today said 'well, there's this study, and it shows this, and for ''that'' reason, we think this'". That ''doesn't'' happen<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
BG: And by adding that into the mix, you do something very powerful<br />
<br />
S: And the Wakefield story reflects that, because it was about the authority of Wakefield, and when that was knocked down, the story was knocked down. Not about the evidence and the logic of whether or not there's any link between vaccines and autism.<br />
<br />
BG: It was about the authority of Wakefield, but it was also about human interest versus these white coat guys saying 'there's nothing to worry about'. So on one hand you had a worried parent, and on the other side you had a scientist saying, you know 'there's nothing to worry about', and that wouldn't reassure ''me''!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: You know, it would look like a cover-up, or it would look dismissive<br />
<br />
S: Right, so like us, you're using new media blogs to try to fight this bad journalism in the UK. How do you think that's going? How much play does your blog get?<br />
<br />
BG: It gets a lot of visitors, and it gets a lot of links, and the thing that's most exciting is there are lots of other people who are now blogging in the UK who do a really, really great job of pulling apart just sort of silly bit and bobs, but it's great when there's this kind of mass effect. Cos somebody will publish a tedious 'memory of water' paper, you know, homeopathy, and you'll be like, I can't be bothered to pull this apart. But someone somewhere will, you know, that burning sense of 'someone ''somewhere'' is wrong on the internet, I must put them right!'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And that's ''fantastic''. The only thing that disappoints me a little bit, I guess, is that I'm not as agitated about quackery as some people are, you get a lot of quite sanctimonious stuff from people kinda saying 'homeopathy is this public health ''scandal'' ', and I don't think that's true. I think homeopathy is really interesting, I think it's a really fascinating cultural phenomenon. I think it's really interesting that at a time when doctors are trying really hard to work collaboratively with patients, explain evidence with them and make decisions in concert with their patients, I think it's a tragedy that while doctors are trying to do that, quacks and the media are really kind of undermining the public's understanding of evidence. But I don't think that quackery is ''practically'' really dangerous, I think it's funny and interesting. I think it's interesting that there's a lot of bloggers who are keen to pick up on mocking quacks, which is funny, and it's great, and it produces great content. The thing that I wish that there was more of, is people taking down bogus news stories, because ''that's'' the thing that needs to be done so much more, because that's kind of the more culturally influential end of stuff, you know?<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
BG: But, I guess they're not such easy hits or, yeah, I don't know why it is.<br />
<br />
S: Well, the news cycle is quick, you've got to do it very quickly. Right? You find a new story hits, you've got to get your blog that day or you're going to get missed by the news cycle.<br />
<br />
BG: I ''guess'' so, although I'm not sure that's true, actually. I mean, I'm often cheerfully writing on things a couple of weeks after they've gone, but that's because I'm just smug enough to imagine that I can stand outside of the news thing. I actually think that's really interesting example of one of the more subtle aspects of how the media misrepresents science. I don’t think science makes a very good ''news'' subject, I think science is naturally a feature subject, because it's about emerging themes supported by a whole raft of evidence from a number of different disciplines that emerges over the course of many years. When you focus all your science reporting about a news story, a sudden breakthrough, a ''single'' piece of research, that's actually quite misrepresenting in a subtle way. Firstly because the stuff that makes a finding newsworthy, actually make it quite likely to be wrong, you know, it's incongruent with previous results, for example. And so it misrepresents stuff in that way. Obsessing over stuff being ''newsy'' is actually a bit of a mistake, I think people who are communicating science should feel cool with just sitting back and going 'what do we know about functional brain imaging and schizophrenia? There's a really interesting story there'<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
BG: It doesn't have to be ''new''<br />
<br />
S: I totally agree, I think the news cycle and the obsession with the story is really antithetical to the way science really works, which is taking your time and putting it together into the big picture. Often times I think you do that well, and that's we try to do, sort of take the news story and back up now into context, which is what the journalists ''don't'' do, right?<br />
<br />
BG: Well, sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't, I think there's a really interesting split in certain British news media, which has been studied quite carefully, which is: specialist health and science reporters are actually very good at their job, they know a lot of background, they know how to critically appraise research, and they will often make a fairly good stab at doing that with their articles, as long as they can get it past the desk. But what you find is, whenever a story becomes a big, political hot potato, whenever it becomes a big news story, like the MMR vaccine, or the GM food, the 'Frankenstein' food front pages of 1998, you find that the stories get taken out of the hands of the specialists, and put into the hands of the generalists, so the MMR story, especially after the question became 'did Tony Blair's son have the MMR vaccine?' – a fact that was mentioned in 33% of the news stories about MMR in 2002, when Andrew Wakefield's name was only in 25%, so Tony Blair's son was a bigger figure in our media coverage than Andrew Wakefield was. What you find is that, also, when there's a big story like MMR, also MMR was twice as likely to be written about by generalist journalists as a story about cloning, for example. And in the first two days after the Frankenstein food story hit the news stands, not a single one of the news or comment pieces in the ''entirity'' of the British news media, was written by a science columnist.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, that's definitely a big problem. Ben, you have a book coming out based on your blog, why don't you tell us about that?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, it's called '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Science_%28book%29 Bad Science]', maintaining brand homogeneity. And that's coming out with Fourth Estate, Harper Collins in September, and it should be very good, although it's very, very UK-centric, because I write about misrepresentation of science in the media, and the media I know very well is UK media. And I have this huge raft of examples from a ''thousand'' stories now, that's not an estimate, that's like, the number. And I've kinda been able to- it kinda grew out of this bet with a friend where, like, we both teach epidemiology, and I was like 'I bet I could teach the whole of epi' – or epidemiholiday As the medical students call it=<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Epidemiholiday?<br />
<br />
BG: 'I bet I can teach the whole of epi, only using exaples of people getting things wrong in broadsheet national news papers'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And it turned out to be true, but what I'd really like, actually, is to get a better handle on the ways that science is misrepresented in the media in America, cos it would be great to branch out and I'm not mercenary about selling the book, I accept that I will lead a life of obscurity in academia in a rented ex-council flat-<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: I fear that would be a volume of books if you attempted to do that, not just a single book.<br />
<br />
BG: Right, that would be like Churchill's history of World War I<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: But, I'm telling you, following your blog, that the examples are completely applicable to the United States, I think they'd be very-<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, well, actually, if there are people out there listening who know about this stuff, what I'd really like – ben@badscience.net - what I'd really like is for people to send me sort of examples from American media that mirror the cock-ups in British media. Are we allowed to say cock-ups in a Christian country?<br />
<br />
R: Oh, we're allowed to say it ''twice'', gosh<br />
<br />
BG: Have I said cock twice?<br />
<br />
E: You British are allowed to say anything you want<br />
<br />
R: That's three now.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Alright, well sometimes the stories are the same, like I think you covered the regenerating finger story.<ref>Ben Goldacre's Guardian article: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may/03/medicalresearch.health The missing finger that never was]</ref><br />
<br />
BG: That was hilarious! I mean that was-<br />
<br />
S: And we covered that too, <!--internal reference???--><br />
<br />
R: Yeah, that was great<br />
<br />
BG: Out of nowhere, and it was like three years old too<br />
<br />
S&R: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: But it was the BBC who reignited that story! And again, it was not a science or health correspondent, it was the BBC's New York correspondent, and you could see he was like, he was ''beside himself'' with excitement.<ref>BBC article & video: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7354458.stm The man who grew back his finger tip]</ref> He really thought he had found Nobel prize winning stuff with this, like, backwards guy in his model shop, who's finger had grown back. And he, this sense of holy reverence as he talked about the science, was just extraordinary, and just disproportionate to the reality, which was that, lop the top of your finger off and it just grows back, that's just nature<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it healed naturally<br />
<br />
R: It just happens<br />
<br />
S: You're hawking your brother's new product.<br />
<br />
BG: New company, yeah<br />
<br />
R: I should tell him about the holes for my earrings that closed up after I didn't wear earrings for a while.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: I mean, it's really interesting that there's this recurring theme in all of these stories in bad science and the media, and also in quackery, where we're sort of bringing all these childish fables, we're letting them take the credit for the amazing things that the body does, you know. Like when people were bringing in that placebo pill, and I'm like, I'm in sort of two minds about the ethics of giving placebos, I think it might be useful in ''some'' situations, but giving placebos to kids when they've got a cold, and I kinda think 'well, ok, you wanna tell your kid a reassuring story: here's a pill, you'll get better'. But how more empowering is it to say 'look, at the moment, there's this small, ''tiny'' microscopic organism that's gone into your body, it's called a virus, and it's really clever. What it does, is it exploits the machinery in your body that makes new parts for you, and it uses that to make copies of itself, and also it releases these other things that irritate the other parts of your body, and that's why you've got a cough and a sore throat, but your body's really clever, because on the surface of every cell, is holding out copies of all the stuff that's happening inside, and the immune system cells are floating around, and they have a look at what's in every cell by looking at this stuff that's being held out on the surface. And when they see something that's alien like that, they go in and they call all of their friends who arrive, following like a smoke trail to the source of the fire, along a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemotaxis chemotactic] path, and then they go in, and they find the bad guys, and they wrap them up in, like, a little ball, and they squirt bleach at them, and they kill them'. Now that, to me, why is that a sugar pill?<br />
<br />
J: I finally understand!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: Why let a sugar pill take credit for that? It's just insane, you know, and why let a ''healer'' take credit for that. But why let some magic powder take credit for the totally amazing fact that, if you cut the top of your finger off, it grows back like ''new'', I mean ''that'', that's a miracle, you know!<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: Quite apart from the fact that in the stories they were sort of talking about powder made out of (mystically) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endothelial_cells ''endothelial'' cells]!<br />
<br />
E,B&S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: As if like-<br />
<br />
S: It's some exotic thing, pig's bladder<br />
<br />
BG: No, it was (laughing)<br />
<br />
BG&S: 'extra-cellular matrix'<br />
<br />
BG: and it was like 'and these are made of 'extra-cellular matrix', and you're like extra-cellular matrix surrounds the cells of every single cell in all of the bodies of all of the people in the world, extra-cellular, you know, there's ''more'' extra-cellular matrix in the world than you could shake a stick at.<br />
<br />
J: That's like 'the super spectacular!'<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: 'Space-age technology', that's 50 years old!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Well, Ben, we certainly appreciate what you're doing, we love your blog and your articles for the Guardian, I fell like we're just getting started, maybe we'll have a chance to sit down again, if not here, some time in the future.<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, cool<br />
<br />
S: And thanks again for sitting with us.<br />
<br />
R: Thanks, Ben<br />
<br />
BG: Cheers, thank you.<br />
<br />
== Randi Speaks: The Media <small>(59:20)</small> ==<br />
(jingle) And now, Randi speaks.<br />
<br />
S: Randi, tell us how you think the media deals with issues of science and skepticism.<br />
<br />
JR: Rather badly, generally speaking, because the media is interested in a sensational story. Well, they say they want news, but they want ''sensationa''l news. You know very well that puppy dog down a sewer is going to get much more attention than some political hack in the local community, unless he has something to do with puppies going down sewers. The media's that way, and it's understandable, they want to sell newspapers and programs and wot-not. I've said it before and I'll say it again: most people in the media are educated in the humanities, and they don't have a good grasp of science and reality, and how things work. They're very easily deceived, they're very na&iuml;ve in some respects, and they're purposefully na&iuml;ve perhaps because they want the story to be there. Now, an excellent example of that on a very high level is an ABC TV program that I did, I guess last year. They got me all the way in to New York city to discuss the '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo%C3%A3o_de_Deus_%28medium%29 John of god]' situation. Now, 'John of god' is a so-called psychic healer and wot-not in Brazil, and he's doing very simple tricks that, kind of what people have known for a long time, sticking sticks up your nose and wot-not, and he actually sticks forceps up the patients' noses. I went armed for bear, I went to New York City, and they stuck me in the studio in front of a video camera. I had with me video tapes, props and wot-not, and I spoke with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Qui%C3%B1ones John Qui&ntilde;ones], he was the host on the show. They interviewed me for two and a half hours, ''two and a half hours'' they interviewed me! <br />
<br />
I was on with a man called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehmet_Oz Dr Mehmet Oz], a very, very famous cardiac surgeon in New York city, a great reputation, but totally woo-woo. He actually has nurses specially trained in the art of balancing the aura, walking around in his ''operating room'' while he's got a patient on the table with his chest cavity open and his heart being fixed! And Mehmet Oz will throw up his hands when told by the nurse that she's coming through to balance the aura by passing her hands over it! Incredible! Incredible that a man in this day and age, let alone a very highly educated man like Mehmet Oz, would be involved in such quackery! Such absolute foolishness, such a juvenile approach to reality. But, nonetheless, he is a great cardiac surgeon, and I would trust myself to him ''any'' time. (quietly and suspiciously) As long as he kept the woman with the funny gloves out of the place. (in normal voice) But, he was on the program as well, it ended up that the program used nine seconds of what I said. Nine seconds out of two and a half hours. They didn't use any other recorded material, any other references to the video tapes with demonstrations of how the forceps up the nose trick is done, as I say, it's an old carnival stunt. But they used a great deal of Mehmet Oz, they used quotations from him, and he even said something – for a Dr, very foolish – he said that sticking up the nose came close to certain glands in the head and wot-not, but he didn't notice – because he doesn't operate on the head, I guess, that there's a half-inch layer of ''bone'' in between where the forceps go up. Now, is it supposed to be a magnetic influence? A proximity influence? A capacity effect? I don't know, but he mentioned that as a possibility. He really is a woo-woo artist. Unfortunately, with all of that education and very extensive training and great expertise. <br />
<br />
So they used all of nine seconds, but they used it so unfairly, they had me saying – and this took nine seconds, "there are no greater liars in the world than quacks, except for their patients". Now, that was broadcast like that, but the complete quotation was "As that early American philosopher [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin Ben Franklin] once said, there are no greater liars in the world than quacks, except for their patients". So, I was attributing it to Ben Franklin, but they cut that out, because that made it look as if I was stealing it from Ben Franklin. I got emails, Steve, from all over the world, saying "you're quoting Ben Franklin, you stole that! You should have attributed it to them". I did! But they edited it out, and they edited out the complete explanation of how the forceps up the nose trick was done, and the various other things that 'John of God' does. Now this is totally irresponsible, it borders on the criminal, because what that does, ABC television in a feature program had this number about 'John of God', and that, I'm sure, brought ''hundreds'' of Americans to travel off to Brazil and spend their hard-earned money on this quackery. And 'John of God', I'm sure, was very happy with it. And they never did a retraction of any kind.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(1:04:43)</small> ==<br />
(jingle)<br />
<br />
S: Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two genuine, and one fictitious. And then, my panel of skeptics tries to tell me which one they think is the fake. Are you guys ready for this week?<br />
<br />
B:…yes<br />
<br />
S: Here we go, number one: 'Astrophysicists have discovered the upper limit for the mass of a black hole'. Item number two: 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge'. And item number three 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells'. Bob, go first.<br />
<br />
B: (quietly) you ''bastard''<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: 'upper limit for the mass of a black hole', it does sound kinda bizarre, I mean, what's preventing a black hole from just getting bigger and bigger? Um, so on the surface, that doesn't sound right, if you think about it. Dinosaur dominance 'due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge', I mean, that makes sense on the surface, absolutely. A lot of evolution and whether you go extinct or not has to do with luck. That definitely can play a part, maybe that makes too much sense. 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells', that sounds pretty cool, and that would be awesome, I'm gonna say that's science. I'm gonna say that… that the dinosaur dominance being luck, that sounds a little fishy, I'm gonna say that that is fiction.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, Evan?<br />
<br />
E: Well, 'upper limit for the mass of a black hole'… I mean, there would have to be some kind of upper limit, wouldn't there? It's just a matter of discovering it, one would ''think'', but I'm not too sure about that. Dinosaurs having an advantage over contemporaries 'was due to luck'… yeah. But how were they able to determine that, you know, how do you equate 'luck' in a scientific context? I'm not quite sure ''really'' what's being said there. And then the 'improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells', sure, yes, finding out all kinds of new things about all stem cells these days, cutting edge science, totally plausible. So I'll agree with Bob that the dinosaur one is fiction.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: See now, I'm not so sure, because I'm pretty sure I read something about this, and that they actually found these skeletons of an elderly pack of velocoraptors, surrounded by a field of four-leafed clovers, and a small pile of rabbit's feet next to them. So, I believe that that's actually science, and I also think that a black hole should have an upper limit, cos otherwise, well, you know, that's too scary to compliment- er, contemplate. So I think that transplanting muscle stem cells, I don't think we're quite to the point where we can improve strength and performance doing that, and that sounds like, are we doing studies on humans with muscle stem cells? That doesn't seem like it's going to work, I don't know. I think that's fiction, so-<br />
<br />
S: Ok, alright? Jay?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, the upper limit to the black hole- the upper limit to the ''mass'' of a black hole, I would just assume that it make a lot of sense, like Evan said, for someone to sit down and run the math and be able to theoretically figure that our. 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge'. Mmm, that one seems … fishy to me for some reason, how could they determine it was just luck? I wonder how the fossil record could demonstrate that. And the last one, three 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells'. Yeah, you know, I think I would've heard this. If that happened, I think that it would be much bigger news, you know, definitely above the water line, or ''I'' would've read it, with the amount of reading I do on science news. I don't think that one is science, I think that one was altered by Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, so you all agree that 'Astrophysicists have discovered the upper limit for the mass of a black hole', correct?<br />
<br />
J,B&E: Yes<br />
<br />
S:Yeah, actually, ''this'' was the most counter-intuitive one for me when I first read it. This is science, and, you know, like Bob, my reaction was 'what would stop it from absorbing more mass? What would happen if a black hole reached it's upper limit, and then, you know, there was more material to suck in, what would happen?' Well, it turns out astrophysicists-<br />
<br />
B: More to it.<br />
<br />
S: -have calculated the theoretical upper limit for the mass of a black hole, it's a Yale astronomer in fact, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priyamvada_Natarajan Priyamvada Natarajan]. What (s)he suspects is, there's a mechanism that, as the black hole gets to about 10 billion solar masses-<br />
<br />
E: Wow<br />
<br />
S: -that any matter falling into it would cause the radiation away of an equal amount of mass. <ref name="Yale">Yale news: [http://news.yale.edu/2008/09/04/yale-astronomer-discovers-upper-mass-limit-black-holes Yale Astronomer Discovers Upper Mass Limit for Black Holes]</ref> So it reaches an equilibrium point, you know-<br />
<br />
J: baaahh (?)<br />
<br />
S: -evaporate or radiate away the same amount of mass that was pulled into it-<br />
<br />
B: Wait, but you're not talking about [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation Hawking radiation] though. ''My'' interpretation was that-<br />
<br />
S: No, no<br />
<br />
B: -you've got [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accretion_disc accretion disk] radiation<br />
<br />
S: Yes, that's right<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, that's a big difference. And my understanding, though, Steve, was that this isn't a hard rule. If you've got so much in-falling matter, you would reach a point where the radiation being generated by the heat of the accretion disk would actually blow away solar ma- any material that would've fallen into the black hole, so you gotta kinda like a soft limitation in that way. But if you've got a 10 billion solar mass black hole, and it bumps into a neutron star, or a smaller black hole, nothing's going to stop that from getting bigger than 10 billion-<br />
<br />
S: Well, see, I was not clear on that point from the article that I read. That was my question too.<br />
<br />
B: That was my understanding from reading some articles, and reading a lot of the comments from people who seem to know what they were talking about. What I know about black holes, what is going to stop it, to go above it if it's as I described.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, but the press release makes it sound like that's just one possible explanation, but that other things were used to derive this upper limit. You know, we might have to do some follow-up to try and sort that out, but that was exactly the question that I had: is that a ''hard'' limit? Or is it a ''soft'' limit? You seem to think that it was a soft limit, right?<br />
<br />
B: Absolutely<br />
<br />
S: And my interpretation was that this was a ''hard'' limit, and one of the mechanisms proposed for that would prevent the black hole from getting bigger than about 10 billion solar masses, but, interesting either way. So let's go on to number two: 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge', and Bob and Evan, you both said that this one was fiction.<br />
<br />
J: So it's down to Bob and Evan, and me and Rebecca, teaming up again<br />
<br />
S: Jay and Rebecca thought this one is science, and this one… is… ''science''!<br />
<br />
J: Ah-ha!<br />
<br />
(high-five sound)<br />
<br />
J: You guys suck.<br />
<br />
S: But you guys did ask-<br />
<br />
B: There goes my run.<br />
<br />
S: an excellent question, which is- 'how would-<br />
<br />
E: mofos<br />
<br />
S: -'how would they know?'. How would you even make this determination?<br />
<br />
E: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: I don't know, you dominate the planet for 200 million years, there's gotta be some competitive edge in there.<br />
<br />
E: Well explain what ''luck'' is, in this context.<br />
<br />
J: Talk to us, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Well, luck would be that there was an environmental change, and you ''happened'' to benefit from that change, as opposed to-<br />
<br />
B: Like ''humans'', mammals<br />
<br />
S: -you just out-competed, you out-competed your contemporaries. Now, what they did, was they, this is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_L._Brusatte Steve Brusatte] from Bristol University, department of Earth Sciences. And they looked at the species that were around early in the career of the dinosaurs. They found that the other major group at the time were the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crurotarsi crurotarsans], which were alligator-like reptiles. At that time, they were a more diverse group, with greater disparity, and actually were dominant over the early dinosaurs at their time. He said, if you were, you know, in the early [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triassic triassic], for example, and you looked at these two groups, you would predict, based upon their diversity, disparity and dominance, that the crurotarsans would have a much greater chance of dominating the future than the dinosaurs would.<ref name="SM">Science magazine: [http://www.sciencemag.org/content/321/5895/1485.short Superiority, Competition, and Opportunism in the Evolutionary Radiation of Dinosaurs] DOI: 10.1126/science.1161833</ref><ref name="SA">Scientific American: [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=was-the-dinosaurs-long-reign-a-fluke Was the Dinosaurs' Long Reign on Earth a Fluke?]</ref> So by any measure of 'who was winning', the crurotarsans seemed to be winning in terms of spreading into more ecosystems and, you know, having greater numbers, etc. But then two things happened, there was the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnian carnian]-norian event 228 million years ago, which caused a lot of extinctions, with both the dinosaurs and the crurotarsans survived that, but it did eliminate a lot of competition, and then 200 million years ago, there was the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triassic#Late_Triassic_extinction_event end Triassic extinction], which resulted from a period of significant global warming, increase in temperature, and the dinosaurs weathered the increase in temperature, and the crurotarsans didn't. But until that climate change occurred, the crurotarsans were out-competing the dinosaurs, if anything. So that's what they mean by luck, they just ''happened'' to benefit from a change in the climate when, if, all things being equal, they were not directly out-competing their contemporaries. Which means that number three: 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells' is fiction.<br />
<br />
B: Whatever.<br />
<br />
S: But what ''is'' true, is that they just identified what the muscle stem cell ''is''. They didn't really know which muscle was ''in fact'' the muscle stem cell.<br />
<br />
B: Crap, that's what I read.<br />
<br />
S: Yes, perhaps that's what you'd read. So, and it turns out to be the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myosatellite_cell satellite] cell which is a type of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progenitor_cells progenitor] cell that exists near the muscles, or in the muscle tissue, and, you know, in repair or exercise, etc. will generate new muscle tissue. But we haven't successfully transplanted muscle cells into people. That's not happened yet.<br />
<br />
J: (mimicking) Stem cells are made of people!<br />
<br />
B: Man, I hate when a vague memory of reading an article totally kills you<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I know, that's what got me<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, sucks to be you, Bob<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: You gotta stop reading, guys.<br />
<br />
J: So, Steve really is the bastard tonight<br />
<br />
B: Jay, you bastard, you ended the run I had, it was like a nine-winning streak run (actually 10). How long was your run?<br />
<br />
J: Four foot one<br />
<br />
E: Four foot one<br />
<br />
S: Well, congratulations Jay and Rebecca, good job.<br />
<br />
J: Yay! Rebecca!<br />
<br />
E: Yay!<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:16:28)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: Jay, do you have a quote for us this week?<br />
<br />
J: I have a quote this week from a man called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume David Hume], he lived 1711-1776, that was a pretty good year, wasn't it? And I'm always surprised when I read quotes from people that lived centuries ago, especially ones that are exceptionally logical or rational, maybe I'm skewed, or maybe just from reading quotes from a lot of very smart people during that time, I don't know. I'd like to know if I'm just thinking that they're overly rational for their time, or maybe people were more rational in the past.<br />
<br />
S: Well it was the age of enlightenment for a reason, Jay.<br />
<br />
J: David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, an economist, historian, and an important figure in western philosophy, and he said, or wrote:<br />
<blockquote>When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.</blockquote><br />
J: DAVID HUME! … I think this is also a good quote to go with Melvin's email to us. MELVIN LEE! (even louder) MELVIN LEE!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: CONFUSED LISTENER!<br />
<br />
R: Ok, the David Hume one didn't make me (inaudible – upset?)<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Right, just a quick reminder that October 10<sup>th</sup>, New York city is the New York city's skeptic's first annual anniversary event, they're going to have James Randi speak for them, and then October 11<sup>th</sup>, in Fairfield Connecticut, Perry's home town, we're going to have the first annual Perry DeAngelis memorial lecture!<br />
<br />
E,B&J: Yay!<br />
<br />
S: October 11<sup>th</sup>, noon to three at the Fairfield theatre company, we have the information on our message-board, and on our facebook page, and Jay, can we put that on the website? I know we're in the middle of the update and everything, but can we put that up?<br />
<br />
J: I will put it on the homepage<br />
<br />
S: ''and'' we have confirmed guests Steve Mirsky, from Scientific American-<br />
<br />
J: He's awesome<br />
<br />
S: -and Terence Hines-<br />
<br />
E: Nice<br />
<br />
S: -excellent skeptic and neuroscientist, and author of 'Pseudoscience and the paranormal', ain't it cool?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, he's a good dude<br />
<br />
S: Well, thank you all again for joining me this week<br />
<br />
(someone singing "going crazy"?)<br />
<br />
R: Thanks Steve<br />
<br />
E: Yes, it was good joining you<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Fun as always, and until next week, this is your Skeptics' guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
<br />
== Today I learned... ==<br />
*The first space shuttle, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Enterprise Enterprise] was unveiled by NASA on September 17th 1976. <br />
<br />
*September 19th is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day international talk like a pirate day].<br />
<br />
*In February 2006, astronomers using the Hubble space telescope spotted a mystery object that continually brightened for about 100 days, after which, it dimmed symmetrically for the next 100 days.<ref name="Barbary"/> The distance to the object has been said to be between 120 and 11 billion light years away, and does not match any object in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloan_Digital_Sky_Survey Sloan Digital Sky Survey] at the time of the podcast.<br />
<br />
*Church of England offered a formal apology to Darwin in September 2008! ([http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7613403.stm BBC article])<br />
<br />
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restless_legs_syndrome Restless leg syndrome]has been documented for over 100 years.<br />
<br />
*Astrophysicists at Yale have calculated the upper limit for the mass of a black hole, stating that as a black hole gets to about 10 billion solar masses, any subsequent matter falling into it would cause the radiation away of an equal amount of mass.<ref name="Yale"/><br />
<br />
*New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge. It is thought that global warming in the late Triassic era may have led to the extinction of the previously dominant [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crurotarsi crurotarsans], whilst the dinosaurs survived.<ref name="SM"/><ref name="SA"/> <br />
<br />
*The muscle stem cell is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myosatellite_cell satellite] cell which is a type of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progenitor_cells progenitor] cell that exist near the muscles, or in the muscle tissue, and will generate new muscle tissue in repair or exercise, etc.<br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
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}}</div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_165&diff=9633SGU Episode 1652015-02-06T00:38:20Z<p>Jason koziol: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Editing required<br />
|proof-reading = y<br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox <br />
|episodeNum = 165<br />
|episodeDate = 17<sup>th</sup> September 2008<br />
|episodeIcon = File:goldacre.jpg<br />
|rebecca = y<br />
|bob = y<br />
|jay = y<br />
|evan = y<br />
|guest1 = BG: [http://www.badscience.net/ Ben Goldacre]<br />
|guest2 = JR: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi James Randi]<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2008-09-17.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com//index.php/topic,14234.0.html<br />
|qowText = When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.<br />
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume David Hume]<br />
|}}<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.<br />
<br />
S: Hello, and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday September 17<sup>th</sup> 2008, and this is your host, Steven Novella, President of the [http://www.theness.com/ New England Skeptical Society]. Joining me this evening are Bob Novella,<br />
<br />
B: Hey everybody<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca Watson<br />
<br />
R: Hello, everyone<br />
<br />
S: Jay Novella<br />
<br />
J: Hey guys<br />
<br />
S: And Evan Bernstein<br />
<br />
E: Hi everyone, how's everyone doin' tonight?<br />
<br />
J: Good<br />
<br />
S: Good<br />
<br />
R: Great<br />
<br />
B: What's goin' on<br />
<br />
E: Good!<br />
<br />
== This Day in Skepticism <small>(0:36)</small> ==<br />
<br />
R: What's the day, Evan?<br />
<br />
E: 1976, the first space shuttle, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Enterprise Enterprise], unveiled by NASA.<br />
<br />
B: Ah, that's awesome<br />
<br />
E: Not launched, just unveiled<br />
<br />
S: Just unveiled?<br />
<br />
J: I remember being a kid, watching the TV, seeing a bunch of people standing on the tarmac, watching it be unveiled, then playing the theme to the Enterprise, you know, Star Trek.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
E: (laughs)<br />
<br />
J: Remember that?<br />
<br />
S: But I was devastated when I learned the Enterprise was never going to go into orbit.<br />
<br />
B: No <br />
<br />
J: What a gip!<br />
<br />
E: That's right<br />
<br />
B: Just a mock-up<br />
<br />
S: They should've saved the name for the first one to launch, not just the training module.<br />
<br />
R: I know a better day that's coming up, and that would be Friday, the 19<sup>th</sup>. You guys know what Friday is?<br />
<br />
J: Friday, um…<br />
<br />
S: September 19<sup>th</sup>?<br />
<br />
R: Uh-huh, you give up?<br />
<br />
B: Sorry<br />
<br />
S: The start of fall<br />
<br />
R: (complete with accent) Aaar, it's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day talk-like-a-pirate day]! Ye land-lubbers!<br />
<br />
B: Yes! How could I forget?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Didn't we just have that?<br />
<br />
J: That's a great day!<br />
<br />
E: Last year we mentioned that.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Aaaar<br />
<br />
B: It's an awesome day<br />
<br />
S: Has it been a year already?<br />
<br />
R: It has<br />
<br />
E: Aaaar, matey, it has.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Good thing we're not doing the podcast on Friday.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, can't we ''pretend''?<br />
<br />
B: Oh, the whole- the whole days as pirates?<br />
<br />
E: Today is talk like a ninja day<br />
<br />
S: Knock yourself out<br />
<br />
R: You can't talk like a ninja!<br />
<br />
S: Actually, ''today''-<br />
<br />
E: Sure you can,<br />
<br />
R: They just sneak up and stab you<br />
<br />
S: Today is international talk like a skeptic day<br />
<br />
B: Ha!<br />
<br />
R: (laughing) You made that up<br />
<br />
E: (with accent) I doubt that, har-har-har<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Well, we have an interview that we recorded at TAM 6 with Ben Goldacre coming up later in the show.<br />
<br />
B: Ben!<br />
<br />
R: That's aaaaar-some, Steve. I can't wait<br />
<br />
S: Ben is a cool guy. Our first new item is about Ben<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Ben Goldacre Defends Libel Case <small>(2:17)</small>===<br />
[http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=377 Neurologica: An Important Victory Against HIV Quackery]<br />
<br />
S: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Goldacre Ben Goldacre], who writes for the Guardian, and is one of the guys in the UK who's writing about science and medicine. He had written a piece about [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthias_Rath Matthias Rath], you guys familiar with this guy?<br />
<br />
R: Only in that I know he's a douche<br />
<br />
B: Er, no<br />
<br />
S: Right, he is a ''giant'' douche, he really is. So he has an organisation-<br />
<br />
R: (in the background) Am I gonna get sued for that?<br />
<br />
S: -that sells ''all kinds'' of snake oil, and what Ben wrote about was Rath selling vitamins in South Africa to AIDS victims, telling them ''not'' to take their anti-HIV medications, but instead, to take his vitamins. You know, there's an actual death count that you can attach to that kinda behaviour.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: So, Ben called him out on that. Now, Rath has a history of suing anyone who criticizes him, he has many, many lawsuits in many countries. You know, anyone who says that what he's doing is not legitimate, his response is to sue them.<br />
<br />
R: Including in South Africa where he's causing the most damage.<br />
<br />
S: Yes, South Africa, Germany, and again against the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian Guardian] and Ben Goldacre. And he's won some of those suits, unfortunately. But this, recently he had to withdraw his suit against the Guardian and Ben Goldacre ''and'' he's going to have to pay about half a million pounds in legal fees as a result as well. So that was a very good outcome. Of course, we all congratulate Ben on seeing that through, you know, it's obviously something that cuts very close to home. We spend a lot of our time dishing out very harsh criticism to a lot of people. Some of whom are heartless charlatans who will kill people if it lines their pockets, and who have a history of defending themselves by intimidating others with lawsuits and-<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, and you know, it's very different in England, where the laws aren't quite as much on the side of people who are making the statements, it's not quite on the side of free-speech as it is in the US.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
R: I think that, you know, we have a certain amount of protection going for us, but in the UK, it's fairly easy for someone to sue for libel slander, because once they do, the burden is on the defendant, as opposed to in the US, where the burden of proof is on the plaintive, and I am ''not'' a lawyer.<br />
<br />
S: No, that's correct. Although, in England, the one advantage in the UK, is that it's pretty standard, if you lose such a lawsuit, it's almost automatic that you pay the other side's legal fees. So that's the disincentive for frivolous lawsuits.<br />
<br />
R: Right, and so sure enough, he's had to cough up, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: These are ''critical'' victories for free-speech for sceptics everywhere who are trying to, you know, point out, especially this kind of really destructive behaviour. So, this is, I think, a very important victory. So, congratulations Ben!<br />
<br />
E: Good job, Ben<br />
<br />
R: Yay Ben!<br />
<br />
=== Hubble Finds Mystery Object <small>(5:20)</small>===<br />
[http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/newsblog/28244844.html?pageSize=0 Sky & Telescope article]<br />
<br />
S: The next news item, the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope Hubble] finds a mystery object that ''genuinely'' has astronomers ''baffled''<br />
<br />
R: Astronomers are baffled!<br />
<br />
S: They are<br />
<br />
J: They're baffled!<br />
<br />
S: They're generally baffled.<br />
<br />
E: are they flummoxed?<br />
<br />
S: And flummoxed.<br />
<br />
J: So what is it, Steve?<br />
<br />
S: Now, this is pretty interesting<br />
<br />
B: That's the question, Jay, it's- really nobody knows, according to a paper that's about to appear in the Astrophysical journal.<ref name="Barbary">Barbary et al. (2009) [http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/690/2/1358/ Discovery of an unusual optical transient with the hubble space telescope ] ApJ 690 1358 doi:10.1088/0004-637X/690/2/1358 </ref> Something extraordinary, never been seen before by astronomers appeared in 2006, so I was a little disappointed that it was two years ago, like, 'what? We're just hearing about this ''now''?'. But to this day, it is not known what the hell it was, or if it will ever appear again. It started with the Supernova Cosmology Project in February 2006 using Hubble, looking for Supernovae in February. A previously unknown object started getting brighter and brighter, and brighter, and it just did not stop. And this continued for about 100 days, at that point, it pretty much stopped getting brighter and bigger, and then just started to symmetrically dim for the next 100 days. So it was really, perfectly symmetrical light curve where the dimming is perfectly matched by the brightening in the beginning. The spectrum of light was also an enigma, the spectrum basically just shows the rainbow of colors from a light source, but also, of course, includes the non-visible light, like UV or radio. And ''typically'', these certain pieces of the spectrum are missing from a spectrum. And the lines that are missing shows you what elements must have been near the light source, or in the intervening space that absorbed it. So you've got these emission lines, but these emission lines made no sense.<br />
<br />
S: Don't you mean 'absorption lines'? Just to be clear, emission lines are different from absorption lines. Emission lines are when- are from the body itself that's glowing, absorption lines are from something intervening that's absorbing the light that was emitted.<br />
<br />
B: That's right, you were right. So this is a key deficit in our knowledge about this object, because if you can't determine what the elements are, what the arrangement of elements are in the spectrum, then you don't know how red-shifted the object is. That's one of the reasons why quasars were such a puzzle to astronomers early on, because quasars are so red-shifted, they're billions of light years distant, therefore, their red-shift is gargantuan, and it took a while for astronomers to realize 'wait a second, hydrogen's way over here, if it's way over here, it's gotta be immensely distant'. And that's gotta be one of the key insights that made them realize that these objects were so far away. So if we don't have this information, if we can't kinda get a picture of what's going on with the spectrum of this object, then you have no idea how far away this is. Is it in our galaxy?<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Is it in ''another'' galaxy? We don't know!<br />
<br />
J: Is that like a ball of hydrogen, or some hot-pocket of air, or expanding space somewhere?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: All we know is what we saw. It was some sort of stellar object that got brighter and brighter, like a Supernova, and then dimmed. But it was not typical of any other object that they've ever seen before.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they said it's specifically ''not'' a supernova.<br />
<br />
R: And if you were a pirate, would you call it a quasaaaaarrr?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: Quasaaaarr! Yes! Good one.<br />
<br />
E: No!<br />
<br />
R: I suspect that they call it quasaarrr<br />
<br />
S: That's not a (inaudible)<br />
<br />
B: We do have a range though, this thing must be within a certain range by other measurements, and one of them is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax parallax]. Parallax is the movement of one object due to movement of a foreground object, so if an object is close enough away, say less than 130 light years, you would see obvious parallax. We're not seeing that, so that means that this object is ''more'' than 130 light years away. So that's the ''bottom'' limit right there. So, what's the upper limit? Well, the only upper limit I came across for this thing has to do with hydrogen absorption. Because it's lacking hydrogen absorption in the spectrum, that means that it has to be less than 11 billion light years away. So our range is greater than 120 light years, less than 11 billion light years.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Nice range<br />
<br />
E: Oh, narrowed it down, that's great<br />
<br />
B: That's the best they've come up with in ''two years''. So, it could be anywhere in the intervening space.<br />
<br />
S: But interestingly, given that it could be- there's such a huge range for how far away it could be, they said that it's not ''in'' any known galaxy. So there's no galaxy, I guess, on that-<br />
<br />
B: I have a problem with that. I have a problem with that because there's been mention of this [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo%C3%B6tes Bo&ouml;tes constellation] they referred to, which is just a constellation of stars within our galaxy. But they refer to it as a void where there's really nothing around it for many light years, apparently. Now, there is a ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo%C3%B6tes_void Bo&ouml;tes super-void], it's a void, one of the biggest voids in the known universe, it's 250 million light years wide. Now I ''think'' they are possibly referring to this, they're saying that it's within this specific void. If it could be 130 light years away or 11 billion light years away, why do they think it's in a void 250 million light years across?<br />
<br />
S: I don't think it's ''just'' that, my reading was that it's not in any ''known'' galaxy, if it were in a galaxy, they're not seeing the galaxy that it's in.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, but why even mention this specific Bo&ouml;tes void or concept? Cos that, to me, just seems like a red herring.<br />
<br />
J: Bob, do we know if it's heading in a direction? Like, what direction it was moving in?<br />
<br />
B: No, there was no- you know, 200 days is not gonna be any- there wasn't really any discernable movement. Now, could it be a new type of Supernova? Scientists don't ''think'' so, there's a problem with that, because it doesn't match any of the known Supernova types and the brightening took much longer than normal, typically, Supernovas will brighten for 20 days, this one lasted for 100 days, and the spectrum didn't make any sense. The light curve should be asymmetrical for a Supernova, they fade more slowly than they brighten, it didn't make any sense.<br />
<br />
S: They also said it was ''not'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_microlensing microlensing]<br />
<br />
B: Right, the light curve doesn't match a microlensing event. Microlensing occurs when light is distorted as it travels over a gravitational source. They've ruled that out as well. It doesn't look like a quasar, I mean nothing that-<br />
<br />
R&E: Aaaarrr<br />
<br />
B: They put this spectrum through the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloan_Digital_Sky_Survey Sloan Digital Sky Survey] database, which has just a ''vast'' number of objects, and it didn't match anything in there. This is really quite a mystery and I-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, so this thing is probably a whole new class of object – which is cool!<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, some people have speculated that it's some sort of- because it's so symmetrical and blah, blah, blah that it could be-<br />
<br />
R: Aliens<br />
<br />
B: -some sort of sign from an intelligence, but obviously there's nothing that would really give you any confidence in that sort of conclusion. Not yet, anyway. But that would be interesting, if evidence pointed that way, but, man, I'm not counting on that at all.<br />
<br />
S: You don't think it's like a Death Star blowing up or something?<br />
<br />
B: They were talking about it in the comments.<br />
<br />
J: We would need so much more freakin evidence, you can't jump to ''that'', that's incredible<br />
<br />
B: No, that's ridiculous<br />
<br />
S: Well they thought that about pulsars when they first saw them, they were called LGM<br />
<br />
B: LGM, little green men, it was so regular<br />
<br />
E: Cos it was too regular, right? It could only have been created or something<br />
<br />
S: But sometimes, nature is really regular and symmetrical<br />
<br />
E: Aah, when nature is regular<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, you can't jump to an artificial hypothesis just because it's so symmetrical<br />
<br />
J: I'm pretty regular<br />
<br />
E: And symmetrical<br />
<br />
R: That's not what I heard<br />
<br />
=== Creationism in the UK <small>(13:00)</small>===<br />
[http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=376 Neurologica: Teaching Creationism in Schools]<br />
<br>[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4768820.ece TimesOnline article] (login required)<br />
<!-- dead link: http://www.cofe.anglican.org/darwin <br />
possible alternative: http://www.churchofengland.org/our-views/medical-ethics-health-social-care-policy/darwin.aspx<br />
--><br />
<br>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7613403.stm BBC article: Who are the British creationists?]<br />
<br />
S: Well, creationism is creeping into the UK, traditionally, the United States has had a problem with creationists trying to infiltrate public schools and etc. But now, apparently, it's becoming more of a problem in the United Kingdom. And this came to a head recently by comments made by reverend professor [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Reiss Michael Reiss] who was, until very recently, the Director of Education at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society Royal Society]. The Royal Society, I think is the ''oldest'' scientific institution and has a very important position in the UK science community. He made some controversial statements, and this is a quote from them<br />
<blockquote>An increasing percentage of children in the UK come from families that do not accept the scientific version of the history of the universe and the evolution of species. What are we to do with those children? My experience after having tried to teach biology for 20 years is if one simply gives the impression that such children are wrong, then they are not likely to learn much about the science that one really wants them to learn. I think a better way forward is to say to them 'look, I simply want to present you with the scientific understanding of the history of the universe and how animals and plants and other organisms evolved'.<ref>BBC news: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7612152.stm Call for creationism in science]</ref></blockquote><br />
S: He made other comments as well that really sparked a controversy over what ''exactly'' is this guy advocating? And because he's actually a literalist, not just a reverend, but a ''literalist'', a lot of people sort of had their eye on this guy, and were sort of waiting for this kind of thing to happen, this kind of controversy to crop up. So this, perhaps as much as anything else, is what lead to this incredible controversy, but ''I'' still have a hard time knowing ''really'' what this guy was advocating. <br />
<br />
R: Well, you know what the Society, a spokesman for the Society stepped forward and confirmed that, you know, what he was saying was inline with what they believed, and their exact quote was <br />
<blockquote>Our position is that if young people put forward a creationist perspective in the classroom, it should be discussed.<ref>Royal Society spokesperson statement &ndash; [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4760967.ece Times Online article] (login required)</ref></blockquote><br />
R: Their whole thing, they're talking about science, so we can assume they're talking about the science classroom, and it's kind of ridiculous just to put it like that. I mean, if you're going to talk about that subject, then let's be specific, ''how'' should it be discussed? Should it be discussed in terms of showing them that, for instance, a belief in god can be compatible with evolution? Or should you be telling them that there's no way in hell the Earth was created in six days?<br />
<br />
S: (agreeing) mm-hmm<br />
<br />
R: It's not very educational, it's not very helpful to just throw that out there like that. It sounds like a big case of covering of asses<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they definitely- the Royal Society put out ''clarifications'', 'quote-unquote', the next day saying 'creationism is ''not'' science, it should ''not'' be taught as science in the science classroom, and we whole-heartedly defend the teaching of evolution'. But this guy, Reiss, you know, he's just made other statements that were very, very squirly, for example, he said 'I do believe in taking seriously and respectfully the concerns of students who do not believe the theory of evolution, while still introducing them to it'. He also made some comments about treating creationism and ID, intelligent design, and evolution as different ''world-views''. So, you know, he's kinda dancing around this topic, and I think that, given that he's a literalist, and that he's making these squirly comments, it certainly ''seems'' like he's trying to squeeze in a little 'teach the controversy' through the back door there, just by saying 'we need to be respectful of the students, and we need to address their concerns and talk about creationism- oh, we believe in evolution, I'm not saying evolution is ''wrong'', but, you know, we really need to take- we can't just teach evolution, we have to address their concerns'<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it almost sounds like he's going for the catching more flies with honey defense, but-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
R: And there's something to be said for exploring different ways of reaching kids who are unfortunately growing up in households where their parents are ignorant of the basic tenants of science. And, you know, it ''is'' going to be difficult if they've been raised to believe in something wholly incompatible with what you're teaching them. You know, we ''do'' need to look at how we're teaching them. But to make a vague statement that just doesn't jibe at all with anything we're actually aiming for, and then to run away from it-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
R: Is kinda cowardly and suspicious.<br />
<br />
E: It's just a case of this person, I ''think'', trying to be somewhat politically correct, not taking a firm stance one way or the other, trying to please the most people possible with his statement to try and quell any controversy, it just did the opposite, apparently.<br />
<br />
J: He stepped down from his position too, ''because'' of the controversy.<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
R: He did, and the really cool thing is that he stepped down when British members of parliament stood up and said 'Hey, what the hell are you guys talking about? That's not science' and can you imagine that happening in the US, where an actual congress person steps up and bats somebody in line and defends science?<br />
<br />
B: No!<br />
<br />
J: No!<br />
<br />
R: It seems kind of foreign (laughs) So, I think that the UK kind of scores one on that point.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, although again this is in the context of increasing sort of insurgence of creationism into the UK, and increasing concerns. This controversy was all around the science blogosphere for the last week, the last few days, and some of the comments, like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PZ_Myers P. Z Myers] for example wrote a lot about this, and he said that 'you can teach students how we know the Earth isn't 6,000 years old. How we know there is common descent, you know, we know the Earth is 14 billion years old, etc, etc'. you can say ''historically'' they used to think this, you know 150 years ago, and this is how we- our thinking of our origins changed over time and developed with evidence. So, you can teach students everything students need to know about ''how'' science works, about how specific scientific beliefs came to be. But based upon what evidence, what logic. Without ever talking about a religious belief, or talking about creationism, you don't ''have'' to do that. I think that confronting something that is a ''religious'' belief in the science classroom is the wrong approach, you're better off saying 'in ''this'' classroom, we're talking about science, ''this'' is what science is. This is how scientists come to the conclusions that they come to. And you could achieve all of the objectives that Reiss claims he was really talking about, without respecting creationism as a world-view. That has no place in a science classroom. Some other things that have been going on, though, I don't know if this is a coincidence, but the Church of England, the C of E<br />
<br />
E: (with English accent) C of E<br />
<br />
S: Apologised to Darwin!<br />
<br />
R: I think that is-<br />
<br />
J: Now that blew my mind<br />
<br />
B: Ha!<br />
<br />
J: I can't believe that<br />
<br />
E: Did he accept?<br />
<br />
S: Good for them<br />
<br />
E: Did he accept?<br />
<br />
R: He couldn't accept, he was roasting in hell for his evil Darwinist ideas!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: (with English accent) So sorry, Darwin, sorry about that, old chap<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: So, yeah, they said it was basically the wrong thing to do, to basically oppress Darwin's views at the time. And, it turns out, that whole evolution thing was probably a good idea. Now, in response to that, the pope said 'yeah, evolution is fine, but we're not ''apologising'''. <br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: He ''refused'' to apologise.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: He basically said 'Oh, yeah?'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: 'You pansies in England can apologise to Darwin, the pope's not apologising to ''nobody'''. But, yeah, evolution's fine, you know, they<br />
<br />
J: The pope's tired<br />
<br />
S: Right, but the UK's got their own creationist museum now.<br />
<br />
R: (flatly) Good for them.<br />
<br />
J: It was just a matter of time<br />
<br />
E: Has the UK largely over the years been, not influenced by creationism, and it's only making some recent advances and strides?<br />
<br />
S: Yes, that's exactly correct, and it really has been, at least in the West, a US phenomenon. But now it is spreading to the UK.<br />
<br />
E: Do we know how much of it is influenced by Islam? Because the Islam population is on a great rise.<br />
<br />
S: That is a factor I know that Richard Dawkins has pointed that out as a factor, that they are creating ''faith'' schools, and teaching creationism from their religious perspective. Others have pointed to, you know, specifically political influence from the US have pointed to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Templeton_Foundation Templeton foundation], which is dedicated to-<br />
<br />
E: Oh yeah<br />
<br />
S: Connecting science and religion, and they have a lot of money behind that, so they give money to anybody who will-<br />
<br />
B: A million dollars, a million dollars a year to the person who does the most to join science and religion, right?<br />
<br />
R: I've seen rich people die and leave mansions to their ''cats'', and it's a better use of money than that prize.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, I agree<br />
<br />
J: and is it that general? The criteria is that general?<br />
<br />
S: Yes. The goal is for science to validate faith, that is the goal.<br />
<br />
E: So, is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Egnor Michael Egnor] in the running for that prize?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: I wouldn't be surprised.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, right?<br />
<br />
S: He definitely wants to intermingle those two<br />
<br />
R: You know who pirates' favourite scientist is?<br />
<br />
B: Oh boy,<br />
<br />
S: I can't wait to hear<br />
<br />
R: Daarrrrwin!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: Daarrrrwin<br />
<br />
B: Oh god<br />
<br />
J: Rebecca, get back on your medication as soon as possible.<br />
<br />
R: I ran out of gin!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: Keep up some rum, aarrr<br />
<br />
B: Keep it up, Rebecca, I'm loving it<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
== Questions and Emails <small>(22:52)</small> ==<br />
<big>Big Pharma</big><br />
<br />
S: Well, let's go on to your email, do you know what the first email's about?<br />
<br />
R: Daaarrrwin?<br />
<br />
E: It's about 15 sentences<br />
<br />
S: It's about 'big phaaaarrrma'!<br />
<br />
R&E: Phaarrrma!<br />
<br />
S: This one comes from Nick Vockrodt, from Arlington, Virgina. And he writes a very long email, I'm going to cut to the question: (see [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=165 show notes] for full email)<br />
<blockquote>My question is regarding "Big Pharma" and specifically [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibromyalgia fibromyalgia]-</blockquote><br />
R: I'm sorry, Steve, about big what?<br />
<br />
S: big phaarrrghma<br />
<br />
R: Thank you<br />
<blockquote>S: and specifically fibromyalgia I was discussing the pharmaceutical industry with a friend who claimed that diseases are-</blockquote><br />
J: What was that, Steve? Fibro- what?<br />
<br />
S: Alright, enough!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<blockquote>S: who claimed that diseases are being "made up" by drug companies for the sole purpose of creating a market for their medicines. He mentioned fibromyalgia as a perfect example, claiming it to be a disease that anyone can convince themselves they have. This sounded like what Dr. Novella describes as symptoms of life … I wasn't very familiar with the malady at the time to argue, but I tend to defend the pharmaceutical industry when faced with what sounds like a conspiracy theory. In my subsequent research, I found that there is some debate on it, but that the disease is generally accepted by the medical community as being "real".</blockquote><br />
S: Well, this is actually a complicated question because there's a few components to it. Let's take the first component of it: 'Does the pharma company make up diseases that they could then market their drugs for?'. I think there, in my opinion, the answer is a pretty unequivocal ''no''. The pharmaceutical industry in this country, regulated by the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_and_Drug_Administration FDA], when they market a drug, by definition, if you are marketing ''anything'' and claiming that it treats or cures or modifies a disease, it's regulated as a drug. Right, so things are regulated based on the kinds of claims that are made for them. But you don't get to make up your own diseases though, you know, to say that your drug is gonna treat something that you yourself get to make up, or that a ''company'' makes up. Companies are not in a position to ''create'' or will into existence a new disease. Things like fibromyalgia are- that is a diagnosis that emerged from the medical community. Now, I think that fibromyalgia is a very complicated disease entity that I have a lot of doubts about the way it's classified and diagnosed right now. First of all, it's not a disease, ''really'', even though-<br />
<br />
B: a syndrome?<br />
<br />
S: -it is recog- so what the-<br />
<br />
E: It's a 'condition'?<br />
<br />
S: Like for regulatory purposes, what the FDA will consider a disease is not necessarily what we would, in medicine, use the term specifically 'disease' for, meaning a pathophysiological entity. Sometimes there are clinical ''syndromes'', or a recognised entity, but we don't understand the pathophysiology, so it may be described purely by the clinical picture that it creates. So like 'chronic fatigue syndrome' is a syndrome, not really a disease. Fibromyalgia, I think, is better understood that way, although there are some thoughts about what might be ''causing'' it, it's actually not well understood. In fact, recent evidence suggests that a lot of people who have the symptoms of fibromyalgia may just be the symptoms of an underlying problem, like a sleep disorder. In fact, I think a lot of people who have the symptoms that are used to make the diagnosis fibromyalgia, actually have an underlying sleep disorder. Others may have an underlying anxiety disorder.<br />
<br />
J: Really?<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
J: Interesting<br />
<br />
S: And if you treat people for the sleep disorder, the fibromyalgia symptoms go away, so that's a pretty good indication. At least ''some'' of them. Other people may have a simmering auto-immune inflammation of the muscles. And that may be ''really''- if there ''is'' something that's really fibromyalgia, I think that's what it is. But a lot of people get similar symptoms for other reasons.<br />
<br />
J: Would you consider fibromyalgia kind of like a 'catch-all' for a bunch of different types of symptoms then?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think it's what we call a 'garbage-pail diagnosis', you know, you just get people who have symptoms in this area, then this is the label you attach to it. But there isn't any way to specifically say 'yes, this is a discrete pathological entity that they ''have'' '. I also see the diagnosis made on ''non-specific'' symptoms, without the specific symptoms that are supposed to be there. So if you are fatigued and achy, and etc., and you call that fibromyalgia, well that's just attaching a label to non-specific symptoms. You're supposed to have what we call 'trigger points', that are specific places in the muscles that are very tender. And if you have that pattern of 'trigger points' then I think it's ''meaningful'' to say 'well that pattern is called fibromyalgia. We still don't know what it is, we have some ideas, but that's the way we use the diagnosis'. If you call everybody who is fatigued and achey fibromylagia, then the diagnosis has no meaning. <br />
<br />
Now, I believe that the pharmaceutical industry has targeted fibromyalgia for a couple of drugs because it ''is'' such a easy diagnosis to make, because you can attach it to these vague symptoms, so I think if they're guilty of anything, it's choosing a marketable disease. But they didn't make it up, they weren't the ones to make it up. But that's just, you know, when pharmaceutical companies look for an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indication_%28medicine%29 indication] for their drug, that's based purely on marketing. They want to decide 'what's the biggest market? What drugs are going to sell the most? Which indication will allow us to speak to which specialty of physicians that we want to be able to market to?'. It's all really a marketing decision, of course the science has to be there as well. But often, with many drugs, there are different indications that you could go for. For example, if a drug treats pain, or treats nerve pain, now nerve pain is not a disease, so you have to pick a disease that causes nerve pain. Now, what diseases cause nerve pain are you gonna pick? Postherpetic neuralgia or diabetic neuropathy? They're gonna make a marketing decision, They're gonna choose the one with the biggest sales, the biggest marketing options for their drug, but again, they don't get to make up the disease. The other disease for which I hear this claim the most frequently is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restless_legs_syndrome restless leg syndrome] (RLS).<br />
<br />
E: Oh yeah<br />
<br />
S: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Carrey Jim Carrey] made that comment, that pharmaceutical made up restless leg syndrome in order to market a drug for it. Well, first of all, the drugs that have the indication for treating RLS, already have other indications, they were already on the market for legitimate indications, so it wasn't a way of rescuing a failed drug, that's a ''demonstrable'' myth. The other thing is, restless leg syndrom has existed in the medical literature for ''decades''. I was able to go onto my bookshelf and find an old neurology text with a ''40 year old'' reference to restless leg syndrome.<br />
<br />
E: Wow!<br />
<br />
S: 40 years before there was ever a drug marketed for it.<br />
<br />
E: Is that what they called it back then?<br />
<br />
S: Yes! Yes, and, in fact, if you dig deeper into the literature, the references go back even farther, ''and'' I forget what- it was known by other names even before the term restless leg syndrome came into being. So, yeah, it's basically like 100 years we've known that this has existed.<br />
<br />
J: (squeaky Irish voice?) 'Let me show you something'. (normal voice) A perfect example of why I ''don't'' wanna know what famous people think.<br />
<br />
(laughter) <br />
<br />
R: Right? At all<br />
<br />
E: Well, ''some''<br />
<br />
J: It ruined it for me, I ''loved'' that guy, now I have to hate him<br />
<br />
S: Oh, you do have to hate Jim Carrey, he is totally now on board with the anti-vaccinationist kooks.<br />
<br />
R: But he was so good in 'Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind'!<br />
<br />
S: He was<br />
<br />
B: (laughs)<br />
<br />
E: Sorry, so sorry.<br />
<br />
J: Oh well<br />
<br />
E: Move on<br />
<br />
S: Terrible, terrible, terrible.<br />
<br />
J: (singing) 'another one bites the dust'<br />
<br />
S: So, anyway, this is just unfounded conspiracy theories. Now, again, that doesn't mean that the pharmaceutical industry is ''not'' an industry that, they're not companies looking at their bottom line, and that the companies are beyond reproach. I'm not saying that, ''this'' notion that they make up diseases is nonsense. That is just made up conspiracy thinking.<br />
<br />
== Name That Logical Fallacy <small>(30:53)</small> == <br />
S: We do have a 'Name that logical fallacy' this week, we actually got our first piece of hard-core hate-mail in a long time. And it's just so chock-full of logical fallacies, I thought it would make good example for us to examine this week. So here we go, this one comes from Melvin Lee, who gives his-<br />
<br />
R: Melvin!... sorry<br />
<br />
S: Melvin<br />
<br />
J: Melvins!<br />
<br />
(Laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Gives his location as America. Thanks for being helpful. Now, Melvin writes (all indented quotes taken from [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=165 show notes] as written):<br />
<blockquote>I think that u and all those mofos on that show are full of shit. </blockquote><br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Wait, can you say that? You can't say that on the show.<br />
<br />
(inaudible)<br />
<br />
J: Steve-<br />
<br />
E: Should you say 'mofo'? <br />
<br />
<blockquote>S: How can u honestly say NO! there is no bigfoot just because I've never seen it, NO! crop circles aren't real because I'm obviously the creator of this world and I know EVERYTHING about. </blockquote><br />
(laughter)<br />
<blockquote>U pussies or just.......ugh, words can't describe how I feel about u guys. WHO R U-</blockquote><br />
<br />
S: Now, you also have to- we'll obviously publish the-<br />
<br />
R: All the "are"s are just the letter, all the "you"s are<br />
<br />
S: Capital 'R', capital 'U', " WHO R U"<br />
<br />
R: Melvin, actually ''texted'' this to us, it took him 16 texts<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: You know, if you're ''gonna'' write a critical email-<br />
<br />
R: Cost him 35 cents<br />
<br />
S: -take the time to spell out the words<br />
<br />
E: You have to assume that the person crafting it ''can'' spell the words<br />
<br />
B: Nah, this is a young kid, this is just a kid. <br />
<blockquote>S: WHO R U to tell some that they didn't see something with their own eyes and what they saw was an illusion. plz reread over WHO R U. U r human, u r not some all knowing god. U cannot get mad at someone for jus reporting what they saw, where u there too?, so how could u possibly say they didn't see that they thought they saw. </blockquote><br />
R: Wait, can you just do that sentence one more time?<br />
<br />
S&E: No<br />
<blockquote>Their just reporting it. This world is full of secrets and jus because it seems mundane doesn't mean its fake. Another thing. if hundreds of people AROUND THE WORLD r seeing something (bigfoot, ufos, ghost), then it ''has'' to be true. Not every situation was a hoax r the product of an over active mind. all I'm saying is WE R ALL HUMANS u have the same brain as me, u r not the god who created this world, therefore u cannot say confidently that something's not there, when it obviously is. </blockquote><br />
<br />
(sound clip of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman – Full Metal Jacket)"Holy jesus!"<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B?: Thanks for that email, Melvin <br />
<br />
E: Thank you Gunnery Sergeant Hartman<br />
<br />
R: Thanks Melvin, it's good to hear from you<br />
<br />
S: Thank you. All say 'thanks Melvin' <br />
<br />
E: Keep on listening!<br />
<br />
J: Honestly, let's honestly answer the email. Because if the guy-<br />
<br />
S: That's what we're gonna do!<br />
<br />
R: How? It's gonna take us all day. I think that's one good example of '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum argument from popularity]'. He said that, you know, if hundreds of people around the world believe in something, then it has to be true. But that is not correct because, you know, think about it this way: entire countries think that other entire countries should be obliterated off the map, and that doesn't make it ''true''.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, or millions of people, ''billions'' sometimes, hold beliefs that are mutually exclusive to beliefs that other millions of people believe. So, either one or both of those groups of millions of people ''have'' to be wrong.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, and look at all the people that bought the Milli Vanilli albums.<br />
<br />
S: That's true!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: They all believed they were really singing, they were wrooong<br />
<br />
B: There's a lotta '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man straw men]', he keeps throwing around tons of 'straw men'<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: Like "there's no Bigfoot because I've never ''seen'' it", "you can not get mad at someone for just reporting what they ''saw''", "not every situation was a hoax, or the product of an overactive mind". It's a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dichotomy false dichotomy],<ref>SGU 5x5 episode 54 [[5X5 Episode 54|Skepticism 101 - False Dichotomy]]</ref> I mean it's ''full'' of this stuff. <br />
<br />
S&B: There's a lotta 'straw men'.<br />
<br />
B: Mischaracterisations of what our arguments are, he's not even paying ''attention''!<br />
<br />
S: Right, so first of all, we ''don't'' say 'there is no Bigfoot, there are no aliens visiting the Earth, there are no ghosts'. What we say is there's no evidence compelling acceptance or belief in any of those things, the people who say that there ''is'' Bigfoot, have not met anywhere ''near'' a reasonable burden of proof.<br />
<br />
R: The invisible pink unicorn ''could'' exist, we are simply agnostic as to its existence.<br />
<br />
S: Right, where it's unfalsifiable, we're agnostic, if it's a scientific proposition, they haven't met the burden of proof, or the burden of evidence. And therefore, we do not accept it as an established or a proven scientific hypothesis, given the current state of evidence. But hey, if someone actually did find a Bigfoot body, and it stood up to peer review<br />
<br />
R: And it wasn't a costume <!--reference to Bigfoot costume hoax --><br />
<br />
S: It ''wasn't'' a costume <br />
<br />
R: Sold by hoaxters<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: We'd accept compelling evidence as compelling<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, and add to it, we'd actually be excited about it!<br />
<br />
S: Sure<br />
<br />
R: That would be mega-cool!<br />
<br />
B: I don't know, it would smash my world view, and I would deny it to my dying day.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Well only if Bigfoot wasn't riding atop a magical unicorn.<br />
<br />
E: Or a sacred cow<br />
<br />
S: Now hang on, there's some other logical fallacies in here, the challenge is in finding all of them.-<br />
<br />
R: Oh, we're not done yet, are we?<br />
<br />
S: You guys are just picking the low-hanging fruit.<br />
<br />
R: Alright, alright, alright. Well there's an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance argument from ignorance], saying that we can't say that it doesn't exist because we're not gods who created everything and everything.<br />
<br />
S: Right, that's good, it's an argument from ignorance, he's basically saying that because we don't have perfect infinite knowledge, that we therefore have no knowledge, that we can't make ''any'' factual judgments about what's likely to be true or not likely to be true, scientifically. And I'll say that, you know, we don't know ''for sure'', because we're not god, that Bigfoot doesn't exist, therefore, Bigfoot exists. And we should also then adhere to the argument ad populum, that other people say that they believe it, so that's enough.<br />
<br />
E: Well there's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem ad hominem] attacks all over the place.<br />
<br />
S: Oh yeah, 'pussies'<br />
<br />
R: Well, yeah, and not all of us are 'mofos', technically, only Jay.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, actually, I'm a proud mofo.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah<br />
<br />
J: That one didn't bother me.<br />
<br />
S: He also implies that, you know, the only way to assess someone's eye-witness testimony is to be an eye-witness ourselves, <br />
<br />
E: Wrong<br />
<br />
S: When in fact, you can assess eye-witness testimony by putting it into context. And also if you're -<br />
<br />
J: There are court rooms all over the world do that every day<br />
<br />
S: (laughs) Right, we're just saying there's more than one hypothesis. If somebody claims they saw a flying-saucer, there's multiple hypotheses you can derive from that. One is that they saw a flying saucer, but another one is that they were mistaken, or they're lying, or they were simply confusing a more mundane object, or their memory was contaminated by the testimony of another person. There's lots of-<br />
<br />
E: Or the alcohol they drank.<br />
<br />
S: They were in a compromised condition, sleep-deprived or drunk, or whatever. There's ''lots'' of hypotheses, and we want all- you know, any good scientist should consider ''all'' of them, and accept the ones that are most supported by the evidence, and also, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor Occam's razor], you don't accept the one that requires the introduction of a major new assumption, that we're being visited by aliens, when you haven't ruled out the far more likely, simple ones.<br />
<br />
R: Bigfoot<br />
<br />
S: Right, the guy simply made a mistake, or maybe he's pulling your leg. That's all, so<br />
<br />
J: I think Melvin's email actually, as poorly written as it is and everything, and he's got a negative attitude and he's just like sounding off at us. It's not that far away from where a lot of people stand. I think a lot of people ''agree'' with this.<br />
<br />
S: You're absolutely right, Jay, and that's what, even though, yeah, we're kinda poking fun at Melvin, partly because of his atrocious grammar and the way he constructed this email. But in fact, the same arguments, he's poorly constructed it, but these same logical fallacies, and these same arguments are the absolute bread and butter of the true-believers, or the anti-skeptics. We hear this ''all'' the time, the 'you don't know everything', equating 'not having infinite knowledge' with having 'no knowledge', the argument from ignorance, the appeal to popularity. We encounter these on a daily basis when confronting people who believe things that are not supported by the scientific evidence. So, we're not just attacking an easy target, this is absolutely bread and butter anti-skepticism.<br />
<br />
J: And I would take it one step further and ask Melvin, if he's listening: write us back, pick any topic that you mention in here, like Bigfoot as an example, and we'll have a real email exchange discussion about it. I promise to do that. If you wanna have a discussion, I'll tell you everything I think, and you can tell me everything you think, and we'll just vet it out over time without swearing at each other. Or at least keeping it down<br />
<br />
R: Eh<br />
<br />
S: And also, my advice to, just generic advice to people who are going to send a ranting email, actually the title of the email was 'rant', so Melvin knew this was a rant. But, if you're gonna do that, make a ''real'' effort to understand the position of the person you're disagreeing with. That's ''always'', generically, a good idea. Because there's nothing more worthless than arguing against a position that the other person doesn't even hold, because then you're just completely wasting your time, and all you're really declaring is 'I don't understand what's going on, I didn't take the time to even understand your position. I'm arguing against a "straw man"', basically that's the only thing you're accomplishing. Well, let's go on to our interview.<br />
<br />
== Interview with Ben Goldacre <small>(40:18)</small> ==<br />
(jingle)<br />
<br />
S: Ok, we're sitting here now with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Goldacre Ben Goldacre],Ben, welcome to the Skeptics' Guide<br />
<br />
BG: Hi<br />
<br />
S: You run a website in the UK called 'Bad Science', is it .net?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, [http://www.badscience.net/ BadScience.net], available all around the world!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Tell us about that<br />
<br />
R: The world-''wide'' web, Steve<br />
<br />
S: Oh yeah, I keep forgetting<br />
<br />
BG: (mocking) 'Ah yes, you're from the United Kingdom'. (normal voice) Well, it's a sort of mixture of my columns in the Guardian and other bits and bobs that I come across, and it's- maybe about sort of a quarter of it is about quackery, and most of it is about bad science reporting in mainstream media. I don't know if that's as much a problem in the US as it is in the UK.<br />
<br />
S: It's ''more'' of a problem in the US than the UK<br />
<br />
BG: Is that right? (laughs) I mean, in the UK, there have been some phenomenal bogus scare stories. I mean, there was one about theMRSA 'killer bacteria' that was essentially a bogus lab that was giving bogus results to undercover journalists, and of course the media's MMR hoax in the UK. Which I think you're about to get a run of in the US, with the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal thiomersal] thing, which is going to be very interesting.<br />
<br />
S: Well we're already- that's already passed its peak, the thimerosal (common name for thiomersal in US)<br />
<br />
BG: Do you think so?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, well, it was removed, you know, from vaccines in the United States by the end of 2002<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, but –<br />
<br />
S: Autism hasn't gone up<br />
<br />
BG: But the media storm didn't seem to start until what, this year, really. There was that case-<br />
<br />
S: It had a resurgence because of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_McCarthy Jenny McCarthy],<ref>Jenny McCarthy body count [http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com website]</ref> and Jim Carrey, and because of the mitochondrial DNA case<ref>Neurologica article: [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/has-the-government-conceded-vaccines-cause-autism/ Has the Government Conceded Vaccines Cause Autism?]</ref>. Yeah, so in the UK, I think the MMR was a bigger story. Thimerosal was bigger in the United States.<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: Is that still big over there? The MMR, are they still-<br />
<br />
BG: It's dwindling, the Observer did a bogus front page story about how autism was now up to one in 58, basically misunderstanding an unpublished piece of research which was looking at comparing different ways of measuring the prevalence of autism. So obviously, if you use the widest net, then you get the biggest number. But what I actually find interesting about vaccine scare is how poorly they propagate between different territories. So for example, in the UK we had the 'MMR causes autism' because of the measles virus, that was the scare, and that was mostly, that kind of peaked in 2001, 2002. But it didn't propagate outside of the UK. In America, you have your thiomersal scare, in France, they have a story about the hepatitis-B vaccine causing multiple sclerosis, but nobody's heard of that outside of France. In the UK in the 80s, we had 'whooping cough vaccine causing neurological problems' driven by ''one'' fairly eccentric doctor from Scotland, and obviously in Nigeria at the moment in Kano province, the imams have issued a pronouncement saying that the polio vaccine is a plot by the Americans to make Muslims infertile and stop them from having children.<ref>PlosMedicine article: [http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0040073#pmed-0040073-b0017 What Led to the Nigerian Boycott of the Polio Vaccination Campaign?]</ref><br />
<br />
S: And spread HIV.<br />
<br />
BG: Is that part of the scare as well?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: Oh no, yeah, you're absolutely right, yeah. And, you know, what's interesting about that, I ''guess'', is the WHO's polio medication program was on target to eradicate polio from around the world by now. But it's not, and people have, you know, you can do [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction PCR] on polio outbreaks around the world and they've found that the specific polio virus from Nigeria, from Kano province, has triggered outbreaks of polio elsewhere in the world. It's very interesting to me how these vaccine scares are all, you know, structurally quite similar, but they propagate very poorly, and I don't think the thiomersal scare could take off in the UK, just because the MMR story has been debunked in the UK. So, it would seem ridiculous to the media- it just wouldn't fit the natural tempo of the stories to then suddenly go 'oh no, but it does, actually cause these problems'<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, right<br />
<br />
R: So does that mean you think you're pretty much past the worst of all of those kind of stories in the UK? Or do you think there's another one on the horizon?<br />
<br />
BG: Certainly not, and actually for very interesting reasons, definitely not. If you look at France and Austria, you can see that they've come very close to electing, in the case of Austria, they ''did'' elect some seriously sort of right-wing fruitcakes, you know, bordering on fascism. Whereas in Germany, where they had to face up to what they did in World War II, there was a kind of truth and reconciliation process, and they have kind of green and liberal governments. There's no way, I don't think that Germany could re-elect a fascist government. I think that you have to go through the process of recognizing where you've gone wrong, in order to stop going wrong in the future. What I find fascinating about the termination of the MMR hoax, in the UK, is that it came to an end, not because the media suddenly went 'well actually, a 12 subject case series report isn't sufficient grounds to say that MMR causes autism'. It wasn't because they made a kind of critical appraisal of ''all'' of the literature for and against and went 'well actually, it just doesn't look like MMR causes autism, this was a storm in a tea-cup'. It came to an end because an investigative journalist called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Deer Brian Deer], for whom I've got a lot of respect, from the Sunday Times came along and revealed that the lead doctor who was driving the story had received half a million pounds, a million dollars, in legal sort of, you know, expert witness costs. And so he had, one could argue, a competing interest there. Now, I don't think for one moment that that's the reason why [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield Wakefield] held the views that he held, and I don't think that one man can drive a story. But now the media are all queued up to say 'oh, the original research has been debunked', when the original research was a 12 subject case series report that never meant anything about anything. And they're saying 'oh, you know, the MMR story has been disproven because Andrew Wakefield had half a million quid', so they're all queuing up to blame this one doctor for the hoax that was the media's work.<br />
<br />
S: (agreeing) mm-hmm<br />
<br />
BG: Collectively, the British media community have created this story, and they drove it for many, many years. And the fact that they're now trying to pin it on one doctor, I have to say, I'm not a big ''fan'' of Wakefield, but I think it's very healthy that there are, you know, doctors with idiosyncratic views on medicine, I think it's an absolute bizarre travesty that they're pinning it all on him.<br />
<br />
B: So they're all right, but for the wrong reasons?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, I think that's why they're not inoculated against future cock-ups<br />
<br />
R: Well, you're doing a lot to help media, scientific literacy amongst the media in the UK, but do you ever think they'll get that realisation? Do you ever think they'll finally realise what they're doing wrong?<br />
<br />
BG: I don't think you can stop people from producing stupid stories, but I think you can add some sense into the mix. So often, when I talk, people say- I do lots of talks in epidemiology departments and some medical statisticians, just cos the jokes can be a bit more interesting and sophisticated that way.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And people are often outraged, and they say 'well we need some laws to- these people need to be- we should be able to chop the fingers off bad journalists', and I just don't think it's realistic. But what you ''can'' do, is approach newspapers, and I just rang one up one day and said, you know, 'can I write for you?', and they said yes. You know, there's no great mystery, I think you can add in more sense to dilute the nonsense, or at least give people an opportunity to see some sense. Cos otherwise, unless people who understand the evidence get in there and explain the mechanics of why it is that you hold a belief on the back of some published evidence, then science, at least in Britain, is only being portrayed as being about authoritative truth statements from arbitrary cultural figures called scientists in white coats, you know, "scientists today said-", "scientists today deny-", "scientists today refuted-". But it's never, you know, "scientists today said 'well, there's this study, and it shows this, and for ''that'' reason, we think this'". That ''doesn't'' happen<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
BG: And by adding that into the mix, you do something very powerful<br />
<br />
S: And the Wakefield story reflects that, because it was about the authority of Wakefield, and when that was knocked down, the story was knocked down. Not about the evidence and the logic of whether or not there's any link between vaccines and autism.<br />
<br />
BG: It was about the authority of Wakefield, but it was also about human interest versus these white coat guys saying 'there's nothing to worry about'. So on one hand you had a worried parent, and on the other side you had a scientist saying, you know 'there's nothing to worry about', and that wouldn't reassure ''me''!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: You know, it would look like a cover-up, or it would look dismissive<br />
<br />
S: Right, so like us, you're using new media blogs to try to fight this bad journalism in the UK. How do you think that's going? How much play does your blog get?<br />
<br />
BG: It gets a lot of visitors, and it gets a lot of links, and the thing that's most exciting is there are lots of other people who are now blogging in the UK who do a really, really great job of pulling apart just sort of silly bit and bobs, but it's great when there's this kind of mass effect. Cos somebody will publish a tedious 'memory of water' paper, you know, homeopathy, and you'll be like, I can't be bothered to pull this apart. But someone somewhere will, you know, that burning sense of 'someone ''somewhere'' is wrong on the internet, I must put them right!'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And that's ''fantastic''. The only thing that disappoints me a little bit, I guess, is that I'm not as agitated about quackery as some people are, you get a lot of quite sanctimonious stuff from people kinda saying 'homeopathy is this public health ''scandal'' ', and I don't think that's true. I think homeopathy is really interesting, I think it's a really fascinating cultural phenomenon. I think it's really interesting that at a time when doctors are trying really hard to work collaboratively with patients, explain evidence with them and make decisions in concert with their patients, I think it's a tragedy that while doctors are trying to do that, quacks and the media are really kind of undermining the public's understanding of evidence. But I don't think that quackery is ''practically'' really dangerous, I think it's funny and interesting. I think it's interesting that there's a lot of bloggers who are keen to pick up on mocking quacks, which is funny, and it's great, and it produces great content. The thing that I wish that there was more of, is people taking down bogus news stories, because ''that's'' the thing that needs to be done so much more, because that's kind of the more culturally influential end of stuff, you know?<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
BG: But, I guess they're not such easy hits or, yeah, I don't know why it is.<br />
<br />
S: Well, the news cycle is quick, you've got to do it very quickly. Right? You find a new story hits, you've got to get your blog that day or you're going to get missed by the news cycle.<br />
<br />
BG: I ''guess'' so, although I'm not sure that's true, actually. I mean, I'm often cheerfully writing on things a couple of weeks after they've gone, but that's because I'm just smug enough to imagine that I can stand outside of the news thing. I actually think that's really interesting example of one of the more subtle aspects of how the media misrepresents science. I don’t think science makes a very good ''news'' subject, I think science is naturally a feature subject, because it's about emerging themes supported by a whole raft of evidence from a number of different disciplines that emerges over the course of many years. When you focus all your science reporting about a news story, a sudden breakthrough, a ''single'' piece of research, that's actually quite misrepresenting in a subtle way. Firstly because the stuff that makes a finding newsworthy, actually make it quite likely to be wrong, you know, it's incongruent with previous results, for example. And so it misrepresents stuff in that way. Obsessing over stuff being ''newsy'' is actually a bit of a mistake, I think people who are communicating science should feel cool with just sitting back and going 'what do we know about functional brain imaging and schizophrenia? There's a really interesting story there'<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
BG: It doesn't have to be ''new''<br />
<br />
S: I totally agree, I think the news cycle and the obsession with the story is really antithetical to the way science really works, which is taking your time and putting it together into the big picture. Often times I think you do that well, and that's we try to do, sort of take the news story and back up now into context, which is what the journalists ''don't'' do, right?<br />
<br />
BG: Well, sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't, I think there's a really interesting split in certain British news media, which has been studied quite carefully, which is: specialist health and science reporters are actually very good at their job, they know a lot of background, they know how to critically appraise research, and they will often make a fairly good stab at doing that with their articles, as long as they can get it past the desk. But what you find is, whenever a story becomes a big, political hot potato, whenever it becomes a big news story, like the MMR vaccine, or the GM food, the 'Frankenstein' food front pages of 1998, you find that the stories get taken out of the hands of the specialists, and put into the hands of the generalists, so the MMR story, especially after the question became 'did Tony Blair's son have the MMR vaccine?' – a fact that was mentioned in 33% of the news stories about MMR in 2002, when Andrew Wakefield's name was only in 25%, so Tony Blair's son was a bigger figure in our media coverage than Andrew Wakefield was. What you find is that, also, when there's a big story like MMR, also MMR was twice as likely to be written about by generalist journalists as a story about cloning, for example. And in the first two days after the Frankenstein food story hit the news stands, not a single one of the news or comment pieces in the ''entirity'' of the British news media, was written by a science columnist.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, that's definitely a big problem. Ben, you have a book coming out based on your blog, why don't you tell us about that?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, it's called '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Science_%28book%29 Bad Science]', maintaining brand homogeneity. And that's coming out with Fourth Estate, Harper Collins in September, and it should be very good, although it's very, very UK-centric, because I write about misrepresentation of science in the media, and the media I know very well is UK media. And I have this huge raft of examples from a ''thousand'' stories now, that's not an estimate, that's like, the number. And I've kinda been able to- it kinda grew out of this bet with a friend where, like, we both teach epidemiology, and I was like 'I bet I could teach the whole of epi' – or epidemiholiday As the medical students call it=<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Epidemiholiday?<br />
<br />
BG: 'I bet I can teach the whole of epi, only using exaples of people getting things wrong in broadsheet national news papers'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And it turned out to be true, but what I'd really like, actually, is to get a better handle on the ways that science is misrepresented in the media in America, cos it would be great to branch out and I'm not mercenary about selling the book, I accept that I will lead a life of obscurity in academia in a rented ex-council flat-<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: I fear that would be a volume of books if you attempted to do that, not just a single book.<br />
<br />
BG: Right, that would be like Churchill's history of World War I<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: But, I'm telling you, following your blog, that the examples are completely applicable to the United States, I think they'd be very-<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, well, actually, if there are people out there listening who know about this stuff, what I'd really like – ben@badscience.net - what I'd really like is for people to send me sort of examples from American media that mirror the cock-ups in British media. Are we allowed to say cock-ups in a Christian country?<br />
<br />
R: Oh, we're allowed to say it ''twice'', gosh<br />
<br />
BG: Have I said cock twice?<br />
<br />
E: You British are allowed to say anything you want<br />
<br />
R: That's three now.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Alright, well sometimes the stories are the same, like I think you covered the regenerating finger story.<ref>Ben Goldacre's Guardian article: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may/03/medicalresearch.health The missing finger that never was]</ref><br />
<br />
BG: That was hilarious! I mean that was-<br />
<br />
S: And we covered that too, <!--internal reference???--><br />
<br />
R: Yeah, that was great<br />
<br />
BG: Out of nowhere, and it was like three years old too<br />
<br />
S&R: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: But it was the BBC who reignited that story! And again, it was not a science or health correspondent, it was the BBC's New York correspondent, and you could see he was like, he was ''beside himself'' with excitement.<ref>BBC article & video: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7354458.stm The man who grew back his finger tip]</ref> He really thought he had found Nobel prize winning stuff with this, like, backwards guy in his model shop, who's finger had grown back. And he, this sense of holy reverence as he talked about the science, was just extraordinary, and just disproportionate to the reality, which was that, lop the top of your finger off and it just grows back, that's just nature<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it healed naturally<br />
<br />
R: It just happens<br />
<br />
S: You're hawking your brother's new product.<br />
<br />
BG: New company, yeah<br />
<br />
R: I should tell him about the holes for my earrings that closed up after I didn't wear earrings for a while.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: I mean, it's really interesting that there's this recurring theme in all of these stories in bad science and the media, and also in quackery, where we're sort of bringing all these childish fables, we're letting them take the credit for the amazing things that the body does, you know. Like when people were bringing in that placebo pill, and I'm like, I'm in sort of two minds about the ethics of giving placebos, I think it might be useful in ''some'' situations, but giving placebos to kids when they've got a cold, and I kinda think 'well, ok, you wanna tell your kid a reassuring story: here's a pill, you'll get better'. But how more empowering is it to say 'look, at the moment, there's this small, ''tiny'' microscopic organism that's gone into your body, it's called a virus, and it's really clever. What it does, is it exploits the machinery in your body that makes new parts for you, and it uses that to make copies of itself, and also it releases these other things that irritate the other parts of your body, and that's why you've got a cough and a sore throat, but your body's really clever, because on the surface of every cell, is holding out copies of all the stuff that's happening inside, and the immune system cells are floating around, and they have a look at what's in every cell by looking at this stuff that's being held out on the surface. And when they see something that's alien like that, they go in and they call all of their friends who arrive, following like a smoke trail to the source of the fire, along a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemotaxis chemotactic] path, and then they go in, and they find the bad guys, and they wrap them up in, like, a little ball, and they squirt bleach at them, and they kill them'. Now that, to me, why is that a sugar pill?<br />
<br />
J: I finally understand!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: Why let a sugar pill take credit for that? It's just insane, you know, and why let a ''healer'' take credit for that. But why let some magic powder take credit for the totally amazing fact that, if you cut the top of your finger off, it grows back like ''new'', I mean ''that'', that's a miracle, you know!<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: Quite apart from the fact that in the stories they were sort of talking about powder made out of (mystically) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endothelial_cells ''endothelial'' cells]!<br />
<br />
E,B&S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: As if like-<br />
<br />
S: It's some exotic thing, pig's bladder<br />
<br />
BG: No, it was (laughing)<br />
<br />
BG&S: 'extra-cellular matrix'<br />
<br />
BG: and it was like 'and these are made of 'extra-cellular matrix', and you're like extra-cellular matrix surrounds the cells of every single cell in all of the bodies of all of the people in the world, extra-cellular, you know, there's ''more'' extra-cellular matrix in the world than you could shake a stick at.<br />
<br />
J: That's like 'the super spectacular!'<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: 'Space-age technology', that's 50 years old!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Well, Ben, we certainly appreciate what you're doing, we love your blog and your articles for the Guardian, I fell like we're just getting started, maybe we'll have a chance to sit down again, if not here, some time in the future.<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, cool<br />
<br />
S: And thanks again for sitting with us.<br />
<br />
R: Thanks, Ben<br />
<br />
BG: Cheers, thank you.<br />
<br />
== Randi Speaks: The Media <small>(59:20)</small> ==<br />
(jingle) And now, Randi speaks.<br />
<br />
S: Randi, tell us how you think the media deals with issues of science and skepticism.<br />
<br />
JR: Rather badly, generally speaking, because the media is interested in a sensational story. Well, they say they want news, but they want ''sensationa''l news. You know very well that puppy dog down a sewer is going to get much more attention than some political hack in the local community, unless he has something to do with puppies going down sewers. The media's that way, and it's understandable, they want to sell newspapers and programs and wot-not. I've said it before and I'll say it again: most people in the media are educated in the humanities, and they don't have a good grasp of science and reality, and how things work. They're very easily deceived, they're very na&iuml;ve in some respects, and they're purposefully na&iuml;ve perhaps because they want the story to be there. Now, an excellent example of that on a very high level is an ABC TV program that I did, I guess last year. They got me all the way in to New York city to discuss the '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo%C3%A3o_de_Deus_%28medium%29 John of god]' situation. Now, 'John of god' is a so-called psychic healer and wot-not in Brazil, and he's doing very simple tricks that, kind of what people have known for a long time, sticking sticks up your nose and wot-not, and he actually sticks forceps up the patients' noses. I went armed for bear, I went to New York City, and they stuck me in the studio in front of a video camera. I had with me video tapes, props and wot-not, and I spoke with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Qui%C3%B1ones John Qui&ntilde;ones], he was the host on the show. They interviewed me for two and a half hours, ''two and a half hours'' they interviewed me! <br />
<br />
I was on with a man called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehmet_Oz Dr Mehmet Oz], a very, very famous cardiac surgeon in New York city, a great reputation, but totally woo-woo. He actually has nurses specially trained in the art of balancing the aura, walking around in his ''operating room'' while he's got a patient on the table with his chest cavity open and his heart being fixed! And Mehmet Oz will throw up his hands when told by the nurse that she's coming through to balance the aura by passing her hands over it! Incredible! Incredible that a man in this day and age, let alone a very highly educated man like Mehmet Oz, would be involved in such quackery! Such absolute foolishness, such a juvenile approach to reality. But, nonetheless, he is a great cardiac surgeon, and I would trust myself to him ''any'' time. (quietly and suspiciously) As long as he kept the woman with the funny gloves out of the place. (in normal voice) But, he was on the program as well, it ended up that the program used nine seconds of what I said. Nine seconds out of two and a half hours. They didn't use any other recorded material, any other references to the video tapes with demonstrations of how the forceps up the nose trick is done, as I say, it's an old carnival stunt. But they used a great deal of Mehmet Oz, they used quotations from him, and he even said something – for a Dr, very foolish – he said that sticking up the nose came close to certain glands in the head and wot-not, but he didn't notice – because he doesn't operate on the head, I guess, that there's a half-inch layer of ''bone'' in between where the forceps go up. Now, is it supposed to be a magnetic influence? A proximity influence? A (inaudible, cubosity?) effect? I don't know, but he mentioned that as a possibility. He really is a woo-woo artist. Unfortunately, with all of that education and very extensive training and great expertise. <br />
<br />
So they used all of nine seconds, but they used it so unfairly, they had me saying – and this took nine seconds, "there are no greater liars in the world than quacks, except for their patients". Now, that was broadcast like that, but the complete quotation was "As that early American philosopher [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin Ben Franklin] once said, there are no greater liars in the world than quacks, except for their patients". So, I was attributing it to Ben Franklin, but they cut that out, because that made it look as if I was stealing it from Ben Franklin. I got emails, Steve, from all over the world, saying "you're quoting Ben Franklin, you stole that! You should have attributed it to them". I did! But they edited it out, and they edited out the complete explanation of how the forceps up the nose trick was done, and the various other things that 'John of God' does. Now this is totally irresponsible, it borders on the criminal, because what that does, ABC television in a feature program had this number about 'John of God', and that, I'm sure, brought ''hundreds'' of Americans to travel off to Brazil and spend their hard-earned money on this quackery. And 'John of God', I'm sure, was very happy with it. And they never did a retraction of any kind.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(1:04:43)</small> ==<br />
(jingle)<br />
<br />
S: Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two genuine, and one fictitious. And then, my panel of skeptics tries to tell me which one they think is the fake. Are you guys ready for this week?<br />
<br />
B:…yes<br />
<br />
S: Here we go, number one: 'Astrophysicists have discovered the upper limit for the mass of a black hole'. Item number two: 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge'. And item number three 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells'. Bob, go first.<br />
<br />
B: (quietly) you ''bastard''<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: 'upper limit for the mass of a black hole', it does sound kinda bizarre, I mean, what's preventing a black hole from just getting bigger and bigger? Um, so on the surface, that doesn't sound right, if you think about it. Dinosaur dominance 'due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge', I mean, that makes sense on the surface, absolutely. A lot of evolution and whether you go extinct or not has to do with luck. That definitely can play a part, maybe that makes too much sense. 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells', that sounds pretty cool, and that would be awesome, I'm gonna say that's science. I'm gonna say that… that the dinosaur dominance being luck, that sounds a little fishy, I'm gonna say that that is fiction.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, Evan?<br />
<br />
E: Well, 'upper limit for the mass of a black hole'… I mean, there would have to be some kind of upper limit, wouldn't there? It's just a matter of discovering it, one would ''think'', but I'm not too sure about that. Dinosaurs having an advantage over contemporaries 'was due to luck'… yeah. But how were they able to determine that, you know, how do you equate 'luck' in a scientific context? I'm not quite sure ''really'' what's being said there. And then the 'improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells', sure, yes, finding out all kinds of new things about all stem cells these days, cutting edge science, totally plausible. So I'll agree with Bob that the dinosaur one is fiction.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: See now, I'm not so sure, because I'm pretty sure I read something about this, and that they actually found these skeletons of an elderly pack of velocoraptors, surrounded by a field of four-leafed clovers, and a small pile of rabbit's feet next to them. So, I believe that that's actually science, and I also think that a black hole should have an upper limit, cos otherwise, well, you know, that's too scary to compliment- er, contemplate. So I think that transplanting muscle stem cells, I don't think we're quite to the point where we can improve strength and performance doing that, and that sounds like, are we doing studies on humans with muscle stem cells? That doesn't seem like it's going to work, I don't know. I think that's fiction, so-<br />
<br />
S: Ok, alright? Jay?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, the upper limit to the black hole- the upper limit to the ''mass'' of a black hole, I would just assume that it make a lot of sense, like Evan said, for someone to sit down and run the math and be able to theoretically figure that our. 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge'. Mmm, that one seems … fishy to me for some reason, how could they determine it was just luck? I wonder how the fossil record could demonstrate that. And the last one, three 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells'. Yeah, you know, I think I would've heard this. If that happened, I think that it would be much bigger news, you know, definitely above the water line, or ''I'' would've read it, with the amount of reading I do on science news. I don't think that one is science, I think that one was altered by Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, so you all agree that 'Astrophysicists have discovered the upper limit for the mass of a black hole', correct?<br />
<br />
J,B&E: Yes<br />
<br />
S:Yeah, actually, ''this'' was the most counter-intuitive one for me when I first read it. This is science, and, you know, like Bob, my reaction was 'what would stop it from absorbing more mass? What would happen if a black hole reached it's upper limit, and then, you know, there was more material to suck in, what would happen?' Well, it turns out astrophysicists-<br />
<br />
B: More to it.<br />
<br />
S: -have calculated the theoretical upper limit for the mass of a black hole, it's a Yale astronomer in fact, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priyamvada_Natarajan Priyamvada Natarajan]. What (s)he suspects is, there's a mechanism that, as the black hole gets to about 10 billion solar masses-<br />
<br />
E: Wow<br />
<br />
S: -that any matter falling into it would cause the radiation away of an equal amount of mass. <ref name="Yale">Yale news: [http://news.yale.edu/2008/09/04/yale-astronomer-discovers-upper-mass-limit-black-holes Yale Astronomer Discovers Upper Mass Limit for Black Holes]</ref> So it reaches an equilibrium point, you know-<br />
<br />
J: baaahh (?)<br />
<br />
S: -evaporate or radiate away the same amount of mass that was pulled into it-<br />
<br />
B: Wait, but you're not talking about [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation Hawking radiation] though. ''My'' interpretation was that-<br />
<br />
S: No, no<br />
<br />
B: -you've got [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accretion_disc accretion disk] radiation<br />
<br />
S: Yes, that's right<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, that's a big difference. And my understanding, though, Steve, was that this isn't a hard rule. If you've got so much in-falling matter, you would reach a point where the radiation being generated by the heat of the accretion disk would actually blow away solar ma- any material that would've fallen into the black hole, so you gotta kinda like a soft limitation in that way. But if you've got a 10 billion solar mass black hole, and it bumps into a neutron star, or a smaller black hole, nothing's going to stop that from getting bigger than 10 billion-<br />
<br />
S: Well, see, I was not clear on that point from the article that I read. That was my question too.<br />
<br />
B: That was my understanding from reading some articles, and reading a lot of the comments from people who seem to know what they were talking about. What I know about black holes, what is going to stop it, to go above it if it's as I described.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, but the press release makes it sound like that's just one possible explanation, but that other things were used to derive this upper limit. You know, we might have to do some follow-up to try and sort that out, but that was exactly the question that I had: is that a ''hard'' limit? Or is it a ''soft'' limit? You seem to think that it was a soft limit, right?<br />
<br />
B: Absolutely<br />
<br />
S: And my interpretation was that this was a ''hard'' limit, and one of the mechanisms proposed for that would prevent the black hole from getting bigger than about 10 billion solar masses, but, interesting either way. So let's go on to number two: 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge', and Bob and Evan, you both said that this one was fiction.<br />
<br />
J: So it's down to Bob and Evan, and me and Rebecca, teaming up again<br />
<br />
S: Jay and Rebecca thought this one is science, and this one… is… ''science''!<br />
<br />
J: Ah-ha!<br />
<br />
(high-five sound)<br />
<br />
J: You guys suck.<br />
<br />
S: But you guys did ask-<br />
<br />
B: There goes my run.<br />
<br />
S: an excellent question, which is- 'how would-<br />
<br />
E: mofos<br />
<br />
S: -'how would they know?'. How would you even make this determination?<br />
<br />
E: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: I don't know, you dominate the planet for 200 million years, there's gotta be some competitive edge in there.<br />
<br />
E: Well explain what ''luck'' is, in this context.<br />
<br />
J: Talk to us, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Well, luck would be that there was an environmental change, and you ''happened'' to benefit from that change, as opposed to-<br />
<br />
B: Like ''humans'', mammals<br />
<br />
S: -you just out-competed, you out-competed your contemporaries. Now, what they did, was they, this is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_L._Brusatte Steve Brusatte] from Bristol University, department of Earth Sciences. And they looked at the species that were around early in the career of the dinosaurs. They found that the other major group at the time were the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crurotarsi crurotarsans], which were alligator-like reptiles. At that time, they were a more diverse group, with greater disparity, and actually were dominant over the early dinosaurs at their time. He said, if you were, you know, in the early [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triassic triassic], for example, and you looked at these two groups, you would predict, based upon their diversity, disparity and dominance, that the crurotarsans would have a much greater chance of dominating the future than the dinosaurs would.<ref name="SM">Science magazine: [http://www.sciencemag.org/content/321/5895/1485.short Superiority, Competition, and Opportunism in the Evolutionary Radiation of Dinosaurs] DOI: 10.1126/science.1161833</ref><ref name="SA">Scientific American: [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=was-the-dinosaurs-long-reign-a-fluke Was the Dinosaurs' Long Reign on Earth a Fluke?]</ref> So by any measure of 'who was winning', the crurotarsans seemed to be winning in terms of spreading into more ecosystems and, you know, having greater numbers, etc. But then two things happened, there was the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnian carnian]-norian event 228 million years ago, which caused a lot of extinctions, with both the dinosaurs and the crurotarsans survived that, but it did eliminate a lot of competition, and then 200 million years ago, there was the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triassic#Late_Triassic_extinction_event end Triassic extinction], which resulted from a period of significant global warming, increase in temperature, and the dinosaurs weathered the increase in temperature, and the crurotarsans didn't. But until that climate change occurred, the crurotarsans were out-competing the dinosaurs, if anything. So that's what they mean by luck, they just ''happened'' to benefit from a change in the climate when, if, all things being equal, they were not directly out-competing their contemporaries. Which means that number three: 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells' is fiction.<br />
<br />
B: Whatever.<br />
<br />
S: But what ''is'' true, is that they just identified what the muscle stem cell ''is''. They didn't really know which muscle was ''in fact'' the muscle stem cell.<br />
<br />
B: Crap, that's what I read.<br />
<br />
S: Yes, perhaps that's what you'd read. So, and it turns out to be the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myosatellite_cell satellite] cell which is a type of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progenitor_cells progenitor] cell that exists near the muscles, or in the muscle tissue, and, you know, in repair or exercise, etc. will generate new muscle tissue. But we haven't successfully transplanted muscle cells into people. That's not happened yet.<br />
<br />
J: (mimicking) Stem cells are made of people!<br />
<br />
B: Man, I hate when a vague memory of reading an article totally kills you<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I know, that's what got me<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, sucks to be you, Bob<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: You gotta stop reading, guys.<br />
<br />
J: So, Steve really is the bastard tonight<br />
<br />
B: Jay, you bastard, you ended the run I had, it was like a nine-winning streak run (actually 10). How long was your run?<br />
<br />
J: Four foot one<br />
<br />
E: Four foot one<br />
<br />
S: Well, congratulations Jay and Rebecca, good job.<br />
<br />
J: Yay! Rebecca!<br />
<br />
E: Yay!<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:16:28)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: Jay, do you have a quote for us this week?<br />
<br />
J: I have a quote this week from a man called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume David Hume], he lived 1711-1776, that was a pretty good year, wasn't it? And I'm always surprised when I read quotes from people that lived centuries ago, especially ones that are exceptionally logical or rational, maybe I'm skewed, or maybe just from reading quotes from a lot of very smart people during that time, I don't know. I'd like to know if I'm just thinking that they're overly rational for their time, or maybe people were more rational in the past.<br />
<br />
S: Well it was the age of enlightenment for a reason, Jay.<br />
<br />
J: David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, an economist, historian, and an important figure in western philosophy, and he said, or wrote:<br />
<blockquote>When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.</blockquote><br />
J: DAVID HUME! … I think this is also a good quote to go with Melvin's email to us. MELVIN LEE! (even louder) MELVIN LEE!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: CONFUSED LISTENER!<br />
<br />
R: Ok, the David Hume one didn't make me (inaudible – upset?)<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Right, just a quick reminder that October 10<sup>th</sup>, New York city is the New York city's skeptic's first annual anniversary event, they're going to have James Randi speak for them, and then October 11<sup>th</sup>, in Fairfield Connecticut, Perry's home town, we're going to have the first annual Perry DeAngelis memorial lecture!<br />
<br />
E,B&J: Yay!<br />
<br />
S: October 11<sup>th</sup>, noon to three at the Fairfield theatre company, we have the information on our message-board, and on our facebook page, and Jay, can we put that on the website? I know we're in the middle of the update and everything, but can we put that up?<br />
<br />
J: I will put it on the homepage<br />
<br />
S: ''and'' we have confirmed guests Steve Mirsky, from Scientific American-<br />
<br />
J: He's awesome<br />
<br />
S: -and Terence Hines-<br />
<br />
E: Nice<br />
<br />
S: -excellent skeptic and neuroscientist, and author of 'Pseudoscience and the paranormal', ain't it cool?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, he's a good dude<br />
<br />
S: Well, thank you all again for joining me this week<br />
<br />
(someone singing "going crazy"?)<br />
<br />
R: Thanks Steve<br />
<br />
E: Yes, it was good joining you<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Fun as always, and until next week, this is your Skeptics' guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
<br />
== Today I learned... ==<br />
*The first space shuttle, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Enterprise Enterprise] was unveiled by NASA on September 17th 1976. <br />
<br />
*September 19th is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day international talk like a pirate day].<br />
<br />
*In February 2006, astronomers using the Hubble space telescope spotted a mystery object that continually brightened for about 100 days, after which, it dimmed symmetrically for the next 100 days.<ref name="Barbary"/> The distance to the object has been said to be between 120 and 11 billion light years away, and does not match any object in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloan_Digital_Sky_Survey Sloan Digital Sky Survey] at the time of the podcast.<br />
<br />
*Church of England offered a formal apology to Darwin in September 2008! ([http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7613403.stm BBC article])<br />
<br />
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restless_legs_syndrome Restless leg syndrome]has been documented for over 100 years.<br />
<br />
*Astrophysicists at Yale have calculated the upper limit for the mass of a black hole, stating that as a black hole gets to about 10 billion solar masses, any subsequent matter falling into it would cause the radiation away of an equal amount of mass.<ref name="Yale"/><br />
<br />
*New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge. It is thought that global warming in the late Triassic era may have led to the extinction of the previously dominant [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crurotarsi crurotarsans], whilst the dinosaurs survived.<ref name="SM"/><ref name="SA"/> <br />
<br />
*The muscle stem cell is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myosatellite_cell satellite] cell which is a type of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progenitor_cells progenitor] cell that exist near the muscles, or in the muscle tissue, and will generate new muscle tissue in repair or exercise, etc.<br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation<br />
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{{Page categories<br />
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}}</div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_165&diff=9632SGU Episode 1652015-02-06T00:28:31Z<p>Jason koziol: /* Interview with Ben Goldacre (40:18) */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Editing required<br />
|proof-reading = y<br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox <br />
|episodeNum = 165<br />
|episodeDate = 17<sup>th</sup> September 2008<br />
|episodeIcon = File:goldacre.jpg<br />
|rebecca = y<br />
|bob = y<br />
|jay = y<br />
|evan = y<br />
|guest1 = BG: [http://www.badscience.net/ Ben Goldacre]<br />
|guest2 = JR: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi James Randi]<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2008-09-17.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com//index.php/topic,14234.0.html<br />
|qowText = When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.<br />
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume David Hume]<br />
|}}<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.<br />
<br />
S: Hello, and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday September 17<sup>th</sup> 2008, and this is your host, Steven Novella, President of the [http://www.theness.com/ New England Skeptical Society]. Joining me this evening are Bob Novella,<br />
<br />
B: Hey everybody<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca Watson<br />
<br />
R: Hello, everyone<br />
<br />
S: Jay Novella<br />
<br />
J: Hey guys<br />
<br />
S: And Evan Bernstein<br />
<br />
E: Hi everyone, how's everyone doin' tonight?<br />
<br />
J: Good<br />
<br />
S: Good<br />
<br />
R: Great<br />
<br />
B: What's goin' on<br />
<br />
E: Good!<br />
<br />
== This Day in Skepticism <small>(0:36)</small> ==<br />
<br />
R: What's the day, Evan?<br />
<br />
E: 1976, the first space shuttle, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Enterprise Enterprise], unveiled by NASA.<br />
<br />
B: Ah, that's awesome<br />
<br />
E: Not launched, just unveiled<br />
<br />
S: Just unveiled?<br />
<br />
J: I remember being a kid, watching the TV, seeing a bunch of people standing on the tarmac, watching it be unveiled, then playing the theme to the Enterprise, you know, Star Trek.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
E: (laughs)<br />
<br />
J: Remember that?<br />
<br />
S: But I was devastated when I learned the Enterprise was never going to go into orbit.<br />
<br />
B: No <br />
<br />
J: What a gip!<br />
<br />
E: That's right<br />
<br />
B: Just a mock-up<br />
<br />
S: They should've saved the name for the first one to launch, not just the training module.<br />
<br />
R: I know a better day that's coming up, and that would be Friday, the 19<sup>th</sup>. You guys know what Friday is?<br />
<br />
J: Friday, um…<br />
<br />
S: September 19<sup>th</sup>?<br />
<br />
R: Uh-huh, you give up?<br />
<br />
B: Sorry<br />
<br />
S: The start of fall<br />
<br />
R: (complete with accent) Aaar, it's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day talk-like-a-pirate day]! Ye land-lubbers!<br />
<br />
B: Yes! How could I forget?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Didn't we just have that?<br />
<br />
J: That's a great day!<br />
<br />
E: Last year we mentioned that.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Aaaar<br />
<br />
B: It's an awesome day<br />
<br />
S: Has it been a year already?<br />
<br />
R: It has<br />
<br />
E: Aaaar, matey, it has.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Good thing we're not doing the podcast on Friday.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, can't we ''pretend''?<br />
<br />
B: Oh, the whole- the whole days as pirates?<br />
<br />
E: Today is talk like a ninja day<br />
<br />
S: Knock yourself out<br />
<br />
R: You can't talk like a ninja!<br />
<br />
S: Actually, ''today''-<br />
<br />
E: Sure you can,<br />
<br />
R: They just sneak up and stab you<br />
<br />
S: Today is international talk like a skeptic day<br />
<br />
B: Ha!<br />
<br />
R: (laughing) You made that up<br />
<br />
E: (with accent) I doubt that, har-har-har<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Well, we have an interview that we recorded at TAM 6 with Ben Goldacre coming up later in the show.<br />
<br />
B: Ben!<br />
<br />
R: That's aaaaar-some, Steve. I can't wait<br />
<br />
S: Ben is a cool guy. Our first new item is about Ben<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Ben Goldacre Defends Libel Case <small>(2:17)</small>===<br />
[http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=377 Neurologica: An Important Victory Against HIV Quackery]<br />
<br />
S: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Goldacre Ben Goldacre], who writes for the Guardian, and is one of the guys in the UK who's writing about science and medicine. He had written a piece about [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthias_Rath Matthias Rath], you guys familiar with this guy?<br />
<br />
R: Only in that I know he's a douche<br />
<br />
B: Er, no<br />
<br />
S: Right, he is a ''giant'' douche, he really is. So he has an organisation-<br />
<br />
R: (in the background) Am I gonna get sued for that?<br />
<br />
S: -that sells ''all kinds'' of snake oil, and what Ben wrote about was Rath selling vitamins in South Africa to AIDS victims, telling them ''not'' to take their anti-HIV medications, but instead, to take his vitamins. You know, there's an actual death count that you can attach to that kinda behaviour.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: So, Ben called him out on that. Now, Rath has a history of suing anyone who criticizes him, he has many, many lawsuits in many countries. You know, anyone who says that what he's doing is not legitimate, his response is to sue them.<br />
<br />
R: Including in South Africa where he's causing the most damage.<br />
<br />
S: Yes, South Africa, Germany, and again against the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian Guardian] and Ben Goldacre. And he's won some of those suits, unfortunately. But this, recently he had to withdraw his suit against the Guardian and Ben Goldacre ''and'' he's going to have to pay about half a million pounds in legal fees as a result as well. So that was a very good outcome. Of course, we all congratulate Ben on seeing that through, you know, it's obviously something that cuts very close to home. We spend a lot of our time dishing out very harsh criticism to a lot of people. Some of whom are heartless charlatans who will kill people if it lines their pockets, and who have a history of defending themselves by intimidating others with lawsuits and-<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, and you know, it's very different in England, where the laws aren't quite as much on the side of people who are making the statements, it's not quite on the side of free-speech as it is in the US.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
R: I think that, you know, we have a certain amount of protection going for us, but in the UK, it's fairly easy for someone to sue for libel slander, because once they do, the burden is on the defendant, as opposed to in the US, where the burden of proof is on the plaintive, and I am ''not'' a lawyer.<br />
<br />
S: No, that's correct. Although, in England, the one advantage in the UK, is that it's pretty standard, if you lose such a lawsuit, it's almost automatic that you pay the other side's legal fees. So that's the disincentive for frivolous lawsuits.<br />
<br />
R: Right, and so sure enough, he's had to cough up, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: These are ''critical'' victories for free-speech for sceptics everywhere who are trying to, you know, point out, especially this kind of really destructive behaviour. So, this is, I think, a very important victory. So, congratulations Ben!<br />
<br />
E: Good job, Ben<br />
<br />
R: Yay Ben!<br />
<br />
=== Hubble Finds Mystery Object <small>(5:20)</small>===<br />
[http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/newsblog/28244844.html?pageSize=0 Sky & Telescope article]<br />
<br />
S: The next news item, the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope Hubble] finds a mystery object that ''genuinely'' has astronomers ''baffled''<br />
<br />
R: Astronomers are baffled!<br />
<br />
S: They are<br />
<br />
J: They're baffled!<br />
<br />
S: They're generally baffled.<br />
<br />
E: are they flummoxed?<br />
<br />
S: And flummoxed.<br />
<br />
J: So what is it, Steve?<br />
<br />
S: Now, this is pretty interesting<br />
<br />
B: That's the question, Jay, it's- really nobody knows, according to a paper that's about to appear in the Astrophysical journal.<ref name="Barbary">Barbary et al. (2009) [http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/690/2/1358/ Discovery of an unusual optical transient with the hubble space telescope ] ApJ 690 1358 doi:10.1088/0004-637X/690/2/1358 </ref> Something extraordinary, never been seen before by astronomers appeared in 2006, so I was a little disappointed that it was two years ago, like, 'what? We're just hearing about this ''now''?'. But to this day, it is not known what the hell it was, or if it will ever appear again. It started with the Supernova Cosmology Project in February 2006 using Hubble, looking for Supernovae in February. A previously unknown object started getting brighter and brighter, and brighter, and it just did not stop. And this continued for about 100 days, at that point, it pretty much stopped getting brighter and bigger, and then just started to symmetrically dim for the next 100 days. So it was really, perfectly symmetrical light curve where the dimming is perfectly matched by the brightening in the beginning. The spectrum of light was also an enigma, the spectrum basically just shows the rainbow of colors from a light source, but also, of course, includes the non-visible light, like UV or radio. And ''typically'', these certain pieces of the spectrum are missing from a spectrum. And the lines that are missing shows you what elements must have been near the light source, or in the intervening space that absorbed it. So you've got these emission lines, but these emission lines made no sense.<br />
<br />
S: Don't you mean 'absorption lines'? Just to be clear, emission lines are different from absorption lines. Emission lines are when- are from the body itself that's glowing, absorption lines are from something intervening that's absorbing the light that was emitted.<br />
<br />
B: That's right, you were right. So this is a key deficit in our knowledge about this object, because if you can't determine what the elements are, what the arrangement of elements are in the spectrum, then you don't know how red-shifted the object is. That's one of the reasons why quasars were such a puzzle to astronomers early on, because quasars are so red-shifted, they're billions of light years distant, therefore, their red-shift is gargantuan, and it took a while for astronomers to realize 'wait a second, hydrogen's way over here, if it's way over here, it's gotta be immensely distant'. And that's gotta be one of the key insights that made them realize that these objects were so far away. So if we don't have this information, if we can't kinda get a picture of what's going on with the spectrum of this object, then you have no idea how far away this is. Is it in our galaxy?<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Is it in ''another'' galaxy? We don't know!<br />
<br />
J: Is that like a ball of hydrogen, or some hot-pocket of air, or expanding space somewhere?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: All we know is what we saw. It was some sort of stellar object that got brighter and brighter, like a Supernova, and then dimmed. But it was not typical of any other object that they've ever seen before.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they said it's specifically ''not'' a supernova.<br />
<br />
R: And if you were a pirate, would you call it a quasaaaaarrr?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: Quasaaaarr! Yes! Good one.<br />
<br />
E: No!<br />
<br />
R: I suspect that they call it quasaarrr<br />
<br />
S: That's not a (inaudible)<br />
<br />
B: We do have a range though, this thing must be within a certain range by other measurements, and one of them is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax parallax]. Parallax is the movement of one object due to movement of a foreground object, so if an object is close enough away, say less than 130 light years, you would see obvious parallax. We're not seeing that, so that means that this object is ''more'' than 130 light years away. So that's the ''bottom'' limit right there. So, what's the upper limit? Well, the only upper limit I came across for this thing has to do with hydrogen absorption. Because it's lacking hydrogen absorption in the spectrum, that means that it has to be less than 11 billion light years away. So our range is greater than 120 light years, less than 11 billion light years.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Nice range<br />
<br />
E: Oh, narrowed it down, that's great<br />
<br />
B: That's the best they've come up with in ''two years''. So, it could be anywhere in the intervening space.<br />
<br />
S: But interestingly, given that it could be- there's such a huge range for how far away it could be, they said that it's not ''in'' any known galaxy. So there's no galaxy, I guess, on that-<br />
<br />
B: I have a problem with that. I have a problem with that because there's been mention of this [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo%C3%B6tes Bo&ouml;tes constellation] they referred to, which is just a constellation of stars within our galaxy. But they refer to it as a void where there's really nothing around it for many light years, apparently. Now, there is a ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo%C3%B6tes_void Bo&ouml;tes super-void], it's a void, one of the biggest voids in the known universe, it's 250 million light years wide. Now I ''think'' they are possibly referring to this, they're saying that it's within this specific void. If it could be 130 light years away or 11 billion light years away, why do they think it's in a void 250 million light years across?<br />
<br />
S: I don't think it's ''just'' that, my reading was that it's not in any ''known'' galaxy, if it were in a galaxy, they're not seeing the galaxy that it's in.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, but why even mention this specific Bo&ouml;tes void or concept? Cos that, to me, just seems like a red herring.<br />
<br />
J: Bob, do we know if it's heading in a direction? Like, what direction it was moving in?<br />
<br />
B: No, there was no- you know, 200 days is not gonna be any- there wasn't really any discernable movement. Now, could it be a new type of Supernova? Scientists don't ''think'' so, there's a problem with that, because it doesn't match any of the known Supernova types and the brightening took much longer than normal, typically, Supernovas will brighten for 20 days, this one lasted for 100 days, and the spectrum didn't make any sense. The light curve should be asymmetrical for a Supernova, they fade more slowly than they brighten, it didn't make any sense.<br />
<br />
S: They also said it was ''not'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_microlensing microlensing]<br />
<br />
B: Right, the light curve doesn't match a microlensing event. Microlensing occurs when light is distorted as it travels over a gravitational source. They've ruled that out as well. It doesn't look like a quasar, I mean nothing that-<br />
<br />
R&E: Aaaarrr<br />
<br />
B: They put this spectrum through the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloan_Digital_Sky_Survey Sloan Digital Sky Survey] database, which has just a ''vast'' number of objects, and it didn't match anything in there. This is really quite a mystery and I-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, so this thing is probably a whole new class of object – which is cool!<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, some people have speculated that it's some sort of- because it's so symmetrical and blah, blah, blah that it could be-<br />
<br />
R: Aliens<br />
<br />
B: -some sort of sign from an intelligence, but obviously there's nothing that would really give you any confidence in that sort of conclusion. Not yet, anyway. But that would be interesting, if evidence pointed that way, but, man, I'm not counting on that at all.<br />
<br />
S: You don't think it's like a Death Star blowing up or something?<br />
<br />
B: They were talking about it in the comments.<br />
<br />
J: We would need so much more freakin evidence, you can't jump to ''that'', that's incredible<br />
<br />
B: No, that's ridiculous<br />
<br />
S: Well they thought that about pulsars when they first saw them, they were called LGM<br />
<br />
B: LGM, little green men, it was so regular<br />
<br />
E: Cos it was too regular, right? It could only have been created or something<br />
<br />
S: But sometimes, nature is really regular and symmetrical<br />
<br />
E: Aah, when nature is regular<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, you can't jump to an artificial hypothesis just because it's so symmetrical<br />
<br />
J: I'm pretty regular<br />
<br />
E: And symmetrical<br />
<br />
R: That's not what I heard<br />
<br />
=== Creationism in the UK <small>(13:00)</small>===<br />
[http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=376 Neurologica: Teaching Creationism in Schools]<br />
<br>[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4768820.ece TimesOnline article] (login required)<br />
<!-- dead link: http://www.cofe.anglican.org/darwin <br />
possible alternative: http://www.churchofengland.org/our-views/medical-ethics-health-social-care-policy/darwin.aspx<br />
--><br />
<br>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7613403.stm BBC article: Who are the British creationists?]<br />
<br />
S: Well, creationism is creeping into the UK, traditionally, the United States has had a problem with creationists trying to infiltrate public schools and etc. But now, apparently, it's becoming more of a problem in the United Kingdom. And this came to a head recently by comments made by reverend professor [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Reiss Michael Reiss] who was, until very recently, the Director of Education at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society Royal Society]. The Royal Society, I think is the ''oldest'' scientific institution and has a very important position in the UK science community. He made some controversial statements, and this is a quote from them<br />
<blockquote>An increasing percentage of children in the UK come from families that do not accept the scientific version of the history of the universe and the evolution of species. What are we to do with those children? My experience after having tried to teach biology for 20 years is if one simply gives the impression that such children are wrong, then they are not likely to learn much about the science that one really wants them to learn. I think a better way forward is to say to them 'look, I simply want to present you with the scientific understanding of the history of the universe and how animals and plants and other organisms evolved'.<ref>BBC news: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7612152.stm Call for creationism in science]</ref></blockquote><br />
S: He made other comments as well that really sparked a controversy over what ''exactly'' is this guy advocating? And because he's actually a literalist, not just a reverend, but a ''literalist'', a lot of people sort of had their eye on this guy, and were sort of waiting for this kind of thing to happen, this kind of controversy to crop up. So this, perhaps as much as anything else, is what lead to this incredible controversy, but ''I'' still have a hard time knowing ''really'' what this guy was advocating. <br />
<br />
R: Well, you know what the Society, a spokesman for the Society stepped forward and confirmed that, you know, what he was saying was inline with what they believed, and their exact quote was <br />
<blockquote>Our position is that if young people put forward a creationist perspective in the classroom, it should be discussed.<ref>Royal Society spokesperson statement &ndash; [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4760967.ece Times Online article] (login required)</ref></blockquote><br />
R: Their whole thing, they're talking about science, so we can assume they're talking about the science classroom, and it's kind of ridiculous just to put it like that. I mean, if you're going to talk about that subject, then let's be specific, ''how'' should it be discussed? Should it be discussed in terms of showing them that, for instance, a belief in god can be compatible with evolution? Or should you be telling them that there's no way in hell the Earth was created in six days?<br />
<br />
S: (agreeing) mm-hmm<br />
<br />
R: It's not very educational, it's not very helpful to just throw that out there like that. It sounds like a big case of covering of asses<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they definitely- the Royal Society put out ''clarifications'', 'quote-unquote', the next day saying 'creationism is ''not'' science, it should ''not'' be taught as science in the science classroom, and we whole-heartedly defend the teaching of evolution'. But this guy, Reiss, you know, he's just made other statements that were very, very squirly, for example, he said 'I do believe in taking seriously and respectfully the concerns of students who do not believe the theory of evolution, while still introducing them to it'. He also made some comments about treating creationism and ID, intelligent design, and evolution as different ''world-views''. So, you know, he's kinda dancing around this topic, and I think that, given that he's a literalist, and that he's making these squirly comments, it certainly ''seems'' like he's trying to squeeze in a little 'teach the controversy' through the back door there, just by saying 'we need to be respectful of the students, and we need to address their concerns and talk about creationism- oh, we believe in evolution, I'm not saying evolution is ''wrong'', but, you know, we really need to take- we can't just teach evolution, we have to address their concerns'<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it almost sounds like he's going for the catching more flies with honey defense, but-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
R: And there's something to be said for exploring different ways of reaching kids who are unfortunately growing up in households where their parents are ignorant of the basic tenants of science. And, you know, it ''is'' going to be difficult if they've been raised to believe in something wholly incompatible with what you're teaching them. You know, we ''do'' need to look at how we're teaching them. But to make a vague statement that just doesn't jibe at all with anything we're actually aiming for, and then to run away from it-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
R: Is kinda cowardly and suspicious.<br />
<br />
E: It's just a case of this person, I ''think'', trying to be somewhat politically correct, not taking a firm stance one way or the other, trying to please the most people possible with his statement to try and quell any controversy, it just did the opposite, apparently.<br />
<br />
J: He stepped down from his position too, ''because'' of the controversy.<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
R: He did, and the really cool thing is that he stepped down when British members of parliament stood up and said 'Hey, what the hell are you guys talking about? That's not science' and can you imagine that happening in the US, where an actual congress person steps up and bats somebody in line and defends science?<br />
<br />
B: No!<br />
<br />
J: No!<br />
<br />
R: It seems kind of foreign (laughs) So, I think that the UK kind of scores one on that point.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, although again this is in the context of increasing sort of insurgence of creationism into the UK, and increasing concerns. This controversy was all around the science blogosphere for the last week, the last few days, and some of the comments, like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PZ_Myers P. Z Myers] for example wrote a lot about this, and he said that 'you can teach students how we know the Earth isn't 6,000 years old. How we know there is common descent, you know, we know the Earth is 14 billion years old, etc, etc'. you can say ''historically'' they used to think this, you know 150 years ago, and this is how we- our thinking of our origins changed over time and developed with evidence. So, you can teach students everything students need to know about ''how'' science works, about how specific scientific beliefs came to be. But based upon what evidence, what logic. Without ever talking about a religious belief, or talking about creationism, you don't ''have'' to do that. I think that confronting something that is a ''religious'' belief in the science classroom is the wrong approach, you're better off saying 'in ''this'' classroom, we're talking about science, ''this'' is what science is. This is how scientists come to the conclusions that they come to. And you could achieve all of the objectives that Reiss claims he was really talking about, without respecting creationism as a world-view. That has no place in a science classroom. Some other things that have been going on, though, I don't know if this is a coincidence, but the Church of England, the C of E<br />
<br />
E: (with English accent) C of E<br />
<br />
S: Apologised to Darwin!<br />
<br />
R: I think that is-<br />
<br />
J: Now that blew my mind<br />
<br />
B: Ha!<br />
<br />
J: I can't believe that<br />
<br />
E: Did he accept?<br />
<br />
S: Good for them<br />
<br />
E: Did he accept?<br />
<br />
R: He couldn't accept, he was roasting in hell for his evil Darwinist ideas!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: (with English accent) So sorry, Darwin, sorry about that, old chap<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: So, yeah, they said it was basically the wrong thing to do, to basically oppress Darwin's views at the time. And, it turns out, that whole evolution thing was probably a good idea. Now, in response to that, the pope said 'yeah, evolution is fine, but we're not ''apologising'''. <br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: He ''refused'' to apologise.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: He basically said 'Oh, yeah?'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: 'You pansies in England can apologise to Darwin, the pope's not apologising to ''nobody'''. But, yeah, evolution's fine, you know, they<br />
<br />
J: The pope's tired<br />
<br />
S: Right, but the UK's got their own creationist museum now.<br />
<br />
R: (flatly) Good for them.<br />
<br />
J: It was just a matter of time<br />
<br />
E: Has the UK largely over the years been, not influenced by creationism, and it's only making some recent advances and strides?<br />
<br />
S: Yes, that's exactly correct, and it really has been, at least in the West, a US phenomenon. But now it is spreading to the UK.<br />
<br />
E: Do we know how much of it is influenced by Islam? Because the Islam population is on a great rise.<br />
<br />
S: That is a factor I know that Richard Dawkins has pointed that out as a factor, that they are creating ''faith'' schools, and teaching creationism from their religious perspective. Others have pointed to, you know, specifically political influence from the US have pointed to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Templeton_Foundation Templeton foundation], which is dedicated to-<br />
<br />
E: Oh yeah<br />
<br />
S: Connecting science and religion, and they have a lot of money behind that, so they give money to anybody who will-<br />
<br />
B: A million dollars, a million dollars a year to the person who does the most to join science and religion, right?<br />
<br />
R: I've seen rich people die and leave mansions to their ''cats'', and it's a better use of money than that prize.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, I agree<br />
<br />
J: and is it that general? The criteria is that general?<br />
<br />
S: Yes. The goal is for science to validate faith, that is the goal.<br />
<br />
E: So, is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Egnor Michael Egnor] in the running for that prize?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: I wouldn't be surprised.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, right?<br />
<br />
S: He definitely wants to intermingle those two<br />
<br />
R: You know who pirates' favourite scientist is?<br />
<br />
B: Oh boy,<br />
<br />
S: I can't wait to hear<br />
<br />
R: Daarrrrwin!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: Daarrrrwin<br />
<br />
B: Oh god<br />
<br />
J: Rebecca, get back on your medication as soon as possible.<br />
<br />
R: I ran out of gin!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: Keep up some rum, aarrr<br />
<br />
B: Keep it up, Rebecca, I'm loving it<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
== Questions and Emails <small>(22:52)</small> ==<br />
<big>Big Pharma</big><br />
<br />
S: Well, let's go on to your email, do you know what the first email's about?<br />
<br />
R: Daaarrrwin?<br />
<br />
E: It's about 15 sentences<br />
<br />
S: It's about 'big phaaaarrrma'!<br />
<br />
R&E: Phaarrrma!<br />
<br />
S: This one comes from Nick Vockrodt, from Arlington, Virgina. And he writes a very long email, I'm going to cut to the question: (see [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=165 show notes] for full email)<br />
<blockquote>My question is regarding "Big Pharma" and specifically [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibromyalgia fibromyalgia]-</blockquote><br />
R: I'm sorry, Steve, about big what?<br />
<br />
S: big phaarrrghma<br />
<br />
R: Thank you<br />
<blockquote>S: and specifically fibromyalgia I was discussing the pharmaceutical industry with a friend who claimed that diseases are-</blockquote><br />
J: What was that, Steve? Fibro- what?<br />
<br />
S: Alright, enough!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<blockquote>S: who claimed that diseases are being "made up" by drug companies for the sole purpose of creating a market for their medicines. He mentioned fibromyalgia as a perfect example, claiming it to be a disease that anyone can convince themselves they have. This sounded like what Dr. Novella describes as symptoms of life … I wasn't very familiar with the malady at the time to argue, but I tend to defend the pharmaceutical industry when faced with what sounds like a conspiracy theory. In my subsequent research, I found that there is some debate on it, but that the disease is generally accepted by the medical community as being "real".</blockquote><br />
S: Well, this is actually a complicated question because there's a few components to it. Let's take the first component of it: 'Does the pharma company make up diseases that they could then market their drugs for?'. I think there, in my opinion, the answer is a pretty unequivocal ''no''. The pharmaceutical industry in this country, regulated by the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_and_Drug_Administration FDA], when they market a drug, by definition, if you are marketing ''anything'' and claiming that it treats or cures or modifies a disease, it's regulated as a drug. Right, so things are regulated based on the kinds of claims that are made for them. But you don't get to make up your own diseases though, you know, to say that your drug is gonna treat something that you yourself get to make up, or that a ''company'' makes up. Companies are not in a position to ''create'' or will into existence a new disease. Things like fibromyalgia are- that is a diagnosis that emerged from the medical community. Now, I think that fibromyalgia is a very complicated disease entity that I have a lot of doubts about the way it's classified and diagnosed right now. First of all, it's not a disease, ''really'', even though-<br />
<br />
B: a syndrome?<br />
<br />
S: -it is recog- so what the-<br />
<br />
E: It's a 'condition'?<br />
<br />
S: Like for regulatory purposes, what the FDA will consider a disease is not necessarily what we would, in medicine, use the term specifically 'disease' for, meaning a pathophysiological entity. Sometimes there are clinical ''syndromes'', or a recognised entity, but we don't understand the pathophysiology, so it may be described purely by the clinical picture that it creates. So like 'chronic fatigue syndrome' is a syndrome, not really a disease. Fibromyalgia, I think, is better understood that way, although there are some thoughts about what might be ''causing'' it, it's actually not well understood. In fact, recent evidence suggests that a lot of people who have the symptoms of fibromyalgia may just be the symptoms of an underlying problem, like a sleep disorder. In fact, I think a lot of people who have the symptoms that are used to make the diagnosis fibromyalgia, actually have an underlying sleep disorder. Others may have an underlying anxiety disorder.<br />
<br />
J: Really?<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
J: Interesting<br />
<br />
S: And if you treat people for the sleep disorder, the fibromyalgia symptoms go away, so that's a pretty good indication. At least ''some'' of them. Other people may have a simmering auto-immune inflammation of the muscles. And that may be ''really''- if there ''is'' something that's really fibromyalgia, I think that's what it is. But a lot of people get similar symptoms for other reasons.<br />
<br />
J: Would you consider fibromyalgia kind of like a 'catch-all' for a bunch of different types of symptoms then?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think it's what we call a 'garbage-pail diagnosis', you know, you just get people who have symptoms in this area, then this is the label you attach to it. But there isn't any way to specifically say 'yes, this is a discrete pathological entity that they ''have'' '. I also see the diagnosis made on ''non-specific'' symptoms, without the specific symptoms that are supposed to be there. So if you are fatigued and achy, and etc., and you call that fibromyalgia, well that's just attaching a label to non-specific symptoms. You're supposed to have what we call 'trigger points', that are specific places in the muscles that are very tender. And if you have that pattern of 'trigger points' then I think it's ''meaningful'' to say 'well that pattern is called fibromyalgia. We still don't know what it is, we have some ideas, but that's the way we use the diagnosis'. If you call everybody who is fatigued and achey fibromylagia, then the diagnosis has no meaning. <br />
<br />
Now, I believe that the pharmaceutical industry has targeted fibromyalgia for a couple of drugs because it ''is'' such a easy diagnosis to make, because you can attach it to these vague symptoms, so I think if they're guilty of anything, it's choosing a marketable disease. But they didn't make it up, they weren't the ones to make it up. But that's just, you know, when pharmaceutical companies look for an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indication_%28medicine%29 indication] for their drug, that's based purely on marketing. They want to decide 'what's the biggest market? What drugs are going to sell the most? Which indication will allow us to speak to which specialty of physicians that we want to be able to market to?'. It's all really a marketing decision, of course the science has to be there as well. But often, with many drugs, there are different indications that you could go for. For example, if a drug treats pain, or treats nerve pain, now nerve pain is not a disease, so you have to pick a disease that causes nerve pain. Now, what diseases cause nerve pain are you gonna pick? Postherpetic neuralgia or diabetic neuropathy? They're gonna make a marketing decision, They're gonna choose the one with the biggest sales, the biggest marketing options for their drug, but again, they don't get to make up the disease. The other disease for which I hear this claim the most frequently is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restless_legs_syndrome restless leg syndrome] (RLS).<br />
<br />
E: Oh yeah<br />
<br />
S: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Carrey Jim Carrey] made that comment, that pharmaceutical made up restless leg syndrome in order to market a drug for it. Well, first of all, the drugs that have the indication for treating RLS, already have other indications, they were already on the market for legitimate indications, so it wasn't a way of rescuing a failed drug, that's a ''demonstrable'' myth. The other thing is, restless leg syndrom has existed in the medical literature for ''decades''. I was able to go onto my bookshelf and find an old neurology text with a ''40 year old'' reference to restless leg syndrome.<br />
<br />
E: Wow!<br />
<br />
S: 40 years before there was ever a drug marketed for it.<br />
<br />
E: Is that what they called it back then?<br />
<br />
S: Yes! Yes, and, in fact, if you dig deeper into the literature, the references go back even farther, ''and'' I forget what- it was known by other names even before the term restless leg syndrome came into being. So, yeah, it's basically like 100 years we've known that this has existed.<br />
<br />
J: (squeaky Irish voice?) 'Let me show you something'. (normal voice) A perfect example of why I ''don't'' wanna know what famous people think.<br />
<br />
(laughter) <br />
<br />
R: Right? At all<br />
<br />
E: Well, ''some''<br />
<br />
J: It ruined it for me, I ''loved'' that guy, now I have to hate him<br />
<br />
S: Oh, you do have to hate Jim Carrey, he is totally now on board with the anti-vaccinationist kooks.<br />
<br />
R: But he was so good in 'Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind'!<br />
<br />
S: He was<br />
<br />
B: (laughs)<br />
<br />
E: Sorry, so sorry.<br />
<br />
J: Oh well<br />
<br />
E: Move on<br />
<br />
S: Terrible, terrible, terrible.<br />
<br />
J: (singing) 'another one bites the dust'<br />
<br />
S: So, anyway, this is just unfounded conspiracy theories. Now, again, that doesn't mean that the pharmaceutical industry is ''not'' an industry that, they're not companies looking at their bottom line, and that the companies are beyond reproach. I'm not saying that, ''this'' notion that they make up diseases is nonsense. That is just made up conspiracy thinking.<br />
<br />
== Name That Logical Fallacy <small>(30:53)</small> == <br />
S: We do have a 'Name that logical fallacy' this week, we actually got our first piece of hard-core hate-mail in a long time. And it's just so chock-full of logical fallacies, I thought it would make good example for us to examine this week. So here we go, this one comes from Melvin Lee, who gives his-<br />
<br />
R: Melvin!... sorry<br />
<br />
S: Melvin<br />
<br />
J: Melvins!<br />
<br />
(Laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Gives his location as America. Thanks for being helpful. Now, Melvin writes (all indented quotes taken from [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=165 show notes] as written):<br />
<blockquote>I think that u and all those mofos on that show are full of shit. </blockquote><br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Wait, can you say that? You can't say that on the show.<br />
<br />
(inaudible)<br />
<br />
J: Steve-<br />
<br />
E: Should you say 'mofo'? <br />
<br />
<blockquote>S: How can u honestly say NO! there is no bigfoot just because I've never seen it, NO! crop circles aren't real because I'm obviously the creator of this world and I know EVERYTHING about. </blockquote><br />
(laughter)<br />
<blockquote>U pussies or just.......ugh, words can't describe how I feel about u guys. WHO R U-</blockquote><br />
<br />
S: Now, you also have to- we'll obviously publish the-<br />
<br />
R: All the "are"s are just the letter, all the "you"s are<br />
<br />
S: Capital 'R', capital 'U', " WHO R U"<br />
<br />
R: Melvin, actually ''texted'' this to us, it took him 16 texts<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: You know, if you're ''gonna'' write a critical email-<br />
<br />
R: Cost him 35 cents<br />
<br />
S: -take the time to spell out the words<br />
<br />
E: You have to assume that the person crafting it ''can'' spell the words<br />
<br />
B: Nah, this is a young kid, this is just a kid. <br />
<blockquote>S: WHO R U to tell some that they didn't see something with their own eyes and what they saw was an illusion. plz reread over WHO R U. U r human, u r not some all knowing god. U cannot get mad at someone for jus reporting what they saw, where u there too?, so how could u possibly say they didn't see that they thought they saw. </blockquote><br />
R: Wait, can you just do that sentence one more time?<br />
<br />
S&E: No<br />
<blockquote>Their just reporting it. This world is full of secrets and jus because it seems mundane doesn't mean its fake. Another thing. if hundreds of people AROUND THE WORLD r seeing something (bigfoot, ufos, ghost), then it ''has'' to be true. Not every situation was a hoax r the product of an over active mind. all I'm saying is WE R ALL HUMANS u have the same brain as me, u r not the god who created this world, therefore u cannot say confidently that something's not there, when it obviously is. </blockquote><br />
<br />
(sound clip of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman – Full Metal Jacket)"Holy jesus!"<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B?: Thanks for that email, Melvin <br />
<br />
E: Thank you Gunnery Sergeant Hartman<br />
<br />
R: Thanks Melvin, it's good to hear from you<br />
<br />
S: Thank you. All say 'thanks Melvin' <br />
<br />
E: Keep on listening!<br />
<br />
J: Honestly, let's honestly answer the email. Because if the guy-<br />
<br />
S: That's what we're gonna do!<br />
<br />
R: How? It's gonna take us all day. I think that's one good example of '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum argument from popularity]'. He said that, you know, if hundreds of people around the world believe in something, then it has to be true. But that is not correct because, you know, think about it this way: entire countries think that other entire countries should be obliterated off the map, and that doesn't make it ''true''.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, or millions of people, ''billions'' sometimes, hold beliefs that are mutually exclusive to beliefs that other millions of people believe. So, either one or both of those groups of millions of people ''have'' to be wrong.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, and look at all the people that bought the Milli Vanilli albums.<br />
<br />
S: That's true!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: They all believed they were really singing, they were wrooong<br />
<br />
B: There's a lotta '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man straw men]', he keeps throwing around tons of 'straw men'<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: Like "there's no Bigfoot because I've never ''seen'' it", "you can not get mad at someone for just reporting what they ''saw''", "not every situation was a hoax, or the product of an overactive mind". It's a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dichotomy false dichotomy],<ref>SGU 5x5 episode 54 [[5X5 Episode 54|Skepticism 101 - False Dichotomy]]</ref> I mean it's ''full'' of this stuff. <br />
<br />
S&B: There's a lotta 'straw men'.<br />
<br />
B: Mischaracterisations of what our arguments are, he's not even paying ''attention''!<br />
<br />
S: Right, so first of all, we ''don't'' say 'there is no Bigfoot, there are no aliens visiting the Earth, there are no ghosts'. What we say is there's no evidence compelling acceptance or belief in any of those things, the people who say that there ''is'' Bigfoot, have not met anywhere ''near'' a reasonable burden of proof.<br />
<br />
R: The invisible pink unicorn ''could'' exist, we are simply agnostic as to its existence.<br />
<br />
S: Right, where it's unfalsifiable, we're agnostic, if it's a scientific proposition, they haven't met the burden of proof, or the burden of evidence. And therefore, we do not accept it as an established or a proven scientific hypothesis, given the current state of evidence. But hey, if someone actually did find a Bigfoot body, and it stood up to peer review<br />
<br />
R: And it wasn't a costume <!--reference to Bigfoot costume hoax --><br />
<br />
S: It ''wasn't'' a costume <br />
<br />
R: Sold by hoaxters<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: We'd accept compelling evidence as compelling<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, and add to it, we'd actually be excited about it!<br />
<br />
S: Sure<br />
<br />
R: That would be mega-cool!<br />
<br />
B: I don't know, it would smash my world view, and I would deny it to my dying day.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Well only if Bigfoot wasn't riding atop a magical unicorn.<br />
<br />
E: Or a sacred cow<br />
<br />
S: Now hang on, there's some other logical fallacies in here, the challenge is in finding all of them.-<br />
<br />
R: Oh, we're not done yet, are we?<br />
<br />
S: You guys are just picking the low-hanging fruit.<br />
<br />
R: Alright, alright, alright. Well there's an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance argument from ignorance], saying that we can't say that it doesn't exist because we're not gods who created everything and everything.<br />
<br />
S: Right, that's good, it's an argument from ignorance, he's basically saying that because we don't have perfect infinite knowledge, that we therefore have no knowledge, that we can't make ''any'' factual judgments about what's likely to be true or not likely to be true, scientifically. And I'll say that, you know, we don't know ''for sure'', because we're not god, that Bigfoot doesn't exist, therefore, Bigfoot exists. And we should also then adhere to the argument ad populum, that other people say that they believe it, so that's enough.<br />
<br />
E: Well there's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem ad hominem] attacks all over the place.<br />
<br />
S: Oh yeah, 'pussies'<br />
<br />
R: Well, yeah, and not all of us are 'mofos', technically, only Jay.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, actually, I'm a proud mofo.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah<br />
<br />
J: That one didn't bother me.<br />
<br />
S: He also implies that, you know, the only way to assess someone's eye-witness testimony is to be an eye-witness ourselves, <br />
<br />
E: Wrong<br />
<br />
S: When in fact, you can assess eye-witness testimony by putting it into context. And also if you're -<br />
<br />
J: There are court rooms all over the world do that every day<br />
<br />
S: (laughs) Right, we're just saying there's more than one hypothesis. If somebody claims they saw a flying-saucer, there's multiple hypotheses you can derive from that. One is that they saw a flying saucer, but another one is that they were mistaken, or they're lying, or they were simply confusing a more mundane object, or their memory was contaminated by the testimony of another person. There's lots of-<br />
<br />
E: Or the alcohol they drank.<br />
<br />
S: They were in a compromised condition, sleep-deprived or drunk, or whatever. There's ''lots'' of hypotheses, and we want all- you know, any good scientist should consider ''all'' of them, and accept the ones that are most supported by the evidence, and also, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor Occam's razor], you don't accept the one that requires the introduction of a major new assumption, that we're being visited by aliens, when you haven't ruled out the far more likely, simple ones.<br />
<br />
R: Bigfoot<br />
<br />
S: Right, the guy simply made a mistake, or maybe he's pulling your leg. That's all, so<br />
<br />
J: I think Melvin's email actually, as poorly written as it is and everything, and he's got a negative attitude and he's just like sounding off at us. It's not that far away from where a lot of people stand. I think a lot of people ''agree'' with this.<br />
<br />
S: You're absolutely right, Jay, and that's what, even though, yeah, we're kinda poking fun at Melvin, partly because of his atrocious grammar and the way he constructed this email. But in fact, the same arguments, he's poorly constructed it, but these same logical fallacies, and these same arguments are the absolute bread and butter of the true-believers, or the anti-skeptics. We hear this ''all'' the time, the 'you don't know everything', equating 'not having infinite knowledge' with having 'no knowledge', the argument from ignorance, the appeal to popularity. We encounter these on a daily basis when confronting people who believe things that are not supported by the scientific evidence. So, we're not just attacking an easy target, this is absolutely bread and butter anti-skepticism.<br />
<br />
J: And I would take it one step further and ask Melvin, if he's listening: write us back, pick any topic that you mention in here, like Bigfoot as an example, and we'll have a real email exchange discussion about it. I promise to do that. If you wanna have a discussion, I'll tell you everything I think, and you can tell me everything you think, and we'll just vet it out over time without swearing at each other. Or at least keeping it down<br />
<br />
R: Eh<br />
<br />
S: And also, my advice to, just generic advice to people who are going to send a ranting email, actually the title of the email was 'rant', so Melvin knew this was a rant. But, if you're gonna do that, make a ''real'' effort to understand the position of the person you're disagreeing with. That's ''always'', generically, a good idea. Because there's nothing more worthless than arguing against a position that the other person doesn't even hold, because then you're just completely wasting your time, and all you're really declaring is 'I don't understand what's going on, I didn't take the time to even understand your position. I'm arguing against a "straw man"', basically that's the only thing you're accomplishing. Well, let's go on to our interview.<br />
<br />
== Interview with Ben Goldacre <small>(40:18)</small> ==<br />
(jingle)<br />
<br />
S: Ok, we're sitting here now with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Goldacre Ben Goldacre],Ben, welcome to the Skeptics' Guide<br />
<br />
BG: Hi<br />
<br />
S: You run a website in the UK called 'Bad Science', is it .net?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, [http://www.badscience.net/ BadScience.net], available all around the world!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Tell us about that<br />
<br />
R: The world-''wide'' web, Steve<br />
<br />
S: Oh yeah, I keep forgetting<br />
<br />
BG: (mocking) 'Ah yes, you're from the United Kingdom'. (normal voice) Well, it's a sort of mixture of my columns in the Guardian and other bits and bobs that I come across, and it's- maybe about sort of a quarter of it is about quackery, and most of it is about bad science reporting in mainstream media. I don't know if that's as much a problem in the US as it is in the UK.<br />
<br />
S: It's ''more'' of a problem in the US than the UK<br />
<br />
BG: Is that right? (laughs) I mean, in the UK, there have been some phenomenal bogus scare stories. I mean, there was one about theMRSA 'killer bacteria' that was essentially a bogus lab that was giving bogus results to undercover journalists, and of course the media's MMR hoax in the UK. Which I think you're about to get a run of in the US, with the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal thiomersal] thing, which is going to be very interesting.<br />
<br />
S: Well we're already- that's already passed its peak, the thimerosal (common name for thiomersal in US)<br />
<br />
BG: Do you think so?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, well, it was removed, you know, from vaccines in the United States by the end of 2002<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, but –<br />
<br />
S: Autism hasn't gone up<br />
<br />
BG: But the media storm didn't seem to start until what, this year, really. There was that case-<br />
<br />
S: It had a resurgence because of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_McCarthy Jenny McCarthy],<ref>Jenny McCarthy body count [http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com website]</ref> and Jim Carrey, and because of the mitochondrial DNA case<ref>Neurologica article: [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/has-the-government-conceded-vaccines-cause-autism/ Has the Government Conceded Vaccines Cause Autism?]</ref>. Yeah, so in the UK, I think the MMR was a bigger story. Thimerosal was bigger in the United States.<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: Is that still big over there? The MMR, are they still-<br />
<br />
BG: It's dwindling, the Observer did a bogus front page story about how autism was now up to one in 58, basically misunderstanding an unpublished piece of research which was looking at comparing different ways of measuring the prevalence of autism. So obviously, if you use the widest net, then you get the biggest number. But what I actually find interesting about vaccine scare is how poorly they propagate between different territories. So for example, in the UK we had the 'MMR causes autism' because of the measles virus, that was the scare, and that was mostly, that kind of peaked in 2001, 2002. But it didn't propagate outside of the UK. In America, you have your thiomersal scare, in France, they have a story about the hepatitis-B vaccine causing multiple sclerosis, but nobody's heard of that outside of France. In the UK in the 80s, we had 'whooping cough vaccine causing neurological problems' driven by ''one'' fairly eccentric doctor from Scotland, and obviously in Nigeria at the moment in Kano province, the imams have issued a pronouncement saying that the polio vaccine is a plot by the Americans to make Muslims infertile and stop them from having children.<ref>PlosMedicine article: [http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0040073#pmed-0040073-b0017 What Led to the Nigerian Boycott of the Polio Vaccination Campaign?]</ref><br />
<br />
S: And spread HIV.<br />
<br />
BG: Is that part of the scare as well?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: Oh no, yeah, you're absolutely right, yeah. And, you know, what's interesting about that, I ''guess'', is the WHO's polio medication program was on target to eradicate polio from around the world by now. But it's not, and people have, you know, you can do [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction PCR] on polio outbreaks around the world and they've found that the specific polio virus from Nigeria, from Kano province, has triggered outbreaks of polio elsewhere in the world. It's very interesting to me how these vaccine scares are all, you know, structurally quite similar, but they propagate very poorly, and I don't think the thiomersal scare could take off in the UK, just because the MMR story has been debunked in the UK. So, it would seem ridiculous to the media- it just wouldn't fit the natural tempo of the stories to then suddenly go 'oh no, but it does, actually cause these problems'<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, right<br />
<br />
R: So does that mean you think you're pretty much past the worst of all of those kind of stories in the UK? Or do you think there's another one on the horizon?<br />
<br />
BG: Certainly not, and actually for very interesting reasons, definitely not. If you look at France and Austria, you can see that they've come very close to electing, in the case of Austria, they ''did'' elect some seriously sort of right-wing fruitcakes, you know, bordering on fascism. Whereas in Germany, where they had to face up to what they did in World War II, there was a kind of truth and reconciliation process, and they have kind of green and liberal governments. There's no way, I don't think that Germany could re-elect a fascist government. I think that you have to go through the process of recognizing where you've gone wrong, in order to stop going wrong in the future. What I find fascinating about the termination of the MMR hoax, in the UK, is that it came to an end, not because the media suddenly went 'well actually, a 12 subject case series report isn't sufficient grounds to say that MMR causes autism'. It wasn't because they made a kind of critical appraisal of ''all'' of the literature for and against and went 'well actually, it just doesn't look like MMR causes autism, this was a storm in a tea-cup'. It came to an end because an investigative journalist called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Deer Brian Deer], for whom I've got a lot of respect, from the Sunday Times came along and revealed that the lead doctor who was driving the story had received half a million pounds, a million dollars, in legal sort of, you know, expert witness costs. And so he had, one could argue, a competing interest there. Now, I don't think for one moment that that's the reason why [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield Wakefield] held the views that he held, and I don't think that one man can drive a story. But now the media are all queued up to say 'oh, the original research has been debunked', when the original research was a 12 subject case series report that never meant anything about anything. And they're saying 'oh, you know, the MMR story has been disproven because Andrew Wakefield had half a million quid', so they're all queuing up to blame this one doctor for the hoax that was the media's work.<br />
<br />
S: (agreeing) mm-hmm<br />
<br />
BG: Collectively, the British media community have created this story, and they drove it for many, many years. And the fact that they're now trying to pin it on one doctor, I have to say, I'm not a big ''fan'' of Wakefield, but I think it's very healthy that there are, you know, doctors with idiosyncratic views on medicine, I think it's an absolute bizarre travesty that they're pinning it all on him.<br />
<br />
B: So they're all right, but for the wrong reasons?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, I think that's why they're not inoculated against future cock-ups<br />
<br />
R: Well, you're doing a lot to help media, scientific literacy amongst the media in the UK, but do you ever think they'll get that realisation? Do you ever think they'll finally realise what they're doing wrong?<br />
<br />
BG: I don't think you can stop people from producing stupid stories, but I think you can add some sense into the mix. So often, when I talk, people say- I do lots of talks in epidemiology departments and some medical statisticians, just cos the jokes can be a bit more interesting and sophisticated that way.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And people are often outraged, and they say 'well we need some laws to- these people need to be- we should be able to chop the fingers off bad journalists', and I just don't think it's realistic. But what you ''can'' do, is approach newspapers, and I just rang one up one day and said, you know, 'can I write for you?', and they said yes. You know, there's no great mystery, I think you can add in more sense to dilute the nonsense, or at least give people an opportunity to see some sense. Cos otherwise, unless people who understand the evidence get in there and explain the mechanics of why it is that you hold a belief on the back of some published evidence, then science, at least in Britain, is only being portrayed as being about authoritative truth statements from arbitrary cultural figures called scientists in white coats, you know, "scientists today said-", "scientists today deny-", "scientists today refuted-". But it's never, you know, "scientists today said 'well, there's this study, and it shows this, and for ''that'' reason, we think this'". That ''doesn't'' happen<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
BG: And by adding that into the mix, you do something very powerful<br />
<br />
S: And the Wakefield story reflects that, because it was about the authority of Wakefield, and when that was knocked down, the story was knocked down. Not about the evidence and the logic of whether or not there's any link between vaccines and autism.<br />
<br />
BG: It was about the authority of Wakefield, but it was also about human interest versus these white coat guys saying 'there's nothing to worry about'. So on one hand you had a worried parent, and on the other side you had a scientist saying, you know 'there's nothing to worry about', and that wouldn't reassure ''me''!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: You know, it would look like a cover-up, or it would look dismissive<br />
<br />
S: Right, so like us, you're using new media blogs to try to fight this bad journalism in the UK. How do you think that's going? How much play does your blog get?<br />
<br />
BG: It gets a lot of visitors, and it gets a lot of links, and the thing that's most exciting is there are lots of other people who are now blogging in the UK who do a really, really great job of pulling apart just sort of silly bit and bobs, but it's great when there's this kind of mass effect. Cos somebody will publish a tedious 'memory of water' paper, you know, homeopathy, and you'll be like, I can't be bothered to pull this apart. But someone somewhere will, you know, that burning sense of 'someone ''somewhere'' is wrong on the internet, I must put them right!'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And that's ''fantastic''. The only thing that disappoints me a little bit, I guess, is that I'm not as agitated about quackery as some people are, you get a lot of quite sanctimonious stuff from people kinda saying 'homeopathy is this public health ''scandal'' ', and I don't think that's true. I think homeopathy is really interesting, I think it's a really fascinating cultural phenomenon. I think it's really interesting that at a time when doctors are trying really hard to work collaboratively with patients, explain evidence with them and make decisions in concert with their patients, I think it's a tragedy that while doctors are trying to do that, quacks and the media are really kind of undermining the public's understanding of evidence. But I don't think that quackery is ''practically'' really dangerous, I think it's funny and interesting. I think it's interesting that there's a lot of bloggers who are keen to pick up on mocking quacks, which is funny, and it's great, and it produces great content. The thing that I wish that there was more of, is people taking down bogus news stories, because ''that's'' the thing that needs to be done so much more, because that's kind of the more culturally influential end of stuff, you know?<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
BG: But, I guess they're not such easy hits or, yeah, I don't know why it is.<br />
<br />
S: Well, the news cycle is quick, you've got to do it very quickly. Right? You find a new story hits, you've got to get your blog that day or you're going to get missed by the news cycle.<br />
<br />
BG: I ''guess'' so, although I'm not sure that's true, actually. I mean, I'm often cheerfully writing on things a couple of weeks after they've gone, but that's because I'm just smug enough to imagine that I can stand outside of the news thing. I actually think that's really interesting example of one of the more subtle aspects of how the media misrepresents science. I don’t think science makes a very good ''news'' subject, I think science is naturally a feature subject, because it's about emerging themes supported by a whole raft of evidence from a number of different disciplines that emerges over the course of many years. When you focus all your science reporting about a news story, a sudden breakthrough, a ''single'' piece of research, that's actually quite misrepresenting in a subtle way. Firstly because the stuff that makes a finding newsworthy, actually make it quite likely to be wrong, you know, it's incongruent with previous results, for example. And so it misrepresents stuff in that way. Obsessing over stuff being ''newsy'' is actually a bit of a mistake, I think people who are communicating science should feel cool with just sitting back and going 'what do we know about functional brain imaging and schizophrenia? There's a really interesting story there'<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
BG: It doesn't have to be ''new''<br />
<br />
S: I totally agree, I think the news cycle and the obsession with the story is really antithetical to the way science really works, which is taking your time and putting it together into the big picture. Often times I think you do that well, and that's we try to do, sort of take the news story and back up now into context, which is what the journalists ''don't'' do, right?<br />
<br />
BG: Well, sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't, I think there's a really interesting split in certain British news media, which has been studied quite carefully, which is: specialist health and science reporters are actually very good at their job, they know a lot of background, they know how to critically appraise research, and they will often make a fairly good stab at doing that with their articles, as long as they can get it past the desk. But what you find is, whenever a story becomes a big, political hot potato, whenever it becomes a big news story, like the MMR vaccine, or the GM food, the 'Frankenstein' food front pages of 1998, you find that the stories get taken out of the hands of the specialists, and put into the hands of the generalists, so the MMR story, especially after the question became 'did Tony Blair's son have the MMR vaccine?' – a fact that was mentioned in 33% of the news stories about MMR in 2002, when Andrew Wakefield's name was only in 25%, so Tony Blair's son was a bigger figure in our media coverage than Andrew Wakefield was. What you find is that, also, when there's a big story like MMR, also MMR was twice as likely to be written about by generalist journalists as a story about cloning, for example. And in the first two days after the Frankenstein food story hit the news stands, not a single one of the news or comment pieces in the ''entirity'' of the British news media, was written by a science columnist.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, that's definitely a big problem. Ben, you have a book coming out based on your blog, why don't you tell us about that?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, it's called '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Science_%28book%29 Bad Science]', maintaining brand homogeneity. And that's coming out with Fourth Estate, Harper Collins in September, and it should be very good, although it's very, very UK-centric, because I write about misrepresentation of science in the media, and the media I know very well is UK media. And I have this huge raft of examples from a ''thousand'' stories now, that's not an estimate, that's like, the number. And I've kinda been able to- it kinda grew out of this bet with a friend where, like, we both teach epidemiology, and I was like 'I bet I could teach the whole of epi' – or epidemiholiday As the medical students call it=<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Epidemiholiday?<br />
<br />
BG: 'I bet I can teach the whole of epi, only using exaples of people getting things wrong in broadsheet national news papers'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And it turned out to be true, but what I'd really like, actually, is to get a better handle on the ways that science is misrepresented in the media in America, cos it would be great to branch out and I'm not mercenary about selling the book, I accept that I will lead a life of obscurity in academia in a rented ex-council flat-<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: I fear that would be a volume of books if you attempted to do that, not just a single book.<br />
<br />
BG: Right, that would be like Churchill's history of World War I<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: But, I'm telling you, following your blog, that the examples are completely applicable to the United States, I think they'd be very-<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, well, actually, if there are people out there listening who know about this stuff, what I'd really like – ben@badscience.net - what I'd really like is for people to send me sort of examples from American media that mirror the cock-ups in British media. Are we allowed to say cock-ups in a Christian country?<br />
<br />
R: Oh, we're allowed to say it ''twice'', gosh<br />
<br />
BG: Have I said cock twice?<br />
<br />
E: You British are allowed to say anything you want<br />
<br />
R: That's three now.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Alright, well sometimes the stories are the same, like I think you covered the regenerating finger story.<ref>Ben Goldacre's Guardian article: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may/03/medicalresearch.health The missing finger that never was]</ref><br />
<br />
BG: That was hilarious! I mean that was-<br />
<br />
S: And we covered that too, <!--internal reference???--><br />
<br />
R: Yeah, that was great<br />
<br />
BG: Out of nowhere, and it was like three years old too<br />
<br />
S&R: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: But it was the BBC who reignited that story! And again, it was not a science or health correspondent, it was the BBC's New York correspondent, and you could see he was like, he was ''beside himself'' with excitement.<ref>BBC article & video: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7354458.stm The man who grew back his finger tip]</ref> He really thought he had found Nobel prize winning stuff with this, like, backwards guy in his model shop, who's finger had grown back. And he, this sense of holy reverence as he talked about the science, was just extraordinary, and just disproportionate to the reality, which was that, lop the top of your finger off and it just grows back, that's just nature<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it healed naturally<br />
<br />
R: It just happens<br />
<br />
S: You're hawking your brother's new product.<br />
<br />
BG: New company, yeah<br />
<br />
R: I should tell him about the holes for my earrings that closed up after I didn't wear earrings for a while.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: I mean, it's really interesting that there's this recurring theme in all of these stories in bad science and the media, and also in quackery, where we're sort of bringing all these childish fables, we're letting them take the credit for the amazing things that the body does, you know. Like when people were bringing in that placebo pill, and I'm like, I'm in sort of two minds about the ethics of giving placebos, I think it might be useful in ''some'' situations, but giving placebos to kids when they've got a cold, and I kinda think 'well, ok, you wanna tell your kid a reassuring story: here's a pill, you'll get better'. But how more empowering is it to say 'look, at the moment, there's this small, ''tiny'' microscopic organism that's gone into your body, it's called a virus, and it's really clever. What it does, is it exploits the machinery in your body that makes new parts for you, and it uses that to make copies of itself, and also it releases these other things that irritate the other parts of your body, and that's why you've got a cough and a sore throat, but your body's really clever, because on the surface of every cell, is holding out copies of all the stuff that's happening inside, and the immune system cells are floating around, and they have a look at what's in every cell by looking at this stuff that's being held out on the surface. And when they see something that's alien like that, they go in and they call all of their friends who arrive, following like a smoke trail to the source of the fire, along a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemotaxis chemotactic] path, and then they go in, and they find the bad guys, and they wrap them up in, like, a little ball, and they squirt beach at them, and they kill them'. Now that, to me, why is that a sugar pill?<br />
<br />
J: I finally understand!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: Why let a sugar pill take credit for that? It's just insane, you know, and why let a ''healer'' take credit for that. But why let some magic powder take credit for the totally amazing fact that, if you cut the top of your finger off, it grows back like ''new'', I mean ''that'', that's a miracle, you know!<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: Quite apart from the fact that in the stories they were sort of talking about powder made out of (mystically) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endothelial_cells ''endothelial'' cells]!<br />
<br />
E,B&S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: As if like-<br />
<br />
S: It's some exotic thing, pig's bladder<br />
<br />
BG: No, it was (laughing)<br />
<br />
BG&S: 'extra-cellular matrix'<br />
<br />
BG: and it was like 'and these are made of 'extra-cellular matrix', and you're like extra-cellular matrix surrounds the cells of every single cell in all of the bodies of all of the people in the world, extra-cellular, you know, there's ''more'' extra-cellular matrix in the world than you could shake a stick at.<br />
<br />
J: That's like 'the super spectacular!'<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: 'Space-age technology', that's 50 years old!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Well, Ben, we certainly appreciate what you're doing, we love your blog and your articles for the Guardian, I fell like we're just getting started, maybe we'll have a chance to sit down again, if not here, some time in the future.<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, cool<br />
<br />
S: And thanks again for sitting with us.<br />
<br />
R: Thanks, Ben<br />
<br />
BG: Cheers, thank you.<br />
<br />
== Randi Speaks: The Media <small>(59:20)</small> ==<br />
(jingle) And now, Randi speaks.<br />
<br />
S: Randi, tell us how you think the media deals with issues of science and skepticism.<br />
<br />
JR: Rather badly, generally speaking, because the media is interested in a sensational story. Well, they say they want news, but they want ''sensationa''l news. You know very well that puppy dog down a sewer is going to get much more attention than some political hack in the local community, unless he has something to do with puppies going down sewers. The media's that way, and it's understandable, they want to sell newspapers and programs and wot-not. I've said it before and I'll say it again: most people in the media are educated in the humanities, and they don't have a good grasp of science and reality, and how things work. They're very easily deceived, they're very na&iuml;ve in some respects, and they're purposefully na&iuml;ve perhaps because they want the story to be there. Now, an excellent example of that on a very high level is an ABC TV program that I did, I guess last year. They got me all the way in to New York city to discuss the '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo%C3%A3o_de_Deus_%28medium%29 John of god]' situation. Now, 'John of god' is a so-called psychic healer and wot-not in Brazil, and he's doing very simple tricks that, kind of what people have known for a long time, sticking sticks up your nose and wot-not, and he actually sticks forceps up the patients' noses. I went armed for bear, I went to New York City, and they stuck me in the studio in front of a video camera. I had with me video tapes, props and wot-not, and I spoke with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Qui%C3%B1ones John Qui&ntilde;ones], he was the host on the show. They interviewed me for two and a half hours, ''two and a half hours'' they interviewed me! <br />
<br />
I was on with a man called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehmet_Oz Dr Mehmet Oz], a very, very famous cardiac surgeon in New York city, a great reputation, but totally woo-woo. He actually has nurses specially trained in the art of balancing the aura, walking around in his ''operating room'' while he's got a patient on the table with his chest cavity open and his heart being fixed! And Mehmet Oz will throw up his hands when told by the nurse that she's coming through to balance the aura by passing her hands over it! Incredible! Incredible that a man in this day and age, let alone a very highly educated man like Mehmet Oz, would be involved in such quackery! Such absolute foolishness, such a juvenile approach to reality. But, nonetheless, he is a great cardiac surgeon, and I would trust myself to him ''any'' time. (quietly and suspiciously) As long as he kept the woman with the funny gloves out of the place. (in normal voice) But, he was on the program as well, it ended up that the program used nine seconds of what I said. Nine seconds out of two and a half hours. They didn't use any other recorded material, any other references to the video tapes with demonstrations of how the forceps up the nose trick is done, as I say, it's an old carnival stunt. But they used a great deal of Mehmet Oz, they used quotations from him, and he even said something – for a Dr, very foolish – he said that sticking up the nose came close to certain glands in the head and wot-not, but he didn't notice – because he doesn't operate on the head, I guess, that there's a half-inch layer of ''bone'' in between where the forceps go up. Now, is it supposed to be a magnetic influence? A proximity influence? A (inaudible, cubosity?) effect? I don't know, but he mentioned that as a possibility. He really is a woo-woo artist. Unfortunately, with all of that education and very extensive training and great expertise. <br />
<br />
So they used all of nine seconds, but they used it so unfairly, they had me saying – and this took nine seconds, "there are no greater liars in the world than quacks, except for their patients". Now, that was broadcast like that, but the complete quotation was "As that early American philosopher [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin Ben Franklin] once said, there are no greater liars in the world than quacks, except for their patients". So, I was attributing it to Ben Franklin, but they cut that out, because that made it look as if I was stealing it from Ben Franklin. I got emails, Steve, from all over the world, saying "you're quoting Ben Franklin, you stole that! You should have attributed it to them". I did! But they edited it out, and they edited out the complete explanation of how the forceps up the nose trick was done, and the various other things that 'John of God' does. Now this is totally irresponsible, it borders on the criminal, because what that does, ABC television in a feature program had this number about 'John of God', and that, I'm sure, brought ''hundreds'' of Americans to travel off to Brazil and spend their hard-earned money on this quackery. And 'John of God', I'm sure, was very happy with it. And they never did a retraction of any kind.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(1:04:43)</small> ==<br />
(jingle)<br />
<br />
S: Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two genuine, and one fictitious. And then, my panel of skeptics tries to tell me which one they think is the fake. Are you guys ready for this week?<br />
<br />
B:…yes<br />
<br />
S: Here we go, number one: 'Astrophysicists have discovered the upper limit for the mass of a black hole'. Item number two: 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge'. And item number three 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells'. Bob, go first.<br />
<br />
B: (quietly) you ''bastard''<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: 'upper limit for the mass of a black hole', it does sound kinda bizarre, I mean, what's preventing a black hole from just getting bigger and bigger? Um, so on the surface, that doesn't sound right, if you think about it. Dinosaur dominance 'due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge', I mean, that makes sense on the surface, absolutely. A lot of evolution and whether you go extinct or not has to do with luck. That definitely can play a part, maybe that makes too much sense. 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells', that sounds pretty cool, and that would be awesome, I'm gonna say that's science. I'm gonna say that… that the dinosaur dominance being luck, that sounds a little fishy, I'm gonna say that that is fiction.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, Evan?<br />
<br />
E: Well, 'upper limit for the mass of a black hole'… I mean, there would have to be some kind of upper limit, wouldn't there? It's just a matter of discovering it, one would ''think'', but I'm not too sure about that. Dinosaurs having an advantage over contemporaries 'was due to luck'… yeah. But how were they able to determine that, you know, how do you equate 'luck' in a scientific context? I'm not quite sure ''really'' what's being said there. And then the 'improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells', sure, yes, finding out all kinds of new things about all stem cells these days, cutting edge science, totally plausible. So I'll agree with Bob that the dinosaur one is fiction.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: See now, I'm not so sure, because I'm pretty sure I read something about this, and that they actually found these skeletons of an elderly pack of velocoraptors, surrounded by a field of four-leafed clovers, and a small pile of rabbit's feet next to them. So, I believe that that's actually science, and I also think that a black hole should have an upper limit, cos otherwise, well, you know, that's too scary to compliment- er, contemplate. So I think that transplanting muscle stem cells, I don't think we're quite to the point where we can improve strength and performance doing that, and that sounds like, are we doing studies on humans with muscle stem cells? That doesn't seem like it's going to work, I don't know. I think that's fiction, so-<br />
<br />
S: Ok, alright? Jay?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, the upper limit to the black hole- the upper limit to the ''mass'' of a black hole, I would just assume that it make a lot of sense, like Evan said, for someone to sit down and run the math and be able to theoretically figure that our. 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge'. Mmm, that one seems … fishy to me for some reason, how could they determine it was just luck? I wonder how the fossil record could demonstrate that. And the last one, three 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells'. Yeah, you know, I think I would've heard this. If that happened, I think that it would be much bigger news, you know, definitely above the water line, or ''I'' would've read it, with the amount of reading I do on science news. I don't think that one is science, I think that one was altered by Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, so you all agree that 'Astrophysicists have discovered the upper limit for the mass of a black hole', correct?<br />
<br />
J,B&E: Yes<br />
<br />
S:Yeah, actually, ''this'' was the most counter-intuitive one for me when I first read it. This is science, and, you know, like Bob, my reaction was 'what would stop it from absorbing more mass? What would happen if a black hole reached it's upper limit, and then, you know, there was more material to suck in, what would happen?' Well, it turns out astrophysicists-<br />
<br />
B: More to it.<br />
<br />
S: -have calculated the theoretical upper limit for the mass of a black hole, it's a Yale astronomer in fact, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priyamvada_Natarajan Priyamvada Natarajan]. What (s)he suspects is, there's a mechanism that, as the black hole gets to about 10 billion solar masses-<br />
<br />
E: Wow<br />
<br />
S: -that any matter falling into it would cause the radiation away of an equal amount of mass. <ref name="Yale">Yale news: [http://news.yale.edu/2008/09/04/yale-astronomer-discovers-upper-mass-limit-black-holes Yale Astronomer Discovers Upper Mass Limit for Black Holes]</ref> So it reaches an equilibrium point, you know-<br />
<br />
J: baaahh (?)<br />
<br />
S: -evaporate or radiate away the same amount of mass that was pulled into it-<br />
<br />
B: Wait, but you're not talking about [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation Hawking radiation] though. ''My'' interpretation was that-<br />
<br />
S: No, no<br />
<br />
B: -you've got [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accretion_disc accretion disk] radiation<br />
<br />
S: Yes, that's right<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, that's a big difference. And my understanding, though, Steve, was that this isn't a hard rule. If you've got so much in-falling matter, you would reach a point where the radiation being generated by the heat of the accretion disk would actually blow away solar ma- any material that would've fallen into the black hole, so you gotta kinda like a soft limitation in that way. But if you've got a 10 billion solar mass black hole, and it bumps into a neutron star, or a smaller black hole, nothing's going to stop that from getting bigger than 10 billion-<br />
<br />
S: Well, see, I was not clear on that point from the article that I read. That was my question too.<br />
<br />
B: That was my understanding from reading some articles, and reading a lot of the comments from people who seem to know what they were talking about. What I know about black holes, what is going to stop it, to go above it if it's as I described.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, but the press release makes it sound like that's just one possible explanation, but that other things were used to derive this upper limit. You know, we might have to do some follow-up to try and sort that out, but that was exactly the question that I had: is that a ''hard'' limit? Or is it a ''soft'' limit? You seem to think that it was a soft limit, right?<br />
<br />
B: Absolutely<br />
<br />
S: And my interpretation was that this was a ''hard'' limit, and one of the mechanisms proposed for that would prevent the black hole from getting bigger than about 10 billion solar masses, but, interesting either way. So let's go on to number two: 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge', and Bob and Evan, you both said that this one was fiction.<br />
<br />
J: So it's down to Bob and Evan, and me and Rebecca, teaming up again<br />
<br />
S: Jay and Rebecca thought this one is science, and this one… is… ''science''!<br />
<br />
J: Ah-ha!<br />
<br />
(high-five sound)<br />
<br />
J: You guys suck.<br />
<br />
S: But you guys did ask-<br />
<br />
B: There goes my run.<br />
<br />
S: an excellent question, which is- 'how would-<br />
<br />
E: mofos<br />
<br />
S: -'how would they know?'. How would you even make this determination?<br />
<br />
E: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: I don't know, you dominate the planet for 200 million years, there's gotta be some competitive edge in there.<br />
<br />
E: Well explain what ''luck'' is, in this context.<br />
<br />
J: Talk to us, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Well, luck would be that there was an environmental change, and you ''happened'' to benefit from that change, as opposed to-<br />
<br />
B: Like ''humans'', mammals<br />
<br />
S: -you just out-competed, you out-competed your contemporaries. Now, what they did, was they, this is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_L._Brusatte Steve Brusatte] from Bristol University, department of Earth Sciences. And they looked at the species that were around early in the career of the dinosaurs. They found that the other major group at the time were the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crurotarsi crurotarsans], which were alligator-like reptiles. At that time, they were a more diverse group, with greater disparity, and actually were dominant over the early dinosaurs at their time. He said, if you were, you know, in the early [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triassic triassic], for example, and you looked at these two groups, you would predict, based upon their diversity, disparity and dominance, that the crurotarsans would have a much greater chance of dominating the future than the dinosaurs would.<ref name="SM">Science magazine: [http://www.sciencemag.org/content/321/5895/1485.short Superiority, Competition, and Opportunism in the Evolutionary Radiation of Dinosaurs] DOI: 10.1126/science.1161833</ref><ref name="SA">Scientific American: [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=was-the-dinosaurs-long-reign-a-fluke Was the Dinosaurs' Long Reign on Earth a Fluke?]</ref> So by any measure of 'who was winning', the crurotarsans seemed to be winning in terms of spreading into more ecosystems and, you know, having greater numbers, etc. But then two things happened, there was the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnian carnian]-norian event 228 million years ago, which caused a lot of extinctions, with both the dinosaurs and the crurotarsans survived that, but it did eliminate a lot of competition, and then 200 million years ago, there was the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triassic#Late_Triassic_extinction_event end Triassic extinction], which resulted from a period of significant global warming, increase in temperature, and the dinosaurs weathered the increase in temperature, and the crurotarsans didn't. But until that climate change occurred, the crurotarsans were out-competing the dinosaurs, if anything. So that's what they mean by luck, they just ''happened'' to benefit from a change in the climate when, if, all things being equal, they were not directly out-competing their contemporaries. Which means that number three: 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells' is fiction.<br />
<br />
B: Whatever.<br />
<br />
S: But what ''is'' true, is that they just identified what the muscle stem cell ''is''. They didn't really know which muscle was ''in fact'' the muscle stem cell.<br />
<br />
B: Crap, that's what I read.<br />
<br />
S: Yes, perhaps that's what you'd read. So, and it turns out to be the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myosatellite_cell satellite] cell which is a type of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progenitor_cells progenitor] cell that exists near the muscles, or in the muscle tissue, and, you know, in repair or exercise, etc. will generate new muscle tissue. But we haven't successfully transplanted muscle cells into people. That's not happened yet.<br />
<br />
J: (mimicking) Stem cells are made of people!<br />
<br />
B: Man, I hate when a vague memory of reading an article totally kills you<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I know, that's what got me<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, sucks to be you, Bob<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: You gotta stop reading, guys.<br />
<br />
J: So, Steve really is the bastard tonight<br />
<br />
B: Jay, you bastard, you ended the run I had, it was like a nine-winning streak run (actually 10). How long was your run?<br />
<br />
J: Four foot one<br />
<br />
E: Four foot one<br />
<br />
S: Well, congratulations Jay and Rebecca, good job.<br />
<br />
J: Yay! Rebecca!<br />
<br />
E: Yay!<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:16:28)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: Jay, do you have a quote for us this week?<br />
<br />
J: I have a quote this week from a man called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume David Hume], he lived 1711-1776, that was a pretty good year, wasn't it? And I'm always surprised when I read quotes from people that lived centuries ago, especially ones that are exceptionally logical or rational, maybe I'm skewed, or maybe just from reading quotes from a lot of very smart people during that time, I don't know. I'd like to know if I'm just thinking that they're overly rational for their time, or maybe people were more rational in the past.<br />
<br />
S: Well it was the age of enlightenment for a reason, Jay.<br />
<br />
J: David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, an economist, historian, and an important figure in western philosophy, and he said, or wrote:<br />
<blockquote>When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.</blockquote><br />
J: DAVID HUME! … I think this is also a good quote to go with Melvin's email to us. MELVIN LEE! (even louder) MELVIN LEE!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: CONFUSED LISTENER!<br />
<br />
R: Ok, the David Hume one didn't make me (inaudible – upset?)<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Right, just a quick reminder that October 10<sup>th</sup>, New York city is the New York city's skeptic's first annual anniversary event, they're going to have James Randi speak for them, and then October 11<sup>th</sup>, in Fairfield Connecticut, Perry's home town, we're going to have the first annual Perry DeAngelis memorial lecture!<br />
<br />
E,B&J: Yay!<br />
<br />
S: October 11<sup>th</sup>, noon to three at the Fairfield theatre company, we have the information on our message-board, and on our facebook page, and Jay, can we put that on the website? I know we're in the middle of the update and everything, but can we put that up?<br />
<br />
J: I will put it on the homepage<br />
<br />
S: ''and'' we have confirmed guests Steve Mirsky, from Scientific American-<br />
<br />
J: He's awesome<br />
<br />
S: -and Terence Hines-<br />
<br />
E: Nice<br />
<br />
S: -excellent skeptic and neuroscientist, and author of 'Pseudoscience and the paranormal', ain't it cool?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, he's a good dude<br />
<br />
S: Well, thank you all again for joining me this week<br />
<br />
(someone singing "going crazy"?)<br />
<br />
R: Thanks Steve<br />
<br />
E: Yes, it was good joining you<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Fun as always, and until next week, this is your Skeptics' guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
<br />
== Today I learned... ==<br />
*The first space shuttle, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Enterprise Enterprise] was unveiled by NASA on September 17th 1976. <br />
<br />
*September 19th is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day international talk like a pirate day].<br />
<br />
*In February 2006, astronomers using the Hubble space telescope spotted a mystery object that continually brightened for about 100 days, after which, it dimmed symmetrically for the next 100 days.<ref name="Barbary"/> The distance to the object has been said to be between 120 and 11 billion light years away, and does not match any object in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloan_Digital_Sky_Survey Sloan Digital Sky Survey] at the time of the podcast.<br />
<br />
*Church of England offered a formal apology to Darwin in September 2008! ([http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7613403.stm BBC article])<br />
<br />
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restless_legs_syndrome Restless leg syndrome]has been documented for over 100 years.<br />
<br />
*Astrophysicists at Yale have calculated the upper limit for the mass of a black hole, stating that as a black hole gets to about 10 billion solar masses, any subsequent matter falling into it would cause the radiation away of an equal amount of mass.<ref name="Yale"/><br />
<br />
*New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge. It is thought that global warming in the late Triassic era may have led to the extinction of the previously dominant [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crurotarsi crurotarsans], whilst the dinosaurs survived.<ref name="SM"/><ref name="SA"/> <br />
<br />
*The muscle stem cell is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myosatellite_cell satellite] cell which is a type of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progenitor_cells progenitor] cell that exist near the muscles, or in the muscle tissue, and will generate new muscle tissue in repair or exercise, etc.<br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation<br />
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}}</div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_165&diff=9631SGU Episode 1652015-02-06T00:22:50Z<p>Jason koziol: /* Interview with Ben Goldacre (40:18) */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Editing required<br />
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{{InfoBox <br />
|episodeNum = 165<br />
|episodeDate = 17<sup>th</sup> September 2008<br />
|episodeIcon = File:goldacre.jpg<br />
|rebecca = y<br />
|bob = y<br />
|jay = y<br />
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|guest1 = BG: [http://www.badscience.net/ Ben Goldacre]<br />
|guest2 = JR: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi James Randi]<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2008-09-17.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com//index.php/topic,14234.0.html<br />
|qowText = When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.<br />
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume David Hume]<br />
|}}<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.<br />
<br />
S: Hello, and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday September 17<sup>th</sup> 2008, and this is your host, Steven Novella, President of the [http://www.theness.com/ New England Skeptical Society]. Joining me this evening are Bob Novella,<br />
<br />
B: Hey everybody<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca Watson<br />
<br />
R: Hello, everyone<br />
<br />
S: Jay Novella<br />
<br />
J: Hey guys<br />
<br />
S: And Evan Bernstein<br />
<br />
E: Hi everyone, how's everyone doin' tonight?<br />
<br />
J: Good<br />
<br />
S: Good<br />
<br />
R: Great<br />
<br />
B: What's goin' on<br />
<br />
E: Good!<br />
<br />
== This Day in Skepticism <small>(0:36)</small> ==<br />
<br />
R: What's the day, Evan?<br />
<br />
E: 1976, the first space shuttle, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Enterprise Enterprise], unveiled by NASA.<br />
<br />
B: Ah, that's awesome<br />
<br />
E: Not launched, just unveiled<br />
<br />
S: Just unveiled?<br />
<br />
J: I remember being a kid, watching the TV, seeing a bunch of people standing on the tarmac, watching it be unveiled, then playing the theme to the Enterprise, you know, Star Trek.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
E: (laughs)<br />
<br />
J: Remember that?<br />
<br />
S: But I was devastated when I learned the Enterprise was never going to go into orbit.<br />
<br />
B: No <br />
<br />
J: What a gip!<br />
<br />
E: That's right<br />
<br />
B: Just a mock-up<br />
<br />
S: They should've saved the name for the first one to launch, not just the training module.<br />
<br />
R: I know a better day that's coming up, and that would be Friday, the 19<sup>th</sup>. You guys know what Friday is?<br />
<br />
J: Friday, um…<br />
<br />
S: September 19<sup>th</sup>?<br />
<br />
R: Uh-huh, you give up?<br />
<br />
B: Sorry<br />
<br />
S: The start of fall<br />
<br />
R: (complete with accent) Aaar, it's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day talk-like-a-pirate day]! Ye land-lubbers!<br />
<br />
B: Yes! How could I forget?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Didn't we just have that?<br />
<br />
J: That's a great day!<br />
<br />
E: Last year we mentioned that.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Aaaar<br />
<br />
B: It's an awesome day<br />
<br />
S: Has it been a year already?<br />
<br />
R: It has<br />
<br />
E: Aaaar, matey, it has.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Good thing we're not doing the podcast on Friday.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, can't we ''pretend''?<br />
<br />
B: Oh, the whole- the whole days as pirates?<br />
<br />
E: Today is talk like a ninja day<br />
<br />
S: Knock yourself out<br />
<br />
R: You can't talk like a ninja!<br />
<br />
S: Actually, ''today''-<br />
<br />
E: Sure you can,<br />
<br />
R: They just sneak up and stab you<br />
<br />
S: Today is international talk like a skeptic day<br />
<br />
B: Ha!<br />
<br />
R: (laughing) You made that up<br />
<br />
E: (with accent) I doubt that, har-har-har<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Well, we have an interview that we recorded at TAM 6 with Ben Goldacre coming up later in the show.<br />
<br />
B: Ben!<br />
<br />
R: That's aaaaar-some, Steve. I can't wait<br />
<br />
S: Ben is a cool guy. Our first new item is about Ben<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Ben Goldacre Defends Libel Case <small>(2:17)</small>===<br />
[http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=377 Neurologica: An Important Victory Against HIV Quackery]<br />
<br />
S: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Goldacre Ben Goldacre], who writes for the Guardian, and is one of the guys in the UK who's writing about science and medicine. He had written a piece about [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthias_Rath Matthias Rath], you guys familiar with this guy?<br />
<br />
R: Only in that I know he's a douche<br />
<br />
B: Er, no<br />
<br />
S: Right, he is a ''giant'' douche, he really is. So he has an organisation-<br />
<br />
R: (in the background) Am I gonna get sued for that?<br />
<br />
S: -that sells ''all kinds'' of snake oil, and what Ben wrote about was Rath selling vitamins in South Africa to AIDS victims, telling them ''not'' to take their anti-HIV medications, but instead, to take his vitamins. You know, there's an actual death count that you can attach to that kinda behaviour.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: So, Ben called him out on that. Now, Rath has a history of suing anyone who criticizes him, he has many, many lawsuits in many countries. You know, anyone who says that what he's doing is not legitimate, his response is to sue them.<br />
<br />
R: Including in South Africa where he's causing the most damage.<br />
<br />
S: Yes, South Africa, Germany, and again against the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian Guardian] and Ben Goldacre. And he's won some of those suits, unfortunately. But this, recently he had to withdraw his suit against the Guardian and Ben Goldacre ''and'' he's going to have to pay about half a million pounds in legal fees as a result as well. So that was a very good outcome. Of course, we all congratulate Ben on seeing that through, you know, it's obviously something that cuts very close to home. We spend a lot of our time dishing out very harsh criticism to a lot of people. Some of whom are heartless charlatans who will kill people if it lines their pockets, and who have a history of defending themselves by intimidating others with lawsuits and-<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, and you know, it's very different in England, where the laws aren't quite as much on the side of people who are making the statements, it's not quite on the side of free-speech as it is in the US.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
R: I think that, you know, we have a certain amount of protection going for us, but in the UK, it's fairly easy for someone to sue for libel slander, because once they do, the burden is on the defendant, as opposed to in the US, where the burden of proof is on the plaintive, and I am ''not'' a lawyer.<br />
<br />
S: No, that's correct. Although, in England, the one advantage in the UK, is that it's pretty standard, if you lose such a lawsuit, it's almost automatic that you pay the other side's legal fees. So that's the disincentive for frivolous lawsuits.<br />
<br />
R: Right, and so sure enough, he's had to cough up, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: These are ''critical'' victories for free-speech for sceptics everywhere who are trying to, you know, point out, especially this kind of really destructive behaviour. So, this is, I think, a very important victory. So, congratulations Ben!<br />
<br />
E: Good job, Ben<br />
<br />
R: Yay Ben!<br />
<br />
=== Hubble Finds Mystery Object <small>(5:20)</small>===<br />
[http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/newsblog/28244844.html?pageSize=0 Sky & Telescope article]<br />
<br />
S: The next news item, the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope Hubble] finds a mystery object that ''genuinely'' has astronomers ''baffled''<br />
<br />
R: Astronomers are baffled!<br />
<br />
S: They are<br />
<br />
J: They're baffled!<br />
<br />
S: They're generally baffled.<br />
<br />
E: are they flummoxed?<br />
<br />
S: And flummoxed.<br />
<br />
J: So what is it, Steve?<br />
<br />
S: Now, this is pretty interesting<br />
<br />
B: That's the question, Jay, it's- really nobody knows, according to a paper that's about to appear in the Astrophysical journal.<ref name="Barbary">Barbary et al. (2009) [http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/690/2/1358/ Discovery of an unusual optical transient with the hubble space telescope ] ApJ 690 1358 doi:10.1088/0004-637X/690/2/1358 </ref> Something extraordinary, never been seen before by astronomers appeared in 2006, so I was a little disappointed that it was two years ago, like, 'what? We're just hearing about this ''now''?'. But to this day, it is not known what the hell it was, or if it will ever appear again. It started with the Supernova Cosmology Project in February 2006 using Hubble, looking for Supernovae in February. A previously unknown object started getting brighter and brighter, and brighter, and it just did not stop. And this continued for about 100 days, at that point, it pretty much stopped getting brighter and bigger, and then just started to symmetrically dim for the next 100 days. So it was really, perfectly symmetrical light curve where the dimming is perfectly matched by the brightening in the beginning. The spectrum of light was also an enigma, the spectrum basically just shows the rainbow of colors from a light source, but also, of course, includes the non-visible light, like UV or radio. And ''typically'', these certain pieces of the spectrum are missing from a spectrum. And the lines that are missing shows you what elements must have been near the light source, or in the intervening space that absorbed it. So you've got these emission lines, but these emission lines made no sense.<br />
<br />
S: Don't you mean 'absorption lines'? Just to be clear, emission lines are different from absorption lines. Emission lines are when- are from the body itself that's glowing, absorption lines are from something intervening that's absorbing the light that was emitted.<br />
<br />
B: That's right, you were right. So this is a key deficit in our knowledge about this object, because if you can't determine what the elements are, what the arrangement of elements are in the spectrum, then you don't know how red-shifted the object is. That's one of the reasons why quasars were such a puzzle to astronomers early on, because quasars are so red-shifted, they're billions of light years distant, therefore, their red-shift is gargantuan, and it took a while for astronomers to realize 'wait a second, hydrogen's way over here, if it's way over here, it's gotta be immensely distant'. And that's gotta be one of the key insights that made them realize that these objects were so far away. So if we don't have this information, if we can't kinda get a picture of what's going on with the spectrum of this object, then you have no idea how far away this is. Is it in our galaxy?<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Is it in ''another'' galaxy? We don't know!<br />
<br />
J: Is that like a ball of hydrogen, or some hot-pocket of air, or expanding space somewhere?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: All we know is what we saw. It was some sort of stellar object that got brighter and brighter, like a Supernova, and then dimmed. But it was not typical of any other object that they've ever seen before.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they said it's specifically ''not'' a supernova.<br />
<br />
R: And if you were a pirate, would you call it a quasaaaaarrr?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: Quasaaaarr! Yes! Good one.<br />
<br />
E: No!<br />
<br />
R: I suspect that they call it quasaarrr<br />
<br />
S: That's not a (inaudible)<br />
<br />
B: We do have a range though, this thing must be within a certain range by other measurements, and one of them is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax parallax]. Parallax is the movement of one object due to movement of a foreground object, so if an object is close enough away, say less than 130 light years, you would see obvious parallax. We're not seeing that, so that means that this object is ''more'' than 130 light years away. So that's the ''bottom'' limit right there. So, what's the upper limit? Well, the only upper limit I came across for this thing has to do with hydrogen absorption. Because it's lacking hydrogen absorption in the spectrum, that means that it has to be less than 11 billion light years away. So our range is greater than 120 light years, less than 11 billion light years.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Nice range<br />
<br />
E: Oh, narrowed it down, that's great<br />
<br />
B: That's the best they've come up with in ''two years''. So, it could be anywhere in the intervening space.<br />
<br />
S: But interestingly, given that it could be- there's such a huge range for how far away it could be, they said that it's not ''in'' any known galaxy. So there's no galaxy, I guess, on that-<br />
<br />
B: I have a problem with that. I have a problem with that because there's been mention of this [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo%C3%B6tes Bo&ouml;tes constellation] they referred to, which is just a constellation of stars within our galaxy. But they refer to it as a void where there's really nothing around it for many light years, apparently. Now, there is a ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo%C3%B6tes_void Bo&ouml;tes super-void], it's a void, one of the biggest voids in the known universe, it's 250 million light years wide. Now I ''think'' they are possibly referring to this, they're saying that it's within this specific void. If it could be 130 light years away or 11 billion light years away, why do they think it's in a void 250 million light years across?<br />
<br />
S: I don't think it's ''just'' that, my reading was that it's not in any ''known'' galaxy, if it were in a galaxy, they're not seeing the galaxy that it's in.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, but why even mention this specific Bo&ouml;tes void or concept? Cos that, to me, just seems like a red herring.<br />
<br />
J: Bob, do we know if it's heading in a direction? Like, what direction it was moving in?<br />
<br />
B: No, there was no- you know, 200 days is not gonna be any- there wasn't really any discernable movement. Now, could it be a new type of Supernova? Scientists don't ''think'' so, there's a problem with that, because it doesn't match any of the known Supernova types and the brightening took much longer than normal, typically, Supernovas will brighten for 20 days, this one lasted for 100 days, and the spectrum didn't make any sense. The light curve should be asymmetrical for a Supernova, they fade more slowly than they brighten, it didn't make any sense.<br />
<br />
S: They also said it was ''not'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_microlensing microlensing]<br />
<br />
B: Right, the light curve doesn't match a microlensing event. Microlensing occurs when light is distorted as it travels over a gravitational source. They've ruled that out as well. It doesn't look like a quasar, I mean nothing that-<br />
<br />
R&E: Aaaarrr<br />
<br />
B: They put this spectrum through the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloan_Digital_Sky_Survey Sloan Digital Sky Survey] database, which has just a ''vast'' number of objects, and it didn't match anything in there. This is really quite a mystery and I-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, so this thing is probably a whole new class of object – which is cool!<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, some people have speculated that it's some sort of- because it's so symmetrical and blah, blah, blah that it could be-<br />
<br />
R: Aliens<br />
<br />
B: -some sort of sign from an intelligence, but obviously there's nothing that would really give you any confidence in that sort of conclusion. Not yet, anyway. But that would be interesting, if evidence pointed that way, but, man, I'm not counting on that at all.<br />
<br />
S: You don't think it's like a Death Star blowing up or something?<br />
<br />
B: They were talking about it in the comments.<br />
<br />
J: We would need so much more freakin evidence, you can't jump to ''that'', that's incredible<br />
<br />
B: No, that's ridiculous<br />
<br />
S: Well they thought that about pulsars when they first saw them, they were called LGM<br />
<br />
B: LGM, little green men, it was so regular<br />
<br />
E: Cos it was too regular, right? It could only have been created or something<br />
<br />
S: But sometimes, nature is really regular and symmetrical<br />
<br />
E: Aah, when nature is regular<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, you can't jump to an artificial hypothesis just because it's so symmetrical<br />
<br />
J: I'm pretty regular<br />
<br />
E: And symmetrical<br />
<br />
R: That's not what I heard<br />
<br />
=== Creationism in the UK <small>(13:00)</small>===<br />
[http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=376 Neurologica: Teaching Creationism in Schools]<br />
<br>[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4768820.ece TimesOnline article] (login required)<br />
<!-- dead link: http://www.cofe.anglican.org/darwin <br />
possible alternative: http://www.churchofengland.org/our-views/medical-ethics-health-social-care-policy/darwin.aspx<br />
--><br />
<br>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7613403.stm BBC article: Who are the British creationists?]<br />
<br />
S: Well, creationism is creeping into the UK, traditionally, the United States has had a problem with creationists trying to infiltrate public schools and etc. But now, apparently, it's becoming more of a problem in the United Kingdom. And this came to a head recently by comments made by reverend professor [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Reiss Michael Reiss] who was, until very recently, the Director of Education at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society Royal Society]. The Royal Society, I think is the ''oldest'' scientific institution and has a very important position in the UK science community. He made some controversial statements, and this is a quote from them<br />
<blockquote>An increasing percentage of children in the UK come from families that do not accept the scientific version of the history of the universe and the evolution of species. What are we to do with those children? My experience after having tried to teach biology for 20 years is if one simply gives the impression that such children are wrong, then they are not likely to learn much about the science that one really wants them to learn. I think a better way forward is to say to them 'look, I simply want to present you with the scientific understanding of the history of the universe and how animals and plants and other organisms evolved'.<ref>BBC news: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7612152.stm Call for creationism in science]</ref></blockquote><br />
S: He made other comments as well that really sparked a controversy over what ''exactly'' is this guy advocating? And because he's actually a literalist, not just a reverend, but a ''literalist'', a lot of people sort of had their eye on this guy, and were sort of waiting for this kind of thing to happen, this kind of controversy to crop up. So this, perhaps as much as anything else, is what lead to this incredible controversy, but ''I'' still have a hard time knowing ''really'' what this guy was advocating. <br />
<br />
R: Well, you know what the Society, a spokesman for the Society stepped forward and confirmed that, you know, what he was saying was inline with what they believed, and their exact quote was <br />
<blockquote>Our position is that if young people put forward a creationist perspective in the classroom, it should be discussed.<ref>Royal Society spokesperson statement &ndash; [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4760967.ece Times Online article] (login required)</ref></blockquote><br />
R: Their whole thing, they're talking about science, so we can assume they're talking about the science classroom, and it's kind of ridiculous just to put it like that. I mean, if you're going to talk about that subject, then let's be specific, ''how'' should it be discussed? Should it be discussed in terms of showing them that, for instance, a belief in god can be compatible with evolution? Or should you be telling them that there's no way in hell the Earth was created in six days?<br />
<br />
S: (agreeing) mm-hmm<br />
<br />
R: It's not very educational, it's not very helpful to just throw that out there like that. It sounds like a big case of covering of asses<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they definitely- the Royal Society put out ''clarifications'', 'quote-unquote', the next day saying 'creationism is ''not'' science, it should ''not'' be taught as science in the science classroom, and we whole-heartedly defend the teaching of evolution'. But this guy, Reiss, you know, he's just made other statements that were very, very squirly, for example, he said 'I do believe in taking seriously and respectfully the concerns of students who do not believe the theory of evolution, while still introducing them to it'. He also made some comments about treating creationism and ID, intelligent design, and evolution as different ''world-views''. So, you know, he's kinda dancing around this topic, and I think that, given that he's a literalist, and that he's making these squirly comments, it certainly ''seems'' like he's trying to squeeze in a little 'teach the controversy' through the back door there, just by saying 'we need to be respectful of the students, and we need to address their concerns and talk about creationism- oh, we believe in evolution, I'm not saying evolution is ''wrong'', but, you know, we really need to take- we can't just teach evolution, we have to address their concerns'<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it almost sounds like he's going for the catching more flies with honey defense, but-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
R: And there's something to be said for exploring different ways of reaching kids who are unfortunately growing up in households where their parents are ignorant of the basic tenants of science. And, you know, it ''is'' going to be difficult if they've been raised to believe in something wholly incompatible with what you're teaching them. You know, we ''do'' need to look at how we're teaching them. But to make a vague statement that just doesn't jibe at all with anything we're actually aiming for, and then to run away from it-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
R: Is kinda cowardly and suspicious.<br />
<br />
E: It's just a case of this person, I ''think'', trying to be somewhat politically correct, not taking a firm stance one way or the other, trying to please the most people possible with his statement to try and quell any controversy, it just did the opposite, apparently.<br />
<br />
J: He stepped down from his position too, ''because'' of the controversy.<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
R: He did, and the really cool thing is that he stepped down when British members of parliament stood up and said 'Hey, what the hell are you guys talking about? That's not science' and can you imagine that happening in the US, where an actual congress person steps up and bats somebody in line and defends science?<br />
<br />
B: No!<br />
<br />
J: No!<br />
<br />
R: It seems kind of foreign (laughs) So, I think that the UK kind of scores one on that point.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, although again this is in the context of increasing sort of insurgence of creationism into the UK, and increasing concerns. This controversy was all around the science blogosphere for the last week, the last few days, and some of the comments, like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PZ_Myers P. Z Myers] for example wrote a lot about this, and he said that 'you can teach students how we know the Earth isn't 6,000 years old. How we know there is common descent, you know, we know the Earth is 14 billion years old, etc, etc'. you can say ''historically'' they used to think this, you know 150 years ago, and this is how we- our thinking of our origins changed over time and developed with evidence. So, you can teach students everything students need to know about ''how'' science works, about how specific scientific beliefs came to be. But based upon what evidence, what logic. Without ever talking about a religious belief, or talking about creationism, you don't ''have'' to do that. I think that confronting something that is a ''religious'' belief in the science classroom is the wrong approach, you're better off saying 'in ''this'' classroom, we're talking about science, ''this'' is what science is. This is how scientists come to the conclusions that they come to. And you could achieve all of the objectives that Reiss claims he was really talking about, without respecting creationism as a world-view. That has no place in a science classroom. Some other things that have been going on, though, I don't know if this is a coincidence, but the Church of England, the C of E<br />
<br />
E: (with English accent) C of E<br />
<br />
S: Apologised to Darwin!<br />
<br />
R: I think that is-<br />
<br />
J: Now that blew my mind<br />
<br />
B: Ha!<br />
<br />
J: I can't believe that<br />
<br />
E: Did he accept?<br />
<br />
S: Good for them<br />
<br />
E: Did he accept?<br />
<br />
R: He couldn't accept, he was roasting in hell for his evil Darwinist ideas!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: (with English accent) So sorry, Darwin, sorry about that, old chap<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: So, yeah, they said it was basically the wrong thing to do, to basically oppress Darwin's views at the time. And, it turns out, that whole evolution thing was probably a good idea. Now, in response to that, the pope said 'yeah, evolution is fine, but we're not ''apologising'''. <br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: He ''refused'' to apologise.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: He basically said 'Oh, yeah?'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: 'You pansies in England can apologise to Darwin, the pope's not apologising to ''nobody'''. But, yeah, evolution's fine, you know, they<br />
<br />
J: The pope's tired<br />
<br />
S: Right, but the UK's got their own creationist museum now.<br />
<br />
R: (flatly) Good for them.<br />
<br />
J: It was just a matter of time<br />
<br />
E: Has the UK largely over the years been, not influenced by creationism, and it's only making some recent advances and strides?<br />
<br />
S: Yes, that's exactly correct, and it really has been, at least in the West, a US phenomenon. But now it is spreading to the UK.<br />
<br />
E: Do we know how much of it is influenced by Islam? Because the Islam population is on a great rise.<br />
<br />
S: That is a factor I know that Richard Dawkins has pointed that out as a factor, that they are creating ''faith'' schools, and teaching creationism from their religious perspective. Others have pointed to, you know, specifically political influence from the US have pointed to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Templeton_Foundation Templeton foundation], which is dedicated to-<br />
<br />
E: Oh yeah<br />
<br />
S: Connecting science and religion, and they have a lot of money behind that, so they give money to anybody who will-<br />
<br />
B: A million dollars, a million dollars a year to the person who does the most to join science and religion, right?<br />
<br />
R: I've seen rich people die and leave mansions to their ''cats'', and it's a better use of money than that prize.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, I agree<br />
<br />
J: and is it that general? The criteria is that general?<br />
<br />
S: Yes. The goal is for science to validate faith, that is the goal.<br />
<br />
E: So, is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Egnor Michael Egnor] in the running for that prize?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: I wouldn't be surprised.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, right?<br />
<br />
S: He definitely wants to intermingle those two<br />
<br />
R: You know who pirates' favourite scientist is?<br />
<br />
B: Oh boy,<br />
<br />
S: I can't wait to hear<br />
<br />
R: Daarrrrwin!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: Daarrrrwin<br />
<br />
B: Oh god<br />
<br />
J: Rebecca, get back on your medication as soon as possible.<br />
<br />
R: I ran out of gin!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: Keep up some rum, aarrr<br />
<br />
B: Keep it up, Rebecca, I'm loving it<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
== Questions and Emails <small>(22:52)</small> ==<br />
<big>Big Pharma</big><br />
<br />
S: Well, let's go on to your email, do you know what the first email's about?<br />
<br />
R: Daaarrrwin?<br />
<br />
E: It's about 15 sentences<br />
<br />
S: It's about 'big phaaaarrrma'!<br />
<br />
R&E: Phaarrrma!<br />
<br />
S: This one comes from Nick Vockrodt, from Arlington, Virgina. And he writes a very long email, I'm going to cut to the question: (see [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=165 show notes] for full email)<br />
<blockquote>My question is regarding "Big Pharma" and specifically [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibromyalgia fibromyalgia]-</blockquote><br />
R: I'm sorry, Steve, about big what?<br />
<br />
S: big phaarrrghma<br />
<br />
R: Thank you<br />
<blockquote>S: and specifically fibromyalgia I was discussing the pharmaceutical industry with a friend who claimed that diseases are-</blockquote><br />
J: What was that, Steve? Fibro- what?<br />
<br />
S: Alright, enough!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<blockquote>S: who claimed that diseases are being "made up" by drug companies for the sole purpose of creating a market for their medicines. He mentioned fibromyalgia as a perfect example, claiming it to be a disease that anyone can convince themselves they have. This sounded like what Dr. Novella describes as symptoms of life … I wasn't very familiar with the malady at the time to argue, but I tend to defend the pharmaceutical industry when faced with what sounds like a conspiracy theory. In my subsequent research, I found that there is some debate on it, but that the disease is generally accepted by the medical community as being "real".</blockquote><br />
S: Well, this is actually a complicated question because there's a few components to it. Let's take the first component of it: 'Does the pharma company make up diseases that they could then market their drugs for?'. I think there, in my opinion, the answer is a pretty unequivocal ''no''. The pharmaceutical industry in this country, regulated by the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_and_Drug_Administration FDA], when they market a drug, by definition, if you are marketing ''anything'' and claiming that it treats or cures or modifies a disease, it's regulated as a drug. Right, so things are regulated based on the kinds of claims that are made for them. But you don't get to make up your own diseases though, you know, to say that your drug is gonna treat something that you yourself get to make up, or that a ''company'' makes up. Companies are not in a position to ''create'' or will into existence a new disease. Things like fibromyalgia are- that is a diagnosis that emerged from the medical community. Now, I think that fibromyalgia is a very complicated disease entity that I have a lot of doubts about the way it's classified and diagnosed right now. First of all, it's not a disease, ''really'', even though-<br />
<br />
B: a syndrome?<br />
<br />
S: -it is recog- so what the-<br />
<br />
E: It's a 'condition'?<br />
<br />
S: Like for regulatory purposes, what the FDA will consider a disease is not necessarily what we would, in medicine, use the term specifically 'disease' for, meaning a pathophysiological entity. Sometimes there are clinical ''syndromes'', or a recognised entity, but we don't understand the pathophysiology, so it may be described purely by the clinical picture that it creates. So like 'chronic fatigue syndrome' is a syndrome, not really a disease. Fibromyalgia, I think, is better understood that way, although there are some thoughts about what might be ''causing'' it, it's actually not well understood. In fact, recent evidence suggests that a lot of people who have the symptoms of fibromyalgia may just be the symptoms of an underlying problem, like a sleep disorder. In fact, I think a lot of people who have the symptoms that are used to make the diagnosis fibromyalgia, actually have an underlying sleep disorder. Others may have an underlying anxiety disorder.<br />
<br />
J: Really?<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
J: Interesting<br />
<br />
S: And if you treat people for the sleep disorder, the fibromyalgia symptoms go away, so that's a pretty good indication. At least ''some'' of them. Other people may have a simmering auto-immune inflammation of the muscles. And that may be ''really''- if there ''is'' something that's really fibromyalgia, I think that's what it is. But a lot of people get similar symptoms for other reasons.<br />
<br />
J: Would you consider fibromyalgia kind of like a 'catch-all' for a bunch of different types of symptoms then?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think it's what we call a 'garbage-pail diagnosis', you know, you just get people who have symptoms in this area, then this is the label you attach to it. But there isn't any way to specifically say 'yes, this is a discrete pathological entity that they ''have'' '. I also see the diagnosis made on ''non-specific'' symptoms, without the specific symptoms that are supposed to be there. So if you are fatigued and achy, and etc., and you call that fibromyalgia, well that's just attaching a label to non-specific symptoms. You're supposed to have what we call 'trigger points', that are specific places in the muscles that are very tender. And if you have that pattern of 'trigger points' then I think it's ''meaningful'' to say 'well that pattern is called fibromyalgia. We still don't know what it is, we have some ideas, but that's the way we use the diagnosis'. If you call everybody who is fatigued and achey fibromylagia, then the diagnosis has no meaning. <br />
<br />
Now, I believe that the pharmaceutical industry has targeted fibromyalgia for a couple of drugs because it ''is'' such a easy diagnosis to make, because you can attach it to these vague symptoms, so I think if they're guilty of anything, it's choosing a marketable disease. But they didn't make it up, they weren't the ones to make it up. But that's just, you know, when pharmaceutical companies look for an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indication_%28medicine%29 indication] for their drug, that's based purely on marketing. They want to decide 'what's the biggest market? What drugs are going to sell the most? Which indication will allow us to speak to which specialty of physicians that we want to be able to market to?'. It's all really a marketing decision, of course the science has to be there as well. But often, with many drugs, there are different indications that you could go for. For example, if a drug treats pain, or treats nerve pain, now nerve pain is not a disease, so you have to pick a disease that causes nerve pain. Now, what diseases cause nerve pain are you gonna pick? Postherpetic neuralgia or diabetic neuropathy? They're gonna make a marketing decision, They're gonna choose the one with the biggest sales, the biggest marketing options for their drug, but again, they don't get to make up the disease. The other disease for which I hear this claim the most frequently is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restless_legs_syndrome restless leg syndrome] (RLS).<br />
<br />
E: Oh yeah<br />
<br />
S: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Carrey Jim Carrey] made that comment, that pharmaceutical made up restless leg syndrome in order to market a drug for it. Well, first of all, the drugs that have the indication for treating RLS, already have other indications, they were already on the market for legitimate indications, so it wasn't a way of rescuing a failed drug, that's a ''demonstrable'' myth. The other thing is, restless leg syndrom has existed in the medical literature for ''decades''. I was able to go onto my bookshelf and find an old neurology text with a ''40 year old'' reference to restless leg syndrome.<br />
<br />
E: Wow!<br />
<br />
S: 40 years before there was ever a drug marketed for it.<br />
<br />
E: Is that what they called it back then?<br />
<br />
S: Yes! Yes, and, in fact, if you dig deeper into the literature, the references go back even farther, ''and'' I forget what- it was known by other names even before the term restless leg syndrome came into being. So, yeah, it's basically like 100 years we've known that this has existed.<br />
<br />
J: (squeaky Irish voice?) 'Let me show you something'. (normal voice) A perfect example of why I ''don't'' wanna know what famous people think.<br />
<br />
(laughter) <br />
<br />
R: Right? At all<br />
<br />
E: Well, ''some''<br />
<br />
J: It ruined it for me, I ''loved'' that guy, now I have to hate him<br />
<br />
S: Oh, you do have to hate Jim Carrey, he is totally now on board with the anti-vaccinationist kooks.<br />
<br />
R: But he was so good in 'Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind'!<br />
<br />
S: He was<br />
<br />
B: (laughs)<br />
<br />
E: Sorry, so sorry.<br />
<br />
J: Oh well<br />
<br />
E: Move on<br />
<br />
S: Terrible, terrible, terrible.<br />
<br />
J: (singing) 'another one bites the dust'<br />
<br />
S: So, anyway, this is just unfounded conspiracy theories. Now, again, that doesn't mean that the pharmaceutical industry is ''not'' an industry that, they're not companies looking at their bottom line, and that the companies are beyond reproach. I'm not saying that, ''this'' notion that they make up diseases is nonsense. That is just made up conspiracy thinking.<br />
<br />
== Name That Logical Fallacy <small>(30:53)</small> == <br />
S: We do have a 'Name that logical fallacy' this week, we actually got our first piece of hard-core hate-mail in a long time. And it's just so chock-full of logical fallacies, I thought it would make good example for us to examine this week. So here we go, this one comes from Melvin Lee, who gives his-<br />
<br />
R: Melvin!... sorry<br />
<br />
S: Melvin<br />
<br />
J: Melvins!<br />
<br />
(Laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Gives his location as America. Thanks for being helpful. Now, Melvin writes (all indented quotes taken from [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=165 show notes] as written):<br />
<blockquote>I think that u and all those mofos on that show are full of shit. </blockquote><br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Wait, can you say that? You can't say that on the show.<br />
<br />
(inaudible)<br />
<br />
J: Steve-<br />
<br />
E: Should you say 'mofo'? <br />
<br />
<blockquote>S: How can u honestly say NO! there is no bigfoot just because I've never seen it, NO! crop circles aren't real because I'm obviously the creator of this world and I know EVERYTHING about. </blockquote><br />
(laughter)<br />
<blockquote>U pussies or just.......ugh, words can't describe how I feel about u guys. WHO R U-</blockquote><br />
<br />
S: Now, you also have to- we'll obviously publish the-<br />
<br />
R: All the "are"s are just the letter, all the "you"s are<br />
<br />
S: Capital 'R', capital 'U', " WHO R U"<br />
<br />
R: Melvin, actually ''texted'' this to us, it took him 16 texts<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: You know, if you're ''gonna'' write a critical email-<br />
<br />
R: Cost him 35 cents<br />
<br />
S: -take the time to spell out the words<br />
<br />
E: You have to assume that the person crafting it ''can'' spell the words<br />
<br />
B: Nah, this is a young kid, this is just a kid. <br />
<blockquote>S: WHO R U to tell some that they didn't see something with their own eyes and what they saw was an illusion. plz reread over WHO R U. U r human, u r not some all knowing god. U cannot get mad at someone for jus reporting what they saw, where u there too?, so how could u possibly say they didn't see that they thought they saw. </blockquote><br />
R: Wait, can you just do that sentence one more time?<br />
<br />
S&E: No<br />
<blockquote>Their just reporting it. This world is full of secrets and jus because it seems mundane doesn't mean its fake. Another thing. if hundreds of people AROUND THE WORLD r seeing something (bigfoot, ufos, ghost), then it ''has'' to be true. Not every situation was a hoax r the product of an over active mind. all I'm saying is WE R ALL HUMANS u have the same brain as me, u r not the god who created this world, therefore u cannot say confidently that something's not there, when it obviously is. </blockquote><br />
<br />
(sound clip of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman – Full Metal Jacket)"Holy jesus!"<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B?: Thanks for that email, Melvin <br />
<br />
E: Thank you Gunnery Sergeant Hartman<br />
<br />
R: Thanks Melvin, it's good to hear from you<br />
<br />
S: Thank you. All say 'thanks Melvin' <br />
<br />
E: Keep on listening!<br />
<br />
J: Honestly, let's honestly answer the email. Because if the guy-<br />
<br />
S: That's what we're gonna do!<br />
<br />
R: How? It's gonna take us all day. I think that's one good example of '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum argument from popularity]'. He said that, you know, if hundreds of people around the world believe in something, then it has to be true. But that is not correct because, you know, think about it this way: entire countries think that other entire countries should be obliterated off the map, and that doesn't make it ''true''.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, or millions of people, ''billions'' sometimes, hold beliefs that are mutually exclusive to beliefs that other millions of people believe. So, either one or both of those groups of millions of people ''have'' to be wrong.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, and look at all the people that bought the Milli Vanilli albums.<br />
<br />
S: That's true!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: They all believed they were really singing, they were wrooong<br />
<br />
B: There's a lotta '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man straw men]', he keeps throwing around tons of 'straw men'<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: Like "there's no Bigfoot because I've never ''seen'' it", "you can not get mad at someone for just reporting what they ''saw''", "not every situation was a hoax, or the product of an overactive mind". It's a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dichotomy false dichotomy],<ref>SGU 5x5 episode 54 [[5X5 Episode 54|Skepticism 101 - False Dichotomy]]</ref> I mean it's ''full'' of this stuff. <br />
<br />
S&B: There's a lotta 'straw men'.<br />
<br />
B: Mischaracterisations of what our arguments are, he's not even paying ''attention''!<br />
<br />
S: Right, so first of all, we ''don't'' say 'there is no Bigfoot, there are no aliens visiting the Earth, there are no ghosts'. What we say is there's no evidence compelling acceptance or belief in any of those things, the people who say that there ''is'' Bigfoot, have not met anywhere ''near'' a reasonable burden of proof.<br />
<br />
R: The invisible pink unicorn ''could'' exist, we are simply agnostic as to its existence.<br />
<br />
S: Right, where it's unfalsifiable, we're agnostic, if it's a scientific proposition, they haven't met the burden of proof, or the burden of evidence. And therefore, we do not accept it as an established or a proven scientific hypothesis, given the current state of evidence. But hey, if someone actually did find a Bigfoot body, and it stood up to peer review<br />
<br />
R: And it wasn't a costume <!--reference to Bigfoot costume hoax --><br />
<br />
S: It ''wasn't'' a costume <br />
<br />
R: Sold by hoaxters<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: We'd accept compelling evidence as compelling<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, and add to it, we'd actually be excited about it!<br />
<br />
S: Sure<br />
<br />
R: That would be mega-cool!<br />
<br />
B: I don't know, it would smash my world view, and I would deny it to my dying day.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Well only if Bigfoot wasn't riding atop a magical unicorn.<br />
<br />
E: Or a sacred cow<br />
<br />
S: Now hang on, there's some other logical fallacies in here, the challenge is in finding all of them.-<br />
<br />
R: Oh, we're not done yet, are we?<br />
<br />
S: You guys are just picking the low-hanging fruit.<br />
<br />
R: Alright, alright, alright. Well there's an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance argument from ignorance], saying that we can't say that it doesn't exist because we're not gods who created everything and everything.<br />
<br />
S: Right, that's good, it's an argument from ignorance, he's basically saying that because we don't have perfect infinite knowledge, that we therefore have no knowledge, that we can't make ''any'' factual judgments about what's likely to be true or not likely to be true, scientifically. And I'll say that, you know, we don't know ''for sure'', because we're not god, that Bigfoot doesn't exist, therefore, Bigfoot exists. And we should also then adhere to the argument ad populum, that other people say that they believe it, so that's enough.<br />
<br />
E: Well there's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem ad hominem] attacks all over the place.<br />
<br />
S: Oh yeah, 'pussies'<br />
<br />
R: Well, yeah, and not all of us are 'mofos', technically, only Jay.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, actually, I'm a proud mofo.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah<br />
<br />
J: That one didn't bother me.<br />
<br />
S: He also implies that, you know, the only way to assess someone's eye-witness testimony is to be an eye-witness ourselves, <br />
<br />
E: Wrong<br />
<br />
S: When in fact, you can assess eye-witness testimony by putting it into context. And also if you're -<br />
<br />
J: There are court rooms all over the world do that every day<br />
<br />
S: (laughs) Right, we're just saying there's more than one hypothesis. If somebody claims they saw a flying-saucer, there's multiple hypotheses you can derive from that. One is that they saw a flying saucer, but another one is that they were mistaken, or they're lying, or they were simply confusing a more mundane object, or their memory was contaminated by the testimony of another person. There's lots of-<br />
<br />
E: Or the alcohol they drank.<br />
<br />
S: They were in a compromised condition, sleep-deprived or drunk, or whatever. There's ''lots'' of hypotheses, and we want all- you know, any good scientist should consider ''all'' of them, and accept the ones that are most supported by the evidence, and also, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor Occam's razor], you don't accept the one that requires the introduction of a major new assumption, that we're being visited by aliens, when you haven't ruled out the far more likely, simple ones.<br />
<br />
R: Bigfoot<br />
<br />
S: Right, the guy simply made a mistake, or maybe he's pulling your leg. That's all, so<br />
<br />
J: I think Melvin's email actually, as poorly written as it is and everything, and he's got a negative attitude and he's just like sounding off at us. It's not that far away from where a lot of people stand. I think a lot of people ''agree'' with this.<br />
<br />
S: You're absolutely right, Jay, and that's what, even though, yeah, we're kinda poking fun at Melvin, partly because of his atrocious grammar and the way he constructed this email. But in fact, the same arguments, he's poorly constructed it, but these same logical fallacies, and these same arguments are the absolute bread and butter of the true-believers, or the anti-skeptics. We hear this ''all'' the time, the 'you don't know everything', equating 'not having infinite knowledge' with having 'no knowledge', the argument from ignorance, the appeal to popularity. We encounter these on a daily basis when confronting people who believe things that are not supported by the scientific evidence. So, we're not just attacking an easy target, this is absolutely bread and butter anti-skepticism.<br />
<br />
J: And I would take it one step further and ask Melvin, if he's listening: write us back, pick any topic that you mention in here, like Bigfoot as an example, and we'll have a real email exchange discussion about it. I promise to do that. If you wanna have a discussion, I'll tell you everything I think, and you can tell me everything you think, and we'll just vet it out over time without swearing at each other. Or at least keeping it down<br />
<br />
R: Eh<br />
<br />
S: And also, my advice to, just generic advice to people who are going to send a ranting email, actually the title of the email was 'rant', so Melvin knew this was a rant. But, if you're gonna do that, make a ''real'' effort to understand the position of the person you're disagreeing with. That's ''always'', generically, a good idea. Because there's nothing more worthless than arguing against a position that the other person doesn't even hold, because then you're just completely wasting your time, and all you're really declaring is 'I don't understand what's going on, I didn't take the time to even understand your position. I'm arguing against a "straw man"', basically that's the only thing you're accomplishing. Well, let's go on to our interview.<br />
<br />
== Interview with Ben Goldacre <small>(40:18)</small> ==<br />
(jingle)<br />
<br />
S: Ok, we're sitting here now with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Goldacre Ben Goldacre],Ben, welcome to the Skeptics' Guide<br />
<br />
BG: Hi<br />
<br />
S: You run a website in the UK called 'Bad Science', is it .net?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, [http://www.badscience.net/ BadScience.net], available all around the world!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Tell us about that<br />
<br />
R: The world-''wide'' web, Steve<br />
<br />
S: Oh yeah, I keep forgetting<br />
<br />
BG: (mocking) 'Ah yes, you're from the United Kingdom'. (normal voice) Well, it's a sort of mixture of my columns in the Guardian and other bits and bobs that I come across, and it's- maybe about sort of a quarter of it is about quackery, and most of it is about bad science reporting in mainstream media. I don't know if that's as much a problem in the US as it is in the UK.<br />
<br />
S: It's ''more'' of a problem in the US than the UK<br />
<br />
BG: Is that right? (laughs) I mean, in the UK, there have been some phenomenal bogus scare stories. I mean, there was one about theMRSA 'killer bacteria' that was essentially a bogus lab that was giving bogus results to undercover journalists, and of course the media's MMR hoax in the UK. Which I think you're about to get a run of in the US, with the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal thiomersal] thing, which is going to be very interesting.<br />
<br />
S: Well we're already- that's already passed its peak, the thimerosal (common name for thiomersal in US)<br />
<br />
BG: Do you think so?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, well, it was removed, you know, from vaccines in the United States by the end of 2002<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, but –<br />
<br />
S: Autism hasn't gone up<br />
<br />
BG: But the media storm didn't seem to start until what, this year, really. There was that case-<br />
<br />
S: It had a resurgence because of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_McCarthy Jenny McCarthy],<ref>Jenny McCarthy body count [http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com website]</ref> and Jim Carrey, and because of the mitochondrial DNA case<ref>Neurologica article: [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/has-the-government-conceded-vaccines-cause-autism/ Has the Government Conceded Vaccines Cause Autism?]</ref>. Yeah, so in the UK, I think the MMR was a bigger story. Thimerosal was bigger in the United States.<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: Is that still big over there? The MMR, are they still-<br />
<br />
BG: It's dwindling, the Observer did a bogus front page story about how autism was now up to one in 58, basically misunderstanding an unpublished piece of research which was looking at comparing different ways of measuring the prevalence of autism. So obviously, if you use the widest net, then you get the biggest number. But what I actually find interesting about vaccine scare is how poorly they propagate between different territories. So for example, in the UK we had the 'MMR causes autism' because of the measles virus, that was the scare, and that was mostly, that kind of peaked in 2001, 2002. But it didn't propagate outside of the UK. In America, you have your thiomersal scare, in France, they have a story about the hepatitis-B vaccine causing multiple sclerosis, but nobody's heard of that outside of France. In the UK in the 80s, we had 'whooping cough vaccine causing neurological problems' driven by ''one'' fairly eccentric doctor from Scotland, and obviously in Nigeria at the moment in Kano province, the imams have issued a pronouncement saying that the polio vaccine is a plot by the Americans to make Muslims infertile and stop them from having children.<ref>PlosMedicine article: [http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0040073#pmed-0040073-b0017 What Led to the Nigerian Boycott of the Polio Vaccination Campaign?]</ref><br />
<br />
S: And spread HIV.<br />
<br />
BG: Is that part of the scare as well?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: Oh no, yeah, you're absolutely right, yeah. And, you know, what's interesting about that, I ''guess'', is the WHO's polio medication program was on target to eradicate polio from around the world by now. But it's not, and people have, you know, you can do [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction PCR] on polio outbreaks around the world and they've found that the specific polio virus from Nigeria, from Kano province, has triggered outbreaks of polio elsewhere in the world. It's very interesting to me how these vaccine scares are all, you know, structurally quite similar, but they propagate very poorly, and I don't think the thiomersal scare could take off in the UK, just because the MMR story has been debunked in the UK. So, it would seem ridiculous to the media- it just wouldn't fit the natural tempo of the stories to then suddenly go 'oh no, but it does, actually cause these problems'<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, right<br />
<br />
R: So does that mean you think you're pretty much past the worst of all of those kind of stories in the UK? Or do you think there's another one on the horizon?<br />
<br />
BG: Certainly not, and actually for very interesting reasons, definitely not. If you look at France and Austria, you can see that they've come very close to electing, in the case of Austria, they ''did'' elect some seriously sort of right-wing fruitcakes, you know, bordering on fascism. Whereas in Germany, where they had to face up to what they did in World War II, there was a kind of truth and reconciliation process, and they have kind of green and liberal governments. There's no way, I don't think that Germany could re-elect a fascist government. I think that you have to go through the process of recognizing where you've gone wrong, in order to stop going wrong in the future. What I find fascinating about the termination of the MMR hoax, in the UK, is that it came to an end, not because the media suddenly went 'well actually, a 12 subject case series report isn't sufficient grounds to say that MMR causes autism'. It wasn't because they made a kind of critical appraisal of ''all'' of the literature for and against and went 'well actually, it just doesn't look like MMR causes autism, this was a storm in a tea-cup'. It came to an end because an investigative journalist called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Deer Brian Deer], for whom I've got a lot of respect, from the Sunday Times came along and revealed that the lead doctor who was driving the story had received half a million pounds, a million dollars, in legal sort of, you know, expert witness costs. And so he had, one could argue, a competing interest there. Now, I don't think for one moment that that's the reason why [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield Wakefield] held the views that he held, and I don't think that one man can drive a story. But now the media are all queued up to say 'oh, the original research has been debunked', when the original research was a 12 subject case series report that never meant anything about anything. And they're saying 'oh, you know, the MMR story has been disproven because Andrew Wakefield had half a million quid', so they're all queuing up to blame this one doctor for the hoax that was the media's work.<br />
<br />
S: (agreeing) mm-hmm<br />
<br />
BG: Collectively, the British media community have created this story, and they drove it for many, many years. And the fact that they're now trying to pin it on one doctor, I have to say, I'm not a big ''fan'' of Wakefield, but I think it's very healthy that there are, you know, doctors with idiosyncratic views on medicine, I think it's an absolute bizarre travesty that they're pinning it all on him.<br />
<br />
B: So they're all right, but for the wrong reasons?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, I think that's why they're not inoculated against future cock-ups<br />
<br />
R: Well, you're doing a lot to help media, scientific literacy amongst the media in the UK, but do you ever think they'll get that realisation? Do you ever think they'll finally realise what they're doing wrong?<br />
<br />
BG: I don't think you can stop people from producing stupid stories, but I think you can add some sense into the mix. So often, when I talk, people say- I do lots of talks in epidemiology departments and some medical statisticians, just cos the jokes can be a bit more interesting and sophisticated that way.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And people are often outraged, and they say 'well we need some laws to- these people need to be- we should be able to chop the fingers off bad journalists', and I just don't think it's realistic. But what you ''can'' do, is approach newspapers, and I just rang one up one day and said, you know, 'can I write for you?', and they said yes. You know, there's no great mystery, I think you can add in more sense to dilute the nonsense, or at least give people an opportunity to see some sense. Cos otherwise, unless people who understand the evidence get in there and explain the mechanics of why it is that you hold a belief on the back of some published evidence, then science, at least in Britain, is only being portrayed as being about authoritative truth statements from arbitrary cultural figures called scientists in white coats, you know, "scientists today said-", "scientists today deny-", "scientists today refuted-". But it's never, you know, "scientists today said 'well, there's this study, and it shows this, and for ''that'' reason, we think this'". That ''doesn't'' happen<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
BG: And by adding that into the mix, you do something very powerful<br />
<br />
S: And the Wakefield story reflects that, because it was about the authority of Wakefield, and when that was knocked down, the story was knocked down. Not about the evidence and the logic of whether or not there's any link between vaccines and autism.<br />
<br />
BG: It was about the authority of Wakefield, but it was also about human interest versus these white coat guys saying 'there's nothing to worry about'. So on one hand you had a worried parent, and on the other side you had a scientist saying, you know 'there's nothing to worry about', and that wouldn't reassure ''me''!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: You know, it would look like a cover-up, or it would look dismissive<br />
<br />
S: Right, so like us, you're using new media blogs to try to fight this bad journalism in the UK. How do you think that's going? How much play does your blog get?<br />
<br />
BG: It gets a lot of visitors, and it gets a lot of links, and the thing that's most exciting is there are lots of other people who are now blogging in the UK who do a really, really great job of pulling apart just sort of silly bit and bobs, but it's great when there's this kind of mass effect. Cos somebody will publish a tedious 'memory of water' paper, you know, homeopathy, and you'll be like, I can't be bothered to pull this apart. But someone somewhere will, you know, that burning sense of 'someone ''somewhere'' is wrong on the internet, I must put them right!'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And that's ''fantastic''. The only thing that disappoints me a little bit, I guess, is that I'm not as agitated about quackery as some people are, you get a lot of quite sanctimonious stuff from people kinda saying 'homeopathy is this public health ''scandal'' ', and I don't think that's true. I think homeopathy is really interesting, I think it's a really fascinating cultural phenomenon. I think it's really interesting that at a time when doctors are trying really hard to work collaboratively with patients, explain evidence with them and make decisions in concert with their patients, I think it's a tragedy that while doctors are trying to do that, quacks and the media are really kind of undermining the public's understanding of evidence. But I don't think that quackery is ''practically'' really dangerous, I think it's funny and interesting. I think it's interesting that there's a lot of bloggers who are keen to pick up on mocking quacks, which is funny, and it's great, and it produces great content. The thing that I wish that there was more of, is people taking down bogus news stories, because ''that's'' the thing that needs to be done so much more, because that's kind of the more culturally influential end of stuff, you know?<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
BG: But, I guess they're not such easy hits or, yeah, I don't know why it is.<br />
<br />
S: Well, the news cycle is quick, you've got to do it very quickly. Right? You find a new story hits, you've got to get your blog that day or you're going to get missed by the news cycle.<br />
<br />
BG: I ''guess'' so, although I'm not sure that's true, actually. I mean, I'm often cheerfully writing on things a couple of weeks after they've gone, but that's because I'm just smug enough to imagine that I can stand outside of the news thing. I actually think that's really interesting example of one of the more subtle aspects of how the media misrepresents science. I don’t think science makes a very good ''news'' subject, I think science is naturally a feature subject, because it's about emerging themes supported by a whole raft of evidence from a number of different disciplines that emerges over the course of many years. When you focus all your science reporting about a news story, a sudden breakthrough, a ''single'' piece of research, that's actually quite misrepresenting in a subtle way. Firstly because the stuff that makes a finding newsworthy, actually make it quite likely to be wrong, you know, it's incongruent with previous results, for example. And so it misrepresents stuff in that way. Obsessing over stuff being ''newsy'' is actually a bit of a mistake, I think people who are communicating science should feel cool with just sitting back and going 'what do we know about functional brain imaging and schizophrenia? There's a really interesting story there'<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
BG: It doesn't have to be ''new''<br />
<br />
S: I totally agree, I think the news cycle and the obsession with the story is really antithetical to the way science really works, which is taking your time and putting it together into the big picture. Often times I think you do that well, and that's we try to do, sort of take the news story and back up now into context, which is what the journalists ''don't'' do, right?<br />
<br />
BG: Well, sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't, I think there's a really interesting split in certain British news media, which has been studied quite carefully, which is: specialist health and science reporters are actually very good at their job, they know a lot of background, they know how to critically appraise research, and they will often make a fairly good stab at doing that with their articles, as long as they can get it past the desk. But what you find is, whenever a story becomes a big, political hot potato, whenever it becomes a big news story, like the MMR vaccine, or the GM food, the 'Frankenstein' food front pages of 1998, you find that the stories get taken out of the hands of the specialists, and put into the hands of the generalists, so the MMR story, especially after the question became 'did Tony Blair's son have the MMR vaccine?' – a fact that was mentioned in 33% of the news stories about MMR in 2002, when Andrew Wakefield's name was only in 25%, so Tony Blair's son was a bigger figure in our media coverage than Andrew Wakefield was. What you find is that, also, when there's a big story like MMR, also MMR was twice as likely to be written about by generalist journalists as a story about cloning, for example. And in the first two days after the Frankenstein food story hit the news stands, not a single one of the news or comment pieces in the ''entirity'' of the British news media, was written by a science columnist.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, that's definitely a big problem. Ben, you have a book coming out based on your blog, why don't you tell us about that?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, it's called '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Science_%28book%29 Bad Science]', maintaining brand homogeneity. And that's coming out with Fourth Estate, Harper Collins in September, and it should be very good, although it's very, very UK-centric, because I write about misrepresentation of science in the media, and the media I know very well is UK media. And I have this huge raft of examples from a ''thousand'' stories now, that's not an estimate, that's like, the number. And I've kinda been able to- it kinda grew out of this bet with a friend where, like, we both teach epidemiology, and I was like 'I bet I could teach the whole of epi' – or epidemiholiday As the students call it=<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Epidemiholiday?<br />
<br />
BG: 'I bet I can teach the whole of epi, only using exaples of people getting things wrong in broadsheet national news papers'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And it turned out to be true, but what I'd really like, actually, is to get a better handle on the ways that science is misrepresented in the media in America, cos it would be great to branch out and I'm not mercenary about selling the book, I accept that I will lead a life of obscurity in academia in a rented ex-council flat-<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: I fear that would be a volume of books if you attempted to do that, not just a single book.<br />
<br />
BG: Right, that would be like Churchill's history of World War I<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: But, I'm telling you, following your blog, that the examples are completely applicable to the United States, I think they'd be very-<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, well, actually, if there are people out there listening who know about this stuff, what I'd really like – ben@badscience.net - what I'd really like is for people to send me sort of examples from American media that mirror the cock-ups in British media. Are we allowed to say cock-ups in a Christian country?<br />
<br />
R: Oh, we're allowed to say it ''twice'', gosh<br />
<br />
BG: Have I said cock twice?<br />
<br />
E: You British are allowed to say anything you want<br />
<br />
R: That's three now.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Alright, well sometimes the stories are the same, like I think you covered the regenerating finger story.<ref>Ben Goldacre's Guardian article: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may/03/medicalresearch.health The missing finger that never was]</ref><br />
<br />
BG: That was hilarious! I mean that was-<br />
<br />
S: And we covered that too, <!--internal reference???--><br />
<br />
R: Yeah, that was great<br />
<br />
BG: Out of nowhere, and it was like three years old too<br />
<br />
S&R: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: But it was the BBC who reignited that story! And again, it was not a science or health correspondent, it was the BBC's New York correspondent, and you could see he was like, he was ''beside himself'' with excitement.<ref>BBC article & video: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7354458.stm The man who grew back his finger tip]</ref> He really thought he had found Nobel prize winning stuff with this, like, backwards guy in his model shop, who's finger had grown back. And he, this sense of holy reverence as he talked about the science, was just extraordinary, and just disproportionate to the reality, which was that, lop the top of your finger off and it just grows back, that's just nature<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it healed naturally<br />
<br />
R: It just happens<br />
<br />
S: You're hawking your brother's new product.<br />
<br />
BG: New company, yeah<br />
<br />
R: I should tell him about the holes for my earrings that closed up after I didn't wear earrings for a while.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: I mean, it's really interesting that there's this recurring theme in all of these stories in bad science and the media, and also in quackery, where we're sort of bringing all these childish fables, we're letting them take the credit for the amazing things that the body does, you know. Like when people were bringing in that placebo pill, and I'm like, I'm in sort of two minds about the ethics of giving placebos, I think it might be useful in ''some'' situations, but giving placebos to kids when they've got a cold, and I kinda think 'well, ok, you wanna tell your kid a reassuring story: here's a pill, you'll get better'. But how more empowering is it to say 'look, at the moment, there's this small, ''tiny'' microscopic organism that's gone into your body, it's called a virus, and it's really clever. What it does, is it exploits the machinery in your body that makes new parts for you, and it uses that to make copies of itself, and also it releases these other things that irritate the other parts of your body, and that's why you've got a cough and a sore throat, but your body's really clever, because on the surface of every cell, is holding out copies of all the stuff that's happening inside, and the immune system cells are floating around, and they have a look at what's in every cell by looking at this stuff that's being held out on the surface. And when they see something that's alien like that, they go in and they call all of their friends who arrive, following like a smoke trail to the source of the fire, along a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemotaxis chemotactic] path, and then they go in, and they find the bad guys, and they wrap them up in, like, a little ball, and they squirt beach at them, and they kill them'. Now that, to me, why is that a sugar pill?<br />
<br />
J: I finally understand!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: Why let a sugar pill take credit for that? It's just insane, you know, and why let a ''healer'' take credit for that. But why let some magic powder take credit for the totally amazing fact that, if you cut the top of your finger off, it grows back like ''new'', I mean ''that'', that's a miracle, you know!<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: Quite apart from the fact that in the stories they were sort of talking about powder made out of (mystically) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endothelial_cells ''endothelial'' cells]!<br />
<br />
E,B&S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: As if like-<br />
<br />
S: It's some exotic thing, pig's bladder<br />
<br />
BG: No, it was (laughing)<br />
<br />
BG&S: 'extra-cellular matrix'<br />
<br />
BG: and it was like 'and these are made of 'extra-cellular matrix', and you're like extra-cellular matrix surrounds the cells of every single cell in all of the bodies of all of the people in the world, extra-cellular, you know, there's ''more'' extra-cellular matrix in the world than you could shake a stick at.<br />
<br />
J: That's like 'the super spectacular!'<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: 'Space-age technology', that's 50 years old!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Well, Ben, we certainly appreciate what you're doing, we love your blog and your articles for the Guardian, I fell like we're just getting started, maybe we'll have a chance to sit down again, if not here, some time in the future.<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, cool<br />
<br />
S: And thanks again for sitting with us.<br />
<br />
R: Thanks, Ben<br />
<br />
BG: Cheers, thank you.<br />
<br />
== Randi Speaks: The Media <small>(59:20)</small> ==<br />
(jingle) And now, Randi speaks.<br />
<br />
S: Randi, tell us how you think the media deals with issues of science and skepticism.<br />
<br />
JR: Rather badly, generally speaking, because the media is interested in a sensational story. Well, they say they want news, but they want ''sensationa''l news. You know very well that puppy dog down a sewer is going to get much more attention than some political hack in the local community, unless he has something to do with puppies going down sewers. The media's that way, and it's understandable, they want to sell newspapers and programs and wot-not. I've said it before and I'll say it again: most people in the media are educated in the humanities, and they don't have a good grasp of science and reality, and how things work. They're very easily deceived, they're very na&iuml;ve in some respects, and they're purposefully na&iuml;ve perhaps because they want the story to be there. Now, an excellent example of that on a very high level is an ABC TV program that I did, I guess last year. They got me all the way in to New York city to discuss the '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo%C3%A3o_de_Deus_%28medium%29 John of god]' situation. Now, 'John of god' is a so-called psychic healer and wot-not in Brazil, and he's doing very simple tricks that, kind of what people have known for a long time, sticking sticks up your nose and wot-not, and he actually sticks forceps up the patients' noses. I went armed for bear, I went to New York City, and they stuck me in the studio in front of a video camera. I had with me video tapes, props and wot-not, and I spoke with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Qui%C3%B1ones John Qui&ntilde;ones], he was the host on the show. They interviewed me for two and a half hours, ''two and a half hours'' they interviewed me! <br />
<br />
I was on with a man called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehmet_Oz Dr Mehmet Oz], a very, very famous cardiac surgeon in New York city, a great reputation, but totally woo-woo. He actually has nurses specially trained in the art of balancing the aura, walking around in his ''operating room'' while he's got a patient on the table with his chest cavity open and his heart being fixed! And Mehmet Oz will throw up his hands when told by the nurse that she's coming through to balance the aura by passing her hands over it! Incredible! Incredible that a man in this day and age, let alone a very highly educated man like Mehmet Oz, would be involved in such quackery! Such absolute foolishness, such a juvenile approach to reality. But, nonetheless, he is a great cardiac surgeon, and I would trust myself to him ''any'' time. (quietly and suspiciously) As long as he kept the woman with the funny gloves out of the place. (in normal voice) But, he was on the program as well, it ended up that the program used nine seconds of what I said. Nine seconds out of two and a half hours. They didn't use any other recorded material, any other references to the video tapes with demonstrations of how the forceps up the nose trick is done, as I say, it's an old carnival stunt. But they used a great deal of Mehmet Oz, they used quotations from him, and he even said something – for a Dr, very foolish – he said that sticking up the nose came close to certain glands in the head and wot-not, but he didn't notice – because he doesn't operate on the head, I guess, that there's a half-inch layer of ''bone'' in between where the forceps go up. Now, is it supposed to be a magnetic influence? A proximity influence? A (inaudible, cubosity?) effect? I don't know, but he mentioned that as a possibility. He really is a woo-woo artist. Unfortunately, with all of that education and very extensive training and great expertise. <br />
<br />
So they used all of nine seconds, but they used it so unfairly, they had me saying – and this took nine seconds, "there are no greater liars in the world than quacks, except for their patients". Now, that was broadcast like that, but the complete quotation was "As that early American philosopher [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin Ben Franklin] once said, there are no greater liars in the world than quacks, except for their patients". So, I was attributing it to Ben Franklin, but they cut that out, because that made it look as if I was stealing it from Ben Franklin. I got emails, Steve, from all over the world, saying "you're quoting Ben Franklin, you stole that! You should have attributed it to them". I did! But they edited it out, and they edited out the complete explanation of how the forceps up the nose trick was done, and the various other things that 'John of God' does. Now this is totally irresponsible, it borders on the criminal, because what that does, ABC television in a feature program had this number about 'John of God', and that, I'm sure, brought ''hundreds'' of Americans to travel off to Brazil and spend their hard-earned money on this quackery. And 'John of God', I'm sure, was very happy with it. And they never did a retraction of any kind.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(1:04:43)</small> ==<br />
(jingle)<br />
<br />
S: Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two genuine, and one fictitious. And then, my panel of skeptics tries to tell me which one they think is the fake. Are you guys ready for this week?<br />
<br />
B:…yes<br />
<br />
S: Here we go, number one: 'Astrophysicists have discovered the upper limit for the mass of a black hole'. Item number two: 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge'. And item number three 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells'. Bob, go first.<br />
<br />
B: (quietly) you ''bastard''<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: 'upper limit for the mass of a black hole', it does sound kinda bizarre, I mean, what's preventing a black hole from just getting bigger and bigger? Um, so on the surface, that doesn't sound right, if you think about it. Dinosaur dominance 'due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge', I mean, that makes sense on the surface, absolutely. A lot of evolution and whether you go extinct or not has to do with luck. That definitely can play a part, maybe that makes too much sense. 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells', that sounds pretty cool, and that would be awesome, I'm gonna say that's science. I'm gonna say that… that the dinosaur dominance being luck, that sounds a little fishy, I'm gonna say that that is fiction.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, Evan?<br />
<br />
E: Well, 'upper limit for the mass of a black hole'… I mean, there would have to be some kind of upper limit, wouldn't there? It's just a matter of discovering it, one would ''think'', but I'm not too sure about that. Dinosaurs having an advantage over contemporaries 'was due to luck'… yeah. But how were they able to determine that, you know, how do you equate 'luck' in a scientific context? I'm not quite sure ''really'' what's being said there. And then the 'improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells', sure, yes, finding out all kinds of new things about all stem cells these days, cutting edge science, totally plausible. So I'll agree with Bob that the dinosaur one is fiction.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: See now, I'm not so sure, because I'm pretty sure I read something about this, and that they actually found these skeletons of an elderly pack of velocoraptors, surrounded by a field of four-leafed clovers, and a small pile of rabbit's feet next to them. So, I believe that that's actually science, and I also think that a black hole should have an upper limit, cos otherwise, well, you know, that's too scary to compliment- er, contemplate. So I think that transplanting muscle stem cells, I don't think we're quite to the point where we can improve strength and performance doing that, and that sounds like, are we doing studies on humans with muscle stem cells? That doesn't seem like it's going to work, I don't know. I think that's fiction, so-<br />
<br />
S: Ok, alright? Jay?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, the upper limit to the black hole- the upper limit to the ''mass'' of a black hole, I would just assume that it make a lot of sense, like Evan said, for someone to sit down and run the math and be able to theoretically figure that our. 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge'. Mmm, that one seems … fishy to me for some reason, how could they determine it was just luck? I wonder how the fossil record could demonstrate that. And the last one, three 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells'. Yeah, you know, I think I would've heard this. If that happened, I think that it would be much bigger news, you know, definitely above the water line, or ''I'' would've read it, with the amount of reading I do on science news. I don't think that one is science, I think that one was altered by Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, so you all agree that 'Astrophysicists have discovered the upper limit for the mass of a black hole', correct?<br />
<br />
J,B&E: Yes<br />
<br />
S:Yeah, actually, ''this'' was the most counter-intuitive one for me when I first read it. This is science, and, you know, like Bob, my reaction was 'what would stop it from absorbing more mass? What would happen if a black hole reached it's upper limit, and then, you know, there was more material to suck in, what would happen?' Well, it turns out astrophysicists-<br />
<br />
B: More to it.<br />
<br />
S: -have calculated the theoretical upper limit for the mass of a black hole, it's a Yale astronomer in fact, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priyamvada_Natarajan Priyamvada Natarajan]. What (s)he suspects is, there's a mechanism that, as the black hole gets to about 10 billion solar masses-<br />
<br />
E: Wow<br />
<br />
S: -that any matter falling into it would cause the radiation away of an equal amount of mass. <ref name="Yale">Yale news: [http://news.yale.edu/2008/09/04/yale-astronomer-discovers-upper-mass-limit-black-holes Yale Astronomer Discovers Upper Mass Limit for Black Holes]</ref> So it reaches an equilibrium point, you know-<br />
<br />
J: baaahh (?)<br />
<br />
S: -evaporate or radiate away the same amount of mass that was pulled into it-<br />
<br />
B: Wait, but you're not talking about [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation Hawking radiation] though. ''My'' interpretation was that-<br />
<br />
S: No, no<br />
<br />
B: -you've got [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accretion_disc accretion disk] radiation<br />
<br />
S: Yes, that's right<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, that's a big difference. And my understanding, though, Steve, was that this isn't a hard rule. If you've got so much in-falling matter, you would reach a point where the radiation being generated by the heat of the accretion disk would actually blow away solar ma- any material that would've fallen into the black hole, so you gotta kinda like a soft limitation in that way. But if you've got a 10 billion solar mass black hole, and it bumps into a neutron star, or a smaller black hole, nothing's going to stop that from getting bigger than 10 billion-<br />
<br />
S: Well, see, I was not clear on that point from the article that I read. That was my question too.<br />
<br />
B: That was my understanding from reading some articles, and reading a lot of the comments from people who seem to know what they were talking about. What I know about black holes, what is going to stop it, to go above it if it's as I described.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, but the press release makes it sound like that's just one possible explanation, but that other things were used to derive this upper limit. You know, we might have to do some follow-up to try and sort that out, but that was exactly the question that I had: is that a ''hard'' limit? Or is it a ''soft'' limit? You seem to think that it was a soft limit, right?<br />
<br />
B: Absolutely<br />
<br />
S: And my interpretation was that this was a ''hard'' limit, and one of the mechanisms proposed for that would prevent the black hole from getting bigger than about 10 billion solar masses, but, interesting either way. So let's go on to number two: 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge', and Bob and Evan, you both said that this one was fiction.<br />
<br />
J: So it's down to Bob and Evan, and me and Rebecca, teaming up again<br />
<br />
S: Jay and Rebecca thought this one is science, and this one… is… ''science''!<br />
<br />
J: Ah-ha!<br />
<br />
(high-five sound)<br />
<br />
J: You guys suck.<br />
<br />
S: But you guys did ask-<br />
<br />
B: There goes my run.<br />
<br />
S: an excellent question, which is- 'how would-<br />
<br />
E: mofos<br />
<br />
S: -'how would they know?'. How would you even make this determination?<br />
<br />
E: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: I don't know, you dominate the planet for 200 million years, there's gotta be some competitive edge in there.<br />
<br />
E: Well explain what ''luck'' is, in this context.<br />
<br />
J: Talk to us, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Well, luck would be that there was an environmental change, and you ''happened'' to benefit from that change, as opposed to-<br />
<br />
B: Like ''humans'', mammals<br />
<br />
S: -you just out-competed, you out-competed your contemporaries. Now, what they did, was they, this is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_L._Brusatte Steve Brusatte] from Bristol University, department of Earth Sciences. And they looked at the species that were around early in the career of the dinosaurs. They found that the other major group at the time were the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crurotarsi crurotarsans], which were alligator-like reptiles. At that time, they were a more diverse group, with greater disparity, and actually were dominant over the early dinosaurs at their time. He said, if you were, you know, in the early [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triassic triassic], for example, and you looked at these two groups, you would predict, based upon their diversity, disparity and dominance, that the crurotarsans would have a much greater chance of dominating the future than the dinosaurs would.<ref name="SM">Science magazine: [http://www.sciencemag.org/content/321/5895/1485.short Superiority, Competition, and Opportunism in the Evolutionary Radiation of Dinosaurs] DOI: 10.1126/science.1161833</ref><ref name="SA">Scientific American: [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=was-the-dinosaurs-long-reign-a-fluke Was the Dinosaurs' Long Reign on Earth a Fluke?]</ref> So by any measure of 'who was winning', the crurotarsans seemed to be winning in terms of spreading into more ecosystems and, you know, having greater numbers, etc. But then two things happened, there was the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnian carnian]-norian event 228 million years ago, which caused a lot of extinctions, with both the dinosaurs and the crurotarsans survived that, but it did eliminate a lot of competition, and then 200 million years ago, there was the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triassic#Late_Triassic_extinction_event end Triassic extinction], which resulted from a period of significant global warming, increase in temperature, and the dinosaurs weathered the increase in temperature, and the crurotarsans didn't. But until that climate change occurred, the crurotarsans were out-competing the dinosaurs, if anything. So that's what they mean by luck, they just ''happened'' to benefit from a change in the climate when, if, all things being equal, they were not directly out-competing their contemporaries. Which means that number three: 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells' is fiction.<br />
<br />
B: Whatever.<br />
<br />
S: But what ''is'' true, is that they just identified what the muscle stem cell ''is''. They didn't really know which muscle was ''in fact'' the muscle stem cell.<br />
<br />
B: Crap, that's what I read.<br />
<br />
S: Yes, perhaps that's what you'd read. So, and it turns out to be the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myosatellite_cell satellite] cell which is a type of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progenitor_cells progenitor] cell that exists near the muscles, or in the muscle tissue, and, you know, in repair or exercise, etc. will generate new muscle tissue. But we haven't successfully transplanted muscle cells into people. That's not happened yet.<br />
<br />
J: (mimicking) Stem cells are made of people!<br />
<br />
B: Man, I hate when a vague memory of reading an article totally kills you<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I know, that's what got me<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, sucks to be you, Bob<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: You gotta stop reading, guys.<br />
<br />
J: So, Steve really is the bastard tonight<br />
<br />
B: Jay, you bastard, you ended the run I had, it was like a nine-winning streak run (actually 10). How long was your run?<br />
<br />
J: Four foot one<br />
<br />
E: Four foot one<br />
<br />
S: Well, congratulations Jay and Rebecca, good job.<br />
<br />
J: Yay! Rebecca!<br />
<br />
E: Yay!<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:16:28)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: Jay, do you have a quote for us this week?<br />
<br />
J: I have a quote this week from a man called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume David Hume], he lived 1711-1776, that was a pretty good year, wasn't it? And I'm always surprised when I read quotes from people that lived centuries ago, especially ones that are exceptionally logical or rational, maybe I'm skewed, or maybe just from reading quotes from a lot of very smart people during that time, I don't know. I'd like to know if I'm just thinking that they're overly rational for their time, or maybe people were more rational in the past.<br />
<br />
S: Well it was the age of enlightenment for a reason, Jay.<br />
<br />
J: David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, an economist, historian, and an important figure in western philosophy, and he said, or wrote:<br />
<blockquote>When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.</blockquote><br />
J: DAVID HUME! … I think this is also a good quote to go with Melvin's email to us. MELVIN LEE! (even louder) MELVIN LEE!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: CONFUSED LISTENER!<br />
<br />
R: Ok, the David Hume one didn't make me (inaudible – upset?)<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Right, just a quick reminder that October 10<sup>th</sup>, New York city is the New York city's skeptic's first annual anniversary event, they're going to have James Randi speak for them, and then October 11<sup>th</sup>, in Fairfield Connecticut, Perry's home town, we're going to have the first annual Perry DeAngelis memorial lecture!<br />
<br />
E,B&J: Yay!<br />
<br />
S: October 11<sup>th</sup>, noon to three at the Fairfield theatre company, we have the information on our message-board, and on our facebook page, and Jay, can we put that on the website? I know we're in the middle of the update and everything, but can we put that up?<br />
<br />
J: I will put it on the homepage<br />
<br />
S: ''and'' we have confirmed guests Steve Mirsky, from Scientific American-<br />
<br />
J: He's awesome<br />
<br />
S: -and Terence Hines-<br />
<br />
E: Nice<br />
<br />
S: -excellent skeptic and neuroscientist, and author of 'Pseudoscience and the paranormal', ain't it cool?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, he's a good dude<br />
<br />
S: Well, thank you all again for joining me this week<br />
<br />
(someone singing "going crazy"?)<br />
<br />
R: Thanks Steve<br />
<br />
E: Yes, it was good joining you<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Fun as always, and until next week, this is your Skeptics' guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
<br />
== Today I learned... ==<br />
*The first space shuttle, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Enterprise Enterprise] was unveiled by NASA on September 17th 1976. <br />
<br />
*September 19th is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day international talk like a pirate day].<br />
<br />
*In February 2006, astronomers using the Hubble space telescope spotted a mystery object that continually brightened for about 100 days, after which, it dimmed symmetrically for the next 100 days.<ref name="Barbary"/> The distance to the object has been said to be between 120 and 11 billion light years away, and does not match any object in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloan_Digital_Sky_Survey Sloan Digital Sky Survey] at the time of the podcast.<br />
<br />
*Church of England offered a formal apology to Darwin in September 2008! ([http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7613403.stm BBC article])<br />
<br />
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restless_legs_syndrome Restless leg syndrome]has been documented for over 100 years.<br />
<br />
*Astrophysicists at Yale have calculated the upper limit for the mass of a black hole, stating that as a black hole gets to about 10 billion solar masses, any subsequent matter falling into it would cause the radiation away of an equal amount of mass.<ref name="Yale"/><br />
<br />
*New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge. It is thought that global warming in the late Triassic era may have led to the extinction of the previously dominant [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crurotarsi crurotarsans], whilst the dinosaurs survived.<ref name="SM"/><ref name="SA"/> <br />
<br />
*The muscle stem cell is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myosatellite_cell satellite] cell which is a type of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progenitor_cells progenitor] cell that exist near the muscles, or in the muscle tissue, and will generate new muscle tissue in repair or exercise, etc.<br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation<br />
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}}</div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_165&diff=9630SGU Episode 1652015-02-06T00:05:28Z<p>Jason koziol: /* Interview with Ben Goldacre (40:18) */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Editing required<br />
|proof-reading = y<br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox <br />
|episodeNum = 165<br />
|episodeDate = 17<sup>th</sup> September 2008<br />
|episodeIcon = File:goldacre.jpg<br />
|rebecca = y<br />
|bob = y<br />
|jay = y<br />
|evan = y<br />
|guest1 = BG: [http://www.badscience.net/ Ben Goldacre]<br />
|guest2 = JR: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi James Randi]<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2008-09-17.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com//index.php/topic,14234.0.html<br />
|qowText = When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.<br />
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume David Hume]<br />
|}}<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.<br />
<br />
S: Hello, and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday September 17<sup>th</sup> 2008, and this is your host, Steven Novella, President of the [http://www.theness.com/ New England Skeptical Society]. Joining me this evening are Bob Novella,<br />
<br />
B: Hey everybody<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca Watson<br />
<br />
R: Hello, everyone<br />
<br />
S: Jay Novella<br />
<br />
J: Hey guys<br />
<br />
S: And Evan Bernstein<br />
<br />
E: Hi everyone, how's everyone doin' tonight?<br />
<br />
J: Good<br />
<br />
S: Good<br />
<br />
R: Great<br />
<br />
B: What's goin' on<br />
<br />
E: Good!<br />
<br />
== This Day in Skepticism <small>(0:36)</small> ==<br />
<br />
R: What's the day, Evan?<br />
<br />
E: 1976, the first space shuttle, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Enterprise Enterprise], unveiled by NASA.<br />
<br />
B: Ah, that's awesome<br />
<br />
E: Not launched, just unveiled<br />
<br />
S: Just unveiled?<br />
<br />
J: I remember being a kid, watching the TV, seeing a bunch of people standing on the tarmac, watching it be unveiled, then playing the theme to the Enterprise, you know, Star Trek.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
E: (laughs)<br />
<br />
J: Remember that?<br />
<br />
S: But I was devastated when I learned the Enterprise was never going to go into orbit.<br />
<br />
B: No <br />
<br />
J: What a gip!<br />
<br />
E: That's right<br />
<br />
B: Just a mock-up<br />
<br />
S: They should've saved the name for the first one to launch, not just the training module.<br />
<br />
R: I know a better day that's coming up, and that would be Friday, the 19<sup>th</sup>. You guys know what Friday is?<br />
<br />
J: Friday, um…<br />
<br />
S: September 19<sup>th</sup>?<br />
<br />
R: Uh-huh, you give up?<br />
<br />
B: Sorry<br />
<br />
S: The start of fall<br />
<br />
R: (complete with accent) Aaar, it's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day talk-like-a-pirate day]! Ye land-lubbers!<br />
<br />
B: Yes! How could I forget?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Didn't we just have that?<br />
<br />
J: That's a great day!<br />
<br />
E: Last year we mentioned that.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Aaaar<br />
<br />
B: It's an awesome day<br />
<br />
S: Has it been a year already?<br />
<br />
R: It has<br />
<br />
E: Aaaar, matey, it has.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Good thing we're not doing the podcast on Friday.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, can't we ''pretend''?<br />
<br />
B: Oh, the whole- the whole days as pirates?<br />
<br />
E: Today is talk like a ninja day<br />
<br />
S: Knock yourself out<br />
<br />
R: You can't talk like a ninja!<br />
<br />
S: Actually, ''today''-<br />
<br />
E: Sure you can,<br />
<br />
R: They just sneak up and stab you<br />
<br />
S: Today is international talk like a skeptic day<br />
<br />
B: Ha!<br />
<br />
R: (laughing) You made that up<br />
<br />
E: (with accent) I doubt that, har-har-har<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Well, we have an interview that we recorded at TAM 6 with Ben Goldacre coming up later in the show.<br />
<br />
B: Ben!<br />
<br />
R: That's aaaaar-some, Steve. I can't wait<br />
<br />
S: Ben is a cool guy. Our first new item is about Ben<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Ben Goldacre Defends Libel Case <small>(2:17)</small>===<br />
[http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=377 Neurologica: An Important Victory Against HIV Quackery]<br />
<br />
S: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Goldacre Ben Goldacre], who writes for the Guardian, and is one of the guys in the UK who's writing about science and medicine. He had written a piece about [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthias_Rath Matthias Rath], you guys familiar with this guy?<br />
<br />
R: Only in that I know he's a douche<br />
<br />
B: Er, no<br />
<br />
S: Right, he is a ''giant'' douche, he really is. So he has an organisation-<br />
<br />
R: (in the background) Am I gonna get sued for that?<br />
<br />
S: -that sells ''all kinds'' of snake oil, and what Ben wrote about was Rath selling vitamins in South Africa to AIDS victims, telling them ''not'' to take their anti-HIV medications, but instead, to take his vitamins. You know, there's an actual death count that you can attach to that kinda behaviour.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: So, Ben called him out on that. Now, Rath has a history of suing anyone who criticizes him, he has many, many lawsuits in many countries. You know, anyone who says that what he's doing is not legitimate, his response is to sue them.<br />
<br />
R: Including in South Africa where he's causing the most damage.<br />
<br />
S: Yes, South Africa, Germany, and again against the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian Guardian] and Ben Goldacre. And he's won some of those suits, unfortunately. But this, recently he had to withdraw his suit against the Guardian and Ben Goldacre ''and'' he's going to have to pay about half a million pounds in legal fees as a result as well. So that was a very good outcome. Of course, we all congratulate Ben on seeing that through, you know, it's obviously something that cuts very close to home. We spend a lot of our time dishing out very harsh criticism to a lot of people. Some of whom are heartless charlatans who will kill people if it lines their pockets, and who have a history of defending themselves by intimidating others with lawsuits and-<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, and you know, it's very different in England, where the laws aren't quite as much on the side of people who are making the statements, it's not quite on the side of free-speech as it is in the US.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
R: I think that, you know, we have a certain amount of protection going for us, but in the UK, it's fairly easy for someone to sue for libel slander, because once they do, the burden is on the defendant, as opposed to in the US, where the burden of proof is on the plaintive, and I am ''not'' a lawyer.<br />
<br />
S: No, that's correct. Although, in England, the one advantage in the UK, is that it's pretty standard, if you lose such a lawsuit, it's almost automatic that you pay the other side's legal fees. So that's the disincentive for frivolous lawsuits.<br />
<br />
R: Right, and so sure enough, he's had to cough up, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: These are ''critical'' victories for free-speech for sceptics everywhere who are trying to, you know, point out, especially this kind of really destructive behaviour. So, this is, I think, a very important victory. So, congratulations Ben!<br />
<br />
E: Good job, Ben<br />
<br />
R: Yay Ben!<br />
<br />
=== Hubble Finds Mystery Object <small>(5:20)</small>===<br />
[http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/newsblog/28244844.html?pageSize=0 Sky & Telescope article]<br />
<br />
S: The next news item, the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope Hubble] finds a mystery object that ''genuinely'' has astronomers ''baffled''<br />
<br />
R: Astronomers are baffled!<br />
<br />
S: They are<br />
<br />
J: They're baffled!<br />
<br />
S: They're generally baffled.<br />
<br />
E: are they flummoxed?<br />
<br />
S: And flummoxed.<br />
<br />
J: So what is it, Steve?<br />
<br />
S: Now, this is pretty interesting<br />
<br />
B: That's the question, Jay, it's- really nobody knows, according to a paper that's about to appear in the Astrophysical journal.<ref name="Barbary">Barbary et al. (2009) [http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/690/2/1358/ Discovery of an unusual optical transient with the hubble space telescope ] ApJ 690 1358 doi:10.1088/0004-637X/690/2/1358 </ref> Something extraordinary, never been seen before by astronomers appeared in 2006, so I was a little disappointed that it was two years ago, like, 'what? We're just hearing about this ''now''?'. But to this day, it is not known what the hell it was, or if it will ever appear again. It started with the Supernova Cosmology Project in February 2006 using Hubble, looking for Supernovae in February. A previously unknown object started getting brighter and brighter, and brighter, and it just did not stop. And this continued for about 100 days, at that point, it pretty much stopped getting brighter and bigger, and then just started to symmetrically dim for the next 100 days. So it was really, perfectly symmetrical light curve where the dimming is perfectly matched by the brightening in the beginning. The spectrum of light was also an enigma, the spectrum basically just shows the rainbow of colors from a light source, but also, of course, includes the non-visible light, like UV or radio. And ''typically'', these certain pieces of the spectrum are missing from a spectrum. And the lines that are missing shows you what elements must have been near the light source, or in the intervening space that absorbed it. So you've got these emission lines, but these emission lines made no sense.<br />
<br />
S: Don't you mean 'absorption lines'? Just to be clear, emission lines are different from absorption lines. Emission lines are when- are from the body itself that's glowing, absorption lines are from something intervening that's absorbing the light that was emitted.<br />
<br />
B: That's right, you were right. So this is a key deficit in our knowledge about this object, because if you can't determine what the elements are, what the arrangement of elements are in the spectrum, then you don't know how red-shifted the object is. That's one of the reasons why quasars were such a puzzle to astronomers early on, because quasars are so red-shifted, they're billions of light years distant, therefore, their red-shift is gargantuan, and it took a while for astronomers to realize 'wait a second, hydrogen's way over here, if it's way over here, it's gotta be immensely distant'. And that's gotta be one of the key insights that made them realize that these objects were so far away. So if we don't have this information, if we can't kinda get a picture of what's going on with the spectrum of this object, then you have no idea how far away this is. Is it in our galaxy?<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Is it in ''another'' galaxy? We don't know!<br />
<br />
J: Is that like a ball of hydrogen, or some hot-pocket of air, or expanding space somewhere?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: All we know is what we saw. It was some sort of stellar object that got brighter and brighter, like a Supernova, and then dimmed. But it was not typical of any other object that they've ever seen before.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they said it's specifically ''not'' a supernova.<br />
<br />
R: And if you were a pirate, would you call it a quasaaaaarrr?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: Quasaaaarr! Yes! Good one.<br />
<br />
E: No!<br />
<br />
R: I suspect that they call it quasaarrr<br />
<br />
S: That's not a (inaudible)<br />
<br />
B: We do have a range though, this thing must be within a certain range by other measurements, and one of them is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax parallax]. Parallax is the movement of one object due to movement of a foreground object, so if an object is close enough away, say less than 130 light years, you would see obvious parallax. We're not seeing that, so that means that this object is ''more'' than 130 light years away. So that's the ''bottom'' limit right there. So, what's the upper limit? Well, the only upper limit I came across for this thing has to do with hydrogen absorption. Because it's lacking hydrogen absorption in the spectrum, that means that it has to be less than 11 billion light years away. So our range is greater than 120 light years, less than 11 billion light years.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Nice range<br />
<br />
E: Oh, narrowed it down, that's great<br />
<br />
B: That's the best they've come up with in ''two years''. So, it could be anywhere in the intervening space.<br />
<br />
S: But interestingly, given that it could be- there's such a huge range for how far away it could be, they said that it's not ''in'' any known galaxy. So there's no galaxy, I guess, on that-<br />
<br />
B: I have a problem with that. I have a problem with that because there's been mention of this [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo%C3%B6tes Bo&ouml;tes constellation] they referred to, which is just a constellation of stars within our galaxy. But they refer to it as a void where there's really nothing around it for many light years, apparently. Now, there is a ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo%C3%B6tes_void Bo&ouml;tes super-void], it's a void, one of the biggest voids in the known universe, it's 250 million light years wide. Now I ''think'' they are possibly referring to this, they're saying that it's within this specific void. If it could be 130 light years away or 11 billion light years away, why do they think it's in a void 250 million light years across?<br />
<br />
S: I don't think it's ''just'' that, my reading was that it's not in any ''known'' galaxy, if it were in a galaxy, they're not seeing the galaxy that it's in.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, but why even mention this specific Bo&ouml;tes void or concept? Cos that, to me, just seems like a red herring.<br />
<br />
J: Bob, do we know if it's heading in a direction? Like, what direction it was moving in?<br />
<br />
B: No, there was no- you know, 200 days is not gonna be any- there wasn't really any discernable movement. Now, could it be a new type of Supernova? Scientists don't ''think'' so, there's a problem with that, because it doesn't match any of the known Supernova types and the brightening took much longer than normal, typically, Supernovas will brighten for 20 days, this one lasted for 100 days, and the spectrum didn't make any sense. The light curve should be asymmetrical for a Supernova, they fade more slowly than they brighten, it didn't make any sense.<br />
<br />
S: They also said it was ''not'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_microlensing microlensing]<br />
<br />
B: Right, the light curve doesn't match a microlensing event. Microlensing occurs when light is distorted as it travels over a gravitational source. They've ruled that out as well. It doesn't look like a quasar, I mean nothing that-<br />
<br />
R&E: Aaaarrr<br />
<br />
B: They put this spectrum through the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloan_Digital_Sky_Survey Sloan Digital Sky Survey] database, which has just a ''vast'' number of objects, and it didn't match anything in there. This is really quite a mystery and I-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, so this thing is probably a whole new class of object – which is cool!<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, some people have speculated that it's some sort of- because it's so symmetrical and blah, blah, blah that it could be-<br />
<br />
R: Aliens<br />
<br />
B: -some sort of sign from an intelligence, but obviously there's nothing that would really give you any confidence in that sort of conclusion. Not yet, anyway. But that would be interesting, if evidence pointed that way, but, man, I'm not counting on that at all.<br />
<br />
S: You don't think it's like a Death Star blowing up or something?<br />
<br />
B: They were talking about it in the comments.<br />
<br />
J: We would need so much more freakin evidence, you can't jump to ''that'', that's incredible<br />
<br />
B: No, that's ridiculous<br />
<br />
S: Well they thought that about pulsars when they first saw them, they were called LGM<br />
<br />
B: LGM, little green men, it was so regular<br />
<br />
E: Cos it was too regular, right? It could only have been created or something<br />
<br />
S: But sometimes, nature is really regular and symmetrical<br />
<br />
E: Aah, when nature is regular<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, you can't jump to an artificial hypothesis just because it's so symmetrical<br />
<br />
J: I'm pretty regular<br />
<br />
E: And symmetrical<br />
<br />
R: That's not what I heard<br />
<br />
=== Creationism in the UK <small>(13:00)</small>===<br />
[http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=376 Neurologica: Teaching Creationism in Schools]<br />
<br>[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4768820.ece TimesOnline article] (login required)<br />
<!-- dead link: http://www.cofe.anglican.org/darwin <br />
possible alternative: http://www.churchofengland.org/our-views/medical-ethics-health-social-care-policy/darwin.aspx<br />
--><br />
<br>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7613403.stm BBC article: Who are the British creationists?]<br />
<br />
S: Well, creationism is creeping into the UK, traditionally, the United States has had a problem with creationists trying to infiltrate public schools and etc. But now, apparently, it's becoming more of a problem in the United Kingdom. And this came to a head recently by comments made by reverend professor [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Reiss Michael Reiss] who was, until very recently, the Director of Education at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society Royal Society]. The Royal Society, I think is the ''oldest'' scientific institution and has a very important position in the UK science community. He made some controversial statements, and this is a quote from them<br />
<blockquote>An increasing percentage of children in the UK come from families that do not accept the scientific version of the history of the universe and the evolution of species. What are we to do with those children? My experience after having tried to teach biology for 20 years is if one simply gives the impression that such children are wrong, then they are not likely to learn much about the science that one really wants them to learn. I think a better way forward is to say to them 'look, I simply want to present you with the scientific understanding of the history of the universe and how animals and plants and other organisms evolved'.<ref>BBC news: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7612152.stm Call for creationism in science]</ref></blockquote><br />
S: He made other comments as well that really sparked a controversy over what ''exactly'' is this guy advocating? And because he's actually a literalist, not just a reverend, but a ''literalist'', a lot of people sort of had their eye on this guy, and were sort of waiting for this kind of thing to happen, this kind of controversy to crop up. So this, perhaps as much as anything else, is what lead to this incredible controversy, but ''I'' still have a hard time knowing ''really'' what this guy was advocating. <br />
<br />
R: Well, you know what the Society, a spokesman for the Society stepped forward and confirmed that, you know, what he was saying was inline with what they believed, and their exact quote was <br />
<blockquote>Our position is that if young people put forward a creationist perspective in the classroom, it should be discussed.<ref>Royal Society spokesperson statement &ndash; [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4760967.ece Times Online article] (login required)</ref></blockquote><br />
R: Their whole thing, they're talking about science, so we can assume they're talking about the science classroom, and it's kind of ridiculous just to put it like that. I mean, if you're going to talk about that subject, then let's be specific, ''how'' should it be discussed? Should it be discussed in terms of showing them that, for instance, a belief in god can be compatible with evolution? Or should you be telling them that there's no way in hell the Earth was created in six days?<br />
<br />
S: (agreeing) mm-hmm<br />
<br />
R: It's not very educational, it's not very helpful to just throw that out there like that. It sounds like a big case of covering of asses<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, they definitely- the Royal Society put out ''clarifications'', 'quote-unquote', the next day saying 'creationism is ''not'' science, it should ''not'' be taught as science in the science classroom, and we whole-heartedly defend the teaching of evolution'. But this guy, Reiss, you know, he's just made other statements that were very, very squirly, for example, he said 'I do believe in taking seriously and respectfully the concerns of students who do not believe the theory of evolution, while still introducing them to it'. He also made some comments about treating creationism and ID, intelligent design, and evolution as different ''world-views''. So, you know, he's kinda dancing around this topic, and I think that, given that he's a literalist, and that he's making these squirly comments, it certainly ''seems'' like he's trying to squeeze in a little 'teach the controversy' through the back door there, just by saying 'we need to be respectful of the students, and we need to address their concerns and talk about creationism- oh, we believe in evolution, I'm not saying evolution is ''wrong'', but, you know, we really need to take- we can't just teach evolution, we have to address their concerns'<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it almost sounds like he's going for the catching more flies with honey defense, but-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
R: And there's something to be said for exploring different ways of reaching kids who are unfortunately growing up in households where their parents are ignorant of the basic tenants of science. And, you know, it ''is'' going to be difficult if they've been raised to believe in something wholly incompatible with what you're teaching them. You know, we ''do'' need to look at how we're teaching them. But to make a vague statement that just doesn't jibe at all with anything we're actually aiming for, and then to run away from it-<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
R: Is kinda cowardly and suspicious.<br />
<br />
E: It's just a case of this person, I ''think'', trying to be somewhat politically correct, not taking a firm stance one way or the other, trying to please the most people possible with his statement to try and quell any controversy, it just did the opposite, apparently.<br />
<br />
J: He stepped down from his position too, ''because'' of the controversy.<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
R: He did, and the really cool thing is that he stepped down when British members of parliament stood up and said 'Hey, what the hell are you guys talking about? That's not science' and can you imagine that happening in the US, where an actual congress person steps up and bats somebody in line and defends science?<br />
<br />
B: No!<br />
<br />
J: No!<br />
<br />
R: It seems kind of foreign (laughs) So, I think that the UK kind of scores one on that point.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, although again this is in the context of increasing sort of insurgence of creationism into the UK, and increasing concerns. This controversy was all around the science blogosphere for the last week, the last few days, and some of the comments, like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PZ_Myers P. Z Myers] for example wrote a lot about this, and he said that 'you can teach students how we know the Earth isn't 6,000 years old. How we know there is common descent, you know, we know the Earth is 14 billion years old, etc, etc'. you can say ''historically'' they used to think this, you know 150 years ago, and this is how we- our thinking of our origins changed over time and developed with evidence. So, you can teach students everything students need to know about ''how'' science works, about how specific scientific beliefs came to be. But based upon what evidence, what logic. Without ever talking about a religious belief, or talking about creationism, you don't ''have'' to do that. I think that confronting something that is a ''religious'' belief in the science classroom is the wrong approach, you're better off saying 'in ''this'' classroom, we're talking about science, ''this'' is what science is. This is how scientists come to the conclusions that they come to. And you could achieve all of the objectives that Reiss claims he was really talking about, without respecting creationism as a world-view. That has no place in a science classroom. Some other things that have been going on, though, I don't know if this is a coincidence, but the Church of England, the C of E<br />
<br />
E: (with English accent) C of E<br />
<br />
S: Apologised to Darwin!<br />
<br />
R: I think that is-<br />
<br />
J: Now that blew my mind<br />
<br />
B: Ha!<br />
<br />
J: I can't believe that<br />
<br />
E: Did he accept?<br />
<br />
S: Good for them<br />
<br />
E: Did he accept?<br />
<br />
R: He couldn't accept, he was roasting in hell for his evil Darwinist ideas!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: (with English accent) So sorry, Darwin, sorry about that, old chap<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: So, yeah, they said it was basically the wrong thing to do, to basically oppress Darwin's views at the time. And, it turns out, that whole evolution thing was probably a good idea. Now, in response to that, the pope said 'yeah, evolution is fine, but we're not ''apologising'''. <br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: He ''refused'' to apologise.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: He basically said 'Oh, yeah?'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: 'You pansies in England can apologise to Darwin, the pope's not apologising to ''nobody'''. But, yeah, evolution's fine, you know, they<br />
<br />
J: The pope's tired<br />
<br />
S: Right, but the UK's got their own creationist museum now.<br />
<br />
R: (flatly) Good for them.<br />
<br />
J: It was just a matter of time<br />
<br />
E: Has the UK largely over the years been, not influenced by creationism, and it's only making some recent advances and strides?<br />
<br />
S: Yes, that's exactly correct, and it really has been, at least in the West, a US phenomenon. But now it is spreading to the UK.<br />
<br />
E: Do we know how much of it is influenced by Islam? Because the Islam population is on a great rise.<br />
<br />
S: That is a factor I know that Richard Dawkins has pointed that out as a factor, that they are creating ''faith'' schools, and teaching creationism from their religious perspective. Others have pointed to, you know, specifically political influence from the US have pointed to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Templeton_Foundation Templeton foundation], which is dedicated to-<br />
<br />
E: Oh yeah<br />
<br />
S: Connecting science and religion, and they have a lot of money behind that, so they give money to anybody who will-<br />
<br />
B: A million dollars, a million dollars a year to the person who does the most to join science and religion, right?<br />
<br />
R: I've seen rich people die and leave mansions to their ''cats'', and it's a better use of money than that prize.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, I agree<br />
<br />
J: and is it that general? The criteria is that general?<br />
<br />
S: Yes. The goal is for science to validate faith, that is the goal.<br />
<br />
E: So, is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Egnor Michael Egnor] in the running for that prize?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: I wouldn't be surprised.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, right?<br />
<br />
S: He definitely wants to intermingle those two<br />
<br />
R: You know who pirates' favourite scientist is?<br />
<br />
B: Oh boy,<br />
<br />
S: I can't wait to hear<br />
<br />
R: Daarrrrwin!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: Daarrrrwin<br />
<br />
B: Oh god<br />
<br />
J: Rebecca, get back on your medication as soon as possible.<br />
<br />
R: I ran out of gin!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: Keep up some rum, aarrr<br />
<br />
B: Keep it up, Rebecca, I'm loving it<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
== Questions and Emails <small>(22:52)</small> ==<br />
<big>Big Pharma</big><br />
<br />
S: Well, let's go on to your email, do you know what the first email's about?<br />
<br />
R: Daaarrrwin?<br />
<br />
E: It's about 15 sentences<br />
<br />
S: It's about 'big phaaaarrrma'!<br />
<br />
R&E: Phaarrrma!<br />
<br />
S: This one comes from Nick Vockrodt, from Arlington, Virgina. And he writes a very long email, I'm going to cut to the question: (see [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=165 show notes] for full email)<br />
<blockquote>My question is regarding "Big Pharma" and specifically [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibromyalgia fibromyalgia]-</blockquote><br />
R: I'm sorry, Steve, about big what?<br />
<br />
S: big phaarrrghma<br />
<br />
R: Thank you<br />
<blockquote>S: and specifically fibromyalgia I was discussing the pharmaceutical industry with a friend who claimed that diseases are-</blockquote><br />
J: What was that, Steve? Fibro- what?<br />
<br />
S: Alright, enough!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<blockquote>S: who claimed that diseases are being "made up" by drug companies for the sole purpose of creating a market for their medicines. He mentioned fibromyalgia as a perfect example, claiming it to be a disease that anyone can convince themselves they have. This sounded like what Dr. Novella describes as symptoms of life … I wasn't very familiar with the malady at the time to argue, but I tend to defend the pharmaceutical industry when faced with what sounds like a conspiracy theory. In my subsequent research, I found that there is some debate on it, but that the disease is generally accepted by the medical community as being "real".</blockquote><br />
S: Well, this is actually a complicated question because there's a few components to it. Let's take the first component of it: 'Does the pharma company make up diseases that they could then market their drugs for?'. I think there, in my opinion, the answer is a pretty unequivocal ''no''. The pharmaceutical industry in this country, regulated by the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_and_Drug_Administration FDA], when they market a drug, by definition, if you are marketing ''anything'' and claiming that it treats or cures or modifies a disease, it's regulated as a drug. Right, so things are regulated based on the kinds of claims that are made for them. But you don't get to make up your own diseases though, you know, to say that your drug is gonna treat something that you yourself get to make up, or that a ''company'' makes up. Companies are not in a position to ''create'' or will into existence a new disease. Things like fibromyalgia are- that is a diagnosis that emerged from the medical community. Now, I think that fibromyalgia is a very complicated disease entity that I have a lot of doubts about the way it's classified and diagnosed right now. First of all, it's not a disease, ''really'', even though-<br />
<br />
B: a syndrome?<br />
<br />
S: -it is recog- so what the-<br />
<br />
E: It's a 'condition'?<br />
<br />
S: Like for regulatory purposes, what the FDA will consider a disease is not necessarily what we would, in medicine, use the term specifically 'disease' for, meaning a pathophysiological entity. Sometimes there are clinical ''syndromes'', or a recognised entity, but we don't understand the pathophysiology, so it may be described purely by the clinical picture that it creates. So like 'chronic fatigue syndrome' is a syndrome, not really a disease. Fibromyalgia, I think, is better understood that way, although there are some thoughts about what might be ''causing'' it, it's actually not well understood. In fact, recent evidence suggests that a lot of people who have the symptoms of fibromyalgia may just be the symptoms of an underlying problem, like a sleep disorder. In fact, I think a lot of people who have the symptoms that are used to make the diagnosis fibromyalgia, actually have an underlying sleep disorder. Others may have an underlying anxiety disorder.<br />
<br />
J: Really?<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
J: Interesting<br />
<br />
S: And if you treat people for the sleep disorder, the fibromyalgia symptoms go away, so that's a pretty good indication. At least ''some'' of them. Other people may have a simmering auto-immune inflammation of the muscles. And that may be ''really''- if there ''is'' something that's really fibromyalgia, I think that's what it is. But a lot of people get similar symptoms for other reasons.<br />
<br />
J: Would you consider fibromyalgia kind of like a 'catch-all' for a bunch of different types of symptoms then?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think it's what we call a 'garbage-pail diagnosis', you know, you just get people who have symptoms in this area, then this is the label you attach to it. But there isn't any way to specifically say 'yes, this is a discrete pathological entity that they ''have'' '. I also see the diagnosis made on ''non-specific'' symptoms, without the specific symptoms that are supposed to be there. So if you are fatigued and achy, and etc., and you call that fibromyalgia, well that's just attaching a label to non-specific symptoms. You're supposed to have what we call 'trigger points', that are specific places in the muscles that are very tender. And if you have that pattern of 'trigger points' then I think it's ''meaningful'' to say 'well that pattern is called fibromyalgia. We still don't know what it is, we have some ideas, but that's the way we use the diagnosis'. If you call everybody who is fatigued and achey fibromylagia, then the diagnosis has no meaning. <br />
<br />
Now, I believe that the pharmaceutical industry has targeted fibromyalgia for a couple of drugs because it ''is'' such a easy diagnosis to make, because you can attach it to these vague symptoms, so I think if they're guilty of anything, it's choosing a marketable disease. But they didn't make it up, they weren't the ones to make it up. But that's just, you know, when pharmaceutical companies look for an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indication_%28medicine%29 indication] for their drug, that's based purely on marketing. They want to decide 'what's the biggest market? What drugs are going to sell the most? Which indication will allow us to speak to which specialty of physicians that we want to be able to market to?'. It's all really a marketing decision, of course the science has to be there as well. But often, with many drugs, there are different indications that you could go for. For example, if a drug treats pain, or treats nerve pain, now nerve pain is not a disease, so you have to pick a disease that causes nerve pain. Now, what diseases cause nerve pain are you gonna pick? Postherpetic neuralgia or diabetic neuropathy? They're gonna make a marketing decision, They're gonna choose the one with the biggest sales, the biggest marketing options for their drug, but again, they don't get to make up the disease. The other disease for which I hear this claim the most frequently is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restless_legs_syndrome restless leg syndrome] (RLS).<br />
<br />
E: Oh yeah<br />
<br />
S: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Carrey Jim Carrey] made that comment, that pharmaceutical made up restless leg syndrome in order to market a drug for it. Well, first of all, the drugs that have the indication for treating RLS, already have other indications, they were already on the market for legitimate indications, so it wasn't a way of rescuing a failed drug, that's a ''demonstrable'' myth. The other thing is, restless leg syndrom has existed in the medical literature for ''decades''. I was able to go onto my bookshelf and find an old neurology text with a ''40 year old'' reference to restless leg syndrome.<br />
<br />
E: Wow!<br />
<br />
S: 40 years before there was ever a drug marketed for it.<br />
<br />
E: Is that what they called it back then?<br />
<br />
S: Yes! Yes, and, in fact, if you dig deeper into the literature, the references go back even farther, ''and'' I forget what- it was known by other names even before the term restless leg syndrome came into being. So, yeah, it's basically like 100 years we've known that this has existed.<br />
<br />
J: (squeaky Irish voice?) 'Let me show you something'. (normal voice) A perfect example of why I ''don't'' wanna know what famous people think.<br />
<br />
(laughter) <br />
<br />
R: Right? At all<br />
<br />
E: Well, ''some''<br />
<br />
J: It ruined it for me, I ''loved'' that guy, now I have to hate him<br />
<br />
S: Oh, you do have to hate Jim Carrey, he is totally now on board with the anti-vaccinationist kooks.<br />
<br />
R: But he was so good in 'Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind'!<br />
<br />
S: He was<br />
<br />
B: (laughs)<br />
<br />
E: Sorry, so sorry.<br />
<br />
J: Oh well<br />
<br />
E: Move on<br />
<br />
S: Terrible, terrible, terrible.<br />
<br />
J: (singing) 'another one bites the dust'<br />
<br />
S: So, anyway, this is just unfounded conspiracy theories. Now, again, that doesn't mean that the pharmaceutical industry is ''not'' an industry that, they're not companies looking at their bottom line, and that the companies are beyond reproach. I'm not saying that, ''this'' notion that they make up diseases is nonsense. That is just made up conspiracy thinking.<br />
<br />
== Name That Logical Fallacy <small>(30:53)</small> == <br />
S: We do have a 'Name that logical fallacy' this week, we actually got our first piece of hard-core hate-mail in a long time. And it's just so chock-full of logical fallacies, I thought it would make good example for us to examine this week. So here we go, this one comes from Melvin Lee, who gives his-<br />
<br />
R: Melvin!... sorry<br />
<br />
S: Melvin<br />
<br />
J: Melvins!<br />
<br />
(Laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Gives his location as America. Thanks for being helpful. Now, Melvin writes (all indented quotes taken from [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=165 show notes] as written):<br />
<blockquote>I think that u and all those mofos on that show are full of shit. </blockquote><br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Wait, can you say that? You can't say that on the show.<br />
<br />
(inaudible)<br />
<br />
J: Steve-<br />
<br />
E: Should you say 'mofo'? <br />
<br />
<blockquote>S: How can u honestly say NO! there is no bigfoot just because I've never seen it, NO! crop circles aren't real because I'm obviously the creator of this world and I know EVERYTHING about. </blockquote><br />
(laughter)<br />
<blockquote>U pussies or just.......ugh, words can't describe how I feel about u guys. WHO R U-</blockquote><br />
<br />
S: Now, you also have to- we'll obviously publish the-<br />
<br />
R: All the "are"s are just the letter, all the "you"s are<br />
<br />
S: Capital 'R', capital 'U', " WHO R U"<br />
<br />
R: Melvin, actually ''texted'' this to us, it took him 16 texts<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: You know, if you're ''gonna'' write a critical email-<br />
<br />
R: Cost him 35 cents<br />
<br />
S: -take the time to spell out the words<br />
<br />
E: You have to assume that the person crafting it ''can'' spell the words<br />
<br />
B: Nah, this is a young kid, this is just a kid. <br />
<blockquote>S: WHO R U to tell some that they didn't see something with their own eyes and what they saw was an illusion. plz reread over WHO R U. U r human, u r not some all knowing god. U cannot get mad at someone for jus reporting what they saw, where u there too?, so how could u possibly say they didn't see that they thought they saw. </blockquote><br />
R: Wait, can you just do that sentence one more time?<br />
<br />
S&E: No<br />
<blockquote>Their just reporting it. This world is full of secrets and jus because it seems mundane doesn't mean its fake. Another thing. if hundreds of people AROUND THE WORLD r seeing something (bigfoot, ufos, ghost), then it ''has'' to be true. Not every situation was a hoax r the product of an over active mind. all I'm saying is WE R ALL HUMANS u have the same brain as me, u r not the god who created this world, therefore u cannot say confidently that something's not there, when it obviously is. </blockquote><br />
<br />
(sound clip of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman – Full Metal Jacket)"Holy jesus!"<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B?: Thanks for that email, Melvin <br />
<br />
E: Thank you Gunnery Sergeant Hartman<br />
<br />
R: Thanks Melvin, it's good to hear from you<br />
<br />
S: Thank you. All say 'thanks Melvin' <br />
<br />
E: Keep on listening!<br />
<br />
J: Honestly, let's honestly answer the email. Because if the guy-<br />
<br />
S: That's what we're gonna do!<br />
<br />
R: How? It's gonna take us all day. I think that's one good example of '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum argument from popularity]'. He said that, you know, if hundreds of people around the world believe in something, then it has to be true. But that is not correct because, you know, think about it this way: entire countries think that other entire countries should be obliterated off the map, and that doesn't make it ''true''.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, or millions of people, ''billions'' sometimes, hold beliefs that are mutually exclusive to beliefs that other millions of people believe. So, either one or both of those groups of millions of people ''have'' to be wrong.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, and look at all the people that bought the Milli Vanilli albums.<br />
<br />
S: That's true!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: They all believed they were really singing, they were wrooong<br />
<br />
B: There's a lotta '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man straw men]', he keeps throwing around tons of 'straw men'<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: Like "there's no Bigfoot because I've never ''seen'' it", "you can not get mad at someone for just reporting what they ''saw''", "not every situation was a hoax, or the product of an overactive mind". It's a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dichotomy false dichotomy],<ref>SGU 5x5 episode 54 [[5X5 Episode 54|Skepticism 101 - False Dichotomy]]</ref> I mean it's ''full'' of this stuff. <br />
<br />
S&B: There's a lotta 'straw men'.<br />
<br />
B: Mischaracterisations of what our arguments are, he's not even paying ''attention''!<br />
<br />
S: Right, so first of all, we ''don't'' say 'there is no Bigfoot, there are no aliens visiting the Earth, there are no ghosts'. What we say is there's no evidence compelling acceptance or belief in any of those things, the people who say that there ''is'' Bigfoot, have not met anywhere ''near'' a reasonable burden of proof.<br />
<br />
R: The invisible pink unicorn ''could'' exist, we are simply agnostic as to its existence.<br />
<br />
S: Right, where it's unfalsifiable, we're agnostic, if it's a scientific proposition, they haven't met the burden of proof, or the burden of evidence. And therefore, we do not accept it as an established or a proven scientific hypothesis, given the current state of evidence. But hey, if someone actually did find a Bigfoot body, and it stood up to peer review<br />
<br />
R: And it wasn't a costume <!--reference to Bigfoot costume hoax --><br />
<br />
S: It ''wasn't'' a costume <br />
<br />
R: Sold by hoaxters<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: We'd accept compelling evidence as compelling<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, and add to it, we'd actually be excited about it!<br />
<br />
S: Sure<br />
<br />
R: That would be mega-cool!<br />
<br />
B: I don't know, it would smash my world view, and I would deny it to my dying day.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Well only if Bigfoot wasn't riding atop a magical unicorn.<br />
<br />
E: Or a sacred cow<br />
<br />
S: Now hang on, there's some other logical fallacies in here, the challenge is in finding all of them.-<br />
<br />
R: Oh, we're not done yet, are we?<br />
<br />
S: You guys are just picking the low-hanging fruit.<br />
<br />
R: Alright, alright, alright. Well there's an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance argument from ignorance], saying that we can't say that it doesn't exist because we're not gods who created everything and everything.<br />
<br />
S: Right, that's good, it's an argument from ignorance, he's basically saying that because we don't have perfect infinite knowledge, that we therefore have no knowledge, that we can't make ''any'' factual judgments about what's likely to be true or not likely to be true, scientifically. And I'll say that, you know, we don't know ''for sure'', because we're not god, that Bigfoot doesn't exist, therefore, Bigfoot exists. And we should also then adhere to the argument ad populum, that other people say that they believe it, so that's enough.<br />
<br />
E: Well there's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem ad hominem] attacks all over the place.<br />
<br />
S: Oh yeah, 'pussies'<br />
<br />
R: Well, yeah, and not all of us are 'mofos', technically, only Jay.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, actually, I'm a proud mofo.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah<br />
<br />
J: That one didn't bother me.<br />
<br />
S: He also implies that, you know, the only way to assess someone's eye-witness testimony is to be an eye-witness ourselves, <br />
<br />
E: Wrong<br />
<br />
S: When in fact, you can assess eye-witness testimony by putting it into context. And also if you're -<br />
<br />
J: There are court rooms all over the world do that every day<br />
<br />
S: (laughs) Right, we're just saying there's more than one hypothesis. If somebody claims they saw a flying-saucer, there's multiple hypotheses you can derive from that. One is that they saw a flying saucer, but another one is that they were mistaken, or they're lying, or they were simply confusing a more mundane object, or their memory was contaminated by the testimony of another person. There's lots of-<br />
<br />
E: Or the alcohol they drank.<br />
<br />
S: They were in a compromised condition, sleep-deprived or drunk, or whatever. There's ''lots'' of hypotheses, and we want all- you know, any good scientist should consider ''all'' of them, and accept the ones that are most supported by the evidence, and also, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor Occam's razor], you don't accept the one that requires the introduction of a major new assumption, that we're being visited by aliens, when you haven't ruled out the far more likely, simple ones.<br />
<br />
R: Bigfoot<br />
<br />
S: Right, the guy simply made a mistake, or maybe he's pulling your leg. That's all, so<br />
<br />
J: I think Melvin's email actually, as poorly written as it is and everything, and he's got a negative attitude and he's just like sounding off at us. It's not that far away from where a lot of people stand. I think a lot of people ''agree'' with this.<br />
<br />
S: You're absolutely right, Jay, and that's what, even though, yeah, we're kinda poking fun at Melvin, partly because of his atrocious grammar and the way he constructed this email. But in fact, the same arguments, he's poorly constructed it, but these same logical fallacies, and these same arguments are the absolute bread and butter of the true-believers, or the anti-skeptics. We hear this ''all'' the time, the 'you don't know everything', equating 'not having infinite knowledge' with having 'no knowledge', the argument from ignorance, the appeal to popularity. We encounter these on a daily basis when confronting people who believe things that are not supported by the scientific evidence. So, we're not just attacking an easy target, this is absolutely bread and butter anti-skepticism.<br />
<br />
J: And I would take it one step further and ask Melvin, if he's listening: write us back, pick any topic that you mention in here, like Bigfoot as an example, and we'll have a real email exchange discussion about it. I promise to do that. If you wanna have a discussion, I'll tell you everything I think, and you can tell me everything you think, and we'll just vet it out over time without swearing at each other. Or at least keeping it down<br />
<br />
R: Eh<br />
<br />
S: And also, my advice to, just generic advice to people who are going to send a ranting email, actually the title of the email was 'rant', so Melvin knew this was a rant. But, if you're gonna do that, make a ''real'' effort to understand the position of the person you're disagreeing with. That's ''always'', generically, a good idea. Because there's nothing more worthless than arguing against a position that the other person doesn't even hold, because then you're just completely wasting your time, and all you're really declaring is 'I don't understand what's going on, I didn't take the time to even understand your position. I'm arguing against a "straw man"', basically that's the only thing you're accomplishing. Well, let's go on to our interview.<br />
<br />
== Interview with Ben Goldacre <small>(40:18)</small> ==<br />
(jingle)<br />
<br />
S: Ok, we're sitting here now with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Goldacre Ben Goldacre],Ben, welcome to the Skeptics' Guide<br />
<br />
BG: Hi<br />
<br />
S: You run a website in the UK called 'Bad Science', is it .net?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, [http://www.badscience.net/ BadScience.net], available all around the world!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Tell us about that<br />
<br />
R: The world-''wide'' web, Steve<br />
<br />
S: Oh yeah, I keep forgetting<br />
<br />
BG: (mocking) 'Ah yes, you're from the United Kingdom'. (normal voice) Well, it's a sort of mixture of my columns in the Guardian and other bits and bobs that I come across, and it's- maybe about sort of a quarter of it is about quackery, and most of it is about bad science reporting in mainstream media. I don't know if that's as much a problem in the US as it is in the UK.<br />
<br />
S: It's ''more'' of a problem in the US than the UK<br />
<br />
BG: Is that right? (laughs) I mean, in the UK, there have been some phenomenal bogus scare stories. I mean, there was one about theMRSA 'killer bacteria' that was essentially a bogus lab that was giving bogus results to undercover journalists, and of course the media's MMR hoax in the UK. Which I think you're about to get a run of in the US, with the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal thiomersal] thing, which is going to be very interesting.<br />
<br />
S: Well we're already- that's already passed its peak, the thimerosal (common name for thiomersal in US)<br />
<br />
BG: Do you think so?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, well, it was removed, you know, from vaccines in the United States by the end of 2002<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, but –<br />
<br />
S: Autism hasn't gone up<br />
<br />
BG: But the media storm didn't seem to start until what, this year, really. There was that case-<br />
<br />
S: It had a resurgence because of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_McCarthy Jenny McCarthy],<ref>Jenny McCarthy body count [http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com website]</ref> and Jim Carrey, and because of the mitochondrial DNA case<ref>Neurologica article: [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/has-the-government-conceded-vaccines-cause-autism/ Has the Government Conceded Vaccines Cause Autism?]</ref>. Yeah, so in the UK, I think the MMR was a bigger story. Thimerosal was bigger in the United States.<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: Is that still big over there? The MMR, are they still-<br />
<br />
BG: It's dwindling, the Observer did a bogus front page story about how autism was now up to one in 58, basically misunderstanding an unpublished piece of research which was looking at comparing different ways of measuring the prevalence of autism. So obviously, if you use the widest net, then you get the biggest number. But what I actually find interesting about vaccine scare is how poorly they propagate between different territories. So for example, in the UK we had the 'MMR causes autism' because of the measles virus, that was the scare, and that was mostly, that kind of peaked in 2001, 2002. But it didn't propagate outside of the UK. In America, you have your thiomersal scare, in France, they have a story about the hepatitis-B vaccine causing multiple sclerosis, but nobody's heard of that outside of France. In the UK in the 80s, we had 'whooping cough vaccine causing neurological problems' driven by ''one'' fairly eccentric doctor from Scotland, and obviously in Nigeria at the moment in Kano province, the imams have issued a pronouncement saying that the polio vaccine is a plot by the Americans to make Muslims infertile and stop them from having children.<ref>PlosMedicine article: [http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0040073#pmed-0040073-b0017 What Led to the Nigerian Boycott of the Polio Vaccination Campaign?]</ref><br />
<br />
S: And spread HIV.<br />
<br />
BG: Is that part of the scare as well?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: Oh no, yeah, you're absolutely right, yeah. And, you know, what's interesting about that, I ''guess'', is the WHO's polio medication program was on target to eradicate polio from around the world by now. But it's not, and people have, you know, you can do [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction PCR] on polio outbreaks around the world and they've found that the specific polio virus from Nigeria, from Kano province, has triggered outbreaks of polio elsewhere in the world. It's very interesting to me how these vaccine scares are all, you know, structurally quite similar, but they propagate very poorly, and I don't think the thiomersal scare could take off in the UK, just because the MMR story has been debunked in the UK. So, it would seem ridiculous to the media- it just wouldn't fit the natural tempo of the stories to then suddenly go 'oh no, but it does, actually cause these problems'<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, right<br />
<br />
R: So does that mean you think you're pretty much past the worst of all of those kind of stories in the UK? Or do you think there's another one on the horizon?<br />
<br />
BG: Certainly not, and actually for very interesting reasons, definitely not. If you look at France and Austria, you can see that they've come very close to electing, in the case of Austria, they ''did'' elect some seriously sort of right-wing fruitcakes, you know, bordering on fascism. Whereas in Germany, where they had to face up to what they did in World War II, there was a kind of truth and reconciliation process, and they have kind of green and liberal governments. There's no way, I don't think that Germany could re-elect a fascist government. I think that you have to go through the process of recognizing where you've gone wrong, in order to stop going wrong in the future. What I find fascinating about the termination of the MMR hoax, in the UK, is that it came to an end, not because the media suddenly went 'well actually, a 12 subject case series report isn't sufficient grounds to say that MMR causes autism'. It wasn't because they made a kind of critical appraisal of ''all'' of the literature for and against and went 'well actually, it just doesn't look like MMR causes autism, this was a storm in a tea-cup'. It came to an end because an investigative journalist called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Deer Brian Deer], for whom I've got a lot of respect, from the Sunday Times came along and revealed that the lead doctor who was driving the story had received half a million pounds, a million dollars, in legal sort of, you know, expert witness costs. And so he had, one could argue, a competing interest there. Now, I don't think for one moment that that's the reason why [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield Wakefield] held the views that he held, and I don't think that one man can drive a story. But now the media are all queued up to say 'oh, the original research has been debunked', when the original research was a 12 subject case series report that never meant anything about anything. And they're saying 'oh, you know, the MMR story has been disproven because Andrew Wakefield had half a million quid', so they're all queuing up to blame this one doctor for the hoax that was the media's work.<br />
<br />
S: (agreeing) mm-hmm<br />
<br />
BG: Collectively, the British media community have created this story, and they drove it for many, many years. And the fact that they're now trying to pin it on one doctor, I have to say, I'm not a big ''fan'' of Wakefield, but I think it's very healthy that there are, you know, doctors with idiosyncratic views on medicine, I think it's an absolute bizarre travesty that they're pinning it all on him.<br />
<br />
B: So they're all right, but for the wrong reasons?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, I think that's why they're not inoculated against future cock-ups<br />
<br />
R: Well, you're doing a lot to help media, scientific literacy amongst the media in the UK, but do you ever think they'll get that realisation? Do you ever think they'll finally realise what they're doing wrong?<br />
<br />
BG: I don't think you can stop people from producing stupid stories, but I think you can add some sense into the mix. So often, when I talk, people say- I do lots of talks in epidemiology departments and some medical statisticians, just cos the jokes can be a bit more interesting and sophisticated that way.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And people are often outraged, and they say 'well we need some laws to- these people need to be- we should be able to chop the fingers off bad journalists', and I just don't think it's realistic. But what you ''can'' do, is approach newspapers, and I just rang one up one day and said, you know, 'can I write for you?', and they said yes. You know, there's no great mystery, I think you can add in more sense to dilute the nonsense, or at least give people an opportunity to see some sense. Cos otherwise, unless people who understand the evidence get in there and explain the mechanics of why it is that you hold a belief on the back of some published evidence, then science, at least in Britain, is only being portrayed as being about authoritative truth statements from arbitrary cultural figures called scientists in white coats, you know, "scientists today said-", "scientists today deny-", "scientists today refuted-". But it's never, you know, "scientists today said 'well, there's this study, and it shows this, and for ''that'' reason, we think this'". That ''doesn't'' happen<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
BG: And by adding that into the mix, you do something very powerful<br />
<br />
S: And the Wakefield story reflects that, because it was about the authority of Wakefield, and when that was knocked down, the story was knocked down. Not about the evidence and the logic of whether or not there's any link between vaccines and autism.<br />
<br />
BG: It was about the authority of Wakefield, but it was also about human interest versus these white coat guys saying 'there's nothing to worry about'. So on one hand you had a worried parent, and on the other side you had a scientist saying, you know 'there's nothing to worry about', and that wouldn't reassure ''me''!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: You know, it would look like a cover-up, or it would look dismissive<br />
<br />
S: Right, so like us, you're using new media blogs to try to fight this bad journalism in the UK. How do you think that's going? How much play does your blog get?<br />
<br />
BG: It gets a lot of visitors, and it gets a lot of links, and the thing that's most exciting is there are lots of other people who are now blogging in the UK who do a really, really great job of pulling apart just sort of silly bit and bobs, but it's great when there's this kind of mass effect. Cos somebody will publish a tedious 'memory of water' paper, you know, homeopathy, and you'll be like, I can't be bothered to pull this apart. But someone somewhere will, you know, that burning sense of 'someone ''somewhere'' is wrong on the internet, I must put them right!'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And that's ''fantastic''. The only thing that disappoints me a little bit, I guess, is that I'm not as agitated about quackery as some people are, you get a lot of quite sanctimonious stuff from people kinda saying 'homeopathy is this public health ''scandal'' ', and I don't think that's true. I think homeopathy is really interesting, I think it's a really fascinating cultural phenomenon. I think it's really interesting that at a time when doctors are trying really hard to work collaboratively with patients, explain evidence with them and make decisions in concert with their patients, I think it's a tragedy that while doctors are trying to do that, quacks and the media are really kind of undermining the public's understanding of evidence. But I don't think that quackery is ''practically'' really dangerous, I think it's funny and interesting. I think it's interesting that there's a lot of bloggers who are keen to pick up on mocking quacks, which is funny, and it's great, and it produces great content. The thing that I wish that there was more of, is people taking down bogus news stories, because ''that's'' the thing that needs to be done so much more, because that's kind of the more culturally influential end of stuff, you know?<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
BG: But, I guess they're not such easy hits or, yeah, I don't know why it is.<br />
<br />
S: Well, the news cycle is quick, you've got to do it very quickly. Right? You find a new story hits, you've got to get your blog that day or you're going to get missed by the news cycle.<br />
<br />
BG: I ''guess'' so, although I'm not sure that's true, actually. I mean, I'm often cheerfully writing on things a couple of weeks after they've gone, but that's because I'm just smug enough to imagine that I can stand outside of the news thing. I actually think that's really interesting example of one of the more subtle aspects of how the media misrepresents science. I don’t think science makes a very good ''news'' subject, I think science is naturally a feature subject, because it's about emerging themes supported by a whole raft of evidence from a number of different disciplines that emerges over the course of many years. When you focus all your science reporting about a news story, a sudden breakthrough, a ''single'' piece of research, that's actually quite misrepresenting in a subtle way. Firstly because the stuff that makes a finding newsworthy, actually make it quite likely to be wrong, you know, it's incongruent with previous results, for example. And so it misrepresents stuff in that way. Obsessing over stuff being ''newsy'' is actually a bit of a mistake, I think people who are communicating science should be cool, just sitting back and going 'what do we know about functional brain imaging and schizophrenia? There's a really interesting story there'<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
BG: It doesn't have to be ''new''<br />
<br />
S: I totally agree, I think the news cycle and the obsession with the story is really antithetical to the way science really works, which is taking your time and putting it together into the big picture. Often times I think you do that well, and that's we try to do, sort of take the news story and back up now into context, which is what the journalists ''don't'' do, right?<br />
<br />
BG: Well, sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't, I think there's a really interesting split in certain British news media, which has been studied quite carefully, which is: specialist health and science reporters are actually very good at their job, they know a lot of background, they know how to critically appraise research, and they will often make a fairly good stab at doing that with their articles, as long as they can get it past the desk. But what you find is, whenever a story becomes a big, political hot potato, whenever it becomes a big news story, like the MMR vaccine, or the GM food, the 'Frankenstein' food front pages of 1998, you find that the stories get taken out of the hands of the specialists, and put into the hands of the generalists, so the MMR story, especially after the question became 'did Tony Blair's son have the MMR vaccine?' – a fact that was mentioned in 33% of the news stories about MMR in 2002, when Andrew Wakefield's name was only in 25%, so Tony Blair's son was a bigger figure in our media coverage than Andrew Wakefield was. What you find is that, also, when there's a big story like MMR, also MMR was twice as likely to be written about by generalist journalists as a story about cloning, for example. And in the first two days after the Frankenstein food story hit the news stands, not a single one of the news or comment pieces in the ''entirity'' of the British news media, was written by a science columnist.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, that's definitely a big problem. Ben, you have a book coming out based on your blog, why don't you tell us about that?<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, it's called '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Science_%28book%29 Bad Science]', maintaining brand homogeneity. And that's coming out with Fourth Estate, Harper Collins in September, and it should be very good, although it's very, very UK-centric, because I write about misrepresentation of science in the media, and the media I know very well is UK media. And I have this huge raft of examples from a ''thousand'' stories now, that's not an estimate, that's like, the number. And I've kinda been able to- it kinda grew out of this bet with a friend where, like, we both teach epidemiology, and I was like 'I bet I could teach the whole of epi' – or epidemiholiday As the students call it=<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Epidemiholiday?<br />
<br />
BG: 'I bet I can teach the whole of epi, only using exaples of people getting things wrong in broadsheet national news papers'<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: And it turned out to be true, but what I'd really like, actually, is to get a better handle on the ways that science is misrepresented in the media in America, cos it would be great to branch out and I'm not mercenary about selling the book, I accept that I will lead a life of obscurity in academia in a rented ex-council flat-<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: I fear that would be a volume of books if you attempted to do that, not just a single book.<br />
<br />
BG: Right, that would be like Churchill's history of World War I<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: But, I'm telling you, following your blog, that the examples are completely applicable to the United States, I think they'd be very-<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, well, actually, if there are people out there listening who know about this stuff, what I'd really like – ben@badscience.net - what I'd really like is for people to send me sort of examples from American media that mirror the cock-ups in British media. Are we allowed to say cock-ups in a Christian country?<br />
<br />
R: Oh, we're allowed to say it ''twice'', gosh<br />
<br />
BG: Have I said cock twice?<br />
<br />
E: You British are allowed to say anything you want<br />
<br />
R: That's three now.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Alright, well sometimes the stories are the same, like I think you covered the regenerating finger story.<ref>Ben Goldacre's Guardian article: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may/03/medicalresearch.health The missing finger that never was]</ref><br />
<br />
BG: That was hilarious! I mean that was-<br />
<br />
S: And we covered that too, <!--internal reference???--><br />
<br />
R: Yeah, that was great<br />
<br />
BG: Out of nowhere, and it was like three years old too<br />
<br />
S&R: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: But it was the BBC who reignited that story! And again, it was not a science or health correspondent, it was the BBC's New York correspondent, and you could see he was like, he was ''beside himself'' with excitement.<ref>BBC article & video: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7354458.stm The man who grew back his finger tip]</ref> He really thought he had found Nobel prize winning stuff with this, like, backwards guy in his model shop, who's finger had grown back. And he, this sense of holy reverence as he talked about the science, was just extraordinary, and just disproportionate to the reality, which was that, lop the top of your finger off and it just grows back, that's just nature<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it healed naturally<br />
<br />
R: It just happens<br />
<br />
S: You're hawking your brother's new product.<br />
<br />
BG: New company, yeah<br />
<br />
R: I should tell him about the holes for my earrings that closed up after I didn't wear earrings for a while.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: I mean, it's really interesting that there's this recurring theme in all of these stories in bad science and the media, and also in quackery, where we're sort of bringing all these childish fables, we're letting them take the credit for the amazing things that the body does, you know. Like when people were bringing in that placebo pill, and I'm like, I'm in sort of two minds about the ethics of giving placebos, I think it might be useful in ''some'' situations, but giving placebos to kids when they've got a cold, and I kinda think 'well, ok, you wanna tell your kid a reassuring story: here's a pill, you'll get better'. But how more empowering is it to say 'look, at the moment, there's this small, ''tiny'' microscopic organism that's gone into your body, it's called a virus, and it's really clever. What it does, is it exploits the machinery in your body that makes new parts for you, and it uses that to make copies of itself, and also it releases these other things that irritate the other parts of your body, and that's why you've got a cough and a sore throat, but your body's really clever, because on the surface of every cell, is holding out copies of all the stuff that's happening inside, and the immune system cells are floating around, and they have a look at what's in every cell by looking at this stuff that's being held out on the surface. And when they see something that's alien like that, they go in and they call all of their friends who arrive, following like a smoke trail to the source of the fire, along a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemotaxis chemotactic] path, and then they go in, and they find the bad guys, and they wrap them up in, like, a little ball, and they squirt beach at them, and they kill them'. Now that, to me, why is that a sugar pill?<br />
<br />
J: I finally understand!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BG: Why let a sugar pill take credit for that? It's just insane, you know, and why let a ''healer'' take credit for that. But why let some magic powder take credit for the totally amazing fact that, if you cut the top of your finger off, it grows back like ''new'', I mean ''that'', that's a miracle, you know!<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: Quite apart from the fact that in the stories they were sort of talking about powder made out of (mystically) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endothelial_cells ''endothelial'' cells]!<br />
<br />
E,B&S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BG: As if like-<br />
<br />
S: It's some exotic thing, pig's bladder<br />
<br />
BG: No, it was (laughing)<br />
<br />
BG&S: 'extra-cellular matrix'<br />
<br />
BG: and it was like 'and these are made of 'extra-cellular matrix', and you're like extra-cellular matrix surrounds the cells of every single cell in all of the bodies of all of the people in the world, extra-cellular, you know, there's ''more'' extra-cellular matrix in the world than you could shake a stick at.<br />
<br />
J: That's like 'the super spectacular!'<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: 'Space-age technology', that's 50 years old!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Well, Ben, we certainly appreciate what you're doing, we love your blog and your articles for the Guardian, I fell like we're just getting started, maybe we'll have a chance to sit down again, if not here, some time in the future.<br />
<br />
BG: Yeah, yeah, cool<br />
<br />
S: And thanks again for sitting with us.<br />
<br />
R: Thanks, Ben<br />
<br />
BG: Cheers, thank you.<br />
<br />
== Randi Speaks: The Media <small>(59:20)</small> ==<br />
(jingle) And now, Randi speaks.<br />
<br />
S: Randi, tell us how you think the media deals with issues of science and skepticism.<br />
<br />
JR: Rather badly, generally speaking, because the media is interested in a sensational story. Well, they say they want news, but they want ''sensationa''l news. You know very well that puppy dog down a sewer is going to get much more attention than some political hack in the local community, unless he has something to do with puppies going down sewers. The media's that way, and it's understandable, they want to sell newspapers and programs and wot-not. I've said it before and I'll say it again: most people in the media are educated in the humanities, and they don't have a good grasp of science and reality, and how things work. They're very easily deceived, they're very na&iuml;ve in some respects, and they're purposefully na&iuml;ve perhaps because they want the story to be there. Now, an excellent example of that on a very high level is an ABC TV program that I did, I guess last year. They got me all the way in to New York city to discuss the '[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo%C3%A3o_de_Deus_%28medium%29 John of god]' situation. Now, 'John of god' is a so-called psychic healer and wot-not in Brazil, and he's doing very simple tricks that, kind of what people have known for a long time, sticking sticks up your nose and wot-not, and he actually sticks forceps up the patients' noses. I went armed for bear, I went to New York City, and they stuck me in the studio in front of a video camera. I had with me video tapes, props and wot-not, and I spoke with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Qui%C3%B1ones John Qui&ntilde;ones], he was the host on the show. They interviewed me for two and a half hours, ''two and a half hours'' they interviewed me! <br />
<br />
I was on with a man called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehmet_Oz Dr Mehmet Oz], a very, very famous cardiac surgeon in New York city, a great reputation, but totally woo-woo. He actually has nurses specially trained in the art of balancing the aura, walking around in his ''operating room'' while he's got a patient on the table with his chest cavity open and his heart being fixed! And Mehmet Oz will throw up his hands when told by the nurse that she's coming through to balance the aura by passing her hands over it! Incredible! Incredible that a man in this day and age, let alone a very highly educated man like Mehmet Oz, would be involved in such quackery! Such absolute foolishness, such a juvenile approach to reality. But, nonetheless, he is a great cardiac surgeon, and I would trust myself to him ''any'' time. (quietly and suspiciously) As long as he kept the woman with the funny gloves out of the place. (in normal voice) But, he was on the program as well, it ended up that the program used nine seconds of what I said. Nine seconds out of two and a half hours. They didn't use any other recorded material, any other references to the video tapes with demonstrations of how the forceps up the nose trick is done, as I say, it's an old carnival stunt. But they used a great deal of Mehmet Oz, they used quotations from him, and he even said something – for a Dr, very foolish – he said that sticking up the nose came close to certain glands in the head and wot-not, but he didn't notice – because he doesn't operate on the head, I guess, that there's a half-inch layer of ''bone'' in between where the forceps go up. Now, is it supposed to be a magnetic influence? A proximity influence? A (inaudible, cubosity?) effect? I don't know, but he mentioned that as a possibility. He really is a woo-woo artist. Unfortunately, with all of that education and very extensive training and great expertise. <br />
<br />
So they used all of nine seconds, but they used it so unfairly, they had me saying – and this took nine seconds, "there are no greater liars in the world than quacks, except for their patients". Now, that was broadcast like that, but the complete quotation was "As that early American philosopher [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin Ben Franklin] once said, there are no greater liars in the world than quacks, except for their patients". So, I was attributing it to Ben Franklin, but they cut that out, because that made it look as if I was stealing it from Ben Franklin. I got emails, Steve, from all over the world, saying "you're quoting Ben Franklin, you stole that! You should have attributed it to them". I did! But they edited it out, and they edited out the complete explanation of how the forceps up the nose trick was done, and the various other things that 'John of God' does. Now this is totally irresponsible, it borders on the criminal, because what that does, ABC television in a feature program had this number about 'John of God', and that, I'm sure, brought ''hundreds'' of Americans to travel off to Brazil and spend their hard-earned money on this quackery. And 'John of God', I'm sure, was very happy with it. And they never did a retraction of any kind.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(1:04:43)</small> ==<br />
(jingle)<br />
<br />
S: Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two genuine, and one fictitious. And then, my panel of skeptics tries to tell me which one they think is the fake. Are you guys ready for this week?<br />
<br />
B:…yes<br />
<br />
S: Here we go, number one: 'Astrophysicists have discovered the upper limit for the mass of a black hole'. Item number two: 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge'. And item number three 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells'. Bob, go first.<br />
<br />
B: (quietly) you ''bastard''<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
B: 'upper limit for the mass of a black hole', it does sound kinda bizarre, I mean, what's preventing a black hole from just getting bigger and bigger? Um, so on the surface, that doesn't sound right, if you think about it. Dinosaur dominance 'due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge', I mean, that makes sense on the surface, absolutely. A lot of evolution and whether you go extinct or not has to do with luck. That definitely can play a part, maybe that makes too much sense. 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells', that sounds pretty cool, and that would be awesome, I'm gonna say that's science. I'm gonna say that… that the dinosaur dominance being luck, that sounds a little fishy, I'm gonna say that that is fiction.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, Evan?<br />
<br />
E: Well, 'upper limit for the mass of a black hole'… I mean, there would have to be some kind of upper limit, wouldn't there? It's just a matter of discovering it, one would ''think'', but I'm not too sure about that. Dinosaurs having an advantage over contemporaries 'was due to luck'… yeah. But how were they able to determine that, you know, how do you equate 'luck' in a scientific context? I'm not quite sure ''really'' what's being said there. And then the 'improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells', sure, yes, finding out all kinds of new things about all stem cells these days, cutting edge science, totally plausible. So I'll agree with Bob that the dinosaur one is fiction.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: See now, I'm not so sure, because I'm pretty sure I read something about this, and that they actually found these skeletons of an elderly pack of velocoraptors, surrounded by a field of four-leafed clovers, and a small pile of rabbit's feet next to them. So, I believe that that's actually science, and I also think that a black hole should have an upper limit, cos otherwise, well, you know, that's too scary to compliment- er, contemplate. So I think that transplanting muscle stem cells, I don't think we're quite to the point where we can improve strength and performance doing that, and that sounds like, are we doing studies on humans with muscle stem cells? That doesn't seem like it's going to work, I don't know. I think that's fiction, so-<br />
<br />
S: Ok, alright? Jay?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, the upper limit to the black hole- the upper limit to the ''mass'' of a black hole, I would just assume that it make a lot of sense, like Evan said, for someone to sit down and run the math and be able to theoretically figure that our. 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge'. Mmm, that one seems … fishy to me for some reason, how could they determine it was just luck? I wonder how the fossil record could demonstrate that. And the last one, three 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells'. Yeah, you know, I think I would've heard this. If that happened, I think that it would be much bigger news, you know, definitely above the water line, or ''I'' would've read it, with the amount of reading I do on science news. I don't think that one is science, I think that one was altered by Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Ok, so you all agree that 'Astrophysicists have discovered the upper limit for the mass of a black hole', correct?<br />
<br />
J,B&E: Yes<br />
<br />
S:Yeah, actually, ''this'' was the most counter-intuitive one for me when I first read it. This is science, and, you know, like Bob, my reaction was 'what would stop it from absorbing more mass? What would happen if a black hole reached it's upper limit, and then, you know, there was more material to suck in, what would happen?' Well, it turns out astrophysicists-<br />
<br />
B: More to it.<br />
<br />
S: -have calculated the theoretical upper limit for the mass of a black hole, it's a Yale astronomer in fact, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priyamvada_Natarajan Priyamvada Natarajan]. What (s)he suspects is, there's a mechanism that, as the black hole gets to about 10 billion solar masses-<br />
<br />
E: Wow<br />
<br />
S: -that any matter falling into it would cause the radiation away of an equal amount of mass. <ref name="Yale">Yale news: [http://news.yale.edu/2008/09/04/yale-astronomer-discovers-upper-mass-limit-black-holes Yale Astronomer Discovers Upper Mass Limit for Black Holes]</ref> So it reaches an equilibrium point, you know-<br />
<br />
J: baaahh (?)<br />
<br />
S: -evaporate or radiate away the same amount of mass that was pulled into it-<br />
<br />
B: Wait, but you're not talking about [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation Hawking radiation] though. ''My'' interpretation was that-<br />
<br />
S: No, no<br />
<br />
B: -you've got [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accretion_disc accretion disk] radiation<br />
<br />
S: Yes, that's right<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, that's a big difference. And my understanding, though, Steve, was that this isn't a hard rule. If you've got so much in-falling matter, you would reach a point where the radiation being generated by the heat of the accretion disk would actually blow away solar ma- any material that would've fallen into the black hole, so you gotta kinda like a soft limitation in that way. But if you've got a 10 billion solar mass black hole, and it bumps into a neutron star, or a smaller black hole, nothing's going to stop that from getting bigger than 10 billion-<br />
<br />
S: Well, see, I was not clear on that point from the article that I read. That was my question too.<br />
<br />
B: That was my understanding from reading some articles, and reading a lot of the comments from people who seem to know what they were talking about. What I know about black holes, what is going to stop it, to go above it if it's as I described.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, but the press release makes it sound like that's just one possible explanation, but that other things were used to derive this upper limit. You know, we might have to do some follow-up to try and sort that out, but that was exactly the question that I had: is that a ''hard'' limit? Or is it a ''soft'' limit? You seem to think that it was a soft limit, right?<br />
<br />
B: Absolutely<br />
<br />
S: And my interpretation was that this was a ''hard'' limit, and one of the mechanisms proposed for that would prevent the black hole from getting bigger than about 10 billion solar masses, but, interesting either way. So let's go on to number two: 'New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge', and Bob and Evan, you both said that this one was fiction.<br />
<br />
J: So it's down to Bob and Evan, and me and Rebecca, teaming up again<br />
<br />
S: Jay and Rebecca thought this one is science, and this one… is… ''science''!<br />
<br />
J: Ah-ha!<br />
<br />
(high-five sound)<br />
<br />
J: You guys suck.<br />
<br />
S: But you guys did ask-<br />
<br />
B: There goes my run.<br />
<br />
S: an excellent question, which is- 'how would-<br />
<br />
E: mofos<br />
<br />
S: -'how would they know?'. How would you even make this determination?<br />
<br />
E: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: I don't know, you dominate the planet for 200 million years, there's gotta be some competitive edge in there.<br />
<br />
E: Well explain what ''luck'' is, in this context.<br />
<br />
J: Talk to us, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: Well, luck would be that there was an environmental change, and you ''happened'' to benefit from that change, as opposed to-<br />
<br />
B: Like ''humans'', mammals<br />
<br />
S: -you just out-competed, you out-competed your contemporaries. Now, what they did, was they, this is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_L._Brusatte Steve Brusatte] from Bristol University, department of Earth Sciences. And they looked at the species that were around early in the career of the dinosaurs. They found that the other major group at the time were the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crurotarsi crurotarsans], which were alligator-like reptiles. At that time, they were a more diverse group, with greater disparity, and actually were dominant over the early dinosaurs at their time. He said, if you were, you know, in the early [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triassic triassic], for example, and you looked at these two groups, you would predict, based upon their diversity, disparity and dominance, that the crurotarsans would have a much greater chance of dominating the future than the dinosaurs would.<ref name="SM">Science magazine: [http://www.sciencemag.org/content/321/5895/1485.short Superiority, Competition, and Opportunism in the Evolutionary Radiation of Dinosaurs] DOI: 10.1126/science.1161833</ref><ref name="SA">Scientific American: [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=was-the-dinosaurs-long-reign-a-fluke Was the Dinosaurs' Long Reign on Earth a Fluke?]</ref> So by any measure of 'who was winning', the crurotarsans seemed to be winning in terms of spreading into more ecosystems and, you know, having greater numbers, etc. But then two things happened, there was the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnian carnian]-norian event 228 million years ago, which caused a lot of extinctions, with both the dinosaurs and the crurotarsans survived that, but it did eliminate a lot of competition, and then 200 million years ago, there was the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triassic#Late_Triassic_extinction_event end Triassic extinction], which resulted from a period of significant global warming, increase in temperature, and the dinosaurs weathered the increase in temperature, and the crurotarsans didn't. But until that climate change occurred, the crurotarsans were out-competing the dinosaurs, if anything. So that's what they mean by luck, they just ''happened'' to benefit from a change in the climate when, if, all things being equal, they were not directly out-competing their contemporaries. Which means that number three: 'New study in humans demonstrated improved strength and performance following transplantation of muscle stem cells' is fiction.<br />
<br />
B: Whatever.<br />
<br />
S: But what ''is'' true, is that they just identified what the muscle stem cell ''is''. They didn't really know which muscle was ''in fact'' the muscle stem cell.<br />
<br />
B: Crap, that's what I read.<br />
<br />
S: Yes, perhaps that's what you'd read. So, and it turns out to be the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myosatellite_cell satellite] cell which is a type of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progenitor_cells progenitor] cell that exists near the muscles, or in the muscle tissue, and, you know, in repair or exercise, etc. will generate new muscle tissue. But we haven't successfully transplanted muscle cells into people. That's not happened yet.<br />
<br />
J: (mimicking) Stem cells are made of people!<br />
<br />
B: Man, I hate when a vague memory of reading an article totally kills you<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I know, that's what got me<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, sucks to be you, Bob<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: You gotta stop reading, guys.<br />
<br />
J: So, Steve really is the bastard tonight<br />
<br />
B: Jay, you bastard, you ended the run I had, it was like a nine-winning streak run (actually 10). How long was your run?<br />
<br />
J: Four foot one<br />
<br />
E: Four foot one<br />
<br />
S: Well, congratulations Jay and Rebecca, good job.<br />
<br />
J: Yay! Rebecca!<br />
<br />
E: Yay!<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:16:28)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: Jay, do you have a quote for us this week?<br />
<br />
J: I have a quote this week from a man called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume David Hume], he lived 1711-1776, that was a pretty good year, wasn't it? And I'm always surprised when I read quotes from people that lived centuries ago, especially ones that are exceptionally logical or rational, maybe I'm skewed, or maybe just from reading quotes from a lot of very smart people during that time, I don't know. I'd like to know if I'm just thinking that they're overly rational for their time, or maybe people were more rational in the past.<br />
<br />
S: Well it was the age of enlightenment for a reason, Jay.<br />
<br />
J: David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, an economist, historian, and an important figure in western philosophy, and he said, or wrote:<br />
<blockquote>When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.</blockquote><br />
J: DAVID HUME! … I think this is also a good quote to go with Melvin's email to us. MELVIN LEE! (even louder) MELVIN LEE!<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: CONFUSED LISTENER!<br />
<br />
R: Ok, the David Hume one didn't make me (inaudible – upset?)<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Right, just a quick reminder that October 10<sup>th</sup>, New York city is the New York city's skeptic's first annual anniversary event, they're going to have James Randi speak for them, and then October 11<sup>th</sup>, in Fairfield Connecticut, Perry's home town, we're going to have the first annual Perry DeAngelis memorial lecture!<br />
<br />
E,B&J: Yay!<br />
<br />
S: October 11<sup>th</sup>, noon to three at the Fairfield theatre company, we have the information on our message-board, and on our facebook page, and Jay, can we put that on the website? I know we're in the middle of the update and everything, but can we put that up?<br />
<br />
J: I will put it on the homepage<br />
<br />
S: ''and'' we have confirmed guests Steve Mirsky, from Scientific American-<br />
<br />
J: He's awesome<br />
<br />
S: -and Terence Hines-<br />
<br />
E: Nice<br />
<br />
S: -excellent skeptic and neuroscientist, and author of 'Pseudoscience and the paranormal', ain't it cool?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, he's a good dude<br />
<br />
S: Well, thank you all again for joining me this week<br />
<br />
(someone singing "going crazy"?)<br />
<br />
R: Thanks Steve<br />
<br />
E: Yes, it was good joining you<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: Fun as always, and until next week, this is your Skeptics' guide to the Universe.<br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
<br />
== Today I learned... ==<br />
*The first space shuttle, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Enterprise Enterprise] was unveiled by NASA on September 17th 1976. <br />
<br />
*September 19th is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day international talk like a pirate day].<br />
<br />
*In February 2006, astronomers using the Hubble space telescope spotted a mystery object that continually brightened for about 100 days, after which, it dimmed symmetrically for the next 100 days.<ref name="Barbary"/> The distance to the object has been said to be between 120 and 11 billion light years away, and does not match any object in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloan_Digital_Sky_Survey Sloan Digital Sky Survey] at the time of the podcast.<br />
<br />
*Church of England offered a formal apology to Darwin in September 2008! ([http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7613403.stm BBC article])<br />
<br />
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restless_legs_syndrome Restless leg syndrome]has been documented for over 100 years.<br />
<br />
*Astrophysicists at Yale have calculated the upper limit for the mass of a black hole, stating that as a black hole gets to about 10 billion solar masses, any subsequent matter falling into it would cause the radiation away of an equal amount of mass.<ref name="Yale"/><br />
<br />
*New research suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs over their contemporaries was due to luck, and not any inherent competitive edge. It is thought that global warming in the late Triassic era may have led to the extinction of the previously dominant [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crurotarsi crurotarsans], whilst the dinosaurs survived.<ref name="SM"/><ref name="SA"/> <br />
<br />
*The muscle stem cell is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myosatellite_cell satellite] cell which is a type of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progenitor_cells progenitor] cell that exist near the muscles, or in the muscle tissue, and will generate new muscle tissue in repair or exercise, etc.<br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation<br />
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}}</div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_218&diff=9546SGU Episode 2182015-01-07T16:08:13Z<p>Jason koziol: /* Interview with Michael Vassar () */</p>
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<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
== News Items <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== Raptorex <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://news.uchicago.edu/news.php?asset_id=1710<br />
<br />
=== Bill Maher Antiscience <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/09/is_bill_maher_really_that_ignorant_part_2.php<br />
<br />
=== Panama Monster <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://skepchick.org/blog/2009/09/the-panama-monster-is-not-a-monster/<br />
<br />
== Interview with Michael Vassar <small>()</small> ==<br />
* President, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/people/Michael-Vassar/ Singularity Summit http://www.singularitysummit.com/<br />
<br />
S: We are joined now by Michale Vasser. Michael, welcome to the Skeptic's Guide.<br />
<br />
M: Yes, nice to speak to you. I'm glad to be here.<br />
<br />
S: Michael is the president of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, and you are widely published on futurist.com, kurzweilai.net, you're also involved with the Lifeboat Foundation website, you've published there as well. And, we're talking today because next weekend, the week after this podcast comes out, is a conference called the singularity summit. Can you tell us about that?<br />
<br />
M: Okay. The Singularity Institute has an annual event called the Singularity Summit. We had the first one in 2006. It has had a great number of prominent speakers over the years, including Hofstadter, and Rodney Brooks, Peter Norvig, The CTO of Intel, Justin Rattner. And this year we're going to have Ray Kurzweil, and Aubrey DeGray, David Tralmbers, Stephen Wolfram, and a number of other pretty prominent scientists. <br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm. It's also the first year it's going to be on the east coast, right?<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>()</small> ==<br />
[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090922095814.htm Item # 1]: A new study finds that use of texting, or so-called chat-speak, is significantly correlated with poorer spelling ability in students. Don't forget to check the box to tell us which one was the Fiction.<br />
[http://www.sciencecentric.com/news/article.php?q=09092317-new-research-shows-small-increase-hospital-mortality-rates-the-first-week-august Item # 2]: New research finds that mortality rates increase by 6% in UK hospitals in the first week of August – when new doctors begin training.<br />
[http://www.escardio.org/about/press/press-releases/pr-09/Pages/ESC-statement-smoking-bans.aspx Item # 3]: A meta-analysis finds that community smoking bans decrease heart attack admissions by 36% at three years.<br />
== Who's That Noisy <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Answer to last week: translation of brain wave activity into sound<br />
== Quote of the Week <small>()</small> ==<br />
<blockquote>'Yo Oprah, I'm really happy for you, and I'm gonna let you finish, but Jenny McCarthy is one of the biggest idiots of all time.' - Kanye West (a parody of the MTV Music Awards)</blockquote><br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/> <br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_218&diff=9545SGU Episode 2182015-01-07T16:00:37Z<p>Jason koziol: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{transcribing all<br />
|transcriber = Jason koziol<br />
|date = 7 Jan 2015<br />
|transcription = y<br />
|proof-reading = y <!-- please remove commenting mark-up when some transcription is present --><br />
|time-stamps = y<br />
|formatting = y<br />
|links = y<br />
|Today I Learned list = y<br />
|categories = y<br />
|segment redirects = y <!-- redirect pages for segments with head-line type titles --><br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox<br />
|episodeNum = 218<br />
|episodeDate = September 23<sup>rd</sup> 2009 <!-- broadcast date --><br />
|episodeIcon = File:Panamamonster.jpg <!-- use "File:" and file name for image on show notes page--><br />
|previous = <!-- not required, automates to previous episode --><br />
|next = <!-- not required, automates to next episode --><br />
|rebecca = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|bob = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|jay = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|evan = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|perry = <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|guest1 = <!-- leave blank if no guest --><br />
|guest2 = <!-- leave blank if no second guest --><br />
|guest3 = <!-- leave blank if no third guest --><br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2009-09-23.mp3<br />
|forumLink = <br />
|qowText = 'Yo Oprah, I'm really happy for you, and I'm gonna let you finish, but Jenny McCarthy is one of the biggest idiots of all time.' <!-- add quote of the week text--><br />
|qowAuthor = {{w|Kanye West}} (a parody of the MTV Music Awards) <!-- add author and link --><br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
== News Items <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== Raptorex <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://news.uchicago.edu/news.php?asset_id=1710<br />
<br />
=== Bill Maher Antiscience <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/09/is_bill_maher_really_that_ignorant_part_2.php<br />
<br />
=== Panama Monster <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://skepchick.org/blog/2009/09/the-panama-monster-is-not-a-monster/<br />
<br />
== Interview with Michael Vassar <small>()</small> ==<br />
* President, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/people/Michael-Vassar/ Singularity Summit http://www.singularitysummit.com/<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>()</small> ==<br />
[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090922095814.htm Item # 1]: A new study finds that use of texting, or so-called chat-speak, is significantly correlated with poorer spelling ability in students. Don't forget to check the box to tell us which one was the Fiction.<br />
[http://www.sciencecentric.com/news/article.php?q=09092317-new-research-shows-small-increase-hospital-mortality-rates-the-first-week-august Item # 2]: New research finds that mortality rates increase by 6% in UK hospitals in the first week of August – when new doctors begin training.<br />
[http://www.escardio.org/about/press/press-releases/pr-09/Pages/ESC-statement-smoking-bans.aspx Item # 3]: A meta-analysis finds that community smoking bans decrease heart attack admissions by 36% at three years.<br />
== Who's That Noisy <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Answer to last week: translation of brain wave activity into sound<br />
== Quote of the Week <small>()</small> ==<br />
<blockquote>'Yo Oprah, I'm really happy for you, and I'm gonna let you finish, but Jenny McCarthy is one of the biggest idiots of all time.' - Kanye West (a parody of the MTV Music Awards)</blockquote><br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/> <br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_218&diff=9544SGU Episode 2182015-01-07T16:00:06Z<p>Jason koziol: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{transcribing all<br />
|transcriber = Jason Koziol<br />
|date = 7 Jan 2015<br />
|transcription = y<br />
|proof-reading = y <!-- please remove commenting mark-up when some transcription is present --><br />
|time-stamps = y<br />
|formatting = y<br />
|links = y<br />
|Today I Learned list = y<br />
|categories = y<br />
|segment redirects = y <!-- redirect pages for segments with head-line type titles --><br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox<br />
|episodeNum = 218<br />
|episodeDate = September 23<sup>rd</sup> 2009 <!-- broadcast date --><br />
|episodeIcon = File:Panamamonster.jpg <!-- use "File:" and file name for image on show notes page--><br />
|previous = <!-- not required, automates to previous episode --><br />
|next = <!-- not required, automates to next episode --><br />
|rebecca = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|bob = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|jay = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|evan = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|perry = <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|guest1 = <!-- leave blank if no guest --><br />
|guest2 = <!-- leave blank if no second guest --><br />
|guest3 = <!-- leave blank if no third guest --><br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2009-09-23.mp3<br />
|forumLink = <br />
|qowText = 'Yo Oprah, I'm really happy for you, and I'm gonna let you finish, but Jenny McCarthy is one of the biggest idiots of all time.' <!-- add quote of the week text--><br />
|qowAuthor = {{w|Kanye West}} (a parody of the MTV Music Awards) <!-- add author and link --><br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
== News Items <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== Raptorex <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://news.uchicago.edu/news.php?asset_id=1710<br />
<br />
=== Bill Maher Antiscience <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/09/is_bill_maher_really_that_ignorant_part_2.php<br />
<br />
=== Panama Monster <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://skepchick.org/blog/2009/09/the-panama-monster-is-not-a-monster/<br />
<br />
== Interview with Michael Vassar <small>()</small> ==<br />
* President, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/people/Michael-Vassar/ Singularity Summit http://www.singularitysummit.com/<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>()</small> ==<br />
[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090922095814.htm Item # 1]: A new study finds that use of texting, or so-called chat-speak, is significantly correlated with poorer spelling ability in students. Don't forget to check the box to tell us which one was the Fiction.<br />
[http://www.sciencecentric.com/news/article.php?q=09092317-new-research-shows-small-increase-hospital-mortality-rates-the-first-week-august Item # 2]: New research finds that mortality rates increase by 6% in UK hospitals in the first week of August – when new doctors begin training.<br />
[http://www.escardio.org/about/press/press-releases/pr-09/Pages/ESC-statement-smoking-bans.aspx Item # 3]: A meta-analysis finds that community smoking bans decrease heart attack admissions by 36% at three years.<br />
== Who's That Noisy <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Answer to last week: translation of brain wave activity into sound<br />
== Quote of the Week <small>()</small> ==<br />
<blockquote>'Yo Oprah, I'm really happy for you, and I'm gonna let you finish, but Jenny McCarthy is one of the biggest idiots of all time.' - Kanye West (a parody of the MTV Music Awards)</blockquote><br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/> <br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=User:Jason_koziol&diff=9543User:Jason koziol2015-01-07T15:53:42Z<p>Jason koziol: </p>
<hr />
<div>Software developer, entrepreneur, modeling & information theory specialist, artificial intelligence systems engineering</div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=Template:SGU_episode_list&diff=9517Template:SGU episode list2014-12-12T12:11:01Z<p>Jason koziol: </p>
<hr />
<div><noinclude>This template is used to display the list of full-length episodes on the [[Main Page]] and the [[SGU Episodes]] page. Additions and amendments to this template will be reflected on those pages.<br />
<br />
Where the first pass of transcription is done using Google Speech API, the page should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{a}}</nowiki></code> to add the microphone icon.<br />
<br />
Pages currently in progress should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{i}}</nowiki></code> to add the pencil icon, and pages that have sections open to other contributors to transcribe should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{Open}}</nowiki></code> to include the green arrow icon. <br />
<br />
Once all the transcription is finished, the page should be marked with <code><nowiki>{{mag}}</nowiki></code> to add the magnifying glass icon, signifying that it needs to be proof-read.<br />
<br />
Pages that have been proof-read and verified by a contributor other than the author should be followed by <code><nowiki>{{tick}}</nowiki></code> to include the green tick icon.<br /></noinclude><br />
Below are links to all the SGU episodes with transcription pages. <br />
<br />
Jump to: [[#2013|2013]], [[#2012|2012]], [[#2011|2011]], [[#2010|2010]], [[#2009|2009]], [[#2008|2008]], [[#2007|2007]], [[#2006|2006]], [[#2005|2005]]<br />
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{|<br />
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|-<br />
|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{tick}}<br />
| &ndash;&nbsp; episode proof-read<br />
| &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{mag}}<br />
| &nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp; transcription complete and needs proof-reading<br />
|-<br />
|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{i}}<br />
| &ndash;&nbsp; transcription in progress<br />
| &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{Open}}<br />
| &nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp; contains sections that need transcribing<br />
|-<br />
|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;{{a}}<br />
|colspan="3"| &ndash;&nbsp; first pass of transcription performed by Google Speech API<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{|style="margin:1em 3em"<br />
|style="padding-right: 6em;white-space:nowrap" valign="top"|<span id="2014"><big>'''2014'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 490]], Nov 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 489]], Nov 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 488]], Nov 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 487]], Nov 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 486]], Nov 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 485]], Oct 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 484]], Oct 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 483]], Oct 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 482]], Oct 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 481]], Sep 27 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 480]], Sep 20 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 479]], Sep 13 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 478]], Sep 6 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 477]], Aug 30 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 476]], Aug 23 2014 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 475]], Aug 16 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 474]], Aug 9 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 473]], Aug 2 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 472]], Jul 26 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 471]], Jul 19 2014 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 470]], Jul 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 469]], Jul 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 468]], Jun 28 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 467]], Jun 21 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 466]], Jun 14 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 465]], Jun 7 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 464]], May 31 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 463]], May 24 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 462]], May 17 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 461]], May 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 460]], May 3 2014 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 459]], Apr 26 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 458]], Apr 19 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 457]], Apr 12 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 456]], Apr 5 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 455]], Mar 29 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 454]], Mar 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 453]], Mar 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 452]], Mar 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 451]], Mar 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 450]], Feb 22 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 449]], Feb 15 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 448]], Feb 10 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 447]], Feb 8 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 446]], Feb 1 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 445]], Jan 25 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 444]], Jan 18 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 443]], Jan 11 2014 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 442]], Jan 4 2014 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2013"><big>'''2013'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 441]], Dec 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 440]], Dec 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 439]], Dec 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 438]], Dec 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 437]], Nov 30 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 436]], Nov 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 435]], Nov 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 434]], Nov 9 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 433]], Nov 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 432]], Oct 26 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 431]], Oct 19 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 430]], Oct 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 429]], Oct 5 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 428]], Sep 28 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 427]], Sep 21 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 426]], Sep 14 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 425]], Sep 7 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 424]], Aug 31 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 423]], Aug 24 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 422]], Aug 17 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 421]], Aug 10 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 420]], Aug 3 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 419]], Jul 27 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 418]], Jul 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 417]], Jul 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 416]], Jul 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 415]], Jun 29 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 414]], Jun 22 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 413]], Jun 15 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 412]], Jun 8 2013 {{i}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 411]], Jun 1 2013 {{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 410]], May 25 2013 {{Tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 409]], May 18 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 408]], May 11 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 407]], May 4 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 406]], Apr 27 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 405]], Apr 20 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 404]], Apr 13 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 403]], Apr 6 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 402]], Mar 30 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 401]], Mar 23 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 400]], Mar 16 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 399]], Mar 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 398]], Mar 2 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 397]], Feb 23 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 396]], Feb 16 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 395]], Feb 9 2013 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 394]], Feb 2 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 393]], Jan 26 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 392]], Jan 19 2013 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 391]], Jan 12 2013 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 390]], Jan 5 2013 {{tick}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2012"><big>'''2012'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 389]], Dec 29 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 388]], Dec 22 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 387]], Dec 15 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 386]], Dec 8 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 385]], Dec 1 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 384]], Nov 24 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 383]], Nov 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 382]], Nov 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 381]], Nov 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 380]], Oct 27 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 379]], Oct 20 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 378]], Oct 13 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 377]], Oct 6 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 376]], Sep 29 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 375]], Sep 22 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 374]], Sep 15 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 373]], Sep 8 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 372]], Sep 1 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 371]], Aug 25 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 370]], Aug 18 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 369]], Aug 11 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 368]], Aug 4 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 367]], Jul 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 366]], Jul 21 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 365]], Jul 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 364]], Jul 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 363]], Jun 30 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 362]], Jun 23 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 361]], Jun 16 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 360]], Jun 9 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 359]], Jun 2 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 358]], May 26 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 357]], May 19 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 345]], Feb 25 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 341]], Jan 28 2012 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 340]], Jan 21 2012 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012 {{tick}}<br />
<span id="2011"><big>'''2011'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 337]], Dec 31 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 336]], Dec 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 335]], Dec 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 334]], Dec 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 333]], Dec 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 332]], Nov 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 331]], Nov 19 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 330]], Nov 11 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 329]], Nov 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 327]], Oct 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 326]], Oct 15 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 325]], Oct 8 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 324]], Oct 1 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 323]], Sep 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 322]], Sep 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 321]], Sep 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU 24hr]], Sep 23-24 2011<br />
* [[SGU Episode 320]], Aug 29 2011 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 319]], Aug 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 318]], Aug 17 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 317]], Aug 10 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 316]], Aug 3 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 315]], Jul 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 314]], Jul 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 313]], Jul 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 312]], Jul 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 311]], Jun 29 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 310]], Jun 22 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 309]], Jun 13 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 307]], May 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 306]], May 25 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 305]], May 18 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 304]], May 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 303]], May 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 302]], Apr 27 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 301]], Apr 20 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 300]], Apr 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 299]], Apr 4 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 298]], Mar 30 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 297]], Mar 24 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 296]], Mar 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 295]], Mar 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 294]], Mar 2 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 293]], Feb 23 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 292]], Feb 16 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 291]], Feb 9 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 290]], Jan 31 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 289]], Jan 26 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 288]], Jan 19 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 287]], Jan 12 2011 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 286]], Jan 5 2011 {{Open}}<br />
<span id="2010"><big>'''2010'''</big></span><br />
<br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 285]], Dec 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 284]], Dec 22 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 283]], Dec 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 282]], Dec 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 281]], Dec 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 280]], Nov 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 279]], Nov 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 278]], Nov 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 277]], Nov 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 276]], Oct 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 275]], Oct 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 274]], Oct 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 273]], Oct 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 272]], Sep 30 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 271]], Sep 22 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 270]], Sep 15 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 269]], Sep 8 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 268]], Sep 1 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 267]], Aug 25 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 266]], Aug 19 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 265]], Aug 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 264]], Aug 4 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 263]], Jul 29 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 262]], Jul 21 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 261]], Jul 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 260]], Jun 30 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 259]], Jun 28 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 258]], Jun 16 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 257]], Jun 14 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 256]], Jun 9 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 255]], Jun 2 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 254]], May 26 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 253]], May 19 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 252]], May 12 2010 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 251]], May 5 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 250]], Apr 28 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 249]], Apr 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 248]], Apr 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 247]], Apr 7 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 246]], Mar 31 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 245]], Mar 25 2010 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 244]], Mar 18 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 243]], Mar 11 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 242]], Mar 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 241]], Feb 24 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 240]], Feb 17 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 239]], Feb 10 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 238]], Feb 3 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 237]], Jan 27 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 236]], Jan 20 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 235]], Jan 13 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 234]], Nov 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 233]], Jan 6 2010 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 232]], Jan 1 2010 {{mag}}<br />
<br />
<br />
|valign="top" style=white-space:nowrap|<span id="2009"><big>'''2009'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 231]], Dec 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 230]], Dec 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 229]], Dec 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 228]], Dec 2 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 227]], Nov 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 226]], Nov 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 225]], Nov 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 224]], Nov 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 223]], Oct 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 222]], Oct 21 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 221]], Oct 14 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 220]], Oct 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 219]], Sep 28 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 218]], Sep 23 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 217]], Sep 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 216]], Sep 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 215]], Sep 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 214]], Aug 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 213]], Aug 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 212]], Aug 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 211]], Aug 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 210]], Jul 29 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 209]], Jul 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 208]], Jul 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 207]], Jul 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 206]], Jun 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 205]], Jun 16 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 204]], Jun 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 203]], Jun 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 202]], Jun 3 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 201]], May 27 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 200]], May 20 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 199]], May 13 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 198]], May 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 197]], Apr 30 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 196]], Apr 22 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 195]], Apr 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 194]], Apr 8 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 193]], Apr 1 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 192]], Mar 25 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 191]], Mar 18 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 190]], Mar 12 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 189]], Mar 4 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 188]], Feb 26 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 187]], Feb 11 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 186]], Feb 9 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 185]], Feb 4 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 184]], Jan 28 2009 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 183]], Jan 21 2009 {{i}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 182]], Jan 15 2009 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 181]], Jan 7 2009 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2008"><big>'''2008'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 180]], Dec 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 179]], Dec 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 178]], Dec 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 177]], Dec 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 176]], Nov 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 175]], Nov 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 174]], Nov 18 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 173]], Nov 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 172]], Nov 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 171]], Oct 29 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 170]], Oct 22 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 169]], Oct 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 168]], Oct 8 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 167]], Oct 1 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 166]], Sep 24 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 164]], Sep 10 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 163]], Sep 3 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 162]], Aug 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 161]], Aug 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 160]], Aug 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 159]], Aug 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 158]], Jul 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 157]], Jul 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 155]], Jul 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 154]], Jul 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 153]], Jun 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 152]], Jun 11 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 151]], Jun 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 150]], Jun 4 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 149]], May 28 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 148]], May 21 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 147]], May 14 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 146]], May 7 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 145]], Apr 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 143]], Apr 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 142]], Apr 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 141]], Apr 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 140]], Mar 26 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 139]], Mar 19 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 138]], Mar 12 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 137]], Mar 5 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 136]], Feb 27 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 135]], Feb 20 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 134]], Feb 13 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 133]], Feb 6 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 132]], Jan 30 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 131]], Jan 23 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 130]], Jan 16 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 129]], Jan 9 2008 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 128]], Jan, 2 2008 {{Open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2007"><big>'''2007'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 127]], Dec 26 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 126]], Dec 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 125]], Dec 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 124]], Dec 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 123]], Nov 28 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 122]], Nov 20 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 121]], Nov 14 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 120]], Nov 7 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 119]], Oct 30 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 118]], Oct 24 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 117]], Oct 17 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 116]], Oct 10 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 115]], Oct 3 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 114]], Sep 27 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 113]], Sep 19 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 112]], Sep 12 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 111]], Sep 5 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 110]], Aug 28 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 109]], Aug 24, 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 108]], Aug 11 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 107]], Aug 8 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 106]], Aug 1 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 105]], Jul 25 2007 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 104]], Jul 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 103]], Jul 11 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 102]], Jul 3 2007 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 101]], June 20 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 100]], June 19 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 99]], June 13 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 98]], June 6 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 97]], May 30 2007 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 96]], May 23 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 95]], May 16 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 94]], May 9 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 93]], May 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 92]], Apr 25 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 91]], Apr 18 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 90]], Apr 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 89]], Apr 4 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 88]], Mar 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 87]], Mar 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 86]], Mar 14 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 85]], Mar 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 84]], Feb 28 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 83]], Feb 21 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 82]], Feb 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 81]], Feb 7 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 80]], Jan 31 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 79]], Jan 24 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 78]], Jan 15 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 77]], Jan 10 2007 {{open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 76]], Jan 3 2007 {{open}}<br />
<br />
<span id="2006"><big>'''2006'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 75]], Dec 27 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 74]], Dec 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 72]], Dec 6 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 71]], Nov 29 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 70]], Nov 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 69]], Nov 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 68]], Nov 8 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 67]], Nov 1 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 66]], Oct 25 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 65]], Oct 18 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 64]], Oct 11 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 63]], Oct 4 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 62]], Sep 27 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 61]], Sep 20 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 60]], Sep 13 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 59]], Sep 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 58]], Aug 30 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 57]], Aug 23 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 56]], Aug 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 55]], Aug 9 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 54]], Aug 2 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 53]], Jul 26 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 52]], Jul 19 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 51]], Jul 12 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 50]], Jul 5 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 49]], Jun 28 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 48]], Jun 21 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 47]], Jun 14 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 46]], Jun 7 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 45]], May 31 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 44]], May 24 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 43]], May 17 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 42]], May 10 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 41]], May 3 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 40]], Apr 26 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 39]], Apr 19 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 38]], Apr 12 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 37]], Apr 6 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 36]], Mar 29 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 35]], Mar 22 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 34]], Mar 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 33]], Mar 9 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 32]], Mar 1 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 30]], Feb 15 2006 {{Open}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 29]], Feb 8 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 28]], Feb 1 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 27]], Jan 25 2006 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 26]], Jan 17 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 25]], Jan 11 2006 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 24]], Jan 6 2006 {{mag}}<br />
<br />
<br />
<span id="2005"><big>'''2005'''</big></span><br />
----<br />
* [[SGU Episode 23]], Dec 21 2005 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 22]], Dec 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 21]], Dec 7 2005 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 20]], Nov 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 19]], Nov 16 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 18]], Nov 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 17]], Oct 26 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 16]], Oct 12 2005 {{mag}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 15]], Oct 6 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 14]], Sep 28 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 13]], Sep 14 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 12]], Sep 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 11]], Aug 31 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 10]], Aug 23 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 9]], Aug 10 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 8]], Aug 2 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 7]], Jul 20 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 6]], Jul 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 4]], Jun 15 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 3]], Jun 7 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005 {{tick}}<br />
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005 {{tick}}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<noinclude><br />
[[Category: List templates]]<br />
</noinclude></div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_250&diff=9516SGU Episode 2502014-12-12T12:08:09Z<p>Jason koziol: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{transcribing all<br />
|transcriber = Jason koziol<br />
|date = 12 Dec 2014<br />
|transcription = y<br />
<!-- |proof-reading = y please remove commenting mark-up when some transcription is present --><br />
|time-stamps = y<br />
|formatting = y<br />
|links = y<br />
|Today I Learned list = y<br />
|categories = y<br />
|segment redirects = y <!-- redirect pages for segments with head-line type titles --><br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox<br />
|episodeNum = 250<br />
|episodeDate = April 28<sup>th</sup> 2010 <!-- broadcast date --><br />
|episodeIcon = File:Heic1007a.jpg <!-- use "File:" and file name for image on show notes page--><br />
|previous = <!-- not required, automates to previous episode --><br />
|next = <!-- not required, automates to next episode --><br />
|rebecca = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|bob = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|jay = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|evan = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|perry = <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|guest1 = <!-- leave blank if no guest --><br />
|guest2 = <!-- leave blank if no second guest --><br />
|guest3 = <!-- leave blank if no third guest --><br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2010-04-28.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,27782.0.html<br />
|qowText = You don't use science to show you're right, you use science to become right.' <!-- add quote of the week text--><br />
|qowAuthor = {{w|Randall Monroe}} (Author XKCD) <!-- add author and link --><br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
== News Items <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== 20 Years of Hubble <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2010/13<br />
<br />
=== Nanodots on a Chip <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://news.ncsu.edu/releases/wmsnarayannanodots/<br />
<br />
=== Boobquake <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.facebook.com/pages/Boobquake/115608248460905<br />
<br />
=== Stephen Hawking on Aliens <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=1846 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WyzM_TsIXc<br />
<br />
=== Noah's Ark <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/04/latest_ark_finding_is_a_fake.php<br />
== Who's That Noisy <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Answer to last week: solar wind<br />
== Your Questions and E-mails <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== Question #1 - Intelligence and Science <small>()</small> ===<br />
<blockquote>My name is Anton Lantz, i'm 22 years old and hard at work on my mastersdegree in Media Technology here in Sweden. I've been a skeptic before I was even aware of the term. I have a measured IQ of ~140, and have a question regarding intelligence later in the post. I've been listening through the archives in the last few days while studying, and during a similar question posed to Bob, I started thinking about the speed of light and the smashing of particles/objects close to the speed of light. The theory of general relativity states that the closer to the speed of light an object accelerates (ofcourse relative to an observer) the particle/object itself does not actually reach any of those speeds, what happends instead is that time itself slowes down to 'compensate' for the increase in distance/second that the particle/object speeds by. What don't really add up in my head is what really happens to momentum and the conservation of energy when particles/objects near the speed of light smash into one another. Does the particles act as if it had the momentum relative to the speed it 'had' (even though the speed, relative to the particle/object itself, isn't really travelling at that speed), or is there something with the deacceleration of that particle/object that makes up for (relative to an observer) what would certainly have been a loss of energy from that collision. Since the paticle/objects did not actually travel at the speeds seen and measured by the observer. Hope that makes any sort of sense :). My second question relates to intelligens and the 'scientific method'. What I really want your opinion on is the apparent lack of understanding for and no actual comprehension of the importance of the scientific method. How does proponents of the 'un-scientific method' expect society to look like when logical thinking and good science takes a backseat to flimflam and guess-science? And do you think that logical thinking, or lack there of, is solely a question of upbringing and teachings at a young age? Has intelligance anything to do with it at all? Keep doing what you do so that people like me can stay sane and have a positive outlook on life. Best Regards / Anton Lantz Sweden</blockquote><br />
<br />
[34:30]<br />
S: ... appreciation for music.<br />
<br />
B: It's raw knowledge.<br />
<br />
== Interview with Dr. Dean Edell <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Dr. Edell is a syndicated radio show host. http://www.premiereradio.com/shows/view/Dr_Dean_Edell.html<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>()</small> ==<br />
[http://www.scienceahead.com/entry/octopuss-ability-to-camouflage-yields-bright-discovery/ Item #1]: Japanese scientists have genetically engineered a hairless rat with genes from an octopus, allowing the rat to rapidly change its skin color with changes in mood and environment.<br />
[http://www.medgadget.com/archives/2010/04/nanopatch_may_represent_the_future_of_vaccine_delivery.html Item #2]: Australian researchers report that they have developed a new vaccine delivery system - a nanopatch - that in animal studies uses 100 times less vaccine than current methods with the same immune response.<br />
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8604000/8604584.stm Item #3]: Belgium scientists report that they have documented herding behavior in earth worms.<br />
== Quote of the Week <small>()</small> ==<br />
<blockquote>You don't use science to show you're right, you use science to become right.' - Randall Munroe (Author XKCD)</blockquote><br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_250&diff=9515SGU Episode 2502014-12-12T11:57:59Z<p>Jason koziol: /* Quote of the Week () */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{transcribing<br />
|transcriber = Jason koziol<br />
|date = 12 Dec 2014<br />
|transcription = y<br />
<!-- |proof-reading = y please remove commenting mark-up when some transcription is present --><br />
|time-stamps = y<br />
|formatting = y<br />
|links = y<br />
|Today I Learned list = y<br />
|categories = y<br />
|segment redirects = y <!-- redirect pages for segments with head-line type titles --><br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox<br />
|episodeNum = 250<br />
|episodeDate = April 28<sup>th</sup> 2010 <!-- broadcast date --><br />
|episodeIcon = File:Heic1007a.jpg <!-- use "File:" and file name for image on show notes page--><br />
|previous = <!-- not required, automates to previous episode --><br />
|next = <!-- not required, automates to next episode --><br />
|rebecca = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|bob = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|jay = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|evan = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|perry = <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|guest1 = <!-- leave blank if no guest --><br />
|guest2 = <!-- leave blank if no second guest --><br />
|guest3 = <!-- leave blank if no third guest --><br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2010-04-28.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,27782.0.html<br />
|qowText = You don't use science to show you're right, you use science to become right.' <!-- add quote of the week text--><br />
|qowAuthor = {{w|Randall Monroe}} (Author XKCD) <!-- add author and link --><br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
== News Items <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== 20 Years of Hubble <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2010/13<br />
<br />
=== Nanodots on a Chip <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://news.ncsu.edu/releases/wmsnarayannanodots/<br />
<br />
=== Boobquake <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.facebook.com/pages/Boobquake/115608248460905<br />
<br />
=== Stephen Hawking on Aliens <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=1846 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WyzM_TsIXc<br />
<br />
=== Noah's Ark <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/04/latest_ark_finding_is_a_fake.php<br />
== Who's That Noisy <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Answer to last week: solar wind<br />
== Your Questions and E-mails <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== Question #1 - Intelligence and Science <small>()</small> ===<br />
<blockquote>My name is Anton Lantz, i'm 22 years old and hard at work on my mastersdegree in Media Technology here in Sweden. I've been a skeptic before I was even aware of the term. I have a measured IQ of ~140, and have a question regarding intelligence later in the post. I've been listening through the archives in the last few days while studying, and during a similar question posed to Bob, I started thinking about the speed of light and the smashing of particles/objects close to the speed of light. The theory of general relativity states that the closer to the speed of light an object accelerates (ofcourse relative to an observer) the particle/object itself does not actually reach any of those speeds, what happends instead is that time itself slowes down to 'compensate' for the increase in distance/second that the particle/object speeds by. What don't really add up in my head is what really happens to momentum and the conservation of energy when particles/objects near the speed of light smash into one another. Does the particles act as if it had the momentum relative to the speed it 'had' (even though the speed, relative to the particle/object itself, isn't really travelling at that speed), or is there something with the deacceleration of that particle/object that makes up for (relative to an observer) what would certainly have been a loss of energy from that collision. Since the paticle/objects did not actually travel at the speeds seen and measured by the observer. Hope that makes any sort of sense :). My second question relates to intelligens and the 'scientific method'. What I really want your opinion on is the apparent lack of understanding for and no actual comprehension of the importance of the scientific method. How does proponents of the 'un-scientific method' expect society to look like when logical thinking and good science takes a backseat to flimflam and guess-science? And do you think that logical thinking, or lack there of, is solely a question of upbringing and teachings at a young age? Has intelligance anything to do with it at all? Keep doing what you do so that people like me can stay sane and have a positive outlook on life. Best Regards / Anton Lantz Sweden</blockquote><br />
<br />
[34:30]<br />
S: ... appreciation for music.<br />
<br />
B: It's raw knowledge.<br />
<br />
== Interview with Dr. Dean Edell <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Dr. Edell is a syndicated radio show host. http://www.premiereradio.com/shows/view/Dr_Dean_Edell.html<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>()</small> ==<br />
[http://www.scienceahead.com/entry/octopuss-ability-to-camouflage-yields-bright-discovery/ Item #1]: Japanese scientists have genetically engineered a hairless rat with genes from an octopus, allowing the rat to rapidly change its skin color with changes in mood and environment.<br />
[http://www.medgadget.com/archives/2010/04/nanopatch_may_represent_the_future_of_vaccine_delivery.html Item #2]: Australian researchers report that they have developed a new vaccine delivery system - a nanopatch - that in animal studies uses 100 times less vaccine than current methods with the same immune response.<br />
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8604000/8604584.stm Item #3]: Belgium scientists report that they have documented herding behavior in earth worms.<br />
== Quote of the Week <small>()</small> ==<br />
<blockquote>You don't use science to show you're right, you use science to become right.' - Randall Munroe (Author XKCD)</blockquote><br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_250&diff=9514SGU Episode 2502014-12-12T11:14:14Z<p>Jason koziol: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{transcribing<br />
|transcriber = Jason koziol<br />
|date = 12 Dec 2014<br />
|transcription = y<br />
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|time-stamps = y<br />
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|Today I Learned list = y<br />
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|segment redirects = y <!-- redirect pages for segments with head-line type titles --><br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox<br />
|episodeNum = 250<br />
|episodeDate = April 28<sup>th</sup> 2010 <!-- broadcast date --><br />
|episodeIcon = File:Heic1007a.jpg <!-- use "File:" and file name for image on show notes page--><br />
|previous = <!-- not required, automates to previous episode --><br />
|next = <!-- not required, automates to next episode --><br />
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|bob = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
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|guest1 = <!-- leave blank if no guest --><br />
|guest2 = <!-- leave blank if no second guest --><br />
|guest3 = <!-- leave blank if no third guest --><br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2010-04-28.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,27782.0.html<br />
|qowText = You don't use science to show you're right, you use science to become right.' <!-- add quote of the week text--><br />
|qowAuthor = {{w|Randall Monroe}} (Author XKCD) <!-- add author and link --><br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
== News Items <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== 20 Years of Hubble <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2010/13<br />
<br />
=== Nanodots on a Chip <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://news.ncsu.edu/releases/wmsnarayannanodots/<br />
<br />
=== Boobquake <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.facebook.com/pages/Boobquake/115608248460905<br />
<br />
=== Stephen Hawking on Aliens <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=1846 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WyzM_TsIXc<br />
<br />
=== Noah's Ark <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/04/latest_ark_finding_is_a_fake.php<br />
== Who's That Noisy <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Answer to last week: solar wind<br />
== Your Questions and E-mails <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== Question #1 - Intelligence and Science <small>()</small> ===<br />
<blockquote>My name is Anton Lantz, i'm 22 years old and hard at work on my mastersdegree in Media Technology here in Sweden. I've been a skeptic before I was even aware of the term. I have a measured IQ of ~140, and have a question regarding intelligence later in the post. I've been listening through the archives in the last few days while studying, and during a similar question posed to Bob, I started thinking about the speed of light and the smashing of particles/objects close to the speed of light. The theory of general relativity states that the closer to the speed of light an object accelerates (ofcourse relative to an observer) the particle/object itself does not actually reach any of those speeds, what happends instead is that time itself slowes down to 'compensate' for the increase in distance/second that the particle/object speeds by. What don't really add up in my head is what really happens to momentum and the conservation of energy when particles/objects near the speed of light smash into one another. Does the particles act as if it had the momentum relative to the speed it 'had' (even though the speed, relative to the particle/object itself, isn't really travelling at that speed), or is there something with the deacceleration of that particle/object that makes up for (relative to an observer) what would certainly have been a loss of energy from that collision. Since the paticle/objects did not actually travel at the speeds seen and measured by the observer. Hope that makes any sort of sense :). My second question relates to intelligens and the 'scientific method'. What I really want your opinion on is the apparent lack of understanding for and no actual comprehension of the importance of the scientific method. How does proponents of the 'un-scientific method' expect society to look like when logical thinking and good science takes a backseat to flimflam and guess-science? And do you think that logical thinking, or lack there of, is solely a question of upbringing and teachings at a young age? Has intelligance anything to do with it at all? Keep doing what you do so that people like me can stay sane and have a positive outlook on life. Best Regards / Anton Lantz Sweden</blockquote><br />
<br />
[34:30]<br />
S: ... appreciation for music.<br />
<br />
B: It's raw knowledge.<br />
<br />
== Interview with Dr. Dean Edell <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Dr. Edell is a syndicated radio show host. http://www.premiereradio.com/shows/view/Dr_Dean_Edell.html<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>()</small> ==<br />
[http://www.scienceahead.com/entry/octopuss-ability-to-camouflage-yields-bright-discovery/ Item #1]: Japanese scientists have genetically engineered a hairless rat with genes from an octopus, allowing the rat to rapidly change its skin color with changes in mood and environment.<br />
[http://www.medgadget.com/archives/2010/04/nanopatch_may_represent_the_future_of_vaccine_delivery.html Item #2]: Australian researchers report that they have developed a new vaccine delivery system - a nanopatch - that in animal studies uses 100 times less vaccine than current methods with the same immune response.<br />
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8604000/8604584.stm Item #3]: Belgium scientists report that they have documented herding behavior in earth worms.<br />
== Quote of the Week <small>()</small> ==<br />
<blockquote>You don't use science to show you're right, you use science to become right.' - Randall Monroe (Author XKCD)</blockquote><br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_250&diff=9513SGU Episode 2502014-12-12T11:13:24Z<p>Jason koziol: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{transcribing<br />
|transcriber = Jason koziol<br />
|transcription = y<br />
<!-- |proof-reading = y please remove commenting mark-up when some transcription is present --><br />
|time-stamps = y<br />
|formatting = y<br />
|links = y<br />
|Today I Learned list = y<br />
|categories = y<br />
|segment redirects = y <!-- redirect pages for segments with head-line type titles --><br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox<br />
|episodeNum = 250<br />
|episodeDate = April 28<sup>th</sup> 2010 <!-- broadcast date --><br />
|episodeIcon = File:Heic1007a.jpg <!-- use "File:" and file name for image on show notes page--><br />
|previous = <!-- not required, automates to previous episode --><br />
|next = <!-- not required, automates to next episode --><br />
|rebecca = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|bob = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|jay = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
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|guest1 = <!-- leave blank if no guest --><br />
|guest2 = <!-- leave blank if no second guest --><br />
|guest3 = <!-- leave blank if no third guest --><br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2010-04-28.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,27782.0.html<br />
|qowText = You don't use science to show you're right, you use science to become right.' <!-- add quote of the week text--><br />
|qowAuthor = {{w|Randall Monroe}} (Author XKCD) <!-- add author and link --><br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
== News Items <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== 20 Years of Hubble <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2010/13<br />
<br />
=== Nanodots on a Chip <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://news.ncsu.edu/releases/wmsnarayannanodots/<br />
<br />
=== Boobquake <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.facebook.com/pages/Boobquake/115608248460905<br />
<br />
=== Stephen Hawking on Aliens <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=1846 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WyzM_TsIXc<br />
<br />
=== Noah's Ark <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/04/latest_ark_finding_is_a_fake.php<br />
== Who's That Noisy <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Answer to last week: solar wind<br />
== Your Questions and E-mails <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== Question #1 - Intelligence and Science <small>()</small> ===<br />
<blockquote>My name is Anton Lantz, i'm 22 years old and hard at work on my mastersdegree in Media Technology here in Sweden. I've been a skeptic before I was even aware of the term. I have a measured IQ of ~140, and have a question regarding intelligence later in the post. I've been listening through the archives in the last few days while studying, and during a similar question posed to Bob, I started thinking about the speed of light and the smashing of particles/objects close to the speed of light. The theory of general relativity states that the closer to the speed of light an object accelerates (ofcourse relative to an observer) the particle/object itself does not actually reach any of those speeds, what happends instead is that time itself slowes down to 'compensate' for the increase in distance/second that the particle/object speeds by. What don't really add up in my head is what really happens to momentum and the conservation of energy when particles/objects near the speed of light smash into one another. Does the particles act as if it had the momentum relative to the speed it 'had' (even though the speed, relative to the particle/object itself, isn't really travelling at that speed), or is there something with the deacceleration of that particle/object that makes up for (relative to an observer) what would certainly have been a loss of energy from that collision. Since the paticle/objects did not actually travel at the speeds seen and measured by the observer. Hope that makes any sort of sense :). My second question relates to intelligens and the 'scientific method'. What I really want your opinion on is the apparent lack of understanding for and no actual comprehension of the importance of the scientific method. How does proponents of the 'un-scientific method' expect society to look like when logical thinking and good science takes a backseat to flimflam and guess-science? And do you think that logical thinking, or lack there of, is solely a question of upbringing and teachings at a young age? Has intelligance anything to do with it at all? Keep doing what you do so that people like me can stay sane and have a positive outlook on life. Best Regards / Anton Lantz Sweden</blockquote><br />
<br />
[34:30]<br />
S: ... appreciation for music.<br />
<br />
B: It's raw knowledge.<br />
<br />
== Interview with Dr. Dean Edell <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Dr. Edell is a syndicated radio show host. http://www.premiereradio.com/shows/view/Dr_Dean_Edell.html<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>()</small> ==<br />
[http://www.scienceahead.com/entry/octopuss-ability-to-camouflage-yields-bright-discovery/ Item #1]: Japanese scientists have genetically engineered a hairless rat with genes from an octopus, allowing the rat to rapidly change its skin color with changes in mood and environment.<br />
[http://www.medgadget.com/archives/2010/04/nanopatch_may_represent_the_future_of_vaccine_delivery.html Item #2]: Australian researchers report that they have developed a new vaccine delivery system - a nanopatch - that in animal studies uses 100 times less vaccine than current methods with the same immune response.<br />
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8604000/8604584.stm Item #3]: Belgium scientists report that they have documented herding behavior in earth worms.<br />
== Quote of the Week <small>()</small> ==<br />
<blockquote>You don't use science to show you're right, you use science to become right.' - Randall Monroe (Author XKCD)</blockquote><br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_250&diff=9512SGU Episode 2502014-12-12T11:12:38Z<p>Jason koziol: /* Question #1 - Intelligence and Science () */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Editing required<br />
|transcription = y<br />
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|}}<br />
{{InfoBox<br />
|episodeNum = 250<br />
|episodeDate = April 28<sup>th</sup> 2010 <!-- broadcast date --><br />
|episodeIcon = File:Heic1007a.jpg <!-- use "File:" and file name for image on show notes page--><br />
|previous = <!-- not required, automates to previous episode --><br />
|next = <!-- not required, automates to next episode --><br />
|rebecca = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|bob = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
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|guest1 = <!-- leave blank if no guest --><br />
|guest2 = <!-- leave blank if no second guest --><br />
|guest3 = <!-- leave blank if no third guest --><br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2010-04-28.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,27782.0.html<br />
|qowText = You don't use science to show you're right, you use science to become right.' <!-- add quote of the week text--><br />
|qowAuthor = {{w|Randall Monroe}} (Author XKCD) <!-- add author and link --><br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
== News Items <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== 20 Years of Hubble <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2010/13<br />
<br />
=== Nanodots on a Chip <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://news.ncsu.edu/releases/wmsnarayannanodots/<br />
<br />
=== Boobquake <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.facebook.com/pages/Boobquake/115608248460905<br />
<br />
=== Stephen Hawking on Aliens <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=1846 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WyzM_TsIXc<br />
<br />
=== Noah's Ark <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/04/latest_ark_finding_is_a_fake.php<br />
== Who's That Noisy <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Answer to last week: solar wind<br />
== Your Questions and E-mails <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== Question #1 - Intelligence and Science <small>()</small> ===<br />
<blockquote>My name is Anton Lantz, i'm 22 years old and hard at work on my mastersdegree in Media Technology here in Sweden. I've been a skeptic before I was even aware of the term. I have a measured IQ of ~140, and have a question regarding intelligence later in the post. I've been listening through the archives in the last few days while studying, and during a similar question posed to Bob, I started thinking about the speed of light and the smashing of particles/objects close to the speed of light. The theory of general relativity states that the closer to the speed of light an object accelerates (ofcourse relative to an observer) the particle/object itself does not actually reach any of those speeds, what happends instead is that time itself slowes down to 'compensate' for the increase in distance/second that the particle/object speeds by. What don't really add up in my head is what really happens to momentum and the conservation of energy when particles/objects near the speed of light smash into one another. Does the particles act as if it had the momentum relative to the speed it 'had' (even though the speed, relative to the particle/object itself, isn't really travelling at that speed), or is there something with the deacceleration of that particle/object that makes up for (relative to an observer) what would certainly have been a loss of energy from that collision. Since the paticle/objects did not actually travel at the speeds seen and measured by the observer. Hope that makes any sort of sense :). My second question relates to intelligens and the 'scientific method'. What I really want your opinion on is the apparent lack of understanding for and no actual comprehension of the importance of the scientific method. How does proponents of the 'un-scientific method' expect society to look like when logical thinking and good science takes a backseat to flimflam and guess-science? And do you think that logical thinking, or lack there of, is solely a question of upbringing and teachings at a young age? Has intelligance anything to do with it at all? Keep doing what you do so that people like me can stay sane and have a positive outlook on life. Best Regards / Anton Lantz Sweden</blockquote><br />
<br />
[34:30]<br />
S: ... appreciation for music.<br />
<br />
B: It's raw knowledge.<br />
<br />
== Interview with Dr. Dean Edell <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Dr. Edell is a syndicated radio show host. http://www.premiereradio.com/shows/view/Dr_Dean_Edell.html<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>()</small> ==<br />
[http://www.scienceahead.com/entry/octopuss-ability-to-camouflage-yields-bright-discovery/ Item #1]: Japanese scientists have genetically engineered a hairless rat with genes from an octopus, allowing the rat to rapidly change its skin color with changes in mood and environment.<br />
[http://www.medgadget.com/archives/2010/04/nanopatch_may_represent_the_future_of_vaccine_delivery.html Item #2]: Australian researchers report that they have developed a new vaccine delivery system - a nanopatch - that in animal studies uses 100 times less vaccine than current methods with the same immune response.<br />
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8604000/8604584.stm Item #3]: Belgium scientists report that they have documented herding behavior in earth worms.<br />
== Quote of the Week <small>()</small> ==<br />
<blockquote>You don't use science to show you're right, you use science to become right.' - Randall Monroe (Author XKCD)</blockquote><br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_266&diff=9511SGU Episode 2662014-12-07T17:24:41Z<p>Jason koziol: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{transcribing all<br />
|transcriber = Jason koziol<br />
|date = 7 Dec 2014<br />
|transcription = y<br />
|proof-reading = y <!-- please remove commenting mark-up when some transcription is present --><br />
|time-stamps = y<br />
|formatting = y<br />
|links = y<br />
|Today I Learned list = y<br />
|categories = y<br />
|segment redirects = y <!-- redirect pages for segments with head-line type titles --><br />
}}<br />
{{InfoBox<br />
|episodeNum = 266<br />
|episodeDate = August 19<sup>th</sup> 2010 <!-- broadcast date --><br />
|episodeIcon = File:Magnetar.jpg <!-- use "File:" and file name for image on show notes page--><br />
|previous = <!-- not required, automates to previous episode --><br />
|next = <!-- not required, automates to next episode --><br />
|rebecca = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|bob = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|jay = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|evan = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|perry = <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|guest1 = BH: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Hood_%28psychologist%29 Bruce Hood] <br />
|guest2 = <!-- leave blank if no second guest --><br />
|guest3 = <!-- leave blank if no third guest --><br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2010-08-19.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,30118.0.html<br />
|qowText = 'You know that chemistry has an impact on your daily life, but the extent of that impact can be mind-boggling. Consider just the beginning of a typical day from a chemical point of view. Molecules align in the liquid crystal display of your clock, electrons flow through its circuitry to create a rousing sound, and you throw off a thermal insulator of manufactured polymer. You jump in the shower, to emulsify fatty substances on your skin and hair with chemically treated water and formulated detergents. You adorn yourself in an array of processed chemicals - pleasant-smelling pigmented materials suspended in cosmetic gels, dyed polymeric fibers, synthetic footware, and metal-alloyed jewelry. Today, breakfast is a bowl of nutrient-enriched, spoilage-retarded cereal and milk, a piece of fertilizer-grown, pesticide-treated fruit, and a cup of a hot, aqueous solution of neurally stimulating alkaloid. Ready to leave, you collect some books - processed cellulose and plastic, electrically printed with light-and-oxygen-resistant inks - hop in your hydrocarbon-fuelled metal-vinyl-ceramic vehicle, electrically ignite a synchronized series of controlled, gaseous explosions, and you're off to class!' <!-- add quote of the week text--><br />
|qowAuthor = {{w|Martin S. Silberberg}} <!-- add author and link --><br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
== News Items <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== Banning Wi-Fi <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=2215<br />
<br />
=== Psychic Finds Wrong Body <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/psychic-searching-for-kiesha-discovers-womans-torso-20100812-120mf.html?autostart=1<br />
<br />
=== Kurzweil and Brain Complexity <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/08/ray_kurzweil_does_not_understa.php<br />
<br />
=== Magnetars and Black Holes <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/spaceastronomystars<br />
== Who's That Noisy <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Answer to last week - spiney lobster<br />
<br />
== Interview with Bruce Hood <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Author of SuperSense<br />
<br />
S: We're sitting here at TAM 8 with Bruce Hood, author of "Super Sense", Bruce, welcome back to the Skeptic's Guide.<br />
<br />
Bruce Hood: Hi.<br />
<br />
S: And, I have to say I watched your talk today and, I love the material by the way, I love the talk. The kind of stuff you deal with really is, in my opinion, at the absolute core of skepticism. Which is the knowledge about how our brains function, how they filter information, and deal with the world around us. So, give us a little flavor of your talk today and tell us what are those things that you've learned in your career that really...that you feel are most relevant to what we do as skeptics.<br />
<br />
BH: Okay so, really the talk was trying to draw people's attention to the basic function of a brain, which is to interpret the world and make sense of it, and to build models if you like. Allows you to make predictions, figure out why things are the way they are. It's like a causal inference mechanism. And, it's usually pretty good. It's done us well for all these millions of years. But it has a few built in, uh, flaws. And, sometimes it makes errors, and those errors, I think, could underpin a lot of supernatural beliefs.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: The assumption that there are hidden forces or dimensions, or things operating which can't be explained by science.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: Okay? I think one of the critical points I was making in the demonstrations throughout the talk was showing how people shouldn't even trust their own senses. Because, you know the phrase, "seeing is believing"? Well, I hopefully demonstrated today that that's not the case.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: Believing is seeing in many cases.<br />
<br />
BH: Indeed. Yeah, so that's an example where your models of the world really color the way that you interpret the world. The late Richard Gregory was a great friend of mine he said this 50 years ago that, you need these models of the world to interpret it. And that of course, sort of, constrains the sorts of things that you pay attention to.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So believing very much you're seeing its the way that you go out and you sample information...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...to fit. And, part of that process occasionally produces these explanations...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...which don't really hold up under the scrutiny of evidence. <br />
<br />
S: Right. Now you said one word during your talk that caught my attention which I thought was for me a core concept. You didn't focus on it but I knew what you were saying and you said that the...our perception of the world is a “constructive” process.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm-hm, mm-hm.<br />
<br />
S: That's a deceptively deep little concept you threw in there in the middle of your talk it's not something that we passively...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...are perceiving, we're constructing it with tons of assumptions.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: Can you elaborate that a little bit?<br />
<br />
BH: You don't have any privileged, direct access to reality. Your brain is always extrapolating on the basis of information it's receiving, and then it's constructing that into a framework. To try and make the best fitting model to what you think you're seeing. <br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: And so one of the very simple visual illusions I talked about are these ones where you think you see a geometric shape which is basically an illusory subjective contour. Now the interesting thing about that it's a very simple demonstration everyone sees the illusory shape but what they may not appreciate is that if you go into the brain we can find cells which are firing as if that object really was there.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So it doesn't make the distinction between the fact of reality and the illusion because the brain, if it's come up with that solution, it says, well, there really should be a shape there, so fire as if it really is there. So that was the basic point, that all of our phenomenological experience is really extrapolated, is really constructed...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...from the information. And of course your models that you apply to interpret information will allow you to imagine all sorts of things, so...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: When I said someone thinks they've seen a ghost, at the neuronal level it's really indistinguishable.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, the problem is a lot of people think that...they equate the eyes with a movie camera, or...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: ...the brain with a hard drive, filling up with information that it stores that doesn't change over time ...<br />
<br />
BH: Exactly <br />
<br />
B: ...and all that and they can't...a lot of people just don't get past that. And they can't relate to the idea that we're constructing what we see. They think it's a window, but it's not it's a window that, you know, that we change and manipulate and...<br />
<br />
BH: Right<br />
<br />
B: ... deal with.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think if there's like...often if there's one thing I try to get across to non-skeptics is extrapolating from the optical illusion.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: People...Everyone knows what an optical illusion is and it's cool, it's fun, but they don't learn the lesson from that. It's like your whole brain operates that way.<br />
<br />
BH: Yes.<br />
<br />
S: Everything you think and remember and... It's all constructed in the same flawed way that your visual...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm-hm<br />
<br />
S: ...images are and they're subject to the same kind of illusions.<br />
<br />
BH: Absolutely, I mean if you can demonstrate that at the very basic simple level of the system that these flaws are there, then you can imagine that when you're dealing with even more complex, sort of, representations then, yeah, the scope for errors is much more obvious.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So, yeah that's the whole point... <br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
BH: ...that the whole brain is designed to try and interpret and build models.<br />
<br />
S: Exactly. Now I think last time you were on the show we focused a lot on the notion of essence.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: That we assume that things have an essence, and that goes a long way to giving us our sense that there is...a lot of our supernatural beliefs flow from that. I don't know that we talked about a related concept, and you did allude to it earlier, just now which was agency, so something else that we assume is not only that things have an essence, but there are agents operating in the world and...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: I try to understand the way our brains treat the concept of agency, so help me out, tell me… <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: … if you can summarize your understanding of that, where we are with that.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, so, it would appear to be a system which emerges very early. We know this from the work from Paul Bloom's lab, and Karen Wynn. They do work with very young babies, and...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: …Val Kumar in particular is the lady who really has been doing this work. And they've shown these simple, geometric, little videos of objects moving around the screen, and what...we see them as adults, we see them as being purposeful. They seem to have goals...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...you know, even though they’re just kind of random movements. And um, with some of their sequences they look as if they’re, you know, playing out some sort of scenario. We’re giving them a rich interpretation, so we’re seeing them as agents, as having purposes and intents. So agency is really this default...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...that we seem to slip into when we’re trying to give a causal explanation for why things are the way they are...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...You know if a plate falls off the table, it had to be caused by something. So agency is again a kind of default way of interpreting the presence of something, which is causing it.<br />
<br />
S: Right. But it’s also my understanding that we do...our brains will, do make a hard distinction between things that we think are agents and things that we think are not agents. We sort of...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: ...we know that a rock is not an agent so we categorize it differently in our brains...<br />
<br />
BH: That’s right.<br />
<br />
S: ...but that division is not between real agents and non-agents, or things that are alive and that are not alive, it’s things that act like agents and that don’t act like agents. But that’s another way in which we’re constructing based upon lots of assumptions and we get it wrong a lot of times. <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, so Dan Dennett made this point, he called it “intentionality” default. And basically... so this is when you kind of treat your computer as being vindictive...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: ...when it crashes on you, or your car is being malevolent because it breaks down on the way to...and he’s argued that we adopt this position, as a kind of convenient way of interacting with things which clearly aren’t agents. We kind of know this at one level, but at another level if we treat it as if did have purpose and goals and intentions it allows us to kind of interact with it...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...in a meaningful way. That may be the case, but you know, I certainly know that people seem to lose all rationality when machinery breaks around them and it...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
E: (laughs)<br />
<br />
BH: ...does seem as if it was deliberate. And we, you know (laughs), it just seems as if... <br />
<br />
E: Guilty as charged, here, yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: Michael Shermer gave a really great story yesterday. I don’t know if you caught this, but he was on the lift shaft, and he was using his iPhone, and this lady was exiting the lift, and he gestured to her to leave the lift before him, and the iPhone slipped out of his hand, and it fell into the gap between the lift shaft and the door…<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BH: ...and he watched as it raffled down and then disappeared down the shaft.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BH: And he stood there with his mouth open watching that, and it was very difficult not to see that as a vindictive piece of nons… He didn’t see…<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, it’s like this thing just escaped.<br />
<br />
S: Right, right.<br />
<br />
BH: And that’s just our tendency to see things as being purposeful, doing things.<br />
<br />
B: Wow.<br />
<br />
S: Do you hold with those who say that this tendency to seek agency is all...leads to things like conspiracy thinking and even religious beliefs about there being a God, for example?<br />
<br />
BH: Oh sure, I mean yeah, I mean it can operate in any sphere where you’re trying to apply some causal mechanism, some causal… why do things happen, well someone did it. Someone was responsible. Trouble with that of course is you get into an infinite regress of causes...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...you know because, it’s very difficult to even conceive random events. The brain can’t conceive randomness. If I asked you to press on your keyboard ones and zeros and try and create a random pattern, very soon, you’d just fall into a sequence. If I take coffee beans and I throw them on the table, you can’t see them as random, you already, automatically organize them into some pattern. And I think that’s the same with sequences of events. You see them as being a chain of agency.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm. Right. And conspiracy thinking as well? I mean... <br />
<br />
BH: Exactly.<br />
<br />
S: ...that’s something we talk about a lot, and it seems like there’s this inherent sense of the invisible hand operating...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...behind events.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah. The notion that it might just be a kind of coincidence is something that we just don’t readily accept. Coincidence...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...we’re not really good at our statistical reasoning. The brain was never really designed to do that. We’re not Bayesians, we can’t do probability analysis.<br />
<br />
B: It’s not intuitive at all.<br />
<br />
BH: It’s not intuitive. And that’s why statistics is really difficult for people to accept.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah. We suck at probability.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah. Probability, you know there’s all these beautiful examples of illusions of probability, and people just never get it.<br />
<br />
S: This is a little off what you typically talk about, at least as far as I’m aware, but I’m interested in what you’re thinking is about evolutionary psychology. So do you involve yourself at all in asking that deeper question about why our brains evolved to be the way they are? Or you think it just not an answerable question? Or not interesting?<br />
<br />
BH: Well I think the problem about evolutionary psychology is it’s often disregarded as a “just so” story.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: Because it’s very difficult to look back into the mists of early civilization, or early man to figure out why we have evolved our behaviors and our thought patterns. But, you know I believe the mind is a product of the brain, and the brain is a physical system, a biological system, which evolved under selective pressure. So ultimately I would have to contend that a lot of it is constrained by evolutionary pressure. The difference of course is when culture comes in, and then, you know, the degrees of freedom, to give an engineering term, become huge. <br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: You can’t really, you know, figure out exactly, what the causal...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: ...chain of events was which led to our predispositions to think or behave in certain ways. So I suppose what I’m saying is that clearly… I think that evolutionary psychology must be true to some extent, but to apply it as an explanatory framework to make sense of modern day behaviors is difficult. And it leads to a lot of simplistic notions, naivete, you know, men being more aggressive and wanting to have sex with more women, these are typical things which are...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...said to... obviously have an evolutionary adaptation. But again that’s really hard to...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...say in a scientific sort of way. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah, so you kind of have to assume a hyper-adaptationalist position which is not tenable in order to…<br />
<br />
BH: Exactly, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: be an evolutionary psychologist, so...‘cause culture and, just randomness...behavior’s meant to be so diverse and adaptive…<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: that you can’t say A led to B led to C.<br />
<br />
BH: We weren’t around at the time that the various gene was selected, and so we just have to kind of make a after-the-fact kind of analysis. And that can be, obviously, driven by your own expectations and models of what you think was happening, but we don’t know for a certainty. <br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: So evolutionary psychology I think is useful, because it gets you to kind of think about if there’s something there why would it, you know, what possibly could’ve done, but then you definitely need to have other lines of evidence...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...maybe it’s genetic, or maybe it’s something to do with anthropology or...you’d have to have more than one line of evidence, rather than an argument based on an evolutionary perspective. That’s my opinion.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
E: It’s complex.<br />
<br />
BH: It’s complex, and it’s after the fact.<br />
<br />
S: Can I ask what your experience has been as an academic with the degree to which you’ve been popularizing your research in science?<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, I’ve reached a sort of crossroads. Well, I think I’ve already set down the path actually now, it’s no longer a crossroads, I’ve been doing this now for two years. And um, I think that I’m transforming somewhat from your mainstream kind of academic to someone who is increasingly spending more time talking to the general public and, I used to have some real reservations about that, because for many, many years it was felt that that was somehow not being a real academic to do this. But I think the landscape has changed somewhat and I’ve got to keep reminding myself that, certainly in the UK, I’m a public servant. I’m paid for by the taxes. And, you know I have a duty to, you know I’m paid for by other people’s tax money so, I feel I’ve got a duty to try and communicate information which I feel is of relevance to them. And clearly there are situations where there’s not enough communication happening. And science is under threat as well. I don’t know what it’s like in this country but certainly in the UK at the moment we’re facing terrible cuts. And so I feel there’s a real role now for people who are willing to step into the limelight, who are willing to talk, and to give opinions, so long as they don’t go too far beyond their areas of expertise. But just to try and open up those channels of communication, maybe encourage some youngsters listening in that, you know these are cool things. Science is cool....<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: And we need to get more, kind of, pop stars of science. We’ve seen it in every other realm, in athletics, and music. But why not science? You know, it can be absolutely absorbing and fascinating. So, there are some great people out there doing it and I think that we should just encourage it. So I’m much more comfortable with my position now....<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...I still have the luxury of engaging in real research, and I do that, and I would hate to lose that entirely. But that’s becoming less of a characteristic of what my day job is. <br />
<br />
S: How do you find that your colleagues and institution respond to that?<br />
<br />
BH: Well surprisingly they’re very positive towards it. Well not surprising. It’s just that fact that university system in the UK is changing somewhat. We’re moving more towards the American system. So college fees are going to start increasing and I think that we now have to compete with each other. To get the best students, to raise our profiles, to become more corporate, if you like.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: And that requires a degree of marketing. That requires academics getting out there, speaking, telling the kids about what we’re doing, getting the foreign students to come visit.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: These are all changes to the system. We’ve lost the nice cozy, insular, kind of ivory tower image that was so common in the UK for many decades. We’re now being forced by the change in economic circumstances to become more accountable, to become more corporate, and so, what I do promotes the university.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm. Yeah I think the culture’s still a little different in the United States. I think there isn’t as much recognition of the need to popularize science or to communicate...<br />
<br />
BH: Right.<br />
<br />
S: ...with the public or engage on a lot of issues. So, maybe it’s ironic, but I think there may be more of an ivory tower attitude over here. <br />
<br />
BH: Yes, well of course, the US, you’re very familiar with paying large college fees, and...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...you’ve always had a system of, you know, setting up the college fund when the kid’s born, and mum, grandparents feed the money into it. This idea of paying for your education has been in your culture for many decades.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: But, of course in the UK, this has just recently come in, because we always had a kind of social system which allowed for higher education. And what happened is that they’ve just increased the numbers of students going to university without any additional funding. So this has now put a lot of pressure on the system to try and teach more students for less money, and we’ve now reached an impasse, where in fact we now charge for our fees, and they’ve been moderate amounts about five thousand dollars a year. But all the signs and indications show that that’s going to increase.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So um...and this is what people are finding very difficult to accept, because they’ve had it for so many decades...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: ...where they don’t pay for education. But you know, I think that a college education, a university education as we say, opens up so many doors, gives you better job opportunities, better salaries, and therefore it has to be paid for. I would prefer that we did have a social system which allowed everybody to go, but we’ve tried that and it seems to be failing very badly. The univ...the government is just not giving us the support....<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
E: Well it’s not that they’re not paying for it, they are paying for it through taxes. <br />
<br />
BH: Taxes.<br />
<br />
E: Value… VAT Taxes and these sort of things. <br />
<br />
BH: That’s true. That is true. It’s just that that doesn’t immediately feed back to the university systems, it goes into the economy.<br />
<br />
E: Yes. Right. Heh.<br />
<br />
BH: I think the expenditure on science in the UK is something like 0.04% of the GDP, which is pretty pathetic. <br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
E: Are there like lobby groups or something? That get together and try to get larger percentages?<br />
<br />
BH: No, is the simple answer to that. We do have some individuals who are trying to draw the public’s attention to it. Brian Cox, for example is a very popular, young physicist, very successful. And he’s being very vocal about this. Especially with the cancellation of many departments… we’re losing chemistry departments right across British universities. ‘Cause they’re too expensive to run. But we’ve just had a change in government and, I don’t know if your listeners are aware, but we have a huge deficit in our budget, and so they’re operating draconian kind of cuts. A quarter, twenty-five percent of cuts right across the board from public sectors, so that means huge pressure on us to try and find other sources of money, so it’s difficult.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm. Well we’re certainly running huge deficits over here but, so far they’re not cutting anything, they’re just, sort of…<br />
<br />
BH: No no, it’s interesting…<br />
<br />
S:...spending more money.<br />
<br />
BH: I think what you guys are doing right because you’re stimulating it and by… because basically, economies grow out of innovations...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...and I think that you can’t cut off your life-blood....<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: ...because the long term consequences of not supporting higher education is that you create this huge gap. Because who are you going to fill it with if you don’t have the youngsters being trained up with degrees and that. So it’s really important not to kill off your life-blood.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it’s the difference between investing and spending.<br />
<br />
BH: Exactly. <br />
<br />
S: Right, and higher education’s an investment. <br />
<br />
BH: I think so.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, especially in… I do think that in this country, there’s been a recognition of so-called STEM education, which is the Science, Technology, Engineering. And I think, it seems that that came out of the cold war.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: And continues to a lesser degree even ‘til today, otherwise the more threatened we feel the more we sort of go back to, oh we gotta get...be competing in science in education.<br />
<br />
BH: Well wars are very good for stimulating technology.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
E: That’s true. That is true they are. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah it’s true.<br />
<br />
E: Space race…<br />
<br />
BH: But don’t get me wrong I’m not saying let’s go to war again.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
E: No, no, no.<br />
<br />
S: No, it’s just a historical fact. <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, it focuses the attention of the politicians, you know.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: But unfortunately, they’re not really that sympathetic to science otherwise. In our country, very few of our politicians have a science background. <br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So they don’t respond to it.<br />
<br />
E: Same here. <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah.<br />
<br />
E: Same here.<br />
<br />
S: Speaking of which, so what kind of science vs. pseudoscience conflicts are common over in the UK? You’ve traveled back and forth between the UK and the US enough. Do you have a sense of like, what the similarities and differences are?<br />
<br />
BH: Well obviously in your country religion is one of the big controversies and the extent of the religious right...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...the power they wield. We have a bit of a problem in the UK, but nowhere near as much, and that’s simply because we don’t have as many extreme religious people in control. Although, they do seem to be on the increase again, so...You have to be, kind of… I’m not going to pass comment on them, but you know, it is not such an issue in this countr... in the UK. Where we have problems are basically issues on alternative therapies.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: Homeopathy is something which gets up a lot of people’s noses. I actually controversially don’t feel so, you know, upset by it, which really annoys my fellow skeptics. <br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: They think that we shouldn’t tolerate anything which is basically peddling water as a cure. But I happen to have a, you know, belief in the placebo effect, and so I think we have to really question...and I’m not saying that there’s a simple answer here, by the way. Whether or not we should allow people to pay for water if they think it makes them get better, and they’re not a drain on public money.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: I can see a good argument for that actually, if they’re not sort of cluttering up the diagnostic…<br />
<br />
B: (laughs)<br />
<br />
BH: ...expense bills, because you know, otherwise they want to be sent off for scans, and they want to send off and have every other thing done. So I actually, I’m, you know, if people are happy to pay for that, that’s fine.<br />
<br />
E: But is that science though? I mean, are we...how does that fit in?<br />
<br />
BH: Well, um, the placebo effect is very real.<br />
<br />
E: Well, yes.<br />
<br />
S: But it depends on what you’re talking about though.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm.<br />
<br />
S: It’s interesting that you say that because Ben Goldacre has a very similar opinion on it.<br />
<br />
BH: Indeed<br />
<br />
S: I don’t know if you’re familiar with that. And I don’t know if that’s because you’re both from the UK, or if its just that you know each other.<br />
<br />
BH: No, Ben and I, we were, no Ben and I do actually agree on this. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH: And actually so does...Richard Wiseman has said something very similar as well. And that’s actually, a lot of people have got very upset by that because the 10-23 campaign...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH:...has been very successful and, it seemed very likely that public support for the homeopathic hospices… there are five of them in the UK…<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH: ...is going to be cut. And that sounds like a great success. But that actually, in terms of pounds, is four million pounds for the entire program.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah <br />
<br />
BH: A series of investigations for neurological conditions, fMRI scanning, all that, pales in comparison…<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH: ...to the costs, so, I think that, and I have to be careful here, because I know the cases...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...and they’re very distressing cases where people have deliberately gone to seek out alternative therapy and not engaged in conventional therapy, and especially with kids. <br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: So we have cases around the world where people have died.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: Because of their belief in homeopathy. And so I’m not saying that I’m an apologist for it, I’m just a realist in terms of maybe there is scope for people who want to do that, so long as they’re not denying access to conventional medicine, so...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...it’s a difficult area, I suppose.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah I think where I’d disagree with… I mean I’ve heard Ben Goldacre articulate the issues.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: I’m not aware of… I’ve never had this conversation with Richard Wiseman. <br />
<br />
BH: Mm.<br />
<br />
S: But I think Ben overestimates the effect of the placebo effect.<br />
<br />
BH: Really.<br />
<br />
S: It’s been, I mean I’ve written about it I’ve reviewed the literature...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: ...on the placebo effect and it’s pretty clear actually that there isn’t really much of a placebo effect.<br />
<br />
BH: Really? Wow.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it’s really limited to subjective complaints.<br />
<br />
BH: Right, of course, yeah. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah, so, but if you ask the question is there any measurable biological effect that can be attributed to placebo effects, the answer’s a pretty clear no. <br />
<br />
BH: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: So, you have to put that into context. The other argument that my colleagues and I make is that, well, whatever psychological benefit or non-specific benefit you get from placebo effects, which are essentially non-specific therapeutic effects, you get them from real treatments too....<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: And, so it’s not like homeopathy or whatever can provide something that getting some minimalist but rational and science-based treatment can also deliver. <br />
<br />
BH: Right<br />
<br />
S: And then there’s the harm of homeopathy, which, even if you buy the notion that I think 99% of the stuff that’s sold that’s homeopathy is completely inert...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: ...and therefore, there’s no direct harm, the indirect harm is kind of hard to quantify.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, I agree.<br />
<br />
S: And so I’m not so complacent about saying there isn’t much of an indirect harm from legitimizing and peddling really abject nonsense as if it were medicine.<br />
<br />
BH: But this is the beauty of skepticism.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: The point is if we’re not dogmatic...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...and we can take apart these arguments and consider all the factors which are feeding into it...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: Seems to me that what you’re telling me about the size of the effect of placebo. I’m not an expert in it...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: ...but I think as skeptics we’re allowed to sit down and say okay, let’s evaluate the evidence.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, absolutely.<br />
<br />
BH: Let’s look at the budgets, let’s do the analysis. And I think that Phil Plait made an issue yesterday about, skepticism should try and be a little bit, not more tolerant, but just kind of stop being so dogma-...or categorical, that there’s a right and wrong…<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...to every issue. Because, very rarely is that the case.<br />
<br />
S: Right. <br />
<br />
BH: And so, maybe what I’m saying is that let’s look at all the costs and benefits of that. The issue about homeopathy is whether it is effective, well, everyone knows it’s water, I mean…<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it’s not effective. That, we could agree on that.<br />
<br />
BH: We can all agree on that. It’s the other issue, about whether or not allowing people to pay for water...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...is either morally right, ethically right...these are the complex issues.<br />
<br />
S: Absolutely, and they’re definitely issues that we don’t take for granted.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: And that’s probably one of the most frequent questions I get as a skeptical physician is, well if this treatment is benign and comes with a placebo effect and makes people feel better…<br />
<br />
E: What’s the harm.<br />
<br />
S: Not only what’s the harm, but isn’t there some benefit to that. And that’s a very important question. <br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: There’s many sub-questions in there like how can we optimize...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...the beneficial aspects of placebo effects within the framework of not lying to patients. <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, so well that of course is, the hippocratic oath is... <br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH: ...has to be maintained, and you’re absolutely right. <br />
<br />
S: So, I acknowledge all the complexities, I do think it’s a great conversation to have, but I’ll just say that we’ve been having that conversation...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm-hm<br />
<br />
S: ...and I like to think that we have developed nuanced opinion…<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...about it, but...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: I’ve recently become aware of the fact that there’s sort of a different sort of...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: ...opinion developing among my UK colleagues, which interests me...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...which is why I wanted to…<br />
<br />
BH: Well let’s...<br />
<br />
S: you know, explore a little bit.<br />
<br />
BH: Let’s consider some future scenarios.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH: Let’s say okay, so we ban homeopathy, or let’s say we cut funding for it.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, yeah, which is the more, yeah...<br />
<br />
BH: That’s more likely.<br />
<br />
S: Banning it’s... <br />
<br />
BH: Banning it is never going to work. (laughs)<br />
<br />
S: Right. It’s like prohibition. <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah. We know that the same people who seek out a lot of this are generally chronic patients, you know.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: This is usually why they’ve...quite often it’s testimony hearing from someone else, but very often it’s people who’ve not responded. We then have to say well what replaces it, because I think that some people are inclined towards this way of thinking.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: And so, in many ways water is just water, but then when they start getting into all the other stuff then there’s...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...I mean for example Chinese alternative therapies.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: That’s really worrisome, ‘cause a lot of these…<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. Oh there’s definitely a lot more worse things.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, absolutely, so…<br />
<br />
S: And, I do… whenever people start to say that, well, you know, there’s this huge population of people with chronic symptoms.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: And, this notion that if we service their chronic complaints with benign, inexpensive and simple treatments that make them feel better, this puts a tremendous relief on the system.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: Because we can’t send them off for MRI’s and complicated workups…<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, thats, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: I understand that but that’s, that was the “barefoot doctor” campaign that Mao-Tse Tung underwent.<br />
<br />
BH: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: We can’t afford to give scientific medicine to a billion people so we’re going to have this...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...sort of, army of barefoot doctors who are going to give them the traditional stuff that we know doesn’t work, but who cares it’s cheap and they can do it and...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: It kinda rubs me a little bit the wrong way but I understand the dilemma there that, and I do think this is exactly the problem that America is having, is that we have the technology, to, and the science, to provide...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...more healthcare than we can afford. So I think this is a very important that needs to be addressed. I’m not willing to say let’s just give them sugar pills and make them go away so we don’t have to pay for them. I’m not saying that was your position, but I’m saying that is kind of...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: ...sort of, where it can lead to. I think rather, we need to figure out as a profession, how to efficiently deal with these people within a more reasonable science-based and ethical framework. And maybe there are lots of lessons to be learned from these alternative practitioners who have found a way to sort of optimize the more what I call “touchy-feely” aspects...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: ...of medicine. Right? So maybe we don’t need physicians doing the million-dollar workup on everybody who has these chronic complaints, and maybe we can have allied professionals, like nurse practitioners or whatever that are able to approach these problems in a way that is more minimalist and...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm-hm<br />
<br />
S: Again there’s a lot of complexities here. I think though, that we get off on a very ultimately destructive tangent if we say that these non-scientific modalities have a useful role to play directly in dealing with that issue. But I don’t have the ultimate solution either cause I understand that it’s...that we’re in the process of going bankrupt paying for the medicine that we have the technology to deliver. We’re victims of our own success. Now what do we do...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...You know. It’s tough.<br />
<br />
BH: Indeed, indeed.<br />
<br />
B: I don’t have a solution, but I admire the problem.<br />
<br />
S: (laughs) Right.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BH: But at least we can talk about it, and that’s...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
E: Oh yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. <br />
<br />
S: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Bruce, for joining us.<br />
<br />
BH: You’re very welcome.<br />
<br />
E: Thank you, Bruce.<br />
<br />
BH: Cheers, bye.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>()</small> ==<br />
[http://www.physorg.com/news201266386.html Item #1]: A new analysis confirms that the so-called mitochondrial eve lived about 200,000 years ago.<br />
[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100816095615.htm Item #2]: New research indicates that for adults internet access at home is significantly associated with a decreased probability of being involved in a romantic relationship.<br />
[http://www.physorg.com/news201427392.html Item #3]: New images of the Moon's surface indicate that the Moon is shrinking - by about 100 meters in the recent past.<br />
== Quote of the Week <small>()</small> ==<br />
<blockquote>'You know that chemistry has an impact on your daily life, but the extent of that impact can be mind-boggling. Consider just the beginning of a typical day from a chemical point of view. Molecules align in the liquid crystal display of your clock, electrons flow through its circuitry to create a rousing sound, and you throw off a thermal insulator of manufactured polymer. You jump in the shower, to emulsify fatty substances on your skin and hair with chemically treated water and formulated detergents. You adorn yourself in an array of processed chemicals - pleasant-smelling pigmented materials suspended in cosmetic gels, dyed polymeric fibers, synthetic footware, and metal-alloyed jewelry. Today, breakfast is a bowl of nutrient-enriched, spoilage-retarded cereal and milk, a piece of fertilizer-grown, pesticide-treated fruit, and a cup of a hot, aqueous solution of neurally stimulating alkaloid. Ready to leave, you collect some books - processed cellulose and plastic, electrically printed with light-and-oxygen-resistant inks - hop in your hydrocarbon-fuelled metal-vinyl-ceramic vehicle, electrically ignite a synchronized series of controlled, gaseous explosions, and you're off to class!' Martin S. Silberberg</blockquote><br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_266&diff=9510SGU Episode 2662014-12-07T17:23:31Z<p>Jason koziol: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{transcribing all<br />
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|date = 7 Dec 2014<br />
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|episodeNum = 266<br />
|episodeDate = August 19<sup>th</sup> 2010 <!-- broadcast date --><br />
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|guest1 = BH: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Hood_%28psychologist%29 Bruce Hood] <br />
|guest2 = <!-- leave blank if no second guest --><br />
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|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2010-08-19.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,30118.0.html<br />
|qowText = 'You know that chemistry has an impact on your daily life, but the extent of that impact can be mind-boggling. Consider just the beginning of a typical day from a chemical point of view. Molecules align in the liquid crystal display of your clock, electrons flow through its circuitry to create a rousing sound, and you throw off a thermal insulator of manufactured polymer. You jump in the shower, to emulsify fatty substances on your skin and hair with chemically treated water and formulated detergents. You adorn yourself in an array of processed chemicals - pleasant-smelling pigmented materials suspended in cosmetic gels, dyed polymeric fibers, synthetic footware, and metal-alloyed jewelry. Today, breakfast is a bowl of nutrient-enriched, spoilage-retarded cereal and milk, a piece of fertilizer-grown, pesticide-treated fruit, and a cup of a hot, aqueous solution of neurally stimulating alkaloid. Ready to leave, you collect some books - processed cellulose and plastic, electrically printed with light-and-oxygen-resistant inks - hop in your hydrocarbon-fuelled metal-vinyl-ceramic vehicle, electrically ignite a synchronized series of controlled, gaseous explosions, and you're off to class!' <!-- add quote of the week text--><br />
|qowAuthor = {{w|Martin S. Silberberg}} <!-- add author and link --><br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
== News Items <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== Banning Wi-Fi <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=2215<br />
<br />
=== Psychic Finds Wrong Body <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/psychic-searching-for-kiesha-discovers-womans-torso-20100812-120mf.html?autostart=1<br />
<br />
=== Kurzweil and Brain Complexity <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/08/ray_kurzweil_does_not_understa.php<br />
<br />
=== Magnetars and Black Holes <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/spaceastronomystars<br />
== Who's That Noisy <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Answer to last week - spiney lobster<br />
<br />
== Interview with Bruce Hood <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Author of SuperSense<br />
<br />
S: We're sitting here at TAM 8 with Bruce Hood, author of "Super Sense", Bruce, welcome back to the Skeptic's Guide.<br />
<br />
Bruce Hood: Hi.<br />
<br />
S: And, I have to say I watched your talk today and, I love the material by the way, I love the talk. The kind of stuff you deal with really is, in my opinion, at the absolute core of skepticism. Which is the knowledge about how our brains function, how they filter information, and deal with the world around us. So, give us a little flavor of your talk today and tell us what are those things that you've learned in your career that really...that you feel are most relevant to what we do as skeptics.<br />
<br />
BH: Okay so, really the talk was trying to draw people's attention to the basic function of a brain, which is to interpret the world and make sense of it, and to build models if you like. Allows you to make predictions, figure out why things are the way they are. It's like a causal inference mechanism. And, it's usually pretty good. It's done us well for all these millions of years. But it has a few built in, uh, flaws. And, sometimes it makes errors, and those errors, I think, could underpin a lot of supernatural beliefs.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: The assumption that there are hidden forces or dimensions, or things operating which can't be explained by science.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: Okay? I think one of the critical points I was making in the demonstrations throughout the talk was showing how people shouldn't even trust their own senses. Because, you know the phrase, "seeing is believing"? Well, I hopefully demonstrated today that that's not the case.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: Believing is seeing in many cases.<br />
<br />
BH: Indeed. Yeah, so that's an example where your models of the world really color the way that you interpret the world. The late Richard Gregory was a great friend of mine he said this 50 years ago that, you need these models of the world to interpret it. And that of course, sort of, constrains the sorts of things that you pay attention to.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So believing very much you're seeing its the way that you go out and you sample information...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...to fit. And, part of that process occasionally produces these explanations...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...which don't really hold up under the scrutiny of evidence. <br />
<br />
S: Right. Now you said one word during your talk that caught my attention which I thought was for me a core concept. You didn't focus on it but I knew what you were saying and you said that the...our perception of the world is a “constructive” process.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm-hm, mm-hm.<br />
<br />
S: That's a deceptively deep little concept you threw in there in the middle of your talk it's not something that we passively...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...are perceiving, we're constructing it with tons of assumptions.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: Can you elaborate that a little bit?<br />
<br />
BH: You don't have any privileged, direct access to reality. Your brain is always extrapolating on the basis of information it's receiving, and then it's constructing that into a framework. To try and make the best fitting model to what you think you're seeing. <br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: And so one of the very simple visual illusions I talked about are these ones where you think you see a geometric shape which is basically an illusory subjective contour. Now the interesting thing about that it's a very simple demonstration everyone sees the illusory shape but what they may not appreciate is that if you go into the brain we can find cells which are firing as if that object really was there.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So it doesn't make the distinction between the fact of reality and the illusion because the brain, if it's come up with that solution, it says, well, there really should be a shape there, so fire as if it really is there. So that was the basic point, that all of our phenomenological experience is really extrapolated, is really constructed...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...from the information. And of course your models that you apply to interpret information will allow you to imagine all sorts of things, so...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: When I said someone thinks they've seen a ghost, at the neuronal level it's really indistinguishable.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, the problem is a lot of people think that...they equate the eyes with a movie camera, or...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: ...the brain with a hard drive, filling up with information that it stores that doesn't change over time ...<br />
<br />
BH: Exactly <br />
<br />
B: ...and all that and they can't...a lot of people just don't get past that. And they can't relate to the idea that we're constructing what we see. They think it's a window, but it's not it's a window that, you know, that we change and manipulate and...<br />
<br />
BH: Right<br />
<br />
B: ... deal with.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think if there's like...often if there's one thing I try to get across to non-skeptics is extrapolating from the optical illusion.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: People...Everyone knows what an optical illusion is and it's cool, it's fun, but they don't learn the lesson from that. It's like your whole brain operates that way.<br />
<br />
BH: Yes.<br />
<br />
S: Everything you think and remember and... It's all constructed in the same flawed way that your visual...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm-hm<br />
<br />
S: ...images are and they're subject to the same kind of illusions.<br />
<br />
BH: Absolutely, I mean if you can demonstrate that at the very basic simple level of the system that these flaws are there, then you can imagine that when you're dealing with even more complex, sort of, representations then, yeah, the scope for errors is much more obvious.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So, yeah that's the whole point... <br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
BH: ...that the whole brain is designed to try and interpret and build models.<br />
<br />
S: Exactly. Now I think last time you were on the show we focused a lot on the notion of essence.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: That we assume that things have an essence, and that goes a long way to giving us our sense that there is...a lot of our supernatural beliefs flow from that. I don't know that we talked about a related concept, and you did allude to it earlier, just now which was agency, so something else that we assume is not only that things have an essence, but there are agents operating in the world and...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: I try to understand the way our brains treat the concept of agency, so help me out, tell me… <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: … if you can summarize your understanding of that, where we are with that.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, so, it would appear to be a system which emerges very early. We know this from the work from Paul Bloom's lab, and Karen Wynn. They do work with very young babies, and...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: …Val Kumar in particular is the lady who really has been doing this work. And they've shown these simple, geometric, little videos of objects moving around the screen, and what...we see them as adults, we see them as being purposeful. They seem to have goals...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...you know, even though they’re just kind of random movements. And um, with some of their sequences they look as if they’re, you know, playing out some sort of scenario. We’re giving them a rich interpretation, so we’re seeing them as agents, as having purposes and intents. So agency is really this default...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...that we seem to slip into when we’re trying to give a causal explanation for why things are the way they are...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...You know if a plate falls off the table, it had to be caused by something. So agency is again a kind of default way of interpreting the presence of something, which is causing it.<br />
<br />
S: Right. But it’s also my understanding that we do...our brains will, do make a hard distinction between things that we think are agents and things that we think are not agents. We sort of...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: ...we know that a rock is not an agent so we categorize it differently in our brains...<br />
<br />
BH: That’s right.<br />
<br />
S: ...but that division is not between real agents and non-agents, or things that are alive and that are not alive, it’s things that act like agents and that don’t act like agents. But that’s another way in which we’re constructing based upon lots of assumptions and we get it wrong a lot of times. <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, so Dan Dennett made this point, he called it “intentionality” default. And basically... so this is when you kind of treat your computer as being vindictive...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: ...when it crashes on you, or your car is being malevolent because it breaks down on the way to...and he’s argued that we adopt this position, as a kind of convenient way of interacting with things which clearly aren’t agents. We kind of know this at one level, but at another level if we treat it as if did have purpose and goals and intentions it allows us to kind of interact with it...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...in a meaningful way. That may be the case, but you know, I certainly know that people seem to lose all rationality when machinery breaks around them and it...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
E: (laughs)<br />
<br />
BH: ...does seem as if it was deliberate. And we, you know (laughs), it just seems as if... <br />
<br />
E: Guilty as charged, here, yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: Michael Shermer gave a really great story yesterday. I don’t know if you caught this, but he was on the lift shaft, and he was using his iPhone, and this lady was exiting the lift, and he gestured to her to leave the lift before him, and the iPhone slipped out of his hand, and it fell into the gap between the lift shaft and the door…<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BH: ...and he watched as it raffled down and then disappeared down the shaft.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BH: And he stood there with his mouth open watching that, and it was very difficult not to see that as a vindictive piece of nons… He didn’t see…<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, it’s like this thing just escaped.<br />
<br />
S: Right, right.<br />
<br />
BH: And that’s just our tendency to see things as being purposeful, doing things.<br />
<br />
B: Wow.<br />
<br />
S: Do you hold with those who say that this tendency to seek agency is all...leads to things like conspiracy thinking and even religious beliefs about there being a God, for example?<br />
<br />
BH: Oh sure, I mean yeah, I mean it can operate in any sphere where you’re trying to apply some causal mechanism, some causal… why do things happen, well someone did it. Someone was responsible. Trouble with that of course is you get into an infinite regress of causes...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...you know because, it’s very difficult to even conceive random events. The brain can’t conceive randomness. If I asked you to press on your keyboard ones and zeros and try and create a random pattern, very soon, you’d just fall into a sequence. If I take coffee beans and I throw them on the table, you can’t see them as random, you already, automatically organize them into some pattern. And I think that’s the same with sequences of events. You see them as being a chain of agency.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm. Right. And conspiracy thinking as well? I mean... <br />
<br />
BH: Exactly.<br />
<br />
S: ...that’s something we talk about a lot, and it seems like there’s this inherent sense of the invisible hand operating...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...behind events.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah. The notion that it might just be a kind of coincidence is something that we just don’t readily accept. Coincidence...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...we’re not really good at our statistical reasoning. The brain was never really designed to do that. We’re not Bayesians, we can’t do probability analysis.<br />
<br />
B: It’s not intuitive at all.<br />
<br />
BH: It’s not intuitive. And that’s why statistics is really difficult for people to accept.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah. We suck at probability.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah. Probability, you know there’s all these beautiful examples of illusions of probability, and people just never get it.<br />
<br />
S: This is a little off what you typically talk about, at least as far as I’m aware, but I’m interested in what you’re thinking is about evolutionary psychology. So do you involve yourself at all in asking that deeper question about why our brains evolved to be the way they are? Or you think it just not an answerable question? Or not interesting?<br />
<br />
BH: Well I think the problem about evolutionary psychology is it’s often disregarded as a “just so” story.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: Because it’s very difficult to look back into the mists of early civilization, or early man to figure out why we have evolved our behaviors and our thought patterns. But, you know I believe the mind is a product of the brain, and the brain is a physical system, a biological system, which evolved under selective pressure. So ultimately I would have to contend that a lot of it is constrained by evolutionary pressure. The difference of course is when culture comes in, and then, you know, the degrees of freedom, to give an engineering term, become huge. <br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: You can’t really, you know, figure out exactly, what the causal...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: ...chain of events was which led to our predispositions to think or behave in certain ways. So I suppose what I’m saying is that clearly… I think that evolutionary psychology must be true to some extent, but to apply it as an explanatory framework to make sense of modern day behaviors is difficult. And it leads to a lot of simplistic notions, naivete, you know, men being more aggressive and wanting to have sex with more women, these are typical things which are...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...said to... obviously have an evolutionary adaptation. But again that’s really hard to...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...say in a scientific sort of way. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah, so you kind of have to assume a hyper-adaptationalist position which is not tenable in order to…<br />
<br />
BH: Exactly, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: be an evolutionary psychologist, so...‘cause culture and, just randomness...behavior’s meant to be so diverse and adaptive…<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: that you can’t say A led to B led to C.<br />
<br />
BH: We weren’t around at the time that the various gene was selected, and so we just have to kind of make a after-the-fact kind of analysis. And that can be, obviously, driven by your own expectations and models of what you think was happening, but we don’t know for a certainty. <br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: So evolutionary psychology I think is useful, because it gets you to kind of think about if there’s something there why would it, you know, what possibly could’ve done, but then you definitely need to have other lines of evidence...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...maybe it’s genetic, or maybe it’s something to do with anthropology or...you’d have to have more than one line of evidence, rather than an argument based on an evolutionary perspective. That’s my opinion.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
E: It’s complex.<br />
<br />
BH: It’s complex, and it’s after the fact.<br />
<br />
S: Can I ask what your experience has been as an academic with the degree to which you’ve been popularizing your research in science?<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, I’ve reached a sort of crossroads. Well, I think I’ve already set down the path actually now, it’s no longer a crossroads, I’ve been doing this now for two years. And um, I think that I’m transforming somewhat from your mainstream kind of academic to someone who is increasingly spending more time talking to the general public and, I used to have some real reservations about that, because for many, many years it was felt that that was somehow not being a real academic to do this. But I think the landscape has changed somewhat and I’ve got to keep reminding myself that, certainly in the UK, I’m a public servant. I’m paid for by the taxes. And, you know I have a duty to, you know I’m paid for by other people’s tax money so, I feel I’ve got a duty to try and communicate information which I feel is of relevance to them. And clearly there are situations where there’s not enough communication happening. And science is under threat as well. I don’t know what it’s like in this country but certainly in the UK at the moment we’re facing terrible cuts. And so I feel there’s a real role now for people who are willing to step into the limelight, who are willing to talk, and to give opinions, so long as they don’t go too far beyond their areas of expertise. But just to try and open up those channels of communication, maybe encourage some youngsters listening in that, you know these are cool things. Science is cool....<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: And we need to get more, kind of, pop stars of science. We’ve seen it in every other realm, in athletics, and music. But why not science? You know, it can be absolutely absorbing and fascinating. So, there are some great people out there doing it and I think that we should just encourage it. So I’m much more comfortable with my position now....<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...I still have the luxury of engaging in real research, and I do that, and I would hate to lose that entirely. But that’s becoming less of a characteristic of what my day job is. <br />
<br />
S: How do you find that your colleagues and institution respond to that?<br />
<br />
BH: Well surprisingly they’re very positive towards it. Well not surprising. It’s just that fact that university system in the UK is changing somewhat. We’re moving more towards the American system. So college fees are going to start increasing and I think that we now have to compete with each other. To get the best students, to raise our profiles, to become more corporate, if you like.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: And that requires a degree of marketing. That requires academics getting out there, speaking, telling the kids about what we’re doing, getting the foreign students to come visit.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: These are all changes to the system. We’ve lost the nice cozy, insular, kind of ivory tower image that was so common in the UK for many decades. We’re now being forced by the change in economic circumstances to become more accountable, to become more corporate, and so, what I do promotes the university.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm. Yeah I think the culture’s still a little different in the United States. I think there isn’t as much recognition of the need to popularize science or to communicate...<br />
<br />
BH: Right.<br />
<br />
S: ...with the public or engage on a lot of issues. So, maybe it’s ironic, but I think there may be more of an ivory tower attitude over here. <br />
<br />
BH: Yes, well of course, the US, you’re very familiar with paying large college fees, and...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...you’ve always had a system of, you know, setting up the college fund when the kid’s born, and mum, grandparents feed the money into it. This idea of paying for your education has been in your culture for many decades.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: But, of course in the UK, this has just recently come in, because we always had a kind of social system which allowed for higher education. And what happened is that they’ve just increased the numbers of students going to university without any additional funding. So this has now put a lot of pressure on the system to try and teach more students for less money, and we’ve now reached an impasse, where in fact we now charge for our fees, and they’ve been moderate amounts about five thousand dollars a year. But all the signs and indications show that that’s going to increase.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So um...and this is what people are finding very difficult to accept, because they’ve had it for so many decades...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: ...where they don’t pay for education. But you know, I think that a college education, a university education as we say, opens up so many doors, gives you better job opportunities, better salaries, and therefore it has to be paid for. I would prefer that we did have a social system which allowed everybody to go, but we’ve tried that and it seems to be failing very badly. The univ...the government is just not giving us the support....<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
E: Well it’s not that they’re not paying for it, they are paying for it through taxes. <br />
<br />
BH: Taxes.<br />
<br />
E: Value… VAT Taxes and these sort of things. <br />
<br />
BH: That’s true. That is true. It’s just that that doesn’t immediately feed back to the university systems, it goes into the economy.<br />
<br />
E: Yes. Right. Heh.<br />
<br />
BH: I think the expenditure on science in the UK is something like 0.04% of the GDP, which is pretty pathetic. <br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
E: Are there like lobby groups or something? That get together and try to get larger percentages?<br />
<br />
BH: No, is the simple answer to that. We do have some individuals who are trying to draw the public’s attention to it. Brian Cox, for example is a very popular, young physicist, very successful. And he’s being very vocal about this. Especially with the cancellation of many departments… we’re losing chemistry departments right across British universities. ‘Cause they’re too expensive to run. But we’ve just had a change in government and, I don’t know if your listeners are aware, but we have a huge deficit in our budget, and so they’re operating draconian kind of cuts. A quarter, twenty-five percent of cuts right across the board from public sectors, so that means huge pressure on us to try and find other sources of money, so it’s difficult.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm. Well we’re certainly running huge deficits over here but, so far they’re not cutting anything, they’re just, sort of…<br />
<br />
BH: No no, it’s interesting…<br />
<br />
S:...spending more money.<br />
<br />
BH: I think what you guys are doing right because you’re stimulating it and by… because basically, economies grow out of innovations...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...and I think that you can’t cut off your life-blood....<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: ...because the long term consequences of not supporting higher education is that you create this huge gap. Because who are you going to fill it with if you don’t have the youngsters being trained up with degrees and that. So it’s really important not to kill off your life-blood.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it’s the difference between investing and spending.<br />
<br />
BH: Exactly. <br />
<br />
S: Right, and higher education’s an investment. <br />
<br />
BH: I think so.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, especially in… I do think that in this country, there’s been a recognition of so-called STEM education, which is the Science, Technology, Engineering. And I think, it seems that that came out of the cold war.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: And continues to a lesser degree even ‘til today, otherwise the more threatened we feel the more we sort of go back to, oh we gotta get...be competing in science in education.<br />
<br />
BH: Well wars are very good for stimulating technology.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
E: That’s true. That is true they are. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah it’s true.<br />
<br />
E: Space race…<br />
<br />
BH: But don’t get me wrong I’m not saying let’s go to war again.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
E: No, no, no.<br />
<br />
S: No, it’s just a historical fact. <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, it focuses the attention of the politicians, you know.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: But unfortunately, they’re not really that sympathetic to science otherwise. In our country, very few of our politicians have a science background. <br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So they don’t respond to it.<br />
<br />
E: Same here. <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah.<br />
<br />
E: Same here.<br />
<br />
S: Speaking of which, so what kind of science vs. pseudoscience conflicts are common over in the UK? You’ve traveled back and forth between the UK and the US enough. Do you have a sense of like, what the similarities and differences are?<br />
<br />
BH: Well obviously in your country religion is one of the big controversies and the extent of the religious right...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...the power they wield. We have a bit of a problem in the UK, but nowhere near as much, and that’s simply because we don’t have as many extreme religious people in control. Although, they do seem to be on the increase again, so...You have to be, kind of… I’m not going to pass comment on them, but you know, it is not such an issue in this countr... in the UK. Where we have problems are basically issues on alternative therapies.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: Homeopathy is something which gets up a lot of people’s noses. I actually controversially don’t feel so, you know, upset by it, which really annoys my fellow skeptics. <br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: They think that we shouldn’t tolerate anything which is basically peddling water as a cure. But I happen to have a, you know, belief in the placebo effect, and so I think we have to really question...and I’m not saying that there’s a simple answer here, by the way. Whether or not we should allow people to pay for water if they think it makes them get better, and they’re not a drain on public money.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: I can see a good argument for that actually, if they’re not sort of cluttering up the diagnostic…<br />
<br />
B: (laughs)<br />
<br />
BH: ...expense bills, because you know, otherwise they want to be sent off for scans, and they want to send off and have every other thing done. So I actually, I’m, you know, if people are happy to pay for that, that’s fine.<br />
<br />
E: But is that science though? I mean, are we...how does that fit in?<br />
<br />
BH: Well, um, the placebo effect is very real.<br />
<br />
E: Well, yes.<br />
<br />
S: But it depends on what you’re talking about though.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm.<br />
<br />
S: It’s interesting that you say that because Ben Goldacre has a very similar opinion on it.<br />
<br />
BH: Indeed<br />
<br />
S: I don’t know if you’re familiar with that. And I don’t know if that’s because you’re both from the UK, or if its just that you know each other.<br />
<br />
BH: No, Ben and I, we were, no Ben and I do actually agree on this. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH: And actually so does...Richard Wiseman has said something very similar as well. And that’s actually, a lot of people have got very upset by that because the 10-23 campaign...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH:...has been very successful and, it seemed very likely that public support for the homeopathic hospices… there are five of them in the UK…<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH: ...is going to be cut. And that sounds like a great success. But that actually, in terms of pounds, is four million pounds for the entire program.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah <br />
<br />
BH: A series of investigations for neurological conditions, fMRI scanning, all that, pales in comparison…<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH: ...to the costs, so, I think that, and I have to be careful here, because I know the cases...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...and they’re very distressing cases where people have deliberately gone to seek out alternative therapy and not engaged in conventional therapy, and especially with kids. <br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: So we have cases around the world where people have died.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: Because of their belief in homeopathy. And so I’m not saying that I’m an apologist for it, I’m just a realist in terms of maybe there is scope for people who want to do that, so long as they’re not denying access to conventional medicine, so...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...it’s a difficult area, I suppose.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah I think where I’d disagree with… I mean I’ve heard Ben Goldacre articulate the issues.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: I’m not aware of… I’ve never had this conversation with Richard Wiseman. <br />
<br />
BH: Mm.<br />
<br />
S: But I think Ben overestimates the effect of the placebo effect.<br />
<br />
BH: Really.<br />
<br />
S: It’s been, I mean I’ve written about it I’ve reviewed the literature...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: ...on the placebo effect and it’s pretty clear actually that there isn’t really much of a placebo effect.<br />
<br />
BH: Really? Wow.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it’s really limited to subjective complaints.<br />
<br />
BH: Right, of course, yeah. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah, so, but if you ask the question is there any measurable biological effect that can be attributed to placebo effects, the answer’s a pretty clear no. <br />
<br />
BH: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: So, you have to put that into context. The other argument that my colleagues and I make is that, well, whatever psychological benefit or non-specific benefit you get from placebo effects, which are essentially non-specific therapeutic effects, you get them from real treatments too....<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: And, so it’s not like homeopathy or whatever can provide something that getting some minimalist but rational and science-based treatment can also deliver. <br />
<br />
BH: Right<br />
<br />
S: And then there’s the harm of homeopathy, which, even if you buy the notion that I think 99% of the stuff that’s sold that’s homeopathy is completely inert...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: ...and therefore, there’s no direct harm, the indirect harm is kind of hard to quantify.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, I agree.<br />
<br />
S: And so I’m not so complacent about saying there isn’t much of an indirect harm from legitimizing and peddling really abject nonsense as if it were medicine.<br />
<br />
BH: But this is the beauty of skepticism.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: The point is if we’re not dogmatic...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...and we can take apart these arguments and consider all the factors which are feeding into it...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: Seems to me that what you’re telling me about the size of the effect of placebo. I’m not an expert in it...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: ...but I think as skeptics we’re allowed to sit down and say okay, let’s evaluate the evidence.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, absolutely.<br />
<br />
BH: Let’s look at the budgets, let’s do the analysis. And I think that Phil Plait made an issue yesterday about, skepticism should try and be a little bit, not more tolerant, but just kind of stop being so dogma-...or categorical, that there’s a right and wrong…<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...to every issue. Because, very rarely is that the case.<br />
<br />
S: Right. <br />
<br />
BH: And so, maybe what I’m saying is that let’s look at all the costs and benefits of that. The issue about homeopathy is whether it is effective, well, everyone knows it’s water, I mean…<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it’s not effective. That, we could agree on that.<br />
<br />
BH: We can all agree on that. It’s the other issue, about whether or not allowing people to pay for water...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...is either morally right, ethically right...these are the complex issues.<br />
<br />
S: Absolutely, and they’re definitely issues that we don’t take for granted.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: And that’s probably one of the most frequent questions I get as a skeptical physician is, well if this treatment is benign and comes with a placebo effect and makes people feel better…<br />
<br />
E: What’s the harm.<br />
<br />
S: Not only what’s the harm, but isn’t there some benefit to that. And that’s a very important question. <br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: There’s many sub-questions in there like how can we optimize...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...the beneficial aspects of placebo effects within the framework of not lying to patients. <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, so well that of course is, the hippocratic oath is... <br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH: ...has to be maintained, and you’re absolutely right. <br />
<br />
S: So, I acknowledge all the complexities, I do think it’s a great conversation to have, but I’ll just say that we’ve been having that conversation...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm-hm<br />
<br />
S: ...and I like to think that we have developed nuanced opinion…<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...about it, but...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: I’ve recently become aware of the fact that there’s sort of a different sort of...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: ...opinion developing among my UK colleagues, which interests me...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...which is why I wanted to…<br />
<br />
BH: Well let’s...<br />
<br />
S: you know, explore a little bit.<br />
<br />
BH: Let’s consider some future scenarios.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH: Let’s say okay, so we ban homeopathy, or let’s say we cut funding for it.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, yeah, which is the more, yeah...<br />
<br />
BH: That’s more likely.<br />
<br />
S: Banning it’s... <br />
<br />
BH: Banning it is never going to work. (laughs)<br />
<br />
S: Right. It’s like prohibition. <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah. We know that the same people who seek out a lot of this are generally chronic patients, you know.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: This is usually why they’ve...quite often it’s testimony hearing from someone else, but very often it’s people who’ve not responded. We then have to say well what replaces it, because I think that some people are inclined towards this way of thinking.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: And so, in many ways water is just water, but then when they start getting into all the other stuff then there’s...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...I mean for example Chinese alternative therapies.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: That’s really worrisome, ‘cause a lot of these…<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. Oh there’s definitely a lot more worse things.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, absolutely, so…<br />
<br />
S: And, I do… whenever people start to say that, well, you know, there’s this huge population of people with chronic symptoms.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: And, this notion that if we service their chronic complaints with benign, inexpensive and simple treatments that make them feel better, this puts a tremendous relief on the system.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: Because we can’t send them off for MRI’s and complicated workups…<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, thats, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: I understand that but that’s, that was the “barefoot doctor” campaign that Mao-Tse Tung underwent.<br />
<br />
BH: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: We can’t afford to give scientific medicine to a billion people so we’re going to have this...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...sort of, army of barefoot doctors who are going to give them the traditional stuff that we know doesn’t work, but who cares it’s cheap and they can do it and...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: It kinda rubs me a little bit the wrong way but I understand the dilemma there that, and I do think this is exactly the problem that America is having, is that we have the technology, to, and the science, to provide...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...more healthcare than we can afford. So I think this is a very important that needs to be addressed. I’m not willing to say let’s just give them sugar pills and make them go away so we don’t have to pay for them. I’m not saying that was your position, but I’m saying that is kind of...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: ...sort of, where it can lead to. I think rather, we need to figure out as a profession, how to efficiently deal with these people within a more reasonable science-based and ethical framework. And maybe there are lots of lessons to be learned from these alternative practitioners who have found a way to sort of optimize the more what I call “touchy-feely” aspects...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: ...of medicine. Right? So maybe we don’t need physicians doing the million-dollar workup on everybody who has these chronic complaints, and maybe we can have allied professionals, like nurse practitioners or whatever that are able to approach these problems in a way that is more minimalist and...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm-hm<br />
<br />
S: Again there’s a lot of complexities here. I think though, that we get off on a very ultimately destructive tangent if we say that these non-scientific modalities have a useful role to play directly in dealing with that issue. But I don’t have the ultimate solution either cause I understand that it’s...that we’re in the process of going bankrupt paying for the medicine that we have the technology to deliver. We’re victims of our own success. Now what do we do...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...You know. It’s tough.<br />
<br />
BH: Indeed, indeed.<br />
<br />
B: I don’t have a solution, but I admire the problem.<br />
<br />
S: (laughs) Right.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BH: But at least we can talk about it, and that’s...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
E: Oh yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. <br />
<br />
S: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Bruce, for joining us.<br />
<br />
BH: You’re very welcome.<br />
<br />
E: Thank you, Bruce.<br />
<br />
BH: Cheers, bye.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>()</small> ==<br />
[http://www.physorg.com/news201266386.html Item #1]: A new analysis confirms that the so-called mitochondrial eve lived about 200,000 years ago.<br />
[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100816095615.htm Item #2]: New research indicates that for adults internet access at home is significantly associated with a decreased probability of being involved in a romantic relationship.<br />
[http://www.physorg.com/news201427392.html Item #3]: New images of the Moon's surface indicate that the Moon is shrinking - by about 100 meters in the recent past.<br />
== Quote of the Week <small>()</small> ==<br />
<blockquote>'You know that chemistry has an impact on your daily life, but the extent of that impact can be mind-boggling. Consider just the beginning of a typical day from a chemical point of view. Molecules align in the liquid crystal display of your clock, electrons flow through its circuitry to create a rousing sound, and you throw off a thermal insulator of manufactured polymer. You jump in the shower, to emulsify fatty substances on your skin and hair with chemically treated water and formulated detergents. You adorn yourself in an array of processed chemicals - pleasant-smelling pigmented materials suspended in cosmetic gels, dyed polymeric fibers, synthetic footware, and metal-alloyed jewelry. Today, breakfast is a bowl of nutrient-enriched, spoilage-retarded cereal and milk, a piece of fertilizer-grown, pesticide-treated fruit, and a cup of a hot, aqueous solution of neurally stimulating alkaloid. Ready to leave, you collect some books - processed cellulose and plastic, electrically printed with light-and-oxygen-resistant inks - hop in your hydrocarbon-fuelled metal-vinyl-ceramic vehicle, electrically ignite a synchronized series of controlled, gaseous explosions, and you're off to class!' Martin S. Silberberg</blockquote><br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_266&diff=9509SGU Episode 2662014-12-07T17:16:49Z<p>Jason koziol: /* Interview with Bruce Hood () */</p>
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|episodeNum = 266<br />
|episodeDate = August 19<sup>th</sup> 2010 <!-- broadcast date --><br />
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|guest1 = BH: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Hood_%28psychologist%29 Bruce Hood] <br />
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|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,30118.0.html<br />
|qowText = 'You know that chemistry has an impact on your daily life, but the extent of that impact can be mind-boggling. Consider just the beginning of a typical day from a chemical point of view. Molecules align in the liquid crystal display of your clock, electrons flow through its circuitry to create a rousing sound, and you throw off a thermal insulator of manufactured polymer. You jump in the shower, to emulsify fatty substances on your skin and hair with chemically treated water and formulated detergents. You adorn yourself in an array of processed chemicals - pleasant-smelling pigmented materials suspended in cosmetic gels, dyed polymeric fibers, synthetic footware, and metal-alloyed jewelry. Today, breakfast is a bowl of nutrient-enriched, spoilage-retarded cereal and milk, a piece of fertilizer-grown, pesticide-treated fruit, and a cup of a hot, aqueous solution of neurally stimulating alkaloid. Ready to leave, you collect some books - processed cellulose and plastic, electrically printed with light-and-oxygen-resistant inks - hop in your hydrocarbon-fuelled metal-vinyl-ceramic vehicle, electrically ignite a synchronized series of controlled, gaseous explosions, and you're off to class!' <!-- add quote of the week text--><br />
|qowAuthor = {{w|Martin S. Silberberg}} <!-- add author and link --><br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
== News Items <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== Banning Wi-Fi <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=2215<br />
<br />
=== Psychic Finds Wrong Body <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/psychic-searching-for-kiesha-discovers-womans-torso-20100812-120mf.html?autostart=1<br />
<br />
=== Kurzweil and Brain Complexity <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/08/ray_kurzweil_does_not_understa.php<br />
<br />
=== Magnetars and Black Holes <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/spaceastronomystars<br />
== Who's That Noisy <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Answer to last week - spiney lobster<br />
<br />
== Interview with Bruce Hood <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Author of SuperSense<br />
<br />
S: We're sitting here at TAM 8 with Bruce Hood, author of "Super Sense", Bruce, welcome back to the Skeptic's Guide.<br />
<br />
Bruce Hood: Hi.<br />
<br />
S: And, I have to say I watched your talk today and, I love the material by the way, I love the talk. The kind of stuff you deal with really is, in my opinion, at the absolute core of skepticism. Which is the knowledge about how our brains function, how they filter information, and deal with the world around us. So, give us a little flavor of your talk today and tell us what are those things that you've learned in your career that really...that you feel are most relevant to what we do as skeptics.<br />
<br />
BH: Okay so, really the talk was trying to draw people's attention to the basic function of a brain, which is to interpret the world and make sense of it, and to build models if you like. Allows you to make predictions, figure out why things are the way they are. It's like a causal inference mechanism. And, it's usually pretty good. It's done us well for all these millions of years. But it has a few built in, uh, flaws. And, sometimes it makes errors, and those errors, I think, could underpin a lot of supernatural beliefs.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: The assumption that there are hidden forces or dimensions, or things operating which can't be explained by science.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: Okay? I think one of the critical points I was making in the demonstrations throughout the talk was showing how people shouldn't even trust their own senses. Because, you know the phrase, "seeing is believing"? Well, I hopefully demonstrated today that that's not the case.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: Believing is seeing in many cases.<br />
<br />
BH: Indeed. Yeah, so that's an example where your models of the world really color the way that you interpret the world. The late Richard Gregory was a great friend of mine he said this 50 years ago that, you need these models of the world to interpret it. And that of course, sort of, constrains the sorts of things that you pay attention to.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So believing very much you're seeing its the way that you go out and you sample information...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...to fit. And, part of that process occasionally produces these explanations...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...which don't really hold up under the scrutiny of evidence. <br />
<br />
S: Right. Now you said one word during your talk that caught my attention which I thought was for me a core concept. You didn't focus on it but I knew what you were saying and you said that the...our perception of the world is a “constructive” process.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm-hm, mm-hm.<br />
<br />
S: That's a deceptively deep little concept you threw in there in the middle of your talk it's not something that we passively...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...are perceiving, we're constructing it with tons of assumptions.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: Can you elaborate that a little bit?<br />
<br />
BH: You don't have any privileged, direct access to reality. Your brain is always extrapolating on the basis of information it's receiving, and then it's constructing that into a framework. To try and make the best fitting model to what you think you're seeing. <br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: And so one of the very simple visual illusions I talked about are these ones where you think you see a geometric shape which is basically an illusory subjective contour. Now the interesting thing about that it's a very simple demonstration everyone sees the illusory shape but what they may not appreciate is that if you go into the brain we can find cells which are firing as if that object really was there.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So it doesn't make the distinction between the fact of reality and the illusion because the brain, if it's come up with that solution, it says, well, there really should be a shape there, so fire as if it really is there. So that was the basic point, that all of our phenomenological experience is really extrapolated, is really constructed...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...from the information. And of course your models that you apply to interpret information will allow you to imagine all sorts of things, so...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: When I said someone thinks they've seen a ghost, at the neuronal level it's really indistinguishable.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, the problem is a lot of people think that...they equate the eyes with a movie camera, or...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: ...the brain with a hard drive, filling up with information that it stores that doesn't change over time ...<br />
<br />
BH: Exactly <br />
<br />
B: ...and all that and they can't...a lot of people just don't get past that. And they can't relate to the idea that we're constructing what we see. They think it's a window, but it's not it's a window that, you know, that we change and manipulate and...<br />
<br />
BH: Right<br />
<br />
B: ... deal with.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think if there's like...often if there's one thing I try to get across to non-skeptics is extrapolating from the optical illusion.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: People...Everyone knows what an optical illusion is and it's cool, it's fun, but they don't learn the lesson from that. It's like your whole brain operates that way.<br />
<br />
BH: Yes.<br />
<br />
S: Everything you think and remember and... It's all constructed in the same flawed way that your visual...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm-hm<br />
<br />
S: ...images are and they're subject to the same kind of illusions.<br />
<br />
BH: Absolutely, I mean if you can demonstrate that at the very basic simple level of the system that these flaws are there, then you can imagine that when you're dealing with even more complex, sort of, representations then, yeah, the scope for errors is much more obvious.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So, yeah that's the whole point... <br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
BH: ...that the whole brain is designed to try and interpret and build models.<br />
<br />
S: Exactly. Now I think last time you were on the show we focused a lot on the notion of essence.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: That we assume that things have an essence, and that goes a long way to giving us our sense that there is...a lot of our supernatural beliefs flow from that. I don't know that we talked about a related concept, and you did allude to it earlier, just now which was agency, so something else that we assume is not only that things have an essence, but there are agents operating in the world and...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: I try to understand the way our brains treat the concept of agency, so help me out, tell me… <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: … if you can summarize your understanding of that, where we are with that.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, so, it would appear to be a system which emerges very early. We know this from the work from Paul Bloom's lab, and Karen Wynn. They do work with very young babies, and...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: …Val Kumar in particular is the lady who really has been doing this work. And they've shown these simple, geometric, little videos of objects moving around the screen, and what...we see them as adults, we see them as being purposeful. They seem to have goals...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...you know, even though they’re just kind of random movements. And um, with some of their sequences they look as if they’re, you know, playing out some sort of scenario. We’re giving them a rich interpretation, so we’re seeing them as agents, as having purposes and intents. So agency is really this default...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...that we seem to slip into when we’re trying to give a causal explanation for why things are the way they are...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...You know if a plate falls off the table, it had to be caused by something. So agency is again a kind of default way of interpreting the presence of something, which is causing it.<br />
<br />
S: Right. But it’s also my understanding that we do...our brains will, do make a hard distinction between things that we think are agents and things that we think are not agents. We sort of...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: ...we know that a rock is not an agent so we categorize it differently in our brains...<br />
<br />
BH: That’s right.<br />
<br />
S: ...but that division is not between real agents and non-agents, or things that are alive and that are not alive, it’s things that act like agents and that don’t act like agents. But that’s another way in which we’re constructing based upon lots of assumptions and we get it wrong a lot of times. <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, so Dan Dennett made this point, he called it “intentionality” default. And basically... so this is when you kind of treat your computer as being vindictive...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: ...when it crashes on you, or your car is being malevolent because it breaks down on the way to...and he’s argued that we adopt this position, as a kind of convenient way of interacting with things which clearly aren’t agents. We kind of know this at one level, but at another level if we treat it as if did have purpose and goals and intentions it allows us to kind of interact with it...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...in a meaningful way. That may be the case, but you know, I certainly know that people seem to lose all rationality when machinery breaks around them and it...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
E: (laughs)<br />
<br />
BH: ...does seem as if it was deliberate. And we, you know (laughs), it just seems as if... <br />
<br />
E: Guilty as charged, here, yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: Michael Shermer gave a really great story yesterday. I don’t know if you caught this, but he was on the lift shaft, and he was using his iPhone, and this lady was exiting the lift, and he gestured to her to leave the lift before him, and the iPhone slipped out of his hand, and it fell into the gap between the lift shaft and the door…<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BH: ...and he watched as it raffled down and then disappeared down the shaft.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BH: And he stood there with his mouth open watching that, and it was very difficult not to see that as a vindictive piece of nons… He didn’t see…<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, it’s like this thing just escaped.<br />
<br />
S: Right, right.<br />
<br />
BH: And that’s just our tendency to see things as being purposeful, doing things.<br />
<br />
B: Wow.<br />
<br />
S: Do you hold with those who say that this tendency to seek agency is all...leads to things like conspiracy thinking and even religious beliefs about there being a God, for example?<br />
<br />
BH: Oh sure, I mean yeah, I mean it can operate in any sphere where you’re trying to apply some causal mechanism, some causal… why do things happen, well someone did it. Someone was responsible. Trouble with that of course is you get into an infinite regress of causes...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...you know because, it’s very difficult to even conceive random events. The brain can’t conceive randomness. If I asked you to press on your keyboard ones and zeros and try and create a random pattern, very soon, you’d just fall into a sequence. If I take coffee beans and I throw them on the table, you can’t see them as random, you already, automatically organize them into some pattern. And I think that’s the same with sequences of events. You see them as being a chain of agency.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm. Right. And conspiracy thinking as well? I mean... <br />
<br />
BH: Exactly.<br />
<br />
S: ...that’s something we talk about a lot, and it seems like there’s this inherent sense of the invisible hand operating...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...behind events.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah. The notion that it might just be a kind of coincidence is something that we just don’t readily accept. Coincidence...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...we’re not really good at our statistical reasoning. The brain was never really designed to do that. We’re not Bayesians, we can’t do probability analysis.<br />
<br />
B: It’s not intuitive at all.<br />
<br />
BH: It’s not intuitive. And that’s why statistics is really difficult for people to accept.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah. We suck at probability.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah. Probability, you know there’s all these beautiful examples of illusions of probability, and people just never get it.<br />
<br />
S: This is a little off what you typically talk about, at least as far as I’m aware, but I’m interested in what you’re thinking is about evolutionary psychology. So do you involve yourself at all in asking that deeper question about why our brains evolved to be the way they are? Or you think it just not an answerable question? Or not interesting?<br />
<br />
BH: Well I think the problem about evolutionary psychology is it’s often disregarded as a “just so” story.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: Because it’s very difficult to look back into the mists of early civilization, or early man to figure out why we have evolved our behaviors and our thought patterns. But, you know I believe the mind is a product of the brain, and the brain is a physical system, a biological system, which evolved under selective pressure. So ultimately I would have to contend that a lot of it is constrained by evolutionary pressure. The difference of course is when culture comes in, and then, you know, the degrees of freedom, to give an engineering term, become huge. <br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: You can’t really, you know, figure out exactly, what the causal...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: ...chain of events was which led to our predispositions to think or behave in certain ways. So I suppose what I’m saying is that clearly… I think that evolutionary psychology must be true to some extent, but to apply it as an explanatory framework to make sense of modern day behaviors is difficult. And it leads to a lot of simplistic notions, naivete, you know, men being more aggressive and wanting to have sex with more women, these are typical things which are...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...said to... obviously have an evolutionary adaptation. But again that’s really hard to...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...say in a scientific sort of way. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah, so you kind of have to assume a hyper-adaptationalist position which is not tenable in order to…<br />
<br />
BH: Exactly, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: be an evolutionary psychologist, so...‘cause culture and, just randomness...behavior’s meant to be so diverse and adaptive…<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: that you can’t say A led to B led to C.<br />
<br />
BH: We weren’t around at the time that the various gene was selected, and so we just have to kind of make a after-the-fact kind of analysis. And that can be, obviously, driven by your own expectations and models of what you think was happening, but we don’t know for a certainty. <br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: So evolutionary psychology I think is useful, because it gets you to kind of think about if there’s something there why would it, you know, what possibly could’ve done, but then you definitely need to have other lines of evidence...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...maybe it’s genetic, or maybe it’s something to do with anthropology or...you’d have to have more than one line of evidence, rather than an argument based on an evolutionary perspective. That’s my opinion.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
E: It’s complex.<br />
<br />
BH: It’s complex, and it’s after the fact.<br />
<br />
S: Can I ask what your experience has been as an academic with the degree to which you’ve been popularizing your research in science?<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, I’ve reached a sort of crossroads. Well, I think I’ve already set down the path actually now, it’s no longer a crossroads, I’ve been doing this now for two years. And um, I think that I’m transforming somewhat from your mainstream kind of academic to someone who is increasingly spending more time talking to the general public and, I used to have some real reservations about that, because for many, many years it was felt that that was somehow not being a real academic to do this. But I think the landscape has changed somewhat and I’ve got to keep reminding myself that, certainly in the UK, I’m a public servant. I’m paid for by the taxes. And, you know I have a duty to, you know I’m paid for by other people’s tax money so, I feel I’ve got a duty to try and communicate information which I feel is of relevance to them. And clearly there are situations where there’s not enough communication happening. And science is under threat as well. I don’t know what it’s like in this country but certainly in the UK at the moment we’re facing terrible cuts. And so I feel there’s a real role now for people who are willing to step into the limelight, who are willing to talk, and to give opinions, so long as they don’t go too far beyond their areas of expertise. But just to try and open up those channels of communication, maybe encourage some youngsters listening in that, you know these are cool things. Science is cool....<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: And we need to get more, kind of, pop stars of science. We’ve seen it in every other realm, in athletics, and music. But why not science? You know, it can be absolutely absorbing and fascinating. So, there are some great people out there doing it and I think that we should just encourage it. So I’m much more comfortable with my position now....<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...I still have the luxury of engaging in real research, and I do that, and I would hate to lose that entirely. But that’s becoming less of a characteristic of what my day job is. <br />
<br />
S: How do you find that your colleagues and institution respond to that?<br />
<br />
BH: Well surprisingly they’re very positive towards it. Well not surprising. It’s just that fact that university system in the UK is changing somewhat. We’re moving more towards the American system. So college fees are going to start increasing and I think that we now have to compete with each other. To get the best students, to raise our profiles, to become more corporate, if you like.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: And that requires a degree of marketing. That requires academics getting out there, speaking, telling the kids about what we’re doing, getting the foreign students to come visit.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: These are all changes to the system. We’ve lost the nice cozy, insular, kind of ivory tower image that was so common in the UK for many decades. We’re now being forced by the change in economic circumstances to become more accountable, to become more corporate, and so, what I do promotes the university.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm. Yeah I think the culture’s still a little different in the United States. I think there isn’t as much recognition of the need to popularize science or to communicate...<br />
<br />
BH: Right.<br />
<br />
S: ...with the public or engage on a lot of issues. So, maybe it’s ironic, but I think there may be more of an ivory tower attitude over here. <br />
<br />
BH: Yes, well of course, the US, you’re very familiar with paying large college fees, and...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...you’ve always had a system of, you know, setting up the college fund when the kid’s born, and mum, grandparents feed the money into it. This idea of paying for your education has been in your culture for many decades.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: But, of course in the UK, this has just recently come in, because we always had a kind of social system which allowed for higher education. And what happened is that they’ve just increased the numbers of students going to university without any additional funding. So this has now put a lot of pressure on the system to try and teach more students for less money, and we’ve now reached an impasse, where in fact we now charge for our fees, and they’ve been moderate amounts about five thousand dollars a year. But all the signs and indications show that that’s going to increase.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So um...and this is what people are finding very difficult to accept, because they’ve had it for so many decades...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: ...where they don’t pay for education. But you know, I think that a college education, a university education as we say, opens up so many doors, gives you better job opportunities, better salaries, and therefore it has to be paid for. I would prefer that we did have a social system which allowed everybody to go, but we’ve tried that and it seems to be failing very badly. The univ...the government is just not giving us the support....<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
E: Well it’s not that they’re not paying for it, they are paying for it through taxes. <br />
<br />
BH: Taxes.<br />
<br />
E: Value… VAT Taxes and these sort of things. <br />
<br />
BH: That’s true. That is true. It’s just that that doesn’t immediately feed back to the university systems, it goes into the economy.<br />
<br />
E: Yes. Right. Heh.<br />
<br />
BH: I think the expenditure on science in the UK is something like 0.04% of the GDP, which is pretty pathetic. <br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
E: Are there like lobby groups or something? That get together and try to get larger percentages?<br />
<br />
BH: No, is the simple answer to that. We do have some individuals who are trying to draw the public’s attention to it. Brian Cox, for example is a very popular, young physicist, very successful. And he’s being very vocal about this. Especially with the cancellation of many departments… we’re losing chemistry departments right across British universities. ‘Cause they’re too expensive to run. But we’ve just had a change in government and, I don’t know if your listeners are aware, but we have a huge deficit in our budget, and so they’re operating draconian kind of cuts. A quarter, twenty-five percent of cuts right across the board from public sectors, so that means huge pressure on us to try and find other sources of money, so it’s difficult.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm. Well we’re certainly running huge deficits over here but, so far they’re not cutting anything, they’re just, sort of…<br />
<br />
BH: No no, it’s interesting…<br />
<br />
S:...spending more money.<br />
<br />
BH: I think what you guys are doing right because you’re stimulating it and by… because basically, economies grow out of innovations...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...and I think that you can’t cut off your life-blood....<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: ...because the long term consequences of not supporting higher education is that you create this huge gap. Because who are you going to fill it with if you don’t have the youngsters being trained up with degrees and that. So it’s really important not to kill off your life-blood.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it’s the difference between investing and spending.<br />
<br />
BH: Exactly. <br />
<br />
S: Right, and higher education’s an investment. <br />
<br />
BH: I think so.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, especially in… I do think that in this country, there’s been a recognition of so-called STEM education, which is the Science, Technology, Engineering. And I think, it seems that that came out of the cold war.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: And continues to a lesser degree even ‘til today, otherwise the more threatened we feel the more we sort of go back to, oh we gotta get...be competing in science in education.<br />
<br />
BH: Well wars are very good for stimulating technology.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
E: That’s true. That is true they are. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah it’s true.<br />
<br />
E: Space race…<br />
<br />
BH: But don’t get me wrong I’m not saying let’s go to war again.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
E: No, no, no.<br />
<br />
S: No, it’s just a historical fact. <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, it focuses the attention of the politicians, you know.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: But unfortunately, they’re not really that sympathetic to science otherwise. In our country, very few of our politicians have a science background. <br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So they don’t respond to it.<br />
<br />
E: Same here. <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah.<br />
<br />
E: Same here.<br />
<br />
S: Speaking of which, so what kind of science vs. pseudoscience conflicts are common over in the UK? You’ve traveled back and forth between the UK and the US enough. Do you have a sense of like, what the similarities and differences are?<br />
<br />
BH: Well obviously in your country religion is one of the big controversies and the extent of the religious right...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...the power they wield. We have a bit of a problem in the UK, but nowhere near as much, and that’s simply because we don’t have as many extreme religious people in control. Although, they do seem to be on the increase again, so...You have to be, kind of… I’m not going to pass comment on them, but you know, it is not such an issue in this countr... in the UK. Where we have problems are basically issues on alternative therapies.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: Homeopathy is something which gets up a lot of people’s noses. I actually controversially don’t feel so, you know, upset by it, which really annoys my fellow skeptics. <br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: They think that we shouldn’t tolerate anything which is basically peddling water as a cure. But I happen to have a, you know, belief in the placebo effect, and so I think we have to really question...and I’m not saying that there’s a simple answer here, by the way. Whether or not we should allow people to pay for water if they think it makes them get better, and they’re not a drain on public money.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: I can see a good argument for that actually, if they’re not sort of cluttering up the diagnostic…<br />
<br />
B: (laughs)<br />
<br />
BH: ...expense bills, because you know, otherwise they want to be sent off for scans, and they want to send off and have every other thing done. So I actually, I’m, you know, if people are happy to pay for that, that’s fine.<br />
<br />
E: But is that science though? I mean, are we...how does that fit in?<br />
<br />
BH: Well, um, the placebo effect is very real.<br />
<br />
E: Well, yes.<br />
<br />
S: But it depends on what you’re talking about though.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm.<br />
<br />
S: It’s interesting that you say that because Ben Goldacre has a very similar opinion on it.<br />
<br />
BH: Indeed<br />
<br />
S: I don’t know if you’re familiar with that. And I don’t know if that’s because you’re both from the UK, or if its just that you know each other.<br />
<br />
BH: No, Ben and I, we were, no Ben and I do actually agree on this. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH: And actually so does...Richard Wiseman has said something very similar as well. And that’s actually, a lot of people have got very upset by that because the 10-23 campaign...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH:...has been very successful and, it seemed very likely that public support for the homeopathic hospices… there are five of them in the UK…<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH: ...is going to be cut. And that sounds like a great success. But that actually, in terms of pounds, is four million pounds for the entire program.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah <br />
<br />
BH: A series of investigations for neurological conditions, fMRI scanning, all that, pales in comparison…<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH: ...to the costs, so, I think that, and I have to be careful here, because I know the cases...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...and they’re very distressing cases where people have deliberately gone to seek out alternative therapy and not engaged in conventional therapy, and especially with kids. <br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: So we have cases around the world where people have died.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: Because of their belief in homeopathy. And so I’m not saying that I’m an apologist for it, I’m just a realist in terms of maybe there is scope for people who want to do that, so long as they’re not denying access to conventional medicine, so...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...it’s a difficult area, I suppose.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah I think where I’d disagree with… I mean I’ve heard Ben Goldacre articulate the issues.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: I’m not aware of… I’ve never had this conversation with Richard Wiseman. <br />
<br />
BH: Mm.<br />
<br />
S: But I think Ben overestimates the effect of the placebo effect.<br />
<br />
BH: Really.<br />
<br />
S: It’s been, I mean I’ve written about it I’ve reviewed the literature...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: ...on the placebo effect and it’s pretty clear actually that there isn’t really much of a placebo effect.<br />
<br />
BH: Really? Wow.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it’s really limited to subjective complaints.<br />
<br />
BH: Right, of course, yeah. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah, so, but if you ask the question is there any measurable biological effect that can be attributed to placebo effects, the answer’s a pretty clear no. <br />
<br />
BH: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: So, you have to put that into context. The other argument that my colleagues and I make is that, well, whatever psychological benefit or non-specific benefit you get from placebo effects, which are essentially non-specific therapeutic effects, you get them from real treatments too....<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: And, so it’s not like homeopathy or whatever can provide something that getting some minimalist but rational and science-based treatment can also deliver. <br />
<br />
BH: Right<br />
<br />
S: And then there’s the harm of homeopathy, which, even if you buy the notion that I think 99% of the stuff that’s sold that’s homeopathy is completely inert...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: ...and therefore, there’s no direct harm, the indirect harm is kind of hard to quantify.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, I agree.<br />
<br />
S: And so I’m not so complacent about saying there isn’t much of an indirect harm from legitimizing and peddling really abject nonsense as if it were medicine.<br />
<br />
BH: But this is the beauty of skepticism.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: The point is if we’re not dogmatic...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...and we can take apart these arguments and consider all the factors which are feeding into it...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: Seems to me that what you’re telling me about the size of the effect of placebo. I’m not an expert in it...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: ...but I think as skeptics we’re allowed to sit down and say okay, let’s evaluate the evidence.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, absolutely.<br />
<br />
BH: Let’s look at the budgets, let’s do the analysis. And I think that Phil Plait made an issue yesterday about, skepticism should try and be a little bit, not more tolerant, but just kind of stop being so dogma-...or categorical, that there’s a right and wrong…<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...to every issue. Because, very rarely is that the case.<br />
<br />
S: Right. <br />
<br />
BH: And so, maybe what I’m saying is that let’s look at all the costs and benefits of that. The issue about homeopathy is whether it is effective, well, everyone knows it’s water, I mean…<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it’s not effective. That, we could agree on that.<br />
<br />
BH: We can all agree on that. It’s the other issue, about whether or not allowing people to pay for water...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...is either morally right, ethically right...these are the complex issues.<br />
<br />
S: Absolutely, and they’re definitely issues that we don’t take for granted.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: And that’s probably one of the most frequent questions I get as a skeptical physician is, well if this treatment is benign and comes with a placebo effect and makes people feel better…<br />
<br />
E: What’s the harm.<br />
<br />
S: Not only what’s the harm, but isn’t there some benefit to that. And that’s a very important question. <br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: There’s many sub-questions in there like how can we optimize...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...the beneficial aspects of placebo effects within the framework of not lying to patients. <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, so well that of course is, the hippocratic oath is... <br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH: ...has to be maintained, and you’re absolutely right. <br />
<br />
S: So, I acknowledge all the complexities, I do think it’s a great conversation to have, but I’ll just say that we’ve been having that conversation...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm-hm<br />
<br />
S: ...and I like to think that we have developed nuanced opinion…<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...about it, but...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: I’ve recently become aware of the fact that there’s sort of a different sort of...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: ...opinion developing among my UK colleagues, which interests me...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...which is why I wanted to…<br />
<br />
BH: Well let’s...<br />
<br />
S: you know, explore a little bit.<br />
<br />
BH: Let’s consider some future scenarios.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH: Let’s say okay, so we ban homeopathy, or let’s say we cut funding for it.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, yeah, which is the more, yeah...<br />
<br />
BH: That’s more likely.<br />
<br />
S: Banning it’s... <br />
<br />
BH: Banning it is never going to work. (laughs)<br />
<br />
S: Right. It’s like prohibition. <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah. We know that the same people who seek out a lot of this are generally chronic patients, you know.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: This is usually why they’ve...quite often it’s testimony hearing from someone else, but very often it’s people who’ve not responded. We then have to say well what replaces it, because I think that some people are inclined towards this way of thinking.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: And so, in many ways water is just water, but then when they start getting into all the other stuff then there’s...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...I mean for example Chinese alternative therapies.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: That’s really worrisome, ‘cause a lot of these…<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. Oh there’s definitely a lot more worse things.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, absolutely, so…<br />
<br />
S: And, I do… whenever people start to say that, well, you know, there’s this huge population of people with chronic symptoms.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: And, this notion that if we service their chronic complaints with benign, inexpensive and simple treatments that make them feel better, this puts a tremendous relief on the system.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: Because we can’t send them off for MRI’s and complicated workups…<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, thats, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: I understand that but that’s, that was the “barefoot doctor” campaign that Mao-Tse Tung underwent.<br />
<br />
BH: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: We can’t afford to give scientific medicine to a billion people so we’re going to have this...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...sort of, army of barefoot doctors who are going to give them the traditional stuff that we know doesn’t work, but who cares it’s cheap and they can do it and...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: It kinda rubs me a little bit the wrong way but I understand the dilemma there that, and I do think this is exactly the problem that America is having, is that we have the technology, to, and the science, to provide...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...more healthcare than we can afford. So I think this is a very important that needs to be addressed. I’m not willing to say let’s just give them sugar pills and make them go away so we don’t have to pay for them. I’m not saying that was your position, but I’m saying that is kind of...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: ...sort of, where it can lead to. I think rather, we need to figure out as a profession, how to efficiently deal with these people within a more reasonable science-based and ethical framework. And maybe there are lots of lessons to be learned from these alternative practitioners who have found a way to sort of optimize the more what I call “touchy-feely” aspects...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: ...of medicine. Right? So maybe we don’t need physicians doing the million-dollar workup on everybody who has these chronic complaints, and maybe we can have allied professionals, like nurse practitioners or whatever that are able to approach these problems in a way that is more minimalist and...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm-hm<br />
<br />
S: Again there’s a lot of complexities here. I think though, that we get off on a very ultimately destructive tangent if we say that these non-scientific modalities have a useful role to play directly in dealing with that issue. But I don’t have the ultimate solution either cause I understand that it’s...that we’re in the process of going bankrupt paying for the medicine that we have the technology to deliver. We’re victims of our own success. Now what do we do...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...You know. It’s tough.<br />
<br />
BH: Indeed, indeed.<br />
<br />
B: I don’t have a solution, but I admire the problem.<br />
<br />
S: (laughs) Right.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BH: But at least we can talk about it, and that’s...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
E: Oh yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. <br />
<br />
S: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Bruce, for joining us.<br />
<br />
BH: You’re very welcome.<br />
<br />
E: Thank you, Bruce.<br />
<br />
BH: Cheers, bye.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>()</small> ==<br />
[http://www.physorg.com/news201266386.html Item #1]: A new analysis confirms that the so-called mitochondrial eve lived about 200,000 years ago.<br />
[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100816095615.htm Item #2]: New research indicates that for adults internet access at home is significantly associated with a decreased probability of being involved in a romantic relationship.<br />
[http://www.physorg.com/news201427392.html Item #3]: New images of the Moon's surface indicate that the Moon is shrinking - by about 100 meters in the recent past.<br />
== Quote of the Week <small>()</small> ==<br />
<blockquote>'You know that chemistry has an impact on your daily life, but the extent of that impact can be mind-boggling. Consider just the beginning of a typical day from a chemical point of view. Molecules align in the liquid crystal display of your clock, electrons flow through its circuitry to create a rousing sound, and you throw off a thermal insulator of manufactured polymer. You jump in the shower, to emulsify fatty substances on your skin and hair with chemically treated water and formulated detergents. You adorn yourself in an array of processed chemicals - pleasant-smelling pigmented materials suspended in cosmetic gels, dyed polymeric fibers, synthetic footware, and metal-alloyed jewelry. Today, breakfast is a bowl of nutrient-enriched, spoilage-retarded cereal and milk, a piece of fertilizer-grown, pesticide-treated fruit, and a cup of a hot, aqueous solution of neurally stimulating alkaloid. Ready to leave, you collect some books - processed cellulose and plastic, electrically printed with light-and-oxygen-resistant inks - hop in your hydrocarbon-fuelled metal-vinyl-ceramic vehicle, electrically ignite a synchronized series of controlled, gaseous explosions, and you're off to class!' Martin S. Silberberg</blockquote><br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_266&diff=9508SGU Episode 2662014-12-07T17:14:40Z<p>Jason koziol: /* Interview with Bruce Hood () */</p>
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|guest1 = BH: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Hood_%28psychologist%29 Bruce Hood] <br />
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|qowText = 'You know that chemistry has an impact on your daily life, but the extent of that impact can be mind-boggling. Consider just the beginning of a typical day from a chemical point of view. Molecules align in the liquid crystal display of your clock, electrons flow through its circuitry to create a rousing sound, and you throw off a thermal insulator of manufactured polymer. You jump in the shower, to emulsify fatty substances on your skin and hair with chemically treated water and formulated detergents. You adorn yourself in an array of processed chemicals - pleasant-smelling pigmented materials suspended in cosmetic gels, dyed polymeric fibers, synthetic footware, and metal-alloyed jewelry. Today, breakfast is a bowl of nutrient-enriched, spoilage-retarded cereal and milk, a piece of fertilizer-grown, pesticide-treated fruit, and a cup of a hot, aqueous solution of neurally stimulating alkaloid. Ready to leave, you collect some books - processed cellulose and plastic, electrically printed with light-and-oxygen-resistant inks - hop in your hydrocarbon-fuelled metal-vinyl-ceramic vehicle, electrically ignite a synchronized series of controlled, gaseous explosions, and you're off to class!' <!-- add quote of the week text--><br />
|qowAuthor = {{w|Martin S. Silberberg}} <!-- add author and link --><br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
== News Items <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== Banning Wi-Fi <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=2215<br />
<br />
=== Psychic Finds Wrong Body <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/psychic-searching-for-kiesha-discovers-womans-torso-20100812-120mf.html?autostart=1<br />
<br />
=== Kurzweil and Brain Complexity <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/08/ray_kurzweil_does_not_understa.php<br />
<br />
=== Magnetars and Black Holes <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/spaceastronomystars<br />
== Who's That Noisy <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Answer to last week - spiney lobster<br />
<br />
== Interview with Bruce Hood <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Author of SuperSense<br />
<br />
S: We're sitting here at TAM 8 with Bruce Hood, author of "Super Sense", Bruce, welcome back to the Skeptic's Guide.<br />
<br />
Bruce Hood: Hi.<br />
<br />
S: And, I have to say I watched your talk today and, I love the material by the way, I love the talk. The kind of stuff you deal with really is, in my opinion, at the absolute core of skepticism. Which is the knowledge about how our brains function, how they filter information, and deal with the world around us. So, give us a little flavor of your talk today and tell us what are those things that you've learned in your career that really...that you feel are most relevant to what we do as skeptics.<br />
<br />
BH: Okay so, really the talk was trying to draw people's attention to the basic function of a brain, which is to interpret the world and make sense of it, and to build models if you like. Allows you to make predictions, figure out why things are the way they are. It's like a causal inference mechanism. And, it's usually pretty good. It's done us well for all these millions of years. But it has a few built in, uh, flaws. And, sometimes it makes errors, and those errors, I think, could underpin a lot of supernatural beliefs.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: The assumption that there are hidden forces or dimensions, or things operating which can't be explained by science.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: Okay? I think one of the critical points I was making in the demonstrations throughout the talk was showing how people shouldn't even trust their own senses. Because, you know the phrase, "seeing is believing"? Well, I hopefully demonstrated today that that's not the case.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: Believing is seeing in many cases.<br />
<br />
BH: Indeed. Yeah, so that's an example where your models of the world really color the way that you interpret the world. The late Richard Gregory was a great friend of mine he said this 50 years ago that, you need these models of the world to interpret it. And that of course, sort of, constrains the sorts of things that you pay attention to.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So believing very much you're seeing its the way that you go out and you sample information...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...to fit. And, part of that process occasionally produces these explanations...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...which don't really hold up under the scrutiny of evidence. <br />
<br />
S: Right. Now you said one word during your talk that caught my attention which I thought was for me a core concept. You didn't focus on it but I knew what you were saying and you said that the...our perception of the world is a “constructive” process.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm-hm, mm-hm.<br />
<br />
S: That's a deceptively deep little concept you threw in there in the middle of your talk it's not something that we passively...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...are perceiving, we're constructing it with tons of assumptions.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: Can you elaborate that a little bit?<br />
<br />
BH: You don't have any privileged, direct access to reality. Your brain is always extrapolating on the basis of information it's receiving, and then it's constructing that into a framework. To try and make the best fitting model to what you think you're seeing. <br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: And so one of the very simple visual illusions I talked about are these ones where you think you see a geometric shape which is basically an illusory subjective contour. Now the interesting thing about that it's a very simple demonstration everyone sees the illusory shape but what they may not appreciate is that if you go into the brain we can find cells which are firing as if that object really was there.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So it doesn't make the distinction between the fact of reality and the illusion because the brain, if it's come up with that solution, it says, well, there really should be a shape there, so fire as if it really is there. So that was the basic point, that all of our phenomenological experience is really extrapolated, is really constructed...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...from the information. And of course your models that you apply to interpret information will allow you to imagine all sorts of things, so...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: When I said someone thinks they've seen a ghost, at the neuronal level it's really indistinguishable.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, the problem is a lot of people think that...they equate the eyes with a movie camera, or...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: ...the brain with a hard drive, filling up with information that it stores that doesn't change over time ...<br />
<br />
BH: Exactly <br />
<br />
B: ...and all that and they can't...a lot of people just don't get past that. And they can't relate to the idea that we're constructing what we see. They think it's a window, but it's not it's a window that, you know, that we change and manipulate and...<br />
<br />
BH: Right<br />
<br />
B: ... deal with.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think if there's like...often if there's one thing I try to get across to non-skeptics is extrapolating from the optical illusion.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: People...Everyone knows what an optical illusion is and it's cool, it's fun, but they don't learn the lesson from that. It's like your whole brain operates that way.<br />
<br />
BH: Yes.<br />
<br />
S: Everything you think and remember and... It's all constructed in the same flawed way that your visual...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm-hm<br />
<br />
S: ...images are and they're subject to the same kind of illusions.<br />
<br />
BH: Absolutely, I mean if you can demonstrate that at the very basic simple level of the system that these flaws are there, then you can imagine that when you're dealing with even more complex, sort of, representations then, yeah, the scope for errors is much more obvious.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So, yeah that's the whole point... <br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
BH: ...that the whole brain is designed to try and interpret and build models.<br />
<br />
S: Exactly. Now I think last time you were on the show we focused a lot on the notion of essence.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: That we assume that things have an essence, and that goes a long way to giving us our sense that there is...a lot of our supernatural beliefs flow from that. I don't know that we talked about a related concept, and you did allude to it earlier, just now which was agency, so something else that we assume is not only that things have an essence, but there are agents operating in the world and...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: I try to understand the way our brains treat the concept of agency, so help me out, tell me… <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: … if you can summarize your understanding of that, where we are with that.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, so, it would appear to be a system which emerges very early. We know this from the work from Paul Bloom's lab, and Karen Wynn. They do work with very young babies, and...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: …Val Kumar in particular is the lady who really has been doing this work. And they've shown these simple, geometric, little videos of objects moving around the screen, and what...we see them as adults, we see them as being purposeful. They seem to have goals...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...you know, even though they’re just kind of random movements. And um, with some of their sequences they look as if they’re, you know, playing out some sort of scenario. We’re giving them a rich interpretation, so we’re seeing them as agents, as having purposes and intents. So agency is really this default...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...that we seem to slip into when we’re trying to give a causal explanation for why things are the way they are...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...You know if a plate falls off the table, it had to be caused by something. So agency is again a kind of default way of interpreting the presence of something, which is causing it.<br />
<br />
S: Right. But it’s also my understanding that we do...our brains will, do make a hard distinction between things that we think are agents and things that we think are not agents. We sort of...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: ...we know that a rock is not an agent so we categorize it differently in our brains...<br />
<br />
BH: That’s right.<br />
<br />
S: ...but that division is not between real agents and non-agents, or things that are alive and that are not alive, it’s things that act like agents and that don’t act like agents. But that’s another way in which we’re constructing based upon lots of assumptions and we get it wrong a lot of times. <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, so Dan Dennett made this point, he called it “intentionality” default. And basically... so this is when you kind of treat your computer as being vindictive...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
<br />
BH: ...when it crashes on you, or your car is being malevolent because it breaks down on the way to...and he’s argued that we adopt this position, as a kind of convenient way of interacting with things which clearly aren’t agents. We kind of know this at one level, but at another level if we treat it as if did have purpose and goals and intentions it allows us to kind of interact with it...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...in a meaningful way. That may be the case, but you know, I certainly know that people seem to lose all rationality when machinery breaks around them and it...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
<br />
E: (laughs)<br />
<br />
BH: ...does seem as if it was deliberate. And we, you know (laughs), it just seems as if... <br />
<br />
E: Guilty as charged, here, yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: Michael Shermer gave a really great story yesterday. I don’t know if you caught this, but he was on the lift shaft, and he was using his iPhone, and this lady was exiting the lift, and he gestured to her to leave the lift before him, and the iPhone slipped out of his hand, and it fell into the gap between the lift shaft and the door…<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BH: ...and he watched as it raffled down and then disappeared down the shaft.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BH: And he stood there with his mouth open watching that, and it was very difficult not to see that as a vindictive piece of nons… He didn’t see…<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, it’s like this thing just escaped.<br />
<br />
S: Right, right.<br />
<br />
BH: And that’s just our tendency to see things as being purposeful, doing things.<br />
<br />
B: Wow.<br />
<br />
S: Do you hold with those who say that this tendency to seek agency is all...leads to things like conspiracy thinking and even religious beliefs about there being a God, for example?<br />
<br />
BH: Oh sure, I mean yeah, I mean it can operate in any sphere where you’re trying to apply some causal mechanism, some causal… why do things happen, well someone did it. Someone was responsible. Trouble with that of course is you get into an infinite regress of causes...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...you know because, it’s very difficult to even conceive random events. The brain can’t conceive randomness. If I asked you to press on your keyboard ones and zeros and try and create a random pattern, very soon, you’d just fall into a sequence. If I take coffee beans and I throw them on the table, you can’t see them as random, you already, automatically organize them into some pattern. And I think that’s the same with sequences of events. You see them as being a chain of agency.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm. Right. And conspiracy thinking as well? I mean... <br />
<br />
BH: Exactly.<br />
<br />
S: ...that’s something we talk about a lot, and it seems like there’s this inherent sense of the invisible hand operating...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...behind events.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah. The notion that it might just be a kind of coincidence is something that we just don’t readily accept. Coincidence...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...we’re not really good at our statistical reasoning. The brain was never really designed to do that. We’re not Bayesians, we can’t do probability analysis.<br />
<br />
B: It’s not intuitive at all.<br />
<br />
BH: It’s not intuitive. And that’s why statistics is really difficult for people to accept.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah. We suck at probability.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah. Probability, you know there’s all these beautiful examples of illusions of probability, and people just never get it.<br />
<br />
S: This is a little off what you typically talk about, at least as far as I’m aware, but I’m interested in what you’re thinking is about evolutionary psychology. So do you involve yourself at all in asking that deeper question about why our brains evolved to be the way they are? Or you think it just not an answerable question? Or not interesting?<br />
<br />
BH: Well I think the problem about evolutionary psychology is it’s often disregarded as a “just so” story.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: Because it’s very difficult to look back into the mists of early civilization, or early man to figure out why we have evolved our behaviors and our thought patterns. But, you know I believe the mind is a product of the brain, and the brain is a physical system, a biological system, which evolved under selective pressure. So ultimately I would have to contend that a lot of it is constrained by evolutionary pressure. The difference of course is when culture comes in, and then, you know, the degrees of freedom, to give an engineering term, become huge. <br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: You can’t really, you know, figure out exactly, what the causal...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: ...chain of events was which led to our predispositions to think or behave in certain ways. So I suppose what I’m saying is that clearly… I think that evolutionary psychology must be true to some extent, but to apply it as an explanatory framework to make sense of modern day behaviors is difficult. And it leads to a lot of simplistic notions, naivete, you know, men being more aggressive and wanting to have sex with more women, these are typical things which are...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...said to... obviously have an evolutionary adaptation. But again that’s really hard to...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...say in a scientific sort of way. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah, so you kind of have to assume a hyper-adaptationalist position which is not tenable in order to…<br />
<br />
BH: Exactly, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: be an evolutionary psychologist, so...‘cause culture and, just randomness...behavior’s meant to be so diverse and adaptive…<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: that you can’t say A led to B led to C.<br />
<br />
BH: We weren’t around at the time that the various gene was selected, and so we just have to kind of make a after-the-fact kind of analysis. And that can be, obviously, driven by your own expectations and models of what you think was happening, but we don’t know for a certainty. <br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: So evolutionary psychology I think is useful, because it gets you to kind of think about if there’s something there why would it, you know, what possibly could’ve done, but then you definitely need to have other lines of evidence...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...maybe it’s genetic, or maybe it’s something to do with anthropology or...you’d have to have more than one line of evidence, rather than an argument based on an evolutionary perspective. That’s my opinion.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
E: It’s complex.<br />
<br />
BH: It’s complex, and it’s after the fact.<br />
<br />
S: Can I ask what your experience has been as an academic with the degree to which you’ve been popularizing your research in science?<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, I’ve reached a sort of crossroads. Well, I think I’ve already set down the path actually now, it’s no longer a crossroads, I’ve been doing this now for two years. And um, I think that I’m transforming somewhat from your mainstream kind of academic to someone who is increasingly spending more time talking to the general public and, I used to have some real reservations about that, because for many, many years it was felt that that was somehow not being a real academic to do this. But I think the landscape has changed somewhat and I’ve got to keep reminding myself that, certainly in the UK, I’m a public servant. I’m paid for by the taxes. And, you know I have a duty to, you know I’m paid for by other people’s tax money so, I feel I’ve got a duty to try and communicate information which I feel is of relevance to them. And clearly there are situations where there’s not enough communication happening. And science is under threat as well. I don’t know what it’s like in this country but certainly in the UK at the moment we’re facing terrible cuts. And so I feel there’s a real role now for people who are willing to step into the limelight, who are willing to talk, and to give opinions, so long as they don’t go too far beyond their areas of expertise. But just to try and open up those channels of communication, maybe encourage some youngsters listening in that, you know these are cool things. Science is cool....<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: And we need to get more, kind of, pop stars of science. We’ve seen it in every other realm, in athletics, and music. But why not science? You know, it can be absolutely absorbing and fascinating. So, there are some great people out there doing it and I think that we should just encourage it. So I’m much more comfortable with my position now....<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...I still have the luxury of engaging in real research, and I do that, and I would hate to lose that entirely. But that’s becoming less of a characteristic of what my day job is. <br />
<br />
S: How do you find that your colleagues and institution respond to that?<br />
<br />
BH: Well surprisingly they’re very positive towards it. Well not surprising. It’s just that fact that university system in the UK is changing somewhat. We’re moving more towards the American system. So college fees are going to start increasing and I think that we now have to compete with each other. To get the best students, to raise our profiles, to become more corporate, if you like.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: And that requires a degree of marketing. That requires academics getting out there, speaking, telling the kids about what we’re doing, getting the foreign students to come visit.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: These are all changes to the system. We’ve lost the nice cozy, insular, kind of ivory tower image that was so common in the UK for many decades. We’re now being forced by the change in economic circumstances to become more accountable, to become more corporate, and so, what I do promotes the university.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm. Yeah I think the culture’s still a little different in the United States. I think there isn’t as much recognition of the need to popularize science or to communicate...<br />
<br />
BH: Right.<br />
<br />
S: ...with the public or engage on a lot of issues. So, maybe it’s ironic, but I think there may be more of an ivory tower attitude over here. <br />
<br />
BH: Yes, well of course, the US, you’re very familiar with paying large college fees, and...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...you’ve always had a system of, you know, setting up the college fund when the kid’s born, and mum, grandparents feed the money into it. This idea of paying for your education has been in your culture for many decades.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: But, of course in the UK, this has just recently come in, because we always had a kind of social system which allowed for higher education. And what happened is that they’ve just increased the numbers of students going to university without any additional funding. So this has now put a lot of pressure on the system to try and teach more students for less money, and we’ve now reached an impasse, where in fact we now charge for our fees, and they’ve been moderate amounts about five thousand dollars a year. But all the signs and indications show that that’s going to increase.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So um...and this is what people are finding very difficult to accept, because they’ve had it for so many decades...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: ...where they don’t pay for education. But you know, I think that a college education, a university education as we say, opens up so many doors, gives you better job opportunities, better salaries, and therefore it has to be paid for. I would prefer that we did have a social system which allowed everybody to go, but we’ve tried that and it seems to be failing very badly. The univ...the government is just not giving us the support....<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
E: Well it’s not that they’re not paying for it, they are paying for it through taxes. <br />
<br />
BH: Taxes.<br />
<br />
E: Value… VAT Taxes and these sort of things. <br />
<br />
BH: That’s true. That is true. It’s just that that doesn’t immediately feed back to the university systems, it goes into the economy.<br />
<br />
E: Yes. Right. Heh.<br />
<br />
BH: I think the expenditure on science in the UK is something like 0.04% of the GDP, which is pretty pathetic. <br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
E: Are there like lobby groups or something? That get together and try to get larger percentages?<br />
<br />
BH: No, is the simple answer to that. We do have some individuals who are trying to draw the public’s attention to it. Brian Cox, for example is a very popular, young physicist, very successful. And he’s being very vocal about this. Especially with the cancellation of many departments… we’re losing chemistry departments right across British universities. ‘Cause they’re too expensive to run. But we’ve just had a change in government and, I don’t know if your listeners are aware, but we have a huge deficit in our budget, and so they’re operating draconian kind of cuts. A quarter, twenty-five percent of cuts right across the board from public sectors, so that means huge pressure on us to try and find other sources of money, so it’s difficult.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm. Well we’re certainly running huge deficits over here but, so far they’re not cutting anything, they’re just, sort of…<br />
<br />
BH: No no, it’s interesting…<br />
<br />
S:...spending more money.<br />
<br />
BH: I think what you guys are doing right because you’re stimulating it and by… because basically, economies grow out of innovations...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...and I think that you can’t cut off your life-blood....<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: ...because the long term consequences of not supporting higher education is that you create this huge gap. Because who are you going to fill it with if you don’t have the youngsters being trained up with degrees and that. So it’s really important not to kill off your life-blood.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it’s the difference between investing and spending.<br />
<br />
BH: Exactly. <br />
<br />
S: Right, and higher education’s an investment. <br />
<br />
BH: I think so.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, especially in… I do think that in this country, there’s been a recognition of so-called STEM education, which is the Science, Technology, Engineering. And I think, it seems that that came out of the cold war.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: And continues to a lesser degree even ‘til today, otherwise the more threatened we feel the more we sort of go back to, oh we gotta get...be competing in science in education.<br />
<br />
BH: Well wars are very good for stimulating technology.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
E: That’s true. That is true they are. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah it’s true.<br />
<br />
E: Space race…<br />
<br />
BH: But don’t get me wrong I’m not saying let’s go to war again.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
E: No, no, no.<br />
<br />
S: No, it’s just a historical fact. <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, it focuses the attention of the politicians, you know.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: But unfortunately, they’re not really that sympathetic to science otherwise. In our country, very few of our politicians have a science background. <br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So they don’t respond to it.<br />
<br />
E: Same here. <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah.<br />
<br />
E: Same here.<br />
<br />
S: Speaking of which, so what kind of science vs. pseudoscience conflicts are common over in the UK? You’ve traveled back and forth between the UK and the US enough. Do you have a sense of like, what the similarities and differences are?<br />
<br />
BH: Well obviously in your country religion is one of the big controversies and the extent of the religious right...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...the power they wield. We have a bit of a problem in the UK, but nowhere near as much, and that’s simply because we don’t have as many extreme religious people in control. Although, they do seem to be on the increase again, so...You have to be, kind of… I’m not going to pass comment on them, but you know, it is not such an issue in this countr... in the UK. Where we have problems are basically issues on alternative therapies.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: Homeopathy is something which gets up a lot of people’s noses. I actually controversially don’t feel so, you know, upset by it, which really annoys my fellow skeptics. <br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: They think that we shouldn’t tolerate anything which is basically peddling water as a cure. But I happen to have a, you know, belief in the placebo effect, and so I think we have to really question...and I’m not saying that there’s a simple answer here, by the way. Whether or not we should allow people to pay for water if they think it makes them get better, and they’re not a drain on public money.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: I can see a good argument for that actually, if they’re not sort of cluttering up the diagnostic…<br />
<br />
B: (laughs)<br />
<br />
BH: ...expense bills, because you know, otherwise they want to be sent off for scans, and they want to send off and have every other thing done. So I actually, I’m, you know, if people are happy to pay for that, that’s fine.<br />
<br />
E: But is that science though? I mean, are we...how does that fit in?<br />
<br />
BH: Well, um, the placebo effect is very real.<br />
<br />
E: Well, yes.<br />
<br />
S: But it depends on what you’re talking about though.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm.<br />
<br />
S: It’s interesting that you say that because Ben Goldacre has a very similar opinion on it.<br />
<br />
BH: Indeed<br />
<br />
S: I don’t know if you’re familiar with that. And I don’t know if that’s because you’re both from the UK, or if its just that you know each other.<br />
<br />
BH: No, Ben and I, we were, no Ben and I do actually agree on this. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH: And actually so does...Richard Wiseman has said something very similar as well. And that’s actually, a lot of people have got very upset by that because the 10-23 campaign...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH:...has been very successful and, it seemed very likely that public support for the homeopathic hospices… there are five of them in the UK…<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH: ...is going to be cut. And that sounds like a great success. But that actually, in terms of pounds, is four million pounds for the entire program.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah <br />
<br />
BH: A series of investigations for neurological conditions, fMRI scanning, all that, pales in comparison…<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH: ...to the costs, so, I think that, and I have to be careful here, because I know the cases...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...and they’re very distressing cases where people have deliberately gone to seek out alternative therapy and not engaged in conventional therapy, and especially with kids. <br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: So we have cases around the world where people have died.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: Because of their belief in homeopathy. And so I’m not saying that I’m an apologist for it, I’m just a realist in terms of maybe there is scope for people who want to do that, so long as they’re not denying access to conventional medicine, so...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...it’s a difficult area, I suppose.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah I think where I’d disagree with… I mean I’ve heard Ben Goldacre articulate the issues.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: I’m not aware of… I’ve never had this conversation with Richard Wiseman. <br />
<br />
BH: Mm.<br />
<br />
S: But I think Ben overestimates the effect of the placebo effect.<br />
<br />
BH: Really.<br />
<br />
S: It’s been, I mean I’ve written about it I’ve reviewed the literature...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: ...on the placebo effect and it’s pretty clear actually that there isn’t really much of a placebo effect.<br />
<br />
BH: Really? Wow.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it’s really limited to subjective complaints.<br />
<br />
BH: Right, of course, yeah. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah, so, but if you ask the question is there any measurable biological effect that can be attributed to placebo effects, the answer’s a pretty clear no. <br />
<br />
BH: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: So, you have to put that into context. The other argument that my colleagues and I make is that, well, whatever psychological benefit or non-specific benefit you get from placebo effects, which are essentially non-specific therapeutic effects, you get them from real treatments too....<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: And, so it’s not like homeopathy or whatever can provide something that getting some minimalist but rational and science-based treatment can also deliver. <br />
<br />
BH: Right<br />
<br />
S: And then there’s the harm of homeopathy, which, even if you buy the notion that I think 99% of the stuff that’s sold that’s homeopathy is completely inert...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: ...and therefore, there’s no direct harm, the indirect harm is kind of hard to quantify.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, I agree.<br />
<br />
S: And so I’m not so complacent about saying there isn’t much of an indirect harm from legitimizing and peddling really abject nonsense as if it were medicine.<br />
<br />
BH: But this is the beauty of skepticism.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: The point is if we’re not dogmatic...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...and we can take apart these arguments and consider all the factors which are feeding into it...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: Seems to me that what you’re telling me about the size of the effect of placebo. I’m not an expert in it...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: ...but I think as skeptics we’re allowed to sit down and say okay, let’s evaluate the evidence.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, absolutely.<br />
<br />
BH: Let’s look at the budgets, let’s do the analysis. And I think that Phil Plait made an issue yesterday about, skepticism should try and be a little bit, not more tolerant, but just kind of stop being so dogma-...or categorical, that there’s a right and wrong…<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...to every issue. Because, very rarely is that the case.<br />
<br />
S: Right. <br />
<br />
BH: And so, maybe what I’m saying is that let’s look at all the costs and benefits of that. The issue about homeopathy is whether it is effective, well, everyone knows it’s water, I mean…<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it’s not effective. That, we could agree on that.<br />
<br />
BH: We can all agree on that. It’s the other issue, about whether or not allowing people to pay for water...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...is either morally right, ethically right...these are the complex issues.<br />
<br />
S: Absolutely, and they’re definitely issues that we don’t take for granted.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: And that’s probably one of the most frequent questions I get as a skeptical physician is, well if this treatment is benign and comes with a placebo effect and makes people feel better…<br />
<br />
E: What’s the harm.<br />
<br />
S: Not only what’s the harm, but isn’t there some benefit to that. And that’s a very important question. <br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: There’s many sub-questions in there like how can we optimize...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...the beneficial aspects of placebo effects within the framework of not lying to patients. <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, so well that of course is, the hippocratic oath is... <br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH: ...has to be maintained, and you’re absolutely right. <br />
<br />
S: So, I acknowledge all the complexities, I do think it’s a great conversation to have, but I’ll just say that we’ve been having that conversation...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm-hm<br />
<br />
S: ...and I like to think that we have developed nuanced opinion…<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...about it, but...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: I’ve recently become aware of the fact that there’s sort of a different sort of...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: ...opinion developing among my UK colleagues, which interests me...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...which is why I wanted to…<br />
<br />
BH: Well let’s...<br />
<br />
S: you know, explore a little bit.<br />
<br />
BH: Let’s consider some future scenarios.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH: Let’s say okay, so we ban homeopathy, or let’s say we cut funding for it.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, yeah, which is the more, yeah...<br />
<br />
BH: That’s more likely.<br />
<br />
S: Banning it’s... <br />
<br />
BH: Banning it is never going to work. (laughs)<br />
<br />
S: Right. It’s like prohibition. <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah. We know that the same people who seek out a lot of this are generally chronic patients, you know.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: This is usually why they’ve...quite often it’s testimony hearing from someone else, but very often it’s people who’ve not responded. We then have to say well what replaces it, because I think that some people are inclined towards this way of thinking.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: And so, in many ways water is just water, but then when they start getting into all the other stuff then there’s...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...I mean for example Chinese alternative therapies.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: That’s really worrisome, ‘cause a lot of these…<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. Oh there’s definitely a lot more worse things.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, absolutely, so…<br />
<br />
S: And, I do… whenever people start to say that, well, you know, there’s this huge population of people with chronic symptoms.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: And, this notion that if we service their chronic complaints with benign, inexpensive and simple treatments that make them feel better, this puts a tremendous relief on the system.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: Because we can’t send them off for MRI’s and complicated workups…<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, thats, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: I understand that but that’s, that was the “barefoot doctor” campaign that Mao-Tse Tung underwent.<br />
<br />
BH: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: We can’t afford to give scientific medicine to a billion people so we’re going to have this...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...sort of, army of barefoot doctors who are going to give them the traditional stuff that we know doesn’t work, but who cares it’s cheap and they can do it and...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: It kinda rubs me a little bit the wrong way but I understand the dilemma there that, and I do think this is exactly the problem that America is having, is that we have the technology, to, and the science, to provide...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...more healthcare than we can afford. So I think this is a very important that needs to be addressed. I’m not willing to say let’s just give them sugar pills and make them go away so we don’t have to pay for them. I’m not saying that was your position, but I’m saying that is kind of...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: ...sort of, where it can lead to. I think rather, we need to figure out as a profession, how to efficiently deal with these people within a more reasonable science-based and ethical framework. And maybe there are lots of lessons to be learned from these alternative practitioners who have found a way to sort of optimize the more what I call “touchy-feely” aspects...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: ...of medicine. Right? So maybe we don’t need physicians doing the million-dollar workup on everybody who has these chronic complaints, and maybe we can have allied professionals, like nurse practitioners or whatever that are able to approach these problems in a way that is more minimalist and...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm-hm<br />
<br />
S: Again there’s a lot of complexities here. I think though, that we get off on a very ultimately destructive tangent if we say that these non-scientific modalities have a useful role to play directly in dealing with that issue. But I don’t have the ultimate solution either cause I understand that it’s...that we’re in the process of going bankrupt paying for the medicine that we have the technology to deliver. We’re victims of our own success. Now what do we do...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...You know. It’s tough.<br />
<br />
BH: Indeed, indeed.<br />
<br />
B: I don’t have a solution, but I admire the problem.<br />
<br />
S: (laughs) Right.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BH: But at least we can talk about it, and that’s...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
E: Oh yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. <br />
<br />
S: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Bruce, for joining us.<br />
<br />
BH: You’re very welcome.<br />
<br />
E: Thank you, Bruce.<br />
<br />
BH: Cheers, bye.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>()</small> ==<br />
[http://www.physorg.com/news201266386.html Item #1]: A new analysis confirms that the so-called mitochondrial eve lived about 200,000 years ago.<br />
[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100816095615.htm Item #2]: New research indicates that for adults internet access at home is significantly associated with a decreased probability of being involved in a romantic relationship.<br />
[http://www.physorg.com/news201427392.html Item #3]: New images of the Moon's surface indicate that the Moon is shrinking - by about 100 meters in the recent past.<br />
== Quote of the Week <small>()</small> ==<br />
<blockquote>'You know that chemistry has an impact on your daily life, but the extent of that impact can be mind-boggling. Consider just the beginning of a typical day from a chemical point of view. Molecules align in the liquid crystal display of your clock, electrons flow through its circuitry to create a rousing sound, and you throw off a thermal insulator of manufactured polymer. You jump in the shower, to emulsify fatty substances on your skin and hair with chemically treated water and formulated detergents. You adorn yourself in an array of processed chemicals - pleasant-smelling pigmented materials suspended in cosmetic gels, dyed polymeric fibers, synthetic footware, and metal-alloyed jewelry. Today, breakfast is a bowl of nutrient-enriched, spoilage-retarded cereal and milk, a piece of fertilizer-grown, pesticide-treated fruit, and a cup of a hot, aqueous solution of neurally stimulating alkaloid. Ready to leave, you collect some books - processed cellulose and plastic, electrically printed with light-and-oxygen-resistant inks - hop in your hydrocarbon-fuelled metal-vinyl-ceramic vehicle, electrically ignite a synchronized series of controlled, gaseous explosions, and you're off to class!' Martin S. Silberberg</blockquote><br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_266&diff=9507SGU Episode 2662014-12-07T15:42:31Z<p>Jason koziol: /* Interview with Bruce Hood () */</p>
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|guest1 = BH: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Hood_%28psychologist%29 Bruce Hood] <br />
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|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,30118.0.html<br />
|qowText = 'You know that chemistry has an impact on your daily life, but the extent of that impact can be mind-boggling. Consider just the beginning of a typical day from a chemical point of view. Molecules align in the liquid crystal display of your clock, electrons flow through its circuitry to create a rousing sound, and you throw off a thermal insulator of manufactured polymer. You jump in the shower, to emulsify fatty substances on your skin and hair with chemically treated water and formulated detergents. You adorn yourself in an array of processed chemicals - pleasant-smelling pigmented materials suspended in cosmetic gels, dyed polymeric fibers, synthetic footware, and metal-alloyed jewelry. Today, breakfast is a bowl of nutrient-enriched, spoilage-retarded cereal and milk, a piece of fertilizer-grown, pesticide-treated fruit, and a cup of a hot, aqueous solution of neurally stimulating alkaloid. Ready to leave, you collect some books - processed cellulose and plastic, electrically printed with light-and-oxygen-resistant inks - hop in your hydrocarbon-fuelled metal-vinyl-ceramic vehicle, electrically ignite a synchronized series of controlled, gaseous explosions, and you're off to class!' <!-- add quote of the week text--><br />
|qowAuthor = {{w|Martin S. Silberberg}} <!-- add author and link --><br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
== News Items <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== Banning Wi-Fi <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=2215<br />
<br />
=== Psychic Finds Wrong Body <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/psychic-searching-for-kiesha-discovers-womans-torso-20100812-120mf.html?autostart=1<br />
<br />
=== Kurzweil and Brain Complexity <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/08/ray_kurzweil_does_not_understa.php<br />
<br />
=== Magnetars and Black Holes <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/spaceastronomystars<br />
== Who's That Noisy <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Answer to last week - spiney lobster<br />
<br />
== Interview with Bruce Hood <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Author of SuperSense<br />
<br />
S: We're sitting here at TAM 8 with Bruce Hood, author of "Super Sense", Bruce, welcome back to the Skeptic's Guide.<br />
<br />
Bruce Hood: Hi.<br />
<br />
S: And, I have to say I watched your talk today and, I love the material by the way, I love the talk. The kind of stuff you deal with really is, in my opinion, at the absolute core of skepticism. Which is the knowledge about how our brains function, how they filter information, and deal with the world around us. So, give us a little flavor of your talk today and tell us what are those things that you've learned in your career that really...that you feel are most relevant to what we do as skeptics.<br />
<br />
BH: Okay so, really the talk was trying to draw people's attention to the basic function of a brain, which is to interpret the world and make sense of it, and to build models if you like. Allows you to make predictions, figure out why things are the way they are. It's like a causal inference mechanism. And, it's usually pretty good. It's done us well for all these millions of years. But it has a few built in, uh, flaws. And, sometimes it makes errors, and those errors, I think, could underpin a lot of supernatural beliefs.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: The assumption that there are hidden forces or dimensions, or things operating which can't be explained by science.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: Okay? I think one of the critical points I was making in the demonstrations throughout the talk was showing how people shouldn't even trust their own senses. Because, you know the phrase, "seeing is believing"? Well, I hopefully demonstrated today that that's not the case.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: Believing is seeing in many cases.<br />
<br />
BH: Indeed. Yeah, so that's an example where your models of the world really color the way you interpret the world. The late Richard Gregory was a great friend of mine he said this 50 years ago that, you need these models of the world to interpret it. And that of course, sort of, constrains the sorts of things that you pay attention to.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So believing very much you're seeing its the way that you go out and you sample information to fit.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: And part of that process occasionally produces these explanations...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...which don't really hold up under the scrutiny of evidence. <br />
<br />
S: Right. Now you said one word during your talk that caught my attention which I thought was for me a core concept. You didn't focus on it but I knew what you were saying and you said that the...our perception of the world is a ''constructive'' process.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm-hm, mm-hm.<br />
<br />
S: That's a deceptively deep little concept you threw in there in the middle of your talk it's not something that we passively...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...are perceiving, we're constructing it with tons of assumptions.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: Can you elaborate that a little bit?<br />
<br />
BH: You don't have any privileged, direct access to reality. Your brain is always extrapolating on the basis of information it's receiving, and then it's constructing that into a framework. To try and make the best fitting model to what you think you're seeing. <br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: And so one of the very simple visual illusions I talked about are these ones where you think you see a geometric shape which is basically an illusory subjective contour. Now the interesting thing about that it's a very simple demonstration everyone sees the illusory shape but what they may not appreciate is that if you go into the brain we can find cells which are firing as if that object really was there.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So it doesn't make the distinction between the fact of reality and the illusion because the brain, if it's come up with that solution, it says, well, there really should be a shape there, so fire as if it really is there. So that was the basic point, that all of our phenomenological experience is really extrapolated, is really constructed...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...from the information. And of course your models that you apply to interpret information will allow you to imagine all sorts of things, so...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: When I said someone thinks they've seen a ghost, at the neuronal level it's really indistinguishable.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, the problem is a lot of people think that...they equate the eyes with a movie camera, or...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: ...the brain with a hard drive, filling up with information that it stores that doesn't change over time ...<br />
<br />
BH: Exactly <br />
<br />
B: ...and all that and they can't...a lot of people just don't get past that. And they can't relate to the idea that we're constructing what we see. They think it's a window, but it's not it's a window that, you know, that we change and manipulate and...<br />
<br />
BH: Right<br />
<br />
B: ... deal with.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think if there's like...often if there's one thing I try to get across to non-skeptics is extrapolating from the optical illusion.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: People...Everyone knows what an optical illusion is and it's cool, it's fun, but they don't learn the lesson from that. It's like your whole brain operates that way.<br />
<br />
BH: Yes<br />
<br />
S: Everything you think and remember and... It's all constructed in the same flawed way that your visual...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
S: ...images are and they're subject to the same kind of illusions.<br />
<br />
BH: Absolutely, I mean if you can demonstrate that at the very basic simple level of the system that these flaws are there, then you can imagine that when you're dealing with even more complex, sort of, representations then, yeah, the scope for errors is much more obvious.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So, yeah that's the whole point... <br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
BH: ...that the whole brain is designed to try and interpret and build models.<br />
<br />
S: Exactly. Now I think last time you were on the show we focused a lot on the notion of essence.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: We assume that things have an essence, and that goes a long way to giving us our sense that there is ...a lot of our supernatural beliefs flow from that. I don't know that we talked about a related concept, and you did allude to it earlier, just now which was agency, so something else that we assume is not only that things have an essence, but there are agents operating in the world and...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: I try to understand the way our brains treat the concept of agency, so help me out, tell me… <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: … if you can summarize your understanding of that, where we are with that.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, so, it would appear to be a system which emerges very early. We know this from the work from Paul Bloom's lab, and Karen Wynn. They do work with very young babies, and...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: … Val Kumar in particular is the lady who really has been doing this work. And they've shown these simple, geometric, little videos of objects moving around the screen, and what we see them as adults, we see them as being purposeful, they seem to have goals...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...you know, even though they’re just kind of random movements. And um, with some of their sequences they look as if they’re, you know, playing out some sort of scenario. We’re giving them a rich interpretation, so we’re seeing them as agents, as having purposes and intents. So agency is really this default...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...that we seem to slip into when we’re trying to give a causal explanation for why things are the way they are...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...You have a plate falls off the table, it had to be caused by something. So agency is again kind of a default way of interpreting the presence of something, which is causing it.<br />
<br />
S: Right. But it’s also my understanding that we do...our brains will, do make a hard distinction between things that we think are agents and things that we think are not agents. We sort of...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: ...we know that a rock is not an agent so we categorize it differently in our brains...<br />
<br />
BH: That’s right.<br />
<br />
S: ...but that division is not between real agents and non-agents, or things that are alive and that are not alive, it’s things that act like agents and that don’t act like agents. But that’s another way in which we’re constructing based upon lots of assumptions and we get it wrong a lot of times. <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, so Dan Dennett made this point, he called it “intentionality” default. And basically... so this is when you kind of treat your computer as being vindictive...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
BH: ...when it crashes on you, or your car is being malevolent because it breaks down on the way to...and he’s argued that we adopt this position, as a kind of convenient way of interacting with things which clearly aren’t agents. We kind of know this at one level, but at another level if we treat it as if did have purpose and goals and intentions it allows us to kind of interact with it...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...in a meaningful way. That may be the case, but you know, I certainly know that people seem to lose all rationality when machinery breaks around them and it...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
<br />
E: (laughs)<br />
<br />
BH: ...does seem as if it was deliberate. And we, you know (laughs), it just seems as if... <br />
<br />
E: Guilty as charged, here, yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: Michael Shermer gave a really great story yesterday. I don’t know if you caught this, but he was on the lift shaft, and he was using his iPhone, and this lady was exiting the lift, and he gestured to her to leave the lift before him, and the iPhone slipped out of his hand, and it fell into the gap between the lift shaft and the door…<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BH: ...and he watched as it raffled down and then disappeared down the shaft.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BH: And he stood there with his mouth open watching that, and it was very difficult not to see that as a vindictive piece of nons… He didn’t see…<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, it’s like this thing just escaped.<br />
<br />
S: Right, right.<br />
<br />
BH: And that’s just our tendency to see things as being purposeful, doing things.<br />
<br />
B: Wow.<br />
<br />
S: Do you hold with those who say that this tendency to seek agency is all...leads to things like conspiracy thinking and even religious beliefs about there being a God, for example?<br />
<br />
BH: Oh sure, I mean yeah, I mean it can operate in any sphere where you’re trying to apply some causal mechanism, some causal… why do things happen, well someone did it. Someone was responsible. Trouble with that of course is you get into an infinite regress of causes...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...you know because, it’s very difficult to even conceive random events. The brain can’t conceive randomness. If I asked you to press on your keyboard ones and zeros and try and create a random pattern, very soon, you’d just fall into a sequence. If I take coffee beans and I throw them on the table, you can’t see them as random, you already, automatically organize them into some pattern. And I think that’s the same with sequences of events. You see them as being a chain of agency.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm. Right. And conspiracy thinking as well? I mean... <br />
<br />
BH: Exactly.<br />
<br />
S: ...that’s something we talk about a lot, and it seems like there’s this inherent sense of the invisible hand operating...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...behind events.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah. The notion that it might just be a kind of coincidence is something that we just don’t readily accept. Coincidence...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...we’re not really good at our statistical reasoning. The brain was never really designed to do that. We’re not Bayesians, we can’t do probability analysis.<br />
<br />
B: It’s not intuitive at all.<br />
<br />
BH: It’s ‘’not’’ intuitive. And that’s why statistics is really difficult for people to accept.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah. We suck at probability.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah. Probability, you know there’s all these beautiful examples of illusions of probability, and people just never get it.<br />
<br />
S: This is a little off what you typically talk about, at least as far as I’m aware, but I’m interested in what you’re thinking is about evolutionary psychology. So do you involve yourself at all in asking that deeper question about why our brains evolved to be the way they are? Or you think it just not an answerable question? Or not interesting?<br />
<br />
BH: Well I think the problem about evolutionary psychology is it’s often disregarded as a “just so” story. Because it’s very difficult to look back into the mists of early civilization, or early man to figure out why we have evolved our behaviors and our thought patterns. But, you know I believe the mind is a product of the brain, and the brain is a physical system, a biological system, which evolved under selective pressure. So ultimately I would have to contend that a lot of it is constrained by evolutionary pressure. The difference then is when culture comes in, and then...<br />
<br />
B: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...the degrees of freedom, to give an engineering term, become huge. <br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: You can’t really, you know, figure out what the causal...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: ...chain of events was which led to our predispositions to think or behave in certain ways. So I suppose what I’m saying is that clearly… I think that evolutionary psychology must be true to some extent, but to apply it as an explanatory framework to make sense of modern day behaviors is difficult. And it leads to a lot of simplistic notions, naivete, you know, men being more aggressive and wanting to have sex with more women, these are typical things which are...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...said to... obviously have an evolutionary adaptation. But again that’s really hard to...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...say in a scientific sort of way. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah, so you kind of have to assume a hyper-adaptationalist position which is not tenable in order to…<br />
<br />
BH: Exactly, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: be an evolutionary psychologist, so...‘cause culture and, just randomness...behavior’s meant to be so diverse and adaptive…<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: that you can’t say A led to B led to C.<br />
<br />
BH: We weren’t around at the time that the various gene was selected, and so we just have to kind of make a...after-the-fact kind of analysis. And that can be, obviously, driven by your own expectations and models of what you think was happening, but we don’t know for a certainty. <br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: So evolutionary psychology I think is useful, because it gets you to kind of think about if there’s something there why would it, you know, what possibly could’ve done, but then you definitely need to have other lines of evidence...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...maybe it’s genetic, or maybe it’s something to do with anthropology or...you’d have to have more than one line of evidence, rather than an argument based on an evolutionary perspective. That’s my opinion.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
E: It’s complex.<br />
<br />
BH: It’s complex, and it’s after the fact.<br />
<br />
S: Can I ask what your experience has been as an academic with the degree to which you’ve been popularizing your research in science?<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, I’ve reached a sort of crossroads. Well, I think I’ve already set down the path actually, it’s no longer a crossroads, I’ve been doing this now for two years. And um, I think that I’m transforming somewhat from your mainstream kind of academic to someone who is increasingly spending more time talking to the general public and, I used to have some real reservations about that, because for many, many years it was felt that that was somehow not being a real academic to do this. But I think the landscape has changed somewhat and I’ve got to keep reminding myself that, certainly in the UK, I’m a public servant. I’m paid for by taxes. And, you know I have a duty to, you know I’m paid for by other people’s tax money so, I feel I’ve got a duty to try and communicate information which I feel is of relevance to them. And clearly there are situations where there’s not enough communication happening. And science is under threat as well. I don’t know what it’s like in this country but certainly in the UK at the moment we’re facing terrible cuts. And so I feel there’s a real role now for people who are willing to step into the limelight, who are willing to talk, and to give opinions, so long as they don’t go too far beyond their areas of expertise. But just to try and open up those channels of communication, maybe encourage some youngsters listening in that, you know these are cool things. Science is cool....<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: And we need to get more, kind of, pop stars of science. We’ve seen it in every other realm, athletics, and music. But why not science? You know, it can be absolutely absorbing and fascinating. So, there are some great people out there doing it and I think that we should just encourage it. So I’m much more comfortable with my position now....<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...I still have the luxury of engaging in real research, and I do that, and I would hate to lose that entirely. But that’s becoming less a characteristic of what my day job is. <br />
<br />
S: How do you find that your colleagues and institution respond to that?<br />
<br />
BH: Well surprisingly they’re very positive towards it. Well not surprising. It’s just that fact that university system in the UK is changing somewhat. We’re moving more towards the American system. So college fees are going to start increasing and I think that we now have to compete with each other. To get the best students, to raise our profiles, to become more corporate, if you like.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: And that requires a degree of marketing. That requires academics getting out there, speaking, telling the kids about what we’re doing, getting the foreign students to come visit.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: These are all changes to the system. We’ve lost the nice cozy, insular, kind of ivory tower image that was so common in the UK for many decades. We’re now being forced by the change in economic circumstances to become more accountable, to become more corporate, and so, what I do promotes the university.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm. Yeah I think the culture’s still a little different in the United States. I think there isn’t as much recognition of the need to popularize science or to communicate...<br />
<br />
BH: Right.<br />
<br />
S: ...with the public or engage on a lot of issues. So, maybe it’s ironic, but I think there may be more of an ivory tower attitude over here. <br />
<br />
BH: Yes, well of course, the US, you’re very familiar with paying large college fees, and...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...you’ve always had a system of, you know, setting up the college fund when the kid’s born, and mom, grandparents feed the money into it. This idea of paying for your education has been in your culture for many decades.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: But, of course in the UK, this has just recently come in, because we always had a kind of social system which allowed for higher education. And what happened is that they’ve just increased the numbers of students going to university without any additional funding. So this has now put a lot of pressure on the system to try and teach more students for less money, and we’ve now reached an impasse, where in fact we now charge for our fees, and they’ve been moderate amounts about five thousand dollars a year. But all the signs and indications show that that’s going to increase.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So um...and this is what people are finding very difficult to accept, because they’ve had it for so many decades...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: ...where they don’t pay for education. But you know, I think that a college education, a university education as we say, opens up so many doors, gives you better job opportunities, better salaries, and therefore it has to be paid for. I would prefer that we did have a social system which allowed everybody to go, but we’ve tried that and it seems to be failing very badly. The government is just not giving us the support....<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
E: Well it’s not that they’re not paying for it, they are paying for it through taxes. <br />
<br />
BH: Taxes.<br />
<br />
E: Value… VAT Taxes and these sort of things. <br />
<br />
BH: That’s true. That is true. It’s just that that doesn’t immediately feed back to the university systems, it goes into the economy.<br />
<br />
E: Yes. Right. Heh.<br />
<br />
BH: I think the expenditure on science in the UK is something like 0.04% of the GDP, which is pretty pathetic. <br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
E: Are there like lobby groups or something? That get together and try and get larger percentages?<br />
<br />
BH: No, is the simple answer to that. We do have some individuals who are trying to draw the public’s attention to it. Brian Cox, for example is a very popular, young physicist, very successful. And he’s being very vocal about this. Especially with the cancellation of many departments… we’re losing chemistry departments right across British universities. ‘Cause they’re too expensive to run. But we’ve just had a change in government and, I don’t know if your listeners are aware, but we have a huge deficit in our budget, and so they’re operating draconian kind of cuts. A quarter, twenty-five percent of cuts right across the board from public sectors, so that means huge pressure on us to try and find other sources of money, so it’s difficult.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm. Well we’re certainly running huge deficits over here but, so far they’re not cutting anything, they’re just, sort of…<br />
<br />
BH: No no, it’s interesting…<br />
<br />
S:...spending more money.<br />
<br />
BH: I think what you guys are doing right because you’re stimulating it and by… because basically, economies grow out of innovations...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...and I think that you can’t cut off your life-blood....<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: ...because the long term consequences of not supporting higher education is that you create this huge gap. Because who are you going to fill it with if you don’t have the youngsters being trained up with degrees and that. So it’s really important not to kill off your life-blood.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it’s the difference between investing and spending.<br />
<br />
BH: Exactly. <br />
<br />
S: And higher education’s an investment. <br />
<br />
BH: I think so.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, especially in… I do think that in this country, there’s been a recognition of so-called STEM education, which is the Science, Technology, Engineering. And I think, it seems that that came out of the cold war.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: And continues to a lesser degree even ‘til today, otherwise the more threatened we feel the more we sort of go back to, oh we gotta get...be competing in science in education.<br />
<br />
BH: Well wars are very good for stimulating technology.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
E: That’s true. That is true they are. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah it’s true.<br />
<br />
E: Space race…<br />
<br />
BH: But don’t get me wrong I’m not saying let’s go to war again.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
E: No, no, no.<br />
<br />
S: No, it’s just a historical fact. <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, it focuses the attention of the politicians, you know.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: But unfortunately, they’re not really that sympathetic to science otherwise. In our country, very few of our politicians have a science background. <br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So they don’t respond to it.<br />
<br />
E: Same here. <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah.<br />
<br />
E: Same here.<br />
<br />
S: Speaking of which, so what kind of science vs. pseudoscience conflicts are common over in the UK? You’ve traveled back and forth between the UK and the US enough. Do you have a sense of like, what the similarities and differences are?<br />
<br />
BH: Well obviously in your country religion is one of the big controversies and the extent of the religious right...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...the power they wield. We have a bit of a problem in the UK, but nowhere near as much, and that’s simply because we don’t have as many extreme religious people in control. Although, they do seem to be on the increase again, so...You have to be, kind of… I’m not going to pass comment on them, but you know, it is not such an issue in this countr... in the UK. Where we have problems are basically issues on alternative therapies.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: Homeopathy is something which gets up a lot of people’s noses. I actually controversially don’t feel so, you know, upset by it, which really annoys my fellow skeptics. <br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: They think they shouldn’t tolerate anything which is basically peddling water as a cure. But I happen to have a, you know, belief in the placebo effect, and so I think we have to really question...and I’m not saying that there’s a simple answer here, by the way. Whether or not we should allow people to pay for water if they think it makes them get better, and they’re not a drain on public money.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: I can see a good argument for that actually, if they’re not sort of cluttering up the diagnostic…<br />
<br />
B: (laughs)<br />
<br />
BH: ...expense bills, because you know, otherwise they want to be sent off for scans, and they want to send off and have every other thing done. So I actually, I’m, you know, if people are happy to pay for that, that’s fine.<br />
<br />
E: But is that science though? I mean, are we...how does that fit in?<br />
<br />
BH: Well, um, the placebo effect is very real.<br />
<br />
E: Well, yes.<br />
<br />
S: But it depends on what you’re talking about though.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm.<br />
<br />
S: It’s interesting that you say that because Ben Goldacre has a very similar opinion on it.<br />
<br />
BH: Indeed<br />
<br />
S: I don’t know if you’re familiar with that. And I don’t know if that’s because you’re both from the UK, or if its just that you know each other.<br />
<br />
BH: No, Ben and I, we were, no Ben and I do actually agree on this. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH: And so does, you know, Richard Wiseman has said something very similar as well. And that’s actually, a lot of people have got very upset by that because the 10-23 campaign...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH:...has been very successful and, it seemed very likely that public support for the homeopathic hospices… there are five of them in the UK…<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH: ...is going to be cut. And that sounds like a great success. But that actually, in terms of pounds, is four million pounds for the entire program.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah <br />
<br />
BH: A series of investigations for neurological conditions, fMRI scanning, all that, pales in comparison…<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH: ...to the costs, so, I think that, and I have to be careful here, because I know the cases...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...and they’re very distressing cases where people have deliberately gone to seek out alternative therapy and not engaged in conventional therapy, and especially with kids. <br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: So we have cases around the world where people have died.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: Because of their belief in homeopathy. And so I’m not saying that I’m an apologist for it, I’m just a realist in terms of maybe there is scope for people who want to do that, so long as they’re not denying access to conventional medicine, so...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...it’s a difficult area, I suppose.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah I think where I’d disagree with… I mean I’ve heard Ben Goldacre articulate the issues .<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: I’m not aware of… I’ve never had this conversation with Richard Wiseman. <br />
<br />
BH: Mm.<br />
<br />
S: But I think Ben overestimates the effect of the placebo effect.<br />
<br />
BH: Really.<br />
<br />
S: It’s been, I mean I’ve written about it I’ve reviewed the literature...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: ...on the placebo effect and it’s pretty clear actually that there isn’t really much of a placebo effect.<br />
<br />
BH: Really? Wow.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it’s really limited to subjective complaint.<br />
<br />
BH: Right, of course, yeah. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah, so, but if you ask the question is there any measurable biological effect that can be attributed to placebo effects, the answer’s a pretty clear no. <br />
<br />
BH: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: So, you have to put that into context. The other argument that my colleagues and I make is that, well, whatever psychological benefit or non-specific benefit you get from placebo effects, which are essentially non-specific therapeutic effects, you get them from real treatments too....<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: And, so it’s not like homeopathy or whatever can provide something that getting some minimalist but rational and science-based treatment can also deliver. <br />
<br />
BH: Right.<br />
<br />
S: And then there’s the harm of homeopathy, which, even if you buy the notion that I think 99% of the stuff that’s sold that’s homeopathy is completely inert, and therefore, there’s no direct harm, the indirect harm is kind of hard to quantify.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, I agree.<br />
<br />
S: And so I’m not so complacent about saying there isn’t much of an indirect harm from legitimizing and peddling really abject nonsense as if it were medicine.<br />
<br />
BH: But this is the beauty of skepticism.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: The point is if we’re not dogmatic...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...and we can take apart these arguments and consider all the factors which are feeding into it...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...Seems to me that what you’re telling me about the size of the effect of placebo. I’m not an expert in it...<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: ...but I think as skeptics we’re allowed to sit down and say okay, let’s evaluate the evidence.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, absolutely.<br />
<br />
BH: Let’s look at the budgets, let’s do the analysis. And I think that Phil Plait made an issue yesterday about, skepticism should try and be a little bit, not more tolerant, but just kind of stop being so dogma...or categorical, that there’s a right and wrong…<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...to every issue. Because, very rarely is that the case.<br />
<br />
S: Right. <br />
<br />
BH: And so, maybe what I’m saying is that let’s look at all the costs and benefits of that. The issue about homeopathy is whether it is effective, well, everyone knows it’s water, I mean…<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it’s not effective. That, we could agree on that.<br />
<br />
BH: We can all agree on that. It’s the other issue, about whether or not allowing people to pay for water...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...is either morally right, ethically right...these are the complex issues.<br />
<br />
S: Absolutely, and they’re definitely issues that we don’t take for granted.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: And that’s probably one of the most frequent questions I get as a skeptical physician is, well if this treatment is benign and comes with a placebo effect and makes people feel better…<br />
<br />
E: What’s the harm.<br />
<br />
S: Not only what’s the harm, but isn’t there some benefit from that. And that’s a very important question. <br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: There’s many sub-questions in there like how can we optimize...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...the beneficial aspects of placebo effects within the framework of not lying to patients. <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, so well that of course is, the hippocratic oath is... <br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH: ...has to be maintained, and you’re absolutely right. <br />
<br />
S: So, I acknowledge all the complexities, I do think it’s a great conversation to have, but I’ll just say that we’ve been having that conversation...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm-hm<br />
<br />
S: ...and I like to think that we have developed nuanced opinion…<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...about it, but...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: I’ve recently become aware of the fact that there’s sort of a different sort of...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: ...opinion developing among my UK colleagues, which interests me...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...which is why I wanted to…<br />
<br />
BH: Well let’s...<br />
<br />
S: you know, explore a little bit.<br />
<br />
BH: Let’s consider some future scenarios.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
BH: Let’s say okay, so we ban homeopathy, or let’s say we cut funding for it.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, yeah, which is the more, yeah...<br />
<br />
BH: That’s more likely.<br />
<br />
S: Banning it’s... <br />
<br />
BH: Banning it is never going to work. (laughs)<br />
<br />
S: Right. It’s like prohibition. <br />
<br />
BH: Yeah. We know that the same people who seek out a lot of this are generally chronic patients, you know.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: This is usually why they’ve...quite often it’s testimony hearing from someone else, but very often it’s people who’ve not responded. We then have to say well what replaces it, because I think that some people are inclined toward this way of thinking.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
BH: And so, in many ways water is just water, but then when they start getting into all the other stuff then there’s...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: ...I mean for example Chinese alternative therapies.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: That’s really worrisome, ‘cause a lot of these…<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. Oh there’s definitely a lot more worse things.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, absolutely, so…<br />
S: And, I do… whenever people start to say that, well, you know, there’s this huge population of people with chronic symptoms.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: And, this notion that if we service their chronic complaints with benign, inexpensive and simple treatments that make them feel better, this puts a tremendous relief on the system.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: Because we can’t send them off for MRI’s and complicated workups…<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah, thats, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: I understand that but that’s, that was the “barefoot doctor” campaign that Mao-Tse Tung underwent.<br />
<br />
BH: Okay.<br />
<br />
S: We can’t afford to give scientific medicine to a billion people so we’re going to have this...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...sort of, army of barefoot doctors who are going to give them the traditional stuff that we know doesn’t work, but who cares it’s cheap and they can do it and...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: It kinda rubs me a little bit the wrong way but I understand the dilemma there that, and I do think this is exactly the problem that America is having, is that we have the technology, to, and the science, to provide...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...more healthcare than we can afford. So I think this is a very important that needs to be addressed. I’m not willing to say let’s just give them sugar pills and make them go away so we don’t have to pay for them. I’m not saying that was your position, but I’m saying that is kind of...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: ...sort of, where it can lead to. I think rather, we need to figure out as a profession, how to efficiently deal with these people within a more reasonable science-based and ethical framework. And maybe there are lots of lessons to be learned from these alternative practitioners who have found a way to sort of optimize the more what I call “touchy-feely” aspects...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: ...of medicine. Right? So maybe we don’t need physicians doing the million-dollar workup on everybody who has these chronic complaints, and maybe we can have allied professionals, like nurse practitioners or whatever that are able to approach these problems in a way that is more minimalist and...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm-hm<br />
<br />
S: Again there’s a lot of complexities here. I think though, that we get off on a very ultimately destructive tangent if we say that these non-scientific modalities have a useful role to play directly in dealing with that issue. But I don’t have the ultimate solution either cause I understand that it’s...that we’re in the process of going bankrupt paying for the medicine that we have the technology to deliver. We’re victims of our own success. Now what do we do...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...You know. It’s tough.<br />
<br />
BH: Indeed, indeed.<br />
<br />
B: I don’t have a solution, but I admire the problem.<br />
<br />
S: (laughs) Right.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
BH: But at least we can talk about it, and that’s...<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
E: Oh yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. <br />
<br />
S: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Bruce, for joining us.<br />
<br />
BH: You’re very welcome.<br />
<br />
E: Thank you, Bruce.<br />
<br />
BH: Cheers, bye.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>()</small> ==<br />
[http://www.physorg.com/news201266386.html Item #1]: A new analysis confirms that the so-called mitochondrial eve lived about 200,000 years ago.<br />
[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100816095615.htm Item #2]: New research indicates that for adults internet access at home is significantly associated with a decreased probability of being involved in a romantic relationship.<br />
[http://www.physorg.com/news201427392.html Item #3]: New images of the Moon's surface indicate that the Moon is shrinking - by about 100 meters in the recent past.<br />
== Quote of the Week <small>()</small> ==<br />
<blockquote>'You know that chemistry has an impact on your daily life, but the extent of that impact can be mind-boggling. Consider just the beginning of a typical day from a chemical point of view. Molecules align in the liquid crystal display of your clock, electrons flow through its circuitry to create a rousing sound, and you throw off a thermal insulator of manufactured polymer. You jump in the shower, to emulsify fatty substances on your skin and hair with chemically treated water and formulated detergents. You adorn yourself in an array of processed chemicals - pleasant-smelling pigmented materials suspended in cosmetic gels, dyed polymeric fibers, synthetic footware, and metal-alloyed jewelry. Today, breakfast is a bowl of nutrient-enriched, spoilage-retarded cereal and milk, a piece of fertilizer-grown, pesticide-treated fruit, and a cup of a hot, aqueous solution of neurally stimulating alkaloid. Ready to leave, you collect some books - processed cellulose and plastic, electrically printed with light-and-oxygen-resistant inks - hop in your hydrocarbon-fuelled metal-vinyl-ceramic vehicle, electrically ignite a synchronized series of controlled, gaseous explosions, and you're off to class!' Martin S. Silberberg</blockquote><br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_266&diff=9505SGU Episode 2662014-12-06T18:25:21Z<p>Jason koziol: /* Interview with Bruce Hood () */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Editing required<br />
|transcription = y<br />
<!-- |proof-reading = y please remove commenting mark-up when some transcription is present --><br />
|time-stamps = y<br />
|formatting = y<br />
|links = y<br />
|Today I Learned list = y<br />
|categories = y<br />
|segment redirects = y <!-- redirect pages for segments with head-line type titles --><br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox<br />
|episodeNum = 266<br />
|episodeDate = August 19<sup>th</sup> 2010 <!-- broadcast date --><br />
|episodeIcon = File:Magnetar.jpg <!-- use "File:" and file name for image on show notes page--><br />
|previous = <!-- not required, automates to previous episode --><br />
|next = <!-- not required, automates to next episode --><br />
|rebecca = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|bob = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|jay = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|evan = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|perry = <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|guest1 = BH: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Hood_%28psychologist%29 Bruce Hood] <br />
|guest2 = <!-- leave blank if no second guest --><br />
|guest3 = <!-- leave blank if no third guest --><br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2010-08-19.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,30118.0.html<br />
|qowText = 'You know that chemistry has an impact on your daily life, but the extent of that impact can be mind-boggling. Consider just the beginning of a typical day from a chemical point of view. Molecules align in the liquid crystal display of your clock, electrons flow through its circuitry to create a rousing sound, and you throw off a thermal insulator of manufactured polymer. You jump in the shower, to emulsify fatty substances on your skin and hair with chemically treated water and formulated detergents. You adorn yourself in an array of processed chemicals - pleasant-smelling pigmented materials suspended in cosmetic gels, dyed polymeric fibers, synthetic footware, and metal-alloyed jewelry. Today, breakfast is a bowl of nutrient-enriched, spoilage-retarded cereal and milk, a piece of fertilizer-grown, pesticide-treated fruit, and a cup of a hot, aqueous solution of neurally stimulating alkaloid. Ready to leave, you collect some books - processed cellulose and plastic, electrically printed with light-and-oxygen-resistant inks - hop in your hydrocarbon-fuelled metal-vinyl-ceramic vehicle, electrically ignite a synchronized series of controlled, gaseous explosions, and you're off to class!' <!-- add quote of the week text--><br />
|qowAuthor = {{w|Martin S. Silberberg}} <!-- add author and link --><br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
== News Items <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== Banning Wi-Fi <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=2215<br />
<br />
=== Psychic Finds Wrong Body <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/psychic-searching-for-kiesha-discovers-womans-torso-20100812-120mf.html?autostart=1<br />
<br />
=== Kurzweil and Brain Complexity <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/08/ray_kurzweil_does_not_understa.php<br />
<br />
=== Magnetars and Black Holes <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/spaceastronomystars<br />
== Who's That Noisy <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Answer to last week - spiney lobster<br />
<br />
== Interview with Bruce Hood <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Author of SuperSense<br />
<br />
S: We're sitting here at TAM 8 with Bruce Hood, author of "Super Sense", Bruce, welcome back to the Skeptic's Guide.<br />
<br />
Bruce Hood: Hi.<br />
<br />
S: And, I have to say I watched your talk today and, I love the material by the way, I love the talk. The kind of stuff you deal with really is, in my opinion, at the absolute core of skepticism. Which is the knowledge about how our brains function, how they filter information, and deal with the world around us. So, give us a little flavor of your talk today and tell us what are those things that you've learned in your career that really...that you feel are most relevant to what we do as skeptics.<br />
<br />
BH: Okay so, really the talk was trying to draw people's attention to the basic function of a brain, which is to interpret the world and make sense of it, and to build models if you like. Allows you to make predictions, figure out why things are the way they are. It's like a causal inference mechanism. And, it's usually pretty good. It's done us well for all these millions of years. But it has a few built in, uh, flaws. And, sometimes it makes errors, and those errors, I think, could underpin a lot of supernatural beliefs.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: The assumption that there are hidden forces or dimensions, or things operating which can't be explained by science.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: Okay? I think one of the critical points I was making in the demonstrations throughout the talk was showing how people shouldn't even trust their own senses. Because, you know the phrase, "seeing is believing"? Well, I hopefully demonstrated today that that's not the case.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: Believing is seeing in many cases.<br />
<br />
BH: Indeed. Yeah, so that's an example where your models of the world really color the way you interpret the world. The late Richard Gregory was a great friend of mine he said this 50 years ago that, you need these models of the world to interpret it. And that of course, sort of, constrains the sorts of things that you pay attention to.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So believing very much you're seeing its the way that you go out and you sample information to fit.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: And part of that process occasionally produces these explanations...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...which don't really hold up under the scrutiny of evidence. <br />
<br />
S: Right. Now you said one word during your talk that caught my attention which I thought was for me a core concept. You didn't focus on it but I knew what you were saying and you said that the...our perception of the world is a ''constructive'' process.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm-hm, mm-hm.<br />
<br />
S: That's a deceptively deep little concept you threw in there in the middle of your talk it's not something that we passively...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...are perceiving, we're constructing it with tons of assumptions.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: Can you elaborate that a little bit?<br />
<br />
BH: You don't have any privileged, direct access to reality. Your brain is always extrapolating on the basis of information it's receiving, and then it's constructing that into a framework. To try and make the best fitting model to what you think you're seeing. <br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: And so one of the very simple visual illusions I talked about are these ones where you think you see a geometric shape which is basically an illusory subjective contour. Now the interesting thing about that it's a very simple demonstration everyone sees the illusory shape but what they may not appreciate is that if you go into the brain we can find cells which are firing as if that object really was there.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So it doesn't make the distinction between the fact of reality and the illusion because the brain, if it's come up with that solution, it says, well, there really should be a shape there, so fire as if it really is there. So that was the basic point, that all of our phenomenological experience is really extrapolated, is really constructed...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...from the information. And of course your models that you apply to interpret information will allow you to imagine all sorts of things, so...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: When I said someone thinks they've seen a ghost, at the neuronal level it's really indistinguishable.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, the problem is a lot of people think that...they equate the eyes with a movie camera, or...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: ...the brain with a hard drive, filling up with information that it stores that doesn't change over time ...<br />
<br />
BH: Exactly <br />
<br />
B: ...and all that and they can't...a lot of people just don't get past that. And they can't relate to the idea that we're constructing what we see. They think it's a window, but it's not it's a window that, you know, that we change and manipulate and...<br />
<br />
BH: Right<br />
<br />
B: ... deal with.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think if there's like...often if there's one thing I try to get across to non-skeptics is extrapolating from the optical illusion.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: People...Everyone knows what an optical illusion is and it's cool, it's fun, but they don't learn the lesson from that. It's like your whole brain operates that way.<br />
<br />
BH: Yes<br />
<br />
S: Everything you think and remember and... It's all constructed in the same flawed way that your visual...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
S: ...images are and they're subject to the same kind of illusions.<br />
S: … if you can summarize your understanding of that, where we are with that.<br />
<br />
BH: Absolutely, I mean if you can demonstrate that at the very basic level of the system that these flaws are there, then you can imagine that when you're dealing with even more complex, sort of, representations then, yeah, the scope for errors is much more obvious.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>()</small> ==<br />
[http://www.physorg.com/news201266386.html Item #1]: A new analysis confirms that the so-called mitochondrial eve lived about 200,000 years ago.<br />
[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100816095615.htm Item #2]: New research indicates that for adults internet access at home is significantly associated with a decreased probability of being involved in a romantic relationship.<br />
[http://www.physorg.com/news201427392.html Item #3]: New images of the Moon's surface indicate that the Moon is shrinking - by about 100 meters in the recent past.<br />
== Quote of the Week <small>()</small> ==<br />
<blockquote>'You know that chemistry has an impact on your daily life, but the extent of that impact can be mind-boggling. Consider just the beginning of a typical day from a chemical point of view. Molecules align in the liquid crystal display of your clock, electrons flow through its circuitry to create a rousing sound, and you throw off a thermal insulator of manufactured polymer. You jump in the shower, to emulsify fatty substances on your skin and hair with chemically treated water and formulated detergents. You adorn yourself in an array of processed chemicals - pleasant-smelling pigmented materials suspended in cosmetic gels, dyed polymeric fibers, synthetic footware, and metal-alloyed jewelry. Today, breakfast is a bowl of nutrient-enriched, spoilage-retarded cereal and milk, a piece of fertilizer-grown, pesticide-treated fruit, and a cup of a hot, aqueous solution of neurally stimulating alkaloid. Ready to leave, you collect some books - processed cellulose and plastic, electrically printed with light-and-oxygen-resistant inks - hop in your hydrocarbon-fuelled metal-vinyl-ceramic vehicle, electrically ignite a synchronized series of controlled, gaseous explosions, and you're off to class!' Martin S. Silberberg</blockquote><br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_266&diff=9504SGU Episode 2662014-12-06T17:04:40Z<p>Jason koziol: /* Interview with Bruce Hood () */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Editing required<br />
|transcription = y<br />
<!-- |proof-reading = y please remove commenting mark-up when some transcription is present --><br />
|time-stamps = y<br />
|formatting = y<br />
|links = y<br />
|Today I Learned list = y<br />
|categories = y<br />
|segment redirects = y <!-- redirect pages for segments with head-line type titles --><br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox<br />
|episodeNum = 266<br />
|episodeDate = August 19<sup>th</sup> 2010 <!-- broadcast date --><br />
|episodeIcon = File:Magnetar.jpg <!-- use "File:" and file name for image on show notes page--><br />
|previous = <!-- not required, automates to previous episode --><br />
|next = <!-- not required, automates to next episode --><br />
|rebecca = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|bob = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|jay = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|evan = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|perry = <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|guest1 = BH: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Hood_%28psychologist%29 Bruce Hood] <br />
|guest2 = <!-- leave blank if no second guest --><br />
|guest3 = <!-- leave blank if no third guest --><br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2010-08-19.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,30118.0.html<br />
|qowText = 'You know that chemistry has an impact on your daily life, but the extent of that impact can be mind-boggling. Consider just the beginning of a typical day from a chemical point of view. Molecules align in the liquid crystal display of your clock, electrons flow through its circuitry to create a rousing sound, and you throw off a thermal insulator of manufactured polymer. You jump in the shower, to emulsify fatty substances on your skin and hair with chemically treated water and formulated detergents. You adorn yourself in an array of processed chemicals - pleasant-smelling pigmented materials suspended in cosmetic gels, dyed polymeric fibers, synthetic footware, and metal-alloyed jewelry. Today, breakfast is a bowl of nutrient-enriched, spoilage-retarded cereal and milk, a piece of fertilizer-grown, pesticide-treated fruit, and a cup of a hot, aqueous solution of neurally stimulating alkaloid. Ready to leave, you collect some books - processed cellulose and plastic, electrically printed with light-and-oxygen-resistant inks - hop in your hydrocarbon-fuelled metal-vinyl-ceramic vehicle, electrically ignite a synchronized series of controlled, gaseous explosions, and you're off to class!' <!-- add quote of the week text--><br />
|qowAuthor = {{w|Martin S. Silberberg}} <!-- add author and link --><br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
== News Items <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== Banning Wi-Fi <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=2215<br />
<br />
=== Psychic Finds Wrong Body <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/psychic-searching-for-kiesha-discovers-womans-torso-20100812-120mf.html?autostart=1<br />
<br />
=== Kurzweil and Brain Complexity <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/08/ray_kurzweil_does_not_understa.php<br />
<br />
=== Magnetars and Black Holes <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/spaceastronomystars<br />
== Who's That Noisy <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Answer to last week - spiney lobster<br />
<br />
== Interview with Bruce Hood <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Author of SuperSense<br />
<br />
S: We're sitting here at TAM 8 with Bruce Hood, author of "Super Sense", Bruce, welcome back to the Skeptic's Guide.<br />
<br />
Bruce Hood: Hi.<br />
<br />
S: And, I have to say I watched your talk today and, I love the material by the way, I love the talk. The kind of stuff you deal with really is, in my opinion, at the absolute core of skepticism. Which is the knowledge about how our brains function, how they filter information, and deal with the world around us. So, give us a little flavor of your talk today and tell us what are those things that you've learned in your career that really...that you feel are most relevant to what we do as skeptics.<br />
<br />
BH: Okay so, really the talk was trying to draw people's attention to the basic function of a brain, which is to interpret the world and make sense of it, and to build models if you like. Allows you to make predictions, figure out why things are the way they are. It's like a causal inference mechanism. And, it's usually pretty good. It's done us well for all these millions of years. But it has a few built in, uh, flaws. And, sometimes it makes errors, and those errors, I think, could underpin a lot of supernatural beliefs.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: The assumption that there are hidden forces or dimensions, or things operating which can't be explained by science.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: Okay? I think one of the critical points I was making in the demonstrations throughout the talk was showing how people shouldn't even trust their own senses. Because, you know the phrase, "seeing is believing"? Well, I hopefully demonstrated today that that's not the case.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: Believing is seeing in many cases.<br />
<br />
BH: Indeed. Yeah, so that's an example where your models of the world really color the way you interpret the world. The late Richard Gregory was a great friend of mine he said this 50 years ago that, you need these models of the world to interpret it. And that of course, sort of, constrains the sorts of things that you pay attention to.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So believing very much you're seeing its the way that you go out and you sample information to fit.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: And part of that process occasionally produces these explanations...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...which don't really hold up under the scrutiny of evidence. <br />
<br />
S: Right. Now you said one word during your talk that caught my attention which I thought was for me a core concept. You didn't focus on it but I knew what you were saying and you said that the...our perception of the world is a ''constructive'' process.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm-hm, mm-hm.<br />
<br />
S: That's a deceptively deep little concept you threw in there in the middle of your talk it's not something that we passively...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...are perceiving, we're constructing it with tons of assumptions.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: Can you elaborate that a little bit?<br />
<br />
BH: You don't have any privileged, direct access to reality. Your brain is always extrapolating on the basis of information it's receiving, and then it's constructing that into a framework. To try and make the best fitting model to what you think you're seeing. <br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: And so one of the very simple visual illusions I talked about are these ones where you think you see a geometric shape which is basically an illusory subjective contour. Now the interesting thing about that it's a very simple demonstration everyone sees the illusory shape but what they may not appreciate is that if you go into the brain we can find cells which are firing as if that object really was there.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So it doesn't make the distinction between the fact of reality and the illusion because the brain, if it's come up with that solution, it says, well, there really should be a shape there, so fire as if it really is there. So that was the basic point, that all of our phenomenological experience is really extrapolated, is really constructed...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...from the information. And of course your models that you apply to interpret information will allow you to imagine all sorts of things, so...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: When I said someone thinks they've seen a ghost, at the neuronal level it's really indistinguishable.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, the problem is a lot of people think that...they equate the eyes with a movie camera, or...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: ...the brain with a hard drive, filling up with information that it stores that doesn't change over time ...<br />
<br />
BH: Exactly <br />
<br />
B: ...and all that and they can't...a lot of people just don't get past that. And they can't relate to the idea that we're constructing what we see. They think it's a window, but it's not it's a window that, you know, that we change and manipulate and...<br />
<br />
BH: Right<br />
<br />
B: ... deal with.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think if there's like...often if there's one thing I try to get across to non-skeptics is extrapolating from the optical illusion.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm<br />
<br />
S: People...Everyone knows what an optical illusion is and it's cool, it's fun, but they don't learn the lesson from that. It's like your whole brain operates that way.<br />
<br />
BH: Yes<br />
<br />
S: Everything you think and remember and... It's all constructed in the same flawed way that your visual...<br />
<br />
BH: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
S: ...images are and they're subject to the same kind of illusions.<br />
<br />
BH: Absolutely, I mean if you can demonstrate that at the very basic level of the system that these flaws are there, then you can imagine that when you're dealing with even more complex, sort of, representations then, yeah, the scope for errors is much more obvious.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>()</small> ==<br />
[http://www.physorg.com/news201266386.html Item #1]: A new analysis confirms that the so-called mitochondrial eve lived about 200,000 years ago.<br />
[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100816095615.htm Item #2]: New research indicates that for adults internet access at home is significantly associated with a decreased probability of being involved in a romantic relationship.<br />
[http://www.physorg.com/news201427392.html Item #3]: New images of the Moon's surface indicate that the Moon is shrinking - by about 100 meters in the recent past.<br />
== Quote of the Week <small>()</small> ==<br />
<blockquote>'You know that chemistry has an impact on your daily life, but the extent of that impact can be mind-boggling. Consider just the beginning of a typical day from a chemical point of view. Molecules align in the liquid crystal display of your clock, electrons flow through its circuitry to create a rousing sound, and you throw off a thermal insulator of manufactured polymer. You jump in the shower, to emulsify fatty substances on your skin and hair with chemically treated water and formulated detergents. You adorn yourself in an array of processed chemicals - pleasant-smelling pigmented materials suspended in cosmetic gels, dyed polymeric fibers, synthetic footware, and metal-alloyed jewelry. Today, breakfast is a bowl of nutrient-enriched, spoilage-retarded cereal and milk, a piece of fertilizer-grown, pesticide-treated fruit, and a cup of a hot, aqueous solution of neurally stimulating alkaloid. Ready to leave, you collect some books - processed cellulose and plastic, electrically printed with light-and-oxygen-resistant inks - hop in your hydrocarbon-fuelled metal-vinyl-ceramic vehicle, electrically ignite a synchronized series of controlled, gaseous explosions, and you're off to class!' Martin S. Silberberg</blockquote><br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_266&diff=9503SGU Episode 2662014-12-06T16:31:31Z<p>Jason koziol: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Editing required<br />
|transcription = y<br />
<!-- |proof-reading = y please remove commenting mark-up when some transcription is present --><br />
|time-stamps = y<br />
|formatting = y<br />
|links = y<br />
|Today I Learned list = y<br />
|categories = y<br />
|segment redirects = y <!-- redirect pages for segments with head-line type titles --><br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox<br />
|episodeNum = 266<br />
|episodeDate = August 19<sup>th</sup> 2010 <!-- broadcast date --><br />
|episodeIcon = File:Magnetar.jpg <!-- use "File:" and file name for image on show notes page--><br />
|previous = <!-- not required, automates to previous episode --><br />
|next = <!-- not required, automates to next episode --><br />
|rebecca = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|bob = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|jay = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|evan = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|perry = <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|guest1 = BH: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Hood_%28psychologist%29 Bruce Hood] <br />
|guest2 = <!-- leave blank if no second guest --><br />
|guest3 = <!-- leave blank if no third guest --><br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2010-08-19.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,30118.0.html<br />
|qowText = 'You know that chemistry has an impact on your daily life, but the extent of that impact can be mind-boggling. Consider just the beginning of a typical day from a chemical point of view. Molecules align in the liquid crystal display of your clock, electrons flow through its circuitry to create a rousing sound, and you throw off a thermal insulator of manufactured polymer. You jump in the shower, to emulsify fatty substances on your skin and hair with chemically treated water and formulated detergents. You adorn yourself in an array of processed chemicals - pleasant-smelling pigmented materials suspended in cosmetic gels, dyed polymeric fibers, synthetic footware, and metal-alloyed jewelry. Today, breakfast is a bowl of nutrient-enriched, spoilage-retarded cereal and milk, a piece of fertilizer-grown, pesticide-treated fruit, and a cup of a hot, aqueous solution of neurally stimulating alkaloid. Ready to leave, you collect some books - processed cellulose and plastic, electrically printed with light-and-oxygen-resistant inks - hop in your hydrocarbon-fuelled metal-vinyl-ceramic vehicle, electrically ignite a synchronized series of controlled, gaseous explosions, and you're off to class!' <!-- add quote of the week text--><br />
|qowAuthor = {{w|Martin S. Silberberg}} <!-- add author and link --><br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
== News Items <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== Banning Wi-Fi <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=2215<br />
<br />
=== Psychic Finds Wrong Body <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/psychic-searching-for-kiesha-discovers-womans-torso-20100812-120mf.html?autostart=1<br />
<br />
=== Kurzweil and Brain Complexity <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/08/ray_kurzweil_does_not_understa.php<br />
<br />
=== Magnetars and Black Holes <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/spaceastronomystars<br />
== Who's That Noisy <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Answer to last week - spiney lobster<br />
<br />
== Interview with Bruce Hood <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Author of SuperSense<br />
<br />
S: We're sitting here at TAM 8 with Bruce Hood, author of "Super Sense", Bruce, welcome back to the Skeptic's Guide.<br />
<br />
Bruce Hood: Hi.<br />
<br />
S: And, I have to say I watched your talk today and, I love the material by the way, I love the talk. The kind of stuff you deal with really is, in my opinion, at the absolute core of skepticism. Which is the knowledge about how our brains function, how they filter information, and deal with the world around us. So, give us a little flavor of your talk today and tell us what are those things that you've learned in your career that really...that you feel are most relevant to what we do as skeptics.<br />
<br />
BH: Okay so, really the talk was trying to draw people's attention to the basic function of a brain, which is to interpret the world and make sense of it, and to build models if you like. Allows you to make predictions, figure out why things are the way they are. It's like a causal inference mechanism. And, it's usually pretty good. It's done us well for all these millions of years. But it has a few built in, uh, flaws. And, sometimes it makes errors, and those errors, I think, could underpin a lot of supernatural beliefs.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: The assumption that there are hidden forces or dimensions, or things operating which can't be explained by science.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: Okay? I think one of the critical points I was making in the demonstrations throughout the talk was showing how people shouldn't even trust their own senses. Because, you know the phrase, "seeing is believing"? Well, I hopefully demonstrated today that that's not the case.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: Believing is seeing in many cases.<br />
<br />
BH: Indeed. Yeah, so that's an example where your models of the world really color the way you interpret the world. The late Richard Gregory was a great friend of mine he said this 50 years ago that, you need these models of the world to interpret it. And that of course, sort of, constrains the sorts of things that you pay attention to.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So believing very much you're seeing its the way that you go out and you sample information to fit.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: And part of that process occasionally produces these explanations...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...which don't really hold up under the scrutiny of evidence. <br />
<br />
S: Right. Now you said one word during your talk that caught my attention which I thought was for me a core concept. You didn't focus on it but I knew what you were saying and you said that the...our perception of the world is a ''constructive'' process.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm-hm, mm-hm.<br />
<br />
S: That's a deceptively deep little concept you threw in there in the middle of your talk it's not something that we passively...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...are perceiving, we're constructing it with tons of assumptions.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: Can you elaborate that a little bit?<br />
<br />
BH: You don't have any privileged, direct access to reality. Your brain is always extrapolating on the basis of information it's receiving, and then it's constructing that into a framework. To try and make the best fitting model to what you think you're seeing. <br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: And so one of the very simple visual illusions I talked about are these ones where you think you see a geometric shape which is basically an illusory subjective contour. Now the interesting thing about that it's a very simple demonstration everyone sees the illusory shape but what they may not appreciate is that if you go into the brain we can find cells which are firing as if that object really was there.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So it doesn't make the distinction between the fact of reality and the illusion because the brain, if it's come up with that solution, it says, well, there really should be a shape there, so fire as if it really is there. So that was the basic point, that all of our phenomenological experience is really extrapolated, is really constructed...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...from the information. And of course your models that you apply to interpret information will allow you to imagine all sorts of things, so...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: When I said someone thinks they've seen a ghost, at the neuronal level it's really indistinguishable.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>()</small> ==<br />
[http://www.physorg.com/news201266386.html Item #1]: A new analysis confirms that the so-called mitochondrial eve lived about 200,000 years ago.<br />
[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100816095615.htm Item #2]: New research indicates that for adults internet access at home is significantly associated with a decreased probability of being involved in a romantic relationship.<br />
[http://www.physorg.com/news201427392.html Item #3]: New images of the Moon's surface indicate that the Moon is shrinking - by about 100 meters in the recent past.<br />
== Quote of the Week <small>()</small> ==<br />
<blockquote>'You know that chemistry has an impact on your daily life, but the extent of that impact can be mind-boggling. Consider just the beginning of a typical day from a chemical point of view. Molecules align in the liquid crystal display of your clock, electrons flow through its circuitry to create a rousing sound, and you throw off a thermal insulator of manufactured polymer. You jump in the shower, to emulsify fatty substances on your skin and hair with chemically treated water and formulated detergents. You adorn yourself in an array of processed chemicals - pleasant-smelling pigmented materials suspended in cosmetic gels, dyed polymeric fibers, synthetic footware, and metal-alloyed jewelry. Today, breakfast is a bowl of nutrient-enriched, spoilage-retarded cereal and milk, a piece of fertilizer-grown, pesticide-treated fruit, and a cup of a hot, aqueous solution of neurally stimulating alkaloid. Ready to leave, you collect some books - processed cellulose and plastic, electrically printed with light-and-oxygen-resistant inks - hop in your hydrocarbon-fuelled metal-vinyl-ceramic vehicle, electrically ignite a synchronized series of controlled, gaseous explosions, and you're off to class!' Martin S. Silberberg</blockquote><br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_266&diff=9502SGU Episode 2662014-12-06T07:33:02Z<p>Jason koziol: /* Interview with Bruce Hood () */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Editing required<br />
|transcription = y<br />
<!-- |proof-reading = y please remove commenting mark-up when some transcription is present --><br />
|time-stamps = y<br />
|formatting = y<br />
|links = y<br />
|Today I Learned list = y<br />
|categories = y<br />
|segment redirects = y <!-- redirect pages for segments with head-line type titles --><br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox<br />
|episodeNum = 266<br />
|episodeDate = August 19<sup>th</sup> 2010 <!-- broadcast date --><br />
|episodeIcon = File:Magnetar.jpg <!-- use "File:" and file name for image on show notes page--><br />
|previous = <!-- not required, automates to previous episode --><br />
|next = <!-- not required, automates to next episode --><br />
|rebecca = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|bob = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|jay = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|evan = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|perry = <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|guest1 = BH: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Hood_%28psychologist%29 Bruce Hood] <br />
|guest2 = <!-- leave blank if no second guest --><br />
|guest3 = <!-- leave blank if no third guest --><br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2010-08-19.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,30118.0.html<br />
|qowText = 'You know that chemistry has an impact on your daily life, but the extent of that impact can be mind-boggling. Consider just the beginning of a typical day from a chemical point of view. Molecules align in the liquid crystal display of your clock, electrons flow through its circuitry to create a rousing sound, and you throw off a thermal insulator of manufactured polymer. You jump in the shower, to emulsify fatty substances on your skin and hair with chemically treated water and formulated detergents. You adorn yourself in an array of processed chemicals - pleasant-smelling pigmented materials suspended in cosmetic gels, dyed polymeric fibers, synthetic footware, and metal-alloyed jewelry. Today, breakfast is a bowl of nutrient-enriched, spoilage-retarded cereal and milk, a piece of fertilizer-grown, pesticide-treated fruit, and a cup of a hot, aqueous solution of neurally stimulating alkaloid. Ready to leave, you collect some books - processed cellulose and plastic, electrically printed with light-and-oxygen-resistant inks - hop in your hydrocarbon-fuelled metal-vinyl-ceramic vehicle, electrically ignite a synchronized series of controlled, gaseous explosions, and you're off to class!' <!-- add quote of the week text--><br />
|qowAuthor = {{w|Martin S. Silberberg}} <!-- add author and link --><br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
== News Items <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== Banning Wi-Fi <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=2215<br />
<br />
=== Psychic Finds Wrong Body <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/psychic-searching-for-kiesha-discovers-womans-torso-20100812-120mf.html?autostart=1<br />
<br />
=== Kurzweil and Brain Complexity <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/08/ray_kurzweil_does_not_understa.php<br />
<br />
=== Magnetars and Black Holes <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/spaceastronomystars<br />
== Who's That Noisy <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Answer to last week - spiney lobster<br />
<br />
== Interview with Bruce Hood <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Author of SuperSense<br />
<br />
S: We're sitting here at TAM 8 with Bruce Hood, author of "Super Sense", Bruce, welcome back to the Skeptic's Guide.<br />
<br />
Bruce Hood: Hi.<br />
<br />
S: And, I have to say I watched your talk today and, I love the material by the way, I love the talk. The kind of stuff you deal with really is, in my opinion, at the absolute core of skepticism. Which is the knowledge about how our brains function, how they filter information, and deal with the world around us. So, give us a little flavor of your talk today and tell us what are those things that you've learned in your career that really...that you feel are most relevant to what we do as skeptics.<br />
<br />
BH: Okay so, really the talk was trying to draw people's attention to the basic function of a brain, which is to interpret the world and make sense of it, and to build models if you like. Allows you to make predictions, figure out why things are the way they are. It's like a causal inference mechanism. And, it's usually pretty good. It's done us well for all these millions of years. But it has a few built in, uh, flaws. And, sometimes it makes errors, and those errors, I think, could underpin a lot of supernatural beliefs.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: The assumption that there are hidden forces or dimensions, or things operating which can't be explained by science.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: Okay? I think one of the critical points I was making in the demonstrations throughout the talk was showing how people shouldn't even trust their own senses. Because, you know the phrase, "seeing is believing"? Well, I hopefully demonstrated today that that's not the case.<br />
<br />
S: Right.<br />
<br />
B: Believing is seeing in many cases.<br />
<br />
BH: Indeed. Yeah, so that's an example where your models of the world really color the way you interpret the world. The late Richard Gregory was a great friend of mine he said this 50 years ago that, you need these models of the world to interpret it. And that of course, sort of, constrains the sorts of things that you pay attention to.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So believing very much you're seeing its the way that you go out and you sample information to fit.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
BH: And part of that process occasionally produces these explanations...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...which don't really hold up under the scrutiny of evidence. <br />
<br />
S: Right. Now you said one word during your talk that caught my attention which I thought was for me a core concept. You didn't focus on it but I knew what you were saying and you said that the...our perception of the world is a ''constructive'' process.<br />
<br />
BH: Mm-hm, mm-hm.<br />
<br />
S: That's a deceptively deep little concept you threw in there in the middle of your talk it's not something that we passively...<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: ...are perceiving, we're constructing it with tons of assumptions.<br />
<br />
BH: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: Can you elaborate that a little bit?<br />
<br />
BH: You don't have any privileged, direct access to reality. Your brain is always extrapolating on the basis of information it's receiving, and then it's constructing that into a framework. To try and make the best fitting model to what you think you're seeing. <br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: And so one of the very simple visual illusions I talked about are these ones where you think you see a geometric shape which is basically an illusory subjective contour. Now the interesting thing about that it's a very simple demonstration everyone sees the illusory shape but what they may not appreciate is that if you go into the brain we can find cells which are firing as if that object really was there.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: So it doesn't make the distinction between the fact of reality and the illusion because the brain, if it's come up with that solution, it says, well, there really should be a shape there, so fire as if it really is there. So that was the basic point, that all of our phenomenological experience is really extrapolated, is really constructed...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
BH: ...from the information. And of course your models that you apply to interpret information will allow you to imagine all sorts of things, so...<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hm.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>()</small> ==<br />
[http://www.physorg.com/news201266386.html Item #1]: A new analysis confirms that the so-called mitochondrial eve lived about 200,000 years ago.<br />
[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100816095615.htm Item #2]: New research indicates that for adults internet access at home is significantly associated with a decreased probability of being involved in a romantic relationship.<br />
[http://www.physorg.com/news201427392.html Item #3]: New images of the Moon's surface indicate that the Moon is shrinking - by about 100 meters in the recent past.<br />
== Quote of the Week <small>()</small> ==<br />
<blockquote>'You know that chemistry has an impact on your daily life, but the extent of that impact can be mind-boggling. Consider just the beginning of a typical day from a chemical point of view. Molecules align in the liquid crystal display of your clock, electrons flow through its circuitry to create a rousing sound, and you throw off a thermal insulator of manufactured polymer. You jump in the shower, to emulsify fatty substances on your skin and hair with chemically treated water and formulated detergents. You adorn yourself in an array of processed chemicals - pleasant-smelling pigmented materials suspended in cosmetic gels, dyed polymeric fibers, synthetic footware, and metal-alloyed jewelry. Today, breakfast is a bowl of nutrient-enriched, spoilage-retarded cereal and milk, a piece of fertilizer-grown, pesticide-treated fruit, and a cup of a hot, aqueous solution of neurally stimulating alkaloid. Ready to leave, you collect some books - processed cellulose and plastic, electrically printed with light-and-oxygen-resistant inks - hop in your hydrocarbon-fuelled metal-vinyl-ceramic vehicle, electrically ignite a synchronized series of controlled, gaseous explosions, and you're off to class!' Martin S. Silberberg</blockquote><br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_266&diff=9501SGU Episode 2662014-12-05T22:45:31Z<p>Jason koziol: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Editing required<br />
|transcription = y<br />
<!-- |proof-reading = y please remove commenting mark-up when some transcription is present --><br />
|time-stamps = y<br />
|formatting = y<br />
|links = y<br />
|Today I Learned list = y<br />
|categories = y<br />
|segment redirects = y <!-- redirect pages for segments with head-line type titles --><br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox<br />
|episodeNum = 266<br />
|episodeDate = August 19<sup>th</sup> 2010 <!-- broadcast date --><br />
|episodeIcon = File:Magnetar.jpg <!-- use "File:" and file name for image on show notes page--><br />
|previous = <!-- not required, automates to previous episode --><br />
|next = <!-- not required, automates to next episode --><br />
|rebecca = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|bob = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|jay = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|evan = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|perry = <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|guest1 = BH: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Hood_%28psychologist%29 Bruce Hood] <br />
|guest2 = <!-- leave blank if no second guest --><br />
|guest3 = <!-- leave blank if no third guest --><br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2010-08-19.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,30118.0.html<br />
|qowText = 'You know that chemistry has an impact on your daily life, but the extent of that impact can be mind-boggling. Consider just the beginning of a typical day from a chemical point of view. Molecules align in the liquid crystal display of your clock, electrons flow through its circuitry to create a rousing sound, and you throw off a thermal insulator of manufactured polymer. You jump in the shower, to emulsify fatty substances on your skin and hair with chemically treated water and formulated detergents. You adorn yourself in an array of processed chemicals - pleasant-smelling pigmented materials suspended in cosmetic gels, dyed polymeric fibers, synthetic footware, and metal-alloyed jewelry. Today, breakfast is a bowl of nutrient-enriched, spoilage-retarded cereal and milk, a piece of fertilizer-grown, pesticide-treated fruit, and a cup of a hot, aqueous solution of neurally stimulating alkaloid. Ready to leave, you collect some books - processed cellulose and plastic, electrically printed with light-and-oxygen-resistant inks - hop in your hydrocarbon-fuelled metal-vinyl-ceramic vehicle, electrically ignite a synchronized series of controlled, gaseous explosions, and you're off to class!' <!-- add quote of the week text--><br />
|qowAuthor = {{w|Martin S. Silberberg}} <!-- add author and link --><br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
== News Items <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== Banning Wi-Fi <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=2215<br />
<br />
=== Psychic Finds Wrong Body <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/psychic-searching-for-kiesha-discovers-womans-torso-20100812-120mf.html?autostart=1<br />
<br />
=== Kurzweil and Brain Complexity <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/08/ray_kurzweil_does_not_understa.php<br />
<br />
=== Magnetars and Black Holes <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/spaceastronomystars<br />
== Who's That Noisy <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Answer to last week - spiney lobster<br />
<br />
== Interview with Bruce Hood <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Author of SuperSense<br />
<br />
S: We're sitting here at TAM 8 with Bruce Hood, author of "Super Sense", Bruce, welcome back to the Skeptic's Guide.<br />
<br />
Bruce Hood: Hi.<br />
<br />
S: And, I have to say I watched your talk today and, I love the material by the way, I love the talk. The kind of stuff you deal with really is, in my opinion, at the absolute core of skepticism. Which is the knowledge about how our brains function, how they filter information, and deal with the world around us. So, give us a little flavor of your talk today and tell us what are those things that you've learned in your career that really...that you feel are most relevant to what we do as skeptics.<br />
<br />
BH: Okay, so, really the talk was trying to draw people's attention to the basic function of a brain, which is to interpret the world and make sense of it, and to build models if you like. Allows you to make predictions, figure out why things are the way they are. It's like a causal inference mechanism. And, it's usually pretty good. It's done us well for all these millions of years. But it has a few built in, uh, flaws. And, sometimes it makes errors, and those errors, I think, could underpin a lot of supernatural beliefs.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hmm.<br />
<br />
BH: The assumption that there are hidden forces or dimensions,<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>()</small> ==<br />
[http://www.physorg.com/news201266386.html Item #1]: A new analysis confirms that the so-called mitochondrial eve lived about 200,000 years ago.<br />
[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100816095615.htm Item #2]: New research indicates that for adults internet access at home is significantly associated with a decreased probability of being involved in a romantic relationship.<br />
[http://www.physorg.com/news201427392.html Item #3]: New images of the Moon's surface indicate that the Moon is shrinking - by about 100 meters in the recent past.<br />
== Quote of the Week <small>()</small> ==<br />
<blockquote>'You know that chemistry has an impact on your daily life, but the extent of that impact can be mind-boggling. Consider just the beginning of a typical day from a chemical point of view. Molecules align in the liquid crystal display of your clock, electrons flow through its circuitry to create a rousing sound, and you throw off a thermal insulator of manufactured polymer. You jump in the shower, to emulsify fatty substances on your skin and hair with chemically treated water and formulated detergents. You adorn yourself in an array of processed chemicals - pleasant-smelling pigmented materials suspended in cosmetic gels, dyed polymeric fibers, synthetic footware, and metal-alloyed jewelry. Today, breakfast is a bowl of nutrient-enriched, spoilage-retarded cereal and milk, a piece of fertilizer-grown, pesticide-treated fruit, and a cup of a hot, aqueous solution of neurally stimulating alkaloid. Ready to leave, you collect some books - processed cellulose and plastic, electrically printed with light-and-oxygen-resistant inks - hop in your hydrocarbon-fuelled metal-vinyl-ceramic vehicle, electrically ignite a synchronized series of controlled, gaseous explosions, and you're off to class!' Martin S. Silberberg</blockquote><br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_266&diff=9500SGU Episode 2662014-12-05T22:41:41Z<p>Jason koziol: /* Interview with Bruce Hood () */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Editing required<br />
|transcription = y<br />
<!-- |proof-reading = y please remove commenting mark-up when some transcription is present --><br />
|time-stamps = y<br />
|formatting = y<br />
|links = y<br />
|Today I Learned list = y<br />
|categories = y<br />
|segment redirects = y <!-- redirect pages for segments with head-line type titles --><br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox<br />
|episodeNum = 266<br />
|episodeDate = August 19<sup>th</sup> 2010 <!-- broadcast date --><br />
|episodeIcon = File:Magnetar.jpg <!-- use "File:" and file name for image on show notes page--><br />
|previous = <!-- not required, automates to previous episode --><br />
|next = <!-- not required, automates to next episode --><br />
|rebecca = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|bob = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|jay = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|evan = y <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|perry = <!-- leave blank if absent --><br />
|guest1 = <!-- leave blank if no guest --><br />
|guest2 = <!-- leave blank if no second guest --><br />
|guest3 = <!-- leave blank if no third guest --><br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2010-08-19.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,30118.0.html<br />
|qowText = 'You know that chemistry has an impact on your daily life, but the extent of that impact can be mind-boggling. Consider just the beginning of a typical day from a chemical point of view. Molecules align in the liquid crystal display of your clock, electrons flow through its circuitry to create a rousing sound, and you throw off a thermal insulator of manufactured polymer. You jump in the shower, to emulsify fatty substances on your skin and hair with chemically treated water and formulated detergents. You adorn yourself in an array of processed chemicals - pleasant-smelling pigmented materials suspended in cosmetic gels, dyed polymeric fibers, synthetic footware, and metal-alloyed jewelry. Today, breakfast is a bowl of nutrient-enriched, spoilage-retarded cereal and milk, a piece of fertilizer-grown, pesticide-treated fruit, and a cup of a hot, aqueous solution of neurally stimulating alkaloid. Ready to leave, you collect some books - processed cellulose and plastic, electrically printed with light-and-oxygen-resistant inks - hop in your hydrocarbon-fuelled metal-vinyl-ceramic vehicle, electrically ignite a synchronized series of controlled, gaseous explosions, and you're off to class!' <!-- add quote of the week text--><br />
|qowAuthor = {{w|Martin S. Silberberg}} <!-- add author and link --><br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
== News Items <small>()</small> ==<br />
<br />
=== Banning Wi-Fi <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=2215<br />
<br />
=== Psychic Finds Wrong Body <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/psychic-searching-for-kiesha-discovers-womans-torso-20100812-120mf.html?autostart=1<br />
<br />
=== Kurzweil and Brain Complexity <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/08/ray_kurzweil_does_not_understa.php<br />
<br />
=== Magnetars and Black Holes <small>()</small> ===<br />
* http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/spaceastronomystars<br />
== Who's That Noisy <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Answer to last week - spiney lobster<br />
<br />
== Interview with Bruce Hood <small>()</small> ==<br />
* Author of SuperSense<br />
<br />
S: We're sitting here at TAM 8 with Bruce Hood, author of "Super Sense", Bruce, welcome back to the Skeptic's Guide.<br />
<br />
Bruce Hood: Hi.<br />
<br />
S: And, I have to say I watched your talk today and, I love the material by the way, I love the talk. The kind of stuff you deal with really is, in my opinion, at the absolute core of skepticism. Which is the knowledge about how our brains function, how they filter information, and deal with the world around us. So, give us a little flavor of your talk today and tell us what are those things that you've learned in your career that really...that you feel are most relevant to what we do as skeptics.<br />
<br />
BH: Okay, so, really the talk was trying to draw people's attention to the basic function of a brain, which is to interpret the world and make sense of it, and to build models if you like. Allows you to make predictions, figure out why things are the way they are. It's like a causal inference mechanism. And, it's usually pretty good. It's done us well for all these millions of years. But it has a few built in, uh, flaws. And, sometimes it makes errors, and those errors, I think, could underpin a lot of supernatural beliefs.<br />
<br />
S: Mm-hmm.<br />
<br />
BH: The assumption that there are hidden forces or dimensions,<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>()</small> ==<br />
[http://www.physorg.com/news201266386.html Item #1]: A new analysis confirms that the so-called mitochondrial eve lived about 200,000 years ago.<br />
[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100816095615.htm Item #2]: New research indicates that for adults internet access at home is significantly associated with a decreased probability of being involved in a romantic relationship.<br />
[http://www.physorg.com/news201427392.html Item #3]: New images of the Moon's surface indicate that the Moon is shrinking - by about 100 meters in the recent past.<br />
== Quote of the Week <small>()</small> ==<br />
<blockquote>'You know that chemistry has an impact on your daily life, but the extent of that impact can be mind-boggling. Consider just the beginning of a typical day from a chemical point of view. Molecules align in the liquid crystal display of your clock, electrons flow through its circuitry to create a rousing sound, and you throw off a thermal insulator of manufactured polymer. You jump in the shower, to emulsify fatty substances on your skin and hair with chemically treated water and formulated detergents. You adorn yourself in an array of processed chemicals - pleasant-smelling pigmented materials suspended in cosmetic gels, dyed polymeric fibers, synthetic footware, and metal-alloyed jewelry. Today, breakfast is a bowl of nutrient-enriched, spoilage-retarded cereal and milk, a piece of fertilizer-grown, pesticide-treated fruit, and a cup of a hot, aqueous solution of neurally stimulating alkaloid. Ready to leave, you collect some books - processed cellulose and plastic, electrically printed with light-and-oxygen-resistant inks - hop in your hydrocarbon-fuelled metal-vinyl-ceramic vehicle, electrically ignite a synchronized series of controlled, gaseous explosions, and you're off to class!' Martin S. Silberberg</blockquote><br />
<br />
{{Outro119}}<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}} <!-- inserts images that link to the previous and next episode pages --></div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_367&diff=9485SGU Episode 3672014-11-19T07:48:58Z<p>Jason koziol: /* Science or Fiction (47:31) */</p>
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|episodeNum = 367<br />
|episodeDate = 28<sup>th</sup> July 2012<br />
|episodeIcon = File:Aura-photo.jpg<br />
|rebecca = y<br />
|bob = y<br />
|jay = y<br />
|evan = y<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2012-07-28.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,42726.0.html<br />
|qowText = Homeopaths do not have a physical brain, but merely 'skull water' with the memory of brains.<br />
|qowAuthor = {{w|Robin Ince}}<br />
|}}<br />
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<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the {{SGU}}, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
Hello and welcome to the {{SGU}}. Today is Wednesday, July 25th 2012, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella...<br />
<br />
B: Hey, everybody.<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca Watson...<br />
<br />
R: Hello, everyone.<br />
<br />
S: Jay Novella...<br />
<br />
J: Hey, guys.<br />
<br />
S: And Evan Bernstein.<br />
<br />
E: Hi-ho, everyone!<br />
<br />
J: Hello!<br />
<br />
S: Hi-ho.<br />
<br />
B: Hi-ho?<br />
<br />
E: That's what {{w|Kermit the Frog}} used to say, remember?<br />
<br />
S: And the {{w|Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film)|dwarves}}, right?<br />
<br />
E: Well, they used to sing that more than say it, but you're right. Frogs and dwarves.<br />
<br />
S: ''(laughs)'' Frogs and dwarves.<br />
<br />
B: Living together. Total chaos.<br />
<br />
E: Sounds like a {{w|Dice#Non-cubic|d20}} game. All right.<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
== This Day in Skepticism <small>(0:44)</small> ==<br />
* July 28, 1996: The remains of Kennewick Man was discovered<br />
<br />
S: All right, Rebecca, what's important about today?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: I would love to tell you what's important about today what you doing today is that this is the anniversar&mdash;July 28th&mdash;the anniversary the discovery of {{w|Kennewick Man}}. July 28, 1996, the remains of Kennewick Man were found in Washington State and people probably best know Kennewick Man due to the controversy surrounding the ownership of the bones, because the local Native American tribe, the Umatilla, requested custody of the remains and they wanted to bury them according to their tribal traditions. And scientists sued the US in order to have the ability to perform tests on the bones first and they won because the judge found that the Umatilla did not have a cultural tradition that connected in any way with the bones, which were suspected to be quite old. And sure enough, when tests were performed, they were found to be probably about nine thousand years old. And because of Kennewick Man, researchers figured out a good deal about... it's a complex issue, because we don't know much about the spread of early American people. We know a lot, but there's a lot of puzzle pieces to put together. Kennewick Man added a new puzzle piece that was quite interesting for a lot of researchers to figure out. And there's been a lot of debate about what... where Kennewick Man came from and who Kennewick Man's possible descendents were and all of that good stuff. So that's the shortest I can sum all that up for you.<br />
<br />
S: But there's some other details I think are worth mentioning. So yeah, it's over 8,000 years old; could be as much as 9,000. What was immediately interesting about that was that the skull does not have a typical Native American features; it looks Caucasian, although it also has some other features that don't quite fit into anything. So this implies that&mdash;something very different about the usual story that that has been unfolding about the population of the Americas. As you said, this is a new puzzle piece, which really calls into question a lot of what we thought we knew about who came over when. And it's partly for that reason that no modern Native American tribe&mdash;the burden of proof is upon them to establish that this is an ancestor. They can't establish a connection because it's not even Native American, in terms of its morphology. The DNA apparently has been equivocal. So, another interesting wrinkle to the ownership controversy: in 2005, {{w|John McCain}} introduced an amendment to NAGPRA, which is the {{w|Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act}}, the law that basically says that Native Americans can say, "hey those bones are our ancestors; you have to give them to us so that we can handle them according to our traditions". The amendment would have said&mdash;change the definition of Native American from, "is indigenous to the United States" to, "is or ''was'' indigenous to the United States". But that bill was never passed. If that change had gone through, then Kennewick Man would be considered Native American because he was found in the United States; that's all it would take.<br />
<br />
R: But then that would raise a whole new batch of issues because at that point, you still have to figure out which tribe gets to bury Kennewick Man. And there's a very good chance that you won't be able to find the tribe, and if you do, there's a very good chance that white people have already wiped them out.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, that was kind of the point of that amendment, was that so many of the descendants have been wiped out that it's not really fair to require them to establish a continuous connection, so they wanted to loosen the criteria. But I think it's unfortunate, because from a scientific point of view, we want to study the remains of humans that we find in North America to piece this puzzle together and if we don't get the opportunity to do that, we're going to lose a lot of information. Honestly, my opinion is that... especially when you're going back thousands of years, these bones belong to humanity. The are part of our shared history, you know what I mean? The history of our species and... so I think that we have the right to have scientists study this to figure out... to piece that history together. Unfortunately, there's a lot of religio&mdash;Native American religion and culture tied up with this; they have certain oral traditions, and if they believe that what the scientists are investigating are going against their oral traditions, then they don't like that. That becomes the basis of their opposition.<br />
<br />
R: Right, and that was the argument on behalf of the Umatilla was that their oral history goes back long enough to encompass these remains and the government denying that is the government rejecting their religious beliefs. Right now, those remains are held at the {{w|Burke Museum}} at {{w|University of Washington|UDub}} and they're not on display, because it would be insulting to the...<br />
<br />
E: Potentially, yeah.<br />
<br />
R: The Native Americans.<br />
<br />
S: It's an interesting controversy and one we've sort of been following over the years, and it's kind of in limbo now, actually... still owned by the federal government, specifically the Army Corps of Engineers and being held by this museum as a neutral party but not being studied; not being displayed. So it really is still unresolved.<br />
<br />
R: And I forgot to mention when I mentioned the discovery of the remains is that what makes these remains particularly interesting is how complete they were. At first blush, it seemed like they were only maybe a 100, 200 years old. It wasn't until they did radiocarbon dating that they were able to fix the date at around 9300 years. So like, there were only... there's like one, maybe two, major bones that were missing and there was even like a full set of teeth inside the skull, so there's a tremendous amount that they could learn from these remains.<br />
<br />
E: We don't have much that's still around from 9200 years ago&mdash;<br />
<br />
R: Especially in America.<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Skeptical Conferences <small>(7:14)</small> ===<br />
* TAM<br />
* DragonCon<br />
* CSICon<br />
<br />
S: Well, let's move on to our news items. We are back from [http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/amazing-meeting.html The Amaz!ng Meeting] 2012.<br />
<br />
B: 20-12.<br />
<br />
S: 20-12. 2012.<br />
<br />
R: He'll never stop. He'll never stop.<br />
<br />
S: No; I will. In 2013.<br />
<br />
E: ''(laughs)''<br />
<br />
R: Zing.<br />
<br />
S: Of course, we were all there except for Rebecca. Rebecca did not go to TAM this year because of issues that she had with {{w|DJ Grothe}}.<br />
<br />
R: It revolves around a discussion had online about harassment policies, really. And many women, particularly, and a lot of men, encouraging skeptic conferences to enact anti-harassment policies to help women feel more comfortable at conferences.<br />
<br />
S: We definitely missed having you there. Of course, the rest of us were there to attend the dinner and do all the things we agreed to do. And it still was a great event; TAM is very successful, I thought. Hopefully we can move past this kerfuffle... if you want to learn more about this, it's been written about to death online and we're still going to be discussing this issue; I didn't want to show itself to get dragged down into talk endlessly about this, but there is definitely a lot. The discussion is very active online still and we hope to move this forward in a constructive way. So that's all I'm going to say about it further. We also have two conventions coming up: we have [http://www.dragoncon.com Dragon*Con]&mdash;<br />
<br />
R: That's Labor Day weekend in Atlanta, Georgia, for those of you who don't know.<br />
<br />
S: Yep, August 31st to Sept 3rd; the entire SGU will be there. We will be doing a live show on Saturday night. And I'm told we have to Crystal Ballroom this year, which is a little bit bigger than the rooms we had last year, which always flows out the door, so hopefully we will have enough room for everybody. And we will have tables there to meet our listeners and sell some swag and I think we're also going to be recording a private show like we did last year 'cause that was so popular; people really liked that.<br />
<br />
E: It was awesome.<br />
<br />
R: That was a lot of fun.<br />
<br />
S: It was a lot of fun.<br />
<br />
J: {{w|George Hrab|George}} and {{w|Brian Brushwood}} were with us.<br />
<br />
E: We'll see who attends this year. Hmm.<br />
<br />
S: Hmm. We'll see. Mystery guest. And the SGU will be attending in its entirety for the first time CSICon in Nashville from October 25th to October 28th.<br />
<br />
R: Steve and I were there last year and it was awesome.<br />
<br />
B: Wait! I didn't know it was so close to Halloween. I'm not going.<br />
<br />
S: ''(laughs)''<br />
<br />
E: Why? There's going to be a Halloween party.<br />
<br />
S: There will be a Halloween party.<br />
<br />
B: Are you sure?<br />
<br />
R: Yes, I'm hosting it.<br />
<br />
E: Yes! They're already talking about the costumes. See?<br />
<br />
B: Maybe I'll go now.<br />
<br />
E: Bob, the invite's in your email.<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca hosted it last year; it was a lot of fun. So we will be doing a live show from CSICon on Thursday, October 25th at 7 to 9 p.m.; we're basically opening the conference. George Hrab will be there. In the schedule, it just says, "entertainment with George Hrab after our show"; I don't know what entertainment he's planning. And then we're also doing a Skeptics' Guide dinner on Saturday night, where we will... you can have dinner with the entire cast of the SGU and other well-known skeptics. And we'll be doing some entertainment during the dinner as well; we're still working out the details, but definitely something fun will be going on.<br />
<br />
R: And you can get tickets to all that at [http://www.csiconference.org csiconference.org].<br />
<br />
S: So there is a proliferation of skeptical conferences. In a good way, you know; I think we're spreading out around the country and around the calendar reasonably well, so there's a lot more choices.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah. And speaking of... unfortunately, this isn't a full SGU event, but I just want to throw it out there because it's happening soon. August 3rd through 5th I'm going to be in Montreal for the Sex & Secularism conference, and you can learn more about that at humanistconference.ca.<br />
<br />
J: For the show that we're doing at Dragon*Con, let's tell people how they can sign up to have that private show with us.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, you can go to [http://www.skepticalrobot.com skepticalrobot.com] and you'll see an item listed front and center that says "SGU private recording". Click on that and you can place your order. It's $50 a ticket and there's a limit of thirty people.<br />
<br />
S: And it'll be Sunday night at 10 o'clock. Yeah, we've done that two times so far; both times it was a lot of fun, both for us and all the people that came. And so I think we're going to make this a regular thing.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
=== Sally Ride <small>(11:26)</small> ===<br />
* CNN: [http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/24/opinion/urry-sally-ride/index.html Thank you, Sally Ride]<br />
<br />
S: All right; let's move on to some other news items. Unfortunately, we do have a sad news item this week: {{w|Sally Ride}} passed away a few days ago.<br />
<br />
R: I was ''crushed''. I love her.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah. Stinks.<br />
<br />
S: So Sally Ride was the first woman American in space. She rode aboard the space shuttle Challenger in 1983. That made her a household name, at least in the US. She actually was a strong advocate of science education; she used her fame to promote science. She had a website&mdash;there is a website: [http://www.sallyridescience.com sallyridescience.com]. They produce educational materials like key concepts in science, earth sciences, life sciences, physical sciences. It's really good. It's good outreach; it's like trying to supplement the very poor public school science education that we get in this country, in my opinion.<br />
<br />
R: They also run science camps, including girl-only [http://www.sallyridecamps.com science camps] for girls in fourth grade and up.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah; so she was awesome.<br />
<br />
E: I was 13 years old when that happened; it was huge, huge news and I remember thinking to myself then, "well, why is she the first? Why we only having women in space this point?" It seemed like it was such a long time coming; that we were kind of late to the game, in a sense. Even the Russians sent a woman up into space 20 years prior.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, 1963. Cosmonaut {{w|Valentina Tereshkova}}.<br />
<br />
B: Really?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
B: Whoa.<br />
<br />
S: Orbited the Earth 48 times in 1963. Yeah, ''(laughs)'' we were late to that party. I remember all the headlines were, "Ride, Sally, Ride", you know, when she went up into space.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, I was a bit lucky growing up, because she's such a household name by the time I was cognizant of anything that... it never really occurred to me as a kid that, like, "well, of course women can go to space and of course women can be cool scientists". I really looked up to her, you know, but it didn't occur to me at the time that she was&mdash;<br />
<br />
B: Especially when she was in space.<br />
<br />
R: &mdash;so singular and that she crossed so many boundaries; that she sort of blazed that frontier for women.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. She was a physicist and she joined the faculty at the University of California San Diego.<br />
<br />
R: A theoretical astrophysicist, even.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah!<br />
<br />
B: Holy crap.<br />
<br />
R: That's hard core. That's hard core.<br />
<br />
B: My main memory is her curly hair in zero-g.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. ''(laughs)''<br />
<br />
J: Absolutely!<br />
<br />
S: That was iconic. Absolutely.<br />
<br />
J: When I was was researching her, I was looking up pictures everything I saw the pictures from her on the shuttle with her hair just, like, floating around and everything and that was burned into my head.<br />
<br />
R: And you know, the interesting thing that came out after her death was that not only was she the first woman&mdash;American woman in space, but she is also the first known gay person in space. She's very tight-lipped about her private life tonight; I don't think the people he knew that she was dying of pancreatic cancer and even fewer people knew that she had a long-time lesbian partner. 27 years they were together and her partner is also her business partner at Sally Ride Science and she just didn't see the point in making a big deal out of it but there a lot of people now who are looking up to her as a gay icon too. The first lesbian in space that we know of.<br />
<br />
S: That we know of?<br />
<br />
E: Well, there was the Russian. ''(laughs)''<br />
<br />
R: We didn't know she was a lesbian until now, so.. who knows?<br />
<br />
E: Yeah. Never knew.<br />
<br />
J: I like the fact that I didn't know about it; I just heard it right now and I really just don't care. You know what I mean? Like, it has no impact on what I think of her at all, like&mdash;<br />
<br />
R: Well, for me, it makes me even prouder of her because... I mean, she overcame so much.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah; meanwhile at the same time, the Boy Scouts of America is embroiled in a bit of a controversy over discriminating against homosexuals.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
S: This is really going against them. We're definitely living through a culture change; you know? A generational culture change, where the younger generation basically doesn't care about sexual orientation, and you know, just over time it's... these attitudes are shifting. The Boy Scouts now are getting caught in the middle of it. One thing that interested me about that is they discriminate against atheists and apparently that's OK. But now they're getting slack for discriminating against homosexuals, so...<br />
<br />
R: I should mention the Girl Scouts in multiple countries&mdash;I'm not sure if it's happened in the US yet, but the Girl Scouts in their pledge, they mention God and in several countries now they've publicly dropped that in order to be more egalitarian, more appealing to a diversity of girls. And the Girl Scouts are awesome when it comes to science education and encouraging girls to explore the natural world, so.<br />
<br />
S: And they make good cookies.<br />
<br />
R: They make delicious cookies; what's not to love about the Girl Scouts? Don't write in and tell me what's not to love about the Girl Scouts. I don't wanna know.<br />
<br />
E: You know how many pounds I've gained over the years eating those cookies? Oh, gosh... so deadly.<br />
<br />
R: That's a fair complaint.<br />
<br />
J: I have a nitpick with the Girl Scouts, OK? We've been noticing&mdash;<br />
<br />
E: They rejected you, Jay?<br />
<br />
J: Stop. I got over that years ago. We've noticed that your cookie sizes have been shrinking slowly and steadily throughout the years.<br />
<br />
E: Oh! Fair point, Jay.<br />
<br />
R: Jay's on to you, Girl Scouts.<br />
<br />
J: Seriously; make them bigger! What are you doing? Like, why? I'll pay more; just make 'em bigger.<br />
<br />
E: Jay, have you read the label on those cookies?<br />
<br />
R: I'll pay more bigger.<br />
<br />
S: ''(laughs)'' We want bigger cookies.<br />
<br />
J: Did you guys hear about the Boy Scout who had his&mdash;who was an Eagle Scout actually&mdash;he turned in&mdash;he turned in his papers or what is it? Is it a badge that they give you?<br />
<br />
S: His badge, yeah.<br />
<br />
J: The guy wrote the board and said, "I can't in good conscience maintain my relationship with the Boy Scouts" and he quit.<br />
<br />
R: Good for him.<br />
<br />
S: Not the only one; I think it's starting a trend. They're getting a lot of badges back in protest over their stance on homosexuality.<br />
<br />
E: Those guys don't need no stinkin' badges.<br />
<br />
=== Mood Photography <small>(17:36)</small> ===<br />
* Neurologica Blog: [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/mood-photography/ Mood Photography]<br />
<br />
S: All right; Well, Jay, tell us about The latest in aura photography.<br />
<br />
J: Have you guys ever hear of an aura or a person's aura?<br />
<br />
S: Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
R: I have.<br />
<br />
E: Indeed.<br />
<br />
J: And what color are yours; what do you think?<br />
<br />
B: Well, mine's red.<br />
<br />
R: Pretty sure I'm purple.<br />
<br />
E: Orange here.<br />
<br />
S: I've always imagined my aura as like a pale ecru.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, Steve.<br />
<br />
S: ''(laughs)''<br />
<br />
R: Steve, Steve, Steve.<br />
<br />
J: Actually, your auras are all black; you don't have any and I explain to you&mdash;<br />
<br />
S: No, they're invisible. They're transparent.<br />
<br />
J: Well, as many of you know, there are people that believe that people give off auras that some people claim that they can actually see. And the fact is that humans radiate electromagnetic energy, but this is mostly infrared, and it's a function of our body generating or giving off heat. If we have an aura, it's just heat. Our bodies don't radiate energy in the form of radiation or light from our feelings or thoughts, so you think about whatever you want and feel whatever you want; there's just no way that anyone is going to be able to, or can with today's technology, see or read or peer into what's actually going on in your mind and in your heart, if you were going to use that<br />
<br />
S: In short, there's no such thing as an aura.<br />
<br />
J: Right. So yeah, we use&mdash;<br />
<br />
S: Made-up nonsense.<br />
<br />
J: &mdash;something called science to determine that an aura doesn't exist. So if you we simply just take a quick look at the electromagnetic spectrum...<br />
<br />
B: I'm looking.<br />
<br />
J: Where are the auras&mdash;where are the auras on that spectrum, you might ask. And of course, some answers you might get are, "well, it's metaphysical... an aura is being picked up by somebody else and it doesn't really criss-cross with the physical world, and some people say it does or whatever; it's just the typical huge spectrum of answers that you get what you ask these types of questions. Now Steve, you mentioned in your blog today about people who are either self-deluded or have visual or sensory disorders, and that's an explanation for why they might see an aura.<br />
<br />
S: Well, I mean, I think the standard explanation is that the people believe that they're seeing auras are just self-deluded. Just suggestibility. But over the years there's been one or another various speculations about "well, maybe they have synesthesia", which we discussed actually a paper that pretty convincingly argued that that doesn't fit well with the phenomenon. Or maybe there's something else; there's some other visual disturbance they have, which is... 'cause it's not that big a deal to have this visual illusion of a halo of light. There are drugs that can do that; if you take digitalis, for example; too high a dose can make you see auras around any bright light source. But that's all very speculative and I don't think it's a major contributor to the phenomenon of people believing in auras; I think it's mainly just New-Age belief and suggestibility.<br />
<br />
J: People who believe in auras mostly were influenced by the findings of a man named {{w|Semyon Davidovich Kirlian|Semyon Kirlian}}. He was a Russian inventor who in '39 accidentally discovered that if an object is on a photographic plate, if it's connected to voltage, an image is produced of that voltage stimulating a gas that emitted from objects, especially if there's moisture involved. I know you guys are dying to know the why are we talking about this today.<br />
<br />
R: Dying.<br />
<br />
J: There's a new form of aura photography out there and that's called the Guy Coggins Aura Camera 6000. Bob, can you guess who invented this thing?<br />
<br />
B: Is it Guy Coggins?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah. The Guy Coggins Aura Camera 6000!<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
J: He actually calls it the Aura Camera 6000!<br />
<br />
E: Rather cartoonish, wouldn't you say?<br />
<br />
J: Did the Simpsons like write this guy and his camera? The aura photos that he takes with his camera have a 10-second exposure and while the picture's being taken the subject places his hands on these two boxes that capture "biofeedback". This device picks up electromagnetic fields that are measured at the Ayurvedic Meridians, or otherwise known as complete bullshit points.<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
J: These are&mdash;I was reading about that and it's really funny when you read the gobbledygook that comes with explanations for things like this; it's like, "the rivers of energy that flow through your being," you know, it's that type of crap you'll read when you read about the Ayurvedic Meridians. So the camera translates this data that came from the person placing their hands on these boxes into one or more colors. It's explained on the website: "Through a patented operation, these parameters are projected as a radiant, colorful aura field around the body onto the Polaroid film along with the image of the person."<ref>Aura Imaging: [http://www.auraphoto.com/fundementals/how.shtml How Does Auraphotography Work?]</ref> So these different traits are assigned to each color; some of you know about this, right? You have orange is creative and artistic; green is for strength&mdash;<br />
<br />
E: That's me.<br />
<br />
J: &mdash;and healing and teaching and red is force of will; blue-violet is "mystical and unifying". It's more than enough&mdash;<br />
<br />
E: There you go, Rebecca.<br />
<br />
J: It's more than enough to make anybody happy when you read your own aura because everything is good. They don't say, "wow, this particular color means you're an A-hole."<br />
<br />
S: You're a jerk.<br />
<br />
R: You're gonna die.<br />
<br />
S: What color is skeptical, Jay?<br />
<br />
J: Oh, that's a good question.<br />
<br />
S: What color aura do you have if you don't believe in auras?<br />
<br />
J: I think if I were to assign a color to skepticism it would be silver.<br />
<br />
S: OK. So, the key here is that this is not taking a picture of anything. This is just placing an artificial color on to the photographic film based on some BS interpretation of... whatever; the skin conductivity; the bio feedback parameters. It's not actually a picture of anything. Right? It's just fake.<br />
<br />
E: It's nothing.<br />
<br />
J: His imaging is complete BS. Yeah. He even states&mdash;at some point I was reading that he said he knows that it's not really take me a picture of an aura. Even says it.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it's almost like simulating what an aura would look like and it's just guessing at what color it's supposed to be based upon some made-up algorithm. The other thing is, it's reading something very transient; the skin conductivity, temperature, whatever; all that stuff. This is not like it's a fixed property; it's gonna change with your body temperature and other physiological parameters. This is this is about as scientific as a mood ring.<br />
<br />
B: Send me a picture of yourself and I'll Photoshop an aura around you and it'll be the same thing.<br />
<br />
=== Computer Modeling Life <small>(24:06)</small> ===<br />
* Phys.org: [http://phys.org/news/2012-07-researchers-produce-first-complete-computer.html Researchers produce first complete computer model of an organism]<br />
<br />
S: So Bob, tell us about the first computer model of a living organism.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah; this is pretty cool. We are one significant step closer to turning biology into a digital science. Stanford researchers and the {{w|J. Craig Venter Institute}} have, for the first time, used software to simulate an entire organism. Now the research team used 128 computers to model the complete life cycle of the bacterium ''Mycoplasma genitalium''. can anyone guess why they used this specific type of bacteria?<br />
<br />
J: Absolutely no idea.<br />
<br />
R: Because it's pretty.<br />
<br />
B: Well, because... no, time's up. Because it has the smallest genome of any independent organism. It has only 525 genes, which is really, really tiny. ''E.coli'', for example, which is probably one of the standard research organisms, is hugely complex in comparison; it has 4,288 genes, so this guy's really, really tiny. Now, ''Mycoplasma genitalium'' may sound familiar; it was the organism used by Venter's institute in 2009 to synthesize an artificial chromosome. You may remember that. He, of course, used it because of that very reason; because it was really tiny and relatively easy to do. This is a parasitic bacterium that is usually unwanted, since it shows up in human respiratory and urogenital tracts as a transmitter of sexually transmitted disease, so you don't really want one of these guys on you, but... So why would we even want to convert this bacterium into software? Well, there's actually lots of reasons, but primarily it's all about bringing a mountain of data under one roof. For years now one of the biggest problems in researching the tiniest units of life has not been getting enough data; actually, using a high-throughput studies that we have now, you can create libraries of information really, really fast. The problem now is trying to understand all this information kind of as a {{w|Gestalt|gestalt}}; to try to get a handle on all this mountain of information. Technological limitations in the past have forced us into this sort of reductionist approach, which I'm sure you're all familiar with. To understand a gene, you knock it out and see what changes. And this has been incredibly successful and very illuminating, but it does almost nothing to get us the big picture of what's going on. Stanford bioengineering team lead Professor Markus Covert said many of the issues we're interested in aren't single-gene problems. They're the complex result of hundreds or thousands of genes interacting." Now to pull this off, the team used their own experiments and the data from more than 900 scientific papers about this organism. These papers examined in detail things like all the biological molecular interactions known to take place inside the cell from birth to death. The key advance that they made, I would say, was to chunk up this data and then make all this data work together. And to do this, they identified 28 different modules or categories of molecules and their interactions within the cell. This includes things like DNA and RNA and molecules like metabolytes that are generated within the cells during metabolism and these modules then communicated with each other during each time step of the program when it was run. So this turned the separate discrete elements into a single unified digital organism. A key fact that I think is really critical and really fascinating is that they ran some experiments that validated this computer model. They showed that it was able to reproduce independent lab data that examined many different cell functions across many different scales. If you could create a model that then matches what you're seeing in reality, I think you're definitely, at the very least, you're on to something pretty... that's pretty accurate.<br />
<br />
E: So, if you had to extrapolate this to a person, that's a... you know, that's a lot of data. ''(laughs)'' That's a tremendous amount.<br />
<br />
B: Oh my God. Oh yeah.<br />
<br />
E: Are we talking {{w|Yottabyte|yottabytes}}? What are we talking here?<br />
<br />
B: Let's not get silly. So my usual question at this point is, "well, want may the future hold for this kind of technology?" And I think that we could see things like a fully designed bacteria or yeast that could mass produce things like pharmaceuticals. I think that's kind of a no-brainer possibility for this. We could also see labs that could do thousands at a time; much faster than we can even imagine doing right now. Ultimately, though, this could give us the ability to use CAD, or computer-aided design in medicine and bioengineering; something that's never really been done before.<br />
<br />
=== Artificial Jellyfish <small>(28:30)</small> ===<br />
* BBC News: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18953034 Artificial jellyfish created from heart cells]<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca, you're going to tell us about a different kind of artificial organism that scientists have recently created.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah. I'm going to top you, Bob. OK. No, not really.<br />
<br />
B: ''(laughs)'' Go for it.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, that... take two.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah. this is interesting. Kevin Kit Parker is a professor of bioengineering and physics at Harvard. He was interested in growing a heart. how does one grow heart? And he was inspired by the way that jellyfish pump a muscle in order to move through the water. So he decided to try to create an artificial jellyfish using heart cells, particularly heart cells from a rat. So along with researchers at both Harvard and CalTech, he spent years studying how jellyfish move before they were able to create jellyfish-like silicone body onto which they printed this pattern of proteins that mimicked the musculature of jellyfish. Next, they grew the heart muscle cells over the body and then they dropped it into a container of electrically conducting fluid and then shocked it, which forced the cells to contract and moved the synthetic jellyfish around in the water. So, basically, they bioengineered a jellyfish. I was a little disappointed when I found out that it was being hailed as synthetic life and, you know, I was a bit disappointed that it can't actually reproduce; it can't move on its own though apparently the cells did contract slightly before the electricity was applied, which is cool. But what makes this amazing to me is that this team isn't setting out to perfectly recreate a jellyfish. Instead, they've identified the primary function of a jellyfish and they thought about a new way to create it. They're jellyfish doesn't look exactly like a jellyfish; it is designed to move to the water though in the way a jellyfish does, but better, basically. 'Cause evolution is this messy process and it doesn't always result in the perfect tool for the job. Applied to the idea of creating replacement hearts for people, maybe we don't necessarily need to recreate the human heart as it currently exists; we can instead build a new, more streamlined organ that's better suited for the job. And it seems to be this teams goal. Lead author Janna Nawroth said that tissue engineers currently try to copy a tissue organ and I quote, "based on what they think is important or what they see as the major components without necessarily understanding if those components are relevant to the desired function or without analyzing first how different materials could be used". So as for the jellyfish, they are now working on a simple brain for it so that it can respond to its environment by moving toward light or seeking out food or energy. However, I could find no plans currently in place to add any stinging capabilities.<br />
<br />
S: I have to make a pedantic point here before we get emailed in about it; that the term "jellyfish" is a little out of favor because jellyfish are not fish. Yeah; I don't think it's anything official, but a lot of aquariums, etc. have been using the term "jelly" or "sea jelly" rather than "jellyfish" but "jellyfish" is still, I think, an acceptable.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, I don't think anybody really thinks of jellyfish as fish; I mean, they're quite obviously different organisms.<br />
<br />
S: Right, right. And it kind of rolls off the tongue a little bit better. Jellyfish. I agree.<br />
<br />
B: Jellies. Well, like starfish; they're not really called "starfish" anymore; it's "sea stars".<br />
<br />
R: Really?<br />
<br />
B: Similar idea.<br />
<br />
J: I think saying anything's a fish that lives in the water is, in general, somewhat accurate, right? But there's mammals that live in the water, too; whatever.<br />
<br />
R: Well, does that mean thought that we're going to have to change the names of catfish? 'Cause they're not really cats.<br />
<br />
S: But they are fish. What about {{w|Aquaman}}? Is Aquaman a fish?<br />
<br />
R: Well, no; it's not even his name. If he was a fish, he'd be called Aquafish.<br />
<br />
B: What about {{w|Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy|Mermaid Man}}? Mermaid Man!<br />
<br />
S: ''(laughs)'' Mermaid Man.<br />
<br />
R: What is Mermaid Man?<br />
<br />
S: And Barnacle Boy!<br />
<br />
B: Oh, my God.<br />
<br />
E: It's a transgender...<br />
<br />
R: What?!<br />
<br />
B: {{w|SpongeBob SquarePants|SpongeBob}}!<br />
<br />
R: Oh, gosh; I'm sorry I'm not 12.<br />
<br />
B: ''(laughs)''<br />
<br />
S: My 12-year-old daughter loves that show. Yes?<br />
<br />
B: Steve, did you know that Mermaid Man died?<br />
<br />
J: What?<br />
<br />
S: The character? Or the actor who did the voice?<br />
<br />
B: Of course not, silly.<br />
<br />
E: Mercury poisoning?<br />
<br />
B: Ernest&mdash;<br />
<br />
S: {{w|Ernest Borgnine}}. Oh, did he really? I didn't know that.<br />
<br />
R: Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
E: From... local...<br />
<br />
B: How sad.<br />
<br />
E: He was from {{w|Hamden, Connecticut|Hamden}}.<br />
<br />
R: He was supposed to be at Dragon*Con, too, I think.<br />
<br />
=== Firewalk Mishap <small>(33:20)</small> ===<br />
* Neurologica Blog: [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/firewalk-mishap/ Firewalk Mishap]<br />
<br />
S: All right, Evan, finish up the news for us with an interesting firewalking mishap that happened recently.<br />
<br />
E: Firewalking.<br />
<br />
B: This is great.<br />
<br />
E: People are still doing this. {{w|Tony Robbins}}, you know, self-help guru; you've seen him on TV; his big dumb smile and everything. Well, according to the folks in the headlines last week, in San Jose... well, I'll read you the first line of the article: "Amid inspiration talk, chanted mantras and shouts of victory at late-night firewalking event attended by thousands, came the agonized shrieks from followers whose soles were scorched by the superheated coals, witnesses said."<br />
<br />
R: Soles of their feet, not&mdash;<br />
<br />
E: Soles of their feet.<br />
<br />
R: Not their souls.<br />
<br />
B: Ha-ha!<br />
<br />
E: Well, we don't know that for sure, though. 21 people were treated for burn injuries after going through the firewalk exercise by which Tony and others claim that if you use mind over matter, you too can walk over fiery hot coals, which burn up&mdash;at temperatures up to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit? How is that possible? Well, it's an old trick is what it is, and Steve, you did a good job in your article about that this week explaining the difference between the various thermal properties of, say, wood versus metal. And also the difference between thermal conductance vs thermal capacity, and there's a big, big difference.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah; I used iron as an example. Iron has a very high thermal conductance and capacity. It can transfer energy very quickly and it has a lot of energy to hold on to. So, if you touched a piece of iron a 2,000 degrees, it would cook you very quickly. As opposed to wood, which has very low thermal conductance, and therefore transfers energy very slowly. So you could touch it for a brief period of time without getting burned.<br />
<br />
E: And so yeah, the coals get to about 1500 degrees Fahrenheit or so but not much of the heat gets transferred to your feet. It means you're walking&mdash;as long as you walk at a relatively brisk pace and also a short distance. Do you remember when Richard Wiseman 2 years ago at TAM9 showed a little video about some people who were doing the firewalk, but the firewalk was too long; it wasn't designed at the usual 10- to 15-foot length; this was more like a 25- to 30-foot length. And when you get to about that halfway point, you know, 15-20 feet, that's it; you have to kind of step off; you can't complete the path because you can only take so much.<br />
<br />
S: And people were jumping off.<br />
<br />
R: You know, you should mention that it wasn't just that the firewalk happened to be too long; it's that Richard purposely made it too long in order to embarrass them on television. It was quite funny.<br />
<br />
S: Embarrass the firewalkers. Yeah. It's pure physics; it's just the amount of heat that it can hold; how quickly it can transfer it and that's it. And there was some discussion about maybe the ash can provide a little bit of extra insulation; I guess that is probably a minor player. But I think they major effect is just the heat&mdash;the thermal conductance of the wood.<br />
<br />
J: I'm shocked that that guy's teeth didn't, by the power of their own will, help those people walk on the coals. You ever see that guy's grille?<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
E: Tony Robbins, yeah.<br />
<br />
B: But Steve, there was another point that people bring in a lot and that's... it's called the {{w|Leidenfrost effect}}; it's basically people will have their... they'll have their feet be really sweaty or moist and they believe that that will actually create a barrier; a barrier to the heat. At best, I think that's a very, very minor player and I wouldn't trust it just to that effect. If you wanted to visualize it in an example, this is something that we've all seen. Say you've got a hot skittle ''[sic]'' on the burner in your kitchen and you... It reaches a certain temperature and you throw some water on it, and you've got this little bead of water that's kind of skittering around and it lasts a long, long time; it lasts much longer than you think it should, and that's because of this Leidenfrost effect where you have this vapor barrier underneath the water droplet that kind of acts as an insulation and it prevents the transfer of heat to the water droplet so that it evaporates it away. And that might be a very minor player in this, but I don't think you need that effect at all to explain it; it really was the thermal capacity and the conductance of the heat.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, and some people even pointed out that if your feet are sweaty, that the embers might to stick to your feet, and then you get prolonged contact, and that's really what causes the burning. But it has nothing to do with thinking about cool moss as you walk over the coals; you could think about burning hot lava and the effect will be the same.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, or walking on the sun or anything. Do you guys know there's a Firewalking Institute Research and Education organization&mdash;<br />
<br />
S: I do now.<br />
<br />
E: &mdash;called F.I.R.E., FIRE? Described&mdash;<br />
<br />
B: Oh, God. How long did it take for them to come up with that?<br />
<br />
E: ''(laughs)'' Three weeks. Get this, Bob: it's a world-class institute that internationally certifies firewalk instructors to the highest standard of safety, according to their press release. Because they had some things to say about this. They said, and I quote, "we can examine the odds and say that 21 out of 6,000 participants who took place in this particular firewalk equates to a 1 in 286 likelihood of receiving a second- or third-degree burn at this event", which is what happened. And then they say the lifetime risk of death from riding in a car is 1 in 84, a custom that is seldom given second thought". Uh hello? Apple, orange? What the hell?<br />
<br />
B: Oh, my God.<br />
<br />
R: &mdash;walk across hot coals to get to school or to the grocery store.<br />
<br />
J: You know, I was thinking while reading this article that there's gotta be somebody that gets hired to do these events; like you don't just put on firewalking event if you don't know what you're doing, and that person that knows what they're doing has to know what the physics are, right? They have to have an idea of like how long should it be, at what stage during the fire&mdash;you know, how burnt in do the embers have to be in order for someone to walk on it. Right? There's definitely physics behind it. It just makes me think... I bet you a lot of people that set these things up actually do know... these are the parameters at have to be met in order for people not to burn themselves.<br />
<br />
S: Oh, sure; it's a gimmick; it's a shtick to get people to think that whatever the psychological easy answers that they're peddling, to quote Lisa Simpson, is worth something, you know?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah but that... that TV show that we mentioned earlier that Richard Wiseman participated in demonstrates clearly that there are plenty of people running these things who are true believers, because he took people who run firewalks and he extended the length and they were positive they could still do it and that they just needed to meditate a bit more and they make it across. And that's what makes the video funny is that they try it, you know. They start walking across and they're very calm and serene and then mid-way, they just suddenly run and jump into the grass.<br />
<br />
S: It was comical.<br />
<br />
R: So they clearly thought that this was going to work or they wouldn't have done it on camera. So I suspect that there's just a lot of people who... they learn it in terms of, "OK, this is a standard length; this is how long you wait before sending people across", you know? And they don't really think that those are hard and fast rules for a reason; I think they just think that that's, "well, that's the way it's done", you know?<br />
<br />
== Who's That Noisy? <small>(40:30)</small>==<br />
<br />
S: All right. Well, Evan, you're also going to get us up to date on Who's That Noisy. We're a couple of weeks behind, I believe.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, a couple weeks behind. So, from Episode 364<ref>[[SGU Episode 364#Who.27s That Noisy.3F .2841:23.29|SGU Episode 364: Who's That Noisy]]</ref>, we revealed that the answer to that week's episode was Victor Zammit; of course you remember that, everyone. And.. but we needed to announce who guessed correctly first, and there were a lot of correct guesses on that one; good job, everyone for recognizing that fool Victor Zammit. And a gentleman by the name of [http://sguforums.com/index.php?action=profile;u=9008 Trin O.C.] was the first correct guesser. Trin O.C. So, congratulations to whoever that is. And then, from the last time, from when we left you last, we had a... well, we're going to play the last noisy and let you know who, if anyone, won that one. So, here we go:<br />
<br />
''(scraping noise)''<br />
<br />
E: Do you guys remember that?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, that was a good one.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: And what is it?<br />
<br />
E: Several guesses. Well, the two people who were on the right track from the message boards... ShadowSot guessed a baby sloth. Kind of on the right track there. Moloch guessed a baby crocodile. Also sort of on the right tract there, but neither of those guesses were correct. This was a baby human.<br />
<br />
B: Whoa.<br />
<br />
R: Kill it!<br />
<br />
E: A baby human. ''(chuckles)'' It's amazing what you type&mdash;when you type in, "weird noises babies make", you get all sorts of stuff that comes up and that happened to be one of them. That's a human being; a little tiny baby. Very cute, by the way.<br />
<br />
S: Interesting. A healthy one, just making a weird noise?<br />
<br />
E: Very healthy one just making a weird noise. I guess it kind of can contract its throat to a certain degree and push through a little bit of air that will make that gurgling, cracking sort of noise. ''(imitates noise)'' Kind of like that. Interesting. So, they were the closest but not quite right, so... I'll take the victory on that one.<br />
<br />
S: All-righty. What do you got for this week?<br />
<br />
E: All right.<br />
<br />
J: ''(exaggerated voice)'' And now... it's time once again...<br />
<br />
E: ''(laughs)'' After re-re-disposing of the monster. OK, guys... This one is short; it's a little bit difficult to hear; I think the audience is going to want to play this back a couple times but I also predict that there will be at least one correct person guessing for this week Who's That Noisy. Here we go:<br />
<br />
''(distorted voice)''<br />
<br />
E: That's it. That's all you get; that's all you need.<br />
<br />
S: Well, we'll find out next week.<br />
<br />
E: That's right. info at theskepticsguide.org and sguforums.com. Those are the ways to get ahold of us. Give us your guess; good luck to everybody.<br />
<br />
== Questions and Emails ==<br />
=== Multivitamins <small>(43:26)</small>===<br />
<br />
S: So. We are going to do one email this week. This one comes from Chris who writes:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>You guys have done a great job convincing me that vitamin mega dosing is a waste. But what about a multivitamin? Clearly it would be best if I ate a healthy diet. I should also work out every day, give to charity, volunteer, and learn to play a musical instrument. Life is hard. The REAL question is what's better: a shitty diet & NO vitamins or a shitty diet with a multivitamin? Love the show. Thanks!</blockquote><br />
<br />
S: What do you guys think about that; that's an interesting version of this question. We do get this&mdash;people ask about vitamins all the time.<br />
<br />
E: Yeah!<br />
<br />
S: I do think there's a huge disconnect between the information that filters down to the public and the actual science, but... what would you guys say this?<br />
<br />
E: Well, from what I remember, we talk about vitamin is that it's used as supplement for certain deficiencies, for people who have certain conditions in which they cannot or do not get a certain vitamin and therefore, yes; they do need a supplement but that's only to be sort of done with the advice of your doctor and as part of, you know, an overall regiment ''[sic]''. I think just taking a multivitamin for the sake of taking a multivitamin probably doesn't do much for you, 'cause if you eat a normal... sort of diet, you're going to get all the nutrients you need.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, but again, the premise here is: what if you don't have a healthy diet? What if you have a crappy diet?<br />
<br />
B: Well, I think it would have to be very crappy&mdash;<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
B: Very, very... More than your average level of crappiness to a warrant a multivitamin. More than you would think.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, so I guess "it depends" is the short answer, on what you're saying, Bob. Just having an unhealthy diet; either a narrow diet or too much red meat; not enough vegetables, whatever. Whatever you consider to be an unhealthy diet. The evidence shows you cannot make up for that with multivitamin. You can't have a crappy diet and take a multivitamin and think that you're in any way compensating for your crappy diet; you're not. All the benefits&mdash;a lot of the benefits of having a nutritious diet come from having... from eating like fruits and vegetables and not eating the stuff that you shouldn't be eating, like too much fat or too much red meat or whatever. So, from that point of view the answer is no. Vitamins do not compensate for a bad diet. Probably because part of what makes a diet unhealthy is that you're getting too much of certain stuff; it's not just that you're not getting enough of the nutrients that you need. However, if your diet is bad or is just restrictive in a certain way that you actually will become deficient in a vitamin&mdash;one or more vitamins, then of course, supplementing to prevent that deficiency will help; it will treat that deficiency. But that should be targeted to whatever your deficiency is. The most common one that I see are actually vegetarians. If you don't know how to have a proper vegetarian diet, it's very common for people to become {{w|Vitamin B12|B12}} deficient. So Rebecca, I think you and I have talked about this before. You can get B12 if you know what you're doing, but if people just decide without really reading about it or knowing what they're doing, they decide they're just going to eliminate all meat from their diet, and then a couple years down the road, they're B12 deficient. So they need a cookbook and B12 supplements, basically. So, there absolutely are cases like that. And of course, there's lots of specific conditions where vitamin supplementation is helpful. {{w|Folic acid|Folate}} for pregnant women, for example, is a common one. Even if you're not deficient, taking extra folate does seem to reduce the incidence of neural tube defects, but you have to be taking it before you actually know you're pregnant. By the time you know, all the interesting stuff has already happened. So, short answer is: vitamins do not compensate for a bad diet, but if it's restrictive or bad in a way that you're deficient, then yes, obviously then supplements will fix the deficiency. But for a healthy person with a good diet, there's no benefit to taking a multivitamin.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(47:31)</small> ==<br />
''(jingle)''<br />
<br />
''Voiceover: It's time for Science or Fiction''<br />
<br />
S: Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two real and one fake. And I challenge my panel of skeptics to tell me which one they think is the fake. You guys ready for this week?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah.<br />
<br />
E: Uh huh.<br />
<br />
J: ''Oh Yeah.''<br />
<br />
S: Oh yeah. Okay, here we go. [http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/twovisual.htm Item number 1]: A new study shows that while multitasking a visual task with an audio task, such as driving while talking on the phone, significantly impairs performance, combining two visual tasks had little effect. [http://www.springer.com/about+springer/media/springer+select?SGWID=0-11001-6-1384244-0 Item number 2]: Scientists have identified a new syndrome&mdash;delayed severe allergic reaction to red meat caused by a tick bite. [http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-07/bu-mhd072312.php Item number 3]: Researchers have found a distinct subsystem for smell in the mouse that is likely dedicated to smelling behaviorally important odors, such as fear. Bob, go first.<br />
<br />
B: Uh, oh boy, wow. You know, you read news items&mdash;I don't know where you pull these from. Ummm.<br />
<br />
S: And you never will. ''(laughs)'' ''if I can help it!'' Imagine how hard my job would be if you knew where I'm going for my stupid news items.<br />
<br />
B: ''(laughs)'' All right. A new study shows that while multitasking a visual task with an audio task impairs performance like we've heard before, but combing two visuals had little effect. Uh man, you know, I'm just not&mdash;I'm just not buying that. 'Cause all the studies I've read&mdash;not recently, but we've talked about it enough&mdash;they really didn't distinguish that. And I would think that... I would think that if you had two visual tasks... I mean, the idea of going back and forth, you know, would kind of be the same as, you know, multitasking at work. You're going from one task to another&mdash;to the other and it's just never as good as just sticking with one for a while. Umm, hmm. Let's see. Got a new syndrome here, delayed severe allergic reaction to red meat caused by a tick bite. ''Damn.'' I have no idea what to say about that. I can't think of anything that would&mdash;any red flags. Oh geez, I don't know. Let's see what the third one is. Distinct subsystem for smell in the mouse dedicated to things like fear. Umm, yeah, I guess, that's possible. When a creature is experiencing fear there could be some sort of release of something that would be identifiable and associated with fear, I guess. Two visual tasks had little... All right, I'm gonna say the multitasking one. Umm, I'm&mdash;I still think that even if it's two visual tasks, that multitasking... there will be some impairment going on, because of that. So yeah, I'll say that one's fiction.<br />
<br />
S: OK. Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: OK, the multitasking item reminds me of something I read ages ago that showed that talking on a cell phone while driving impairs your ability to drive safely much, much more than carrying on a conversation with someone who is in the car with you. Which at the time, I think, was attributed to the fact that you don't have to guess at the other person's emotions and things when they're in the car with you. But you are using your sight. Uhh, so, more so than you would on the cell phone. So, because of that, that item rings true to me. That, uhh, audio is more demanding for us than visuals. Sooo, tentatively I'm saying that one makes sense. "Allergic reaction to red meat caused by a tick bite". I haven't&mdash;I only recently learned that you can have allergic reactions to meat. I didn't realize that was a thing. But I know that is a thing now, so I'm more likely to believe that than I might have previously. Caused by a tick bite? Yeah, I mean, I guess I can see, maybe, you know, you have a certain immune response to a tick bite that also cause an allergy that you didn't have before. So that one makes sense, too. The one that's not making sense is the idea that mice have a dedicated area for&mdash;a dedicated subsystem for smelling fear because, mostly because behaviorally important odors such as fear&mdash;that's what throws me because I don't understand how smelling fear in another animal is important to a mouse at all. Like mice are just scared of everything, all the time. Right? Like why would they care if the cat that's after them is afraid of something. Suddenly they are gonna turn around and charge the cat? No, that's not gonna happen. I've never seen that happen. All I've ever seen is mice running for their dear little lives. So, I can't see any reason for the mouse to have the ability to detect fear in other animals. So, that one, I'm going to say is the fiction.<br />
<br />
S: OK. Evan?<br />
<br />
E: Well, let's have a look. Umm, the multitasking one; we've spoken quite a few times on the show about multitasking. Umm, but specifically, visual task with an audio task? I'm not sure we've necessarily phrased it in a specific context such as this. So, umm, it's very interesting. Significantly impairs performance, combining two visual effects had little effect. ''Two visual tasks had little effect.'' Well, driving is a visual task; what else would I be doing while I'm driving? Visual task, well&mdash; ''texting is a visual task.'' Kinda thinking that, I mean, well that's other tasks as well, but certainly visual's a main component of that. Uhh, hhm, I'm not sure about that one. Umm, the second one about the new syndrome. Severe&mdash;''delayed'' severe allergic reaction to red meat. And the tick bites the carrier? So apparently what's happening here is that the tick bite carries something in its saliva? Little tick's saliva? That gets into your system, through the blood and causes you to have an allergic reaction to red meat? Is the anything&mdash;I can't&mdash;I'm trying to think of what else to kinda equate this to. But I can't think of an example off the top of my head. ''(sucks breath)'' So, moving one to the last one. Mi&mdash;I mean&mdash;''(sighs)'' Mice that have a distinct subsystem for smell? That smells behavioral[ly] important odors as fear. I'm thinking that that one's, of the three&mdash;I kinda think that that one probably is the most likely to be true. You know, they find all kinds of cool things about mice. Mice are the classic test animal. But a distinct subsystem. Uhh, I'm not sure, that one seems to make a lot of sense to me in a certain way. Umm, Rebecca, you were talking about how mice are kinda fearful and skittish of everything and I think that actually plays into, uhh, why they may have a subsystem for it that they detected. So, it's between, for me, multitasking or the tick bite and allergy. ''(sucks breath)'' Uhh, well, I don't like the two visual tasks having little effect. I don't know about that, I think you really gotta keep your eyes on the road is the bottom line. So, I'll say that that one's the fiction.<br />
<br />
J: That a boy!<br />
<br />
S: ''(drowsily)'' I'm sorry, which one?<br />
<br />
E: The multitasking is the fiction.<br />
<br />
S: I'm sorry; I was doing something else. All right, Jay?<br />
<br />
E: ''(laughs)''<br />
<br />
J: I'm gonna go in reverse order. I absolutely think the one about the mice smelling fear&mdash;being wired to smell fear. Sure, that makes a lot of sense to me. I'm curious to know&mdash;<br />
<br />
R: Seriously?<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, just&mdash;<br />
<br />
R: Just me?<br />
<br />
J: Well, you know, I don't want to throw out the big pheromone thing. I mean, it's like people throw that word around like, you know, it explains all these different things or whatever. But absolutely, you know, ''sure'' they could smell&mdash;you know, you were talking about the cat as a predator and all that and, sure, why wouldn't they be able to smell it. Smell things that the animal is putting off or whatever. Yeah, that makes sense. The one about the red meat caused by tick bites; the allergy situation. The only thing about that one I don't like is the word "delayed". Like a "delayed severe allergic reaction". Why would it be delayed? It's very strange. I hate ticks and I hate being bitten by ticks and I hate everything to do with them. And I think we should try to destroy all ticks and bedbugs. But anyway, I don't know about this one, I mean, what have I got to say other than it's weird and I hope that that one's the fiction. But the one that I didn't like from the moment that I heard it, and that's why I went in reverse order, is this whole hoo-hah about combing visual tasks has little effect; that's BS. Combining visual tasks, meaning two different things you have to visually keep track of at the same time, that one is the fiction by ''far.'' Is the fiction. Thank you.<br />
<br />
S: OK.<br />
<br />
J: Thank you.<br />
<br />
S: All right. So&mdash;<br />
<br />
R: I'm alone in here? I can't believe I'm the only&mdash;like, uh!<br />
<br />
S: You're alone.<br />
<br />
J: ''A-looone!''<br />
<br />
R: Immediately the mouse one.<br />
<br />
S: You're alone. Jay, what about bed ticks? What do you feel about them?<br />
<br />
R: What the fuck is a bed tick?<br />
<br />
J: ''Oh my God.'' Imagine if there were bed ticks! ''(laughs)'' ''Oh my God. No!''<br />
<br />
R: Dear Lord, no. Something new to be scared of.<br />
<br />
E: Maybe there are bed ticks.<br />
<br />
S: All right. You all agree that scientists have identified a new syndrome, a delayed severe allergic reaction to red meat caused by a tick bite. You all think that one is science. And that one is... science.<br />
<br />
J: Uh, why is it delayed?<br />
<br />
R: Yay!<br />
<br />
J: Why delayed?<br />
<br />
S: I don't know. But it's the first one. It's the first delayed {{w|Anaphylaxis|anaphylactic}} or severe allergic reaction that has been identified.<br />
<br />
E: Wow.<br />
<br />
S: This is a study&mdash;really a case series, where they identified a few patients that had the same syndrome. They were all bitten by the {{w|Amblyomma americanum|lone star tick}} and had a&mdash;<br />
<br />
R: How ironic, considering the {{w|Lone Star Steakhouse}}.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. So the&mdash;<br />
<br />
E: ''(chuckles)''<br />
<br />
R: Sorry.<br />
<br />
E: I like that.<br />
<br />
S: The tick has a specific carbohydrate that produces an immune response. The same carbohydrate is in the red meat, meat derived from mammals, so can produce a secondary or an anaphylactic severe allergic reaction. There are a couple of firsts here. This is the first identified anaphylactic reaction to a non-protein, to a carbohydrate. It's the first delayed reaction, 6-8 hours delayed after eating the meat. So like, you have a steak dinner and then in the middle of the night you wake up and can't breathe.<br />
<br />
J: Yikes.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah.<br />
<br />
J: Ticks really suck.<br />
<br />
S: Triggered by a tick bite! Yeah, that's cool. It's very interesting.<br />
<br />
J: I mean, seriously&mdash;<br />
<br />
S: Imagine how hard it is to make ''that'' diagnosis. But they're saying that if there are physicians in this part of the world, basically in the southwest, and patients present with an anaphylactic reaction after consuming red meat you should consider this newly identified syndrome. Very interesting. There are a lot of new things in there. Umm, let's go back to number 1: A new study shows that while multitasking a visual task with an audio task, such as driving while talking on the phone, significantly impairs performance, combining two visual tasks had little effect. Bob, Jay and Evan, you all think this one is the fiction. Rebecca&mdash;<br />
<br />
E: (resignedly) Uhh.<br />
<br />
S: You think this one is science.<br />
<br />
R: {{w|Press Your Luck|No whammy}}, no whammy, no whammy.<br />
<br />
E: This is it.<br />
<br />
S: This one is&mdash;<br />
<br />
E: I mean, this is it, right?<br />
<br />
J: Oh&mdash;<br />
<br />
S: The fiction!<br />
<br />
E, B, J: ''(collective joyous moaning)''<br />
<br />
S: This one is fiction! I suppose you could have thought that maybe, like, if you were integrating two visual into one, sort of, meta-visual task that wouldn't be multitasking but&mdash;no, no. Uhh, but no. In fact, the study showed that combining two visual tasks is even worse. Has ''more'' of a negative effect&mdash;<br />
<br />
J: ''(sing-songy)'' That's what I said.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah; That was the way to go with this one.<br />
<br />
J: Thank you.<br />
<br />
R: Boo.<br />
<br />
B: C'mon, it was obvious.<br />
<br />
E: Wow. ''(imitates cat)''<br />
<br />
S: They used eye-tracking technology to see how the subjects were handling the tasks that they were given but also their performance on the tasks. And, yeah, when trying to combine two visual tasks their performance greatly suffered. The other interesting wrinkle here though is that when asked how they did, the people who were trying to multitask two visual tasks thought that they did better than when trying to multitask a visual and an audio task, even though they did worse. So they had a false sense of security, if you will, with the two visual tasks. So they were trying to model what would be worse, talking on the cell phone while driving or texting while driving. And definitely, texting while driving is much worse.<br />
<br />
J: That's odd.<br />
<br />
S: Kind of seems intuitive to me. I mean, you are visually distracted trying to text.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, but, and you're using your fingers.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, although I don't&mdash;I don't think that's the component though; that is the problem.<br />
<br />
R: Really?<br />
<br />
S: It is just the distraction. It is the diminishing of attention. You have to look away from the road to text. You brought up the previous data which shows that it's more distracting to talk on the phone than to someone who's sitting next to you in the car. We've brought this up before; you know, there's speculation about why that might be. There's the extra set of eyes, (do they) compensate for the distraction somewhat? My personal experience is that I find it really hard to talk on a cell phone, in that it takes a certain amount of concentration because the cell phone companies typically give just enough bandwidth so that human speech is recognizable. But not a lot more than that. So they are always restraining the bandwidth and I just find the audio quality&mdash;even as phones get better, the audio quality is really such that I really have to pay attention to understand what the person is saying over a cell phone.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Do you guys find that too?<br />
<br />
J: No!<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, I guess. I don't drive.<br />
<br />
J: Ahhhh!<br />
<br />
E: Yeah, that's right.<br />
<br />
J: No, I don't agree with you.<br />
<br />
S: And now we've got to use the the hands-free devices, so you have some crappy ear phone thing; you're not even holding the phone up to your head. It's even harder.<br />
<br />
J: What do you mean, it's harder?<br />
<br />
E: It's harder. The voice, the sound quality is worse with the hands-free ear buds.<br />
<br />
J: My head phones are epic. I have {{w|Bose Corporation|Bose}} headphones. They are awesome. You don't need anything else.<br />
<br />
S: I have a good set of ear buds; might be the quality of the microphone at the other end. So, let's go on to number 3: researchers have found a distinct subsystem for smell in the mouse that is likely dedicated to smelling behaviorally important odors, such as fear. That one is, of course, science.<br />
<br />
R: Boo.<br />
<br />
S: This is an interesting bit of neuroscience. So, this is a series of experiments that have been done over the last few years, but culminating in a recent study that shows that mice have this cluster of odor-sensitive neurons that are distinct from the general olfactory neurons in the {{w|Glomerulus (olfaction)|glomeruli}}; that's part of the nose that senses the smell.<br />
<br />
J: You just made that up.<br />
<br />
S: Nope. They actually go to a different part of the brain. It's a different track. The same pathway was found to be activated previously by previous research when animals smell things like urine of carnivores, like lion or tiger urine. So chemicals found in that urine actually will trigger this alternate pathway. So the last bit that the researchers need to do to close the loop, which is why I said "likely" is to show that it's actually plugging into, say, the amygdala; the part of the brain that is responsible for emotions. That's what they suspect. And that would certainly close the loop on the hypothesis; what purpose this is fulfilling. But all the pieces that we have in place so far seem to be pointing in that direction. Rebecca, the thing about smelling fear&mdash;it's not that you're smelling fear in the predator, you're smelling fear in your fellow mice, right? If the mice next to you are afraid, then you should be afraid as well. 'Cause maybe they see something you don't see.<br />
<br />
J: I screwed that up, too.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. But it's also&mdash;it's not just fear; it's sort of the chemicals in carnivore piss or other emotionally important... And it also makes sense, in that the more we learn about the different parts of the sensory systems, they are divided often into different streams of information based upon significance. For example, there are different visual streams. We have visual streams for things that are alive and things that are not alive. They're processed in different parts of the brain. There's an interesting story behind that, too, because it's not just alive or not alive; it's things that we think are acting with agency versus not acting with agency. Which is why, in my opinion, we can relate to cartoon characters. We know that they're not alive but they're acting as if they are alive, and that means we&mdash;our brain processes them as if they're living agents, even though they don't have the other characteristics of being an agent, like being three-dimensional. That does not appear to be necessary for your brain to interpret something as having agency. Did you guys see that; did we talk about this, about the researchers who created this little animation where it's basically a triangle and a circle and a square moving around?<br />
<br />
E: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Did you see that? And they ask the subjects, "what's going on in the story here" and people have a pretty easy time making up elaborate stories; "OK, the triangle's the daddy and the daddy's threatening&mdash;the child and the mother's protecting them." It's just shapes. But because they're moving in a way that even barely suggests some kind of agency, we just happily process it that way and imbue agency onto those triangles and squares. So, it's interesting; it's the way our brain's hard-wired. So it makes perfect sense to me that we would have a different stream of olfactory information just for those smells that should trigger an immediate instinctive behavior, especially a survival behavior. It would go to a different part of the brain. So, yeah. Interesting. So, good work, guys.<br />
<br />
R: Blah. Whatever.<br />
<br />
B: And by "guys", you mean males.<br />
<br />
S: Male. This time I mean male. Rebecca, you have a pretty good track record when you're by yourself&mdash;<br />
<br />
E: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: &mdash;you tend to do better than 50-50.<br />
<br />
B: I was nervous.<br />
<br />
E: I was sweatin' it out here; how about you, Jay? What were you doing? Ah, never mind.<br />
<br />
J: Evan, you have to learn how to not care.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, Jay's carefully cultivated that over the years.<br />
<br />
R: Said by the guy who regularly screams when he doesn't get the right answer.<br />
<br />
J: You can't prove that. All right. I have a quote.<br />
<br />
== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:07:11)</small> ==<br />
S: Speaking of screaming, Jay do you have a quote?<br />
<br />
J: Yes. I have a quote for you, sir. Steve, I have a quote that was sent in by two different people moments after each other; like, it was amazing and I had to go with the person who sent it in first, so Richard Lane, thank you for sending in the following quote:<br />
<blockquote>Homeopaths do not have a physical brain, but merely "skull water" with the memory of brains.</blockquote><br />
J: That was a quote by a comedian called Robin Ince. ''(distant)'' Robin Ince!<br />
<br />
== Announcements <small>(1:07:39)</small> ==<br />
S: All right, guys; well, thank you for joining me this week. This show's going up on Saturday, July 28, which is my daughter's birthday. She's going to be 13 years old. Entering the world&mdash;<br />
<br />
E: Julia's a teenager?<br />
<br />
S: &mdash;of teenager. Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: Happy birthday, Julia.<br />
<br />
E: Holy moley.<br />
<br />
S: So, I wanted to say happy birthday to my daughter Julia.<br />
<br />
E: And&mdash;but... Sunday somebody else is having a birthday that we all know and love and couldn't be doing any of this without&mdash;<br />
<br />
R: And is also a teenager... at heart.<br />
<br />
E: At heart. Bob, Jay, any ideas who that might be?<br />
<br />
J: No.<br />
<br />
E: ''(laughs)''<br />
<br />
R: I think they're playing dumb, because aren't all their birthdays like right in a row?<br />
<br />
S: Well, Bob was [[July 4]]th, Mine is [[July 29]], the day after my daughter's, and Jay is [[August 11]]th. All right after each other.<br />
<br />
E: We've got a slew of Novella bir&mdash;Steve, happy birthday!<br />
<br />
S: Well, thank you, Evan.<br />
<br />
R: Happy birthday, Steve.<br />
<br />
B: Feliz compleanos.<br />
<br />
E: Have a great one.<br />
<br />
S: And thank you for joining me this week, everyone.<br />
<br />
E: It was good to be here.<br />
<br />
R: We already said thank you.<br />
<br />
''(laughter)''<br />
<br />
S: All right. Well, then, until next week, this is your {{SGU}}.<br />
<br />
{{Outro1}}<br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}}<br />
<br />
{{Page categories<br />
|Astronomy & Space Science = y <!-- Sally Ride --><br />
|Legal Issues & Regulations = y <!-- Kennewick Man --><br />
|New Age = y <!-- Mood Photography --><br />
|Nature & Evolution = y <!-- Jellyfish, SoF item 3 --><br />
|Neuroscience & Psychology = y <!-- SoF item 1 --><br />
|Physics & Mechanics = y <!-- Firewalking --><br />
|Science & Medicine = y <!-- Multivitamins, SoF item 2 --><br />
|Technology = y <!-- Artificial Organism --><br />
}}</div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_376&diff=9484SGU Episode 3762014-11-18T06:54:17Z<p>Jason koziol: /* GM Corn Rat Study (13:45) */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Editing required<br />
|transcription = y<br />
<!-- |proof-reading = y please only include when some transcription is present. --><br />
|links = y<br />
|Today I Learned list = y<br />
|categories = y<br />
|segment redirects = y <!-- redirect pages for segments with head-line type titles --><br />
|}}<br />
{{InfoBox <br />
|episodeNum = 376<br />
|episodeDate = 29<sup>th</sup> September 2012<br />
|episodeIcon = File:Emoticons.jpg<br />
|rebecca = y<br />
|bob = y<br />
|jay = y<br />
|evan = y<br />
|guest1 = PG: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Gay Pamela Gay]<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2012-09-29.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php?topic=43494.0<br />
|qowText = An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. 'Can they be brought together?' This is a practical question. We must get down to it. 'I despise intelligence' really means: 'I cannot bear my doubts.'<br />
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus Albert Camus]<br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
S: Hello, and welcome to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Today is Monday September 24, 2012 and this is your host <br />
Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella<br />
<br />
B: Hey everybody.<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca Watson<br />
<br />
R: Hello everyone.<br />
<br />
S: Jay Novella<br />
<br />
J: Hey guys.<br />
<br />
S: and Evan Bernstein.<br />
<br />
E: Good morning and/or good evening.<br />
<br />
S: How is everybody today?<br />
<br />
R: Super.<br />
<br />
E: Doing just fine.<br />
<br />
J: Thanks for asking.<br />
<br />
== This Day in Skepticism <small>(0:33)</small> ==<br />
* September 29, 1954: CERN is created<br />
<br />
R: Hey, happy CERN day everybody. Happy CERN day.<br />
<br />
B: What does that mean?<br />
<br />
R: That means, on [[September 29]]th 1954 the convention establishing CERN was signed. CERN of course being the European organization for nuclear research. That's the English equivalent. I'm not going to attempt the French, 'cause I don't want to get angry emails.<br />
<br />
J: Rebecca, I was con''cern''ed that you were going to forget.<br />
<br />
R: Forget that it is CERN day?<br />
<br />
J: Year, I was con'''''cern'''''ed.<br />
<br />
B: Ah, yes...<br />
<br />
J: Nothing, huh? Okay.<br />
<br />
R: ''Cern''tailly that's not an issue.<br />
<br />
J: (laughter) You mean, my joke was so bad, that I'm hurtin' for ''cern''tain.<br />
<br />
S: (laughter) Alright... So, this is also the one year anniversary - or at least September 24th when we're recording this - of the first SGU 24 hour live broadcast.<br />
<br />
J: Oh, boy, that was awesome.<br />
<br />
E: Remember that?<br />
<br />
S: Have you guys recovered yet?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Has it only been a year? Seems like yesterday.<br />
<br />
J: Barely...<br />
<br />
B: Evan, we don't need to sleep, right?<br />
<br />
E: Nah. I'll sleep when I'm dead.<br />
<br />
J: I think that was the hardest project I ever did in my life.<br />
<br />
E: It was a test of endurance, will and -<br />
<br />
R: Well, until that baby comes out.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, that's right.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, yeah.. (laughter)<br />
<br />
B: So far, every convention people come up to me like "Do another SGU 24." and I always say, "You know what? I wouldn't mind doing it again, but I don't think we could convince anyone else to do it." And I tell everyone, maybe we'll do like SGU six hours or four hours or something like that. I think if we ever do it, that's what it would have to be.<br />
<br />
R: SGU four hours is a normal night of recording for us.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, that's right.<br />
<br />
E: Well yeah, actually it is.<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Ig Nobels 2012 <small>(2:18)</small> ===<br />
* [http://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/ Improbable Research]<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca, have you checked out the IG nobel winners for 2012?<br />
<br />
R: I have indeed, actually. I'm sad I no longer live in Boston, because Ig Nobels were my favorite time of year. If you ever get a chance to actually go and see them in person, I highly recommend it. It's a hilarious evening of science and fun. So yeah, this years winners, much like previous years, are absolutely delightful. So for those of our listeners, who are not familiar with Ig Nobels, the idea is that they give out awards to science that first makes you laugh and then makes you think. Some Ig Nobels are occasionally given out tongue-in-cheek to idiots and speudoscientists, but for the most part they are given to actual scientists doing actual scientific research that is completely ridiculous. So, for instance, this year the psychology prize went to two scientists for their study "Leaning to the Left Makes the Eiffel Tower Seem Smaller". <br />
<br />
E: As opposed to the right, I suppose.<br />
<br />
R: My personal favorite prize was the acoustics prize, which went to two Japanese researchers who created something called the speech-jammer, which is the most brilliant device I think that has ever been created and it's something that when I describe it will be immediately familiar to everybody currently on this show. This is something that anybody deals with audio, who has spoken into a microphones while wearing headphones and have something go wrong, you know exactly what this does. So, the speech jammer disrupt a person's speech by forcing them to hear their own words at a very slight delay. So, the... Basically what it is, it's a large gun that looks kind of like - I've seen it refereded to like an Xbox-like device - and there's a microphone on it. You point it to someone who is talking. And the microphone picks up their words and then delays what they're saying by a few hundred milliseconds and then feeds it back out trough a speaker directly at them. And everything is direction sensitive, so that the speaker is the only person who can really get the effect. <br />
<br />
B: Are they aware that they are hearing their voice on a delay?<br />
<br />
E: Oh, year.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, I'm sure they are but there is a -<br />
<br />
E: That's the point<br />
<br />
R: There is a video showing it in action and... there is one part of the video that focuses on a professor, and he is giving a lecture at the front of the room and somebody does it to him, and he kind of freaks out because he thinks that something in the lecture hall is going wrong. Like his microphone is messed up or the projector is messing something up. It really makes him stop talking like immediately. It's so difficult to listen to yourself echoing, while continuing to talk.<br />
<br />
B : Have you guys ever experienced that?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, all the time.<br />
<br />
S: During the SGU 24 show, we were doing interviews -<br />
<br />
R: Oh, god, that's right.<br />
<br />
S: there was that half a second delay and it was almost impossible to talk. I had to take the headphones off to get a sentence out.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it was hard. You become hyper-aware of what you're saying and you're completely unable to function.<br />
<br />
E: That's funny, Steve. What's going on in the brain at that point? So, the brain is- you're trying to create speech and at the same time interpret- your brain is also at the same time interpreting its own speech and trying to -<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think so. It's -<br />
<br />
E: - make it fit together?<br />
<br />
S: it just can't process two speech streams at the same time. So -<br />
<br />
B: I think it's a little more complicated than that, though, because one of the things that people do by instinct is... we're able to filter out ambient noise. So if you're in a room with five or ten or more people talking you can kind of just ignore it. But you can't ignore that. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah..<br />
<br />
E: It's the sound of your own voice.<br />
<br />
B: There's something different about it. You can't ignore it just sweep it aside like you can other speech. It's something that just like short-circuits your brain.<br />
<br />
E: And hearing yourself so close to the words that you've just spoken, right, the timing sure is -<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, the timing is -<br />
<br />
E: They've homed in the timing to be effective in this regard.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, I wonder if they slowly increase the delay, what the effect would be. Would you reach a threshold where you could totally deal with it? You probably could.<br />
<br />
J: Absolutely, Bob, it's a sweet-spot and they figured out the sweet-spot and then they figured out the delivery mechanism, like how to shoot that sound back at one person or to a very small area. So it ''is'' kind of like a gun. Right, Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it looks like a big chunky gun. With a microphone and a speaker on it.<br />
<br />
J: But the funny thing about this is that there really isn't any point to it, other than... what? Like is it just a prank?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, in the abstract they say "We discuss practical application scenarios of this system such as facilitating and controlling discussions." Which is just a polite, sciency way to say "making people shut up". A bunch of kids, you know, studying in a lab and a girl pulls out her cell phone and starts talking and somebody pulls out the gun and she just immediately stops.<br />
<br />
E: Has to stop.<br />
<br />
R: So, I mean. I think everybody can think of a million practical applications for this item. Just maybe not so much in the terms of furthering human evolution... or knowledge of the universe.<br />
<br />
S: I think we talked about the neuroscience prize on the show.<br />
<br />
R: We did. Yeah. And it surprised me because I assumed that these guys got the prize years earlier because this study came out in 2009. It's the study that shows that you can pick up meaningful brain activity using fMRI from absolutely anything. Even a dead salmon. So these researchers stuck a dead salmon in an fMRI and found, what they would classify as meaningful brain activity. Which really is a fantastic study, because it throws into disarray so many previous studies that claim to show really amazing results by finding, you know, certain spots of the brain that are meant to be certain types of thought and things like that. This sort of throws all that out the window in a way, because it makes you realize that brain researchers, unfortunately, can quite easily just see what they want to see in fMRI results sometimes.<br />
<br />
S: But there was a very specific statistical argument that they made. It doesn't necessarily invalidate all fMRI research, just that those that use poor technique. Now, what specifically they were saying is, that because you're looking at so much information - with fMI - you can number crunch tons of comparisons, and it becomes almost a certainty that you will find false-positives among those comparisons - unless you correct for multiple comparisons. You use a statistical fix for multiple analyses. So, if you do the proper statistical analysis, then the results can still be robust and statistically legitimate. But it's also just trivially easy to produce false-positives by failing to do that basic statistical correction. And that's something we see all the time, not just in fMRI studies. It's just that the number of comparisons that you can do with this kind of data is so huge that it particularly lends itself to this kind of statistical error.<br />
<br />
R: Yep.<br />
<br />
S: Got it?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: Got it.<br />
<br />
R: I was also particularly impressed by the literature prize. I'm going to read directly from the Ig Nobel description of it. "The US Government General Accountability Office, for issuing a report about reports about reports that recommends the preparation of a report about the report about reports about reports."<br />
<br />
S: Uh-huh.<br />
<br />
R: Yep.<br />
<br />
S: Ah, bureaucracy.<br />
<br />
R: The fluid-dynamics prize went to some researchers who studied how your coffee sloshes around when you walk.<br />
<br />
B: I hate that.<br />
<br />
R:"Walking With Coffee: Why Does It Spill?"<br />
<br />
E: That's why they invented lids.<br />
<br />
R: The anatomy prize went to "Faces and Behinds: Chimpanzee Sex Perception". These researchers from the Netherlands and the US found that chimpanzees can identify other chimps from seeing photographs of their butts. <br />
<br />
R: The medicine prize was... terrifying. It went to French researchers who did some research advising doctors who perform colonoscopies how to minimize the chance that their patients will explode.<br />
<br />
B: Wait, what?<br />
<br />
R: The paper was called "Colonic Gas Explosion During Therapeutic Colonoscopy with Electrocautery". Steve, you can, your butt can explode during a colonoscopy? That's terrifying.<br />
<br />
S: I think Jay has more expertise on this area than I do.<br />
<br />
E: Ah, ha.<br />
<br />
J: Just because I do what my doctor says. You know, he says it's time to go get an exam, I get the exam. What am I going to say? No?<br />
<br />
S: That wasn't my point.<br />
<br />
R: That's not where he was going with that...<br />
<br />
S: This has to do with explosive gas that builds up in your colon, and that gas can get to a sufficient concentration to be explosive. And then you can trigger it with electrocautery. A little spark can actually ignite the methane that builds up in your colon and explode it. It doesn't have to be a big explosion to cause some serious damage. <br />
<br />
J: Why would you do that? Why would you -<br />
<br />
R: I don't think they're doing it on purpose, Jay.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, but after it happens, like once... You figure they'd stop doing it, right?<br />
<br />
R: They still have to cauterize.<br />
<br />
S: Stop doing colonoscopy with electrocautery? It's a rare complication, so what they're essentially saying, just do a really good prep, you know a good colonic cleansing, before you do colonoscopy with electrocautery to minimize the chance of explosion. <br />
<br />
B: Holy crap, how can I never ever hear of that.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, don't you wish you could unhear it?<br />
<br />
J: I'm terrified now!<br />
<br />
B: No, I want to see a video tape of it.<br />
<br />
R: There is something wrong with you guys.<br />
<br />
B: (laughter)<br />
<br />
R: That is not cool.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, does that kill them?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, that's what I'm saying, it's a horrible way to die.<br />
<br />
J: How embarrassing... "What did your brother die from? -Well, he was getting an exam, and his whole ass blew up." Seriously!<br />
<br />
R: Well, hopefully it wont happen as much anymore thanks to the Ig Nobel winners. <br />
<br />
S: Apparently there were 20 cases of colonic gas explosion identified in the literature. Nine of them were complicated by colon perforation. <br />
<br />
R: Like it was perforated before?<br />
<br />
S: No, no. The explosion caused perforation. <br />
<br />
R: Oh.<br />
<br />
E: Well, yeah, you would think, at the minimum.<br />
<br />
S: One of those was fatal. So, one person died. Well, thanks, Rebecca. The Ig Nobels are always fascinating.<br />
<br />
=== GM Corn Rat Study <small>(13:45)</small> ===<br />
* [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-gm-corn-rat-study/ Neurologica: The GM Corn Rat Study]<br />
<br />
S: So this next study that we're going to talk about didn't win an Ig Nobel. Maybe for next year. But this has got to be one of the worst studies I've run across in a long time. The number of different specific criticisms I've come across of this study is staggering. Have you guys heard? This has been, actually quite prominent in the media. This is one of those studies that numerous, numerous listeners have emailed us about. The French study looking at the effects of GM Corn in rats, concluding that, um, the Round-Up ready GM Corn increases the risk of getting tumors. Have you guys heard about this?<br />
<br />
J: No.<br />
<br />
R: How could we not. <br />
<br />
B: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: It was everywhere.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it was everywhere. So the researchers said that this is alarming, obviously that GM Corn can be increasing the risk of breast cancer in women and other tumors, based upon this study. The French media seemed to completely buy their alarmism based upon this research. But American media was pretty skeptical from the get-go, but they didn't really give a good impression of how horrible this study was. The thing that was most suspicious in the initial reporting was the fact that the researchers would not allow... So it's very typical to send out a press release about a news item and to embargo it until a certain time. So you give the reporters a chance to look it over and write their story and then at a certain date and time, then you can publish the news story. This gives the scientists an opportunity to do a press conference or whatever it is they're doing. Of course if you violate the embargo you're probably not going to be given future pre-releases of press releases. In any case what the researchers did was they sent the embargoed press release to the media but they specifically prohibited journalists from seeking outside comment on the paper before it was published.<br />
<br />
E: That's outside the norm.<br />
<br />
S: It was very unusual. So they basically told the journalists, here's our research, we want you to report on it, but we don't want you to do your job as journalists and ask anybody else what they think about it. Just publish our interpretation of our own study.<br />
<br />
B: Wow.<br />
<br />
R: That's amazing, that that can even happen.<br />
<br />
B: Can they make us do that?<br />
<br />
S: Well it's... what do you mean by 'make them'? You know they...<br />
<br />
B: Did they make them sign a p... saying, you can come and listen to this but uh...<br />
<br />
R: But no the beauty of an embargo is that, they can't enforce it at all, all they can do is if a journalist breaks the embargo they can go on a shit list, and then they never get the tip-offs again.<br />
<br />
B: Well who cares of they're on their shit list?<br />
<br />
E: And for a piece of crap like this.<br />
<br />
R: Well, unfortunately it matters to a lot of journalists, particularly the overworked type I'm imagining at, you know, larger newspapers who are mostly just printing press releases and things and don't really have time to dig into this stuff. And not really have much interest in pissing off the people who are feeding them the easy science news.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
R: But that said, there are plenty of journalists who do break embargos because of things like that. I know Ben Goldacre has tweeted some of the idiotic things researchers will do with embargos that journalists happily say, "go screw yourself," to.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
E: (laughs)<br />
<br />
S: It's all honor system, but of course, if you don't care about the particular institution or researchers, you're under no obligation to follow the embargo. In this case I would've told them to screw off, and just did what I normally do, you know. But it didn't take long for scientific news outlets, like the New Scientist, and science bloggers to be all over this study, and there was just an avalanche of withering criticism. For example, here are some of the specific criticisms of the study. "The population of rats that they were using have a high propensity for tumors."<br />
<br />
R: Hm<br />
<br />
B: O-kay<br />
<br />
E: ..animals used<br />
<br />
S: It's really easy to get them to have tumors. One way to get them to have tumors is to overfeed them. And the researchers didn't indicate the total food intake for any of their groups.<br />
<br />
B: t...esting<br />
<br />
S: There were only 20 rats in the control group. And they had a lower tumor rate than is historically typical, for this population of rats.<br />
<br />
R: Hm<br />
<br />
E: The control group<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. The control group had an artificially low rate of tumors. The data only reported that some of the test groups had a higher tumor incidence while others did not. So they essentially cherry-picked the data that showed a higher incidence, and in fact there was one group that showed a lower incidence with the highest amount of GM Corn. There was no dose-response, so there was no relationship between how much corn they ate and the risk of tumor. They also looked at exposure to Round-Up, the herbicide, which had the same effect as eating the corn that had the gene that was resistant to the herbicide. Which makes no sense. It's completely different mechanisms that produce the same effect. They did not control for fungal contaminants, something else that also can cause tumors in the same population of rats. And they did not use standard statistical analysis; instead they used some completely made-up unusual statistical analyis, that Tom Sanders, who's a researcher, characterized it as a "statistical fishing trip" in the New Scientist.<br />
<br />
B: Holy crap<br />
<br />
R: Ouch.<br />
<br />
E: This ended up in a peer-reviewed journal?<br />
<br />
S: Yes. Amazingly, yes. This is just the tip of the iceberg. I mean, every time somebody else takes a look at it they're like, oh my god, look at what else they did. There were just so many other problems with this study. The study is uninterpretable, and utter nonsense.<br />
<br />
B: Was it done on purpose?<br />
<br />
E: Maybe it's a spoof. Maybe they're having a joke on all of us.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: No. You'd like to think that, but no.<br />
<br />
J: So whats the result gonna be, Steve? What happens to these people?<br />
<br />
S: Well they're getting roundly criticized. I don't know why anybody would take them seriously. These researchers are suspect right out of the gate. They are part of a group that has been highly critical of GM crops ahead of time, so they have an ideological axe to grind. They've produced previous studies that were highly criticized as flawed, and totally biased against GM food. And one of the researchers&mdash;and this may explain how horrifically bad their research methods were&mdash;one of the researchers is a homeopath.<br />
<br />
B: Oh boy.<br />
<br />
R: What?<br />
<br />
B: No way.<br />
<br />
R: What?<br />
<br />
S: Dr. Joël Spiroux de Vendômois&mdash;which I probably totally butchered&mdash;is a homeopath. He is a doctor of homeopathy and acupuncture.<br />
<br />
R: What?<br />
<br />
E: Do they have a feng shui specialist on this team as well?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. Which means he's an expert in manipulating data and generating false positives...<br />
<br />
J: (laughs)<br />
<br />
S: ...out of crap. <br />
<br />
R: You have a degree in baloney.<br />
<br />
S: You have a degree in baloney. So that's what we're dealing with. Now apparently, the French media ate it up, and they were like oh, see how horrible GM food is, it's going to kill us everybody, it's just horrible. <br />
<br />
E: Big souffle.<br />
<br />
S: But now, later than other countries, than English-speaking countries, they're starting to pick up on the fact that maybe this study is not something to hang your hat on. So they're sort of catching the second cycle and then trying to make up for their initial utter failure in reporting how crappy this study was.<br />
<br />
B: Scuzi, milli regretti.<br />
<br />
R: French, not Italian.<br />
<br />
B: I know, but I know how to say that in Italian. And it's a movie quote.<br />
<br />
E: It's all quotes, so.<br />
<br />
R: Uh-huh.<br />
<br />
S: Right. So this doesn't say anything about GM food, we had a previous discussion about this on the show. It's a complicated topic. It gets into the precautionary principle, the environmental effects, and is also all of the dealings that Monsanto and other corporations like that do in terms of controlling their seed and how they treat farmers and what not. But, regardless of what you think about all of that, this one study is utter crap. And there really isn't any evidence of any health risks from eating this particular GM corn. It has a gene in there that gives it resistance to Round-Up, so it's a so-called Round-Up-Ready crop so that farmers could then spray their fields with Round-Up in one application to get rid of weeds and it won't affect the crop, so it's very cost effective. There hasn't been any evidence that it causes any... I mean it's been studied sufficiently to get approval for human consumption, that it's safe. So when you have something that's been studied to this degree is probably being consumed by millions or hundreds of millions of people, really, you're going to do a crappy little study with 20 control rats? Then try to alarm the world with risks of this product? That's just completely irresponsible. <br />
<br />
E: What does this say about the Food & Chemical Toxicology Journal? Does a journal like this suffer? <br />
<br />
S: It's a peer review fail. Total peer review fail.<br />
<br />
E: Does this put them in a bad light?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, absolutely. <br />
<br />
E: ...for future reports.<br />
<br />
S: It turns them into a scientific rag, I mean this shows that their editorial filter and peer review filter is inadequate. This never should have been published. This study is a joke. <br />
<br />
B: Yeah but still, people will be citing this study...<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
B: ...for years. They'll be citing, "Hey, this was in a peer-reviewed journal"<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: And lots of people won't remember that it was shit.<br />
<br />
S: You may be right, but we'll see. There was such a science blogger feeding frenzy over this study, that I wonder if that is going to stick. You know, oh, that was that crappy study that was shot down in flames, within hours of being published.<br />
<br />
E: What if this came out 20 years ago before the internet, what would've happened?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
E: It would've gotten out there, and been out there so long before anyone had a chance to really pull it apart the way we have.<br />
<br />
S: Oh I know the turnaround was really quick, within a day or two it was shredded, shredded on the Internet, so. You're right. I think that's one of the good, positive things about the internet was the speed with which this kind of information can be turned over.<br />
<br />
E: Good job, internet.<br />
<br />
=== HIV and Faith Healing <small>(24:22)</small> ===<br />
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-19656649 BBC news: Faith Leaders Across England in 'HIV Healing' Claims<br />
<br />
=== Emoticon Turns 30 <small>(34:22)</small> ===<br />
* [http://digitallife.today.com/_news/2012/09/20/13989898-the-emoticon-is-30-years-old Digital Life, MSN: The Emoticon is 30 Years Old ;-)]<br />
<br />
=== CSICon Private Recording <small>(38:19)</small> ===<br />
* [http://www.skepticalrobot.com/ticket-to-sgu-recording-DC/ SkepticalRobot.com: Ticket to SGU Recording at CSICon]<br />
<br />
== Who's That Noisy <small>(39:42)</small> ==<br />
* Answer to last week: Warp core from Enterprise TNG<br />
<br />
== Interview with Pamela Gay <small>(42:00)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: All right, let's go on to our interview.<br />
<br />
S: Well we are sitting here now at TAM 2012 with Dr. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Gay Pamela Gay], Pamela welcome back to the Skeptics' Guide.<br />
<br />
PG: Well thank you so much for having me on again.<br />
<br />
S: And for those who don't know, Pamela does an amazing podcast called [http://www.astronomycast.com/ Astronomy Cast], one of my favourites, but tell us what you were talking about here at TAM this year.<br />
<br />
PG: Well I was trying mostly to focus on how human beings can do amazing things to make the world better and fix the things that are broken by getting engaged in society. And there are so many different aspects to this, from helping scientists to accomplish science in our current funding crisis by going online and participating in citizen's science, by being aware of things that they can help support through just writing an email. There was a fifth grader a few weeks ago who was forbidden to give a speech on same sex marriage by an extra-ordinarily judgemental principal, and the internet outcry allowed this kid to be able to give his speech in a special assembly. And by simply looking around and saying I'm going to do something to change what bothers me rather than whining about it on Twitter, we're capable of doing really great things as a society, working as individuals.<br />
<br />
S: But whining is so much easier, though.<br />
<br />
PG: And that's the problem. We've all forwarded a tweet about something where someone is articulating something that bothered them, but never taken the moment to do something original, to donate to a cause. One of the things that greatly frustrates me is there's been a few times with [http://365daysofastronomy.org/ 365 Days of Astronomy], which is a community based podcast that I work with, we've put out a call for donations and seen huge numbers of re-tweets and zero donations.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
PG: It's so easy to just forward, to just repeat and so much harder to put your time, your money, your effort into actually doing things that you say matter for you. Imagine if all the time and energy that went into going to some Youtube video where someone's being an idiot and then trolling them for it, instead went into doing something positive to educate people so that they don't become trolls.<br />
<br />
J: So is being a troll a trap? Do you think there's something that attracts people to it, like they get an adrenaline rush or something, what's the driver?<br />
<br />
PG: People want attention. I for a while volunteered as a dog trainer and I went through courses to get trained as a dog.<br />
<br />
S: You got trained as a dog?<br />
<br />
PG: Not trained as a dog, sorry. To get trained as a dog trainer.<br />
<br />
J: (laughs)<br />
<br />
PG: And to think like a dog, which don't conjoin those two sentences, it comes out strangely, I just tried that. And one of the things that they teach you is that some of these animals misbehave horribly, biting, nipping, yapping, peeing on the floor, because they just desperately want attention, they're herd, they're not herd animals, they're pack animals and they, if you have a single dog it's isolated, it wants to feel part of the pack and negative attention is still attention. And trolls, when you feed them by saying you're wrong, you're bad, you're evil, you're wasting my time and you attack them back, you're feeding them, you're giving in to their need for attention, to feel part of the pack. We need to figure out how not to give them that positive reinforcement.<br />
<br />
J: Is it as simple as just ignore?<br />
<br />
PG: I think you sometimes have to do more than just ignore because if you just ignore they're still sitting there and other people are going to give in and feed. I think it's worth taking the half-second before you close that browser window to hit the block, to hit the report as abuse, to hit that button that will eventually alert the social network this is someone we probably need to remove.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah there's a certain threshold of people where you just have to ban people.<br />
<br />
PG: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Because they're, as you said, don't feed the trolls, when you say that, that's feeding the trolls, first of all. You can't talk about not talking about it without talking about it.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: That feeds in to a certain degree. Because they always just escalate their game until someone caves.<br />
<br />
PG: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: The other thing is that, with certain sites, if you're running a science site, and you have somebody there spreading pseudoscience, you can't let it go unanswered so you have this dilemma where you have this rank pseudoscience on a science site that no-one is objecting to, or you have to feed the troll, or you just ban them. So you're almost obligated at some point just to ban people to preserve the integrity of the blog.<br />
<br />
PG: This is something that we have to deal with with with the [http://cosmoquest.org/forum/forum.php CosmoQuest forums] which recently merged with the Bad Astronomy Universe Today forums, and we get a lot of people coming in to the forums and presenting their alternative to the mainstream ideas about science. These are people that are trying to say relativity isn't true or presenting their own alternative ideas, and so we have an [http://cosmoquest.org/forum/forumdisplay.php/17-Against-the-Mainstream area set aside for their discussion], and they're required to answer every question that is given to them, and they're given 30 days to convince people of their idea, and if they can't, they have to be silenced, the thread is closed. So it's a way of confronting it but giving them their own space.<br />
<br />
J: That's interesting, I mean you're basically saying, we're going to allot you time to talk about it but then if it doesn't actually get to the point where it goes above the water line, which I'm curious to know if it ever does...<br />
<br />
PG: So far it hasn't, and this is a forum that has existed within the Bad Astronomy Universe Today named about forums for many many years and when Fraser Cain first set up this part of the forum it was with the hope that maybe some new, novel, interesting idea would come out of it that was real science, and it never has.<br />
<br />
J: Did he come up with that idea?<br />
<br />
PG: I think it was a combination of seeing all of these pseudoscience ideas, seeing all of these alternative ideas being brought forward and getting smashed down in a way that led to flames, trying to create out of all of these flame wars, something positive.<br />
<br />
J: Right. Well I think it's a really cool idea, I'd like actually to come take a look.<br />
<br />
S: In terms of people getting involved in changing the world, which obviously we like to do - we're activists, I do find that people come up to us to talk about us are sorted into one of two categories, there are people who say "you guys should do this".<br />
<br />
PG: Yes.<br />
<br />
S: "You guys should go ahead and do that." My answer is always, yeah that is a good that, you should do that, why don't you do that? We're doing something already. But there are a lot of people who do ask questions at lectures or who come up and talk to us and say "I want to get involved, I want to do something, can you help me do that?" So we don't want to make it seem like other people aren't interested in being activists, but sometimes you just don't know how to get involved.<br />
<br />
PG: There's two different factors, the people who come up to us and say "you need to" make me feel exhausted, because we can only do so much as individuals, but part of what we're seeing is these people see us as strong, powerful people who are capable of enacting change and they don't see themselves that way.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: So we have to empower people to understand that when they see a problem, when they're upset about something, they actually can be that cliché of be the change you want to see in the world. And so we need to somehow facilitate people believing in themselves. And the other side of that is that there are a lot of people who recognise that there's a lot of badness out there and they don't know where to start, it's all so intimidating, they don't know how to get involved, and my advice to these people, is simply find what you're passionate about and then google to find out who's already engaged in combating this. One of my favourite examples is people who get very upset about lesbian/gay/bisexual/queer/transgender issues. I don't remember what order those words are supposed to go in now. There's this fabulous [http://www.itgetsbetter.org/ It Gets Better Project]. So if you see, and people see this on my comment thread because my last name's Gay, so every good comment thread eventually leads to somebody saying "haha this is so gay her last name's gay, you're gay" and it's ridiculous that this is still happening in 2012.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, but that could be an 11 year old right, because it's online.<br />
<br />
PG: It's online and, but...<br />
<br />
J: It was me.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: Just kidding.<br />
<br />
PG: And this is one of those cases where there's clearly still problems, there's that teenage girl killed in Texas for being in love with another girl, and there's already an organisation working hard to do good, to fix things, so find the people who are doing the thing that causes you to stay awake going I can't believe the world is broken in this way, and embrace those people. And if those people aren't already out there doing the thing that makes you passionately hurt so that you want to change the world, be that person, Elyse Anders did that a few years ago, creating the [http://hugmeimvaccinated.org/ Hug Me I'm Vaccinated] program when she realised how much we're losing herd immunity. So you can, if you don't see the people already out there working to make things better, be that person who starts the grass-roots movement.<br />
<br />
J: Or if you don't have the time, or you're just not cut out for it, which let's be honest, some people aren't, like you said earlier though, you can also be a supporter, not just by digesting the content and learning from it, but you can donate and even just sending an email to the people that are doing the work that you really appreciate and thank them and let them know because as someone who receives email where people say hey, I listen and I appreciate it, it fuels us and it really makes a difference. If you're just in an echo chamber and you have no idea if you're having an impact, then you don't know what's going on and you could easily just putter out and not be motivated.<br />
<br />
PG: And in our current society where we're in a position where our government just can't fund the things the way it used to. And I know I personally am in this situation where I'm really worried because I didn't get the grant I was counting on this year, I need to figure out to afford my lead programmer because his funding runs out in December. And all of this is terrifying but then I see hope in things like there are so many individuals who have things that they can share, resources that they can share and they're working so hard to literally build our rocket plane future. NASA right now is underfunded to say the least, but there's so many individuals who made their fortunes in dot coms, working with Amazon, with Google, with PayPal, with these different corporations, and having made their money, they're now saying, I'm going to build the rocket plane future by hiring the engineers, by hiring the space suit designers, and this is where we see [http://www.spacex.com/ SpaceX], [http://www.blueorigin.com/ Blue Origin], [http://www.xcor.com/ XCOR], all these other companies, because someone of means said "I'm going to change the world" and what we have to hope for is that people of means will recognise what we're doing. And "of means" may be one extra dollar, it only takes ten people with one extra dollar to pay for one hour of a student doing something in the lab, and every one dollar can go so far, and maybe some day we'll get lucky and I know we've been lucky with Astronomy Cast, we've Uncle Bob as one of our sponsors, and he supports what we do, spreading the word of astronomy, and you have supporters who support you and we live in an age where it's individuals who fund changing society virally, one idea and campaign at a time. It is one of those strange contradictions of modern society where there's the expectation that with intellectual gifts and content that we should give it away for free and that if we expect to earn money that we are being selfish, that we are - name one of the seven sins. We're somehow taking advantage of society by trying to make a decent living, and there's something wrong with the idea that it's OK for an athlete who entertains on TV and in the sports arena, an actress, all of these people, to get paid huge sums of money to do what they do. One baseball player's salary for one year, for one of the little guys making a million a year, that funds my entire staff, multiple individuals for multiple years, and people see it as wrong that we as academics would like to make a reasonable living, that we as content producers might even put ads on our websites and try not to have to pay out of pocket for our microphones. That's what Fraser and I do, Fraser and I do all of our podcasting out of our own pocket and we pay an audio engineer and we pay someone to do transcripts for us because really if you don't pay someone to do transcripts you're torturing them.<br />
<br />
J: Right, right.<br />
<br />
S: Mmhmm.<br />
<br />
E: Mmhmm.<br />
<br />
J: (laughs).<br />
<br />
PG: And it's...<br />
<br />
J: It's frustrating, and it's something that we've all hit, that we've all hit that wall and it's funny, I was just talking to Brian Dunning about it and you know it's like "yeah, you know it's just another year of throwing the money away, of burning the money on our hobby, quote, unquote hobby". But right now Brian is doing it full time and he's really under the gun he's really working it. So you know, hopefully there are a lot of people that do donate money, even though like you said, a dollar or whatever, and that does count. Of we all, like Bob was saying, would love a bigger infusion so that we don't have to focus on it as much.<br />
<br />
S: You made another point that I thought was very good, the fact that often our listeners, people out there in the public may perceive us as having some kind of special power or access or something, that we can get things done that they can't and I think that, we've marvelled at that too, people come up to us at conferences, they send us emails, and there's this tone that makes it seem like they think like we're all part of one big organisation, which is not the case, we're all just individuals. Or somehow that we have some magical access to government or whatever, it's like "yeah, why aren't you telling the FDA how to fix this?" Because I'm just a citizen. I have no special access to anyone or anything and we just started doing this in our living room, there's absolutely no reason you can't do the exact same thing, it's all just energy and drive you know. But I think that becomes this artificial barrier, that people think that they can't do something or there's something magical about what we're doing.<br />
<br />
PG: And this is where I deeply appreciate the fluffy segments that are at the end of the news so often where they show the 12-year-old who raised a couple of thousand dollars for this foundation or...<br />
<br />
E: At the lemonade stand, yeah.<br />
<br />
PG: Right. And so there's so many small ways and giant ways and I'd encourage everyone to take the time to listen to [http://www.ted.com/talks TED talks], not the ones by the big name academics, but the ones by the individuals who've seen a problem. One of my favourite ones, it's such a simple concept, was realising that there's a serious problem of not having soap in the third world, such a simple thing, not having soap. And then was visiting the United States and seeing that they throw out, and they do this here in the South Point, a bar of soap every day. You open the soap, you use the soap, and the next morning it's gone and you have a new bar of soap. Well he worked out a program to gather up all these hotel soaps, clean them, and redistribute them.<br />
<br />
J: Clean soap?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
PG: I don't know how that part works. Physical scientist, not chemist or biologist.<br />
<br />
B: You need super soap, meta soap.<br />
<br />
J: I think you'd just put water on it and agitate it, get rid of that outer layer.<br />
<br />
PG: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: So Pamela, thanks for being open with us and talking with us, and so of course, always a pleasure to see you at these conferences.<br />
<br />
PG: It was really my pleasure, thank you so much for having me on.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(58:16)</small> ==<br />
[http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2012/halo/ Item #1]: Astronomers may have solved the "missing baryon problem" with the discovery of a halo of hot gas surrounding the Milky Way galaxy.<br />
[http://www.ucalgary.ca/news/utoday/september24-2012/melting Item #2]: This year's peak Arctic ice melt is the greatest since records have been kept, and likely the greatest in a million years.<br />
[http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2012/09/24/a-clock-that-will-last-forever/ Item #3]: Physicists have built a 4-dimensional "space-time crystal" that can be used to keep perfect time until the end of the universe. <br />
<br />
== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:12:10)</small> ==<br />
<blockquote>An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. 'Can they be brought together?' This is a practical question. We must get down to it. 'I despise intelligence' really means: 'I cannot bear my doubts.'</blockquote><br />
Albert Camus<br />
<br />
== Announcements <small>(1:13:40)</small> ==<br />
<br />
{{Outro1}}<br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}}</div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_376&diff=9483SGU Episode 3762014-11-18T06:52:34Z<p>Jason koziol: /* GM Corn Rat Study (13:45) */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Editing required<br />
|transcription = y<br />
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{{InfoBox <br />
|episodeNum = 376<br />
|episodeDate = 29<sup>th</sup> September 2012<br />
|episodeIcon = File:Emoticons.jpg<br />
|rebecca = y<br />
|bob = y<br />
|jay = y<br />
|evan = y<br />
|guest1 = PG: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Gay Pamela Gay]<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2012-09-29.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php?topic=43494.0<br />
|qowText = An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. 'Can they be brought together?' This is a practical question. We must get down to it. 'I despise intelligence' really means: 'I cannot bear my doubts.'<br />
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus Albert Camus]<br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
S: Hello, and welcome to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Today is Monday September 24, 2012 and this is your host <br />
Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella<br />
<br />
B: Hey everybody.<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca Watson<br />
<br />
R: Hello everyone.<br />
<br />
S: Jay Novella<br />
<br />
J: Hey guys.<br />
<br />
S: and Evan Bernstein.<br />
<br />
E: Good morning and/or good evening.<br />
<br />
S: How is everybody today?<br />
<br />
R: Super.<br />
<br />
E: Doing just fine.<br />
<br />
J: Thanks for asking.<br />
<br />
== This Day in Skepticism <small>(0:33)</small> ==<br />
* September 29, 1954: CERN is created<br />
<br />
R: Hey, happy CERN day everybody. Happy CERN day.<br />
<br />
B: What does that mean?<br />
<br />
R: That means, on [[September 29]]th 1954 the convention establishing CERN was signed. CERN of course being the European organization for nuclear research. That's the English equivalent. I'm not going to attempt the French, 'cause I don't want to get angry emails.<br />
<br />
J: Rebecca, I was con''cern''ed that you were going to forget.<br />
<br />
R: Forget that it is CERN day?<br />
<br />
J: Year, I was con'''''cern'''''ed.<br />
<br />
B: Ah, yes...<br />
<br />
J: Nothing, huh? Okay.<br />
<br />
R: ''Cern''tailly that's not an issue.<br />
<br />
J: (laughter) You mean, my joke was so bad, that I'm hurtin' for ''cern''tain.<br />
<br />
S: (laughter) Alright... So, this is also the one year anniversary - or at least September 24th when we're recording this - of the first SGU 24 hour live broadcast.<br />
<br />
J: Oh, boy, that was awesome.<br />
<br />
E: Remember that?<br />
<br />
S: Have you guys recovered yet?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Has it only been a year? Seems like yesterday.<br />
<br />
J: Barely...<br />
<br />
B: Evan, we don't need to sleep, right?<br />
<br />
E: Nah. I'll sleep when I'm dead.<br />
<br />
J: I think that was the hardest project I ever did in my life.<br />
<br />
E: It was a test of endurance, will and -<br />
<br />
R: Well, until that baby comes out.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, that's right.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, yeah.. (laughter)<br />
<br />
B: So far, every convention people come up to me like "Do another SGU 24." and I always say, "You know what? I wouldn't mind doing it again, but I don't think we could convince anyone else to do it." And I tell everyone, maybe we'll do like SGU six hours or four hours or something like that. I think if we ever do it, that's what it would have to be.<br />
<br />
R: SGU four hours is a normal night of recording for us.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, that's right.<br />
<br />
E: Well yeah, actually it is.<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Ig Nobels 2012 <small>(2:18)</small> ===<br />
* [http://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/ Improbable Research]<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca, have you checked out the IG nobel winners for 2012?<br />
<br />
R: I have indeed, actually. I'm sad I no longer live in Boston, because Ig Nobels were my favorite time of year. If you ever get a chance to actually go and see them in person, I highly recommend it. It's a hilarious evening of science and fun. So yeah, this years winners, much like previous years, are absolutely delightful. So for those of our listeners, who are not familiar with Ig Nobels, the idea is that they give out awards to science that first makes you laugh and then makes you think. Some Ig Nobels are occasionally given out tongue-in-cheek to idiots and speudoscientists, but for the most part they are given to actual scientists doing actual scientific research that is completely ridiculous. So, for instance, this year the psychology prize went to two scientists for their study "Leaning to the Left Makes the Eiffel Tower Seem Smaller". <br />
<br />
E: As opposed to the right, I suppose.<br />
<br />
R: My personal favorite prize was the acoustics prize, which went to two Japanese researchers who created something called the speech-jammer, which is the most brilliant device I think that has ever been created and it's something that when I describe it will be immediately familiar to everybody currently on this show. This is something that anybody deals with audio, who has spoken into a microphones while wearing headphones and have something go wrong, you know exactly what this does. So, the speech jammer disrupt a person's speech by forcing them to hear their own words at a very slight delay. So, the... Basically what it is, it's a large gun that looks kind of like - I've seen it refereded to like an Xbox-like device - and there's a microphone on it. You point it to someone who is talking. And the microphone picks up their words and then delays what they're saying by a few hundred milliseconds and then feeds it back out trough a speaker directly at them. And everything is direction sensitive, so that the speaker is the only person who can really get the effect. <br />
<br />
B: Are they aware that they are hearing their voice on a delay?<br />
<br />
E: Oh, year.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, I'm sure they are but there is a -<br />
<br />
E: That's the point<br />
<br />
R: There is a video showing it in action and... there is one part of the video that focuses on a professor, and he is giving a lecture at the front of the room and somebody does it to him, and he kind of freaks out because he thinks that something in the lecture hall is going wrong. Like his microphone is messed up or the projector is messing something up. It really makes him stop talking like immediately. It's so difficult to listen to yourself echoing, while continuing to talk.<br />
<br />
B : Have you guys ever experienced that?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, all the time.<br />
<br />
S: During the SGU 24 show, we were doing interviews -<br />
<br />
R: Oh, god, that's right.<br />
<br />
S: there was that half a second delay and it was almost impossible to talk. I had to take the headphones off to get a sentence out.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it was hard. You become hyper-aware of what you're saying and you're completely unable to function.<br />
<br />
E: That's funny, Steve. What's going on in the brain at that point? So, the brain is- you're trying to create speech and at the same time interpret- your brain is also at the same time interpreting its own speech and trying to -<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think so. It's -<br />
<br />
E: - make it fit together?<br />
<br />
S: it just can't process two speech streams at the same time. So -<br />
<br />
B: I think it's a little more complicated than that, though, because one of the things that people do by instinct is... we're able to filter out ambient noise. So if you're in a room with five or ten or more people talking you can kind of just ignore it. But you can't ignore that. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah..<br />
<br />
E: It's the sound of your own voice.<br />
<br />
B: There's something different about it. You can't ignore it just sweep it aside like you can other speech. It's something that just like short-circuits your brain.<br />
<br />
E: And hearing yourself so close to the words that you've just spoken, right, the timing sure is -<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, the timing is -<br />
<br />
E: They've homed in the timing to be effective in this regard.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, I wonder if they slowly increase the delay, what the effect would be. Would you reach a threshold where you could totally deal with it? You probably could.<br />
<br />
J: Absolutely, Bob, it's a sweet-spot and they figured out the sweet-spot and then they figured out the delivery mechanism, like how to shoot that sound back at one person or to a very small area. So it ''is'' kind of like a gun. Right, Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it looks like a big chunky gun. With a microphone and a speaker on it.<br />
<br />
J: But the funny thing about this is that there really isn't any point to it, other than... what? Like is it just a prank?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, in the abstract they say "We discuss practical application scenarios of this system such as facilitating and controlling discussions." Which is just a polite, sciency way to say "making people shut up". A bunch of kids, you know, studying in a lab and a girl pulls out her cell phone and starts talking and somebody pulls out the gun and she just immediately stops.<br />
<br />
E: Has to stop.<br />
<br />
R: So, I mean. I think everybody can think of a million practical applications for this item. Just maybe not so much in the terms of furthering human evolution... or knowledge of the universe.<br />
<br />
S: I think we talked about the neuroscience prize on the show.<br />
<br />
R: We did. Yeah. And it surprised me because I assumed that these guys got the prize years earlier because this study came out in 2009. It's the study that shows that you can pick up meaningful brain activity using fMRI from absolutely anything. Even a dead salmon. So these researchers stuck a dead salmon in an fMRI and found, what they would classify as meaningful brain activity. Which really is a fantastic study, because it throws into disarray so many previous studies that claim to show really amazing results by finding, you know, certain spots of the brain that are meant to be certain types of thought and things like that. This sort of throws all that out the window in a way, because it makes you realize that brain researchers, unfortunately, can quite easily just see what they want to see in fMRI results sometimes.<br />
<br />
S: But there was a very specific statistical argument that they made. It doesn't necessarily invalidate all fMRI research, just that those that use poor technique. Now, what specifically they were saying is, that because you're looking at so much information - with fMI - you can number crunch tons of comparisons, and it becomes almost a certainty that you will find false-positives among those comparisons - unless you correct for multiple comparisons. You use a statistical fix for multiple analyses. So, if you do the proper statistical analysis, then the results can still be robust and statistically legitimate. But it's also just trivially easy to produce false-positives by failing to do that basic statistical correction. And that's something we see all the time, not just in fMRI studies. It's just that the number of comparisons that you can do with this kind of data is so huge that it particularly lends itself to this kind of statistical error.<br />
<br />
R: Yep.<br />
<br />
S: Got it?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: Got it.<br />
<br />
R: I was also particularly impressed by the literature prize. I'm going to read directly from the Ig Nobel description of it. "The US Government General Accountability Office, for issuing a report about reports about reports that recommends the preparation of a report about the report about reports about reports."<br />
<br />
S: Uh-huh.<br />
<br />
R: Yep.<br />
<br />
S: Ah, bureaucracy.<br />
<br />
R: The fluid-dynamics prize went to some researchers who studied how your coffee sloshes around when you walk.<br />
<br />
B: I hate that.<br />
<br />
R:"Walking With Coffee: Why Does It Spill?"<br />
<br />
E: That's why they invented lids.<br />
<br />
R: The anatomy prize went to "Faces and Behinds: Chimpanzee Sex Perception". These researchers from the Netherlands and the US found that chimpanzees can identify other chimps from seeing photographs of their butts. <br />
<br />
R: The medicine prize was... terrifying. It went to French researchers who did some research advising doctors who perform colonoscopies how to minimize the chance that their patients will explode.<br />
<br />
B: Wait, what?<br />
<br />
R: The paper was called "Colonic Gas Explosion During Therapeutic Colonoscopy with Electrocautery". Steve, you can, your butt can explode during a colonoscopy? That's terrifying.<br />
<br />
S: I think Jay has more expertise on this area than I do.<br />
<br />
E: Ah, ha.<br />
<br />
J: Just because I do what my doctor says. You know, he says it's time to go get an exam, I get the exam. What am I going to say? No?<br />
<br />
S: That wasn't my point.<br />
<br />
R: That's not where he was going with that...<br />
<br />
S: This has to do with explosive gas that builds up in your colon, and that gas can get to a sufficient concentration to be explosive. And then you can trigger it with electrocautery. A little spark can actually ignite the methane that builds up in your colon and explode it. It doesn't have to be a big explosion to cause some serious damage. <br />
<br />
J: Why would you do that? Why would you -<br />
<br />
R: I don't think they're doing it on purpose, Jay.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, but after it happens, like once... You figure they'd stop doing it, right?<br />
<br />
R: They still have to cauterize.<br />
<br />
S: Stop doing colonoscopy with electrocautery? It's a rare complication, so what they're essentially saying, just do a really good prep, you know a good colonic cleansing, before you do colonoscopy with electrocautery to minimize the chance of explosion. <br />
<br />
B: Holy crap, how can I never ever hear of that.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, don't you wish you could unhear it?<br />
<br />
J: I'm terrified now!<br />
<br />
B: No, I want to see a video tape of it.<br />
<br />
R: There is something wrong with you guys.<br />
<br />
B: (laughter)<br />
<br />
R: That is not cool.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, does that kill them?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, that's what I'm saying, it's a horrible way to die.<br />
<br />
J: How embarrassing... "What did your brother die from? -Well, he was getting an exam, and his whole ass blew up." Seriously!<br />
<br />
R: Well, hopefully it wont happen as much anymore thanks to the Ig Nobel winners. <br />
<br />
S: Apparently there were 20 cases of colonic gas explosion identified in the literature. Nine of them were complicated by colon perforation. <br />
<br />
R: Like it was perforated before?<br />
<br />
S: No, no. The explosion caused perforation. <br />
<br />
R: Oh.<br />
<br />
E: Well, yeah, you would think, at the minimum.<br />
<br />
S: One of those was fatal. So, one person died. Well, thanks, Rebecca. The Ig Nobels are always fascinating.<br />
<br />
=== GM Corn Rat Study <small>(13:45)</small> ===<br />
* [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-gm-corn-rat-study/ Neurologica: The GM Corn Rat Study]<br />
<br />
S: So this next study that we're going to talk about didn't win an Ig Nobel. Maybe for next year. But this has got to be one of the worst studies I've run across in a long time. The number of different specific criticisms I've come across of this study is staggering. Have you guys heard? This has been, actually quite prominent in the media. This is one of those studies that numerous, numerous listeners have emailed us about. The French study looking at the effects of GM Corn in rats, concluding that, um, the Round-Up ready GM Corn increases the risk of getting tumors. Have you guys heard about this?<br />
<br />
J: No.<br />
<br />
R: How could we not. <br />
<br />
B: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: It was everywhere.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it was everywhere. So the researchers said that this is alarming, obviously that GM Corn can be increasing the risk of breast cancer in women and other tumors, based upon this study. The French media seemed to completely buy their alarmism based upon this research. But American media was pretty skeptical from the get-go, but they didn't really give a good impression of how horrible this study was. The thing that was most suspicious in the initial reporting was the fact that the researchers would not allow... So it's very typical to send out a press release about a news item and to embargo it until a certain time. So you give the reporters a chance to look it over and write their story and then at a certain date and time, then you can publish the news story. This gives the scientists an opportunity to do a press conference or whatever it is they're doing. Of course if you violate the embargo you're probably not going to be given future pre-releases of press releases. In any case what the researchers did was they sent the embargoed press release to the media but they specifically prohibited journalists from seeking outside comment on the paper before it was published.<br />
<br />
E: That's outside the norm.<br />
<br />
S: It was very unusual. So they basically told the journalists, here's our research, we want you to report on it, but we don't want you to do your job as journalists and ask anybody else what they think about it. Just publish our interpretation of our own study.<br />
<br />
B: Wow.<br />
<br />
R: That's amazing, that that can even happen.<br />
<br />
B: Can they make us do that?<br />
<br />
S: Well it's... what do you mean by 'make them'? You know they...<br />
<br />
B: Did they make them sign a p... saying, you can come and listen to this but uh...<br />
<br />
R: But no the beauty of an embargo is that, they can't enforce it at all, all they can do is if a journalist breaks the embargo they can go on a shit list, and then they never get the tip-offs again.<br />
<br />
B: Well who cares of they're on their shit list?<br />
<br />
E: And for a piece of crap like this.<br />
<br />
R: Well, unfortunately it matters to a lot of journalists, particularly the overworked type I'm imagining at, you know, larger newspapers who are mostly just printing press releases and things and don't really have time to dig into this stuff. And not really have much interest in pissing off the people who are feeding them the easy science news.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
R: But that said, there are plenty of journalists who do break embargos because of things like that. I know Ben Goldacre has tweeted some of the idiotic things researchers will do with embargos that journalists happily say, "go screw yourself," to.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
E: (laughs)<br />
<br />
S: It's all honor system, but of course, if you don't care about the particular institution or researchers, you're under no obligation to follow the embargo. In this case I would've told them to screw off, and just did what I normally do, you know. But it didn't take long for scientific news outlets, like the New Scientist, and science bloggers to be all over this study, and there was just an avalanche of withering criticism. For example, here are some of the specific criticisms of the study. "The population of rats that they were using have a high propensity for tumors."<br />
<br />
R: Hm<br />
<br />
B: O-kay<br />
<br />
E: ..animals used<br />
<br />
S: It's really easy to get them to have tumors. One way to get them to have tumors is to overfeed them. And the researchers didn't indicate the total food intake for any of their groups.<br />
<br />
B: t...esting<br />
<br />
S: There were only 20 rats in the control group. And they had a lower tumor rate than is historically typical, for this population of rats.<br />
<br />
R: Hm<br />
<br />
E: The control group<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. The control group had an artificially low rate of tumors. The data only reported that some of the test groups had a higher tumor incidence while others did not. So they essentially cherry-picked the data that showed a higher incidence, and in fact there was one group that showed a lower incidence with the highest amount of GM Corn. There was no dose-response, so there was no relationship between how much corn they ate and the risk of tumor. They also looked at exposure to Round-Up, the herbicide, which had the same effect as eating the corn that had the gene that was resistant to the herbicide. Which makes no sense. It's completely different mechanisms that produce the same effect. They did not control for fungal contaminants, something else that also can cause tumors in the same population of rats. And they did not use standard statistical analysis; instead they used some completely made-up unusual statistical analyis, that Tom Sanders, who's a researcher, characterized it as a "statistical fishing trip" in the New Scientist.<br />
<br />
B: Holy crap<br />
<br />
R: Ouch.<br />
<br />
E: This ended up in a peer-reviewed journal?<br />
<br />
S: Yes. Amazingly, yes. This is just the tip of the iceberg. I mean, every time somebody else takes a look at it they're like, oh my god, look at what else they did. There were just so many other problems with this study. The study is uninterpretable, and utter nonsense.<br />
<br />
B: Was it done on purpose?<br />
<br />
E: Maybe it's a spoof. Maybe they're having a joke on all of us.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: No. You'd like to think that, but no.<br />
<br />
J: So whats the result gonna be, Steve? What happens to these people?<br />
<br />
S: Well they're getting roundly criticized. I don't know why anybody would take them seriously. These researchers are suspect right out of the gate. They are part of a group that has been highly critical of GM crops ahead of time, so they have an ideological axe to grind. They've produced previous studies that were highly criticized as flawed, and totally biased against GM food. And one of the researchers&mdash;and this may explain how horrifically bad their research methods were&mdash;one of the researchers is a homeopath.<br />
<br />
B: Oh boy.<br />
<br />
R: What?<br />
<br />
B: No way.<br />
<br />
R: What?<br />
<br />
S: Dr. Joël Spiroux de Vendômois&mdash;which I probably totally butchered&mdash;is a homeopath. He is a doctor of homeopathy and acupuncture.<br />
<br />
R: What?<br />
<br />
E: Do they have a feng shui specialist on this team as well?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. Which means he's an expert in manipulating data and generating false positives...<br />
<br />
J: (laughs)<br />
<br />
S: ...out of crap. <br />
<br />
R: Fried green baloney.<br />
<br />
S: You have a degree in baloney. So that's what we're dealing with. Now apparently, the French media ate it up, and they were like oh, see how horrible GM food is, it's going to kill us everybody, it's just horrible. <br />
<br />
E: Big souffle.<br />
<br />
S: But now, later than other countries, than English-speaking countries, they're starting to pick up on the fact that maybe this study is not something to hang your hat on. So they're sort of catching the second cycle and then trying to make up for their initial utter failure in reporting how crappy this study was.<br />
<br />
B: Scuzi, milli regretti.<br />
<br />
R: French, not Italian.<br />
<br />
B: I know, but I know how to say that in Italian. And it's a movie quote.<br />
<br />
E: It's all quotes, so.<br />
<br />
R: Uh-huh.<br />
<br />
S: Right. So this doesn't say anything about GM food, we had a previous discussion about this on the show. It's a complicated topic. It gets into the precautionary principle, the environmental effects, and is also all of the dealings that Monsanto and other corporations like that do in terms of controlling their seed and how they treat farmers and what not. But, regardless of what you think about all of that, this one study is utter crap. And there really isn't any evidence of any health risks from eating this particular GM corn. It has a gene in there that gives it resistance to Round-Up, so it's a so-called Round-Up-Ready crop so that farmers could then spray their fields with Round-Up in one application to get rid of weeds and it won't affect the crop, so it's very cost effective. There hasn't been any evidence that it causes any... I mean it's been studied sufficiently to get approval for human consumption, that it's safe. So when you have something that's been studied to this degree is probably being consumed by millions or hundreds of millions of people, really, you're going to do a crappy little study with 20 control rats? Then try to alarm the world with risks of this product? That's just completely irresponsible. <br />
<br />
E: What does this say about the Food & Chemical Toxicology Journal? Does a journal like this suffer? <br />
<br />
S: It's a peer review fail. Total peer review fail.<br />
<br />
E: Does this put them in a bad light?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, absolutely. <br />
<br />
E: ...for future reports.<br />
<br />
S: It turns them into a scientific rag, I mean this shows that their editorial filter and peer review filter is inadequate. This never should have been published. This study is a joke. <br />
<br />
B: Yeah but still, people will be citing this study...<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
B: ...for years. They'll be citing, "Hey, this was in a peer-reviewed journal"<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: And lots of people won't remember that it was shit.<br />
<br />
S: You may be right, but we'll see. There was such a science blogger feeding frenzy over this study, that I wonder if that is going to stick. You know, oh, that was that crappy study that was shot down in flames, within hours of being published.<br />
<br />
E: What if this came out 20 years ago before the internet, what would've happened?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
E: It would've gotten out there, and been out there so long before anyone had a chance to really pull it apart the way we have.<br />
<br />
S: Oh I know the turnaround was really quick, within a day or two it was shredded, shredded on the Internet, so. You're right. I think that's one of the good, positive things about the internet was the speed with which this kind of information can be turned over.<br />
<br />
E: Good job, internet.<br />
<br />
=== HIV and Faith Healing <small>(24:22)</small> ===<br />
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-19656649 BBC news: Faith Leaders Across England in 'HIV Healing' Claims<br />
<br />
=== Emoticon Turns 30 <small>(34:22)</small> ===<br />
* [http://digitallife.today.com/_news/2012/09/20/13989898-the-emoticon-is-30-years-old Digital Life, MSN: The Emoticon is 30 Years Old ;-)]<br />
<br />
=== CSICon Private Recording <small>(38:19)</small> ===<br />
* [http://www.skepticalrobot.com/ticket-to-sgu-recording-DC/ SkepticalRobot.com: Ticket to SGU Recording at CSICon]<br />
<br />
== Who's That Noisy <small>(39:42)</small> ==<br />
* Answer to last week: Warp core from Enterprise TNG<br />
<br />
== Interview with Pamela Gay <small>(42:00)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: All right, let's go on to our interview.<br />
<br />
S: Well we are sitting here now at TAM 2012 with Dr. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Gay Pamela Gay], Pamela welcome back to the Skeptics' Guide.<br />
<br />
PG: Well thank you so much for having me on again.<br />
<br />
S: And for those who don't know, Pamela does an amazing podcast called [http://www.astronomycast.com/ Astronomy Cast], one of my favourites, but tell us what you were talking about here at TAM this year.<br />
<br />
PG: Well I was trying mostly to focus on how human beings can do amazing things to make the world better and fix the things that are broken by getting engaged in society. And there are so many different aspects to this, from helping scientists to accomplish science in our current funding crisis by going online and participating in citizen's science, by being aware of things that they can help support through just writing an email. There was a fifth grader a few weeks ago who was forbidden to give a speech on same sex marriage by an extra-ordinarily judgemental principal, and the internet outcry allowed this kid to be able to give his speech in a special assembly. And by simply looking around and saying I'm going to do something to change what bothers me rather than whining about it on Twitter, we're capable of doing really great things as a society, working as individuals.<br />
<br />
S: But whining is so much easier, though.<br />
<br />
PG: And that's the problem. We've all forwarded a tweet about something where someone is articulating something that bothered them, but never taken the moment to do something original, to donate to a cause. One of the things that greatly frustrates me is there's been a few times with [http://365daysofastronomy.org/ 365 Days of Astronomy], which is a community based podcast that I work with, we've put out a call for donations and seen huge numbers of re-tweets and zero donations.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
PG: It's so easy to just forward, to just repeat and so much harder to put your time, your money, your effort into actually doing things that you say matter for you. Imagine if all the time and energy that went into going to some Youtube video where someone's being an idiot and then trolling them for it, instead went into doing something positive to educate people so that they don't become trolls.<br />
<br />
J: So is being a troll a trap? Do you think there's something that attracts people to it, like they get an adrenaline rush or something, what's the driver?<br />
<br />
PG: People want attention. I for a while volunteered as a dog trainer and I went through courses to get trained as a dog.<br />
<br />
S: You got trained as a dog?<br />
<br />
PG: Not trained as a dog, sorry. To get trained as a dog trainer.<br />
<br />
J: (laughs)<br />
<br />
PG: And to think like a dog, which don't conjoin those two sentences, it comes out strangely, I just tried that. And one of the things that they teach you is that some of these animals misbehave horribly, biting, nipping, yapping, peeing on the floor, because they just desperately want attention, they're herd, they're not herd animals, they're pack animals and they, if you have a single dog it's isolated, it wants to feel part of the pack and negative attention is still attention. And trolls, when you feed them by saying you're wrong, you're bad, you're evil, you're wasting my time and you attack them back, you're feeding them, you're giving in to their need for attention, to feel part of the pack. We need to figure out how not to give them that positive reinforcement.<br />
<br />
J: Is it as simple as just ignore?<br />
<br />
PG: I think you sometimes have to do more than just ignore because if you just ignore they're still sitting there and other people are going to give in and feed. I think it's worth taking the half-second before you close that browser window to hit the block, to hit the report as abuse, to hit that button that will eventually alert the social network this is someone we probably need to remove.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah there's a certain threshold of people where you just have to ban people.<br />
<br />
PG: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Because they're, as you said, don't feed the trolls, when you say that, that's feeding the trolls, first of all. You can't talk about not talking about it without talking about it.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: That feeds in to a certain degree. Because they always just escalate their game until someone caves.<br />
<br />
PG: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: The other thing is that, with certain sites, if you're running a science site, and you have somebody there spreading pseudoscience, you can't let it go unanswered so you have this dilemma where you have this rank pseudoscience on a science site that no-one is objecting to, or you have to feed the troll, or you just ban them. So you're almost obligated at some point just to ban people to preserve the integrity of the blog.<br />
<br />
PG: This is something that we have to deal with with with the [http://cosmoquest.org/forum/forum.php CosmoQuest forums] which recently merged with the Bad Astronomy Universe Today forums, and we get a lot of people coming in to the forums and presenting their alternative to the mainstream ideas about science. These are people that are trying to say relativity isn't true or presenting their own alternative ideas, and so we have an [http://cosmoquest.org/forum/forumdisplay.php/17-Against-the-Mainstream area set aside for their discussion], and they're required to answer every question that is given to them, and they're given 30 days to convince people of their idea, and if they can't, they have to be silenced, the thread is closed. So it's a way of confronting it but giving them their own space.<br />
<br />
J: That's interesting, I mean you're basically saying, we're going to allot you time to talk about it but then if it doesn't actually get to the point where it goes above the water line, which I'm curious to know if it ever does...<br />
<br />
PG: So far it hasn't, and this is a forum that has existed within the Bad Astronomy Universe Today named about forums for many many years and when Fraser Cain first set up this part of the forum it was with the hope that maybe some new, novel, interesting idea would come out of it that was real science, and it never has.<br />
<br />
J: Did he come up with that idea?<br />
<br />
PG: I think it was a combination of seeing all of these pseudoscience ideas, seeing all of these alternative ideas being brought forward and getting smashed down in a way that led to flames, trying to create out of all of these flame wars, something positive.<br />
<br />
J: Right. Well I think it's a really cool idea, I'd like actually to come take a look.<br />
<br />
S: In terms of people getting involved in changing the world, which obviously we like to do - we're activists, I do find that people come up to us to talk about us are sorted into one of two categories, there are people who say "you guys should do this".<br />
<br />
PG: Yes.<br />
<br />
S: "You guys should go ahead and do that." My answer is always, yeah that is a good that, you should do that, why don't you do that? We're doing something already. But there are a lot of people who do ask questions at lectures or who come up and talk to us and say "I want to get involved, I want to do something, can you help me do that?" So we don't want to make it seem like other people aren't interested in being activists, but sometimes you just don't know how to get involved.<br />
<br />
PG: There's two different factors, the people who come up to us and say "you need to" make me feel exhausted, because we can only do so much as individuals, but part of what we're seeing is these people see us as strong, powerful people who are capable of enacting change and they don't see themselves that way.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: So we have to empower people to understand that when they see a problem, when they're upset about something, they actually can be that cliché of be the change you want to see in the world. And so we need to somehow facilitate people believing in themselves. And the other side of that is that there are a lot of people who recognise that there's a lot of badness out there and they don't know where to start, it's all so intimidating, they don't know how to get involved, and my advice to these people, is simply find what you're passionate about and then google to find out who's already engaged in combating this. One of my favourite examples is people who get very upset about lesbian/gay/bisexual/queer/transgender issues. I don't remember what order those words are supposed to go in now. There's this fabulous [http://www.itgetsbetter.org/ It Gets Better Project]. So if you see, and people see this on my comment thread because my last name's Gay, so every good comment thread eventually leads to somebody saying "haha this is so gay her last name's gay, you're gay" and it's ridiculous that this is still happening in 2012.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, but that could be an 11 year old right, because it's online.<br />
<br />
PG: It's online and, but...<br />
<br />
J: It was me.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: Just kidding.<br />
<br />
PG: And this is one of those cases where there's clearly still problems, there's that teenage girl killed in Texas for being in love with another girl, and there's already an organisation working hard to do good, to fix things, so find the people who are doing the thing that causes you to stay awake going I can't believe the world is broken in this way, and embrace those people. And if those people aren't already out there doing the thing that makes you passionately hurt so that you want to change the world, be that person, Elyse Anders did that a few years ago, creating the [http://hugmeimvaccinated.org/ Hug Me I'm Vaccinated] program when she realised how much we're losing herd immunity. So you can, if you don't see the people already out there working to make things better, be that person who starts the grass-roots movement.<br />
<br />
J: Or if you don't have the time, or you're just not cut out for it, which let's be honest, some people aren't, like you said earlier though, you can also be a supporter, not just by digesting the content and learning from it, but you can donate and even just sending an email to the people that are doing the work that you really appreciate and thank them and let them know because as someone who receives email where people say hey, I listen and I appreciate it, it fuels us and it really makes a difference. If you're just in an echo chamber and you have no idea if you're having an impact, then you don't know what's going on and you could easily just putter out and not be motivated.<br />
<br />
PG: And in our current society where we're in a position where our government just can't fund the things the way it used to. And I know I personally am in this situation where I'm really worried because I didn't get the grant I was counting on this year, I need to figure out to afford my lead programmer because his funding runs out in December. And all of this is terrifying but then I see hope in things like there are so many individuals who have things that they can share, resources that they can share and they're working so hard to literally build our rocket plane future. NASA right now is underfunded to say the least, but there's so many individuals who made their fortunes in dot coms, working with Amazon, with Google, with PayPal, with these different corporations, and having made their money, they're now saying, I'm going to build the rocket plane future by hiring the engineers, by hiring the space suit designers, and this is where we see [http://www.spacex.com/ SpaceX], [http://www.blueorigin.com/ Blue Origin], [http://www.xcor.com/ XCOR], all these other companies, because someone of means said "I'm going to change the world" and what we have to hope for is that people of means will recognise what we're doing. And "of means" may be one extra dollar, it only takes ten people with one extra dollar to pay for one hour of a student doing something in the lab, and every one dollar can go so far, and maybe some day we'll get lucky and I know we've been lucky with Astronomy Cast, we've Uncle Bob as one of our sponsors, and he supports what we do, spreading the word of astronomy, and you have supporters who support you and we live in an age where it's individuals who fund changing society virally, one idea and campaign at a time. It is one of those strange contradictions of modern society where there's the expectation that with intellectual gifts and content that we should give it away for free and that if we expect to earn money that we are being selfish, that we are - name one of the seven sins. We're somehow taking advantage of society by trying to make a decent living, and there's something wrong with the idea that it's OK for an athlete who entertains on TV and in the sports arena, an actress, all of these people, to get paid huge sums of money to do what they do. One baseball player's salary for one year, for one of the little guys making a million a year, that funds my entire staff, multiple individuals for multiple years, and people see it as wrong that we as academics would like to make a reasonable living, that we as content producers might even put ads on our websites and try not to have to pay out of pocket for our microphones. That's what Fraser and I do, Fraser and I do all of our podcasting out of our own pocket and we pay an audio engineer and we pay someone to do transcripts for us because really if you don't pay someone to do transcripts you're torturing them.<br />
<br />
J: Right, right.<br />
<br />
S: Mmhmm.<br />
<br />
E: Mmhmm.<br />
<br />
J: (laughs).<br />
<br />
PG: And it's...<br />
<br />
J: It's frustrating, and it's something that we've all hit, that we've all hit that wall and it's funny, I was just talking to Brian Dunning about it and you know it's like "yeah, you know it's just another year of throwing the money away, of burning the money on our hobby, quote, unquote hobby". But right now Brian is doing it full time and he's really under the gun he's really working it. So you know, hopefully there are a lot of people that do donate money, even though like you said, a dollar or whatever, and that does count. Of we all, like Bob was saying, would love a bigger infusion so that we don't have to focus on it as much.<br />
<br />
S: You made another point that I thought was very good, the fact that often our listeners, people out there in the public may perceive us as having some kind of special power or access or something, that we can get things done that they can't and I think that, we've marvelled at that too, people come up to us at conferences, they send us emails, and there's this tone that makes it seem like they think like we're all part of one big organisation, which is not the case, we're all just individuals. Or somehow that we have some magical access to government or whatever, it's like "yeah, why aren't you telling the FDA how to fix this?" Because I'm just a citizen. I have no special access to anyone or anything and we just started doing this in our living room, there's absolutely no reason you can't do the exact same thing, it's all just energy and drive you know. But I think that becomes this artificial barrier, that people think that they can't do something or there's something magical about what we're doing.<br />
<br />
PG: And this is where I deeply appreciate the fluffy segments that are at the end of the news so often where they show the 12-year-old who raised a couple of thousand dollars for this foundation or...<br />
<br />
E: At the lemonade stand, yeah.<br />
<br />
PG: Right. And so there's so many small ways and giant ways and I'd encourage everyone to take the time to listen to [http://www.ted.com/talks TED talks], not the ones by the big name academics, but the ones by the individuals who've seen a problem. One of my favourite ones, it's such a simple concept, was realising that there's a serious problem of not having soap in the third world, such a simple thing, not having soap. And then was visiting the United States and seeing that they throw out, and they do this here in the South Point, a bar of soap every day. You open the soap, you use the soap, and the next morning it's gone and you have a new bar of soap. Well he worked out a program to gather up all these hotel soaps, clean them, and redistribute them.<br />
<br />
J: Clean soap?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
PG: I don't know how that part works. Physical scientist, not chemist or biologist.<br />
<br />
B: You need super soap, meta soap.<br />
<br />
J: I think you'd just put water on it and agitate it, get rid of that outer layer.<br />
<br />
PG: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: So Pamela, thanks for being open with us and talking with us, and so of course, always a pleasure to see you at these conferences.<br />
<br />
PG: It was really my pleasure, thank you so much for having me on.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(58:16)</small> ==<br />
[http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2012/halo/ Item #1]: Astronomers may have solved the "missing baryon problem" with the discovery of a halo of hot gas surrounding the Milky Way galaxy.<br />
[http://www.ucalgary.ca/news/utoday/september24-2012/melting Item #2]: This year's peak Arctic ice melt is the greatest since records have been kept, and likely the greatest in a million years.<br />
[http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2012/09/24/a-clock-that-will-last-forever/ Item #3]: Physicists have built a 4-dimensional "space-time crystal" that can be used to keep perfect time until the end of the universe. <br />
<br />
== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:12:10)</small> ==<br />
<blockquote>An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. 'Can they be brought together?' This is a practical question. We must get down to it. 'I despise intelligence' really means: 'I cannot bear my doubts.'</blockquote><br />
Albert Camus<br />
<br />
== Announcements <small>(1:13:40)</small> ==<br />
<br />
{{Outro1}}<br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}}</div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_376&diff=9482SGU Episode 3762014-11-18T06:44:45Z<p>Jason koziol: /* GM Corn Rat Study (13:45) */</p>
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|episodeDate = 29<sup>th</sup> September 2012<br />
|episodeIcon = File:Emoticons.jpg<br />
|rebecca = y<br />
|bob = y<br />
|jay = y<br />
|evan = y<br />
|guest1 = PG: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Gay Pamela Gay]<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2012-09-29.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php?topic=43494.0<br />
|qowText = An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. 'Can they be brought together?' This is a practical question. We must get down to it. 'I despise intelligence' really means: 'I cannot bear my doubts.'<br />
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus Albert Camus]<br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
S: Hello, and welcome to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Today is Monday September 24, 2012 and this is your host <br />
Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella<br />
<br />
B: Hey everybody.<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca Watson<br />
<br />
R: Hello everyone.<br />
<br />
S: Jay Novella<br />
<br />
J: Hey guys.<br />
<br />
S: and Evan Bernstein.<br />
<br />
E: Good morning and/or good evening.<br />
<br />
S: How is everybody today?<br />
<br />
R: Super.<br />
<br />
E: Doing just fine.<br />
<br />
J: Thanks for asking.<br />
<br />
== This Day in Skepticism <small>(0:33)</small> ==<br />
* September 29, 1954: CERN is created<br />
<br />
R: Hey, happy CERN day everybody. Happy CERN day.<br />
<br />
B: What does that mean?<br />
<br />
R: That means, on [[September 29]]th 1954 the convention establishing CERN was signed. CERN of course being the European organization for nuclear research. That's the English equivalent. I'm not going to attempt the French, 'cause I don't want to get angry emails.<br />
<br />
J: Rebecca, I was con''cern''ed that you were going to forget.<br />
<br />
R: Forget that it is CERN day?<br />
<br />
J: Year, I was con'''''cern'''''ed.<br />
<br />
B: Ah, yes...<br />
<br />
J: Nothing, huh? Okay.<br />
<br />
R: ''Cern''tailly that's not an issue.<br />
<br />
J: (laughter) You mean, my joke was so bad, that I'm hurtin' for ''cern''tain.<br />
<br />
S: (laughter) Alright... So, this is also the one year anniversary - or at least September 24th when we're recording this - of the first SGU 24 hour live broadcast.<br />
<br />
J: Oh, boy, that was awesome.<br />
<br />
E: Remember that?<br />
<br />
S: Have you guys recovered yet?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Has it only been a year? Seems like yesterday.<br />
<br />
J: Barely...<br />
<br />
B: Evan, we don't need to sleep, right?<br />
<br />
E: Nah. I'll sleep when I'm dead.<br />
<br />
J: I think that was the hardest project I ever did in my life.<br />
<br />
E: It was a test of endurance, will and -<br />
<br />
R: Well, until that baby comes out.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, that's right.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, yeah.. (laughter)<br />
<br />
B: So far, every convention people come up to me like "Do another SGU 24." and I always say, "You know what? I wouldn't mind doing it again, but I don't think we could convince anyone else to do it." And I tell everyone, maybe we'll do like SGU six hours or four hours or something like that. I think if we ever do it, that's what it would have to be.<br />
<br />
R: SGU four hours is a normal night of recording for us.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, that's right.<br />
<br />
E: Well yeah, actually it is.<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Ig Nobels 2012 <small>(2:18)</small> ===<br />
* [http://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/ Improbable Research]<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca, have you checked out the IG nobel winners for 2012?<br />
<br />
R: I have indeed, actually. I'm sad I no longer live in Boston, because Ig Nobels were my favorite time of year. If you ever get a chance to actually go and see them in person, I highly recommend it. It's a hilarious evening of science and fun. So yeah, this years winners, much like previous years, are absolutely delightful. So for those of our listeners, who are not familiar with Ig Nobels, the idea is that they give out awards to science that first makes you laugh and then makes you think. Some Ig Nobels are occasionally given out tongue-in-cheek to idiots and speudoscientists, but for the most part they are given to actual scientists doing actual scientific research that is completely ridiculous. So, for instance, this year the psychology prize went to two scientists for their study "Leaning to the Left Makes the Eiffel Tower Seem Smaller". <br />
<br />
E: As opposed to the right, I suppose.<br />
<br />
R: My personal favorite prize was the acoustics prize, which went to two Japanese researchers who created something called the speech-jammer, which is the most brilliant device I think that has ever been created and it's something that when I describe it will be immediately familiar to everybody currently on this show. This is something that anybody deals with audio, who has spoken into a microphones while wearing headphones and have something go wrong, you know exactly what this does. So, the speech jammer disrupt a person's speech by forcing them to hear their own words at a very slight delay. So, the... Basically what it is, it's a large gun that looks kind of like - I've seen it refereded to like an Xbox-like device - and there's a microphone on it. You point it to someone who is talking. And the microphone picks up their words and then delays what they're saying by a few hundred milliseconds and then feeds it back out trough a speaker directly at them. And everything is direction sensitive, so that the speaker is the only person who can really get the effect. <br />
<br />
B: Are they aware that they are hearing their voice on a delay?<br />
<br />
E: Oh, year.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, I'm sure they are but there is a -<br />
<br />
E: That's the point<br />
<br />
R: There is a video showing it in action and... there is one part of the video that focuses on a professor, and he is giving a lecture at the front of the room and somebody does it to him, and he kind of freaks out because he thinks that something in the lecture hall is going wrong. Like his microphone is messed up or the projector is messing something up. It really makes him stop talking like immediately. It's so difficult to listen to yourself echoing, while continuing to talk.<br />
<br />
B : Have you guys ever experienced that?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, all the time.<br />
<br />
S: During the SGU 24 show, we were doing interviews -<br />
<br />
R: Oh, god, that's right.<br />
<br />
S: there was that half a second delay and it was almost impossible to talk. I had to take the headphones off to get a sentence out.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it was hard. You become hyper-aware of what you're saying and you're completely unable to function.<br />
<br />
E: That's funny, Steve. What's going on in the brain at that point? So, the brain is- you're trying to create speech and at the same time interpret- your brain is also at the same time interpreting its own speech and trying to -<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think so. It's -<br />
<br />
E: - make it fit together?<br />
<br />
S: it just can't process two speech streams at the same time. So -<br />
<br />
B: I think it's a little more complicated than that, though, because one of the things that people do by instinct is... we're able to filter out ambient noise. So if you're in a room with five or ten or more people talking you can kind of just ignore it. But you can't ignore that. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah..<br />
<br />
E: It's the sound of your own voice.<br />
<br />
B: There's something different about it. You can't ignore it just sweep it aside like you can other speech. It's something that just like short-circuits your brain.<br />
<br />
E: And hearing yourself so close to the words that you've just spoken, right, the timing sure is -<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, the timing is -<br />
<br />
E: They've homed in the timing to be effective in this regard.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, I wonder if they slowly increase the delay, what the effect would be. Would you reach a threshold where you could totally deal with it? You probably could.<br />
<br />
J: Absolutely, Bob, it's a sweet-spot and they figured out the sweet-spot and then they figured out the delivery mechanism, like how to shoot that sound back at one person or to a very small area. So it ''is'' kind of like a gun. Right, Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it looks like a big chunky gun. With a microphone and a speaker on it.<br />
<br />
J: But the funny thing about this is that there really isn't any point to it, other than... what? Like is it just a prank?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, in the abstract they say "We discuss practical application scenarios of this system such as facilitating and controlling discussions." Which is just a polite, sciency way to say "making people shut up". A bunch of kids, you know, studying in a lab and a girl pulls out her cell phone and starts talking and somebody pulls out the gun and she just immediately stops.<br />
<br />
E: Has to stop.<br />
<br />
R: So, I mean. I think everybody can think of a million practical applications for this item. Just maybe not so much in the terms of furthering human evolution... or knowledge of the universe.<br />
<br />
S: I think we talked about the neuroscience prize on the show.<br />
<br />
R: We did. Yeah. And it surprised me because I assumed that these guys got the prize years earlier because this study came out in 2009. It's the study that shows that you can pick up meaningful brain activity using fMRI from absolutely anything. Even a dead salmon. So these researchers stuck a dead salmon in an fMRI and found, what they would classify as meaningful brain activity. Which really is a fantastic study, because it throws into disarray so many previous studies that claim to show really amazing results by finding, you know, certain spots of the brain that are meant to be certain types of thought and things like that. This sort of throws all that out the window in a way, because it makes you realize that brain researchers, unfortunately, can quite easily just see what they want to see in fMRI results sometimes.<br />
<br />
S: But there was a very specific statistical argument that they made. It doesn't necessarily invalidate all fMRI research, just that those that use poor technique. Now, what specifically they were saying is, that because you're looking at so much information - with fMI - you can number crunch tons of comparisons, and it becomes almost a certainty that you will find false-positives among those comparisons - unless you correct for multiple comparisons. You use a statistical fix for multiple analyses. So, if you do the proper statistical analysis, then the results can still be robust and statistically legitimate. But it's also just trivially easy to produce false-positives by failing to do that basic statistical correction. And that's something we see all the time, not just in fMRI studies. It's just that the number of comparisons that you can do with this kind of data is so huge that it particularly lends itself to this kind of statistical error.<br />
<br />
R: Yep.<br />
<br />
S: Got it?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: Got it.<br />
<br />
R: I was also particularly impressed by the literature prize. I'm going to read directly from the Ig Nobel description of it. "The US Government General Accountability Office, for issuing a report about reports about reports that recommends the preparation of a report about the report about reports about reports."<br />
<br />
S: Uh-huh.<br />
<br />
R: Yep.<br />
<br />
S: Ah, bureaucracy.<br />
<br />
R: The fluid-dynamics prize went to some researchers who studied how your coffee sloshes around when you walk.<br />
<br />
B: I hate that.<br />
<br />
R:"Walking With Coffee: Why Does It Spill?"<br />
<br />
E: That's why they invented lids.<br />
<br />
R: The anatomy prize went to "Faces and Behinds: Chimpanzee Sex Perception". These researchers from the Netherlands and the US found that chimpanzees can identify other chimps from seeing photographs of their butts. <br />
<br />
R: The medicine prize was... terrifying. It went to French researchers who did some research advising doctors who perform colonoscopies how to minimize the chance that their patients will explode.<br />
<br />
B: Wait, what?<br />
<br />
R: The paper was called "Colonic Gas Explosion During Therapeutic Colonoscopy with Electrocautery". Steve, you can, your butt can explode during a colonoscopy? That's terrifying.<br />
<br />
S: I think Jay has more expertise on this area than I do.<br />
<br />
E: Ah, ha.<br />
<br />
J: Just because I do what my doctor says. You know, he says it's time to go get an exam, I get the exam. What am I going to say? No?<br />
<br />
S: That wasn't my point.<br />
<br />
R: That's not where he was going with that...<br />
<br />
S: This has to do with explosive gas that builds up in your colon, and that gas can get to a sufficient concentration to be explosive. And then you can trigger it with electrocautery. A little spark can actually ignite the methane that builds up in your colon and explode it. It doesn't have to be a big explosion to cause some serious damage. <br />
<br />
J: Why would you do that? Why would you -<br />
<br />
R: I don't think they're doing it on purpose, Jay.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, but after it happens, like once... You figure they'd stop doing it, right?<br />
<br />
R: They still have to cauterize.<br />
<br />
S: Stop doing colonoscopy with electrocautery? It's a rare complication, so what they're essentially saying, just do a really good prep, you know a good colonic cleansing, before you do colonoscopy with electrocautery to minimize the chance of explosion. <br />
<br />
B: Holy crap, how can I never ever hear of that.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, don't you wish you could unhear it?<br />
<br />
J: I'm terrified now!<br />
<br />
B: No, I want to see a video tape of it.<br />
<br />
R: There is something wrong with you guys.<br />
<br />
B: (laughter)<br />
<br />
R: That is not cool.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, does that kill them?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, that's what I'm saying, it's a horrible way to die.<br />
<br />
J: How embarrassing... "What did your brother die from? -Well, he was getting an exam, and his whole ass blew up." Seriously!<br />
<br />
R: Well, hopefully it wont happen as much anymore thanks to the Ig Nobel winners. <br />
<br />
S: Apparently there were 20 cases of colonic gas explosion identified in the literature. Nine of them were complicated by colon perforation. <br />
<br />
R: Like it was perforated before?<br />
<br />
S: No, no. The explosion caused perforation. <br />
<br />
R: Oh.<br />
<br />
E: Well, yeah, you would think, at the minimum.<br />
<br />
S: One of those was fatal. So, one person died. Well, thanks, Rebecca. The Ig Nobels are always fascinating.<br />
<br />
=== GM Corn Rat Study <small>(13:45)</small> ===<br />
* [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-gm-corn-rat-study/ Neurologica: The GM Corn Rat Study]<br />
<br />
S: So this next study that we're going to talk about didn't win an Ig Nobel. Maybe for next year. But this has got to be one of the worst studies I've run across in a long time. The number of different specific criticisms I've come across of this study is staggering. Have you guys heard? This has been, actually quite prominent in the media. This is one of those studies that numerous, numerous listeners have emailed us about. The French study looking at the effects of GM Corn in rats, concluding that, um, the Round-Up ready GM Corn increases the risk of getting tumors. Have you guys heard about this?<br />
<br />
J: No.<br />
<br />
R: How could we not. <br />
<br />
B: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: It was everywhere.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it was everywhere. So the researchers said that this is alarming, obviously that GM Corn can be increasing the risk of breast cancer in women and other tumors, based upon this study. The French media seemed to completely buy their alarmism based upon this research. But American media was pretty skeptical from the get-go, but they didn't really give a good impression of how horrible this study was. The thing that was most suspicious in the initial reporting was the fact that the researchers would not allow... So it's very typical to send out a press release about a news item and to embargo it until a certain time. So you give the reporters a chance to look it over and write their story and then at a certain date and time, then you can publish the news story. This gives the scientists an opportunity to do a press conference or whatever it is they're doing. Of course if you violate the embargo you're probably not going to be given future pre-releases of press releases. In any case what the researchers did was they sent the embargoed press release to the media but they specifically prohibited journalists from seeking outside comment on the paper before it was published.<br />
<br />
E: That's outside the norm.<br />
<br />
S: It was very unusual. So they basically told the journalists, here's our research, we want you to report on it, but we don't want you to do your job as journalists and ask anybody else what they think about it. Just publish our interpretation of our own study.<br />
<br />
B: Wow.<br />
<br />
R: That's amazing, that that can even happen.<br />
<br />
B: Can they make us do that?<br />
<br />
S: Well it's... what do you mean by 'make them'? You know they...<br />
<br />
B: Did they make them sign a p... saying, you can come and listen to this but uh...<br />
<br />
R: But no the beauty of an embargo is that, they can't enforce it at all, all they can do is if a journalist breaks the embargo they can go on a shit list, and then they never get the tip-offs again.<br />
<br />
B: Well who cares of they're on their shit list?<br />
<br />
E: And for a piece of crap like this.<br />
<br />
R: Well, unfortunately it matters to a lot of journalists, particularly the overworked type I'm imagining at, you know, larger newspapers who are mostly just printing press releases and things and don't really have time to dig into this stuff. And not really have much interest in pissing off the people who are feeding them the easy science news.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
R: But that said, there are plenty of journalists who do break embargos because of things like that. I know Ben Goldacre has tweeted some of the idiotic things researchers will do with embargos that journalists happily say, "go screw yourself," to.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
E: (laughs)<br />
<br />
S: It's all honor system, but of course, if you don't care about the particular institution or researchers, you're under no obligation to follow the embargo. In this case I would've told them to screw off, and just did what I normally do, you know. But it didn't take long for scientific news outlets, like the New Scientist, and science bloggers to be all over this study, and there was just an avalanche of withering criticism. For example, here are some of the specific criticisms of the study. "The population of rats that they were using have a high propensity for tumors."<br />
<br />
R: Hm<br />
<br />
B: O-kay<br />
<br />
E: ..animals used<br />
<br />
S: It's really easy to get them to have tumors. One way to get them to have tumors is to overfeed them. And the researchers didn't indicate the total food intake for any of their groups.<br />
<br />
B: t...esting<br />
<br />
S: There were only 20 rats in the control group. And they had a lower tumor rate than is historically typical, for this population of rats.<br />
<br />
R: Hm<br />
<br />
E: The control group<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. The control group had an artificially low rate of tumors. The data only reported that some of the test groups had a higher tumor incidence while others did not. So they essentially cherry-picked the data that showed a higher incidence, and in fact there was one group that showed a lower incidence with the highest amount of GM Corn. There was no dose-response, so there was no relationship between how much corn they ate and the risk of tumor. They also looked at exposure to Round-Up, the herbicide, which had the same effect as eating the corn that had the gene that was resistant to the herbicide. Which makes no sense. It's completely different mechanisms that produce the same effect. They did not control for fungal contaminants, something else that also can cause tumors in the same population of rats. And they did not use standard statistical analysis; instead they used some completely made-up unusual statistical analyis, that Tom Sanders, who's a researcher, characterized it as a "statistical fishing trip" in the New Scientist.<br />
<br />
B: Holy crap<br />
<br />
R: Ouch.<br />
<br />
E: This ended up in a peer-reviewed journal?<br />
<br />
S: Yes. Amazingly, yes. This is just the tip of the iceberg. I mean, every time somebody else takes a look at it they're like, oh my god, look at what else they did. There were just so many other problems with this study. The study is uninterpretable, and utter nonsense.<br />
<br />
B: Was it done on purpose?<br />
<br />
E: Maybe it's a spoof. Maybe they're having a joke on all of us.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: No. You'd like to think that, but no.<br />
<br />
J: So whats the result gonna be, Steve? What happens to these people?<br />
<br />
S: Well they're getting roundly criticized. I don't know why anybody would take them seriously. These researchers are suspect right out of the gate. They are part of a group that has been highly critical of GM crops ahead of time, so they have an ideological axe to grind. They've produced previous studies that were highly criticized as flawed, and totally biased against GM food. And one of the researchers -- and this may explain how horrifically bad their research methods were -- one of the researchers is a homeopath.<br />
<br />
B: Oh boy.<br />
<br />
R: What?<br />
<br />
B: No way.<br />
<br />
R: What?<br />
<br />
S: Dr. Joel Spro De Vendomeua -- which I probably totally butchered -- is a homeopath. He is a doctor of homeopathy and acupuncture.<br />
<br />
E: Do they have a feng shui specialist on this team as well?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. Which means he's an expert in manipulating data and generating false positives...<br />
<br />
J: (laughs)<br />
<br />
S: ...out of crap. <br />
<br />
R: Fried green baloney.<br />
<br />
S: You have a degree in baloney. So that's what we're dealing with. Now apparently, the French media ate it up, and they were like oh, see how horrible GM food is, it's going to kill us everybody, it's just horrible. <br />
<br />
E: Big souffle.<br />
<br />
S: But now, later than other countries, than English-speaking countries, they're starting to pick up on the fact that maybe this study is not something to hang your hat on. So they're sort of catching the second cycle and then trying to make up for their initial utter failure in reporting how crappy this study was.<br />
<br />
B: Scuzi, milli regretti.<br />
<br />
R: French, not Italian.<br />
<br />
B: I know, but I know how to say that in Italian. And it's a movie quote.<br />
<br />
E: It's all quotes, so.<br />
<br />
R: Uh-huh.<br />
<br />
S: Right. So this doesn't say anything about GM food, we had a previous discussion about this on the show. It's a complicated topic. It gets into the precautionary principle, the environmental effects, and is also all of the dealings that Monsanto and other corporations like that do in terms of controlling their seed and how they treat farmers and what not. But, regardless of what you think about all of that, this one study is utter crap. And there really isn't any evidence of any health risks from eating this particular GM corn. It has a gene in there that gives it resistance to Round-Up, so it's a so-called Round-Up-Ready crop so that farmers could then spray their fields with Round-Up in one application to get rid of weeds and it won't affect the crop, so it's very cost effective. There hasn't been any evidence that it causes any... I mean it's been studied sufficiently to get approval for human consumption, that it's safe. So when you have something that's been studied to this degree is probably being consumed by millions or hundreds of millions of people, really, you're going to do a crappy little study with 20 control rats? Then try to alarm the world with risks of this product? That's just completely irresponsible. <br />
<br />
E: What does this say about the Food & Chemical Toxicology Journal? Does a journal like this suffer? <br />
<br />
S: It's a peer review fail. Total peer review fail.<br />
<br />
E: Does this put them in a bad light?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, absolutely. <br />
<br />
E: ...for future reports.<br />
<br />
S: It turns them into a scientific rag, I mean this shows that their editorial filter and peer review filter is inadequate. This never should have been published. This study is a joke. <br />
<br />
B: Yeah but still, people will be citing this study...<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
B: ...for years. They'll be citing, "Hey, this was in a peer-reviewed journal"<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: And lots of people won't remember that it was shit.<br />
<br />
S: You may be right, but we'll see. There was such a science blogger feeding frenzy over this study, that I wonder if that is going to stick. You know, oh, that was that crappy study that was shot down in flames, within hours of being published.<br />
<br />
E: What if this came out 20 years ago before the internet, what would've happened?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
E: It would've gotten out there, and been out there so long before anyone had a chance to really pull it apart the way we have.<br />
<br />
S: Oh I know the turnaround was really quick, within a day or two it was shredded, shredded on the Internet, so. You're right. I think that's one of the good, positive things about the internet was the speed with which this kind of information can be turned over.<br />
<br />
E: Good job, internet.<br />
<br />
=== HIV and Faith Healing <small>(24:22)</small> ===<br />
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-19656649 BBC news: Faith Leaders Across England in 'HIV Healing' Claims<br />
<br />
=== Emoticon Turns 30 <small>(34:22)</small> ===<br />
* [http://digitallife.today.com/_news/2012/09/20/13989898-the-emoticon-is-30-years-old Digital Life, MSN: The Emoticon is 30 Years Old ;-)]<br />
<br />
=== CSICon Private Recording <small>(38:19)</small> ===<br />
* [http://www.skepticalrobot.com/ticket-to-sgu-recording-DC/ SkepticalRobot.com: Ticket to SGU Recording at CSICon]<br />
<br />
== Who's That Noisy <small>(39:42)</small> ==<br />
* Answer to last week: Warp core from Enterprise TNG<br />
<br />
== Interview with Pamela Gay <small>(42:00)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: All right, let's go on to our interview.<br />
<br />
S: Well we are sitting here now at TAM 2012 with Dr. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Gay Pamela Gay], Pamela welcome back to the Skeptics' Guide.<br />
<br />
PG: Well thank you so much for having me on again.<br />
<br />
S: And for those who don't know, Pamela does an amazing podcast called [http://www.astronomycast.com/ Astronomy Cast], one of my favourites, but tell us what you were talking about here at TAM this year.<br />
<br />
PG: Well I was trying mostly to focus on how human beings can do amazing things to make the world better and fix the things that are broken by getting engaged in society. And there are so many different aspects to this, from helping scientists to accomplish science in our current funding crisis by going online and participating in citizen's science, by being aware of things that they can help support through just writing an email. There was a fifth grader a few weeks ago who was forbidden to give a speech on same sex marriage by an extra-ordinarily judgemental principal, and the internet outcry allowed this kid to be able to give his speech in a special assembly. And by simply looking around and saying I'm going to do something to change what bothers me rather than whining about it on Twitter, we're capable of doing really great things as a society, working as individuals.<br />
<br />
S: But whining is so much easier, though.<br />
<br />
PG: And that's the problem. We've all forwarded a tweet about something where someone is articulating something that bothered them, but never taken the moment to do something original, to donate to a cause. One of the things that greatly frustrates me is there's been a few times with [http://365daysofastronomy.org/ 365 Days of Astronomy], which is a community based podcast that I work with, we've put out a call for donations and seen huge numbers of re-tweets and zero donations.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
PG: It's so easy to just forward, to just repeat and so much harder to put your time, your money, your effort into actually doing things that you say matter for you. Imagine if all the time and energy that went into going to some Youtube video where someone's being an idiot and then trolling them for it, instead went into doing something positive to educate people so that they don't become trolls.<br />
<br />
J: So is being a troll a trap? Do you think there's something that attracts people to it, like they get an adrenaline rush or something, what's the driver?<br />
<br />
PG: People want attention. I for a while volunteered as a dog trainer and I went through courses to get trained as a dog.<br />
<br />
S: You got trained as a dog?<br />
<br />
PG: Not trained as a dog, sorry. To get trained as a dog trainer.<br />
<br />
J: (laughs)<br />
<br />
PG: And to think like a dog, which don't conjoin those two sentences, it comes out strangely, I just tried that. And one of the things that they teach you is that some of these animals misbehave horribly, biting, nipping, yapping, peeing on the floor, because they just desperately want attention, they're herd, they're not herd animals, they're pack animals and they, if you have a single dog it's isolated, it wants to feel part of the pack and negative attention is still attention. And trolls, when you feed them by saying you're wrong, you're bad, you're evil, you're wasting my time and you attack them back, you're feeding them, you're giving in to their need for attention, to feel part of the pack. We need to figure out how not to give them that positive reinforcement.<br />
<br />
J: Is it as simple as just ignore?<br />
<br />
PG: I think you sometimes have to do more than just ignore because if you just ignore they're still sitting there and other people are going to give in and feed. I think it's worth taking the half-second before you close that browser window to hit the block, to hit the report as abuse, to hit that button that will eventually alert the social network this is someone we probably need to remove.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah there's a certain threshold of people where you just have to ban people.<br />
<br />
PG: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Because they're, as you said, don't feed the trolls, when you say that, that's feeding the trolls, first of all. You can't talk about not talking about it without talking about it.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: That feeds in to a certain degree. Because they always just escalate their game until someone caves.<br />
<br />
PG: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: The other thing is that, with certain sites, if you're running a science site, and you have somebody there spreading pseudoscience, you can't let it go unanswered so you have this dilemma where you have this rank pseudoscience on a science site that no-one is objecting to, or you have to feed the troll, or you just ban them. So you're almost obligated at some point just to ban people to preserve the integrity of the blog.<br />
<br />
PG: This is something that we have to deal with with with the [http://cosmoquest.org/forum/forum.php CosmoQuest forums] which recently merged with the Bad Astronomy Universe Today forums, and we get a lot of people coming in to the forums and presenting their alternative to the mainstream ideas about science. These are people that are trying to say relativity isn't true or presenting their own alternative ideas, and so we have an [http://cosmoquest.org/forum/forumdisplay.php/17-Against-the-Mainstream area set aside for their discussion], and they're required to answer every question that is given to them, and they're given 30 days to convince people of their idea, and if they can't, they have to be silenced, the thread is closed. So it's a way of confronting it but giving them their own space.<br />
<br />
J: That's interesting, I mean you're basically saying, we're going to allot you time to talk about it but then if it doesn't actually get to the point where it goes above the water line, which I'm curious to know if it ever does...<br />
<br />
PG: So far it hasn't, and this is a forum that has existed within the Bad Astronomy Universe Today named about forums for many many years and when Fraser Cain first set up this part of the forum it was with the hope that maybe some new, novel, interesting idea would come out of it that was real science, and it never has.<br />
<br />
J: Did he come up with that idea?<br />
<br />
PG: I think it was a combination of seeing all of these pseudoscience ideas, seeing all of these alternative ideas being brought forward and getting smashed down in a way that led to flames, trying to create out of all of these flame wars, something positive.<br />
<br />
J: Right. Well I think it's a really cool idea, I'd like actually to come take a look.<br />
<br />
S: In terms of people getting involved in changing the world, which obviously we like to do - we're activists, I do find that people come up to us to talk about us are sorted into one of two categories, there are people who say "you guys should do this".<br />
<br />
PG: Yes.<br />
<br />
S: "You guys should go ahead and do that." My answer is always, yeah that is a good that, you should do that, why don't you do that? We're doing something already. But there are a lot of people who do ask questions at lectures or who come up and talk to us and say "I want to get involved, I want to do something, can you help me do that?" So we don't want to make it seem like other people aren't interested in being activists, but sometimes you just don't know how to get involved.<br />
<br />
PG: There's two different factors, the people who come up to us and say "you need to" make me feel exhausted, because we can only do so much as individuals, but part of what we're seeing is these people see us as strong, powerful people who are capable of enacting change and they don't see themselves that way.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: So we have to empower people to understand that when they see a problem, when they're upset about something, they actually can be that cliché of be the change you want to see in the world. And so we need to somehow facilitate people believing in themselves. And the other side of that is that there are a lot of people who recognise that there's a lot of badness out there and they don't know where to start, it's all so intimidating, they don't know how to get involved, and my advice to these people, is simply find what you're passionate about and then google to find out who's already engaged in combating this. One of my favourite examples is people who get very upset about lesbian/gay/bisexual/queer/transgender issues. I don't remember what order those words are supposed to go in now. There's this fabulous [http://www.itgetsbetter.org/ It Gets Better Project]. So if you see, and people see this on my comment thread because my last name's Gay, so every good comment thread eventually leads to somebody saying "haha this is so gay her last name's gay, you're gay" and it's ridiculous that this is still happening in 2012.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, but that could be an 11 year old right, because it's online.<br />
<br />
PG: It's online and, but...<br />
<br />
J: It was me.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: Just kidding.<br />
<br />
PG: And this is one of those cases where there's clearly still problems, there's that teenage girl killed in Texas for being in love with another girl, and there's already an organisation working hard to do good, to fix things, so find the people who are doing the thing that causes you to stay awake going I can't believe the world is broken in this way, and embrace those people. And if those people aren't already out there doing the thing that makes you passionately hurt so that you want to change the world, be that person, Elyse Anders did that a few years ago, creating the [http://hugmeimvaccinated.org/ Hug Me I'm Vaccinated] program when she realised how much we're losing herd immunity. So you can, if you don't see the people already out there working to make things better, be that person who starts the grass-roots movement.<br />
<br />
J: Or if you don't have the time, or you're just not cut out for it, which let's be honest, some people aren't, like you said earlier though, you can also be a supporter, not just by digesting the content and learning from it, but you can donate and even just sending an email to the people that are doing the work that you really appreciate and thank them and let them know because as someone who receives email where people say hey, I listen and I appreciate it, it fuels us and it really makes a difference. If you're just in an echo chamber and you have no idea if you're having an impact, then you don't know what's going on and you could easily just putter out and not be motivated.<br />
<br />
PG: And in our current society where we're in a position where our government just can't fund the things the way it used to. And I know I personally am in this situation where I'm really worried because I didn't get the grant I was counting on this year, I need to figure out to afford my lead programmer because his funding runs out in December. And all of this is terrifying but then I see hope in things like there are so many individuals who have things that they can share, resources that they can share and they're working so hard to literally build our rocket plane future. NASA right now is underfunded to say the least, but there's so many individuals who made their fortunes in dot coms, working with Amazon, with Google, with PayPal, with these different corporations, and having made their money, they're now saying, I'm going to build the rocket plane future by hiring the engineers, by hiring the space suit designers, and this is where we see [http://www.spacex.com/ SpaceX], [http://www.blueorigin.com/ Blue Origin], [http://www.xcor.com/ XCOR], all these other companies, because someone of means said "I'm going to change the world" and what we have to hope for is that people of means will recognise what we're doing. And "of means" may be one extra dollar, it only takes ten people with one extra dollar to pay for one hour of a student doing something in the lab, and every one dollar can go so far, and maybe some day we'll get lucky and I know we've been lucky with Astronomy Cast, we've Uncle Bob as one of our sponsors, and he supports what we do, spreading the word of astronomy, and you have supporters who support you and we live in an age where it's individuals who fund changing society virally, one idea and campaign at a time. It is one of those strange contradictions of modern society where there's the expectation that with intellectual gifts and content that we should give it away for free and that if we expect to earn money that we are being selfish, that we are - name one of the seven sins. We're somehow taking advantage of society by trying to make a decent living, and there's something wrong with the idea that it's OK for an athlete who entertains on TV and in the sports arena, an actress, all of these people, to get paid huge sums of money to do what they do. One baseball player's salary for one year, for one of the little guys making a million a year, that funds my entire staff, multiple individuals for multiple years, and people see it as wrong that we as academics would like to make a reasonable living, that we as content producers might even put ads on our websites and try not to have to pay out of pocket for our microphones. That's what Fraser and I do, Fraser and I do all of our podcasting out of our own pocket and we pay an audio engineer and we pay someone to do transcripts for us because really if you don't pay someone to do transcripts you're torturing them.<br />
<br />
J: Right, right.<br />
<br />
S: Mmhmm.<br />
<br />
E: Mmhmm.<br />
<br />
J: (laughs).<br />
<br />
PG: And it's...<br />
<br />
J: It's frustrating, and it's something that we've all hit, that we've all hit that wall and it's funny, I was just talking to Brian Dunning about it and you know it's like "yeah, you know it's just another year of throwing the money away, of burning the money on our hobby, quote, unquote hobby". But right now Brian is doing it full time and he's really under the gun he's really working it. So you know, hopefully there are a lot of people that do donate money, even though like you said, a dollar or whatever, and that does count. Of we all, like Bob was saying, would love a bigger infusion so that we don't have to focus on it as much.<br />
<br />
S: You made another point that I thought was very good, the fact that often our listeners, people out there in the public may perceive us as having some kind of special power or access or something, that we can get things done that they can't and I think that, we've marvelled at that too, people come up to us at conferences, they send us emails, and there's this tone that makes it seem like they think like we're all part of one big organisation, which is not the case, we're all just individuals. Or somehow that we have some magical access to government or whatever, it's like "yeah, why aren't you telling the FDA how to fix this?" Because I'm just a citizen. I have no special access to anyone or anything and we just started doing this in our living room, there's absolutely no reason you can't do the exact same thing, it's all just energy and drive you know. But I think that becomes this artificial barrier, that people think that they can't do something or there's something magical about what we're doing.<br />
<br />
PG: And this is where I deeply appreciate the fluffy segments that are at the end of the news so often where they show the 12-year-old who raised a couple of thousand dollars for this foundation or...<br />
<br />
E: At the lemonade stand, yeah.<br />
<br />
PG: Right. And so there's so many small ways and giant ways and I'd encourage everyone to take the time to listen to [http://www.ted.com/talks TED talks], not the ones by the big name academics, but the ones by the individuals who've seen a problem. One of my favourite ones, it's such a simple concept, was realising that there's a serious problem of not having soap in the third world, such a simple thing, not having soap. And then was visiting the United States and seeing that they throw out, and they do this here in the South Point, a bar of soap every day. You open the soap, you use the soap, and the next morning it's gone and you have a new bar of soap. Well he worked out a program to gather up all these hotel soaps, clean them, and redistribute them.<br />
<br />
J: Clean soap?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
PG: I don't know how that part works. Physical scientist, not chemist or biologist.<br />
<br />
B: You need super soap, meta soap.<br />
<br />
J: I think you'd just put water on it and agitate it, get rid of that outer layer.<br />
<br />
PG: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: So Pamela, thanks for being open with us and talking with us, and so of course, always a pleasure to see you at these conferences.<br />
<br />
PG: It was really my pleasure, thank you so much for having me on.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(58:16)</small> ==<br />
[http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2012/halo/ Item #1]: Astronomers may have solved the "missing baryon problem" with the discovery of a halo of hot gas surrounding the Milky Way galaxy.<br />
[http://www.ucalgary.ca/news/utoday/september24-2012/melting Item #2]: This year's peak Arctic ice melt is the greatest since records have been kept, and likely the greatest in a million years.<br />
[http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2012/09/24/a-clock-that-will-last-forever/ Item #3]: Physicists have built a 4-dimensional "space-time crystal" that can be used to keep perfect time until the end of the universe. <br />
<br />
== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:12:10)</small> ==<br />
<blockquote>An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. 'Can they be brought together?' This is a practical question. We must get down to it. 'I despise intelligence' really means: 'I cannot bear my doubts.'</blockquote><br />
Albert Camus<br />
<br />
== Announcements <small>(1:13:40)</small> ==<br />
<br />
{{Outro1}}<br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}}</div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_376&diff=9481SGU Episode 3762014-11-18T06:33:47Z<p>Jason koziol: /* GM Corn Rat Study (13:45) */</p>
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<div>{{Editing required<br />
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{{InfoBox <br />
|episodeNum = 376<br />
|episodeDate = 29<sup>th</sup> September 2012<br />
|episodeIcon = File:Emoticons.jpg<br />
|rebecca = y<br />
|bob = y<br />
|jay = y<br />
|evan = y<br />
|guest1 = PG: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Gay Pamela Gay]<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2012-09-29.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php?topic=43494.0<br />
|qowText = An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. 'Can they be brought together?' This is a practical question. We must get down to it. 'I despise intelligence' really means: 'I cannot bear my doubts.'<br />
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus Albert Camus]<br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
S: Hello, and welcome to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Today is Monday September 24, 2012 and this is your host <br />
Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella<br />
<br />
B: Hey everybody.<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca Watson<br />
<br />
R: Hello everyone.<br />
<br />
S: Jay Novella<br />
<br />
J: Hey guys.<br />
<br />
S: and Evan Bernstein.<br />
<br />
E: Good morning and/or good evening.<br />
<br />
S: How is everybody today?<br />
<br />
R: Super.<br />
<br />
E: Doing just fine.<br />
<br />
J: Thanks for asking.<br />
<br />
== This Day in Skepticism <small>(0:33)</small> ==<br />
* September 29, 1954: CERN is created<br />
<br />
R: Hey, happy CERN day everybody. Happy CERN day.<br />
<br />
B: What does that mean?<br />
<br />
R: That means, on [[September 29]]th 1954 the convention establishing CERN was signed. CERN of course being the European organization for nuclear research. That's the English equivalent. I'm not going to attempt the French, 'cause I don't want to get angry emails.<br />
<br />
J: Rebecca, I was con''cern''ed that you were going to forget.<br />
<br />
R: Forget that it is CERN day?<br />
<br />
J: Year, I was con'''''cern'''''ed.<br />
<br />
B: Ah, yes...<br />
<br />
J: Nothing, huh? Okay.<br />
<br />
R: ''Cern''tailly that's not an issue.<br />
<br />
J: (laughter) You mean, my joke was so bad, that I'm hurtin' for ''cern''tain.<br />
<br />
S: (laughter) Alright... So, this is also the one year anniversary - or at least September 24th when we're recording this - of the first SGU 24 hour live broadcast.<br />
<br />
J: Oh, boy, that was awesome.<br />
<br />
E: Remember that?<br />
<br />
S: Have you guys recovered yet?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Has it only been a year? Seems like yesterday.<br />
<br />
J: Barely...<br />
<br />
B: Evan, we don't need to sleep, right?<br />
<br />
E: Nah. I'll sleep when I'm dead.<br />
<br />
J: I think that was the hardest project I ever did in my life.<br />
<br />
E: It was a test of endurance, will and -<br />
<br />
R: Well, until that baby comes out.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, that's right.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, yeah.. (laughter)<br />
<br />
B: So far, every convention people come up to me like "Do another SGU 24." and I always say, "You know what? I wouldn't mind doing it again, but I don't think we could convince anyone else to do it." And I tell everyone, maybe we'll do like SGU six hours or four hours or something like that. I think if we ever do it, that's what it would have to be.<br />
<br />
R: SGU four hours is a normal night of recording for us.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, that's right.<br />
<br />
E: Well yeah, actually it is.<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Ig Nobels 2012 <small>(2:18)</small> ===<br />
* [http://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/ Improbable Research]<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca, have you checked out the IG nobel winners for 2012?<br />
<br />
R: I have indeed, actually. I'm sad I no longer live in Boston, because Ig Nobels were my favorite time of year. If you ever get a chance to actually go and see them in person, I highly recommend it. It's a hilarious evening of science and fun. So yeah, this years winners, much like previous years, are absolutely delightful. So for those of our listeners, who are not familiar with Ig Nobels, the idea is that they give out awards to science that first makes you laugh and then makes you think. Some Ig Nobels are occasionally given out tongue-in-cheek to idiots and speudoscientists, but for the most part they are given to actual scientists doing actual scientific research that is completely ridiculous. So, for instance, this year the psychology prize went to two scientists for their study "Leaning to the Left Makes the Eiffel Tower Seem Smaller". <br />
<br />
E: As opposed to the right, I suppose.<br />
<br />
R: My personal favorite prize was the acoustics prize, which went to two Japanese researchers who created something called the speech-jammer, which is the most brilliant device I think that has ever been created and it's something that when I describe it will be immediately familiar to everybody currently on this show. This is something that anybody deals with audio, who has spoken into a microphones while wearing headphones and have something go wrong, you know exactly what this does. So, the speech jammer disrupt a person's speech by forcing them to hear their own words at a very slight delay. So, the... Basically what it is, it's a large gun that looks kind of like - I've seen it refereded to like an Xbox-like device - and there's a microphone on it. You point it to someone who is talking. And the microphone picks up their words and then delays what they're saying by a few hundred milliseconds and then feeds it back out trough a speaker directly at them. And everything is direction sensitive, so that the speaker is the only person who can really get the effect. <br />
<br />
B: Are they aware that they are hearing their voice on a delay?<br />
<br />
E: Oh, year.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, I'm sure they are but there is a -<br />
<br />
E: That's the point<br />
<br />
R: There is a video showing it in action and... there is one part of the video that focuses on a professor, and he is giving a lecture at the front of the room and somebody does it to him, and he kind of freaks out because he thinks that something in the lecture hall is going wrong. Like his microphone is messed up or the projector is messing something up. It really makes him stop talking like immediately. It's so difficult to listen to yourself echoing, while continuing to talk.<br />
<br />
B : Have you guys ever experienced that?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, all the time.<br />
<br />
S: During the SGU 24 show, we were doing interviews -<br />
<br />
R: Oh, god, that's right.<br />
<br />
S: there was that half a second delay and it was almost impossible to talk. I had to take the headphones off to get a sentence out.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it was hard. You become hyper-aware of what you're saying and you're completely unable to function.<br />
<br />
E: That's funny, Steve. What's going on in the brain at that point? So, the brain is- you're trying to create speech and at the same time interpret- your brain is also at the same time interpreting its own speech and trying to -<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think so. It's -<br />
<br />
E: - make it fit together?<br />
<br />
S: it just can't process two speech streams at the same time. So -<br />
<br />
B: I think it's a little more complicated than that, though, because one of the things that people do by instinct is... we're able to filter out ambient noise. So if you're in a room with five or ten or more people talking you can kind of just ignore it. But you can't ignore that. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah..<br />
<br />
E: It's the sound of your own voice.<br />
<br />
B: There's something different about it. You can't ignore it just sweep it aside like you can other speech. It's something that just like short-circuits your brain.<br />
<br />
E: And hearing yourself so close to the words that you've just spoken, right, the timing sure is -<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, the timing is -<br />
<br />
E: They've homed in the timing to be effective in this regard.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, I wonder if they slowly increase the delay, what the effect would be. Would you reach a threshold where you could totally deal with it? You probably could.<br />
<br />
J: Absolutely, Bob, it's a sweet-spot and they figured out the sweet-spot and then they figured out the delivery mechanism, like how to shoot that sound back at one person or to a very small area. So it ''is'' kind of like a gun. Right, Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it looks like a big chunky gun. With a microphone and a speaker on it.<br />
<br />
J: But the funny thing about this is that there really isn't any point to it, other than... what? Like is it just a prank?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, in the abstract they say "We discuss practical application scenarios of this system such as facilitating and controlling discussions." Which is just a polite, sciency way to say "making people shut up". A bunch of kids, you know, studying in a lab and a girl pulls out her cell phone and starts talking and somebody pulls out the gun and she just immediately stops.<br />
<br />
E: Has to stop.<br />
<br />
R: So, I mean. I think everybody can think of a million practical applications for this item. Just maybe not so much in the terms of furthering human evolution... or knowledge of the universe.<br />
<br />
S: I think we talked about the neuroscience prize on the show.<br />
<br />
R: We did. Yeah. And it surprised me because I assumed that these guys got the prize years earlier because this study came out in 2009. It's the study that shows that you can pick up meaningful brain activity using fMRI from absolutely anything. Even a dead salmon. So these researchers stuck a dead salmon in an fMRI and found, what they would classify as meaningful brain activity. Which really is a fantastic study, because it throws into disarray so many previous studies that claim to show really amazing results by finding, you know, certain spots of the brain that are meant to be certain types of thought and things like that. This sort of throws all that out the window in a way, because it makes you realize that brain researchers, unfortunately, can quite easily just see what they want to see in fMRI results sometimes.<br />
<br />
S: But there was a very specific statistical argument that they made. It doesn't necessarily invalidate all fMRI research, just that those that use poor technique. Now, what specifically they were saying is, that because you're looking at so much information - with fMI - you can number crunch tons of comparisons, and it becomes almost a certainty that you will find false-positives among those comparisons - unless you correct for multiple comparisons. You use a statistical fix for multiple analyses. So, if you do the proper statistical analysis, then the results can still be robust and statistically legitimate. But it's also just trivially easy to produce false-positives by failing to do that basic statistical correction. And that's something we see all the time, not just in fMRI studies. It's just that the number of comparisons that you can do with this kind of data is so huge that it particularly lends itself to this kind of statistical error.<br />
<br />
R: Yep.<br />
<br />
S: Got it?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: Got it.<br />
<br />
R: I was also particularly impressed by the literature prize. I'm going to read directly from the Ig Nobel description of it. "The US Government General Accountability Office, for issuing a report about reports about reports that recommends the preparation of a report about the report about reports about reports."<br />
<br />
S: Uh-huh.<br />
<br />
R: Yep.<br />
<br />
S: Ah, bureaucracy.<br />
<br />
R: The fluid-dynamics prize went to some researchers who studied how your coffee sloshes around when you walk.<br />
<br />
B: I hate that.<br />
<br />
R:"Walking With Coffee: Why Does It Spill?"<br />
<br />
E: That's why they invented lids.<br />
<br />
R: The anatomy prize went to "Faces and Behinds: Chimpanzee Sex Perception". These researchers from the Netherlands and the US found that chimpanzees can identify other chimps from seeing photographs of their butts. <br />
<br />
R: The medicine prize was... terrifying. It went to French researchers who did some research advising doctors who perform colonoscopies how to minimize the chance that their patients will explode.<br />
<br />
B: Wait, what?<br />
<br />
R: The paper was called "Colonic Gas Explosion During Therapeutic Colonoscopy with Electrocautery". Steve, you can, your butt can explode during a colonoscopy? That's terrifying.<br />
<br />
S: I think Jay has more expertise on this area than I do.<br />
<br />
E: Ah, ha.<br />
<br />
J: Just because I do what my doctor says. You know, he says it's time to go get an exam, I get the exam. What am I going to say? No?<br />
<br />
S: That wasn't my point.<br />
<br />
R: That's not where he was going with that...<br />
<br />
S: This has to do with explosive gas that builds up in your colon, and that gas can get to a sufficient concentration to be explosive. And then you can trigger it with electrocautery. A little spark can actually ignite the methane that builds up in your colon and explode it. It doesn't have to be a big explosion to cause some serious damage. <br />
<br />
J: Why would you do that? Why would you -<br />
<br />
R: I don't think they're doing it on purpose, Jay.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, but after it happens, like once... You figure they'd stop doing it, right?<br />
<br />
R: They still have to cauterize.<br />
<br />
S: Stop doing colonoscopy with electrocautery? It's a rare complication, so what they're essentially saying, just do a really good prep, you know a good colonic cleansing, before you do colonoscopy with electrocautery to minimize the chance of explosion. <br />
<br />
B: Holy crap, how can I never ever hear of that.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, don't you wish you could unhear it?<br />
<br />
J: I'm terrified now!<br />
<br />
B: No, I want to see a video tape of it.<br />
<br />
R: There is something wrong with you guys.<br />
<br />
B: (laughter)<br />
<br />
R: That is not cool.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, does that kill them?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, that's what I'm saying, it's a horrible way to die.<br />
<br />
J: How embarrassing... "What did your brother die from? -Well, he was getting an exam, and his whole ass blew up." Seriously!<br />
<br />
R: Well, hopefully it wont happen as much anymore thanks to the Ig Nobel winners. <br />
<br />
S: Apparently there were 20 cases of colonic gas explosion identified in the literature. Nine of them were complicated by colon perforation. <br />
<br />
R: Like it was perforated before?<br />
<br />
S: No, no. The explosion caused perforation. <br />
<br />
R: Oh.<br />
<br />
E: Well, yeah, you would think, at the minimum.<br />
<br />
S: One of those was fatal. So, one person died. Well, thanks, Rebecca. The Ig Nobels are always fascinating.<br />
<br />
=== GM Corn Rat Study <small>(13:45)</small> ===<br />
* [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-gm-corn-rat-study/ Neurologica: The GM Corn Rat Study]<br />
<br />
S: So this next study that we're going to talk about didn't win an Ig Nobel. Maybe for next year. But this has got to be one of the worst studies I've run across in a long time. The number of different specific criticisms I've come across of this study is staggering. Have you guys heard? This has been, actually quite prominent in the media. This is one of those studies that numerous, numerous listeners have emailed us about. The French study looking at the effects of GM Corn in rats, concluding that, um, the Round-Up ready GM Corn increases the risk of getting tumors. Have you guys heard about this?<br />
<br />
J: No.<br />
<br />
R: How could we not. <br />
<br />
B: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: It was everywhere.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it was everywhere. So the researchers said that this is alarming, obviously that GM Corn can be increasing the risk of breast cancer in women and other tumors, based upon this study. The French media seemed to completely buy their alarmism based upon this research. But American media was pretty skeptical from the get-go, but they didn't really give a good impression of how horrible this study was. The thing that was most suspicious in the initial reporting was the fact that the researchers would not allow... So it's very typical to send out a press release about a news item and to embargo it until a certain time. So you give the reporters a chance to look it over and write their story and then at a certain date and time, then you can publish the news story. This gives the scientists an opportunity to do a press conference or whatever it is they're doing. Of course if you violate the embargo you're probably not going to be given future pre-releases of press releases. In any case what the researchers did was they sent the embargoed press release to the media but they specifically prohibited journalists from seeking outside comment on the paper before it was published.<br />
<br />
E: That's outside the norm.<br />
<br />
S: It was very unusual. So they basically told the journalists, here's our research, we want you to report on it, but we don't want you to do your job as journalists and ask anybody else what they think about it. Just publish our interpretation of our own study.<br />
<br />
B: Wow.<br />
<br />
R: That's amazing, that that can even happen.<br />
<br />
B: Can they make us do that?<br />
<br />
S: Well it's... what do you mean by 'make them'? You know they...<br />
<br />
B: Did they make them sign a p... saying, you can come and listen to this but uh...<br />
<br />
R: But no the beauty of an embargo is that, they can't enforce it at all, all they can do is if a journalist breaks the embargo they can go on a shit list, and then they never get the tip-offs again.<br />
<br />
B: Well who cares of they're on their shit list?<br />
<br />
E: And for a piece of crap like this.<br />
<br />
R: Well, unfortunately it matters to a lot of journalists, particularly the overworked type I'm imagining at, you know, larger newspapers who are mostly just printing press releases and things and don't really have time to dig into this stuff. And not really have much interest in pissing off the people who are feeding them the easy science news.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
R: But that said, there are plenty of journalists who do break embargos because of things like that. I know Ben Goldacre has tweeted some of the idiotic things researchers will do with embargos that journalists happily say, "go screw yourself," to.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
E: (laughs)<br />
<br />
S: It's all honor system, but of course, if you don't care about the particular institution or researchers, you're under no obligation to follow the embargo. In this case I would've told them to screw off, and just did what I normally do, you know. But it didn't take long for scientific news outlets, like the New Scientist, and science bloggers to be all over this study, and there was just an avalanche of withering criticism. For example, here are some of the specific criticisms of the study. "The population of rats that they were using have a high propensity for tumors."<br />
<br />
R: Hm<br />
<br />
B: O-kay<br />
<br />
E: ..animals used<br />
<br />
S: It's really easy to get them to have tumors. One way to get them to have tumors is to overfeed them. And the researchers didn't indicate the total food intake for any of their groups.<br />
<br />
B: t...esting<br />
<br />
S: There were only 20 rats in the control group. And they had a lower tumor rate than is historically typical, for this population of rats.<br />
<br />
R: Hm<br />
<br />
E: The control group<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. The control group had an artificially low rate of tumors. The data only reported that some of the test groups had a higher tumor incidence while others did not. So they essentially cherry-picked the data that showed a higher incidence, and in fact there was one group that showed a lower incidence with the highest amount of GM Corn. There was no dose-response, so there was no relationship between how much corn they ate and the risk of tumor. They also looked at exposure to Round-Up, the herbicide, which had the same effect as eating the corn that had the gene that was resistant to the herbicide. Which makes no sense. It's completely different mechanisms that produce the same effect. They did not control for fungal contaminants, something else that also can cause tumors in the same population of rats. And they did not use standard statistical analysis; instead they used some completely made-up unusual statistical analyis, that Tom Sanders, who's a researcher, characterized it as a "statistical fishing trip" in the New Scientist.<br />
<br />
B: Holy crap<br />
<br />
E: This ended up in a peer-reviewed journal?<br />
<br />
S: Yes. Amazingly, yes. This is just the tip of the iceberg. I mean, every time somebody else takes a look at it they're like, oh my god, look at what else they did. There were just so many other problems with this study. The study is uninterpretable, and utter nonsense.<br />
<br />
B: Was it done on purpose?<br />
<br />
E: Maybe it's a spoof. Maybe they're having a joke on all of us.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: No. You'd like to think that, but no.<br />
<br />
J: So whats the result gonna be, Steve? What happens to these people?<br />
<br />
S: Well they're getting roundly criticized. I don't know why anybody would take them seriously. These researchers are suspect right out of the gate. They are part of a group that has been highly critical of GM crops ahead of time, so they have an ideological axe to grind. They've produced previous studies that were highly criticized as flawed, and totally biased against GM food. And one of the researchers -- and this may explain how horrifically bad their research methods were -- one of the researchers is a homeopath.<br />
<br />
B: Oh boy.<br />
<br />
R: What?<br />
<br />
B: No way.<br />
<br />
R: What?<br />
<br />
S: Dr. Joel Spro De Vendomeua -- which I probably totally butchered -- is a homeopath. He is a doctor of homeopathy and acupuncture.<br />
<br />
E: Do they have a feng shui specialist on this team as well?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. Which means he's an expert in manipulating data and generating false positives...<br />
<br />
J: (laughs)<br />
<br />
S: ...out of crap. <br />
<br />
R: Fried green baloney.<br />
<br />
S: You have a degree in baloney. So that's what we're dealing with. Now apparently, the French media ate it up, and they were like oh, see how horrible GM food is, it's going to kill us everybody, it's just horrible. <br />
<br />
E: Big souffle.<br />
<br />
S: But now, later than other countries, than English-speaking countries, they're starting to pick up on the fact that maybe this study is not something to hang your hat on. So they're sort of catching the second cycle and then trying to make up for their initial utter failure in reporting how crappy this study was.<br />
<br />
B: Scuzi, milli regretti.<br />
<br />
R: French, not Italian.<br />
<br />
B: I know, but I know how to say that in Italian. And it's a movie quote.<br />
<br />
E: It's all quotes, so.<br />
<br />
R: Uh-huh.<br />
<br />
S: Right. So this doesn't say anything about GM food, we had a previous discussion about this on the show. It's a complicated topic. It gets into the precautionary principle, the environmental effects, and is also all of the dealings that Monsanto and other corporations like that do in terms of controlling their seed and how they treat farmers and what not. But, regardless of what you think about all of that, this one study is utter crap. And there really isn't any evidence of any health risks from eating this particular GM corn. It has a gene in there that gives it resistance to Round-Up, so it's a so-called Round-Up-Ready crop so that farmers could then spray their fields with Round-Up in one application to get rid of weeds and it won't affect the crop, so it's very cost effective. There hasn't been any evidence that it causes any... I mean it's been studied sufficiently to get approval for human consumption, that it's safe. So when you have something that's been studied to this degree is probably being consumed by millions or hundreds of millions of people, really, you're going to do a crappy little study with 20 control rats? Then try to alarm the world with risks of this product? That's just completely irresponsible. <br />
<br />
E: What does this say about the Food & Chemical Toxicology Journal? Does a journal like this suffer? <br />
<br />
S: It's a peer review fail. Total peer review fail.<br />
<br />
E: Does this put them in a bad light?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, absolutely. <br />
<br />
E: ...for future reports.<br />
<br />
S: It turns them into a scientific rag, I mean this shows that their editorial filter and peer review filter is inadequate. This never should have been published. This study is a joke. <br />
<br />
B: Yeah but still, people will be citing this study...<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
B: ...for years. They'll be citing, "Hey, this was in a peer-reviewed journal"<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: And lots of people won't remember that it was shit.<br />
<br />
S: You may be right, but we'll see. There was such a science blogger feeding frenzy over this study, that I wonder if that is going to stick. You know, oh, that was that crappy study that was shot down in flames, within hours of being published.<br />
<br />
E: What if this came out 20 years ago before the internet, what would've happened?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
E: It would've gotten out there, and been out there so long before anyone had a chance to really pull it apart the way we have.<br />
<br />
S: Oh I know the turnaround was really quick, within a day or two it was shredded, shredded on the Internet, so. You're right. I think that's one of the good, positive things about the internet was the speed with which this kind of information can be turned over.<br />
<br />
E: Good job, internet.<br />
<br />
=== HIV and Faith Healing <small>(24:22)</small> ===<br />
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-19656649 BBC news: Faith Leaders Across England in 'HIV Healing' Claims<br />
<br />
=== Emoticon Turns 30 <small>(34:22)</small> ===<br />
* [http://digitallife.today.com/_news/2012/09/20/13989898-the-emoticon-is-30-years-old Digital Life, MSN: The Emoticon is 30 Years Old ;-)]<br />
<br />
=== CSICon Private Recording <small>(38:19)</small> ===<br />
* [http://www.skepticalrobot.com/ticket-to-sgu-recording-DC/ SkepticalRobot.com: Ticket to SGU Recording at CSICon]<br />
<br />
== Who's That Noisy <small>(39:42)</small> ==<br />
* Answer to last week: Warp core from Enterprise TNG<br />
<br />
== Interview with Pamela Gay <small>(42:00)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: All right, let's go on to our interview.<br />
<br />
S: Well we are sitting here now at TAM 2012 with Dr. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Gay Pamela Gay], Pamela welcome back to the Skeptics' Guide.<br />
<br />
PG: Well thank you so much for having me on again.<br />
<br />
S: And for those who don't know, Pamela does an amazing podcast called [http://www.astronomycast.com/ Astronomy Cast], one of my favourites, but tell us what you were talking about here at TAM this year.<br />
<br />
PG: Well I was trying mostly to focus on how human beings can do amazing things to make the world better and fix the things that are broken by getting engaged in society. And there are so many different aspects to this, from helping scientists to accomplish science in our current funding crisis by going online and participating in citizen's science, by being aware of things that they can help support through just writing an email. There was a fifth grader a few weeks ago who was forbidden to give a speech on same sex marriage by an extra-ordinarily judgemental principal, and the internet outcry allowed this kid to be able to give his speech in a special assembly. And by simply looking around and saying I'm going to do something to change what bothers me rather than whining about it on Twitter, we're capable of doing really great things as a society, working as individuals.<br />
<br />
S: But whining is so much easier, though.<br />
<br />
PG: And that's the problem. We've all forwarded a tweet about something where someone is articulating something that bothered them, but never taken the moment to do something original, to donate to a cause. One of the things that greatly frustrates me is there's been a few times with [http://365daysofastronomy.org/ 365 Days of Astronomy], which is a community based podcast that I work with, we've put out a call for donations and seen huge numbers of re-tweets and zero donations.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
PG: It's so easy to just forward, to just repeat and so much harder to put your time, your money, your effort into actually doing things that you say matter for you. Imagine if all the time and energy that went into going to some Youtube video where someone's being an idiot and then trolling them for it, instead went into doing something positive to educate people so that they don't become trolls.<br />
<br />
J: So is being a troll a trap? Do you think there's something that attracts people to it, like they get an adrenaline rush or something, what's the driver?<br />
<br />
PG: People want attention. I for a while volunteered as a dog trainer and I went through courses to get trained as a dog.<br />
<br />
S: You got trained as a dog?<br />
<br />
PG: Not trained as a dog, sorry. To get trained as a dog trainer.<br />
<br />
J: (laughs)<br />
<br />
PG: And to think like a dog, which don't conjoin those two sentences, it comes out strangely, I just tried that. And one of the things that they teach you is that some of these animals misbehave horribly, biting, nipping, yapping, peeing on the floor, because they just desperately want attention, they're herd, they're not herd animals, they're pack animals and they, if you have a single dog it's isolated, it wants to feel part of the pack and negative attention is still attention. And trolls, when you feed them by saying you're wrong, you're bad, you're evil, you're wasting my time and you attack them back, you're feeding them, you're giving in to their need for attention, to feel part of the pack. We need to figure out how not to give them that positive reinforcement.<br />
<br />
J: Is it as simple as just ignore?<br />
<br />
PG: I think you sometimes have to do more than just ignore because if you just ignore they're still sitting there and other people are going to give in and feed. I think it's worth taking the half-second before you close that browser window to hit the block, to hit the report as abuse, to hit that button that will eventually alert the social network this is someone we probably need to remove.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah there's a certain threshold of people where you just have to ban people.<br />
<br />
PG: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Because they're, as you said, don't feed the trolls, when you say that, that's feeding the trolls, first of all. You can't talk about not talking about it without talking about it.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: That feeds in to a certain degree. Because they always just escalate their game until someone caves.<br />
<br />
PG: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: The other thing is that, with certain sites, if you're running a science site, and you have somebody there spreading pseudoscience, you can't let it go unanswered so you have this dilemma where you have this rank pseudoscience on a science site that no-one is objecting to, or you have to feed the troll, or you just ban them. So you're almost obligated at some point just to ban people to preserve the integrity of the blog.<br />
<br />
PG: This is something that we have to deal with with with the [http://cosmoquest.org/forum/forum.php CosmoQuest forums] which recently merged with the Bad Astronomy Universe Today forums, and we get a lot of people coming in to the forums and presenting their alternative to the mainstream ideas about science. These are people that are trying to say relativity isn't true or presenting their own alternative ideas, and so we have an [http://cosmoquest.org/forum/forumdisplay.php/17-Against-the-Mainstream area set aside for their discussion], and they're required to answer every question that is given to them, and they're given 30 days to convince people of their idea, and if they can't, they have to be silenced, the thread is closed. So it's a way of confronting it but giving them their own space.<br />
<br />
J: That's interesting, I mean you're basically saying, we're going to allot you time to talk about it but then if it doesn't actually get to the point where it goes above the water line, which I'm curious to know if it ever does...<br />
<br />
PG: So far it hasn't, and this is a forum that has existed within the Bad Astronomy Universe Today named about forums for many many years and when Fraser Cain first set up this part of the forum it was with the hope that maybe some new, novel, interesting idea would come out of it that was real science, and it never has.<br />
<br />
J: Did he come up with that idea?<br />
<br />
PG: I think it was a combination of seeing all of these pseudoscience ideas, seeing all of these alternative ideas being brought forward and getting smashed down in a way that led to flames, trying to create out of all of these flame wars, something positive.<br />
<br />
J: Right. Well I think it's a really cool idea, I'd like actually to come take a look.<br />
<br />
S: In terms of people getting involved in changing the world, which obviously we like to do - we're activists, I do find that people come up to us to talk about us are sorted into one of two categories, there are people who say "you guys should do this".<br />
<br />
PG: Yes.<br />
<br />
S: "You guys should go ahead and do that." My answer is always, yeah that is a good that, you should do that, why don't you do that? We're doing something already. But there are a lot of people who do ask questions at lectures or who come up and talk to us and say "I want to get involved, I want to do something, can you help me do that?" So we don't want to make it seem like other people aren't interested in being activists, but sometimes you just don't know how to get involved.<br />
<br />
PG: There's two different factors, the people who come up to us and say "you need to" make me feel exhausted, because we can only do so much as individuals, but part of what we're seeing is these people see us as strong, powerful people who are capable of enacting change and they don't see themselves that way.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: So we have to empower people to understand that when they see a problem, when they're upset about something, they actually can be that cliché of be the change you want to see in the world. And so we need to somehow facilitate people believing in themselves. And the other side of that is that there are a lot of people who recognise that there's a lot of badness out there and they don't know where to start, it's all so intimidating, they don't know how to get involved, and my advice to these people, is simply find what you're passionate about and then google to find out who's already engaged in combating this. One of my favourite examples is people who get very upset about lesbian/gay/bisexual/queer/transgender issues. I don't remember what order those words are supposed to go in now. There's this fabulous [http://www.itgetsbetter.org/ It Gets Better Project]. So if you see, and people see this on my comment thread because my last name's Gay, so every good comment thread eventually leads to somebody saying "haha this is so gay her last name's gay, you're gay" and it's ridiculous that this is still happening in 2012.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, but that could be an 11 year old right, because it's online.<br />
<br />
PG: It's online and, but...<br />
<br />
J: It was me.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: Just kidding.<br />
<br />
PG: And this is one of those cases where there's clearly still problems, there's that teenage girl killed in Texas for being in love with another girl, and there's already an organisation working hard to do good, to fix things, so find the people who are doing the thing that causes you to stay awake going I can't believe the world is broken in this way, and embrace those people. And if those people aren't already out there doing the thing that makes you passionately hurt so that you want to change the world, be that person, Elyse Anders did that a few years ago, creating the [http://hugmeimvaccinated.org/ Hug Me I'm Vaccinated] program when she realised how much we're losing herd immunity. So you can, if you don't see the people already out there working to make things better, be that person who starts the grass-roots movement.<br />
<br />
J: Or if you don't have the time, or you're just not cut out for it, which let's be honest, some people aren't, like you said earlier though, you can also be a supporter, not just by digesting the content and learning from it, but you can donate and even just sending an email to the people that are doing the work that you really appreciate and thank them and let them know because as someone who receives email where people say hey, I listen and I appreciate it, it fuels us and it really makes a difference. If you're just in an echo chamber and you have no idea if you're having an impact, then you don't know what's going on and you could easily just putter out and not be motivated.<br />
<br />
PG: And in our current society where we're in a position where our government just can't fund the things the way it used to. And I know I personally am in this situation where I'm really worried because I didn't get the grant I was counting on this year, I need to figure out to afford my lead programmer because his funding runs out in December. And all of this is terrifying but then I see hope in things like there are so many individuals who have things that they can share, resources that they can share and they're working so hard to literally build our rocket plane future. NASA right now is underfunded to say the least, but there's so many individuals who made their fortunes in dot coms, working with Amazon, with Google, with PayPal, with these different corporations, and having made their money, they're now saying, I'm going to build the rocket plane future by hiring the engineers, by hiring the space suit designers, and this is where we see [http://www.spacex.com/ SpaceX], [http://www.blueorigin.com/ Blue Origin], [http://www.xcor.com/ XCOR], all these other companies, because someone of means said "I'm going to change the world" and what we have to hope for is that people of means will recognise what we're doing. And "of means" may be one extra dollar, it only takes ten people with one extra dollar to pay for one hour of a student doing something in the lab, and every one dollar can go so far, and maybe some day we'll get lucky and I know we've been lucky with Astronomy Cast, we've Uncle Bob as one of our sponsors, and he supports what we do, spreading the word of astronomy, and you have supporters who support you and we live in an age where it's individuals who fund changing society virally, one idea and campaign at a time. It is one of those strange contradictions of modern society where there's the expectation that with intellectual gifts and content that we should give it away for free and that if we expect to earn money that we are being selfish, that we are - name one of the seven sins. We're somehow taking advantage of society by trying to make a decent living, and there's something wrong with the idea that it's OK for an athlete who entertains on TV and in the sports arena, an actress, all of these people, to get paid huge sums of money to do what they do. One baseball player's salary for one year, for one of the little guys making a million a year, that funds my entire staff, multiple individuals for multiple years, and people see it as wrong that we as academics would like to make a reasonable living, that we as content producers might even put ads on our websites and try not to have to pay out of pocket for our microphones. That's what Fraser and I do, Fraser and I do all of our podcasting out of our own pocket and we pay an audio engineer and we pay someone to do transcripts for us because really if you don't pay someone to do transcripts you're torturing them.<br />
<br />
J: Right, right.<br />
<br />
S: Mmhmm.<br />
<br />
E: Mmhmm.<br />
<br />
J: (laughs).<br />
<br />
PG: And it's...<br />
<br />
J: It's frustrating, and it's something that we've all hit, that we've all hit that wall and it's funny, I was just talking to Brian Dunning about it and you know it's like "yeah, you know it's just another year of throwing the money away, of burning the money on our hobby, quote, unquote hobby". But right now Brian is doing it full time and he's really under the gun he's really working it. So you know, hopefully there are a lot of people that do donate money, even though like you said, a dollar or whatever, and that does count. Of we all, like Bob was saying, would love a bigger infusion so that we don't have to focus on it as much.<br />
<br />
S: You made another point that I thought was very good, the fact that often our listeners, people out there in the public may perceive us as having some kind of special power or access or something, that we can get things done that they can't and I think that, we've marvelled at that too, people come up to us at conferences, they send us emails, and there's this tone that makes it seem like they think like we're all part of one big organisation, which is not the case, we're all just individuals. Or somehow that we have some magical access to government or whatever, it's like "yeah, why aren't you telling the FDA how to fix this?" Because I'm just a citizen. I have no special access to anyone or anything and we just started doing this in our living room, there's absolutely no reason you can't do the exact same thing, it's all just energy and drive you know. But I think that becomes this artificial barrier, that people think that they can't do something or there's something magical about what we're doing.<br />
<br />
PG: And this is where I deeply appreciate the fluffy segments that are at the end of the news so often where they show the 12-year-old who raised a couple of thousand dollars for this foundation or...<br />
<br />
E: At the lemonade stand, yeah.<br />
<br />
PG: Right. And so there's so many small ways and giant ways and I'd encourage everyone to take the time to listen to [http://www.ted.com/talks TED talks], not the ones by the big name academics, but the ones by the individuals who've seen a problem. One of my favourite ones, it's such a simple concept, was realising that there's a serious problem of not having soap in the third world, such a simple thing, not having soap. And then was visiting the United States and seeing that they throw out, and they do this here in the South Point, a bar of soap every day. You open the soap, you use the soap, and the next morning it's gone and you have a new bar of soap. Well he worked out a program to gather up all these hotel soaps, clean them, and redistribute them.<br />
<br />
J: Clean soap?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
PG: I don't know how that part works. Physical scientist, not chemist or biologist.<br />
<br />
B: You need super soap, meta soap.<br />
<br />
J: I think you'd just put water on it and agitate it, get rid of that outer layer.<br />
<br />
PG: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: So Pamela, thanks for being open with us and talking with us, and so of course, always a pleasure to see you at these conferences.<br />
<br />
PG: It was really my pleasure, thank you so much for having me on.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(58:16)</small> ==<br />
[http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2012/halo/ Item #1]: Astronomers may have solved the "missing baryon problem" with the discovery of a halo of hot gas surrounding the Milky Way galaxy.<br />
[http://www.ucalgary.ca/news/utoday/september24-2012/melting Item #2]: This year's peak Arctic ice melt is the greatest since records have been kept, and likely the greatest in a million years.<br />
[http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2012/09/24/a-clock-that-will-last-forever/ Item #3]: Physicists have built a 4-dimensional "space-time crystal" that can be used to keep perfect time until the end of the universe. <br />
<br />
== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:12:10)</small> ==<br />
<blockquote>An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. 'Can they be brought together?' This is a practical question. We must get down to it. 'I despise intelligence' really means: 'I cannot bear my doubts.'</blockquote><br />
Albert Camus<br />
<br />
== Announcements <small>(1:13:40)</small> ==<br />
<br />
{{Outro1}}<br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}}</div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_376&diff=9480SGU Episode 3762014-11-18T06:32:48Z<p>Jason koziol: /* GM Corn Rat Study (13:45) */</p>
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<div>{{Editing required<br />
|transcription = y<br />
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{{InfoBox <br />
|episodeNum = 376<br />
|episodeDate = 29<sup>th</sup> September 2012<br />
|episodeIcon = File:Emoticons.jpg<br />
|rebecca = y<br />
|bob = y<br />
|jay = y<br />
|evan = y<br />
|guest1 = PG: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Gay Pamela Gay]<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2012-09-29.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php?topic=43494.0<br />
|qowText = An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. 'Can they be brought together?' This is a practical question. We must get down to it. 'I despise intelligence' really means: 'I cannot bear my doubts.'<br />
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus Albert Camus]<br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
S: Hello, and welcome to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Today is Monday September 24, 2012 and this is your host <br />
Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella<br />
<br />
B: Hey everybody.<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca Watson<br />
<br />
R: Hello everyone.<br />
<br />
S: Jay Novella<br />
<br />
J: Hey guys.<br />
<br />
S: and Evan Bernstein.<br />
<br />
E: Good morning and/or good evening.<br />
<br />
S: How is everybody today?<br />
<br />
R: Super.<br />
<br />
E: Doing just fine.<br />
<br />
J: Thanks for asking.<br />
<br />
== This Day in Skepticism <small>(0:33)</small> ==<br />
* September 29, 1954: CERN is created<br />
<br />
R: Hey, happy CERN day everybody. Happy CERN day.<br />
<br />
B: What does that mean?<br />
<br />
R: That means, on [[September 29]]th 1954 the convention establishing CERN was signed. CERN of course being the European organization for nuclear research. That's the English equivalent. I'm not going to attempt the French, 'cause I don't want to get angry emails.<br />
<br />
J: Rebecca, I was con''cern''ed that you were going to forget.<br />
<br />
R: Forget that it is CERN day?<br />
<br />
J: Year, I was con'''''cern'''''ed.<br />
<br />
B: Ah, yes...<br />
<br />
J: Nothing, huh? Okay.<br />
<br />
R: ''Cern''tailly that's not an issue.<br />
<br />
J: (laughter) You mean, my joke was so bad, that I'm hurtin' for ''cern''tain.<br />
<br />
S: (laughter) Alright... So, this is also the one year anniversary - or at least September 24th when we're recording this - of the first SGU 24 hour live broadcast.<br />
<br />
J: Oh, boy, that was awesome.<br />
<br />
E: Remember that?<br />
<br />
S: Have you guys recovered yet?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Has it only been a year? Seems like yesterday.<br />
<br />
J: Barely...<br />
<br />
B: Evan, we don't need to sleep, right?<br />
<br />
E: Nah. I'll sleep when I'm dead.<br />
<br />
J: I think that was the hardest project I ever did in my life.<br />
<br />
E: It was a test of endurance, will and -<br />
<br />
R: Well, until that baby comes out.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, that's right.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, yeah.. (laughter)<br />
<br />
B: So far, every convention people come up to me like "Do another SGU 24." and I always say, "You know what? I wouldn't mind doing it again, but I don't think we could convince anyone else to do it." And I tell everyone, maybe we'll do like SGU six hours or four hours or something like that. I think if we ever do it, that's what it would have to be.<br />
<br />
R: SGU four hours is a normal night of recording for us.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, that's right.<br />
<br />
E: Well yeah, actually it is.<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Ig Nobels 2012 <small>(2:18)</small> ===<br />
* [http://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/ Improbable Research]<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca, have you checked out the IG nobel winners for 2012?<br />
<br />
R: I have indeed, actually. I'm sad I no longer live in Boston, because Ig Nobels were my favorite time of year. If you ever get a chance to actually go and see them in person, I highly recommend it. It's a hilarious evening of science and fun. So yeah, this years winners, much like previous years, are absolutely delightful. So for those of our listeners, who are not familiar with Ig Nobels, the idea is that they give out awards to science that first makes you laugh and then makes you think. Some Ig Nobels are occasionally given out tongue-in-cheek to idiots and speudoscientists, but for the most part they are given to actual scientists doing actual scientific research that is completely ridiculous. So, for instance, this year the psychology prize went to two scientists for their study "Leaning to the Left Makes the Eiffel Tower Seem Smaller". <br />
<br />
E: As opposed to the right, I suppose.<br />
<br />
R: My personal favorite prize was the acoustics prize, which went to two Japanese researchers who created something called the speech-jammer, which is the most brilliant device I think that has ever been created and it's something that when I describe it will be immediately familiar to everybody currently on this show. This is something that anybody deals with audio, who has spoken into a microphones while wearing headphones and have something go wrong, you know exactly what this does. So, the speech jammer disrupt a person's speech by forcing them to hear their own words at a very slight delay. So, the... Basically what it is, it's a large gun that looks kind of like - I've seen it refereded to like an Xbox-like device - and there's a microphone on it. You point it to someone who is talking. And the microphone picks up their words and then delays what they're saying by a few hundred milliseconds and then feeds it back out trough a speaker directly at them. And everything is direction sensitive, so that the speaker is the only person who can really get the effect. <br />
<br />
B: Are they aware that they are hearing their voice on a delay?<br />
<br />
E: Oh, year.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, I'm sure they are but there is a -<br />
<br />
E: That's the point<br />
<br />
R: There is a video showing it in action and... there is one part of the video that focuses on a professor, and he is giving a lecture at the front of the room and somebody does it to him, and he kind of freaks out because he thinks that something in the lecture hall is going wrong. Like his microphone is messed up or the projector is messing something up. It really makes him stop talking like immediately. It's so difficult to listen to yourself echoing, while continuing to talk.<br />
<br />
B : Have you guys ever experienced that?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, all the time.<br />
<br />
S: During the SGU 24 show, we were doing interviews -<br />
<br />
R: Oh, god, that's right.<br />
<br />
S: there was that half a second delay and it was almost impossible to talk. I had to take the headphones off to get a sentence out.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it was hard. You become hyper-aware of what you're saying and you're completely unable to function.<br />
<br />
E: That's funny, Steve. What's going on in the brain at that point? So, the brain is- you're trying to create speech and at the same time interpret- your brain is also at the same time interpreting its own speech and trying to -<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think so. It's -<br />
<br />
E: - make it fit together?<br />
<br />
S: it just can't process two speech streams at the same time. So -<br />
<br />
B: I think it's a little more complicated than that, though, because one of the things that people do by instinct is... we're able to filter out ambient noise. So if you're in a room with five or ten or more people talking you can kind of just ignore it. But you can't ignore that. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah..<br />
<br />
E: It's the sound of your own voice.<br />
<br />
B: There's something different about it. You can't ignore it just sweep it aside like you can other speech. It's something that just like short-circuits your brain.<br />
<br />
E: And hearing yourself so close to the words that you've just spoken, right, the timing sure is -<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, the timing is -<br />
<br />
E: They've homed in the timing to be effective in this regard.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, I wonder if they slowly increase the delay, what the effect would be. Would you reach a threshold where you could totally deal with it? You probably could.<br />
<br />
J: Absolutely, Bob, it's a sweet-spot and they figured out the sweet-spot and then they figured out the delivery mechanism, like how to shoot that sound back at one person or to a very small area. So it ''is'' kind of like a gun. Right, Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it looks like a big chunky gun. With a microphone and a speaker on it.<br />
<br />
J: But the funny thing about this is that there really isn't any point to it, other than... what? Like is it just a prank?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, in the abstract they say "We discuss practical application scenarios of this system such as facilitating and controlling discussions." Which is just a polite, sciency way to say "making people shut up". A bunch of kids, you know, studying in a lab and a girl pulls out her cell phone and starts talking and somebody pulls out the gun and she just immediately stops.<br />
<br />
E: Has to stop.<br />
<br />
R: So, I mean. I think everybody can think of a million practical applications for this item. Just maybe not so much in the terms of furthering human evolution... or knowledge of the universe.<br />
<br />
S: I think we talked about the neuroscience prize on the show.<br />
<br />
R: We did. Yeah. And it surprised me because I assumed that these guys got the prize years earlier because this study came out in 2009. It's the study that shows that you can pick up meaningful brain activity using fMRI from absolutely anything. Even a dead salmon. So these researchers stuck a dead salmon in an fMRI and found, what they would classify as meaningful brain activity. Which really is a fantastic study, because it throws into disarray so many previous studies that claim to show really amazing results by finding, you know, certain spots of the brain that are meant to be certain types of thought and things like that. This sort of throws all that out the window in a way, because it makes you realize that brain researchers, unfortunately, can quite easily just see what they want to see in fMRI results sometimes.<br />
<br />
S: But there was a very specific statistical argument that they made. It doesn't necessarily invalidate all fMRI research, just that those that use poor technique. Now, what specifically they were saying is, that because you're looking at so much information - with fMI - you can number crunch tons of comparisons, and it becomes almost a certainty that you will find false-positives among those comparisons - unless you correct for multiple comparisons. You use a statistical fix for multiple analyses. So, if you do the proper statistical analysis, then the results can still be robust and statistically legitimate. But it's also just trivially easy to produce false-positives by failing to do that basic statistical correction. And that's something we see all the time, not just in fMRI studies. It's just that the number of comparisons that you can do with this kind of data is so huge that it particularly lends itself to this kind of statistical error.<br />
<br />
R: Yep.<br />
<br />
S: Got it?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: Got it.<br />
<br />
R: I was also particularly impressed by the literature prize. I'm going to read directly from the Ig Nobel description of it. "The US Government General Accountability Office, for issuing a report about reports about reports that recommends the preparation of a report about the report about reports about reports."<br />
<br />
S: Uh-huh.<br />
<br />
R: Yep.<br />
<br />
S: Ah, bureaucracy.<br />
<br />
R: The fluid-dynamics prize went to some researchers who studied how your coffee sloshes around when you walk.<br />
<br />
B: I hate that.<br />
<br />
R:"Walking With Coffee: Why Does It Spill?"<br />
<br />
E: That's why they invented lids.<br />
<br />
R: The anatomy prize went to "Faces and Behinds: Chimpanzee Sex Perception". These researchers from the Netherlands and the US found that chimpanzees can identify other chimps from seeing photographs of their butts. <br />
<br />
R: The medicine prize was... terrifying. It went to French researchers who did some research advising doctors who perform colonoscopies how to minimize the chance that their patients will explode.<br />
<br />
B: Wait, what?<br />
<br />
R: The paper was called "Colonic Gas Explosion During Therapeutic Colonoscopy with Electrocautery". Steve, you can, your butt can explode during a colonoscopy? That's terrifying.<br />
<br />
S: I think Jay has more expertise on this area than I do.<br />
<br />
E: Ah, ha.<br />
<br />
J: Just because I do what my doctor says. You know, he says it's time to go get an exam, I get the exam. What am I going to say? No?<br />
<br />
S: That wasn't my point.<br />
<br />
R: That's not where he was going with that...<br />
<br />
S: This has to do with explosive gas that builds up in your colon, and that gas can get to a sufficient concentration to be explosive. And then you can trigger it with electrocautery. A little spark can actually ignite the methane that builds up in your colon and explode it. It doesn't have to be a big explosion to cause some serious damage. <br />
<br />
J: Why would you do that? Why would you -<br />
<br />
R: I don't think they're doing it on purpose, Jay.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, but after it happens, like once... You figure they'd stop doing it, right?<br />
<br />
R: They still have to cauterize.<br />
<br />
S: Stop doing colonoscopy with electrocautery? It's a rare complication, so what they're essentially saying, just do a really good prep, you know a good colonic cleansing, before you do colonoscopy with electrocautery to minimize the chance of explosion. <br />
<br />
B: Holy crap, how can I never ever hear of that.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, don't you wish you could unhear it?<br />
<br />
J: I'm terrified now!<br />
<br />
B: No, I want to see a video tape of it.<br />
<br />
R: There is something wrong with you guys.<br />
<br />
B: (laughter)<br />
<br />
R: That is not cool.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, does that kill them?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, that's what I'm saying, it's a horrible way to die.<br />
<br />
J: How embarrassing... "What did your brother die from? -Well, he was getting an exam, and his whole ass blew up." Seriously!<br />
<br />
R: Well, hopefully it wont happen as much anymore thanks to the Ig Nobel winners. <br />
<br />
S: Apparently there were 20 cases of colonic gas explosion identified in the literature. Nine of them were complicated by colon perforation. <br />
<br />
R: Like it was perforated before?<br />
<br />
S: No, no. The explosion caused perforation. <br />
<br />
R: Oh.<br />
<br />
E: Well, yeah, you would think, at the minimum.<br />
<br />
S: One of those was fatal. So, one person died. Well, thanks, Rebecca. The Ig Nobels are always fascinating.<br />
<br />
=== GM Corn Rat Study <small>(13:45)</small> ===<br />
* [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-gm-corn-rat-study/ Neurologica: The GM Corn Rat Study]<br />
<br />
S: So this next study that we're going to talk about didn't win an Ig Nobel. Maybe for next year. But this has got to be one of the worst studies I've run across in a long time. The number of different specific criticisms I've come across of this study is staggering. Have you guys heard? This has been, actually quite prominent in the media. This is one of those studies that numerous, numerous listeners have emailed us about. The French study looking at the effects of GM Corn in rats, concluding that, um, the Round-Up ready GM Corn increases the risk of getting tumors. Have you guys heard about this?<br />
<br />
J: No.<br />
<br />
R: How could we not. <br />
<br />
B: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: It was everywhere.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it was everywhere. So the researchers said that this is alarming, obviously that GM Corn can be increasing the risk of breast cancer in women and other tumors, based upon this study. The French media seemed to completely buy their alarmism based upon this research. But American media was pretty skeptical from the get-go, but they didn't really give a good impression of how horrible this study was. The thing that was most suspicious in the initial reporting was the fact that the researchers would not allow... So it's very typical to send out a press release about a news item and to embargo it until a certain time. So you give the reporters a chance to look it over and write their story and then at a certain date and time, then you can publish the news story. This gives the scientists an opportunity to do a press conference or whatever it is they're doing. Of course if you violate the embargo you're probably not going to be given future pre-releases of press releases. In any case what the researchers did was they sent the embargoed press release to the media but they specifically prohibited journalists from seeking outside comment on the paper before it was published.<br />
<br />
E: That's outside the norm.<br />
<br />
S: It was very unusual. So they basically told the journalists, here's our research, we want you to report on it, but we don't want you to do your job as journalists and ask anybody else what they think about it. Just publish our interpretation of our own study.<br />
<br />
B: Wow.<br />
<br />
R: That's amazing, that that can even happen.<br />
<br />
B: Can they make us do that?<br />
<br />
S: Well it's... what do you mean by 'make them'? You know they...<br />
<br />
B: Did they make them sign a p... saying, you can come and listen to this but uh...<br />
<br />
R: But no the beauty of an embargo is that, they can't enforce it at all, all they can do is if a journalist breaks the embargo they can go on a shit list, and then they never get the tip-offs again.<br />
<br />
B: Well who cares of they're on their shit list?<br />
<br />
E: And for a piece of crap like this.<br />
<br />
R: Well, unfortunately it matters to a lot of journalists, particularly the overworked type I'm imagining at, you know, larger newspapers who are mostly just printing press releases and things and don't really have time to dig into this stuff. And not really have much interest in pissing off the people who are feeding them the easy science news.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
R: But that said, there are plenty of journalists who do break embargos because of things like that. I know Ben Goldacre has tweeted some of the idiotic things researchers will do with embargos that journalists happily say, "go screw yourself," to.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
E: (laughs)<br />
<br />
S: It's all honor system, but of course, if you don't care about the particular institution or researchers, you're under no obligation to follow the embargo. In this case I would've told them to screw off, and just did what I normally do, you know. But it didn't take long for scientific news outlets, like the New Scientist, and science bloggers to be all over this study, and there was just an avalanche of withering criticism. For example, here are some of the specific criticisms of the study. "The population of rats that they were using have a high propensity for tumors."<br />
<br />
R: Hm<br />
<br />
B: O-kay<br />
<br />
E: ..animals used<br />
<br />
S: It's really easy to get them to have tumors. One way to get them to have tumors is to overfeed them. And the researchers didn't indicate the total food intake for any of their groups.<br />
<br />
B: t...esting<br />
<br />
S: There were only 20 rats in the control group. And they had a lower tumor rate than is historically typical, for this population of rats.<br />
<br />
R: Hm<br />
<br />
E: The control group<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. The control group had an artificially low rate of tumors. The data only reported that some of the test groups had a higher tumor incidence while others did not. So they essentially cherry-picked the data that showed a higher incidence, and in fact there was one group that showed a lower incidence with the highest amount of GM Corn. There was no dose-response, so there was no relationship between how much corn they ate and the risk of tumor. They also looked at exposure to Round-Up, the herbicide, which had the same effect as eating the corn that had the gene that was resistant to the herbicide. Which makes no sense. It's completely different mechanisms that produce the same effect. They did not control for fungal contaminants, something else that also can cause tumors in the same population of rats. And they did not use standard statistical analysis; instead they used some completely made-up unusual statistical analyis, that Tom Sanders, who's a researcher, characterized it as a "statistical fishing trip" in the New Scientist.<br />
<br />
B: Holy crap<br />
<br />
E: This ended up in a peer-reviewed journal?<br />
<br />
S: Yes. Amazingly, yes. This is just the tip of the iceberg. I mean, every time somebody else takes a look at it they're like, oh my god, look at what else they did. There were just so many other problems with this study. The study is uninterpretable, and utter nonsense.<br />
<br />
B: Was it done on purpose?<br />
<br />
E: Maybe it's a spoof. Maybe they're having a joke on all of us.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah<br />
<br />
S: No. You'd like to think that, but no.<br />
<br />
J: So whats the result gonna be, Steve? What happens to these people?<br />
<br />
S: Well they're getting roundly criticized. I don't know why anybody would take them seriously. These researchers are suspect right out of the gate. They are part of a group that has been highly critical of GM crops ahead of time, so they have an ideological axe to grind. They've produced previous studies that were highly criticized as flawed, and totally biased against GM food. And one of the researchers -- and this may explain how horrifically bad their research methods were -- one of the researchers is a homeopath.<br />
<br />
B: Oh boy.<br />
<br />
R: What?<br />
<br />
B: No way.<br />
<br />
R: What?<br />
<br />
S: Dr. Joel Spro De Vendomeua -- which I probably totally butchered -- is a homeopath. He is a doctor of homeopathy and acupuncture.<br />
<br />
E: Do they have a feng shui specialist on this team as well?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah. Which means he's an expert in manipulating data and generating false positives...<br />
<br />
J: (laughs)<br />
<br />
S: ...out of crap. <br />
<br />
R: Fried green baloney.<br />
<br />
S: You have a degree in baloney. So that's what we're dealing with. Now apparently, the French media ate it up, and they were like oh, see how horrible GM food is, it's going to kill us everybody, it's just horrible. <br />
<br />
E: Big souffle.<br />
<br />
S: But now, later than other countries, than English-speaking countries, they're starting to pick up on the fact that maybe this study is not something to hang your hat on. So they're sort of catching the second cycle and then trying to make up for their initial utter failure in reporting how crappy this study was.<br />
<br />
B: Scuzi, milli regretti.<br />
<br />
R: French, not Italian.<br />
<br />
B: I know, but I know how to say that in Italian. And it's a movie quote.<br />
<br />
E: It's all quotes, so.<br />
<br />
R: Uh-huh.<br />
<br />
S: Right. So this doesn't say anything about GM food, we had a previous discussion about this on the show. It's a complicated topic. It gets into the precautionary principle, the environmental effects, and is also all of the dealings that Monsanto and other corporations like that do in terms of controlling their seed and how they treat farmers and what not. But, regardless of what you think about all of that, this one study is utter crap. And there really isn't any evidence of any health risks from eating this particular GM corn. It has a gene in there that gives it resistance to Round-Up, so it's a so-called Round-Up-Ready crop so that farmers could then spray their fields with Round-Up in one application to get rid of weeds and it won't affect the crop, so it's very cost effective. There hasn't been any evidence that it causes any... I mean it's been studied sufficiently to get approval for human consumption, that it's safe. So when you have something that's been studied to this degree is probably being consumed by millions or hundreds of millions of people, really, you're going to do a crappy little study with 20 control rats? Then try to alarm the world with risks of this product? That's just completely irresponsible. <br />
<br />
E: What does this say about the Food & Chemical Toxicology Journal? Does a journal like this suffer? <br />
<br />
S: It's a peer review fail. Total peer review fail.<br />
<br />
E: Does this put them in a bad light?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, absolutely. <br />
<br />
E: ...for future reports.<br />
<br />
S: It turns them into a scientific rag, I mean this shows that their editorial filter and peer review filter is inadequate. This never should have been published. This study is a joke. <br />
<br />
B: Yeah but still, people will be citing this study...<br />
<br />
S: Yes<br />
<br />
B: ...for years. They'll be citing, "Hey, this was in a peer-reviewed journal"<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
B: And lots of people won't remember that it was shit.<br />
<br />
S: You may be right, but we'll see. There was such a science blogger feeding frenzy over this study, that I wonder if that is going to stick. You know, oh, that was that crappy study that was shot down in flames, within hours of being published.<br />
<br />
E: What if this came out 20 years ago before the internet, what would've happened?<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
E: It would've gotten out there, and been out there so long before anyone had a chance to really pull it apart the way we have.<br />
<br />
S: Oh I know the turnaround was really quick, within a day or two it was shredded, shredded on the Internet, so. You're right. I think that's one of the good, positive things about the internet was the speed with which this kind of information can be turned over.<br />
<br />
E: Good job, internet.<br />
<br />
S: Alright well let's go on to another interesting news item. Jay, you're going tell us about HIV and faith healing.<br />
<br />
=== HIV and Faith Healing <small>(24:22)</small> ===<br />
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-19656649 BBC news: Faith Leaders Across England in 'HIV Healing' Claims<br />
<br />
=== Emoticon Turns 30 <small>(34:22)</small> ===<br />
* [http://digitallife.today.com/_news/2012/09/20/13989898-the-emoticon-is-30-years-old Digital Life, MSN: The Emoticon is 30 Years Old ;-)]<br />
<br />
=== CSICon Private Recording <small>(38:19)</small> ===<br />
* [http://www.skepticalrobot.com/ticket-to-sgu-recording-DC/ SkepticalRobot.com: Ticket to SGU Recording at CSICon]<br />
<br />
== Who's That Noisy <small>(39:42)</small> ==<br />
* Answer to last week: Warp core from Enterprise TNG<br />
<br />
== Interview with Pamela Gay <small>(42:00)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: All right, let's go on to our interview.<br />
<br />
S: Well we are sitting here now at TAM 2012 with Dr. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Gay Pamela Gay], Pamela welcome back to the Skeptics' Guide.<br />
<br />
PG: Well thank you so much for having me on again.<br />
<br />
S: And for those who don't know, Pamela does an amazing podcast called [http://www.astronomycast.com/ Astronomy Cast], one of my favourites, but tell us what you were talking about here at TAM this year.<br />
<br />
PG: Well I was trying mostly to focus on how human beings can do amazing things to make the world better and fix the things that are broken by getting engaged in society. And there are so many different aspects to this, from helping scientists to accomplish science in our current funding crisis by going online and participating in citizen's science, by being aware of things that they can help support through just writing an email. There was a fifth grader a few weeks ago who was forbidden to give a speech on same sex marriage by an extra-ordinarily judgemental principal, and the internet outcry allowed this kid to be able to give his speech in a special assembly. And by simply looking around and saying I'm going to do something to change what bothers me rather than whining about it on Twitter, we're capable of doing really great things as a society, working as individuals.<br />
<br />
S: But whining is so much easier, though.<br />
<br />
PG: And that's the problem. We've all forwarded a tweet about something where someone is articulating something that bothered them, but never taken the moment to do something original, to donate to a cause. One of the things that greatly frustrates me is there's been a few times with [http://365daysofastronomy.org/ 365 Days of Astronomy], which is a community based podcast that I work with, we've put out a call for donations and seen huge numbers of re-tweets and zero donations.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
PG: It's so easy to just forward, to just repeat and so much harder to put your time, your money, your effort into actually doing things that you say matter for you. Imagine if all the time and energy that went into going to some Youtube video where someone's being an idiot and then trolling them for it, instead went into doing something positive to educate people so that they don't become trolls.<br />
<br />
J: So is being a troll a trap? Do you think there's something that attracts people to it, like they get an adrenaline rush or something, what's the driver?<br />
<br />
PG: People want attention. I for a while volunteered as a dog trainer and I went through courses to get trained as a dog.<br />
<br />
S: You got trained as a dog?<br />
<br />
PG: Not trained as a dog, sorry. To get trained as a dog trainer.<br />
<br />
J: (laughs)<br />
<br />
PG: And to think like a dog, which don't conjoin those two sentences, it comes out strangely, I just tried that. And one of the things that they teach you is that some of these animals misbehave horribly, biting, nipping, yapping, peeing on the floor, because they just desperately want attention, they're herd, they're not herd animals, they're pack animals and they, if you have a single dog it's isolated, it wants to feel part of the pack and negative attention is still attention. And trolls, when you feed them by saying you're wrong, you're bad, you're evil, you're wasting my time and you attack them back, you're feeding them, you're giving in to their need for attention, to feel part of the pack. We need to figure out how not to give them that positive reinforcement.<br />
<br />
J: Is it as simple as just ignore?<br />
<br />
PG: I think you sometimes have to do more than just ignore because if you just ignore they're still sitting there and other people are going to give in and feed. I think it's worth taking the half-second before you close that browser window to hit the block, to hit the report as abuse, to hit that button that will eventually alert the social network this is someone we probably need to remove.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah there's a certain threshold of people where you just have to ban people.<br />
<br />
PG: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Because they're, as you said, don't feed the trolls, when you say that, that's feeding the trolls, first of all. You can't talk about not talking about it without talking about it.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: That feeds in to a certain degree. Because they always just escalate their game until someone caves.<br />
<br />
PG: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: The other thing is that, with certain sites, if you're running a science site, and you have somebody there spreading pseudoscience, you can't let it go unanswered so you have this dilemma where you have this rank pseudoscience on a science site that no-one is objecting to, or you have to feed the troll, or you just ban them. So you're almost obligated at some point just to ban people to preserve the integrity of the blog.<br />
<br />
PG: This is something that we have to deal with with with the [http://cosmoquest.org/forum/forum.php CosmoQuest forums] which recently merged with the Bad Astronomy Universe Today forums, and we get a lot of people coming in to the forums and presenting their alternative to the mainstream ideas about science. These are people that are trying to say relativity isn't true or presenting their own alternative ideas, and so we have an [http://cosmoquest.org/forum/forumdisplay.php/17-Against-the-Mainstream area set aside for their discussion], and they're required to answer every question that is given to them, and they're given 30 days to convince people of their idea, and if they can't, they have to be silenced, the thread is closed. So it's a way of confronting it but giving them their own space.<br />
<br />
J: That's interesting, I mean you're basically saying, we're going to allot you time to talk about it but then if it doesn't actually get to the point where it goes above the water line, which I'm curious to know if it ever does...<br />
<br />
PG: So far it hasn't, and this is a forum that has existed within the Bad Astronomy Universe Today named about forums for many many years and when Fraser Cain first set up this part of the forum it was with the hope that maybe some new, novel, interesting idea would come out of it that was real science, and it never has.<br />
<br />
J: Did he come up with that idea?<br />
<br />
PG: I think it was a combination of seeing all of these pseudoscience ideas, seeing all of these alternative ideas being brought forward and getting smashed down in a way that led to flames, trying to create out of all of these flame wars, something positive.<br />
<br />
J: Right. Well I think it's a really cool idea, I'd like actually to come take a look.<br />
<br />
S: In terms of people getting involved in changing the world, which obviously we like to do - we're activists, I do find that people come up to us to talk about us are sorted into one of two categories, there are people who say "you guys should do this".<br />
<br />
PG: Yes.<br />
<br />
S: "You guys should go ahead and do that." My answer is always, yeah that is a good that, you should do that, why don't you do that? We're doing something already. But there are a lot of people who do ask questions at lectures or who come up and talk to us and say "I want to get involved, I want to do something, can you help me do that?" So we don't want to make it seem like other people aren't interested in being activists, but sometimes you just don't know how to get involved.<br />
<br />
PG: There's two different factors, the people who come up to us and say "you need to" make me feel exhausted, because we can only do so much as individuals, but part of what we're seeing is these people see us as strong, powerful people who are capable of enacting change and they don't see themselves that way.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: So we have to empower people to understand that when they see a problem, when they're upset about something, they actually can be that cliché of be the change you want to see in the world. And so we need to somehow facilitate people believing in themselves. And the other side of that is that there are a lot of people who recognise that there's a lot of badness out there and they don't know where to start, it's all so intimidating, they don't know how to get involved, and my advice to these people, is simply find what you're passionate about and then google to find out who's already engaged in combating this. One of my favourite examples is people who get very upset about lesbian/gay/bisexual/queer/transgender issues. I don't remember what order those words are supposed to go in now. There's this fabulous [http://www.itgetsbetter.org/ It Gets Better Project]. So if you see, and people see this on my comment thread because my last name's Gay, so every good comment thread eventually leads to somebody saying "haha this is so gay her last name's gay, you're gay" and it's ridiculous that this is still happening in 2012.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, but that could be an 11 year old right, because it's online.<br />
<br />
PG: It's online and, but...<br />
<br />
J: It was me.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: Just kidding.<br />
<br />
PG: And this is one of those cases where there's clearly still problems, there's that teenage girl killed in Texas for being in love with another girl, and there's already an organisation working hard to do good, to fix things, so find the people who are doing the thing that causes you to stay awake going I can't believe the world is broken in this way, and embrace those people. And if those people aren't already out there doing the thing that makes you passionately hurt so that you want to change the world, be that person, Elyse Anders did that a few years ago, creating the [http://hugmeimvaccinated.org/ Hug Me I'm Vaccinated] program when she realised how much we're losing herd immunity. So you can, if you don't see the people already out there working to make things better, be that person who starts the grass-roots movement.<br />
<br />
J: Or if you don't have the time, or you're just not cut out for it, which let's be honest, some people aren't, like you said earlier though, you can also be a supporter, not just by digesting the content and learning from it, but you can donate and even just sending an email to the people that are doing the work that you really appreciate and thank them and let them know because as someone who receives email where people say hey, I listen and I appreciate it, it fuels us and it really makes a difference. If you're just in an echo chamber and you have no idea if you're having an impact, then you don't know what's going on and you could easily just putter out and not be motivated.<br />
<br />
PG: And in our current society where we're in a position where our government just can't fund the things the way it used to. And I know I personally am in this situation where I'm really worried because I didn't get the grant I was counting on this year, I need to figure out to afford my lead programmer because his funding runs out in December. And all of this is terrifying but then I see hope in things like there are so many individuals who have things that they can share, resources that they can share and they're working so hard to literally build our rocket plane future. NASA right now is underfunded to say the least, but there's so many individuals who made their fortunes in dot coms, working with Amazon, with Google, with PayPal, with these different corporations, and having made their money, they're now saying, I'm going to build the rocket plane future by hiring the engineers, by hiring the space suit designers, and this is where we see [http://www.spacex.com/ SpaceX], [http://www.blueorigin.com/ Blue Origin], [http://www.xcor.com/ XCOR], all these other companies, because someone of means said "I'm going to change the world" and what we have to hope for is that people of means will recognise what we're doing. And "of means" may be one extra dollar, it only takes ten people with one extra dollar to pay for one hour of a student doing something in the lab, and every one dollar can go so far, and maybe some day we'll get lucky and I know we've been lucky with Astronomy Cast, we've Uncle Bob as one of our sponsors, and he supports what we do, spreading the word of astronomy, and you have supporters who support you and we live in an age where it's individuals who fund changing society virally, one idea and campaign at a time. It is one of those strange contradictions of modern society where there's the expectation that with intellectual gifts and content that we should give it away for free and that if we expect to earn money that we are being selfish, that we are - name one of the seven sins. We're somehow taking advantage of society by trying to make a decent living, and there's something wrong with the idea that it's OK for an athlete who entertains on TV and in the sports arena, an actress, all of these people, to get paid huge sums of money to do what they do. One baseball player's salary for one year, for one of the little guys making a million a year, that funds my entire staff, multiple individuals for multiple years, and people see it as wrong that we as academics would like to make a reasonable living, that we as content producers might even put ads on our websites and try not to have to pay out of pocket for our microphones. That's what Fraser and I do, Fraser and I do all of our podcasting out of our own pocket and we pay an audio engineer and we pay someone to do transcripts for us because really if you don't pay someone to do transcripts you're torturing them.<br />
<br />
J: Right, right.<br />
<br />
S: Mmhmm.<br />
<br />
E: Mmhmm.<br />
<br />
J: (laughs).<br />
<br />
PG: And it's...<br />
<br />
J: It's frustrating, and it's something that we've all hit, that we've all hit that wall and it's funny, I was just talking to Brian Dunning about it and you know it's like "yeah, you know it's just another year of throwing the money away, of burning the money on our hobby, quote, unquote hobby". But right now Brian is doing it full time and he's really under the gun he's really working it. So you know, hopefully there are a lot of people that do donate money, even though like you said, a dollar or whatever, and that does count. Of we all, like Bob was saying, would love a bigger infusion so that we don't have to focus on it as much.<br />
<br />
S: You made another point that I thought was very good, the fact that often our listeners, people out there in the public may perceive us as having some kind of special power or access or something, that we can get things done that they can't and I think that, we've marvelled at that too, people come up to us at conferences, they send us emails, and there's this tone that makes it seem like they think like we're all part of one big organisation, which is not the case, we're all just individuals. Or somehow that we have some magical access to government or whatever, it's like "yeah, why aren't you telling the FDA how to fix this?" Because I'm just a citizen. I have no special access to anyone or anything and we just started doing this in our living room, there's absolutely no reason you can't do the exact same thing, it's all just energy and drive you know. But I think that becomes this artificial barrier, that people think that they can't do something or there's something magical about what we're doing.<br />
<br />
PG: And this is where I deeply appreciate the fluffy segments that are at the end of the news so often where they show the 12-year-old who raised a couple of thousand dollars for this foundation or...<br />
<br />
E: At the lemonade stand, yeah.<br />
<br />
PG: Right. And so there's so many small ways and giant ways and I'd encourage everyone to take the time to listen to [http://www.ted.com/talks TED talks], not the ones by the big name academics, but the ones by the individuals who've seen a problem. One of my favourite ones, it's such a simple concept, was realising that there's a serious problem of not having soap in the third world, such a simple thing, not having soap. And then was visiting the United States and seeing that they throw out, and they do this here in the South Point, a bar of soap every day. You open the soap, you use the soap, and the next morning it's gone and you have a new bar of soap. Well he worked out a program to gather up all these hotel soaps, clean them, and redistribute them.<br />
<br />
J: Clean soap?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
PG: I don't know how that part works. Physical scientist, not chemist or biologist.<br />
<br />
B: You need super soap, meta soap.<br />
<br />
J: I think you'd just put water on it and agitate it, get rid of that outer layer.<br />
<br />
PG: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: So Pamela, thanks for being open with us and talking with us, and so of course, always a pleasure to see you at these conferences.<br />
<br />
PG: It was really my pleasure, thank you so much for having me on.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(58:16)</small> ==<br />
[http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2012/halo/ Item #1]: Astronomers may have solved the "missing baryon problem" with the discovery of a halo of hot gas surrounding the Milky Way galaxy.<br />
[http://www.ucalgary.ca/news/utoday/september24-2012/melting Item #2]: This year's peak Arctic ice melt is the greatest since records have been kept, and likely the greatest in a million years.<br />
[http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2012/09/24/a-clock-that-will-last-forever/ Item #3]: Physicists have built a 4-dimensional "space-time crystal" that can be used to keep perfect time until the end of the universe. <br />
<br />
== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:12:10)</small> ==<br />
<blockquote>An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. 'Can they be brought together?' This is a practical question. We must get down to it. 'I despise intelligence' really means: 'I cannot bear my doubts.'</blockquote><br />
Albert Camus<br />
<br />
== Announcements <small>(1:13:40)</small> ==<br />
<br />
{{Outro1}}<br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}}</div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_376&diff=9479SGU Episode 3762014-11-18T05:08:50Z<p>Jason koziol: /* GM Corn Rat Study (13:45) */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Editing required<br />
|transcription = y<br />
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|}}<br />
{{InfoBox <br />
|episodeNum = 376<br />
|episodeDate = 29<sup>th</sup> September 2012<br />
|episodeIcon = File:Emoticons.jpg<br />
|rebecca = y<br />
|bob = y<br />
|jay = y<br />
|evan = y<br />
|guest1 = PG: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Gay Pamela Gay]<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2012-09-29.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php?topic=43494.0<br />
|qowText = An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. 'Can they be brought together?' This is a practical question. We must get down to it. 'I despise intelligence' really means: 'I cannot bear my doubts.'<br />
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus Albert Camus]<br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
S: Hello, and welcome to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Today is Monday September 24, 2012 and this is your host <br />
Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella<br />
<br />
B: Hey everybody.<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca Watson<br />
<br />
R: Hello everyone.<br />
<br />
S: Jay Novella<br />
<br />
J: Hey guys.<br />
<br />
S: and Evan Bernstein.<br />
<br />
E: Good morning and/or good evening.<br />
<br />
S: How is everybody today?<br />
<br />
R: Super.<br />
<br />
E: Doing just fine.<br />
<br />
J: Thanks for asking.<br />
<br />
== This Day in Skepticism <small>(0:33)</small> ==<br />
* September 29, 1954: CERN is created<br />
<br />
R: Hey, happy CERN day everybody. Happy CERN day.<br />
<br />
B: What does that mean?<br />
<br />
R: That means, on [[September 29]]th 1954 the convention establishing CERN was signed. CERN of course being the European organization for nuclear research. That's the English equivalent. I'm not going to attempt the French, 'cause I don't want to get angry emails.<br />
<br />
J: Rebecca, I was con''cern''ed that you were going to forget.<br />
<br />
R: Forget that it is CERN day?<br />
<br />
J: Year, I was con'''''cern'''''ed.<br />
<br />
B: Ah, yes...<br />
<br />
J: Nothing, huh? Okay.<br />
<br />
R: ''Cern''tailly that's not an issue.<br />
<br />
J: (laughter) You mean, my joke was so bad, that I'm hurtin' for ''cern''tain.<br />
<br />
S: (laughter) Alright... So, this is also the one year anniversary - or at least September 24th when we're recording this - of the first SGU 24 hour live broadcast.<br />
<br />
J: Oh, boy, that was awesome.<br />
<br />
E: Remember that?<br />
<br />
S: Have you guys recovered yet?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Has it only been a year? Seems like yesterday.<br />
<br />
J: Barely...<br />
<br />
B: Evan, we don't need to sleep, right?<br />
<br />
E: Nah. I'll sleep when I'm dead.<br />
<br />
J: I think that was the hardest project I ever did in my life.<br />
<br />
E: It was a test of endurance, will and -<br />
<br />
R: Well, until that baby comes out.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, that's right.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, yeah.. (laughter)<br />
<br />
B: So far, every convention people come up to me like "Do another SGU 24." and I always say, "You know what? I wouldn't mind doing it again, but I don't think we could convince anyone else to do it." And I tell everyone, maybe we'll do like SGU six hours or four hours or something like that. I think if we ever do it, that's what it would have to be.<br />
<br />
R: SGU four hours is a normal night of recording for us.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, that's right.<br />
<br />
E: Well yeah, actually it is.<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Ig Nobels 2012 <small>(2:18)</small> ===<br />
* [http://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/ Improbable Research]<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca, have you checked out the IG nobel winners for 2012?<br />
<br />
R: I have indeed, actually. I'm sad I no longer live in Boston, because Ig Nobels were my favorite time of year. If you ever get a chance to actually go and see them in person, I highly recommend it. It's a hilarious evening of science and fun. So yeah, this years winners, much like previous years, are absolutely delightful. So for those of our listeners, who are not familiar with Ig Nobels, the idea is that they give out awards to science that first makes you laugh and then makes you think. Some Ig Nobels are occasionally given out tongue-in-cheek to idiots and speudoscientists, but for the most part they are given to actual scientists doing actual scientific research that is completely ridiculous. So, for instance, this year the psychology prize went to two scientists for their study "Leaning to the Left Makes the Eiffel Tower Seem Smaller". <br />
<br />
E: As opposed to the right, I suppose.<br />
<br />
R: My personal favorite prize was the acoustics prize, which went to two Japanese researchers who created something called the speech-jammer, which is the most brilliant device I think that has ever been created and it's something that when I describe it will be immediately familiar to everybody currently on this show. This is something that anybody deals with audio, who has spoken into a microphones while wearing headphones and have something go wrong, you know exactly what this does. So, the speech jammer disrupt a person's speech by forcing them to hear their own words at a very slight delay. So, the... Basically what it is, it's a large gun that looks kind of like - I've seen it refereded to like an Xbox-like device - and there's a microphone on it. You point it to someone who is talking. And the microphone picks up their words and then delays what they're saying by a few hundred milliseconds and then feeds it back out trough a speaker directly at them. And everything is direction sensitive, so that the speaker is the only person who can really get the effect. <br />
<br />
B: Are they aware that they are hearing their voice on a delay?<br />
<br />
E: Oh, year.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, I'm sure they are but there is a -<br />
<br />
E: That's the point<br />
<br />
R: There is a video showing it in action and... there is one part of the video that focuses on a professor, and he is giving a lecture at the front of the room and somebody does it to him, and he kind of freaks out because he thinks that something in the lecture hall is going wrong. Like his microphone is messed up or the projector is messing something up. It really makes him stop talking like immediately. It's so difficult to listen to yourself echoing, while continuing to talk.<br />
<br />
B : Have you guys ever experienced that?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, all the time.<br />
<br />
S: During the SGU 24 show, we were doing interviews -<br />
<br />
R: Oh, god, that's right.<br />
<br />
S: there was that half a second delay and it was almost impossible to talk. I had to take the headphones off to get a sentence out.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it was hard. You become hyper-aware of what you're saying and you're completely unable to function.<br />
<br />
E: That's funny, Steve. What's going on in the brain at that point? So, the brain is- you're trying to create speech and at the same time interpret- your brain is also at the same time interpreting its own speech and trying to -<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think so. It's -<br />
<br />
E: - make it fit together?<br />
<br />
S: it just can't process two speech streams at the same time. So -<br />
<br />
B: I think it's a little more complicated than that, though, because one of the things that people do by instinct is... we're able to filter out ambient noise. So if you're in a room with five or ten or more people talking you can kind of just ignore it. But you can't ignore that. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah..<br />
<br />
E: It's the sound of your own voice.<br />
<br />
B: There's something different about it. You can't ignore it just sweep it aside like you can other speech. It's something that just like short-circuits your brain.<br />
<br />
E: And hearing yourself so close to the words that you've just spoken, right, the timing sure is -<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, the timing is -<br />
<br />
E: They've homed in the timing to be effective in this regard.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, I wonder if they slowly increase the delay, what the effect would be. Would you reach a threshold where you could totally deal with it? You probably could.<br />
<br />
J: Absolutely, Bob, it's a sweet-spot and they figured out the sweet-spot and then they figured out the delivery mechanism, like how to shoot that sound back at one person or to a very small area. So it ''is'' kind of like a gun. Right, Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it looks like a big chunky gun. With a microphone and a speaker on it.<br />
<br />
J: But the funny thing about this is that there really isn't any point to it, other than... what? Like is it just a prank?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, in the abstract they say "We discuss practical application scenarios of this system such as facilitating and controlling discussions." Which is just a polite, sciency way to say "making people shut up". A bunch of kids, you know, studying in a lab and a girl pulls out her cell phone and starts talking and somebody pulls out the gun and she just immediately stops.<br />
<br />
E: Has to stop.<br />
<br />
R: So, I mean. I think everybody can think of a million practical applications for this item. Just maybe not so much in the terms of furthering human evolution... or knowledge of the universe.<br />
<br />
S: I think we talked about the neuroscience prize on the show.<br />
<br />
R: We did. Yeah. And it surprised me because I assumed that these guys got the prize years earlier because this study came out in 2009. It's the study that shows that you can pick up meaningful brain activity using fMRI from absolutely anything. Even a dead salmon. So these researchers stuck a dead salmon in an fMRI and found, what they would classify as meaningful brain activity. Which really is a fantastic study, because it throws into disarray so many previous studies that claim to show really amazing results by finding, you know, certain spots of the brain that are meant to be certain types of thought and things like that. This sort of throws all that out the window in a way, because it makes you realize that brain researchers, unfortunately, can quite easily just see what they want to see in fMRI results sometimes.<br />
<br />
S: But there was a very specific statistical argument that they made. It doesn't necessarily invalidate all fMRI research, just that those that use poor technique. Now, what specifically they were saying is, that because you're looking at so much information - with fMI - you can number crunch tons of comparisons, and it becomes almost a certainty that you will find false-positives among those comparisons - unless you correct for multiple comparisons. You use a statistical fix for multiple analyses. So, if you do the proper statistical analysis, then the results can still be robust and statistically legitimate. But it's also just trivially easy to produce false-positives by failing to do that basic statistical correction. And that's something we see all the time, not just in fMRI studies. It's just that the number of comparisons that you can do with this kind of data is so huge that it particularly lends itself to this kind of statistical error.<br />
<br />
R: Yep.<br />
<br />
S: Got it?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: Got it.<br />
<br />
R: I was also particularly impressed by the literature prize. I'm going to read directly from the Ig Nobel description of it. "The US Government General Accountability Office, for issuing a report about reports about reports that recommends the preparation of a report about the report about reports about reports."<br />
<br />
S: Uh-huh.<br />
<br />
R: Yep.<br />
<br />
S: Ah, bureaucracy.<br />
<br />
R: The fluid-dynamics prize went to some researchers who studied how your coffee sloshes around when you walk.<br />
<br />
B: I hate that.<br />
<br />
R:"Walking With Coffee: Why Does It Spill?"<br />
<br />
E: That's why they invented lids.<br />
<br />
R: The anatomy prize went to "Faces and Behinds: Chimpanzee Sex Perception". These researchers from the Netherlands and the US found that chimpanzees can identify other chimps from seeing photographs of their butts. <br />
<br />
R: The medicine prize was... terrifying. It went to French researchers who did some research advising doctors who perform colonoscopies how to minimize the chance that their patients will explode.<br />
<br />
B: Wait, what?<br />
<br />
R: The paper was called "Colonic Gas Explosion During Therapeutic Colonoscopy with Electrocautery". Steve, you can, your butt can explode during a colonoscopy? That's terrifying.<br />
<br />
S: I think Jay has more expertise on this area than I do.<br />
<br />
E: Ah, ha.<br />
<br />
J: Just because I do what my doctor says. You know, he says it's time to go get an exam, I get the exam. What am I going to say? No?<br />
<br />
S: That wasn't my point.<br />
<br />
R: That's not where he was going with that...<br />
<br />
S: This has to do with explosive gas that builds up in your colon, and that gas can get to a sufficient concentration to be explosive. And then you can trigger it with electrocautery. A little spark can actually ignite the methane that builds up in your colon and explode it. It doesn't have to be a big explosion to cause some serious damage. <br />
<br />
J: Why would you do that? Why would you -<br />
<br />
R: I don't think they're doing it on purpose, Jay.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, but after it happens, like once... You figure they'd stop doing it, right?<br />
<br />
R: They still have to cauterize.<br />
<br />
S: Stop doing colonoscopy with electrocautery? It's a rare complication, so what they're essentially saying, just do a really good prep, you know a good colonic cleansing, before you do colonoscopy with electrocautery to minimize the chance of explosion. <br />
<br />
B: Holy crap, how can I never ever hear of that.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, don't you wish you could unhear it?<br />
<br />
J: I'm terrified now!<br />
<br />
B: No, I want to see a video tape of it.<br />
<br />
R: There is something wrong with you guys.<br />
<br />
B: (laughter)<br />
<br />
R: That is not cool.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, does that kill them?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, that's what I'm saying, it's a horrible way to die.<br />
<br />
J: How embarrassing... "What did your brother die from? -Well, he was getting an exam, and his whole ass blew up." Seriously!<br />
<br />
R: Well, hopefully it wont happen as much anymore thanks to the Ig Nobel winners. <br />
<br />
S: Apparently there were 20 cases of colonic gas explosion identified in the literature. Nine of them were complicated by colon perforation. <br />
<br />
R: Like it was perforated before?<br />
<br />
S: No, no. The explosion caused perforation. <br />
<br />
R: Oh.<br />
<br />
E: Well, yeah, you would think, at the minimum.<br />
<br />
S: One of those was fatal. So, one person died. Well, thanks, Rebecca. The Ig Nobels are always fascinating.<br />
<br />
=== GM Corn Rat Study <small>(13:45)</small> ===<br />
* [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-gm-corn-rat-study/ Neurologica: The GM Corn Rat Study]<br />
<br />
S: So this next study that we're going to talk about didn't win an Ig Nobel. Maybe for next year. But this has got to be one of the worst studies I've run across in a long time. The number of different specific criticisms I've come across of this study is staggering. Have you guys heard? This has been, actually quite prominent in the media. This is one of those studies that numerous, numerous listeners have emailed us about. The French study looking at the effects of GM Corn in rats, concluding that, um, the Round-Up ready GM Corn increases the risk of getting tumors. Have you guys heard about this?<br />
<br />
J: No.<br />
<br />
R: How could we not. <br />
<br />
B: Yeah.<br />
<br />
R: It was everywhere.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, it was everywhere. So the researchers said that this is alarming, obviously that GM Corn can be increasing the risk of breast cancer in women and other tumors, based upon this study. The French media seemed to completely buy their alarmism based upon this research. But American media was pretty skeptical from the get-go, but they didn't really give a good impression of how horrible this study was. The thing that was most suspicious in the initial reporting was the fact that the researchers would not allow... So it's very typical to send out a press release about a news item and to embargo it until a certain time. So you give the reporters a chance to look it over and write their story and then at a certain date and time, then you can publish the news story. This gives the scientists an opportunity to do a press conference or whatever it is they're doing. Of course if you violate the embargo you're probably not going to be given future pre-releases of press releases. In any case what the researchers did was they sent the embargoed press release to the media but they specifically prohibited journalists from seeking outside comment on the paper before it was published.<br />
<br />
E: That's outside the norm.<br />
<br />
S: It was very unusual. So they basically told the journalists, here's our research, we want you to report on it, but we don't want you to do your job as journalists and ask anybody else what they think about it. Just publish our interpretation of our own study.<br />
<br />
B: Wow.<br />
<br />
R: That's amazing, that that can even happen.<br />
<br />
B: Can they make us do that?<br />
<br />
S: Well it's... what do you mean by 'make them'? You know they...<br />
<br />
B: Did they make them sign a p... saying, you can come and listen to this but uh...<br />
<br />
R: But no the beauty of an embargo is that, they can't enforce it at all, all they can do is if a journalist breaks the embargo they can go on a shit list, and then they never get the tip-offs again.<br />
<br />
B: Well who cares of they're on their shit list?<br />
<br />
E: And for a piece of crap like this.<br />
<br />
R: Well, unfortunately it matters to a lot of journalists, particularly the overworked type I'm imagining at, you know, larger newspapers who are mostly just printing press releases and things and don't really have time to dig into this stuff. And not really have much interest in pissing off the people who are feeding them the easy science news.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
R: But that said, there are plenty of journalists who do break embargos because of things like that. I know Ben Goldeger has tweeted some of the idiotic things researchers will do with embargos that journalists happily say, "go screw yourself," to.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah<br />
<br />
E: (laughs)<br />
<br />
S: It's all<br />
<br />
=== HIV and Faith Healing <small>(24:22)</small> ===<br />
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-19656649 BBC news: Faith Leaders Across England in 'HIV Healing' Claims<br />
<br />
=== Emoticon Turns 30 <small>(34:22)</small> ===<br />
* [http://digitallife.today.com/_news/2012/09/20/13989898-the-emoticon-is-30-years-old Digital Life, MSN: The Emoticon is 30 Years Old ;-)]<br />
<br />
=== CSICon Private Recording <small>(38:19)</small> ===<br />
* [http://www.skepticalrobot.com/ticket-to-sgu-recording-DC/ SkepticalRobot.com: Ticket to SGU Recording at CSICon]<br />
<br />
== Who's That Noisy <small>(39:42)</small> ==<br />
* Answer to last week: Warp core from Enterprise TNG<br />
<br />
== Interview with Pamela Gay <small>(42:00)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: All right, let's go on to our interview.<br />
<br />
S: Well we are sitting here now at TAM 2012 with Dr. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Gay Pamela Gay], Pamela welcome back to the Skeptics' Guide.<br />
<br />
PG: Well thank you so much for having me on again.<br />
<br />
S: And for those who don't know, Pamela does an amazing podcast called [http://www.astronomycast.com/ Astronomy Cast], one of my favourites, but tell us what you were talking about here at TAM this year.<br />
<br />
PG: Well I was trying mostly to focus on how human beings can do amazing things to make the world better and fix the things that are broken by getting engaged in society. And there are so many different aspects to this, from helping scientists to accomplish science in our current funding crisis by going online and participating in citizen's science, by being aware of things that they can help support through just writing an email. There was a fifth grader a few weeks ago who was forbidden to give a speech on same sex marriage by an extra-ordinarily judgemental principal, and the internet outcry allowed this kid to be able to give his speech in a special assembly. And by simply looking around and saying I'm going to do something to change what bothers me rather than whining about it on Twitter, we're capable of doing really great things as a society, working as individuals.<br />
<br />
S: But whining is so much easier, though.<br />
<br />
PG: And that's the problem. We've all forwarded a tweet about something where someone is articulating something that bothered them, but never taken the moment to do something original, to donate to a cause. One of the things that greatly frustrates me is there's been a few times with [http://365daysofastronomy.org/ 365 Days of Astronomy], which is a community based podcast that I work with, we've put out a call for donations and seen huge numbers of re-tweets and zero donations.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
PG: It's so easy to just forward, to just repeat and so much harder to put your time, your money, your effort into actually doing things that you say matter for you. Imagine if all the time and energy that went into going to some Youtube video where someone's being an idiot and then trolling them for it, instead went into doing something positive to educate people so that they don't become trolls.<br />
<br />
J: So is being a troll a trap? Do you think there's something that attracts people to it, like they get an adrenaline rush or something, what's the driver?<br />
<br />
PG: People want attention. I for a while volunteered as a dog trainer and I went through courses to get trained as a dog.<br />
<br />
S: You got trained as a dog?<br />
<br />
PG: Not trained as a dog, sorry. To get trained as a dog trainer.<br />
<br />
J: (laughs)<br />
<br />
PG: And to think like a dog, which don't conjoin those two sentences, it comes out strangely, I just tried that. And one of the things that they teach you is that some of these animals misbehave horribly, biting, nipping, yapping, peeing on the floor, because they just desperately want attention, they're herd, they're not herd animals, they're pack animals and they, if you have a single dog it's isolated, it wants to feel part of the pack and negative attention is still attention. And trolls, when you feed them by saying you're wrong, you're bad, you're evil, you're wasting my time and you attack them back, you're feeding them, you're giving in to their need for attention, to feel part of the pack. We need to figure out how not to give them that positive reinforcement.<br />
<br />
J: Is it as simple as just ignore?<br />
<br />
PG: I think you sometimes have to do more than just ignore because if you just ignore they're still sitting there and other people are going to give in and feed. I think it's worth taking the half-second before you close that browser window to hit the block, to hit the report as abuse, to hit that button that will eventually alert the social network this is someone we probably need to remove.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah there's a certain threshold of people where you just have to ban people.<br />
<br />
PG: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Because they're, as you said, don't feed the trolls, when you say that, that's feeding the trolls, first of all. You can't talk about not talking about it without talking about it.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: That feeds in to a certain degree. Because they always just escalate their game until someone caves.<br />
<br />
PG: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: The other thing is that, with certain sites, if you're running a science site, and you have somebody there spreading pseudoscience, you can't let it go unanswered so you have this dilemma where you have this rank pseudoscience on a science site that no-one is objecting to, or you have to feed the troll, or you just ban them. So you're almost obligated at some point just to ban people to preserve the integrity of the blog.<br />
<br />
PG: This is something that we have to deal with with with the [http://cosmoquest.org/forum/forum.php CosmoQuest forums] which recently merged with the Bad Astronomy Universe Today forums, and we get a lot of people coming in to the forums and presenting their alternative to the mainstream ideas about science. These are people that are trying to say relativity isn't true or presenting their own alternative ideas, and so we have an [http://cosmoquest.org/forum/forumdisplay.php/17-Against-the-Mainstream area set aside for their discussion], and they're required to answer every question that is given to them, and they're given 30 days to convince people of their idea, and if they can't, they have to be silenced, the thread is closed. So it's a way of confronting it but giving them their own space.<br />
<br />
J: That's interesting, I mean you're basically saying, we're going to allot you time to talk about it but then if it doesn't actually get to the point where it goes above the water line, which I'm curious to know if it ever does...<br />
<br />
PG: So far it hasn't, and this is a forum that has existed within the Bad Astronomy Universe Today named about forums for many many years and when Fraser Cain first set up this part of the forum it was with the hope that maybe some new, novel, interesting idea would come out of it that was real science, and it never has.<br />
<br />
J: Did he come up with that idea?<br />
<br />
PG: I think it was a combination of seeing all of these pseudoscience ideas, seeing all of these alternative ideas being brought forward and getting smashed down in a way that led to flames, trying to create out of all of these flame wars, something positive.<br />
<br />
J: Right. Well I think it's a really cool idea, I'd like actually to come take a look.<br />
<br />
S: In terms of people getting involved in changing the world, which obviously we like to do - we're activists, I do find that people come up to us to talk about us are sorted into one of two categories, there are people who say "you guys should do this".<br />
<br />
PG: Yes.<br />
<br />
S: "You guys should go ahead and do that." My answer is always, yeah that is a good that, you should do that, why don't you do that? We're doing something already. But there are a lot of people who do ask questions at lectures or who come up and talk to us and say "I want to get involved, I want to do something, can you help me do that?" So we don't want to make it seem like other people aren't interested in being activists, but sometimes you just don't know how to get involved.<br />
<br />
PG: There's two different factors, the people who come up to us and say "you need to" make me feel exhausted, because we can only do so much as individuals, but part of what we're seeing is these people see us as strong, powerful people who are capable of enacting change and they don't see themselves that way.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: So we have to empower people to understand that when they see a problem, when they're upset about something, they actually can be that cliché of be the change you want to see in the world. And so we need to somehow facilitate people believing in themselves. And the other side of that is that there are a lot of people who recognise that there's a lot of badness out there and they don't know where to start, it's all so intimidating, they don't know how to get involved, and my advice to these people, is simply find what you're passionate about and then google to find out who's already engaged in combating this. One of my favourite examples is people who get very upset about lesbian/gay/bisexual/queer/transgender issues. I don't remember what order those words are supposed to go in now. There's this fabulous [http://www.itgetsbetter.org/ It Gets Better Project]. So if you see, and people see this on my comment thread because my last name's Gay, so every good comment thread eventually leads to somebody saying "haha this is so gay her last name's gay, you're gay" and it's ridiculous that this is still happening in 2012.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, but that could be an 11 year old right, because it's online.<br />
<br />
PG: It's online and, but...<br />
<br />
J: It was me.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: Just kidding.<br />
<br />
PG: And this is one of those cases where there's clearly still problems, there's that teenage girl killed in Texas for being in love with another girl, and there's already an organisation working hard to do good, to fix things, so find the people who are doing the thing that causes you to stay awake going I can't believe the world is broken in this way, and embrace those people. And if those people aren't already out there doing the thing that makes you passionately hurt so that you want to change the world, be that person, Elyse Anders did that a few years ago, creating the [http://hugmeimvaccinated.org/ Hug Me I'm Vaccinated] program when she realised how much we're losing herd immunity. So you can, if you don't see the people already out there working to make things better, be that person who starts the grass-roots movement.<br />
<br />
J: Or if you don't have the time, or you're just not cut out for it, which let's be honest, some people aren't, like you said earlier though, you can also be a supporter, not just by digesting the content and learning from it, but you can donate and even just sending an email to the people that are doing the work that you really appreciate and thank them and let them know because as someone who receives email where people say hey, I listen and I appreciate it, it fuels us and it really makes a difference. If you're just in an echo chamber and you have no idea if you're having an impact, then you don't know what's going on and you could easily just putter out and not be motivated.<br />
<br />
PG: And in our current society where we're in a position where our government just can't fund the things the way it used to. And I know I personally am in this situation where I'm really worried because I didn't get the grant I was counting on this year, I need to figure out to afford my lead programmer because his funding runs out in December. And all of this is terrifying but then I see hope in things like there are so many individuals who have things that they can share, resources that they can share and they're working so hard to literally build our rocket plane future. NASA right now is underfunded to say the least, but there's so many individuals who made their fortunes in dot coms, working with Amazon, with Google, with PayPal, with these different corporations, and having made their money, they're now saying, I'm going to build the rocket plane future by hiring the engineers, by hiring the space suit designers, and this is where we see [http://www.spacex.com/ SpaceX], [http://www.blueorigin.com/ Blue Origin], [http://www.xcor.com/ XCOR], all these other companies, because someone of means said "I'm going to change the world" and what we have to hope for is that people of means will recognise what we're doing. And "of means" may be one extra dollar, it only takes ten people with one extra dollar to pay for one hour of a student doing something in the lab, and every one dollar can go so far, and maybe some day we'll get lucky and I know we've been lucky with Astronomy Cast, we've Uncle Bob as one of our sponsors, and he supports what we do, spreading the word of astronomy, and you have supporters who support you and we live in an age where it's individuals who fund changing society virally, one idea and campaign at a time. It is one of those strange contradictions of modern society where there's the expectation that with intellectual gifts and content that we should give it away for free and that if we expect to earn money that we are being selfish, that we are - name one of the seven sins. We're somehow taking advantage of society by trying to make a decent living, and there's something wrong with the idea that it's OK for an athlete who entertains on TV and in the sports arena, an actress, all of these people, to get paid huge sums of money to do what they do. One baseball player's salary for one year, for one of the little guys making a million a year, that funds my entire staff, multiple individuals for multiple years, and people see it as wrong that we as academics would like to make a reasonable living, that we as content producers might even put ads on our websites and try not to have to pay out of pocket for our microphones. That's what Fraser and I do, Fraser and I do all of our podcasting out of our own pocket and we pay an audio engineer and we pay someone to do transcripts for us because really if you don't pay someone to do transcripts you're torturing them.<br />
<br />
J: Right, right.<br />
<br />
S: Mmhmm.<br />
<br />
E: Mmhmm.<br />
<br />
J: (laughs).<br />
<br />
PG: And it's...<br />
<br />
J: It's frustrating, and it's something that we've all hit, that we've all hit that wall and it's funny, I was just talking to Brian Dunning about it and you know it's like "yeah, you know it's just another year of throwing the money away, of burning the money on our hobby, quote, unquote hobby". But right now Brian is doing it full time and he's really under the gun he's really working it. So you know, hopefully there are a lot of people that do donate money, even though like you said, a dollar or whatever, and that does count. Of we all, like Bob was saying, would love a bigger infusion so that we don't have to focus on it as much.<br />
<br />
S: You made another point that I thought was very good, the fact that often our listeners, people out there in the public may perceive us as having some kind of special power or access or something, that we can get things done that they can't and I think that, we've marvelled at that too, people come up to us at conferences, they send us emails, and there's this tone that makes it seem like they think like we're all part of one big organisation, which is not the case, we're all just individuals. Or somehow that we have some magical access to government or whatever, it's like "yeah, why aren't you telling the FDA how to fix this?" Because I'm just a citizen. I have no special access to anyone or anything and we just started doing this in our living room, there's absolutely no reason you can't do the exact same thing, it's all just energy and drive you know. But I think that becomes this artificial barrier, that people think that they can't do something or there's something magical about what we're doing.<br />
<br />
PG: And this is where I deeply appreciate the fluffy segments that are at the end of the news so often where they show the 12-year-old who raised a couple of thousand dollars for this foundation or...<br />
<br />
E: At the lemonade stand, yeah.<br />
<br />
PG: Right. And so there's so many small ways and giant ways and I'd encourage everyone to take the time to listen to [http://www.ted.com/talks TED talks], not the ones by the big name academics, but the ones by the individuals who've seen a problem. One of my favourite ones, it's such a simple concept, was realising that there's a serious problem of not having soap in the third world, such a simple thing, not having soap. And then was visiting the United States and seeing that they throw out, and they do this here in the South Point, a bar of soap every day. You open the soap, you use the soap, and the next morning it's gone and you have a new bar of soap. Well he worked out a program to gather up all these hotel soaps, clean them, and redistribute them.<br />
<br />
J: Clean soap?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
PG: I don't know how that part works. Physical scientist, not chemist or biologist.<br />
<br />
B: You need super soap, meta soap.<br />
<br />
J: I think you'd just put water on it and agitate it, get rid of that outer layer.<br />
<br />
PG: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: So Pamela, thanks for being open with us and talking with us, and so of course, always a pleasure to see you at these conferences.<br />
<br />
PG: It was really my pleasure, thank you so much for having me on.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(58:16)</small> ==<br />
[http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2012/halo/ Item #1]: Astronomers may have solved the "missing baryon problem" with the discovery of a halo of hot gas surrounding the Milky Way galaxy.<br />
[http://www.ucalgary.ca/news/utoday/september24-2012/melting Item #2]: This year's peak Arctic ice melt is the greatest since records have been kept, and likely the greatest in a million years.<br />
[http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2012/09/24/a-clock-that-will-last-forever/ Item #3]: Physicists have built a 4-dimensional "space-time crystal" that can be used to keep perfect time until the end of the universe. <br />
<br />
== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:12:10)</small> ==<br />
<blockquote>An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. 'Can they be brought together?' This is a practical question. We must get down to it. 'I despise intelligence' really means: 'I cannot bear my doubts.'</blockquote><br />
Albert Camus<br />
<br />
== Announcements <small>(1:13:40)</small> ==<br />
<br />
{{Outro1}}<br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}}</div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_376&diff=9478SGU Episode 3762014-11-18T04:34:19Z<p>Jason koziol: /* Ig Nobels 2012 (2:18) */</p>
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{{InfoBox <br />
|episodeNum = 376<br />
|episodeDate = 29<sup>th</sup> September 2012<br />
|episodeIcon = File:Emoticons.jpg<br />
|rebecca = y<br />
|bob = y<br />
|jay = y<br />
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|guest1 = PG: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Gay Pamela Gay]<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2012-09-29.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php?topic=43494.0<br />
|qowText = An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. 'Can they be brought together?' This is a practical question. We must get down to it. 'I despise intelligence' really means: 'I cannot bear my doubts.'<br />
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus Albert Camus]<br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
S: Hello, and welcome to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Today is Monday September 24, 2012 and this is your host <br />
Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella<br />
<br />
B: Hey everybody.<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca Watson<br />
<br />
R: Hello everyone.<br />
<br />
S: Jay Novella<br />
<br />
J: Hey guys.<br />
<br />
S: and Evan Bernstein.<br />
<br />
E: Good morning and/or good evening.<br />
<br />
S: How is everybody today?<br />
<br />
R: Super.<br />
<br />
E: Doing just fine.<br />
<br />
J: Thanks for asking.<br />
<br />
== This Day in Skepticism <small>(0:33)</small> ==<br />
* September 29, 1954: CERN is created<br />
<br />
R: Hey, happy CERN day everybody. Happy CERN day.<br />
<br />
B: What does that mean?<br />
<br />
R: That means, on [[September 29]]th 1954 the convention establishing CERN was signed. CERN of course being the European organization for nuclear research. That's the English equivalent. I'm not going to attempt the French, 'cause I don't want to get angry emails.<br />
<br />
J: Rebecca, I was con''cern''ed that you were going to forget.<br />
<br />
R: Forget that it is CERN day?<br />
<br />
J: Year, I was con'''''cern'''''ed.<br />
<br />
B: Ah, yes...<br />
<br />
J: Nothing, huh? Okay.<br />
<br />
R: ''Cern''tailly that's not an issue.<br />
<br />
J: (laughter) You mean, my joke was so bad, that I'm hurtin' for ''cern''tain.<br />
<br />
S: (laughter) Alright... So, this is also the one year anniversary - or at least September 24th when we're recording this - of the first SGU 24 hour live broadcast.<br />
<br />
J: Oh, boy, that was awesome.<br />
<br />
E: Remember that?<br />
<br />
S: Have you guys recovered yet?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Has it only been a year? Seems like yesterday.<br />
<br />
J: Barely...<br />
<br />
B: Evan, we don't need to sleep, right?<br />
<br />
E: Nah. I'll sleep when I'm dead.<br />
<br />
J: I think that was the hardest project I ever did in my life.<br />
<br />
E: It was a test of endurance, will and -<br />
<br />
R: Well, until that baby comes out.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, that's right.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, yeah.. (laughter)<br />
<br />
B: So far, every convention people come up to me like "Do another SGU 24." and I always say, "You know what? I wouldn't mind doing it again, but I don't think we could convince anyone else to do it." And I tell everyone, maybe we'll do like SGU six hours or four hours or something like that. I think if we ever do it, that's what it would have to be.<br />
<br />
R: SGU four hours is a normal night of recording for us.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, that's right.<br />
<br />
E: Well yeah, actually it is.<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Ig Nobels 2012 <small>(2:18)</small> ===<br />
* [http://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/ Improbable Research]<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca, have you checked out the IG nobel winners for 2012?<br />
<br />
R: I have indeed, actually. I'm sad I no longer live in Boston, because Ig Nobels were my favorite time of year. If you ever get a chance to actually go and see them in person, I highly recommend it. It's a hilarious evening of science and fun. So yeah, this years winners, much like previous years, are absolutely delightful. So for those of our listeners, who are not familiar with Ig Nobels, the idea is that they give out awards to science that first makes you laugh and then makes you think. Some Ig Nobels are occasionally given out tongue-in-cheek to idiots and speudoscientists, but for the most part they are given to actual scientists doing actual scientific research that is completely ridiculous. So, for instance, this year the psychology prize went to two scientists for their study "Leaning to the Left Makes the Eiffel Tower Seem Smaller". <br />
<br />
E: As opposed to the right, I suppose.<br />
<br />
R: My personal favorite prize was the acoustics prize, which went to two Japanese researchers who created something called the speech-jammer, which is the most brilliant device I think that has ever been created and it's something that when I describe it will be immediately familiar to everybody currently on this show. This is something that anybody deals with audio, who has spoken into a microphones while wearing headphones and have something go wrong, you know exactly what this does. So, the speech jammer disrupt a person's speech by forcing them to hear their own words at a very slight delay. So, the... Basically what it is, it's a large gun that looks kind of like - I've seen it refereded to like an Xbox-like device - and there's a microphone on it. You point it to someone who is talking. And the microphone picks up their words and then delays what they're saying by a few hundred milliseconds and then feeds it back out trough a speaker directly at them. And everything is direction sensitive, so that the speaker is the only person who can really get the effect. <br />
<br />
B: Are they aware that they are hearing their voice on a delay?<br />
<br />
E: Oh, year.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, I'm sure they are but there is a -<br />
<br />
E: That's the point<br />
<br />
R: There is a video showing it in action and... there is one part of the video that focuses on a professor, and he is giving a lecture at the front of the room and somebody does it to him, and he kind of freaks out because he thinks that something in the lecture hall is going wrong. Like his microphone is messed up or the projector is messing something up. It really makes him stop talking like immediately. It's so difficult to listen to yourself echoing, while continuing to talk.<br />
<br />
B : Have you guys ever experienced that?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, all the time.<br />
<br />
S: During the SGU 24 show, we were doing interviews -<br />
<br />
R: Oh, god, that's right.<br />
<br />
S: there was that half a second delay and it was almost impossible to talk. I had to take the headphones off to get a sentence out.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it was hard. You become hyper-aware of what you're saying and you're completely unable to function.<br />
<br />
E: That's funny, Steve. What's going on in the brain at that point? So, the brain is- you're trying to create speech and at the same time interpret- your brain is also at the same time interpreting its own speech and trying to -<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think so. It's -<br />
<br />
E: - make it fit together?<br />
<br />
S: it just can't process two speech streams at the same time. So -<br />
<br />
B: I think it's a little more complicated than that, though, because one of the things that people do by instinct is... we're able to filter out ambient noise. So if you're in a room with five or ten or more people talking you can kind of just ignore it. But you can't ignore that. <br />
<br />
S: Yeah..<br />
<br />
E: It's the sound of your own voice.<br />
<br />
B: There's something different about it. You can't ignore it just sweep it aside like you can other speech. It's something that just like short-circuits your brain.<br />
<br />
E: And hearing yourself so close to the words that you've just spoken, right, the timing sure is -<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, the timing is -<br />
<br />
E: They've homed in the timing to be effective in this regard.<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, I wonder if they slowly increase the delay, what the effect would be. Would you reach a threshold where you could totally deal with it? You probably could.<br />
<br />
J: Absolutely, Bob, it's a sweet-spot and they figured out the sweet-spot and then they figured out the delivery mechanism, like how to shoot that sound back at one person or to a very small area. So it ''is'' kind of like a gun. Right, Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it looks like a big chunky gun. With a microphone and a speaker on it.<br />
<br />
J: But the funny thing about this is that there really isn't any point to it, other than... what? Like is it just a prank?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, in the abstract they say "We discuss practical application scenarios of this system such as facilitating and controlling discussions." Which is just a polite, sciency way to say "making people shut up". A bunch of kids, you know, studying in a lab and a girl pulls out her cell phone and starts talking and somebody pulls out the gun and she just immediately stops.<br />
<br />
E: Has to stop.<br />
<br />
R: So, I mean. I think everybody can think of a million practical applications for this item. Just maybe not so much in the terms of furthering human evolution... or knowledge of the universe.<br />
<br />
S: I think we talked about the neuroscience prize on the show.<br />
<br />
R: We did. Yeah. And it surprised me because I assumed that these guys got the prize years earlier because this study came out in 2009. It's the study that shows that you can pick up meaningful brain activity using fMRI from absolutely anything. Even a dead salmon. So these researchers stuck a dead salmon in an fMRI and found, what they would classify as meaningful brain activity. Which really is a fantastic study, because it throws into disarray so many previous studies that claim to show really amazing results by finding, you know, certain spots of the brain that are meant to be certain types of thought and things like that. This sort of throws all that out the window in a way, because it makes you realize that brain researchers, unfortunately, can quite easily just see what they want to see in fMRI results sometimes.<br />
<br />
S: But there was a very specific statistical argument that they made. It doesn't necessarily invalidate all fMRI research, just that those that use poor technique. Now, what specifically they were saying is, that because you're looking at so much information - with fMI - you can number crunch tons of comparisons, and it becomes almost a certainty that you will find false-positives among those comparisons - unless you correct for multiple comparisons. You use a statistical fix for multiple analyses. So, if you do the proper statistical analysis, then the results can still be robust and statistically legitimate. But it's also just trivially easy to produce false-positives by failing to do that basic statistical correction. And that's something we see all the time, not just in fMRI studies. It's just that the number of comparisons that you can do with this kind of data is so huge that it particularly lends itself to this kind of statistical error.<br />
<br />
R: Yep.<br />
<br />
S: Got it?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: Got it.<br />
<br />
R: I was also particularly impressed by the literature prize. I'm going to read directly from the Ig Nobel description of it. "The US Government General Accountability Office, for issuing a report about reports about reports that recommends the preparation of a report about the report about reports about reports."<br />
<br />
S: Uh-huh.<br />
<br />
R: Yep.<br />
<br />
S: Ah, bureaucracy.<br />
<br />
R: The fluid-dynamics prize went to some researchers who studied how your coffee sloshes around when you walk.<br />
<br />
B: I hate that.<br />
<br />
R:"Walking With Coffee: Why Does It Spill?"<br />
<br />
E: That's why they invented lids.<br />
<br />
R: The anatomy prize went to "Faces and Behinds: Chimpanzee Sex Perception". These researchers from the Netherlands and the US found that chimpanzees can identify other chimps from seeing photographs of their butts. <br />
<br />
R: The medicine prize was... terrifying. It went to French researchers who did some research advising doctors who perform colonoscopies how to minimize the chance that their patients will explode.<br />
<br />
B: Wait, what?<br />
<br />
R: The paper was called "Colonic Gas Explosion During Therapeutic Colonoscopy with Electrocautery". Steve, you can, your butt can explode during a colonoscopy? That's terrifying.<br />
<br />
S: I think Jay has more expertise on this area than I do.<br />
<br />
E: Ah, ha.<br />
<br />
J: Just because I do what my doctor says. You know, he says it's time to go get an exam, I get the exam. What am I going to say? No?<br />
<br />
S: That wasn't my point.<br />
<br />
R: That's not where he was going with that...<br />
<br />
S: This has to do with explosive gas that builds up in your colon, and that gas can get to a sufficient concentration to be explosive. And then you can trigger it with electrocautery. A little spark can actually ignite the methane that builds up in your colon and explode it. It doesn't have to be a big explosion to cause some serious damage. <br />
<br />
J: Why would you do that? Why would you -<br />
<br />
R: I don't think they're doing it on purpose, Jay.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, but after it happens, like once... You figure they'd stop doing it, right?<br />
<br />
R: They still have to cauterize.<br />
<br />
S: Stop doing colonoscopy with electrocautery? It's a rare complication, so what they're essentially saying, just do a really good prep, you know a good colonic cleansing, before you do colonoscopy with electrocautery to minimize the chance of explosion. <br />
<br />
B: Holy crap, how can I never ever hear of that.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, don't you wish you could unhear it?<br />
<br />
J: I'm terrified now!<br />
<br />
B: No, I want to see a video tape of it.<br />
<br />
R: There is something wrong with you guys.<br />
<br />
B: (laughter)<br />
<br />
R: That is not cool.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, does that kill them?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, that's what I'm saying, it's a horrible way to die.<br />
<br />
J: How embarrassing... "What did your brother die from? -Well, he was getting an exam, and his whole ass blew up." Seriously!<br />
<br />
R: Well, hopefully it wont happen as much anymore thanks to the Ig Nobel winners. <br />
<br />
S: Apparently there were 20 cases of colonic gas explosion identified in the literature. Nine of them were complicated by colon perforation. <br />
<br />
R: Like it was perforated before?<br />
<br />
S: No, no. The explosion caused perforation. <br />
<br />
R: Oh.<br />
<br />
E: Well, yeah, you would think, at the minimum.<br />
<br />
S: One of those was fatal. So, one person died. Well, thanks, Rebecca. The Ig Nobels are always fascinating.<br />
<br />
=== GM Corn Rat Study <small>(13:45)</small> ===<br />
* [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-gm-corn-rat-study/ Neurologica: The GM Corn Rat Study]<br />
<br />
=== HIV and Faith Healing <small>(24:22)</small> ===<br />
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-19656649 BBC news: Faith Leaders Across England in 'HIV Healing' Claims<br />
<br />
=== Emoticon Turns 30 <small>(34:22)</small> ===<br />
* [http://digitallife.today.com/_news/2012/09/20/13989898-the-emoticon-is-30-years-old Digital Life, MSN: The Emoticon is 30 Years Old ;-)]<br />
<br />
=== CSICon Private Recording <small>(38:19)</small> ===<br />
* [http://www.skepticalrobot.com/ticket-to-sgu-recording-DC/ SkepticalRobot.com: Ticket to SGU Recording at CSICon]<br />
<br />
== Who's That Noisy <small>(39:42)</small> ==<br />
* Answer to last week: Warp core from Enterprise TNG<br />
<br />
== Interview with Pamela Gay <small>(42:00)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: All right, let's go on to our interview.<br />
<br />
S: Well we are sitting here now at TAM 2012 with Dr. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Gay Pamela Gay], Pamela welcome back to the Skeptics' Guide.<br />
<br />
PG: Well thank you so much for having me on again.<br />
<br />
S: And for those who don't know, Pamela does an amazing podcast called [http://www.astronomycast.com/ Astronomy Cast], one of my favourites, but tell us what you were talking about here at TAM this year.<br />
<br />
PG: Well I was trying mostly to focus on how human beings can do amazing things to make the world better and fix the things that are broken by getting engaged in society. And there are so many different aspects to this, from helping scientists to accomplish science in our current funding crisis by going online and participating in citizen's science, by being aware of things that they can help support through just writing an email. There was a fifth grader a few weeks ago who was forbidden to give a speech on same sex marriage by an extra-ordinarily judgemental principal, and the internet outcry allowed this kid to be able to give his speech in a special assembly. And by simply looking around and saying I'm going to do something to change what bothers me rather than whining about it on Twitter, we're capable of doing really great things as a society, working as individuals.<br />
<br />
S: But whining is so much easier, though.<br />
<br />
PG: And that's the problem. We've all forwarded a tweet about something where someone is articulating something that bothered them, but never taken the moment to do something original, to donate to a cause. One of the things that greatly frustrates me is there's been a few times with [http://365daysofastronomy.org/ 365 Days of Astronomy], which is a community based podcast that I work with, we've put out a call for donations and seen huge numbers of re-tweets and zero donations.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
PG: It's so easy to just forward, to just repeat and so much harder to put your time, your money, your effort into actually doing things that you say matter for you. Imagine if all the time and energy that went into going to some Youtube video where someone's being an idiot and then trolling them for it, instead went into doing something positive to educate people so that they don't become trolls.<br />
<br />
J: So is being a troll a trap? Do you think there's something that attracts people to it, like they get an adrenaline rush or something, what's the driver?<br />
<br />
PG: People want attention. I for a while volunteered as a dog trainer and I went through courses to get trained as a dog.<br />
<br />
S: You got trained as a dog?<br />
<br />
PG: Not trained as a dog, sorry. To get trained as a dog trainer.<br />
<br />
J: (laughs)<br />
<br />
PG: And to think like a dog, which don't conjoin those two sentences, it comes out strangely, I just tried that. And one of the things that they teach you is that some of these animals misbehave horribly, biting, nipping, yapping, peeing on the floor, because they just desperately want attention, they're herd, they're not herd animals, they're pack animals and they, if you have a single dog it's isolated, it wants to feel part of the pack and negative attention is still attention. And trolls, when you feed them by saying you're wrong, you're bad, you're evil, you're wasting my time and you attack them back, you're feeding them, you're giving in to their need for attention, to feel part of the pack. We need to figure out how not to give them that positive reinforcement.<br />
<br />
J: Is it as simple as just ignore?<br />
<br />
PG: I think you sometimes have to do more than just ignore because if you just ignore they're still sitting there and other people are going to give in and feed. I think it's worth taking the half-second before you close that browser window to hit the block, to hit the report as abuse, to hit that button that will eventually alert the social network this is someone we probably need to remove.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah there's a certain threshold of people where you just have to ban people.<br />
<br />
PG: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Because they're, as you said, don't feed the trolls, when you say that, that's feeding the trolls, first of all. You can't talk about not talking about it without talking about it.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: That feeds in to a certain degree. Because they always just escalate their game until someone caves.<br />
<br />
PG: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: The other thing is that, with certain sites, if you're running a science site, and you have somebody there spreading pseudoscience, you can't let it go unanswered so you have this dilemma where you have this rank pseudoscience on a science site that no-one is objecting to, or you have to feed the troll, or you just ban them. So you're almost obligated at some point just to ban people to preserve the integrity of the blog.<br />
<br />
PG: This is something that we have to deal with with with the [http://cosmoquest.org/forum/forum.php CosmoQuest forums] which recently merged with the Bad Astronomy Universe Today forums, and we get a lot of people coming in to the forums and presenting their alternative to the mainstream ideas about science. These are people that are trying to say relativity isn't true or presenting their own alternative ideas, and so we have an [http://cosmoquest.org/forum/forumdisplay.php/17-Against-the-Mainstream area set aside for their discussion], and they're required to answer every question that is given to them, and they're given 30 days to convince people of their idea, and if they can't, they have to be silenced, the thread is closed. So it's a way of confronting it but giving them their own space.<br />
<br />
J: That's interesting, I mean you're basically saying, we're going to allot you time to talk about it but then if it doesn't actually get to the point where it goes above the water line, which I'm curious to know if it ever does...<br />
<br />
PG: So far it hasn't, and this is a forum that has existed within the Bad Astronomy Universe Today named about forums for many many years and when Fraser Cain first set up this part of the forum it was with the hope that maybe some new, novel, interesting idea would come out of it that was real science, and it never has.<br />
<br />
J: Did he come up with that idea?<br />
<br />
PG: I think it was a combination of seeing all of these pseudoscience ideas, seeing all of these alternative ideas being brought forward and getting smashed down in a way that led to flames, trying to create out of all of these flame wars, something positive.<br />
<br />
J: Right. Well I think it's a really cool idea, I'd like actually to come take a look.<br />
<br />
S: In terms of people getting involved in changing the world, which obviously we like to do - we're activists, I do find that people come up to us to talk about us are sorted into one of two categories, there are people who say "you guys should do this".<br />
<br />
PG: Yes.<br />
<br />
S: "You guys should go ahead and do that." My answer is always, yeah that is a good that, you should do that, why don't you do that? We're doing something already. But there are a lot of people who do ask questions at lectures or who come up and talk to us and say "I want to get involved, I want to do something, can you help me do that?" So we don't want to make it seem like other people aren't interested in being activists, but sometimes you just don't know how to get involved.<br />
<br />
PG: There's two different factors, the people who come up to us and say "you need to" make me feel exhausted, because we can only do so much as individuals, but part of what we're seeing is these people see us as strong, powerful people who are capable of enacting change and they don't see themselves that way.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: So we have to empower people to understand that when they see a problem, when they're upset about something, they actually can be that cliché of be the change you want to see in the world. And so we need to somehow facilitate people believing in themselves. And the other side of that is that there are a lot of people who recognise that there's a lot of badness out there and they don't know where to start, it's all so intimidating, they don't know how to get involved, and my advice to these people, is simply find what you're passionate about and then google to find out who's already engaged in combating this. One of my favourite examples is people who get very upset about lesbian/gay/bisexual/queer/transgender issues. I don't remember what order those words are supposed to go in now. There's this fabulous [http://www.itgetsbetter.org/ It Gets Better Project]. So if you see, and people see this on my comment thread because my last name's Gay, so every good comment thread eventually leads to somebody saying "haha this is so gay her last name's gay, you're gay" and it's ridiculous that this is still happening in 2012.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, but that could be an 11 year old right, because it's online.<br />
<br />
PG: It's online and, but...<br />
<br />
J: It was me.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: Just kidding.<br />
<br />
PG: And this is one of those cases where there's clearly still problems, there's that teenage girl killed in Texas for being in love with another girl, and there's already an organisation working hard to do good, to fix things, so find the people who are doing the thing that causes you to stay awake going I can't believe the world is broken in this way, and embrace those people. And if those people aren't already out there doing the thing that makes you passionately hurt so that you want to change the world, be that person, Elyse Anders did that a few years ago, creating the [http://hugmeimvaccinated.org/ Hug Me I'm Vaccinated] program when she realised how much we're losing herd immunity. So you can, if you don't see the people already out there working to make things better, be that person who starts the grass-roots movement.<br />
<br />
J: Or if you don't have the time, or you're just not cut out for it, which let's be honest, some people aren't, like you said earlier though, you can also be a supporter, not just by digesting the content and learning from it, but you can donate and even just sending an email to the people that are doing the work that you really appreciate and thank them and let them know because as someone who receives email where people say hey, I listen and I appreciate it, it fuels us and it really makes a difference. If you're just in an echo chamber and you have no idea if you're having an impact, then you don't know what's going on and you could easily just putter out and not be motivated.<br />
<br />
PG: And in our current society where we're in a position where our government just can't fund the things the way it used to. And I know I personally am in this situation where I'm really worried because I didn't get the grant I was counting on this year, I need to figure out to afford my lead programmer because his funding runs out in December. And all of this is terrifying but then I see hope in things like there are so many individuals who have things that they can share, resources that they can share and they're working so hard to literally build our rocket plane future. NASA right now is underfunded to say the least, but there's so many individuals who made their fortunes in dot coms, working with Amazon, with Google, with PayPal, with these different corporations, and having made their money, they're now saying, I'm going to build the rocket plane future by hiring the engineers, by hiring the space suit designers, and this is where we see [http://www.spacex.com/ SpaceX], [http://www.blueorigin.com/ Blue Origin], [http://www.xcor.com/ XCOR], all these other companies, because someone of means said "I'm going to change the world" and what we have to hope for is that people of means will recognise what we're doing. And "of means" may be one extra dollar, it only takes ten people with one extra dollar to pay for one hour of a student doing something in the lab, and every one dollar can go so far, and maybe some day we'll get lucky and I know we've been lucky with Astronomy Cast, we've Uncle Bob as one of our sponsors, and he supports what we do, spreading the word of astronomy, and you have supporters who support you and we live in an age where it's individuals who fund changing society virally, one idea and campaign at a time. It is one of those strange contradictions of modern society where there's the expectation that with intellectual gifts and content that we should give it away for free and that if we expect to earn money that we are being selfish, that we are - name one of the seven sins. We're somehow taking advantage of society by trying to make a decent living, and there's something wrong with the idea that it's OK for an athlete who entertains on TV and in the sports arena, an actress, all of these people, to get paid huge sums of money to do what they do. One baseball player's salary for one year, for one of the little guys making a million a year, that funds my entire staff, multiple individuals for multiple years, and people see it as wrong that we as academics would like to make a reasonable living, that we as content producers might even put ads on our websites and try not to have to pay out of pocket for our microphones. That's what Fraser and I do, Fraser and I do all of our podcasting out of our own pocket and we pay an audio engineer and we pay someone to do transcripts for us because really if you don't pay someone to do transcripts you're torturing them.<br />
<br />
J: Right, right.<br />
<br />
S: Mmhmm.<br />
<br />
E: Mmhmm.<br />
<br />
J: (laughs).<br />
<br />
PG: And it's...<br />
<br />
J: It's frustrating, and it's something that we've all hit, that we've all hit that wall and it's funny, I was just talking to Brian Dunning about it and you know it's like "yeah, you know it's just another year of throwing the money away, of burning the money on our hobby, quote, unquote hobby". But right now Brian is doing it full time and he's really under the gun he's really working it. So you know, hopefully there are a lot of people that do donate money, even though like you said, a dollar or whatever, and that does count. Of we all, like Bob was saying, would love a bigger infusion so that we don't have to focus on it as much.<br />
<br />
S: You made another point that I thought was very good, the fact that often our listeners, people out there in the public may perceive us as having some kind of special power or access or something, that we can get things done that they can't and I think that, we've marvelled at that too, people come up to us at conferences, they send us emails, and there's this tone that makes it seem like they think like we're all part of one big organisation, which is not the case, we're all just individuals. Or somehow that we have some magical access to government or whatever, it's like "yeah, why aren't you telling the FDA how to fix this?" Because I'm just a citizen. I have no special access to anyone or anything and we just started doing this in our living room, there's absolutely no reason you can't do the exact same thing, it's all just energy and drive you know. But I think that becomes this artificial barrier, that people think that they can't do something or there's something magical about what we're doing.<br />
<br />
PG: And this is where I deeply appreciate the fluffy segments that are at the end of the news so often where they show the 12-year-old who raised a couple of thousand dollars for this foundation or...<br />
<br />
E: At the lemonade stand, yeah.<br />
<br />
PG: Right. And so there's so many small ways and giant ways and I'd encourage everyone to take the time to listen to [http://www.ted.com/talks TED talks], not the ones by the big name academics, but the ones by the individuals who've seen a problem. One of my favourite ones, it's such a simple concept, was realising that there's a serious problem of not having soap in the third world, such a simple thing, not having soap. And then was visiting the United States and seeing that they throw out, and they do this here in the South Point, a bar of soap every day. You open the soap, you use the soap, and the next morning it's gone and you have a new bar of soap. Well he worked out a program to gather up all these hotel soaps, clean them, and redistribute them.<br />
<br />
J: Clean soap?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
PG: I don't know how that part works. Physical scientist, not chemist or biologist.<br />
<br />
B: You need super soap, meta soap.<br />
<br />
J: I think you'd just put water on it and agitate it, get rid of that outer layer.<br />
<br />
PG: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: So Pamela, thanks for being open with us and talking with us, and so of course, always a pleasure to see you at these conferences.<br />
<br />
PG: It was really my pleasure, thank you so much for having me on.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(58:16)</small> ==<br />
[http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2012/halo/ Item #1]: Astronomers may have solved the "missing baryon problem" with the discovery of a halo of hot gas surrounding the Milky Way galaxy.<br />
[http://www.ucalgary.ca/news/utoday/september24-2012/melting Item #2]: This year's peak Arctic ice melt is the greatest since records have been kept, and likely the greatest in a million years.<br />
[http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2012/09/24/a-clock-that-will-last-forever/ Item #3]: Physicists have built a 4-dimensional "space-time crystal" that can be used to keep perfect time until the end of the universe. <br />
<br />
== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:12:10)</small> ==<br />
<blockquote>An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. 'Can they be brought together?' This is a practical question. We must get down to it. 'I despise intelligence' really means: 'I cannot bear my doubts.'</blockquote><br />
Albert Camus<br />
<br />
== Announcements <small>(1:13:40)</small> ==<br />
<br />
{{Outro1}}<br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}}</div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_376&diff=9477SGU Episode 3762014-11-18T04:16:29Z<p>Jason koziol: /* Ig Nobels 2012 (2:18) */</p>
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{{InfoBox <br />
|episodeNum = 376<br />
|episodeDate = 29<sup>th</sup> September 2012<br />
|episodeIcon = File:Emoticons.jpg<br />
|rebecca = y<br />
|bob = y<br />
|jay = y<br />
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|guest1 = PG: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Gay Pamela Gay]<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2012-09-29.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php?topic=43494.0<br />
|qowText = An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. 'Can they be brought together?' This is a practical question. We must get down to it. 'I despise intelligence' really means: 'I cannot bear my doubts.'<br />
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus Albert Camus]<br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
S: Hello, and welcome to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Today is Monday September 24, 2012 and this is your host <br />
Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella<br />
<br />
B: Hey everybody.<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca Watson<br />
<br />
R: Hello everyone.<br />
<br />
S: Jay Novella<br />
<br />
J: Hey guys.<br />
<br />
S: and Evan Bernstein.<br />
<br />
E: Good morning and/or good evening.<br />
<br />
S: How is everybody today?<br />
<br />
R: Super.<br />
<br />
E: Doing just fine.<br />
<br />
J: Thanks for asking.<br />
<br />
== This Day in Skepticism <small>(0:33)</small> ==<br />
* September 29, 1954: CERN is created<br />
<br />
R: Hey, happy CERN day everybody. Happy CERN day.<br />
<br />
B: What does that mean?<br />
<br />
R: That means, on [[September 29]]th 1954 the convention establishing CERN was signed. CERN of course being the European organization for nuclear research. That's the English equivalent. I'm not going to attempt the French, 'cause I don't want to get angry emails.<br />
<br />
J: Rebecca, I was con''cern''ed that you were going to forget.<br />
<br />
R: Forget that it is CERN day?<br />
<br />
J: Year, I was con'''''cern'''''ed.<br />
<br />
B: Ah, yes...<br />
<br />
J: Nothing, huh? Okay.<br />
<br />
R: ''Cern''tailly that's not an issue.<br />
<br />
J: (laughter) You mean, my joke was so bad, that I'm hurtin' for ''cern''tain.<br />
<br />
S: (laughter) Alright... So, this is also the one year anniversary - or at least September 24th when we're recording this - of the first SGU 24 hour live broadcast.<br />
<br />
J: Oh, boy, that was awesome.<br />
<br />
E: Remember that?<br />
<br />
S: Have you guys recovered yet?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Has it only been a year? Seems like yesterday.<br />
<br />
J: Barely...<br />
<br />
B: Evan, we don't need to sleep, right?<br />
<br />
E: Nah. I'll sleep when I'm dead.<br />
<br />
J: I think that was the hardest project I ever did in my life.<br />
<br />
E: It was a test of endurance, will and -<br />
<br />
R: Well, until that baby comes out.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, that's right.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, yeah.. (laughter)<br />
<br />
B: So far, every convention people come up to me like "Do another SGU 24." and I always say, "You know what? I wouldn't mind doing it again, but I don't think we could convince anyone else to do it." And I tell everyone, maybe we'll do like SGU six hours or four hours or something like that. I think if we ever do it, that's what it would have to be.<br />
<br />
R: SGU four hours is a normal night of recording for us.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, that's right.<br />
<br />
E: Well yeah, actually it is.<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Ig Nobels 2012 <small>(2:18)</small> ===<br />
* [http://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/ Improbable Research]<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca, have you checked out the IG nobel winners for 2012?<br />
<br />
R: I have indeed, actually. I'm sad I no longer live in Boston, because Ig Nobels were my favorite time of year. If you ever get a chance to actually go and see them in person, I highly recommend it. It's a hilarious evening of science and fun. So yeah, this years winners, much like previous years, are absolutely delightful. So for those of our listeners, who are not familiar with Ig Nobels, the idea is that they give out awards to science that first makes you laugh and then makes you think. Some Ig Nobels are occasionally given out tongue-in-cheek to idiots and speudoscientists, but for the most part they are given to actual scientists doing actual scientific research that is completely ridiculous. So, for instance, this year the psychology prize went to two scientists for their study "Leaning to the Left Makes the Eiffel Tower Seem Smaller". <br />
<br />
E: As opposed to the right, I suppose.<br />
<br />
R: My personal favorite prize was the acoustics prize, which went to two Japanese researchers who created something called the speech-jammer, which is the most brilliant device I think that has ever been created and it's something that when I describe it will be immediately familiar to everybody currently on this show. This is something that anybody deals with audio, who has spoken into a microphones while wearing headphones and have something go wrong, you know exactly what this does. So, the speech jammer disrupt a person's speech by forcing them to hear their own words at a very slight delay. So, the... Basically what it is, it's a large gun that looks kind of like - I've seen it refereded to like an Xbox-like device - and there's a microphone on it. You point it to someone who is talking. And the microphone picks up their words and then delays what they're saying by a few hundred milliseconds and then feeds it back out trough a speaker directly at them. And everything is direction sensitive, so that the speaker is the only person who can really get the effect. <br />
<br />
B: Are they aware that they are hearing their voice on a delay?<br />
<br />
E: Oh, year.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, I'm sure they are but there is a -<br />
<br />
E: That's the point<br />
<br />
R: There is a video showing it in action and... there is one part of the video that focuses on a professor, and he is giving a lecture at the front of the room and somebody does it to him, and he kind of freaks out because he thinks that something in the lecture hall is going wrong. Like his microphone is messed up or the projector is messing something up. It really makes him stop talking like immediately. It's so difficult to listen to yourself echoing, while continuing to talk.<br />
<br />
B : Have you guys ever experienced that?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, all the time.<br />
<br />
S: During the SGU 24 show, we were doing interviews -<br />
<br />
R: Oh, god, that's right.<br />
<br />
S: there was that half a second delay and it was almost impossible to talk. I had to take the headphones off to get a sentence out.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it was hard. You become hyper-aware of what you're saying and you're completely unable to function.<br />
<br />
E: That's funny, Steve. What's going on in the brain at that point? So, the brain is- you're trying to create speech and at the same time interpret- your brain is also at the same time interpreting its own speech and trying to -<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think so. It's -<br />
<br />
E: - make it fit together?<br />
<br />
S: it just can't process two speech steam at the same time. So -<br />
<br />
B: I think it's a little more complicated than that, though, because one of the things that people do by instinct is... we're filter out ambient noise. So if you're in a room with five or ten or more people talking you can kind of just ignore it. But you can't ignore that. There's something different about it. You can't just (inaudible) it inside like you can other speech. It's something that just like short-circuits your brain.<br />
<br />
E: And hearing yourself speak so close to the words that you've just spoken, the timing for sure is -<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, the timing is -<br />
<br />
E: (inaudible)<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, I wonder if they slowly increase the delay, what the effect would be. Would you reach a threshold where you could totally deal with it? You probably could.<br />
<br />
J: Absolutely, Bob, it's a sweet-spot and they figured out the sweet-spot and then they figured out the delivery mechanism, like how to shoot that sound back at one person or at a very small area. So it ''is'' kind of like a gun. Right, Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it looks like a big chunky gun. With a microphone and a speaker on it.<br />
<br />
J: But the funny thing about this is that there really isn't any point to it, other than... what? Like is it just a prank?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, in the abstract they say "We discuss practical application scenarios of this system such as facilitating and controlling discussions." Which is just a polite, sciency way of saying "making people shut up". A bunch of kids, you know, studying in a lab and a girl pulls out a cell phone and starts talking and somebody pulls out the gun and she just immediately stops.<br />
<br />
E: Has to stop.<br />
<br />
R: So, I mean. I think everybody can think of a million practical applications for this item. Just maybe not so much in the terms of furthering human evolution... or knowledge of the universe.<br />
<br />
S: I think we talked about the neuroscience prize on the show.<br />
<br />
R: We did. Yeah. And it surprised me because I assumed that these guys got the prize years earlier because this study came out in 2009. It's the study that shows that you can pick up meaningful brain activity using fMRI from absolutely anything. Even a dead salmon. So these researchers stuck a dead salmon in an fMRI and found, what they would classify as meaningful brain activity. Which really is a fantastic study, because it throws into disarray so many previous studies that claim to show really amazing results by finding, you know, certain spots of the brain that are meant to be certain types of thought and things like that. This sort of throws that out the window in a way, because it makes you realize that brain researchers, unfortunately, can quite easily just see what they want to see in fMRI results sometimes.<br />
<br />
S: But there was a very specific statistical argument that they made. It doesn't necessarily invalidate all fMRI research, just that those that use poor technique. Now, what specifically they were saying is, that because you're looking at so much information - with fMI - you can number crunch tons of comparisons, and it becomes almost a certainty that you will find false-positives among those comparisons - unless you correct for multiple comparisons. You use a statistical fix for multiple analyses. So, if you do the proper statistical analysis, then the results can still be robust and statistically legitimate. But it's also just trivially easy to produce false-positives by failing to do that basic statistical correction. And that's something we see all the time, not just in fMRI studies. It's just that the number of comparisons that you can do with this kind of data is so huge that it particularly lends itself to this kind of statistical error.<br />
<br />
R: Yep.<br />
<br />
S: Got it?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: Got it.<br />
<br />
R: I was also particularly impressed by the literature prize. I'm going to read directly from the Ig Nobel description of it. "The US Government General Accountability Office, for issuing a report about reports about reports that recommends the preparation of a report about the report about reports about reports."<br />
<br />
S: Uh-huh.<br />
<br />
R: Yep.<br />
<br />
S: Ah, bureaucracy.<br />
<br />
R: The fluid-dynamics prize went to some researchers who studied how your coffee sloshes around when you walk.<br />
<br />
J?: I hate that.<br />
<br />
R:"Walking With Coffee: Why Does It Spill?"<br />
<br />
E: That's why they invented lids.<br />
<br />
R: The anatomy prize went to "Faces and Behinds: Chimpanzee Sex Perception". These researchers from the Netherlands and the US found that chimpanzees can identify other chimps from seeing photographs of their butts. <br />
<br />
R: The medicine prize was... terrifying. It went to French researchers who did some research advising doctors who perform colonoscopies how to minimize the chance that their patients will explode.<br />
<br />
B?: Wait, what?<br />
<br />
R: The paper was called "Colonic Gas Explosion During Therapeutic Colonoscopy with Electrocautery". Steve, your butt can explode during a colonoscopy? That's terrifying.<br />
<br />
S: I think Jay has more expertize on this area than I do.<br />
<br />
E: Ah, ha.<br />
<br />
J: Just because I do what my doctor says. You know, he says it's time to go get an exam, I get the exam. What am I going to say? No?<br />
<br />
S: That wasn't my point.<br />
<br />
R: That's not where he was going with that...<br />
<br />
S: This has to do with explosive gas that builds up in your colon, and that gas can get to a sufficient concentration to be explosive. And then you can trigger it with electrocautery. A little spark can actually ignite the methane that builds up in your colon and explode it. It doesn't have to be a big explosion to cause some serious damage. <br />
<br />
J: Why would you do that? Why would you -<br />
<br />
R: I don't think they're doing it on purpose, Jay.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, but after it happens, like once... You figure they'd stop doing it, right?<br />
<br />
R: They still have to cauterize.<br />
<br />
S: Stop doing colonoscopy with electrocautery? It's a rare complication, so what they're essentially saying, just do a really good prep, you know a good colonic cleansing, before you do colonoscopy with electrocautery to minimize the chance of explosion. <br />
<br />
B: Holy crap, how can I never ever hear of that.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, don't you wish you could unhear it?<br />
<br />
J: I'm terrified now!<br />
<br />
B: No, I want to see a video tape of it.<br />
<br />
R: There is something wrong with you guys.<br />
<br />
B: (laughter)<br />
<br />
R: That is not cool.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, does that kill them?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, that's what I'm saying, it's a horrible way to die.<br />
<br />
J: How embarrassing... "What did your brother die from? -Well, he was getting an exam, and his whole ass blew up." Seriously!<br />
<br />
R: Well, hopefully it wont happen as much anymore thanks to the Ig Nobel winners. <br />
<br />
S: Apparently there were 20 cases of colonic gas explosion identified in the literature. Nine of them were complicated by colon perforation. <br />
<br />
R: Like it was perforated before?<br />
<br />
S: No, no. The explosion caused perforation. <br />
<br />
R: Oh.<br />
<br />
E: Well, yeah, you would think, at the minimum.<br />
<br />
S: One of those was fatal. So, one person died. Well, thanks, Rebecca. The Ig Nobels are always fascinating.<br />
<br />
=== GM Corn Rat Study <small>(13:45)</small> ===<br />
* [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-gm-corn-rat-study/ Neurologica: The GM Corn Rat Study]<br />
<br />
=== HIV and Faith Healing <small>(24:22)</small> ===<br />
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-19656649 BBC news: Faith Leaders Across England in 'HIV Healing' Claims<br />
<br />
=== Emoticon Turns 30 <small>(34:22)</small> ===<br />
* [http://digitallife.today.com/_news/2012/09/20/13989898-the-emoticon-is-30-years-old Digital Life, MSN: The Emoticon is 30 Years Old ;-)]<br />
<br />
=== CSICon Private Recording <small>(38:19)</small> ===<br />
* [http://www.skepticalrobot.com/ticket-to-sgu-recording-DC/ SkepticalRobot.com: Ticket to SGU Recording at CSICon]<br />
<br />
== Who's That Noisy <small>(39:42)</small> ==<br />
* Answer to last week: Warp core from Enterprise TNG<br />
<br />
== Interview with Pamela Gay <small>(42:00)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: All right, let's go on to our interview.<br />
<br />
S: Well we are sitting here now at TAM 2012 with Dr. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Gay Pamela Gay], Pamela welcome back to the Skeptics' Guide.<br />
<br />
PG: Well thank you so much for having me on again.<br />
<br />
S: And for those who don't know, Pamela does an amazing podcast called [http://www.astronomycast.com/ Astronomy Cast], one of my favourites, but tell us what you were talking about here at TAM this year.<br />
<br />
PG: Well I was trying mostly to focus on how human beings can do amazing things to make the world better and fix the things that are broken by getting engaged in society. And there are so many different aspects to this, from helping scientists to accomplish science in our current funding crisis by going online and participating in citizen's science, by being aware of things that they can help support through just writing an email. There was a fifth grader a few weeks ago who was forbidden to give a speech on same sex marriage by an extra-ordinarily judgemental principal, and the internet outcry allowed this kid to be able to give his speech in a special assembly. And by simply looking around and saying I'm going to do something to change what bothers me rather than whining about it on Twitter, we're capable of doing really great things as a society, working as individuals.<br />
<br />
S: But whining is so much easier, though.<br />
<br />
PG: And that's the problem. We've all forwarded a tweet about something where someone is articulating something that bothered them, but never taken the moment to do something original, to donate to a cause. One of the things that greatly frustrates me is there's been a few times with [http://365daysofastronomy.org/ 365 Days of Astronomy], which is a community based podcast that I work with, we've put out a call for donations and seen huge numbers of re-tweets and zero donations.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
PG: It's so easy to just forward, to just repeat and so much harder to put your time, your money, your effort into actually doing things that you say matter for you. Imagine if all the time and energy that went into going to some Youtube video where someone's being an idiot and then trolling them for it, instead went into doing something positive to educate people so that they don't become trolls.<br />
<br />
J: So is being a troll a trap? Do you think there's something that attracts people to it, like they get an adrenaline rush or something, what's the driver?<br />
<br />
PG: People want attention. I for a while volunteered as a dog trainer and I went through courses to get trained as a dog.<br />
<br />
S: You got trained as a dog?<br />
<br />
PG: Not trained as a dog, sorry. To get trained as a dog trainer.<br />
<br />
J: (laughs)<br />
<br />
PG: And to think like a dog, which don't conjoin those two sentences, it comes out strangely, I just tried that. And one of the things that they teach you is that some of these animals misbehave horribly, biting, nipping, yapping, peeing on the floor, because they just desperately want attention, they're herd, they're not herd animals, they're pack animals and they, if you have a single dog it's isolated, it wants to feel part of the pack and negative attention is still attention. And trolls, when you feed them by saying you're wrong, you're bad, you're evil, you're wasting my time and you attack them back, you're feeding them, you're giving in to their need for attention, to feel part of the pack. We need to figure out how not to give them that positive reinforcement.<br />
<br />
J: Is it as simple as just ignore?<br />
<br />
PG: I think you sometimes have to do more than just ignore because if you just ignore they're still sitting there and other people are going to give in and feed. I think it's worth taking the half-second before you close that browser window to hit the block, to hit the report as abuse, to hit that button that will eventually alert the social network this is someone we probably need to remove.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah there's a certain threshold of people where you just have to ban people.<br />
<br />
PG: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Because they're, as you said, don't feed the trolls, when you say that, that's feeding the trolls, first of all. You can't talk about not talking about it without talking about it.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: That feeds in to a certain degree. Because they always just escalate their game until someone caves.<br />
<br />
PG: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: The other thing is that, with certain sites, if you're running a science site, and you have somebody there spreading pseudoscience, you can't let it go unanswered so you have this dilemma where you have this rank pseudoscience on a science site that no-one is objecting to, or you have to feed the troll, or you just ban them. So you're almost obligated at some point just to ban people to preserve the integrity of the blog.<br />
<br />
PG: This is something that we have to deal with with with the [http://cosmoquest.org/forum/forum.php CosmoQuest forums] which recently merged with the Bad Astronomy Universe Today forums, and we get a lot of people coming in to the forums and presenting their alternative to the mainstream ideas about science. These are people that are trying to say relativity isn't true or presenting their own alternative ideas, and so we have an [http://cosmoquest.org/forum/forumdisplay.php/17-Against-the-Mainstream area set aside for their discussion], and they're required to answer every question that is given to them, and they're given 30 days to convince people of their idea, and if they can't, they have to be silenced, the thread is closed. So it's a way of confronting it but giving them their own space.<br />
<br />
J: That's interesting, I mean you're basically saying, we're going to allot you time to talk about it but then if it doesn't actually get to the point where it goes above the water line, which I'm curious to know if it ever does...<br />
<br />
PG: So far it hasn't, and this is a forum that has existed within the Bad Astronomy Universe Today named about forums for many many years and when Fraser Cain first set up this part of the forum it was with the hope that maybe some new, novel, interesting idea would come out of it that was real science, and it never has.<br />
<br />
J: Did he come up with that idea?<br />
<br />
PG: I think it was a combination of seeing all of these pseudoscience ideas, seeing all of these alternative ideas being brought forward and getting smashed down in a way that led to flames, trying to create out of all of these flame wars, something positive.<br />
<br />
J: Right. Well I think it's a really cool idea, I'd like actually to come take a look.<br />
<br />
S: In terms of people getting involved in changing the world, which obviously we like to do - we're activists, I do find that people come up to us to talk about us are sorted into one of two categories, there are people who say "you guys should do this".<br />
<br />
PG: Yes.<br />
<br />
S: "You guys should go ahead and do that." My answer is always, yeah that is a good that, you should do that, why don't you do that? We're doing something already. But there are a lot of people who do ask questions at lectures or who come up and talk to us and say "I want to get involved, I want to do something, can you help me do that?" So we don't want to make it seem like other people aren't interested in being activists, but sometimes you just don't know how to get involved.<br />
<br />
PG: There's two different factors, the people who come up to us and say "you need to" make me feel exhausted, because we can only do so much as individuals, but part of what we're seeing is these people see us as strong, powerful people who are capable of enacting change and they don't see themselves that way.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: So we have to empower people to understand that when they see a problem, when they're upset about something, they actually can be that cliché of be the change you want to see in the world. And so we need to somehow facilitate people believing in themselves. And the other side of that is that there are a lot of people who recognise that there's a lot of badness out there and they don't know where to start, it's all so intimidating, they don't know how to get involved, and my advice to these people, is simply find what you're passionate about and then google to find out who's already engaged in combating this. One of my favourite examples is people who get very upset about lesbian/gay/bisexual/queer/transgender issues. I don't remember what order those words are supposed to go in now. There's this fabulous [http://www.itgetsbetter.org/ It Gets Better Project]. So if you see, and people see this on my comment thread because my last name's Gay, so every good comment thread eventually leads to somebody saying "haha this is so gay her last name's gay, you're gay" and it's ridiculous that this is still happening in 2012.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, but that could be an 11 year old right, because it's online.<br />
<br />
PG: It's online and, but...<br />
<br />
J: It was me.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: Just kidding.<br />
<br />
PG: And this is one of those cases where there's clearly still problems, there's that teenage girl killed in Texas for being in love with another girl, and there's already an organisation working hard to do good, to fix things, so find the people who are doing the thing that causes you to stay awake going I can't believe the world is broken in this way, and embrace those people. And if those people aren't already out there doing the thing that makes you passionately hurt so that you want to change the world, be that person, Elyse Anders did that a few years ago, creating the [http://hugmeimvaccinated.org/ Hug Me I'm Vaccinated] program when she realised how much we're losing herd immunity. So you can, if you don't see the people already out there working to make things better, be that person who starts the grass-roots movement.<br />
<br />
J: Or if you don't have the time, or you're just not cut out for it, which let's be honest, some people aren't, like you said earlier though, you can also be a supporter, not just by digesting the content and learning from it, but you can donate and even just sending an email to the people that are doing the work that you really appreciate and thank them and let them know because as someone who receives email where people say hey, I listen and I appreciate it, it fuels us and it really makes a difference. If you're just in an echo chamber and you have no idea if you're having an impact, then you don't know what's going on and you could easily just putter out and not be motivated.<br />
<br />
PG: And in our current society where we're in a position where our government just can't fund the things the way it used to. And I know I personally am in this situation where I'm really worried because I didn't get the grant I was counting on this year, I need to figure out to afford my lead programmer because his funding runs out in December. And all of this is terrifying but then I see hope in things like there are so many individuals who have things that they can share, resources that they can share and they're working so hard to literally build our rocket plane future. NASA right now is underfunded to say the least, but there's so many individuals who made their fortunes in dot coms, working with Amazon, with Google, with PayPal, with these different corporations, and having made their money, they're now saying, I'm going to build the rocket plane future by hiring the engineers, by hiring the space suit designers, and this is where we see [http://www.spacex.com/ SpaceX], [http://www.blueorigin.com/ Blue Origin], [http://www.xcor.com/ XCOR], all these other companies, because someone of means said "I'm going to change the world" and what we have to hope for is that people of means will recognise what we're doing. And "of means" may be one extra dollar, it only takes ten people with one extra dollar to pay for one hour of a student doing something in the lab, and every one dollar can go so far, and maybe some day we'll get lucky and I know we've been lucky with Astronomy Cast, we've Uncle Bob as one of our sponsors, and he supports what we do, spreading the word of astronomy, and you have supporters who support you and we live in an age where it's individuals who fund changing society virally, one idea and campaign at a time. It is one of those strange contradictions of modern society where there's the expectation that with intellectual gifts and content that we should give it away for free and that if we expect to earn money that we are being selfish, that we are - name one of the seven sins. We're somehow taking advantage of society by trying to make a decent living, and there's something wrong with the idea that it's OK for an athlete who entertains on TV and in the sports arena, an actress, all of these people, to get paid huge sums of money to do what they do. One baseball player's salary for one year, for one of the little guys making a million a year, that funds my entire staff, multiple individuals for multiple years, and people see it as wrong that we as academics would like to make a reasonable living, that we as content producers might even put ads on our websites and try not to have to pay out of pocket for our microphones. That's what Fraser and I do, Fraser and I do all of our podcasting out of our own pocket and we pay an audio engineer and we pay someone to do transcripts for us because really if you don't pay someone to do transcripts you're torturing them.<br />
<br />
J: Right, right.<br />
<br />
S: Mmhmm.<br />
<br />
E: Mmhmm.<br />
<br />
J: (laughs).<br />
<br />
PG: And it's...<br />
<br />
J: It's frustrating, and it's something that we've all hit, that we've all hit that wall and it's funny, I was just talking to Brian Dunning about it and you know it's like "yeah, you know it's just another year of throwing the money away, of burning the money on our hobby, quote, unquote hobby". But right now Brian is doing it full time and he's really under the gun he's really working it. So you know, hopefully there are a lot of people that do donate money, even though like you said, a dollar or whatever, and that does count. Of we all, like Bob was saying, would love a bigger infusion so that we don't have to focus on it as much.<br />
<br />
S: You made another point that I thought was very good, the fact that often our listeners, people out there in the public may perceive us as having some kind of special power or access or something, that we can get things done that they can't and I think that, we've marvelled at that too, people come up to us at conferences, they send us emails, and there's this tone that makes it seem like they think like we're all part of one big organisation, which is not the case, we're all just individuals. Or somehow that we have some magical access to government or whatever, it's like "yeah, why aren't you telling the FDA how to fix this?" Because I'm just a citizen. I have no special access to anyone or anything and we just started doing this in our living room, there's absolutely no reason you can't do the exact same thing, it's all just energy and drive you know. But I think that becomes this artificial barrier, that people think that they can't do something or there's something magical about what we're doing.<br />
<br />
PG: And this is where I deeply appreciate the fluffy segments that are at the end of the news so often where they show the 12-year-old who raised a couple of thousand dollars for this foundation or...<br />
<br />
E: At the lemonade stand, yeah.<br />
<br />
PG: Right. And so there's so many small ways and giant ways and I'd encourage everyone to take the time to listen to [http://www.ted.com/talks TED talks], not the ones by the big name academics, but the ones by the individuals who've seen a problem. One of my favourite ones, it's such a simple concept, was realising that there's a serious problem of not having soap in the third world, such a simple thing, not having soap. And then was visiting the United States and seeing that they throw out, and they do this here in the South Point, a bar of soap every day. You open the soap, you use the soap, and the next morning it's gone and you have a new bar of soap. Well he worked out a program to gather up all these hotel soaps, clean them, and redistribute them.<br />
<br />
J: Clean soap?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
PG: I don't know how that part works. Physical scientist, not chemist or biologist.<br />
<br />
B: You need super soap, meta soap.<br />
<br />
J: I think you'd just put water on it and agitate it, get rid of that outer layer.<br />
<br />
PG: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: So Pamela, thanks for being open with us and talking with us, and so of course, always a pleasure to see you at these conferences.<br />
<br />
PG: It was really my pleasure, thank you so much for having me on.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(58:16)</small> ==<br />
[http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2012/halo/ Item #1]: Astronomers may have solved the "missing baryon problem" with the discovery of a halo of hot gas surrounding the Milky Way galaxy.<br />
[http://www.ucalgary.ca/news/utoday/september24-2012/melting Item #2]: This year's peak Arctic ice melt is the greatest since records have been kept, and likely the greatest in a million years.<br />
[http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2012/09/24/a-clock-that-will-last-forever/ Item #3]: Physicists have built a 4-dimensional "space-time crystal" that can be used to keep perfect time until the end of the universe. <br />
<br />
== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:12:10)</small> ==<br />
<blockquote>An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. 'Can they be brought together?' This is a practical question. We must get down to it. 'I despise intelligence' really means: 'I cannot bear my doubts.'</blockquote><br />
Albert Camus<br />
<br />
== Announcements <small>(1:13:40)</small> ==<br />
<br />
{{Outro1}}<br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}}</div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_376&diff=9476SGU Episode 3762014-11-18T04:15:00Z<p>Jason koziol: /* Ig Nobels 2012 (2:18) */</p>
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{{InfoBox <br />
|episodeNum = 376<br />
|episodeDate = 29<sup>th</sup> September 2012<br />
|episodeIcon = File:Emoticons.jpg<br />
|rebecca = y<br />
|bob = y<br />
|jay = y<br />
|evan = y<br />
|guest1 = PG: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Gay Pamela Gay]<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2012-09-29.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php?topic=43494.0<br />
|qowText = An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. 'Can they be brought together?' This is a practical question. We must get down to it. 'I despise intelligence' really means: 'I cannot bear my doubts.'<br />
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus Albert Camus]<br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
S: Hello, and welcome to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Today is Monday September 24, 2012 and this is your host <br />
Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella<br />
<br />
B: Hey everybody.<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca Watson<br />
<br />
R: Hello everyone.<br />
<br />
S: Jay Novella<br />
<br />
J: Hey guys.<br />
<br />
S: and Evan Bernstein.<br />
<br />
E: Good morning and/or good evening.<br />
<br />
S: How is everybody today?<br />
<br />
R: Super.<br />
<br />
E: Doing just fine.<br />
<br />
J: Thanks for asking.<br />
<br />
== This Day in Skepticism <small>(0:33)</small> ==<br />
* September 29, 1954: CERN is created<br />
<br />
R: Hey, happy CERN day everybody. Happy CERN day.<br />
<br />
B: What does that mean?<br />
<br />
R: That means, on [[September 29]]th 1954 the convention establishing CERN was signed. CERN of course being the European organization for nuclear research. That's the English equivalent. I'm not going to attempt the French, 'cause I don't want to get angry emails.<br />
<br />
J: Rebecca, I was con''cern''ed that you were going to forget.<br />
<br />
R: Forget that it is CERN day?<br />
<br />
J: Year, I was con'''''cern'''''ed.<br />
<br />
B: Ah, yes...<br />
<br />
J: Nothing, huh? Okay.<br />
<br />
R: ''Cern''tailly that's not an issue.<br />
<br />
J: (laughter) You mean, my joke was so bad, that I'm hurtin' for ''cern''tain.<br />
<br />
S: (laughter) Alright... So, this is also the one year anniversary - or at least September 24th when we're recording this - of the first SGU 24 hour live broadcast.<br />
<br />
J: Oh, boy, that was awesome.<br />
<br />
E: Remember that?<br />
<br />
S: Have you guys recovered yet?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Has it only been a year? Seems like yesterday.<br />
<br />
J: Barely...<br />
<br />
B: Evan, we don't need to sleep, right?<br />
<br />
E: Nah. I'll sleep when I'm dead.<br />
<br />
J: I think that was the hardest project I ever did in my life.<br />
<br />
E: It was a test of endurance, will and -<br />
<br />
R: Well, until that baby comes out.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, that's right.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, yeah.. (laughter)<br />
<br />
B: So far, every convention people come up to me like "Do another SGU 24." and I always say, "You know what? I wouldn't mind doing it again, but I don't think we could convince anyone else to do it." And I tell everyone, maybe we'll do like SGU six hours or four hours or something like that. I think if we ever do it, that's what it would have to be.<br />
<br />
R: SGU four hours is a normal night of recording for us.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, that's right.<br />
<br />
E: Well yeah, actually it is.<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Ig Nobels 2012 <small>(2:18)</small> ===<br />
* [http://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/ Improbable Research]<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca, have you checked out the IG nobel winners for 2012?<br />
<br />
R: I have indeed, actually. I'm sad I no longer live in Boston, because Ig Nobels were my favorite time of year. If you ever get a chance to actually go and see them in person, I highly recommend it. It's a hilarious evening of science and fun. So yeah, this years winners, much like previous years, are absolutely delightful. So for those of our listeners, who are not familiar with Ig Nobels, the idea is that they give out awards to science that first makes you laugh and then makes you think. Some Ig Nobels are occasionally given out tongue-in-cheek to idiots and speudoscientists, but for the most part they are given to actual scientists doing actual scientific research that is completely ridiculous. So, for instance, this year the psychology prize went to two scientists for their study "Leaning to the Left Makes the Eiffel Tower Seem Smaller". <br />
<br />
E: As opposed to the right, I suppose.<br />
<br />
R: My personal favorite prize was the acoustics prize, which went to two Japanese researchers who created something called the speech-jammer, which is the most brilliant device I think that has ever been created and it's something that when I describe it will be immediately familiar to everybody currently on this show. This is something that anybody deals with audio, who has spoken into a microphones while wearing headphones and have something go wrong, you know exactly what this does. So, the speech jammer disrupt a person's speech by forcing them to hear their own words at a very slight delay. So, the... Basically what it is, it's a large gun that looks kind of like - I've seen it refereded to like an Xbox-like device - and there's a microphone on it. You point it to someone who is talking. And the microphone picks up their words and then delays what they're saying by a few hundred milliseconds and then feeds it back out trough a speaker directly at them. And everything is direction sensitive, so that the speaker is the only person who can really get the effect. <br />
<br />
B: Are they aware that they are hearing their voice on a delay?<br />
<br />
E: Oh, year.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, I'm sure they are but there is a -<br />
<br />
E: That's the point<br />
<br />
R: There is a video showing it in action and... there is one part of the video that focuses on a professor, and he is giving a lecture at the front of the room and somebody does it to him, and he kind of freaks out because that something in the lecture hall is going wrong. Like his microphone is messed up or the projector is messing something up. It really makes him stop talking like immediately. It's so difficult to listen to yourself echoing, while continuing to talk.<br />
<br />
B : Have you guys ever experienced that?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, all the time.<br />
<br />
S: During the SGU 24 show, we were doing interviews -<br />
<br />
R: Oh, god, that's right.<br />
<br />
S: there was that half a second delay and it was almost impossible to talk. I had to take the headphones off to get a sentence out.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it was hard. You become hyper-aware of what you're saying and you're completely unable to function.<br />
<br />
E: That's funny, Steve. What's going on in the brain at that point? So, the brain is- you're trying to create speech and at the same time interpret- your brain is also at the same time interpreting its own speech and trying to -<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think so. It's -<br />
<br />
E: - make it fit together?<br />
<br />
S: it just can't process two speech steam at the same time. So -<br />
<br />
B: I think it's a little more complicated than that, though, because one of the things that people do by instinct is... we're filter out ambient noise. So if you're in a room with five or ten or more people talking you can kind of just ignore it. But you can't ignore that. There's something different about it. You can't just (inaudible) it inside like you can other speech. It's something that just like short-circuits your brain.<br />
<br />
E: And hearing yourself speak so close to the words that you've just spoken, the timing for sure is -<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, the timing is -<br />
<br />
E: (inaudible)<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, I wonder if they slowly increase the delay, what the effect would be. Would you reach a threshold where you could totally deal with it? You probably could.<br />
<br />
J: Absolutely, Bob, it's a sweet-spot and they figured out the sweet-spot and then they figured out the delivery mechanism, like how to shoot that sound back at one person or at a very small area. So it ''is'' kind of like a gun. Right, Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it looks like a big chunky gun. With a microphone and a speaker on it.<br />
<br />
J: But the funny thing about this is that there really isn't any point to it, other than... what? Like is it just a prank?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, in the abstract they say "We discuss practical application scenarios of this system such as facilitating and controlling discussions." Which is just a polite, sciency way of saying "making people shut up". A bunch of kids, you know, studying in a lab and a girl pulls out a cell phone and starts talking and somebody pulls out the gun and she just immediately stops.<br />
<br />
E: Has to stop.<br />
<br />
R: So, I mean. I think everybody can think of a million practical applications for this item. Just maybe not so much in the terms of furthering human evolution... or knowledge of the universe.<br />
<br />
S: I think we talked about the neuroscience prize on the show.<br />
<br />
R: We did. Yeah. And it surprised me because I assumed that these guys got the prize years earlier because this study came out in 2009. It's the study that shows that you can pick up meaningful brain activity using fMRI from absolutely anything. Even a dead salmon. So these researchers stuck a dead salmon in an fMRI and found, what they would classify as meaningful brain activity. Which really is a fantastic study, because it throws into disarray so many previous studies that claim to show really amazing results by finding, you know, certain spots of the brain that are meant to be certain types of thought and things like that. This sort of throws that out the window in a way, because it makes you realize that brain researchers, unfortunately, can quite easily just see what they want to see in fMRI results sometimes.<br />
<br />
S: But there was a very specific statistical argument that they made. It doesn't necessarily invalidate all fMRI research, just that those that use poor technique. Now, what specifically they were saying is, that because you're looking at so much information - with fMI - you can number crunch tons of comparisons, and it becomes almost a certainty that you will find false-positives among those comparisons - unless you correct for multiple comparisons. You use a statistical fix for multiple analyses. So, if you do the proper statistical analysis, then the results can still be robust and statistically legitimate. But it's also just trivially easy to produce false-positives by failing to do that basic statistical correction. And that's something we see all the time, not just in fMRI studies. It's just that the number of comparisons that you can do with this kind of data is so huge that it particularly lends itself to this kind of statistical error.<br />
<br />
R: Yep.<br />
<br />
S: Got it?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: Got it.<br />
<br />
R: I was also particularly impressed by the literature prize. I'm going to read directly from the Ig Nobel description of it. "The US Government General Accountability Office, for issuing a report about reports about reports that recommends the preparation of a report about the report about reports about reports."<br />
<br />
S: Uh-huh.<br />
<br />
R: Yep.<br />
<br />
S: Ah, bureaucracy.<br />
<br />
R: The fluid-dynamics prize went to some researchers who studied how your coffee sloshes around when you walk.<br />
<br />
J?: I hate that.<br />
<br />
R:"Walking With Coffee: Why Does It Spill?"<br />
<br />
E: That's why they invented lids.<br />
<br />
R: The anatomy prize went to "Faces and Behinds: Chimpanzee Sex Perception". These researchers from the Netherlands and the US found that chimpanzees can identify other chimps from seeing photographs of their butts. <br />
<br />
R: The medicine prize was... terrifying. It went to French researchers who did some research advising doctors who perform colonoscopies how to minimize the chance that their patients will explode.<br />
<br />
B?: Wait, what?<br />
<br />
R: The paper was called "Colonic Gas Explosion During Therapeutic Colonoscopy with Electrocautery". Steve, your butt can explode during a colonoscopy? That's terrifying.<br />
<br />
S: I think Jay has more expertize on this area than I do.<br />
<br />
E: Ah, ha.<br />
<br />
J: Just because I do what my doctor says. You know, he says it's time to go get an exam, I get the exam. What am I going to say? No?<br />
<br />
S: That wasn't my point.<br />
<br />
R: That's not where he was going with that...<br />
<br />
S: This has to do with explosive gas that builds up in your colon, and that gas can get to a sufficient concentration to be explosive. And then you can trigger it with electrocautery. A little spark can actually ignite the methane that builds up in your colon and explode it. It doesn't have to be a big explosion to cause some serious damage. <br />
<br />
J: Why would you do that? Why would you -<br />
<br />
R: I don't think they're doing it on purpose, Jay.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, but after it happens, like once... You figure they'd stop doing it, right?<br />
<br />
R: They still have to cauterize.<br />
<br />
S: Stop doing colonoscopy with electrocautery? It's a rare complication, so what they're essentially saying, just do a really good prep, you know a good colonic cleansing, before you do colonoscopy with electrocautery to minimize the chance of explosion. <br />
<br />
B: Holy crap, how can I never ever hear of that.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, don't you wish you could unhear it?<br />
<br />
J: I'm terrified now!<br />
<br />
B: No, I want to see a video tape of it.<br />
<br />
R: There is something wrong with you guys.<br />
<br />
B: (laughter)<br />
<br />
R: That is not cool.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, does that kill them?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, that's what I'm saying, it's a horrible way to die.<br />
<br />
J: How embarrassing... "What did your brother die from? -Well, he was getting an exam, and his whole ass blew up." Seriously!<br />
<br />
R: Well, hopefully it wont happen as much anymore thanks to the Ig Nobel winners. <br />
<br />
S: Apparently there were 20 cases of colonic gas explosion identified in the literature. Nine of them were complicated by colon perforation. <br />
<br />
R: Like it was perforated before?<br />
<br />
S: No, no. The explosion caused perforation. <br />
<br />
R: Oh.<br />
<br />
E: Well, yeah, you would think, at the minimum.<br />
<br />
S: One of those was fatal. So, one person died. Well, thanks, Rebecca. The Ig Nobels are always fascinating.<br />
<br />
=== GM Corn Rat Study <small>(13:45)</small> ===<br />
* [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-gm-corn-rat-study/ Neurologica: The GM Corn Rat Study]<br />
<br />
=== HIV and Faith Healing <small>(24:22)</small> ===<br />
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-19656649 BBC news: Faith Leaders Across England in 'HIV Healing' Claims<br />
<br />
=== Emoticon Turns 30 <small>(34:22)</small> ===<br />
* [http://digitallife.today.com/_news/2012/09/20/13989898-the-emoticon-is-30-years-old Digital Life, MSN: The Emoticon is 30 Years Old ;-)]<br />
<br />
=== CSICon Private Recording <small>(38:19)</small> ===<br />
* [http://www.skepticalrobot.com/ticket-to-sgu-recording-DC/ SkepticalRobot.com: Ticket to SGU Recording at CSICon]<br />
<br />
== Who's That Noisy <small>(39:42)</small> ==<br />
* Answer to last week: Warp core from Enterprise TNG<br />
<br />
== Interview with Pamela Gay <small>(42:00)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: All right, let's go on to our interview.<br />
<br />
S: Well we are sitting here now at TAM 2012 with Dr. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Gay Pamela Gay], Pamela welcome back to the Skeptics' Guide.<br />
<br />
PG: Well thank you so much for having me on again.<br />
<br />
S: And for those who don't know, Pamela does an amazing podcast called [http://www.astronomycast.com/ Astronomy Cast], one of my favourites, but tell us what you were talking about here at TAM this year.<br />
<br />
PG: Well I was trying mostly to focus on how human beings can do amazing things to make the world better and fix the things that are broken by getting engaged in society. And there are so many different aspects to this, from helping scientists to accomplish science in our current funding crisis by going online and participating in citizen's science, by being aware of things that they can help support through just writing an email. There was a fifth grader a few weeks ago who was forbidden to give a speech on same sex marriage by an extra-ordinarily judgemental principal, and the internet outcry allowed this kid to be able to give his speech in a special assembly. And by simply looking around and saying I'm going to do something to change what bothers me rather than whining about it on Twitter, we're capable of doing really great things as a society, working as individuals.<br />
<br />
S: But whining is so much easier, though.<br />
<br />
PG: And that's the problem. We've all forwarded a tweet about something where someone is articulating something that bothered them, but never taken the moment to do something original, to donate to a cause. One of the things that greatly frustrates me is there's been a few times with [http://365daysofastronomy.org/ 365 Days of Astronomy], which is a community based podcast that I work with, we've put out a call for donations and seen huge numbers of re-tweets and zero donations.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
PG: It's so easy to just forward, to just repeat and so much harder to put your time, your money, your effort into actually doing things that you say matter for you. Imagine if all the time and energy that went into going to some Youtube video where someone's being an idiot and then trolling them for it, instead went into doing something positive to educate people so that they don't become trolls.<br />
<br />
J: So is being a troll a trap? Do you think there's something that attracts people to it, like they get an adrenaline rush or something, what's the driver?<br />
<br />
PG: People want attention. I for a while volunteered as a dog trainer and I went through courses to get trained as a dog.<br />
<br />
S: You got trained as a dog?<br />
<br />
PG: Not trained as a dog, sorry. To get trained as a dog trainer.<br />
<br />
J: (laughs)<br />
<br />
PG: And to think like a dog, which don't conjoin those two sentences, it comes out strangely, I just tried that. And one of the things that they teach you is that some of these animals misbehave horribly, biting, nipping, yapping, peeing on the floor, because they just desperately want attention, they're herd, they're not herd animals, they're pack animals and they, if you have a single dog it's isolated, it wants to feel part of the pack and negative attention is still attention. And trolls, when you feed them by saying you're wrong, you're bad, you're evil, you're wasting my time and you attack them back, you're feeding them, you're giving in to their need for attention, to feel part of the pack. We need to figure out how not to give them that positive reinforcement.<br />
<br />
J: Is it as simple as just ignore?<br />
<br />
PG: I think you sometimes have to do more than just ignore because if you just ignore they're still sitting there and other people are going to give in and feed. I think it's worth taking the half-second before you close that browser window to hit the block, to hit the report as abuse, to hit that button that will eventually alert the social network this is someone we probably need to remove.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah there's a certain threshold of people where you just have to ban people.<br />
<br />
PG: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Because they're, as you said, don't feed the trolls, when you say that, that's feeding the trolls, first of all. You can't talk about not talking about it without talking about it.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: That feeds in to a certain degree. Because they always just escalate their game until someone caves.<br />
<br />
PG: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: The other thing is that, with certain sites, if you're running a science site, and you have somebody there spreading pseudoscience, you can't let it go unanswered so you have this dilemma where you have this rank pseudoscience on a science site that no-one is objecting to, or you have to feed the troll, or you just ban them. So you're almost obligated at some point just to ban people to preserve the integrity of the blog.<br />
<br />
PG: This is something that we have to deal with with with the [http://cosmoquest.org/forum/forum.php CosmoQuest forums] which recently merged with the Bad Astronomy Universe Today forums, and we get a lot of people coming in to the forums and presenting their alternative to the mainstream ideas about science. These are people that are trying to say relativity isn't true or presenting their own alternative ideas, and so we have an [http://cosmoquest.org/forum/forumdisplay.php/17-Against-the-Mainstream area set aside for their discussion], and they're required to answer every question that is given to them, and they're given 30 days to convince people of their idea, and if they can't, they have to be silenced, the thread is closed. So it's a way of confronting it but giving them their own space.<br />
<br />
J: That's interesting, I mean you're basically saying, we're going to allot you time to talk about it but then if it doesn't actually get to the point where it goes above the water line, which I'm curious to know if it ever does...<br />
<br />
PG: So far it hasn't, and this is a forum that has existed within the Bad Astronomy Universe Today named about forums for many many years and when Fraser Cain first set up this part of the forum it was with the hope that maybe some new, novel, interesting idea would come out of it that was real science, and it never has.<br />
<br />
J: Did he come up with that idea?<br />
<br />
PG: I think it was a combination of seeing all of these pseudoscience ideas, seeing all of these alternative ideas being brought forward and getting smashed down in a way that led to flames, trying to create out of all of these flame wars, something positive.<br />
<br />
J: Right. Well I think it's a really cool idea, I'd like actually to come take a look.<br />
<br />
S: In terms of people getting involved in changing the world, which obviously we like to do - we're activists, I do find that people come up to us to talk about us are sorted into one of two categories, there are people who say "you guys should do this".<br />
<br />
PG: Yes.<br />
<br />
S: "You guys should go ahead and do that." My answer is always, yeah that is a good that, you should do that, why don't you do that? We're doing something already. But there are a lot of people who do ask questions at lectures or who come up and talk to us and say "I want to get involved, I want to do something, can you help me do that?" So we don't want to make it seem like other people aren't interested in being activists, but sometimes you just don't know how to get involved.<br />
<br />
PG: There's two different factors, the people who come up to us and say "you need to" make me feel exhausted, because we can only do so much as individuals, but part of what we're seeing is these people see us as strong, powerful people who are capable of enacting change and they don't see themselves that way.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: So we have to empower people to understand that when they see a problem, when they're upset about something, they actually can be that cliché of be the change you want to see in the world. And so we need to somehow facilitate people believing in themselves. And the other side of that is that there are a lot of people who recognise that there's a lot of badness out there and they don't know where to start, it's all so intimidating, they don't know how to get involved, and my advice to these people, is simply find what you're passionate about and then google to find out who's already engaged in combating this. One of my favourite examples is people who get very upset about lesbian/gay/bisexual/queer/transgender issues. I don't remember what order those words are supposed to go in now. There's this fabulous [http://www.itgetsbetter.org/ It Gets Better Project]. So if you see, and people see this on my comment thread because my last name's Gay, so every good comment thread eventually leads to somebody saying "haha this is so gay her last name's gay, you're gay" and it's ridiculous that this is still happening in 2012.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, but that could be an 11 year old right, because it's online.<br />
<br />
PG: It's online and, but...<br />
<br />
J: It was me.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: Just kidding.<br />
<br />
PG: And this is one of those cases where there's clearly still problems, there's that teenage girl killed in Texas for being in love with another girl, and there's already an organisation working hard to do good, to fix things, so find the people who are doing the thing that causes you to stay awake going I can't believe the world is broken in this way, and embrace those people. And if those people aren't already out there doing the thing that makes you passionately hurt so that you want to change the world, be that person, Elyse Anders did that a few years ago, creating the [http://hugmeimvaccinated.org/ Hug Me I'm Vaccinated] program when she realised how much we're losing herd immunity. So you can, if you don't see the people already out there working to make things better, be that person who starts the grass-roots movement.<br />
<br />
J: Or if you don't have the time, or you're just not cut out for it, which let's be honest, some people aren't, like you said earlier though, you can also be a supporter, not just by digesting the content and learning from it, but you can donate and even just sending an email to the people that are doing the work that you really appreciate and thank them and let them know because as someone who receives email where people say hey, I listen and I appreciate it, it fuels us and it really makes a difference. If you're just in an echo chamber and you have no idea if you're having an impact, then you don't know what's going on and you could easily just putter out and not be motivated.<br />
<br />
PG: And in our current society where we're in a position where our government just can't fund the things the way it used to. And I know I personally am in this situation where I'm really worried because I didn't get the grant I was counting on this year, I need to figure out to afford my lead programmer because his funding runs out in December. And all of this is terrifying but then I see hope in things like there are so many individuals who have things that they can share, resources that they can share and they're working so hard to literally build our rocket plane future. NASA right now is underfunded to say the least, but there's so many individuals who made their fortunes in dot coms, working with Amazon, with Google, with PayPal, with these different corporations, and having made their money, they're now saying, I'm going to build the rocket plane future by hiring the engineers, by hiring the space suit designers, and this is where we see [http://www.spacex.com/ SpaceX], [http://www.blueorigin.com/ Blue Origin], [http://www.xcor.com/ XCOR], all these other companies, because someone of means said "I'm going to change the world" and what we have to hope for is that people of means will recognise what we're doing. And "of means" may be one extra dollar, it only takes ten people with one extra dollar to pay for one hour of a student doing something in the lab, and every one dollar can go so far, and maybe some day we'll get lucky and I know we've been lucky with Astronomy Cast, we've Uncle Bob as one of our sponsors, and he supports what we do, spreading the word of astronomy, and you have supporters who support you and we live in an age where it's individuals who fund changing society virally, one idea and campaign at a time. It is one of those strange contradictions of modern society where there's the expectation that with intellectual gifts and content that we should give it away for free and that if we expect to earn money that we are being selfish, that we are - name one of the seven sins. We're somehow taking advantage of society by trying to make a decent living, and there's something wrong with the idea that it's OK for an athlete who entertains on TV and in the sports arena, an actress, all of these people, to get paid huge sums of money to do what they do. One baseball player's salary for one year, for one of the little guys making a million a year, that funds my entire staff, multiple individuals for multiple years, and people see it as wrong that we as academics would like to make a reasonable living, that we as content producers might even put ads on our websites and try not to have to pay out of pocket for our microphones. That's what Fraser and I do, Fraser and I do all of our podcasting out of our own pocket and we pay an audio engineer and we pay someone to do transcripts for us because really if you don't pay someone to do transcripts you're torturing them.<br />
<br />
J: Right, right.<br />
<br />
S: Mmhmm.<br />
<br />
E: Mmhmm.<br />
<br />
J: (laughs).<br />
<br />
PG: And it's...<br />
<br />
J: It's frustrating, and it's something that we've all hit, that we've all hit that wall and it's funny, I was just talking to Brian Dunning about it and you know it's like "yeah, you know it's just another year of throwing the money away, of burning the money on our hobby, quote, unquote hobby". But right now Brian is doing it full time and he's really under the gun he's really working it. So you know, hopefully there are a lot of people that do donate money, even though like you said, a dollar or whatever, and that does count. Of we all, like Bob was saying, would love a bigger infusion so that we don't have to focus on it as much.<br />
<br />
S: You made another point that I thought was very good, the fact that often our listeners, people out there in the public may perceive us as having some kind of special power or access or something, that we can get things done that they can't and I think that, we've marvelled at that too, people come up to us at conferences, they send us emails, and there's this tone that makes it seem like they think like we're all part of one big organisation, which is not the case, we're all just individuals. Or somehow that we have some magical access to government or whatever, it's like "yeah, why aren't you telling the FDA how to fix this?" Because I'm just a citizen. I have no special access to anyone or anything and we just started doing this in our living room, there's absolutely no reason you can't do the exact same thing, it's all just energy and drive you know. But I think that becomes this artificial barrier, that people think that they can't do something or there's something magical about what we're doing.<br />
<br />
PG: And this is where I deeply appreciate the fluffy segments that are at the end of the news so often where they show the 12-year-old who raised a couple of thousand dollars for this foundation or...<br />
<br />
E: At the lemonade stand, yeah.<br />
<br />
PG: Right. And so there's so many small ways and giant ways and I'd encourage everyone to take the time to listen to [http://www.ted.com/talks TED talks], not the ones by the big name academics, but the ones by the individuals who've seen a problem. One of my favourite ones, it's such a simple concept, was realising that there's a serious problem of not having soap in the third world, such a simple thing, not having soap. And then was visiting the United States and seeing that they throw out, and they do this here in the South Point, a bar of soap every day. You open the soap, you use the soap, and the next morning it's gone and you have a new bar of soap. Well he worked out a program to gather up all these hotel soaps, clean them, and redistribute them.<br />
<br />
J: Clean soap?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
PG: I don't know how that part works. Physical scientist, not chemist or biologist.<br />
<br />
B: You need super soap, meta soap.<br />
<br />
J: I think you'd just put water on it and agitate it, get rid of that outer layer.<br />
<br />
PG: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: So Pamela, thanks for being open with us and talking with us, and so of course, always a pleasure to see you at these conferences.<br />
<br />
PG: It was really my pleasure, thank you so much for having me on.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(58:16)</small> ==<br />
[http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2012/halo/ Item #1]: Astronomers may have solved the "missing baryon problem" with the discovery of a halo of hot gas surrounding the Milky Way galaxy.<br />
[http://www.ucalgary.ca/news/utoday/september24-2012/melting Item #2]: This year's peak Arctic ice melt is the greatest since records have been kept, and likely the greatest in a million years.<br />
[http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2012/09/24/a-clock-that-will-last-forever/ Item #3]: Physicists have built a 4-dimensional "space-time crystal" that can be used to keep perfect time until the end of the universe. <br />
<br />
== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:12:10)</small> ==<br />
<blockquote>An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. 'Can they be brought together?' This is a practical question. We must get down to it. 'I despise intelligence' really means: 'I cannot bear my doubts.'</blockquote><br />
Albert Camus<br />
<br />
== Announcements <small>(1:13:40)</small> ==<br />
<br />
{{Outro1}}<br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}}</div>Jason koziolhttps://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGU_Episode_376&diff=9475SGU Episode 3762014-11-18T04:12:04Z<p>Jason koziol: /* Ig Nobels 2012 (2:18) */</p>
<hr />
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{{InfoBox <br />
|episodeNum = 376<br />
|episodeDate = 29<sup>th</sup> September 2012<br />
|episodeIcon = File:Emoticons.jpg<br />
|rebecca = y<br />
|bob = y<br />
|jay = y<br />
|evan = y<br />
|guest1 = PG: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Gay Pamela Gay]<br />
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2012-09-29.mp3<br />
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php?topic=43494.0<br />
|qowText = An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. 'Can they be brought together?' This is a practical question. We must get down to it. 'I despise intelligence' really means: 'I cannot bear my doubts.'<br />
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus Albert Camus]<br />
|}}<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''<br />
<br />
S: Hello, and welcome to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Today is Monday September 24, 2012 and this is your host <br />
Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella<br />
<br />
B: Hey everybody.<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca Watson<br />
<br />
R: Hello everyone.<br />
<br />
S: Jay Novella<br />
<br />
J: Hey guys.<br />
<br />
S: and Evan Bernstein.<br />
<br />
E: Good morning and/or good evening.<br />
<br />
S: How is everybody today?<br />
<br />
R: Super.<br />
<br />
E: Doing just fine.<br />
<br />
J: Thanks for asking.<br />
<br />
== This Day in Skepticism <small>(0:33)</small> ==<br />
* September 29, 1954: CERN is created<br />
<br />
R: Hey, happy CERN day everybody. Happy CERN day.<br />
<br />
B: What does that mean?<br />
<br />
R: That means, on [[September 29]]th 1954 the convention establishing CERN was signed. CERN of course being the European organization for nuclear research. That's the English equivalent. I'm not going to attempt the French, 'cause I don't want to get angry emails.<br />
<br />
J: Rebecca, I was con''cern''ed that you were going to forget.<br />
<br />
R: Forget that it is CERN day?<br />
<br />
J: Year, I was con'''''cern'''''ed.<br />
<br />
B: Ah, yes...<br />
<br />
J: Nothing, huh? Okay.<br />
<br />
R: ''Cern''tailly that's not an issue.<br />
<br />
J: (laughter) You mean, my joke was so bad, that I'm hurtin' for ''cern''tain.<br />
<br />
S: (laughter) Alright... So, this is also the one year anniversary - or at least September 24th when we're recording this - of the first SGU 24 hour live broadcast.<br />
<br />
J: Oh, boy, that was awesome.<br />
<br />
E: Remember that?<br />
<br />
S: Have you guys recovered yet?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
R: Has it only been a year? Seems like yesterday.<br />
<br />
J: Barely...<br />
<br />
B: Evan, we don't need to sleep, right?<br />
<br />
E: Nah. I'll sleep when I'm dead.<br />
<br />
J: I think that was the hardest project I ever did in my life.<br />
<br />
E: It was a test of endurance, will and -<br />
<br />
R: Well, until that baby comes out.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, that's right.<br />
<br />
E: Oh, yeah.. (laughter)<br />
<br />
B: So far, every convention people come up to me like "Do another SGU 24." and I always say, "You know what? I wouldn't mind doing it again, but I don't think we could convince anyone else to do it." And I tell everyone, maybe we'll do like SGU six hours or four hours or something like that. I think if we ever do it, that's what it would have to be.<br />
<br />
R: SGU four hours is a normal night of recording for us.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, that's right.<br />
<br />
E: Well yeah, actually it is.<br />
<br />
== News Items ==<br />
=== Ig Nobels 2012 <small>(2:18)</small> ===<br />
* [http://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/ Improbable Research]<br />
<br />
S: Rebecca, have you checked out the IG nobel winners for 2012?<br />
<br />
R: I have indeed, actually. I'm sad I no longer live in Boston, because Ig Nobels were my favorite time of year. If you ever get a chance to actually go and see them in person, I highly recommend it. It's a hilarious evening of science and fun. So yeah, this years winners, much like previous years, are absolutely delightful. So for those of our listeners, who are not familiar with Ig Nobels, the idea is that they give out awards to science that first makes you laugh and then makes you think. Some Ig Nobels are occasionally given out tongue-in-cheek to idiots and speudoscientists, but for the most part they are given to actual scientists doing actual scientific research that is completely ridiculous. So, for instance, this year the psychology prize went to two scientists for their study "Leaning to the Left Makes the Eiffel Tower Seem Smaller". <br />
<br />
E: As opposed to the right, I suppose.<br />
<br />
R: My personal favorite prize was the acoustics prize, which went to two Japanese researchers who created something called the speech-jammer, which is the most brilliant device I think that has ever been created and it's something that when I describe it will be immediately familiar to everybody currently on this show. That is something that anybody deals with audio, who has spoken into a microphones while wearing headphones and have something go wrong, you know exactly what this does. So, the speech jammer disrupt a person's speech by forcing them to hear their own words at a very slight delay. So, the... Basically what it is, it's a large gun that looks kind of like - I've seen it refereded to like an Xbox-like device - and there's a microphone on it. You point it to someone who is talking. And the microphone picks up their words and then delays what they're saying by a few hundred milliseconds and then feeds it back out trough a speaker directly at them. And everything is direction sensitive, so that the speaker is the only person who can really get the effect. <br />
<br />
B: Are they aware that they are hearing their voice on a delay?<br />
<br />
E: Oh, year.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, I'm sure they are but there is a -<br />
<br />
E: That's the point<br />
<br />
R: There is a video showing it in action and... there is one part of the video that focuses on a professor, and he is giving a lecture at the front of the room and somebody does it to him, and he kind of freaks out because that something in the lecture hall is going wrong. Like his microphone is messed up or the projector is messing something up. It really makes him stop talking like immediately. It's so difficult to listen to yourself echoing, while continuing to talk.<br />
<br />
B : Have you guys ever experienced that?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, all the time.<br />
<br />
S: During the SGU 24 show, we were doing interviews -<br />
<br />
R: Oh, god, that's right.<br />
<br />
S: there was that half a second delay and it was almost impossible to talk. I had to take the headphones off to get a sentence out.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it was hard. You become hyper-aware of what you're saying and you're completely unable to function.<br />
<br />
E: That's funny, Steve. What's going on in the brain at that point? So, the brain is- you're trying to create speech and at the same time interpret- your brain is also at the same time interpreting its own speech and trying to -<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, I think so. It's -<br />
<br />
E: - make it fit together?<br />
<br />
S: it just can't process two speech steam at the same time. So -<br />
<br />
B: I think it's a little more complicated than that, though, because one of the things that people do by instinct is... we're filter out ambient noise. So if you're in a room with five or ten or more people talking you can kind of just ignore it. But you can't ignore that. There's something different about it. You can't just (inaudible) it inside like you can other speech. It's something that just like short-circuits your brain.<br />
<br />
E: And hearing yourself speak so close to the words that you've just spoken, the timing for sure is -<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, the timing is -<br />
<br />
E: (inaudible)<br />
<br />
B: Yeah, I wonder if they slowly increase the delay, what the effect would be. Would you reach a threshold where you could totally deal with it? You probably could.<br />
<br />
J: Absolutely, Bob, it's a sweet-spot and they figured out the sweet-spot and then they figured out the delivery mechanism, like how to shoot that sound back at one person or at a very small area. So it ''is'' kind of like a gun. Right, Rebecca?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, it looks like a big chunky gun. With a microphone and a speaker on it.<br />
<br />
J: But the funny thing about this is that there really isn't any point to it, other than... what? Like is it just a prank?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, in the abstract they say "We discuss practical application scenarios of this system such as facilitating and controlling discussions." Which is just a polite, sciency way of saying "making people shut up". A bunch of kids, you know, studying in a lab and a girl pulls out a cell phone and starts talking and somebody pulls out the gun and she just immediately stops.<br />
<br />
E: Has to stop.<br />
<br />
R: So, I mean. I think everybody can think of a million practical applications for this item. Just maybe not so much in the terms of furthering human evolution... or knowledge of the universe.<br />
<br />
S: I think we talked about the neuroscience prize on the show.<br />
<br />
R: We did. Yeah. And it surprised me because I assumed that these guys got the prize years earlier because this study came out in 2009. It's the study that shows that you can pick up meaningful brain activity using fMRI from absolutely anything. Even a dead salmon. So these researchers stuck a dead salmon in an fMRI and found, what they would classify as meaningful brain activity. Which really is a fantastic study, because it throws into disarray so many previous studies that claim to show really amazing results by finding, you know, certain spots of the brain that are meant to be certain types of thought and things like that. This sort of throws that out the window in a way, because it makes you realize that brain researchers, unfortunately, can quite easily just see what they want to see in fMRI results sometimes.<br />
<br />
S: But there was a very specific statistical argument that they made. It doesn't necessarily invalidate all fMRI research, just that those that use poor technique. Now, what specifically they were saying is, that because you're looking at so much information - with fMI - you can number crunch tons of comparisons, and it becomes almost a certainty that you will find false-positives among those comparisons - unless you correct for multiple comparisons. You use a statistical fix for multiple analyses. So, if you do the proper statistical analysis, then the results can still be robust and statistically legitimate. But it's also just trivially easy to produce false-positives by failing to do that basic statistical correction. And that's something we see all the time, not just in fMRI studies. It's just that the number of comparisons that you can do with this kind of data is so huge that it particularly lends itself to this kind of statistical error.<br />
<br />
R: Yep.<br />
<br />
S: Got it?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
E: Got it.<br />
<br />
R: I was also particularly impressed by the literature prize. I'm going to read directly from the Ig Nobel description of it. "The US Government General Accountability Office, for issuing a report about reports about reports that recommends the preparation of a report about the report about reports about reports."<br />
<br />
S: Uh-huh.<br />
<br />
R: Yep.<br />
<br />
S: Ah, bureaucracy.<br />
<br />
R: The fluid-dynamics prize went to some researchers who studied how your coffee sloshes around when you walk.<br />
<br />
J?: I hate that.<br />
<br />
R:"Walking With Coffee: Why Does It Spill?"<br />
<br />
E: That's why they invented lids.<br />
<br />
R: The anatomy prize went to "Faces and Behinds: Chimpanzee Sex Perception". These researchers from the Netherlands and the US found that chimpanzees can identify other chimps from seeing photographs of their butts. <br />
<br />
R: The medicine prize was... terrifying. It went to French researchers who did some research advising doctors who perform colonoscopies how to minimize the chance that their patients will explode.<br />
<br />
B?: Wait, what?<br />
<br />
R: The paper was called "Colonic Gas Explosion During Therapeutic Colonoscopy with Electrocautery". Steve, your butt can explode during a colonoscopy? That's terrifying.<br />
<br />
S: I think Jay has more expertize on this area than I do.<br />
<br />
E: Ah, ha.<br />
<br />
J: Just because I do what my doctor says. You know, he says it's time to go get an exam, I get the exam. What am I going to say? No?<br />
<br />
S: That wasn't my point.<br />
<br />
R: That's not where he was going with that...<br />
<br />
S: This has to do with explosive gas that builds up in your colon, and that gas can get to a sufficient concentration to be explosive. And then you can trigger it with electrocautery. A little spark can actually ignite the methane that builds up in your colon and explode it. It doesn't have to be a big explosion to cause some serious damage. <br />
<br />
J: Why would you do that? Why would you -<br />
<br />
R: I don't think they're doing it on purpose, Jay.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah, but after it happens, like once... You figure they'd stop doing it, right?<br />
<br />
R: They still have to cauterize.<br />
<br />
S: Stop doing colonoscopy with electrocautery? It's a rare complication, so what they're essentially saying, just do a really good prep, you know a good colonic cleansing, before you do colonoscopy with electrocautery to minimize the chance of explosion. <br />
<br />
B: Holy crap, how can I never ever hear of that.<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, don't you wish you could unhear it?<br />
<br />
J: I'm terrified now!<br />
<br />
B: No, I want to see a video tape of it.<br />
<br />
R: There is something wrong with you guys.<br />
<br />
B: (laughter)<br />
<br />
R: That is not cool.<br />
<br />
J: Steve, does that kill them?<br />
<br />
R: Yeah, that's what I'm saying, it's a horrible way to die.<br />
<br />
J: How embarrassing... "What did your brother die from? -Well, he was getting an exam, and his whole ass blew up." Seriously!<br />
<br />
R: Well, hopefully it wont happen as much anymore thanks to the Ig Nobel winners. <br />
<br />
S: Apparently there were 20 cases of colonic gas explosion identified in the literature. Nine of them were complicated by colon perforation. <br />
<br />
R: Like it was perforated before?<br />
<br />
S: No, no. The explosion caused perforation. <br />
<br />
R: Oh.<br />
<br />
E: Well, yeah, you would think, at the minimum.<br />
<br />
S: One of those was fatal. So, one person died. Well, thanks, Rebecca. The Ig Nobels are always fascinating.<br />
<br />
=== GM Corn Rat Study <small>(13:45)</small> ===<br />
* [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-gm-corn-rat-study/ Neurologica: The GM Corn Rat Study]<br />
<br />
=== HIV and Faith Healing <small>(24:22)</small> ===<br />
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-19656649 BBC news: Faith Leaders Across England in 'HIV Healing' Claims<br />
<br />
=== Emoticon Turns 30 <small>(34:22)</small> ===<br />
* [http://digitallife.today.com/_news/2012/09/20/13989898-the-emoticon-is-30-years-old Digital Life, MSN: The Emoticon is 30 Years Old ;-)]<br />
<br />
=== CSICon Private Recording <small>(38:19)</small> ===<br />
* [http://www.skepticalrobot.com/ticket-to-sgu-recording-DC/ SkepticalRobot.com: Ticket to SGU Recording at CSICon]<br />
<br />
== Who's That Noisy <small>(39:42)</small> ==<br />
* Answer to last week: Warp core from Enterprise TNG<br />
<br />
== Interview with Pamela Gay <small>(42:00)</small> ==<br />
<br />
S: All right, let's go on to our interview.<br />
<br />
S: Well we are sitting here now at TAM 2012 with Dr. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Gay Pamela Gay], Pamela welcome back to the Skeptics' Guide.<br />
<br />
PG: Well thank you so much for having me on again.<br />
<br />
S: And for those who don't know, Pamela does an amazing podcast called [http://www.astronomycast.com/ Astronomy Cast], one of my favourites, but tell us what you were talking about here at TAM this year.<br />
<br />
PG: Well I was trying mostly to focus on how human beings can do amazing things to make the world better and fix the things that are broken by getting engaged in society. And there are so many different aspects to this, from helping scientists to accomplish science in our current funding crisis by going online and participating in citizen's science, by being aware of things that they can help support through just writing an email. There was a fifth grader a few weeks ago who was forbidden to give a speech on same sex marriage by an extra-ordinarily judgemental principal, and the internet outcry allowed this kid to be able to give his speech in a special assembly. And by simply looking around and saying I'm going to do something to change what bothers me rather than whining about it on Twitter, we're capable of doing really great things as a society, working as individuals.<br />
<br />
S: But whining is so much easier, though.<br />
<br />
PG: And that's the problem. We've all forwarded a tweet about something where someone is articulating something that bothered them, but never taken the moment to do something original, to donate to a cause. One of the things that greatly frustrates me is there's been a few times with [http://365daysofastronomy.org/ 365 Days of Astronomy], which is a community based podcast that I work with, we've put out a call for donations and seen huge numbers of re-tweets and zero donations.<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
PG: It's so easy to just forward, to just repeat and so much harder to put your time, your money, your effort into actually doing things that you say matter for you. Imagine if all the time and energy that went into going to some Youtube video where someone's being an idiot and then trolling them for it, instead went into doing something positive to educate people so that they don't become trolls.<br />
<br />
J: So is being a troll a trap? Do you think there's something that attracts people to it, like they get an adrenaline rush or something, what's the driver?<br />
<br />
PG: People want attention. I for a while volunteered as a dog trainer and I went through courses to get trained as a dog.<br />
<br />
S: You got trained as a dog?<br />
<br />
PG: Not trained as a dog, sorry. To get trained as a dog trainer.<br />
<br />
J: (laughs)<br />
<br />
PG: And to think like a dog, which don't conjoin those two sentences, it comes out strangely, I just tried that. And one of the things that they teach you is that some of these animals misbehave horribly, biting, nipping, yapping, peeing on the floor, because they just desperately want attention, they're herd, they're not herd animals, they're pack animals and they, if you have a single dog it's isolated, it wants to feel part of the pack and negative attention is still attention. And trolls, when you feed them by saying you're wrong, you're bad, you're evil, you're wasting my time and you attack them back, you're feeding them, you're giving in to their need for attention, to feel part of the pack. We need to figure out how not to give them that positive reinforcement.<br />
<br />
J: Is it as simple as just ignore?<br />
<br />
PG: I think you sometimes have to do more than just ignore because if you just ignore they're still sitting there and other people are going to give in and feed. I think it's worth taking the half-second before you close that browser window to hit the block, to hit the report as abuse, to hit that button that will eventually alert the social network this is someone we probably need to remove.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah there's a certain threshold of people where you just have to ban people.<br />
<br />
PG: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: Because they're, as you said, don't feed the trolls, when you say that, that's feeding the trolls, first of all. You can't talk about not talking about it without talking about it.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
S: That feeds in to a certain degree. Because they always just escalate their game until someone caves.<br />
<br />
PG: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: The other thing is that, with certain sites, if you're running a science site, and you have somebody there spreading pseudoscience, you can't let it go unanswered so you have this dilemma where you have this rank pseudoscience on a science site that no-one is objecting to, or you have to feed the troll, or you just ban them. So you're almost obligated at some point just to ban people to preserve the integrity of the blog.<br />
<br />
PG: This is something that we have to deal with with with the [http://cosmoquest.org/forum/forum.php CosmoQuest forums] which recently merged with the Bad Astronomy Universe Today forums, and we get a lot of people coming in to the forums and presenting their alternative to the mainstream ideas about science. These are people that are trying to say relativity isn't true or presenting their own alternative ideas, and so we have an [http://cosmoquest.org/forum/forumdisplay.php/17-Against-the-Mainstream area set aside for their discussion], and they're required to answer every question that is given to them, and they're given 30 days to convince people of their idea, and if they can't, they have to be silenced, the thread is closed. So it's a way of confronting it but giving them their own space.<br />
<br />
J: That's interesting, I mean you're basically saying, we're going to allot you time to talk about it but then if it doesn't actually get to the point where it goes above the water line, which I'm curious to know if it ever does...<br />
<br />
PG: So far it hasn't, and this is a forum that has existed within the Bad Astronomy Universe Today named about forums for many many years and when Fraser Cain first set up this part of the forum it was with the hope that maybe some new, novel, interesting idea would come out of it that was real science, and it never has.<br />
<br />
J: Did he come up with that idea?<br />
<br />
PG: I think it was a combination of seeing all of these pseudoscience ideas, seeing all of these alternative ideas being brought forward and getting smashed down in a way that led to flames, trying to create out of all of these flame wars, something positive.<br />
<br />
J: Right. Well I think it's a really cool idea, I'd like actually to come take a look.<br />
<br />
S: In terms of people getting involved in changing the world, which obviously we like to do - we're activists, I do find that people come up to us to talk about us are sorted into one of two categories, there are people who say "you guys should do this".<br />
<br />
PG: Yes.<br />
<br />
S: "You guys should go ahead and do that." My answer is always, yeah that is a good that, you should do that, why don't you do that? We're doing something already. But there are a lot of people who do ask questions at lectures or who come up and talk to us and say "I want to get involved, I want to do something, can you help me do that?" So we don't want to make it seem like other people aren't interested in being activists, but sometimes you just don't know how to get involved.<br />
<br />
PG: There's two different factors, the people who come up to us and say "you need to" make me feel exhausted, because we can only do so much as individuals, but part of what we're seeing is these people see us as strong, powerful people who are capable of enacting change and they don't see themselves that way.<br />
<br />
S: Right<br />
<br />
J: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: So we have to empower people to understand that when they see a problem, when they're upset about something, they actually can be that cliché of be the change you want to see in the world. And so we need to somehow facilitate people believing in themselves. And the other side of that is that there are a lot of people who recognise that there's a lot of badness out there and they don't know where to start, it's all so intimidating, they don't know how to get involved, and my advice to these people, is simply find what you're passionate about and then google to find out who's already engaged in combating this. One of my favourite examples is people who get very upset about lesbian/gay/bisexual/queer/transgender issues. I don't remember what order those words are supposed to go in now. There's this fabulous [http://www.itgetsbetter.org/ It Gets Better Project]. So if you see, and people see this on my comment thread because my last name's Gay, so every good comment thread eventually leads to somebody saying "haha this is so gay her last name's gay, you're gay" and it's ridiculous that this is still happening in 2012.<br />
<br />
S: Yeah, but that could be an 11 year old right, because it's online.<br />
<br />
PG: It's online and, but...<br />
<br />
J: It was me.<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
J: Just kidding.<br />
<br />
PG: And this is one of those cases where there's clearly still problems, there's that teenage girl killed in Texas for being in love with another girl, and there's already an organisation working hard to do good, to fix things, so find the people who are doing the thing that causes you to stay awake going I can't believe the world is broken in this way, and embrace those people. And if those people aren't already out there doing the thing that makes you passionately hurt so that you want to change the world, be that person, Elyse Anders did that a few years ago, creating the [http://hugmeimvaccinated.org/ Hug Me I'm Vaccinated] program when she realised how much we're losing herd immunity. So you can, if you don't see the people already out there working to make things better, be that person who starts the grass-roots movement.<br />
<br />
J: Or if you don't have the time, or you're just not cut out for it, which let's be honest, some people aren't, like you said earlier though, you can also be a supporter, not just by digesting the content and learning from it, but you can donate and even just sending an email to the people that are doing the work that you really appreciate and thank them and let them know because as someone who receives email where people say hey, I listen and I appreciate it, it fuels us and it really makes a difference. If you're just in an echo chamber and you have no idea if you're having an impact, then you don't know what's going on and you could easily just putter out and not be motivated.<br />
<br />
PG: And in our current society where we're in a position where our government just can't fund the things the way it used to. And I know I personally am in this situation where I'm really worried because I didn't get the grant I was counting on this year, I need to figure out to afford my lead programmer because his funding runs out in December. And all of this is terrifying but then I see hope in things like there are so many individuals who have things that they can share, resources that they can share and they're working so hard to literally build our rocket plane future. NASA right now is underfunded to say the least, but there's so many individuals who made their fortunes in dot coms, working with Amazon, with Google, with PayPal, with these different corporations, and having made their money, they're now saying, I'm going to build the rocket plane future by hiring the engineers, by hiring the space suit designers, and this is where we see [http://www.spacex.com/ SpaceX], [http://www.blueorigin.com/ Blue Origin], [http://www.xcor.com/ XCOR], all these other companies, because someone of means said "I'm going to change the world" and what we have to hope for is that people of means will recognise what we're doing. And "of means" may be one extra dollar, it only takes ten people with one extra dollar to pay for one hour of a student doing something in the lab, and every one dollar can go so far, and maybe some day we'll get lucky and I know we've been lucky with Astronomy Cast, we've Uncle Bob as one of our sponsors, and he supports what we do, spreading the word of astronomy, and you have supporters who support you and we live in an age where it's individuals who fund changing society virally, one idea and campaign at a time. It is one of those strange contradictions of modern society where there's the expectation that with intellectual gifts and content that we should give it away for free and that if we expect to earn money that we are being selfish, that we are - name one of the seven sins. We're somehow taking advantage of society by trying to make a decent living, and there's something wrong with the idea that it's OK for an athlete who entertains on TV and in the sports arena, an actress, all of these people, to get paid huge sums of money to do what they do. One baseball player's salary for one year, for one of the little guys making a million a year, that funds my entire staff, multiple individuals for multiple years, and people see it as wrong that we as academics would like to make a reasonable living, that we as content producers might even put ads on our websites and try not to have to pay out of pocket for our microphones. That's what Fraser and I do, Fraser and I do all of our podcasting out of our own pocket and we pay an audio engineer and we pay someone to do transcripts for us because really if you don't pay someone to do transcripts you're torturing them.<br />
<br />
J: Right, right.<br />
<br />
S: Mmhmm.<br />
<br />
E: Mmhmm.<br />
<br />
J: (laughs).<br />
<br />
PG: And it's...<br />
<br />
J: It's frustrating, and it's something that we've all hit, that we've all hit that wall and it's funny, I was just talking to Brian Dunning about it and you know it's like "yeah, you know it's just another year of throwing the money away, of burning the money on our hobby, quote, unquote hobby". But right now Brian is doing it full time and he's really under the gun he's really working it. So you know, hopefully there are a lot of people that do donate money, even though like you said, a dollar or whatever, and that does count. Of we all, like Bob was saying, would love a bigger infusion so that we don't have to focus on it as much.<br />
<br />
S: You made another point that I thought was very good, the fact that often our listeners, people out there in the public may perceive us as having some kind of special power or access or something, that we can get things done that they can't and I think that, we've marvelled at that too, people come up to us at conferences, they send us emails, and there's this tone that makes it seem like they think like we're all part of one big organisation, which is not the case, we're all just individuals. Or somehow that we have some magical access to government or whatever, it's like "yeah, why aren't you telling the FDA how to fix this?" Because I'm just a citizen. I have no special access to anyone or anything and we just started doing this in our living room, there's absolutely no reason you can't do the exact same thing, it's all just energy and drive you know. But I think that becomes this artificial barrier, that people think that they can't do something or there's something magical about what we're doing.<br />
<br />
PG: And this is where I deeply appreciate the fluffy segments that are at the end of the news so often where they show the 12-year-old who raised a couple of thousand dollars for this foundation or...<br />
<br />
E: At the lemonade stand, yeah.<br />
<br />
PG: Right. And so there's so many small ways and giant ways and I'd encourage everyone to take the time to listen to [http://www.ted.com/talks TED talks], not the ones by the big name academics, but the ones by the individuals who've seen a problem. One of my favourite ones, it's such a simple concept, was realising that there's a serious problem of not having soap in the third world, such a simple thing, not having soap. And then was visiting the United States and seeing that they throw out, and they do this here in the South Point, a bar of soap every day. You open the soap, you use the soap, and the next morning it's gone and you have a new bar of soap. Well he worked out a program to gather up all these hotel soaps, clean them, and redistribute them.<br />
<br />
J: Clean soap?<br />
<br />
(laughter)<br />
<br />
PG: I don't know how that part works. Physical scientist, not chemist or biologist.<br />
<br />
B: You need super soap, meta soap.<br />
<br />
J: I think you'd just put water on it and agitate it, get rid of that outer layer.<br />
<br />
PG: Yeah.<br />
<br />
S: So Pamela, thanks for being open with us and talking with us, and so of course, always a pleasure to see you at these conferences.<br />
<br />
PG: It was really my pleasure, thank you so much for having me on.<br />
<br />
== Science or Fiction <small>(58:16)</small> ==<br />
[http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2012/halo/ Item #1]: Astronomers may have solved the "missing baryon problem" with the discovery of a halo of hot gas surrounding the Milky Way galaxy.<br />
[http://www.ucalgary.ca/news/utoday/september24-2012/melting Item #2]: This year's peak Arctic ice melt is the greatest since records have been kept, and likely the greatest in a million years.<br />
[http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2012/09/24/a-clock-that-will-last-forever/ Item #3]: Physicists have built a 4-dimensional "space-time crystal" that can be used to keep perfect time until the end of the universe. <br />
<br />
== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:12:10)</small> ==<br />
<blockquote>An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. 'Can they be brought together?' This is a practical question. We must get down to it. 'I despise intelligence' really means: 'I cannot bear my doubts.'</blockquote><br />
Albert Camus<br />
<br />
== Announcements <small>(1:13:40)</small> ==<br />
<br />
{{Outro1}}<br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
{{Navigation}}</div>Jason koziol