SGUTranscripts - User contributions [en]

SGU Episode 483

2014-10-17T01:44:25Z

Mkoconnor: /* Introduction */

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|episodeNum = 483
|episodeDate = 11th Oct 2014
|episodeIcon = File:Blue-LED.jpg
|rebecca = y
|bob = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
|guest1 = AW: Andy Wilson
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2014-10-11.mp3
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php?topic=44696.0
|qowText = The journalistic tradition so exalts novelty and flashy discovery, as reputable and newsworthy, that standard accounts for the public not only miss the usual activity of science but also, and more unfortunately, convey a false impression about what drives research.
|qowAuthor = {{w|Stephen J. Gould}}
|}}

== Introduction ==
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''

== This Day in Skepticism () ==
Meriwether Lewis (August 18, 1774 – October 11, 1809)

== News Items ==
=== Nobel Prizes 2014 ()===
* Physiology or Medicine http://www.nobelprizemedicine.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Scintific-background_2014.pdf
* Chemistry http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2014/advanced-chemistryprize2014.pdf
* Physics http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2014/advanced-physicsprize2014_2.pdf

=== Rupert Sheldrake ()===
http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/yoga/doshi/

=== Pumpkin Spice Latte ()===
http://groundedparents.com/2014/10/01/food-babe-moms-across-america-stop-drinking-starbucks/ http://www.marketwatch.com/story/froth-over-organic-milk-at-starbucks-2014-10-05?siteid=rss&rss=1

=== Psychic Sally Morgan ()===
http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2014/oct/07/campaign-psychic-sally-morgan

== Who's That Noisy ()==
Answer to last week: Deck of cards

== Science or Fiction () ==
Item #1: Astronomers have discovered a pulsar that is 100 times brighter than theories predict a pulsar can be. http://www.caltech.edu/content/nustar-discovers-impossibly-bright-dead-star
Item #2: Scientists have dated cave art in Indonesia to 40,000 years ago, older than any known art in Europe where it was previously thought to first develop. http://www.nature.com/news/world-s-oldest-art-found-in-indonesian-cave-1.16100
Item #3: Anatomists have, for the first time, positively identified the structures responsible for vaginal orgasm in women. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1002/ca.22471/

== Skeptical Quote of the Week () ==
<blockquote>The journalistic tradition so exalts novelty and flashy discovery, as reputable and newsworthy, that standard accounts for the public not only miss the usual activity of science but also, and more unfortunately, convey a false impression about what drives research.
</blockquote>
Stephen J. Gould

== Announcements () ==

{{Outro404}}

== References ==
<references/>

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 483

2014-10-17T01:41:05Z

Mkoconnor: /* Introduction */

{{LatestEpisode}}
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{{InfoBox
|episodeNum = 483
|episodeDate = 11th Oct 2014
|episodeIcon = File:Blue-LED.jpg
|rebecca = y
|bob = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
|guest1 = AW: Andy Wilson
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2014-10-11.mp3
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php?topic=44696.0
|qowText = The journalistic tradition so exalts novelty and flashy discovery, as reputable and newsworthy, that standard accounts for the public not only miss the usual activity of science but also, and more unfortunately, convey a false impression about what drives research.
|qowAuthor = {{w|Stephen J. Gould}}
|}}

== Introduction ==
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''
{{transcribing
|transcriber=mkoconnor
|date=2014-10-16
}}

== This Day in Skepticism () ==
Meriwether Lewis (August 18, 1774 – October 11, 1809)

== News Items ==
=== Nobel Prizes 2014 ()===
* Physiology or Medicine http://www.nobelprizemedicine.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Scintific-background_2014.pdf
* Chemistry http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2014/advanced-chemistryprize2014.pdf
* Physics http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2014/advanced-physicsprize2014_2.pdf

=== Rupert Sheldrake ()===
http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/yoga/doshi/

=== Pumpkin Spice Latte ()===
http://groundedparents.com/2014/10/01/food-babe-moms-across-america-stop-drinking-starbucks/ http://www.marketwatch.com/story/froth-over-organic-milk-at-starbucks-2014-10-05?siteid=rss&rss=1

=== Psychic Sally Morgan ()===
http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2014/oct/07/campaign-psychic-sally-morgan

== Who's That Noisy ()==
Answer to last week: Deck of cards

== Science or Fiction () ==
Item #1: Astronomers have discovered a pulsar that is 100 times brighter than theories predict a pulsar can be. http://www.caltech.edu/content/nustar-discovers-impossibly-bright-dead-star
Item #2: Scientists have dated cave art in Indonesia to 40,000 years ago, older than any known art in Europe where it was previously thought to first develop. http://www.nature.com/news/world-s-oldest-art-found-in-indonesian-cave-1.16100
Item #3: Anatomists have, for the first time, positively identified the structures responsible for vaginal orgasm in women. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1002/ca.22471/

== Skeptical Quote of the Week () ==
<blockquote>The journalistic tradition so exalts novelty and flashy discovery, as reputable and newsworthy, that standard accounts for the public not only miss the usual activity of science but also, and more unfortunately, convey a false impression about what drives research.
</blockquote>
Stephen J. Gould

== Announcements () ==

{{Outro404}}

== References ==
<references/>

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 481

2014-10-10T00:59:54Z

Mkoconnor: /* GMO Feeding Trial () */

{{Editing required
|transcription = y

|time-stamps = y
|formatting = y
|links = y
|Today I Learned list = y
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{{InfoBox
|episodeNum = 481
|episodeDate = September 27th 2014 
|episodeIcon = File:Nvidia-apollo3.jpg 
|previous = 
|next = 
|rebecca = y 
|bob = y 
|jay = y 
|evan = y 
|perry = 
|guest1 = 
|guest2 = 
|guest3 = 
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2014-09-27.mp3
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,44614.0.html
|qowText = 'If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump too?' 'Oh jeez. Probably.' 'What!? Why!?' 'Because all my friends did. Think about it — which scenario is more likely: every single person I know, many of them levelheaded and afraid of heights, abruptly went crazy at exactly the same time… …or the bridge is on fire?' 
|qowAuthor = {{w|Randall Munroe}} (xkcd) 
|}}

== Introduction ==
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Today is
Wednesday, September 24, 2014 and this is your host, Steven Novella.
Joining me this week are Bob Novella...

B: Hey, everybody.

S: Rebecca Watson...

R: Hello, everyone.

S: Jay Novella...

J: Hey, guys.

S: And Evan Bernstein...

E: Hi folks, how are you all tonight?

B: Doing good, Evan.

J: All right, yeah.

== This Day in Skepticism (0:29) ==
R: Happy birthday to the answering machine, which was invented on
September 27, 1950! Now, for the bulk of our audience, I will now
describe what an answering machine is.

''(laughter)''

R: An answering machine was a little box that you used to plug your
phone in to, and when you weren't there at home, because you couldn't
take your phone with you back then, the answering machine would pick
up and people would leave messages, and it was very exciting. We
would leave prank messages sometimes, we would have prank recordings
on our answering machines.

J: Yeah, you mean the outgoing message was the prank too.

R: Yeah. Yeah, it was a time of pranks.

E: Oh, I hated that one where someone would say "Hello?" and then wait a
few seconds (you're speaking to the answering machine) and then you
say something and it says "Oh yes, hi, how you doing?" and then
another pause and you think you're speaking to someone but it's a damn
answering machine. Hated it.

J: ''(laughs)''

B: And don't forget, this wasn't saved to a hard drive or a solid
state drive, this was like a cassette tape that all of this action is
happening on. ''(laughs)''

E: I bet you in the 50's it was some reel-to-reel device that took up
three rooms like UNIVAC or something.

R: I found on a website that the answering machine was invented on
this day in 1950, but I've also found elsewhere that the first
commercial answering machine went on the market in 1949 ''(laughs)'',
uh, and that was called the Tel-Magnet. And the problem is that I'm
in the midst of moving house, and I could not suss all this stuff out
before we'd started this recording. So I'll mention that and I'll
also mention--and I think this came up in a previous Science or
Fiction years and years ago or something{{Link needed}}--but, really,
the first answering machine was invented in 1898 by a man named
Valdemar Poulsen and this was basically a recorder that was used for
recording conversations on the telephone. And it was the basis for
what eventually became the mass-produced answering machine. So...

S: Right.

R: ...a dubious day in history, but, you know, I'm going with it.

E: ''(laughs)''

S: But the first, from what I'm reading, the first commercially
''successful'' answering machine was the Ansafone in 1960 in the
United States. Yeah, the Tel-Magnet, 1949, was recorded a message on
a magnetic wire...

B: Whoa.

S: ...that sold for $200...

E: That's worth it.

S: ...but was not, not a commercial success.

R: You know, I remember when there was a short period where cell phone
companies would charge you just for voicemail, for like a dollar a
month...

S: Mm hm.

R: ...and I just found that ridiculous ''(laughs)''. I can't even
imagine a $200 answering machine.

S: The telephone is definitely one of those things that has changed
consistently over the years and you could, like, tell, like you can
date a movie by the phones.

R: Oh yeah, absolutely.

S: Yeah, pretty well. Even, as well as you can, say, with computers,
you know.

R: I've done that several times where I'm watching a film and, you
know, sometimes a film will be set in a certain period but they don't
come out and tell you right away...

E: Mm hm.

R: ...like a lot of indie films will do that, and I'm really just
always looking for telephones so I can figure out exactly when it's
supposed to be.

E: Within a few years accuracy, yeah.

== News Items ==
=== Nvidia Debunks Moon Hoax (3:47) ===
* http://www.theskepticsguide.org/nvidia-debunks-moon-landing-conspiracy-theory

S: Well, Jay, this is one the coolest things I think I've seen this
week, or even for a while. It's a very interesting ad campaign by
Nvidia, the graphics card maker. Tell us about it.

J: Yeah, it was very cool, Steve, I mean, I absolutely love that era
of space exploration, you know, the 1960's/early 1970's, just the
whole look of that series of missions the United State did. To me,
it's like one of my favorite historical moments. I love World War II,
I love space exploration in that decade, just awesome.

So, back in July 16, 1969, the Apollo 11 launched to the Moon. Buzz
Aldrin and Neil Armstrong were the lucky guys selected to land on the
Moon and actually walk on the Moon. A lot of people think it was
faked, and they make a lot of remarks about why it wasn't real, and
this is some of the remarks that come out. So, a common claim is that
no stars were visible in a lot of the pictures or all the pictures
that were taken on the lunar surface. That the shadows on the Moon
make no sense. Also, I heard that people believe that the way the
astronauts actually move, the way that they jumped around on the lunar
surface.

There's probably a couple of dozen points out there that people have
brought up over several past decades, trying to refute the idea that
we did or did not land on the Moon. The fact is, I'm going to break
it to you know, that, yes, the United States did land on the Moon. It
landed on the Moon more than once. There's artifacts on the Moon. By
use of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, they've seen not only
leftover space vehicles and other things, but they actually can see
the footprints of the astronauts, like these long single-file
footprints that the astronauts left as they were...

E: That's cool.

J: Yeah, isn't that awesome? You can see exactly where they went,
because really, arguably, it hasn't changed really at all, because
there's no weather or much activity happening on the Moon other than
stuff flying in from outer space.

So, Nvdia created a new chip called the Maxwell, and the team that
developed this, developed a way to show off this chip. They created a
3D software technology that allows them to bounce light off of all of
the rendered objects much more accurately than anybody's ever done
before. And this is one hell off an achievement because the processor
power needed and the software needed is incredible, it's just, you
know, something that hasn't really been achieved to this level of detail
before. And I don't even think we've gotten even close to this level
of detail before.

The engineers had to model every 3D object that they found on the
Moon. So, that includes the spacecraft, the astronauts, the lunar
soil, the rocks, any objects that were on the lander that were
reflecting light. They were actually simulating detail down to what
kind of materials were used to help simulate the actual effects of
light bouncing off of it.

So, they selected a very popular picture of, now I believe that Neil
Armstrong was already on the surface, and this was a picture of Buzz
Aldrin getting out of the lunar lander, and Neil Armstrong was taking
the picture. So, you see, it's a very iconic picture of an astronaut
coming down the ladder right before they touched the ground. Now this
was the picture that they decided to duplicate.

So, here's a little bit of their process. They had to figure out how
the light actually reflects on the Moon differently than here on
Earth. Now, one thing to keep in mind is that light doesn't simply
just come in straight lines from the light source, say, in the room
that you're in. If you look at the light source in your room, right,
just turn my head and looked up at the light on the ceiling. You
know, light, of course, is just coming in a perfectly straight line
from that light source to me. But it's also hitting almost
everything, if not everything, else that I'm sitting in the room
with. And those objects are reflecting light to me and on other
objects, which then again reflect light to me. Right, and it just
keeps going, the amount of reflections, I bet, it would be interesting
to do a calculation on just how many reflections are happening, how
much of that light, how many times did it bounce before it actually
gets to you.

And that gives a room, or a space, or any kind of area, a particular
kind of illumination. And the illumination that a lot of people saw
on the Moon in the photographs seemed very strange to them. But,
there's a lot of significant differences between the Moon and the
Earth. You know, in particular, the Moon does not have an
atmosphere. And that does a very dramatic thing to the way that light
looks on the moon. It looks a lot more stark, there isn't any
diffusion happening, meaning that the light that's coming in through
the Earth's atmosphere, it gets scattered, and it softens the light.
And on a cloud-covered day, if you notice, if you take pictures
outside on a cloud-covered day, you can get some of the best pictures
outside because what's happening is all that sunlight is hitting the
tops of the clouds and the clouds are diffusing the light a lot, and
it makes everything look really soft. You can take very nice pictures
without any harsh shadows on somebody's face and everything, it's very
evenly lit.

The Moon is the exact opposite of that. The Moon, there is no evenly
lit nothing on the Moon. You know, the vast majority of everything
has a very, very bright light on it or it's almost completely in the
dark. However, that being said, objects are bouncing a lot of that
really harsh light very powerfully in all directions. So, when the
team took into account, as they're trying to simulate this picture,
all the different reflections and the different surfaces and the
textures on those surfaces and how reflective are they and what
direction are those different light rays going to be bouncing in, they
did a simulation of the astronaut getting out of the lunar lander.
And it looked good, but it didn't look exactly like what they
expected, and they're like "Well, the astronaut isn't as lit up in
this picture as we expected the astronaut to be to simulate the
original picture" so they were saying that the astronaut just was
dimmer than in the original picture.

So, they figured out they completely forgot to factor in the
photographer, which I believe was Neil Armstrong, taking a picture of
Buzz Aldrin. And when they put his space suit into the 3D rendering,
bounced light off of it, there was so much light coming off of that
space suit because of how reflective it was, and if you remember those
guys were wearing almost stark white space suits, they were reflecting
light like crazy. And the material that they were made out of as well
was very reflective. They popped that space suit in there, and all of
sudden, the picture looks almost identical, their 3D rendering looks
almost identical to the original picture.

Take a look at the image guys, you can see it anywhere online, just
look up "nvidia maxwell moon" or "nvidia moon", you'll be able to find
lots of different images of this. And it's amazing how close that
they got.

S: Now, Jay, just to point this one thing out. The Moon hoax
conspiracy theorists have argued that in this very picture, because
Buzz Aldrin is in the shadow of the lander, the he should be basically
black, that you shouldn't be able to see him at all, because of the
lack of diffusion, because they are not taking into consideration the
interreflections. Especially the biggest one of which is Neil
Armstrong himself who's just this bright light source shining back on
Buzz Aldrin. So this completely blows that out of the water.

J: That's right, Steve. Neil Armstrong was actually standing far
enough away from the lunar lander where he had direct sunlight hitting
him, and he, in essence, was like a light reflector...

S: Yeah.

J: ... If you've done any kind of photography or film, you know, use a
mylar reflector to bounce light. And he was that times five, because
of the material and because of how large he is, he was like a huge
flashlight lighting up Buzz Aldrin as he was coming down the ladder.

Yeah, so, another thing people are saying about this experiment that
Nvidia did was it's yet another way of, in essence, debunking those
lunar lander critics or the people that don't believe it, that don't
believe we landed on the Moon. Because they couldn't have produced
the lunar environment and they couldn't have taken pictures with that
kind of lighting, they couldn't have simulated that in a studio. It
just would not have been feasible for a lot of reasons and this
experiment that was done by the Maxwell team at Nvidia proves it. So
there's another example of how there was no way that they had the
technology 40--50 years ago to fake the Moon landing.

S: Yeah, I mean, essentially, in 1969, they would have had to, if they
shot this a studio, they would have had to simulate the lighting on
the Moon in such a way that it would have withstood a recreation 45
years in the future with advanced graphics computer technology they
could not possibly have anticipated would exist. If there were stage
lights or anything else going on in here then the rendering, the
Nvidia rendering wouldn't have worked.

E: Right.

S: It wouldn't have simulated...

E: It would have revealed something different.

S: Yeah, it would have shown something different.

J: So, in essence, what I'm saying is that we need to spend money to
go back to the Moon.

S: Yeah.

''(laughter)''

E: Hear, hear.

S: We, I do also want to point out that they used their graphics card
also to increase the exposure of the photos on the surface of the
Moon.

J: Oh yeah, that was cool.

S: And the, so the other argument is "Why are there no stars in the
sky?"

E: Oh, God.

B: Oh, God, that's the worst.

S: And the answer is 'cause it's daytime. You know, people think,
"Oh, the sky's black. On Earth, the sky is black at night and so you
should see the stars." But it's still daytime on the Moon when
they're filming, and all that light is just washing out the stars, the
stars are too dim. But, with their technology, they increased the
exposure and, you know, so of course anything the lunar surface,
anything on the lunar surface becomes total whiteout, but the black
lunar sky, it becomes light enough where you can see the stars. The
stars come out. So they are there. The stars are there in the
background, you just can't see them because of the exposure.

B: Oh my God, so they're actually detectable to prove that they are
there.

S: Yes.

B: That's epic.

E: ''(laughs)'' That's not going to convince any of the hoaxers,
though, I mean, right?

R: Well, nothing's going to convince them.

E: They're not going to buy that.

J: No, I don't think so, Ev.

S: Yeah. Well, once you buy the conspiracy, then evidence becomes
irrelevant, because the government, I wonder how much the government
paid Nvidia to fake this, you know, to cover up their 45-year-old
conspiracy.

E: Exactly, it just goes and goes and goes.

S: Yep. All right, thanks Jay.

=== GMO Feeding Trial (14:27) ===
* http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/19-years-of-feeding-animals-gmo-shows-no-harm/

=== Touch Pareidolia () ===
* http://www.wired.com/2014/09/whats-phantom-cellphone-vibrations/

=== Betavoltaics () ===
* http://www.science20.com/news_articles/betavoltaics_waterbased_nuclear_battery_developed-144993

== Who's That Noisy () ==
* Answer to last week: Rock exfoliation

== Daniel Dennett () ==
* http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/dennett/

== Science or Fiction () ==
[http://water.usgs.gov/edu/earthhowmuch.html Item #1]: There is more water in the Earth’s atmosphere than in all the world’s fresh water lakes.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120524.html Item #2]: All the water on Jupiter’s moon Europa is 2-3 times all the water on or near the surface of the Earth.
[http://tinyurl.com/o4bgvbp Item #3]: Scientists have discovered that water rain falls on large parts of Saturn’s upper atmosphere, originating from water in the rings.

== Skeptical Quote of the Week () ==
<blockquote>'If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump too?' 'Oh jeez. Probably.' 'What!? Why!?' 'Because all my friends did. Think about it — which scenario is more likely: every single person I know, many of them levelheaded and afraid of heights, abruptly went crazy at exactly the same time… …or the bridge is on fire?' - Randall Munroe (xkcd)</blockquote>

{{Outro404}}

== References ==
<references/>

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 481

2014-10-10T00:59:32Z

Mkoconnor: /* Nvidia Debunks Moon Hoax (3:47) */

{{Editing required
|transcription = y

|time-stamps = y
|formatting = y
|links = y
|Today I Learned list = y
|categories = y
|segment redirects = y 
|}}
{{InfoBox
|episodeNum = 481
|episodeDate = September 27th 2014 
|episodeIcon = File:Nvidia-apollo3.jpg 
|previous = 
|next = 
|rebecca = y 
|bob = y 
|jay = y 
|evan = y 
|perry = 
|guest1 = 
|guest2 = 
|guest3 = 
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2014-09-27.mp3
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,44614.0.html
|qowText = 'If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump too?' 'Oh jeez. Probably.' 'What!? Why!?' 'Because all my friends did. Think about it — which scenario is more likely: every single person I know, many of them levelheaded and afraid of heights, abruptly went crazy at exactly the same time… …or the bridge is on fire?' 
|qowAuthor = {{w|Randall Munroe}} (xkcd) 
|}}

== Introduction ==
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Today is
Wednesday, September 24, 2014 and this is your host, Steven Novella.
Joining me this week are Bob Novella...

B: Hey, everybody.

S: Rebecca Watson...

R: Hello, everyone.

S: Jay Novella...

J: Hey, guys.

S: And Evan Bernstein...

E: Hi folks, how are you all tonight?

B: Doing good, Evan.

J: All right, yeah.

== This Day in Skepticism (0:29) ==
R: Happy birthday to the answering machine, which was invented on
September 27, 1950! Now, for the bulk of our audience, I will now
describe what an answering machine is.

''(laughter)''

R: An answering machine was a little box that you used to plug your
phone in to, and when you weren't there at home, because you couldn't
take your phone with you back then, the answering machine would pick
up and people would leave messages, and it was very exciting. We
would leave prank messages sometimes, we would have prank recordings
on our answering machines.

J: Yeah, you mean the outgoing message was the prank too.

R: Yeah. Yeah, it was a time of pranks.

E: Oh, I hated that one where someone would say "Hello?" and then wait a
few seconds (you're speaking to the answering machine) and then you
say something and it says "Oh yes, hi, how you doing?" and then
another pause and you think you're speaking to someone but it's a damn
answering machine. Hated it.

J: ''(laughs)''

B: And don't forget, this wasn't saved to a hard drive or a solid
state drive, this was like a cassette tape that all of this action is
happening on. ''(laughs)''

E: I bet you in the 50's it was some reel-to-reel device that took up
three rooms like UNIVAC or something.

R: I found on a website that the answering machine was invented on
this day in 1950, but I've also found elsewhere that the first
commercial answering machine went on the market in 1949 ''(laughs)'',
uh, and that was called the Tel-Magnet. And the problem is that I'm
in the midst of moving house, and I could not suss all this stuff out
before we'd started this recording. So I'll mention that and I'll
also mention--and I think this came up in a previous Science or
Fiction years and years ago or something{{Link needed}}--but, really,
the first answering machine was invented in 1898 by a man named
Valdemar Poulsen and this was basically a recorder that was used for
recording conversations on the telephone. And it was the basis for
what eventually became the mass-produced answering machine. So...

S: Right.

R: ...a dubious day in history, but, you know, I'm going with it.

E: ''(laughs)''

S: But the first, from what I'm reading, the first commercially
''successful'' answering machine was the Ansafone in 1960 in the
United States. Yeah, the Tel-Magnet, 1949, was recorded a message on
a magnetic wire...

B: Whoa.

S: ...that sold for $200...

E: That's worth it.

S: ...but was not, not a commercial success.

R: You know, I remember when there was a short period where cell phone
companies would charge you just for voicemail, for like a dollar a
month...

S: Mm hm.

R: ...and I just found that ridiculous ''(laughs)''. I can't even
imagine a $200 answering machine.

S: The telephone is definitely one of those things that has changed
consistently over the years and you could, like, tell, like you can
date a movie by the phones.

R: Oh yeah, absolutely.

S: Yeah, pretty well. Even, as well as you can, say, with computers,
you know.

R: I've done that several times where I'm watching a film and, you
know, sometimes a film will be set in a certain period but they don't
come out and tell you right away...

E: Mm hm.

R: ...like a lot of indie films will do that, and I'm really just
always looking for telephones so I can figure out exactly when it's
supposed to be.

E: Within a few years accuracy, yeah.

== News Items ==
=== Nvidia Debunks Moon Hoax (3:47) ===
* http://www.theskepticsguide.org/nvidia-debunks-moon-landing-conspiracy-theory

S: Well, Jay, this is one the coolest things I think I've seen this
week, or even for a while. It's a very interesting ad campaign by
Nvidia, the graphics card maker. Tell us about it.

J: Yeah, it was very cool, Steve, I mean, I absolutely love that era
of space exploration, you know, the 1960's/early 1970's, just the
whole look of that series of missions the United State did. To me,
it's like one of my favorite historical moments. I love World War II,
I love space exploration in that decade, just awesome.

So, back in July 16, 1969, the Apollo 11 launched to the Moon. Buzz
Aldrin and Neil Armstrong were the lucky guys selected to land on the
Moon and actually walk on the Moon. A lot of people think it was
faked, and they make a lot of remarks about why it wasn't real, and
this is some of the remarks that come out. So, a common claim is that
no stars were visible in a lot of the pictures or all the pictures
that were taken on the lunar surface. That the shadows on the Moon
make no sense. Also, I heard that people believe that the way the
astronauts actually move, the way that they jumped around on the lunar
surface.

There's probably a couple of dozen points out there that people have
brought up over several past decades, trying to refute the idea that
we did or did not land on the Moon. The fact is, I'm going to break
it to you know, that, yes, the United States did land on the Moon. It
landed on the Moon more than once. There's artifacts on the Moon. By
use of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, they've seen not only
leftover space vehicles and other things, but they actually can see
the footprints of the astronauts, like these long single-file
footprints that the astronauts left as they were...

E: That's cool.

J: Yeah, isn't that awesome? You can see exactly where they went,
because really, arguably, it hasn't changed really at all, because
there's no weather or much activity happening on the Moon other than
stuff flying in from outer space.

So, Nvdia created a new chip called the Maxwell, and the team that
developed this, developed a way to show off this chip. They created a
3D software technology that allows them to bounce light off of all of
the rendered objects much more accurately than anybody's ever done
before. And this is one hell off an achievement because the processor
power needed and the software needed is incredible, it's just, you
know, something that hasn't really been achieved to this level of detail
before. And I don't even think we've gotten even close to this level
of detail before.

The engineers had to model every 3D object that they found on the
Moon. So, that includes the spacecraft, the astronauts, the lunar
soil, the rocks, any objects that were on the lander that were
reflecting light. They were actually simulating detail down to what
kind of materials were used to help simulate the actual effects of
light bouncing off of it.

So, they selected a very popular picture of, now I believe that Neil
Armstrong was already on the surface, and this was a picture of Buzz
Aldrin getting out of the lunar lander, and Neil Armstrong was taking
the picture. So, you see, it's a very iconic picture of an astronaut
coming down the ladder right before they touched the ground. Now this
was the picture that they decided to duplicate.

So, here's a little bit of their process. They had to figure out how
the light actually reflects on the Moon differently than here on
Earth. Now, one thing to keep in mind is that light doesn't simply
just come in straight lines from the light source, say, in the room
that you're in. If you look at the light source in your room, right,
just turn my head and looked up at the light on the ceiling. You
know, light, of course, is just coming in a perfectly straight line
from that light source to me. But it's also hitting almost
everything, if not everything, else that I'm sitting in the room
with. And those objects are reflecting light to me and on other
objects, which then again reflect light to me. Right, and it just
keeps going, the amount of reflections, I bet, it would be interesting
to do a calculation on just how many reflections are happening, how
much of that light, how many times did it bounce before it actually
gets to you.

And that gives a room, or a space, or any kind of area, a particular
kind of illumination. And the illumination that a lot of people saw
on the Moon in the photographs seemed very strange to them. But,
there's a lot of significant differences between the Moon and the
Earth. You know, in particular, the Moon does not have an
atmosphere. And that does a very dramatic thing to the way that light
looks on the moon. It looks a lot more stark, there isn't any
diffusion happening, meaning that the light that's coming in through
the Earth's atmosphere, it gets scattered, and it softens the light.
And on a cloud-covered day, if you notice, if you take pictures
outside on a cloud-covered day, you can get some of the best pictures
outside because what's happening is all that sunlight is hitting the
tops of the clouds and the clouds are diffusing the light a lot, and
it makes everything look really soft. You can take very nice pictures
without any harsh shadows on somebody's face and everything, it's very
evenly lit.

The Moon is the exact opposite of that. The Moon, there is no evenly
lit nothing on the Moon. You know, the vast majority of everything
has a very, very bright light on it or it's almost completely in the
dark. However, that being said, objects are bouncing a lot of that
really harsh light very powerfully in all directions. So, when the
team took into account, as they're trying to simulate this picture,
all the different reflections and the different surfaces and the
textures on those surfaces and how reflective are they and what
direction are those different light rays going to be bouncing in, they
did a simulation of the astronaut getting out of the lunar lander.
And it looked good, but it didn't look exactly like what they
expected, and they're like "Well, the astronaut isn't as lit up in
this picture as we expected the astronaut to be to simulate the
original picture" so they were saying that the astronaut just was
dimmer than in the original picture.

So, they figured out they completely forgot to factor in the
photographer, which I believe was Neil Armstrong, taking a picture of
Buzz Aldrin. And when they put his space suit into the 3D rendering,
bounced light off of it, there was so much light coming off of that
space suit because of how reflective it was, and if you remember those
guys were wearing almost stark white space suits, they were reflecting
light like crazy. And the material that they were made out of as well
was very reflective. They popped that space suit in there, and all of
sudden, the picture looks almost identical, their 3D rendering looks
almost identical to the original picture.

Take a look at the image guys, you can see it anywhere online, just
look up "nvidia maxwell moon" or "nvidia moon", you'll be able to find
lots of different images of this. And it's amazing how close that
they got.

S: Now, Jay, just to point this one thing out. The Moon hoax
conspiracy theorists have argued that in this very picture, because
Buzz Aldrin is in the shadow of the lander, the he should be basically
black, that you shouldn't be able to see him at all, because of the
lack of diffusion, because they are not taking into consideration the
interreflections. Especially the biggest one of which is Neil
Armstrong himself who's just this bright light source shining back on
Buzz Aldrin. So this completely blows that out of the water.

J: That's right, Steve. Neil Armstrong was actually standing far
enough away from the lunar lander where he had direct sunlight hitting
him, and he, in essence, was like a light reflector...

S: Yeah.

J: ... If you've done any kind of photography or film, you know, use a
mylar reflector to bounce light. And he was that times five, because
of the material and because of how large he is, he was like a huge
flashlight lighting up Buzz Aldrin as he was coming down the ladder.

Yeah, so, another thing people are saying about this experiment that
Nvidia did was it's yet another way of, in essence, debunking those
lunar lander critics or the people that don't believe it, that don't
believe we landed on the Moon. Because they couldn't have produced
the lunar environment and they couldn't have taken pictures with that
kind of lighting, they couldn't have simulated that in a studio. It
just would not have been feasible for a lot of reasons and this
experiment that was done by the Maxwell team at Nvidia proves it. So
there's another example of how there was no way that they had the
technology 40--50 years ago to fake the Moon landing.

S: Yeah, I mean, essentially, in 1969, they would have had to, if they
shot this a studio, they would have had to simulate the lighting on
the Moon in such a way that it would have withstood a recreation 45
years in the future with advanced graphics computer technology they
could not possibly have anticipated would exist. If there were stage
lights or anything else going on in here then the rendering, the
Nvidia rendering wouldn't have worked.

E: Right.

S: It wouldn't have simulated...

E: It would have revealed something different.

S: Yeah, it would have shown something different.

J: So, in essence, what I'm saying is that we need to spend money to
go back to the Moon.

S: Yeah.

''(laughter)''

E: Hear, hear.

S: We, I do also want to point out that they used their graphics card
also to increase the exposure of the photos on the surface of the
Moon.

J: Oh yeah, that was cool.

S: And the, so the other argument is "Why are there no stars in the
sky?"

E: Oh, God.

B: Oh, God, that's the worst.

S: And the answer is 'cause it's daytime. You know, people think,
"Oh, the sky's black. On Earth, the sky is black at night and so you
should see the stars." But it's still daytime on the Moon when
they're filming, and all that light is just washing out the stars, the
stars are too dim. But, with their technology, they increased the
exposure and, you know, so of course anything the lunar surface,
anything on the lunar surface becomes total whiteout, but the black
lunar sky, it becomes light enough where you can see the stars. The
stars come out. So they are there. The stars are there in the
background, you just can't see them because of the exposure.

B: Oh my God, so they're actually detectable to prove that they are
there.

S: Yes.

B: That's epic.

E: ''(laughs)'' That's not going to convince any of the hoaxers,
though, I mean, right?

R: Well, nothing's going to convince them.

E: They're not going to buy that.

J: No, I don't think so, Ev.

S: Yeah. Well, once you buy the conspiracy, then evidence becomes
irrelevant, because the government, I wonder how much the government
paid Nvidia to fake this, you know, to cover up their 45-year-old
conspiracy.

E: Exactly, it just goes and goes and goes.

S: Yep. All right, thanks Jay.

=== GMO Feeding Trial () ===
* http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/19-years-of-feeding-animals-gmo-shows-no-harm/

=== Touch Pareidolia () ===
* http://www.wired.com/2014/09/whats-phantom-cellphone-vibrations/

=== Betavoltaics () ===
* http://www.science20.com/news_articles/betavoltaics_waterbased_nuclear_battery_developed-144993

== Who's That Noisy () ==
* Answer to last week: Rock exfoliation

== Daniel Dennett () ==
* http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/dennett/

== Science or Fiction () ==
[http://water.usgs.gov/edu/earthhowmuch.html Item #1]: There is more water in the Earth’s atmosphere than in all the world’s fresh water lakes.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120524.html Item #2]: All the water on Jupiter’s moon Europa is 2-3 times all the water on or near the surface of the Earth.
[http://tinyurl.com/o4bgvbp Item #3]: Scientists have discovered that water rain falls on large parts of Saturn’s upper atmosphere, originating from water in the rings.

== Skeptical Quote of the Week () ==
<blockquote>'If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump too?' 'Oh jeez. Probably.' 'What!? Why!?' 'Because all my friends did. Think about it — which scenario is more likely: every single person I know, many of them levelheaded and afraid of heights, abruptly went crazy at exactly the same time… …or the bridge is on fire?' - Randall Munroe (xkcd)</blockquote>

{{Outro404}}

== References ==
<references/>

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 481

2014-10-10T00:03:45Z

Mkoconnor: /* Nvidia Debunks Moon Hoax (3:47) */

SGU Episode 481

2014-10-08T01:44:20Z

Mkoconnor: /* Nvidia Debunks Moon Hoax () */

SGU Episode 481

2014-10-08T01:43:51Z

Mkoconnor: /* This Day in Skepticism () */

SGU Episode 481

2014-10-08T01:19:13Z

Mkoconnor: /* This Day in Skepticism () */

SGU Episode 481

2014-10-08T01:18:51Z

Mkoconnor: /* Introduction */

SGU Episode 481

2014-10-08T01:12:55Z

Mkoconnor: /* Introduction */

5X5 Episode 113

2014-09-14T21:24:16Z

Mkoconnor: remove a hyphen

{{5X5 infobox
|episodeID = 5X5 Episode 113
|Contents = What's the Harm?
|episodeDate = 9th May 2012
|next = 1
|verified = y
|rebecca = y
|bob = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/sgu5x5/SGU5x52012-05-09.mp3
|notesLink = http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=2&pid=113
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php?topic=41712.0
|}}
== What's the Harm? ==
{{5x5intro}}

S: This is the SGU 5x5 and tonight we're talking about the harm done by belief in pseudo-science and magic. Often times, as skeptics, we here the question of, "What's the harm? What harm does it do if people have innocent beliefs in psychics or in some paranormal belief or other?" But this is actually a naïve position and skeptics have actually carefully documented in many articles and books etc. that there is quite a bit of harm that comes from believing in magic. In my own field of medicine perhaps it's the most obvious, if people believe in treatments that are ineffective then they may forgo treatments that ''are'' effective. There are numerous cases and in fact there's now a website called [http://whatstheharm.net ''What's the harm?''] dedicated to documenting cases in which people came to significant medical harm from delaying treatment because they believed in fanciful, implausible or magical treatments. But that kind of direct physical harm, either because the treatment itself is risky, or delaying legitimate treatment, is not the only type of harm that comes from believing in implausible treatments. There is also the lost time and effort, sometimes people go through great personal expense flying to China to get stem cell therapy from a clinic there, for example, that may cost tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars. They may saddle their families with extreme debt pursuing a treatment that really has no chance of working. Further, there is a huge psychological harm in addition. People will often put a great deal of hope in treatments that are being offered, especially if the claims are extraordinary, like being cured of an otherwise incurable disease. And then when that hope is dashed that adds additional psychological harm to an already difficult situation. So there are many types of harm, not just direct physical harm, that comes from false hope and false belief in magical cures.

R: One recent case that's been in the news has been a particular cult death. Cults are very good at preying on people who may be marginalised or in need of help, and hey are able to take advantage of the lowest members of society, people for instance who are...

S: People who are vulnerable

R: ...vulnerable is the word I was looking for. One cult in particular that does this quite often is one we talk about on SGU quite a bit: Scientology. They even have a group called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon Narconon], not to be confused with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcotics_Anonymous Narcanon]. Narcanon is a valid recovery group for drug addicts, Narconon is a Scientology front-group that finds people who are drug-addicts and gets them addicted on Scientology which ends up costing them quite a bit of money, often requiring people to disconnect from family members and friends and relying entirely upon the cult. The other one that's been in the news lately has been the Breatharian death. [http://skepdic.com/inedia.html Breatharians] are a cult that believe you don't need to eat and you can survive entirely on sunlight. It may seem silly but when they find people who will actually believe in this for... maybe they need the social structure or maybe they have mental problems, the cult finds these people and what ends up happening– just last week it was reported that a Swiss woman starved to death after believing that she could survive on light.

B: The belief that the apocalypse is imminent didn't start with Y2K fears back in 2000, it actually has a very long and harmful history. The earliest record of such beliefs date back to around 2800 BC according to an Assyrian clay tablet which reads, "Our earth is degenerate in these latter days. There are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end". Now, related to – and often causing &dash; this fear of an apocalypse is a host of pseudo-sciences including numerology, cultish beliefs, fundamentalism, UFOs, even just general scientific illiteracy and a lack of critical thinking. Belief in an imminent apocalypse may seem somewhat harmless on the surface, you know, once the date of the supposed apocalypse passes – if there is one – you go on living your life right? Well often that's not the case, a very sad example that I never really forgot occured in 2008 when the Large Hadron Collider was coming online. There was much news, if you guys remember, around that time about the possibility of the LHC causing the end of the world through the creation of things like mini black holes or destructive strange matter or things like that. In fact, all serious scientists thought none of these scenarios would come to pass. Unfortunately 16-year-old Chayya Lal of India wasn't aware of any of this. She became very frightened about the news reports she was seeing on TV regarding this imminent apocalypse caused by the Large Hadron Collider. She became so terrified, in fact, that the world would end that she drank poison and killed herself instead of seeing everything and everyone she loved die.<ref>BBC News: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7609631.stm Girl suicide 'over Big Bang fear']</ref> Now this is just one example but the toll from apocalyptic thinking is much higher than you may think, according to the ''What's the Harm?'' website created by Tim Farley, over the years the harm has been quite significant. His tally is over 368,000 people killed, over 306,000 people injured and $2,815,000,000 in economic damages.

J: Psychics can do a serious amount of damage because people tend to use them when something serious is going on in their lives and this leaves them very susceptible to misinformation and fraud. The typical psychic uses cold reading to fool their customers into thinking they have mystical powers, and then once people start to believe that this information is true, that they're getting from the psychic, pretty much anything is possible at that moment. So as a quick example, imagine a circumstance where a family member has died and the psychic claims that they can talk to them. People end up paying an incredible amount of money to say their goodbyes and they get emotional closure, but actually the only thing they're saying goodbye to is their money.

E: James Randi once said to a national TV audience: "It's a dangerous thing to believe in nonsense." Some people end up paying for it with their own lives but in some cases other innocent people pay the ultimate price. Belief in witchcraft is not an artefact of ancient of medieval times, it's currently widespread across swathes of areas, most notably sub-saharan African countries. The primary target of these witch-hunts are the most vulnerable among us, namely children. Children accused of witchcraft are subject to psychological and physical violence, typically first by their family members and circles of friends but then they get passed on to church pastors and traditional healers. Once accused of being a witch these children are stigmatized and discriminated for the rest of their lives. They are caught in the cycle of accusation and they risk yet further accusations of witchcraft as they get older. Children accused of witchcraft are often abandoned by their families and they are forced to live on the street, and some of them die of neglect or are outright killed. Those that survive are subject to further violence, tortures and indignations including physical and sexual violence by members of the authorities supposed to be protecting them. They have to live in appalling conditions, they often resort to using drugs and alcohol and they are at increased risks of exposure to sexually transmitted diseases and HIV infection. These archaic beliefs have spread out beyond the boundaries of places such as Africa, we've seen these kinds of heinous crimes against children being committed in Western Europe and even North America. As believers emigrate around the globe, sure they might assimilate in some way to their new surroundings, yet they'll continue to embrace the notion that some children are witches or possessed in some fashion, and for what? Because these cultures cling so tightly to their 7th century ideas in our 21st century world. Medieval beliefs yield medieval results.

S: And even without the specific examples that we gave off when people ask: "What about just believing in UFOs or believing in ghosts?" Beliefs that may seem to be innocent but perhaps the most insidious and dangerous aspect of, as Evan said, "believing in nonsense" is the toll it takes on critical thinking skills and scientific literacy. Believing in one form of nonsense definitely leads to believing in other forms of nonsense, which can result in unpredictable harm. So even in its most benign form I would say that believing in nonsense does do incalculable harm.

{{5x5outro}}

== References ==
<references/>

{{5X5 Navigation}}
{{5X5 categories
|Cons, Scams & Hoaxes = y
|Logic & Philosophy = y
|Myths & Misconceptions = y
|Paranormal = y
|Prophecy = y
|Religion & Faith = y
}}