SGUTranscripts - User contributions [en]

Crying babies - comfort or ignore? (SoF 390)

2014-07-05T12:22:13Z

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[[Category:Neuroscience & Psychology]]

Yellow Cab of the Universe (390)

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[[Category:Science & Education]]

Cosmic rays and dementia (390)

2014-07-05T12:17:46Z

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[[Category:Astronomy & Space Science]]
[[Category:Neuroscience & Psychology]]

Skeptical puzzle: Nine pearls (390)

2014-07-05T12:10:47Z

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[[Category:Skeptical Puzzle]]

SGU Episode 390

2014-07-05T12:07:29Z

Teleuteskitty: added category, updated status

{{Editing required
|Today I Learned list = y
|}}
{{InfoBox
|episodeNum = 390
|episodeDate = 5<sup>th</sup> January 2013
|episodeIcon = File:FM_RADIO.gif
|rebecca = y
|bob = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
|guest1 = M: Massimo Pigliucci
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2013-01-05.mp3
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,44595.0.html
|qowText = Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend things which are there.
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman Richard Feynman]
|}}

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

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, January 2, 2013, 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: I have come to chew bubble gum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubble gum.

J: Evan, can you say that again, but do it twice as corny.

''(laughter)''

R: Yeah, no.

B: Impossible!

R: You're no Rowdy Roddy Piper.

E: Right? ''They Live.'' That movie. Gosh. Is that one of the worst movies ever?

B and R: Worst?

R: It's one of the best movies ever, are you kidding?

B: Oh, god, I love it.

J: It's a cult classic. I mean, yeah, it didn't hold up as good as I would have liked, but it's still

B: Oh, what doesn't hold up?

J: Whatever. It's still great. It's still good.

R: It's awesome.

B: The best bare-knuckled brawl I think in any movie.

E: I'm sorry. Look, I get campy and I get, you know, yes, I get the brawl scene. It was rated like one of the best brawl scenes in movie history and so forth. Rowdy Roddy Piper, John Carpenter directed it and all that. I'm sorry. That movie had so many flaws to it. I mean if we were ever to do a review of that movie, oh man, we could do a whole episode on that.

S: Maybe we should.

E: Maybe we should.

R: Yeah. I will defend that movie with my life.

''(laughter)''

E: All right. I'm gonna be your Gene Siskel to your Roger Ebert or vice versa, or whatever.

R: Oh, boy.

J: Steve, I'm getting a feeling like in the back of my head. I feel like I'm predicting that we're gonna do a show on predictions.

S: I know, I think you're right, Jay.

B: Damn, you're good.

E: One of these days.

S: It's a high probability hit.

== This Day in Skepticism <small>(1:43)</small> ==
* January 5, 1940: FM radio first commercial broadcast

S: But first, Rebecca's gonna tell us about January 5th.

R: Happy birthday, FM radio!

J: Awesome!

E: To all the kids out there.

J: What does the "F" in FM stand for?

R: Frequency.

B: {{w|Frequency modulation}}

J: Thank you.

R: Yes, sort of. You could probably pick any number of dates for the birthdate of FM radio, but on January 5, 1940, the first network program was broadcast on FM radio. It was called "Colonel Harrison Featherbottom and the Fart Man's Morning Zoo Hour."

''(laughter)''

E: What? No, it wasn't.

B: No way. I don't believe it.

J: I love it!

E: . . . skeptic.

R: Okay, that's not what it was called. But it was a 60-minute show that was designed to showcase several different types of audio and vocals and stuff that would eventually be broadcast. The show traveled from a station in Yonkers, New York that was operated by one C.R. Runyon, to a transmitter in Alpine, New Jersey operated by {{w|Edwin_Howard_Armstrong|Major Edwin Armstrong}} of Columbia University, who was heading up the effort; and then onto Meriden, Connecticut; Paxton, Massachusetts; and then finally Mount Washington, where it was transmitted by telelphone wire to Boston and then back to Yonkers. By all reports the FM broadcasts were found to have no apparent loss of quality. So, it was given the thumbs up. The first FM stations that had regular scheduling, programming, appeared later that year. FM.

J: That's cool.

S: Yeah. So, Jay, frequency modulation, that's how the information is encoded in the carrier wave, by modulating the frequency of a signal. As opposed to AM, which is amplitude modulation, they modify the amplitude of the signal.

E: Thank you, Dr. Marconi.

S: Right. And the FM band simply refers to, the FM has nothing to do with any frequency range itself, any band, but that's just the band that's assigned in various countries to transmit FM signals over. So in the U.S. and most places it's 87.5 to 108.0 megahertz.

== News Items ==
=== Psychic Predictions for 2012 <small>(3:51)</small>===
* The Rogues review predictions for last year and make some new ones for 2013

S: Well, as Jay way saying, as Jay predicted, this is our psychic predictions review episode. The first episode of every year we look back and see how did the psychics fare in predicting events of 2012.

B: Horribly.

E: As expected, though.

S: All right, so do you guys have your favorite psychic that you looked back over to see how they did?

E: Anyone else take Nikki because, you know.

R: I decided to skip Nikki this year.

S: She's always a favorite though.

J: She's awesome. She's the funniest.

R: Awesomely stupid.

E: Awesomely awful.

J: Yeah, but this year after reading, going through her stuff, I think she's either delusional or she's just shotgunning.

S: Or both. These are not mutually exclusive.

J: That's right.

S: She made like 180-something predictions. That's, by definition, shotgunning.

J: All right, so, I got, "More laser attacks against planes".

E: Oooo.

R: ''More'' laser attacks.

J: Yes, ''more'' laser attacks. That's what I thought was funny about that.

R: You mean like little kids with laser pointers?

S: Yes.

R: They're a menace to society.

S: Using laser pointers to blind pilots, yes.

J: I got, "Weird weather conditions worldwide, including snow in Hawaii, Las Vegas, and in the Caribbean".

S: Yeah, remember that snowstorm we had when we were in Las Vegas for TAM?

E: (laughs)

J: Giant prehistoric sea monsters under the sea.

E: As opposed to what, floating in the air?

S: Also, some of her predictions are not even sentences.

J: Yeah.

E: Yeah.

J: They're just snippets. Yeah. "Major UFO sightings, all over the world". Nope, that didn't happen.

E: "Earth will fall off its axis a little more"

J: Yeah, right?

E: What?

S: More than what?

E: Exactly.

J: I like how she, then this one goes, "A possible landing of a spaceship". Now, what does that really mean? A ''possible'' landing.

R: Like the Mars rover?

S: Well, we landed {{w|Curiosity (rover)|Curiosity}} on Mars.

E: Yeah.

R: I'm gonna call that a hit.

E: Okay. Hey, Nikki!

R: Good job, Nikki.

E: It's your first time ever.

J: Guys, guys. "A disabled man attempts to go around the world in his wheelchair".

E: What?

B: Oh, boy.

''(laughter)''

S: Is this a manual or one of those electronic wheelchairs? A power wheelchair.

J: Steve, tell me what's wrong with this one. "A huge pandemic, worldwide".

''(laughter)''

S: As opposed to a pandemic that's not worldwide, yeah.

E: A localized pandemic. Highly localized.

J: Now here are two that prove that she doesn't understand science at all. Ready? Earth will fall off its axis a little more,

S: You already said that.

E: Yeah, we did that.

J: Or, "A hole in the Earth's core".

S: A hole in the Earth's core, right.

B: Whoa, what the. . . what does that even mean?

R: A hollow earth thing, maybe?

B: A vacuum in the center of the Earth.

J: Bob, don't worry about that hole, because "The holy grail will be found".

S: The holy grail will be found.

E: I didn't know it was lost!

S: She wrote "problems with the Earth's magnetic fields."

''(laughter)''

B: Oh, nice.

S: What kind of problems?

J: Well, it must be that the city of Hong Kong is on fire, Steve, that threw off the magnetic fields, 'cause that's another one of her predictions.

S: Yeah.

J: "City of Hong Kong on fire".

R: Did that happen?

S: All of it?

J: No. All of it. City of Hong Kong. On fire.

S: It is funny when scientifically illiterate alleged psychics make science-related predictions. Like a hole in the Earth's core. Really?

J: Here's another good one. "Multiple rainbows in the sky, all over the world, within a 24 to 48-hour period".

B: Oh, no. Oh, my god.

R: That happened, too! I saw that, that double rainbow video.

S: Double rainbow!

E: What the heck is that?

B: Double rainbows are magnificent, though. I saw one last, like, two years ago. Oh my god, it's just mesmerizing.

E: We got tripped up on a science or fiction with that triple rainbow, remember?

J and S: Yeah.

E: Sucked.

J: Guys, how 'bout "a famous racehorse will be kidnapped"?

''(laughter)''

E: What, Man-o-War?

S: That was a Sherlock Holmes short story.

J: A meteorite shower hitting the Earth.

''(laughter)''

E: Oh, Nikki, Nikki. Go back to whatever your job was before.

S: Sometime in August. And then again in November. What are the odds?

J: But, and we're only reading a few, but when you read through, she'll get onto a quickie mini-theme inside her predictions. As if she just banged them out at her desk one afternoon.

E: Or her assistant did.

J: Like she'll get on to the theme of earthquakes and then she'll list like four earthquakes. As if, "Oh, yeah, earthquakes!" and then she writes more earthquake ones.

S: Earthquake in Russia. Yeah, I'm pretty sure there was an earthquake somewhere in Russia this year. Probably more than one. I covered psychic Roxanne, did any of you guys do Roxanne from spiritnow.com?

B: No.

R: Uh uh. I don't think I have Roxanne.

S: She has different, this is Roxanne Usleman Hulderman.

E: And her orchestra.

S: Yup, and her orchestra. She has different categories, and I'm just gonna go over the two categories that were most interesting. I didn't do like the celebrity predictions, who cares. These are her "spiritual" predictions. I'm not even sure what makes these spiritual, but here we go. "Einstein's predictions about the honey bees proves correct. They are becoming extinct, indicating it is the beginning of the end of the world."

B: Oh. Einstein?

E: ''(singing)'' Beginning of the end!

S: So I'm like, Einstein? Really? Einstein predicted that honey bees would become extinct? So I looked that up, and . . .

E: Joe Einstein.

S: there is a quote attributed to Albert Einstein that ''if'' the honey bees became extinct, mankind would become extinct within years. You know, by four years later. Just emphasizing how important bees were to humans.

E: And how important the preposition "if" is.

''(laughter)''

S: Yes. He didn't predict that they would become extinct. ''And'' it's not even sure if Einstein said that quote. It's not really sourced. He could have said it, but nobody knows. It was attributed to him, but, anyway.

B: Yeah, you know what that means.

S: Her number two. "Extra Terrestrials" - two words - "help to evolve our consciousness, uplifting our human vibration". Jay, was your vibration uplifted?

J: Well, from the waist down, yes.

S: Okay.

R: Wait. I found a thing about vibration, too. In a different psychic's predictions.

S: Yeah?

J: I heard that, too, Rebecca. I heard vibrations brought up quite a bit.

R: Okay, so, I watched the psychic twins video.

J: Oh, yeah.

S: Oh, yeah.

R: Terry and Linda Jamison.

E: Oh, yeah. I kicked their butt last year. Ha! Too bad nobody saw it.

R: They were hilariously wrong. They started off their "What's gonna happen in 2012" vodcast, podcast, I guess it was a podcast actually, just listing like all these horrific things that were gonna happen in 2012. Just like, it was just gonna be the absolute worst year for life on Earth, and amongst those, they predicted terrorist attacks in Boston, Florida, in Texas, New York, Detroit. They said that major schools would be victimized by young terrorists, which, I'm sure they're going to call a win, for last week.

S: Yeah.

E: They should be very proud of themselves.

R: They say that there would be major cyber attacks by people in China and Russia. There'd be a Chinese attack on the telephone systems. That's a direct quote. However, according to the medium Allie Cheslick, who was interviewing them about their predictions, all these things could have been thwarted only if people raise their own level of vibration.

J: Right.

S: Um hm.

R: So, apparently, we all did a really good job, raising our level of vibration to the point where none of those things, not, they weren't just thwarted by authorities, they just never actually happened.

E: Oh, those would be good vibrations.

B: I love when they give themselves their own out. You know, if it doesn't come true,

R: Right.

B: well, luckily everyone, you know, messed with, played with their vibrations. Win-win!

J: I'm not afraid to admit that they did get a couple of things right, I mean, you're supposed to, statistically, when you throw out as many predictions as these people do.

B: Oh, yeah.

J: Like they did say that there were gonna be lone wolf attacks in schools. And it did happen.

S: But that's just, again, that's a high probability thing. It's like "another Columbine's gonna happen ''some''time". Sure.

R: Right. Thanks for nothing.

S: Yeah. Somewhere by somebody. No details. It seems specific, but it really isn't, so that's one of the strategies. So, it's a high probability prediction, ''and'' there's so much shotgunning going around that of course two or three are gonna be glancing blows. So, next under her spiritual predictions, the "North and South poles reverse their positions.

E: I've heard that a lot of times.

S: Here we go. "Spiritual evolvement." Evolvement.

''(laughter)''

E: What? ''E''volvement?

S: Evolvement. I don't know why she didn't use "evolution." On this third dimension expands the fight between good and evil.

J: Now what does that mean, that weapons are being introduced? Like, what does that mean?

S: So, we're fighting the good fight against evil more and more. On the third dimension. Which is good, because her next prediction is that the third and fourth dimension begin to merge.

E: Oh, good! Finally!

B: I hate when that happens.

E: It's like when peanut butter and chocolate come together, it's good stuff!

S: But—

B: Don't you dare ''(inaudible)''

S: Hold onto your hats, now. With the great pyramids in Egypt being destroyed, you guys remember when that happened, right?

J & E: Yeah.

B: I missed it.

S: The entire planet's magnetic force shifts, symbolizing the end of times, then and only then do we realize that the pyramids have been holding our planet together.

J: Oh!

E: Oh, like a linchpin.

S: Yeah.

B: It's so clear in retrospect.

R: Yeah.

S: And her final one under that category is "Humans turning evermore towards spirituality" which is actually not happening.

J: Yeah, that's another theme that I kept hearing. The world is becoming more spiritual.

S: The environmental events around the globe, lots of high probability, "there's gonna be earthquakes." An earthquake impacts the state of Washington and California. What are the odds? Of an earthquake occurring in a major earthquake belt. All right, but here's my favorite of all of her predictions. "A solar star dwarf from the sun, breaking off, causing damage to the earth".

''(general excitement and confusion)''

B: Oh, my god.

R: Our sun? That could happen?

J: A solar star dwarf, like, what is that?

S: Right?

E: Phil Plait's gonna have to add a chapter to his book, I think.

''(laughter)''

S: Right! Yeah, a dwarf star apparently is gonna break away from our sun and that is going to damage the earth, which, I imagine it would. If that actually happened. It's like, is she flipping through a science book and just pulling out terms at random without understanding what they are.

B: Does she mean like a coronal mass ejection? Is that what she means?

E: Bob. Bob, you're given her w—a-a-a-a-y too much credit.

J: Bob, the only corona she knows is the beer

S: No, because the next prediction is "solar flares causing power outages", which I read on multiple psychics' lists. Solar flares causing power outages. Again, it's the kind of thing, like scientists say "this could happen someday" so they just pick up on that. It's a high probability prediction. "A contagious disease born of our environmental carelessness affects the world". Another pandemic prediction.

B: Nice. Solar star dwarf.

S: And then finally "Global environmental destruction connected with the end of times Mayan calendar". Wah-wah-waaah.

''(laughter)''

S: So there we go, psychic Roxanne.

R: You know, the psychic twins had another great prediction for 2012. They predicted that there would not be any hurricanes in 2012 that were as bad as the previous year. So no hurricanes as bad as Irene. Kind of missed the mark there. The interviewer, Allie Cheslick, predicted that the twins would have their own television show by March 20th of last year, which, I don't think happened.

J: No. The twins also said that it would take a miracle for Obama to get re-elected.

S: Well, I guess a miracle happened.

E: Well, there you go.

R: It's a miracle!

E: Proof that miracles happen.

B: I've got a few here. I've got a couple from two different psychics. One's Janet Russell, who's a Long Island-based intuitive spiritual medium/psychic. She's also the host of a New York top cable access show, ''Beyond the Unexplained''. And how someone like her can have their own TV show and we don't, I don't understand it. But she's known for her accuracy and honesty. She says "we'll be using solar energies instead of the old standby of gas and electric". Solar energies, in plural, which is very odd. And then, this one tickled me. She goes "and yes, the government will admit that we do have contact with other beings in other dimensions"! You know, it's not good enough that there are other beings, aliens or whatever, but they're also in another dimension. Just to make it, just the icing on the cake, you know. Different dimension.

R: I read Janet Russell's predictions as well, and my favorite one, I think,

B: Which one?

R: Okay, there were two. One was "People will be airing their dirty laundry on teleservices. This way they will have a constant audience." ''(laughing)'' What does that mean?

S: The last teleservice

R: I don't know. And the thing is, like, she's so obviously out of touch because my other favorite one was "I feel that one state will be open to alternative lifestyle and people will move to that state because they feel more comfortable." What? What does that mean, alternative? Does that mean gay marriage, does it mean pot? Because we have those things in several states. It's ... I don't know.

B: She just has her finger on the pulse of culture. There was another psychic, Nancy Bradley. Apparently, this psychic has 98.6% accuracy.

R: Wow

E: Wow

B: For 2011, so—

E: Take that temperature!

B: My first reaction was, well, yeah, that's total baloney. But then I read her predictions. Listen to these two. "Six more Hollywood icons will leave us in 2012, and two major music stars as well". What are the odds of people dying in 2012? That just kind of blew my mind a bit. Here's another one: "more protests across the world, and the U.S. as well, sit-ins as people stand up, much bloodshed". Wow. Who could have foreseen that?

E: Geez. People shedding blood.

B: And then she

S: Yeah, some psychics definitely go with the vague high probability hit.

B: Oh, my god.

S: I was reading a couple that did that. It's like "there will be protests in Egypt." Look! ''(laughter)'' Really?

B: And then she throws in one of these little sciencey ones that are kinda whacky: "a shift in the equator will be discovered and will change some of the weather patterns for countries on it." ''(laughter)'' A shift in the equator. I hate when that happens!

S: The equator shifts. Does she mean the continents ''on'' the equator?

B: Who knows what she meant? ''(laughter continues)'' It could mean anything.

E: The equator shifts! That's the best!

B: She could be referring to that solar dwarf star thing. ''(laughter still continues)''

S: But, guys, that was the best, right? The solar dwarf coming out of our sun.

E: Is it wearing a crown?

J: Wait, but Bob, Nancy Bradley also said "More aquatic ocean and lake animals make their way onto shore. Octopus, fish, etc. Also, as I told you last year, more species thought to be extinct are coming back, including those considered mystical, those that many thought never existed are coming back."

R: The unicorn, for instance. ''(overlapping excited comments)''

S: What about the events that psychics failed to predict for 2012?

B: Oh, yeah. That was easy.

J: How many do you want? I have plenty of 'em here.

B: Well, Hurricane Sandy, first of all. You'd think, you know, such a huge weather event. Somebody, somewhere—

S: And it's in their sweet spot!

B: Just one person.

S: They're predicting tsunamis and earthquakes, and they can't get that one hurricane right? Come on.

J: The shooting in Sandy Hook, Connecticut.

R: Although the psychic twins claim that –

E: Yeah, some will claim that they did that.

J: In order for them claim, and I thought about it, because they did make a lone gunman prediction. But, seriously, like that's just not good enough. Like you have to say more, it has to be more specific. If somebody said—

B: You need two things, Jay. You need two things. If somebody said "Newtown" or "Sandy Hook," that would be impressive as hell. Or even if they said "26 dead" or say "20 kids." If anyone said any of those three things, then, bam! That is a solid hit. Of course it wouldn't mean, you know, that psychics—

S: Yeah, there's different degrees of hits. They could have said "an elementary school." You know, they could have said "a lone shooter killing many kids in an elementary school."

R: Even then...

S: Even that would have been semi-impressive. But just "a lone wolf" or just—

B: No.

S: "terrorism in schools." Nah, it's way too vague.

B: Yeah, I'm talk— 'cause when you think of a psychic, if a psychic really existed, you would expect somebody, one person, or a few people, to have a really solid hit. Something really specific. I mean, isn't that what everyone really wants? That's what we want, right guys?

J: Yeah, but that's the thing, Bob, when you, every year when we read through all these psychic predictions, you know, we're just doing our research, it occurs to me, once again, they're just playing the odds. You can see them playing the odds. There's patterns. There is a reason why a lot of them predict the same types of things over and over again.

S: And they're also just probably going for the sensationalism. I mean the ones they know are not gonna come true. Like the solar dwarf. They're just trying to say impressive sounding things.

B: Right. And they—

S: Because they know no one's gonna care. Their target audience, they're not gonna go back and check up on 'em and see what happened.

B: And they don't care what we're saying.

S: They'll be reading the predictions for 2013. All right, what about the Causeway Cannibal?

J: Yeah, absolutely. ''(overlapping comments)'' Too specific though, Steve, too specific.

S: The fiscal cliff.

J: Yup.

B: Yeah.

S: The Petraeus scandal.

B: Yeah, I had that one, too.

E: Attack in Libya.

S: The Benghazi shooting.

J: The President supporting gay marriage.

B: How about deaths? I mean, did anyone predict the death of Whitney Houston, for example?

S: And if they're gonna dabble in science, how about, like if they ''really'' were going for a high-probability science prediction, how about the Higgs will be discovered?

E: Higgs boson, yeah. That would have been good. Or the lander will successfully, you know, everything will go smoothly there. You could even do that one.

J: How about Facebook going public?

B: Yeah.

E: Facebook, yup.

S: That debacle? Yeah, good one. All right, well, I listened to last year's episode to see what ''we'' all predicted.

B: I remember one prediction. I remember saying that Google Plus would die in 2012.

S: Okay.

B: Unfortunately I was wrong.

R: I mean it's on life support, but...

B: Yeah, it is.

E: My predictions.

S: Well, what were they, Evan?

E: I made one in each of the following categories: technology - the {{w|Aakash (tablet)|Aakash tablet}} would outsell the iPad by the end of 2012.

S: Um hmm. Fail.

R: And?

E: You know, the Aakash tablet. This is a $35 tablet that they made in India.

R; Oh, right.

E: They're already actually up to the Aakash 2. And I figured, all right, so you've got the Indian government, they're subsidizing this thing. They're gonna get this out to 500 million Indians, students and everyone in the country; just pure numbers, it's gonna overtake. Well, it didn't quite happen. I think some of the problems were in the technology itself. Even though it costs 35 bucks, they said it heats up very quickly, and poor design, cheap components. It won't play any of the apps that are out there. The battery life is poor. I think those things might have had something to do with it.

S: It's a $35 tablet, that's why.

E: You get what you pay for. In astronomy - a small meteor will collide with one of the many GPS satellites in orbit, rendering it inoperable. Now, that did not happen this year, but guess what's coming up next month, folks.

J: What?

E: ''(clears his throat theatrically)'' A small asteroid ''will'' pass inside the geosynchronous satellite ring.

J: Irrelevant! Irrelevant, you didn't get it.

E: 35,800—

B: Wow, that's damn close. How big is this thing?

E: —kilometers above the — 150 feet. 150 feet long.

B: Damn!

E: Astronomers say the asteroid may hit a communications satellite, so, you know...

J: It doesn't matter. It's irrelevant. No partial credit for you, sir.

B: You still missed it, dude.

E: Nothing irrelevant about that. Yes, it didn't happen, but the science behind it was revealed in the year, so I'll get a half-credit for that. Biology - Bio-engineered tooth regeneration will become available for humans. Well,

B: That'd be cool.

E: Because I've been following that, they're still doing more studies with mice and stuff, and they're making progress. They made more progress this year, but they didn't get to the humans. So I'll take a minus for that. In skepticism - a prominent skeptic will defect over to an alternative point of view. And that actually did come true, because a global warming skeptic {{w|Richard_A._Muller|Richard Muller}}, who was a proponent, you know, a big proponent saying that man-made global warming does not exist, in fact did leave his brand of skepticism behind and says, yes, it is actually happening. So I'll take a plus for that.

J: No. No one knows who that guy is. You can't take a plus for that.

E: Richard Muller? Steve?

S: Evan's right, but that was the wrong kind of skeptic.

E: I didn't ... hey, Steve.

S: It's all right. I gotcha.

E: Well, do you want me to say brown dwarves are gonna get crapped out of the sun? ''(laughter)'' Is that a better prediction.

R: Yeah, actually, it's awesome.

J: No, you didn't get any. Zero.

E: How 'bout this one? My last prediction: the largest glacier ever recorded will break off, right from the ice shelf. And that ''did'' happen, thank you very much. In Antarctica this year, that actually did happen.

J: No, it didn't.

''(laughter)''

S: Well I had one prediction last year, and it was a crypto-zoological prediction, if you remember. I predicted that Bigfoot would sweep into the White House with a gray alien as a running mate. And that ''did'' happen.

E: It almost happened.

S: But the cover-up is keeping you from knowing about it.

''(laughter)''

E: Right.

J: What did Rebecca do?

B: Good one, Steve.

S: Rebecca predicted Michael Douglas, Michael Douglas was her celebrity death. He's still kicking.

R: Oh. Good. I'm glad.

E: He had a problem. He had problems last year.

S: An ''Arrested Development'' movie.

B: Did I miss that?

R: Uuuh, it's... no, but ....

E: It's in production, right?

R: There is going to be a TV show.

S: Okay.

E: Oh, TV show.

S: And chimpanzees will be found to do something scientists thought only people did, previously.

R: That probably happened.

''(laughter)''

E: Somewhere. We may not have seen it or recorded it, but it might have happened.

J: It didn't happen.

R: Yeah, probably.

S: Jay, do you remember your one prediction?

J: Yes. And that's why I've been arguing so much with everyone. I predicted that none of our predictions would come true.

R: Yeah, that's right.

E: Wrong!

J: I'm more right than the rest of you. How about that?

E: That's why you were hard on me and my predictions, 'cause you wanted ''your'' prediction to come true.

S: All right, well. Who wants to go first in their predictions for 2013?

B: I will! Okay, in 2013, everyone will start referring to the year as "two thousand and thirteen" instead of "twenty-thirteen," ''(laughter)'' except for Rebecca. And the LHC will announce a nine sigma competence level in the Higgs boson. It's existence will—

E: English, Bob! English.

B: It's existence will be so obvious that fifth graders will start finding evidence for it. ''(laughter)'' And my only real prediction, scientists will create a living minimal genome cell from scratch. Please come true.

S: Jay?

J: I predict that Iran's ''(pronouncing it eye-ran)'' going to test a nuke.

S: Iran? ''(pronouncing it Ear-on)'' Yeah.

''(laughter)''

J: What?

S: Where did you run to, Jay?

''(laughter)''

J: Seriously? Like that's even pronounced wrong?

E: Just say Persia.

R: I-in-stine.

S: I-in-stine. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, next?

J: I predict another private company will start launching space missions.

S: Um hmm.

B: Okay.

E: Coca-Cola.

J: Beyond {{w|SpaceX}}. I predict that {{w|Billy Graham}} is gonna kick it.

B: Oh, we're doing celebrity deaths, too?

J: Yeah.

B: Okay.

J: I predict that George Bush ''Senior'' is gonna kick it.

E: Any other 90-something-year-old people gonna kick it, Jay?

J: Well, what d'ya want me to predict, like a 20-year-old?

E: How 'bout someone in their 70s or something. Make it a little challenging.

J: Okay, I predict that Evan Bernstein is gonna choke on a hot dog. ''(laughter)'' And my final prediction for 2013 is, I predict the end is {{w|Bill Nye}}.

''(laughter)''

B: Oh, nice.

R: Wait, what?

B: End is Nye.

E: Funny.

R: Mine are great. You're gonna find no fault with mine.

J: Bring it on. Beat "the end is Bill Nye." Beat that, right now. Go ahead.

R: All right. The Daily Mail will report that researchers have discovered pickles cause cancer.

B: Ooooh. I like it.

J: I like that, okay.

E: I don't eat 'em, so—

R: Number two. A whistleblower will reveal that the government has been hiding something.

''(laughter)''

E: Which government?

R: I'd rather not comment upon which government it is at this time, but, they may have the color red in their flag.

''(laughter)''

J: Okay.

R: Finally ...

E: —like the Swiss! I knew it!

R: I will beat the game FTL on normal mode, and finally get 100 percent on Skyrim.

B: You're reaching now.

J: No way.

E: Now your sun is crapping out brown dwarves, Rebecca.

R: It's on like Donkey Kong

S: Bob, what was your celebrity death?

B: Yeah, I've got a celebrity death, and it's not an octogenarian, Jay, or is a nonagenarian, is that how you pronounce that? Lindsay Lohan.

E: Oooh, she's on my list, Bob!

B: She's been rolling 20 for far too long, her time is ''up.''

J: Nope. I'm predicting she's not gonna die. Not even close.

E: Yeah, she's on mine. I've got three of 'em, that was one of 'em.

S: I predict ''she's'' gonna die, but her twin won't.

''(laughter)''

B: Nice.

R: Oh, we're all going to hell.

S: Evan, what've you got?

E: Okay, in addition to Lindsay Lohan. I predict a world leader, which is a president or a prime minister, will succumb while in office. A few options there, but it'll be very prominent. And, James Van Praagh.

J: Oh, why? What did you see? What did the spirits tell you?

E: Jay, it's something that's beyond sort of a description. In technology, there will be a ''m-a-a-a-jor'' data breach, most likely of a credit card company, or something along those lines. This breach will cost consumers and their insurers at least $1 billion worldwide. In astronomy, we will discover a Earth-like planet, known as "Earth's Twin."

S: Hey, that's been my prediction for the last three years.

''(laughter)''

E: And how's that worked out for ya?

S: I'm getting closer every year. And you're gonna try and take it from me now? That's like you're sitting down at my slot machine, Evan.

''(laughter)''

R: Evan just bid a dollar under your ''Price Is Right'' score. That's what just happened.

E: Well, we'll just share that one, Steve, if it comes true this year.

B: Good analogy, Rebecca.

E: In health, a hand-held breathalyzer will offer early detection of infections caused by microbes. What do you think of that? Aa! And, in the environment, I only did four this year, environment, we will find, scientists will find a way to harness energy from sand. Now, I admit, they will be small quantities of energy, but it'll be energy nonetheless.

S: Like the tar sands?

E: Simply sand.

S: Tar sands are already a major source of petroleum, but, I'm assuming you're not talking about that.

E: Okay, I'll refine it—

S: You'll refine the sand? or refine the petroleum?

E: Desert sand.

S: Okay. I have a celebrity death and two predictions. My celebrity death is Jerry Lewis, unfortunately. Great comedian, but, you know. His time

''(someone in background: Oh, lady! Lady!)''

S: I also predict that there will be a ''major'' pareidolia event this year.

B: Nice.

E: Face on the moon?

R: Major?

S: A major pareidolia event. And finally, conspiracy theorists will use anomaly hunting to argue that an innocent or natural event is actually a deliberate conspiracy.

R: Um hmm.

S: All right, so we will track those and we'll let you know next year how we all did.

=== Cosmic Rays and Dementia <small>(32:27)</small>===
* [http://m.phys.org/news/2012-12-houston-problem-space-brain.html Phys.Org: Houston, we have another problem: Study shows space travel is harmful to the brain]

S: All right well I think we have time for a few quick news items to round out the show, so Bob you're going to tell us about another risk of space travel.

B: In science fiction the biggest problems generally for space travel are usually things like aliens, black holes or warp core breaches, I really hate that last one.

S: And space worms, don't forget space worms.

B: Oh yeah, the worms. It's very annoying then to think that a little thing like ultra-tiny invisible radiation is essentially a total deal breaker right now for allowing humans to spend serious time beyond low earth orbit. We've known this for a while now, we've touched upon it in the past a bit, but most recently scientists have found even more bad news. A new study described in the PLOS ONE journal reveals for the first time that cosmic ray exposure to humans on a trip to Mars can make changes to the brain that could replicate or speed up the onset of {{w|Alzheimer's disease}}.<ref>Cherry et al. (2012),[http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0053275 ''Galactic Cosmic Radiation Leads to Cognitive Impairment and Increased Aβ Plaque Accumulation in a Mouse Model of Alzheimer’s Disease''], PLoS ONE 7(12))</ref> Now I'm calling this the "space brain syndrome" and it really stinks.

S: Space dementia.

B: That's a good one too, I like "space brain syndrome" better.

S: No. Space dementia.

B: Uh, we talked about the cosmic ray hazards in space but I learned a little bit more about some of these details and I'd like to share. It's pretty interesting. The culprit here is a specific type of cosmic ray, now these aren't rays of course, but they're bits of atoms that are propelled through space. Protons make up the majority of the cosmic rays, followed by alpha particles which is just like two neutrons and two protons. And then electrons kind of finish that list. Those are the majority, the vast majority of all cosmic rays. But a tiny, tiny percentage of cosmic rays are these relatively really big clumps of protons and neutrons and they're called these {{w|HZE_ions|HZE particles}} which stands for High Charge and Energy particles. And the Z, if you're familiar with chemistry, the Z is the universal symbol for atomic number which is the amount of protons in a nucleus, so that's what that stands for. Now so the more protons you have with no electrons to balance them out, you create a bigger and bigger charge. The E stands for energy obviously, so what you end up with is these bare atomic nuclei with lots of protons and a lot of energy and they can penetrate shielding of a ship and through the skin of the astronauts and just wreak havoc on your DNA causing cancer and a host of other issues. So this much we've known for a little while now, and if that wasn't annoying enough, they get this energy from supernovae and also the sun, I wasn't quite aware of this, the sun's solar flares and coronal mass ejections also can produce these HZE particles. As tiny as these— I mean percentage wise, HZEs are a fraction of a percent but they can cause more than 50% of the radiation damage inflicted on astronauts. So these are the big players in terms of astronauts having a problem with radiation in deep space.

S: Now Bob, because these are highly charged particles, would that mean that magnetic shielding would be a viable option?

B: Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, if they didn't have any charge then we'd be even worse off, so yeah that kind of leads into the potential, one of the potential ways for dealing with them. The experiments that these researchers did, particularly specifically on how these HZE particles can affect people, they used rats of course, the most helpful of guinea pigs. They exposed them—

R: Rats aren't guinea pigs.

B: (laughs) They exposed them to increasing doses of radiation, including the equivalent of what an astronaut would experience on a multi-year mission to Mars, which is pretty much how long it would take. Now they tested the rats' recall for certain objects and locations that they were previously exposed to and they found that those that had a bigger dose of radiation did increasingly more poor at those tasks, which of course indicates some level of neurological impairment. But the real kicker though was that I guess after the rat autopsies they revealed indications of not only changes in the brain vasculature but also in the accumulation of {{w|beta amyloid}}, which is that protein plaque that builds up in the brain of Alzheimer's victims. Now Steve, correct me if I'm wrong, but this plaque, that's pretty much the hallmark of that disease right? If you find that, it's like the red light going off that you have Alzheimer's right? These beta amyloid plaques, is that right?

S: They're important, they're not unique to Alzheimer's, it's more complicated than that, but yeah they're an important pathological finding in Alzheimer's disease.

B: Well that was, from what I could gather, that was one of the main reasons that they're all talking about Alzheimer's here. NASA of course is concerned about cosmic rays, especially considering they've had plans for a manned mission to an asteroid in 2021 and to Mars in 2035, I mean there's just no way that's going to happen if they don't deal with this problem. NASA subscribes to a policy known as {{w|ALARA}} which is ''As Low As Reasonably Achievable''. Any exposure to radiation has an element of risk of course, but NASA needs a very high confidence level that an astronaut's lifetime risk of terminal cancer from cosmic radiation is less than 3% so they will not cross that line, so they have to make 3% reasonably achievable to fit in with this whole idea of ALARA, and that's going to take revolutionary technology to pull that off. That's not going to be a quick and easy fix by any means.

S: All right, well thanks Bob.

== Who's That Noisy? & Logical Puzzle <small>(38:07)</small>==
* Answer to last week: Glass Harp playing Fur Elise

S: All right, well Evan we do have time for Who's That Noisy this week.

E: Well good, that's good because we need to reveal the answer to what was the last Who's That Noisy for 2012. I will play it for you now for memory's sake. Here we go.

''(Glass Harp playing Fur Elise)''

E: Lovely Ludwig Van.

S: Fur Elise, it's one of the pieces I had to play when I was taking piano lessons.

E: Did you enjoy it?

S: Yes, It's a pretty piece.

E: It is a pretty pieces. Well what kind of instrument was that, that was the question. And we had a lot of people guess that that was the {{w|Glass harmonica}} or the glass armonica also known as a bowl organ which is actually incorrect, although that instrument would create the same or similar-sounding notes but that was not it. What we were hearing was actually the {{w|Glass harp}}, which is a musical instrument made of upright wine glasses and it's played by running moistened or chalked fingers around the rim of the glass and each glass is tuned to a different pitch and thereby you're able to play all of the notes. That particular piece was performed by [http://www.roberttiso.com/ Robert Tiso] and you can [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47TGXJoVhQ8 see him on youtube playing this], and very talented in his own right. Yes, several people did get it correct, the first one to guess correctly, our friend from the message boards, Magnus M.

S: Mmmhmm.

E: Whose name we've sopken before. Well done, Magnus.

S: Magnus!

E: And congratulations for being first. OK, so 2013, we're going to change things up a little bit for the Who's That Noisy and the puzzle segment. For this year, we're going run a little contest for all the listeners, and here's how it's going to work. Each week when I play the Who's That Noisy or give the Logic Puzzle, everyone who answers correctly, their name will be put into a hat for that week. And that week I will draw a name from the hat at random and the person's name whom I draw will go into a final drawing which will occur at the last episode of the year and the winner of the final drawing will be invited to come onto the SGU to play a round of Science or Fiction with us.

If you're going to submit a guess, we're going to require your guess by the time we record our next show which is typically early to mid-week the following week, it varies from week to week but there is a little incentive there to get your guess in early and get your name eligible to be drawn for the final drawing. Since this is a new idea we are tinkering with, we're going to do this on the honor system. If we sense that there is any abuse by the participants of this we will have to make some modifications along the way, so we're trusting everyone to play fairly, play by the rules, if you know the answer go ahead and tell us, but you don't go sharing it with you know, 100,000 of your closest friends so that there's 100,000 names to draw from each week, that'll make my job a lot harder. So let's give this a try, folks and let's see what we can do.

S: All right, we'll see how it goes.

E: We're going to start this year with a puzzle, a logic puzzle. And this logic puzzle was submitted by listener Alvaro Ibanes, thank you Alvaro for submitting this, this is a very good one. <blockquote>A jeweller has nine pearls which all look and feel exactly alike. However, he knows that one of them weighs more than the other eight. He has access to a classic scale, you know the one with two arms often seen in Lady Justice's hand? What is the minimum number of measurements required to know with absolute certainty which pearl is the one that weighs more? </blockquote>

E: All right? Give us your guess?

S: It's a fun one.

E: Yeah, it is a fun one. Go ahead and give us your best guess, [mailto:info@theskepticsguide.org info@theskepticsguide.org] and our message boards are [http://sguforums.com sguforums.com]. Good luck everyone.

S: Thanks, Evan.

== Interview with Massimo Pigliucci <small>(42:33)</small> ==
S: We are joined now by Massimo Pigliucci. Massimo, welcome back to the Skeptics' Guide!

M: Thank you, it's a pleasure as usual.

S: And Massimo is the chair of the Department of Philosophy at CUNY-Lehman College, the editor in chief of the journal ''[http://www.philosophyandtheoryinbiology.org/ Philosophy & Theory in Biology]''. He's the host of a podcast called ''[http://rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/ Rationally Speaking]'' and also one of the authors on the [http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.co.uk/ blog by the same name]. The author of several books, including the book that we will be discussing this evening: ''[http://www.amazon.com/Answers-Aristotle-Science-Philosophy-Meaningful/dp/0465021387 Answers for Aristotle]''. But his greatest claim to skeptical and scientific fame, was that he was the first ever guest on The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

''(laughter)''

M: That's exactly right.

E: As if he needed anything else.

S: That's right. I was just- That's just the cherry on the top, Massimo.

''(laughter)''

S: Massimo, I talk about you a lot actually, in skeptical circles because like you're the one, in my opinion, like the one real philosopher that we have in the skeptical movement. I'm not saying you're the only philosopher, but you're the one who's active. Who's trying to keep the rest of us philosophically honest, if you will.

M: ''(laughter)''

S: And that, that's essentially what your recent book, ''Answers for Aristotle'', is about. So, tell us about it.

M: Yeah, in some sense. It is aimed at the general public, so it's not a technical book. But it is about the relationship between philosophy and science which I think that is something that certainly members of the skeptic movement should be aware of, or a little more sort of cognisant of. But the basic idea of the book is really that this is essentially a self-help book for people who don't believe in self-help books. The basic approach is that, look, when we're dealing with the big questions in life, you know: morality, or relationships, or you know, general views of the world and whatever, where do we get our best hints, our best information about that? I don't think we get them from religion. Common sense is helpful, but up to a certain point. So, it seems to me that the best combination of answers, or at least approaches to those kinds of questions, come from the two most effective traditions of thought in the Western - and possibly the world - history, which are of course science, as far as factual questions are concerned and philosophy, as far as how to reflect on the implications of those factual answers we get from science. So that's what the book is about, it's how to combine science and philosophy in what I sort of jokingly call Sci-Phi - actually, people pronounce it Sci-Fi, but it should be Sci-"Fee", because the second part is P-H-I for philosophy.

S: Sci-Phi?

M: Yeah, that's right. ''(laughter)'' But I think that Sci-Fi was more, I don't know, the publicist thought it was more, sounded better than Sci-Phi.

''(laughter)''

E: Right.

S: Right. Well, then why didn't the Sci-Fi Channel change it's name to Syfy?

M: Yeah, that's a good question!

''(laughter)''

B: That really pissed me off when they did that.

M: Agreed.

S: So, science gives us the facts, as it were, and philosophy tells us how to think about those facts. Is that a fair summary?

M: Well, yeah, it's, of course as you know that's a little, simple version of the whole thing. In reality there is no sharp distinction between science and philosophy. There are many areas of overlap, the most obvious one perhaps is philosophy of science, or, and in fact also {{w|epistemology}}. I mean, there are areas of philosophy that are directly relevant to science, and there are also areas of science that are definitely relevant to philosophy. I mean, one cannot do these days any serious philosophy of mind, for instance, unless one is well read in, you know, neurobiology and current science. So, there's quite a bit more overlap than the simple distinction between science and philosophy. But it is true that, you know, historically speaking and strictly in modern, in the modern academy, the true disciplines have evolved unto quite different directions and yes, broadly speaking, science deals with the best factual information we can get about the world, and philosophy deals with reflecting methods of reflecting about what that, that information tells us.

S: Yeah, so they're complementary intellectual disciplines—

M: Right.

S: —if you will. And, I think what's, I know you've made this point a lot, and I know in your blog as well, and also in our prior discussions that, scientists who think they can answer all questions, with just science, have to first realise, that when doing science they are also practicing philosophy, cause there has to be a philosophical underpinning of science itself.

M: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of the best summaries of that position was actually due to {{w|Daniel Dennett|Dan Dennett}}. As you know, several years ago he wrote ''{{w|Darwin's Dangerous Idea}}'', which is one of the most influential books, in sort of many people's understanding of evolution and implication of Darwinism and so on and so forth. But in that book, as much as that book is, of course, very much science friendly, and does take on-board, you know, evolutionary biology in particular, Dennett points out that there is no such a thing as philosophy-free science, there is only science that takes on-board the philosophy without examining it. No, now, the question is not that scientists should necessarily do philosophy, in fact I would discourage scientists from doing philosophy. Just in the same way in which I would discourage philosophers from doing science. Those are sufficiently separate activities, as I said, that require different skills, and also, by the way, they have developed huge technical literatures of their own so it's really difficult to do both in a reasonable way. But, what I do suggest is that both scientists, as academics, and sort of the general public at large, would be better off by respecting each other's territory and what comes out of the other field, and also being a little bit acquainted with what comes out of the other field.

S: Yeah, so just as, like in the skeptical movement in just, in general, we promote the idea that people should have a basic scientific literacy. Not that they should be able to practice science as a layperson, but just be scientifically literate. But by the same token, people should be philosophically literate as well, not to be able to engage at cutting-edge philosophical technical discussions, but to have some idea when philosophy is in play at least.

M: Correct. So for instance, a little bit of understanding of basic philosophy of science or epistemology for instance, would go quite a long way for skeptics, to develop a better appreciation not just for the power of science, which is, you know, unquestionable within the community, or unquestioned within the community, but also for the limits of science, you know, there is a lot of stuff that science hasn't figured out, maybe will never figure out, you know, there is a lot of— science needs to be seen for what it is: a very powerful, but nonetheless human epistemic activity, based on certain methods, those methods have certain problems and limitations. The skeptic is supposed to be thinking rationally about a broad range of issues and that ought to include, it seems to me, also the functioning of science itself.

S: Is there an area where you most frequently see science or skeptics go wrong when it comes to philosophy as it's relevant to what we do.

M: Oh, that's a great question. ''(laughter)'' I think there's more than one.

''(laughter)''

B: Give me your top three-

J: Slow down, slow down, don't, don't kill us.

M: No no no no. It's- So, one of the, I think, the major areas that I've seen coming up, quite often in the last, especially the last two or three years, is actually the relationship- it's ethics. And what science can or cannot tell us about ethics. There seems to be a lot of confusion about, you know, ethical reasoning and what it is about, and are there moral truths and how do we discover moral truths and all that sort of stuff. And of course, the naïve position among some skeptic quarters is that, well you know, either morality is all about- it's entirely a human invention, so it's essentially one step removed from {{w|moral relativism}}, which most of us don't wanna go to. ''Or'', then if it is about objective facts then those facts have to be of course matters that science can investigate and therefore we're gonna have, you know, you name it, evolutionary biology or neurobiology is gonna give us answers to moral questions. I think that the reality is a lot more complicated than that. I think that evolutionary biology tells us something very important about morality, that neurobiology tells us something very important about morality, but that neither one of those exhaust what, the province essentially of moral philosophy of ethics in general. So, let me give you a quick example: I think that evolutionary biology is absolutely necessary in order to understand where a sense of moral right and wrong comes from. I mean, we evolved it. We are social animals of a particular type and there is no magic behind it, it doesn't come from gods. It evolved over a period of time, the building blocks of a moral sense, a moral intuition if you will, or a moral instinct can be found in other primates and that makes perfect sense. I mean, it would be really bizarre if morality for some reason where the only thing that we cannot find any, sort of, gradual examples or partial examples in other species. So-

S: Yeah, birds have morality. I mean, birds punish each other for not-

M: Yeah.

S: -doing what the group is in the groups best interest. If one bird doesn't warn the others about a predator, then they won't get warned next time around. You know, so that's been-

J: Wow.

S: -demonstrated experimentally.

M: The thing that I quibble a little bit about that, is, I wouldn't go as far as saying that they have morality as in, obviously, as we understand it from a human perspective, meaning they don't have the ability to reply.

E: Dear Duane.

M: But they do have an instinct, that correspond, that if you were to see those actions in a human being, you would say, "oh that's a moral action."

S: Well that, that's, but my point is what you were saying that there are evolutionary antecedents we could see the elements of morality in other species, obviously an elementary form, not in the reflective form that we have, but they have an instinctive notion of reciprocity which informs our ethical senses, right?

M: Exactly, right. From there to neurobiology or the current science in general of moral decision making that also tells you something interesting. It tells you for instance, not only which areas of the brain tend to be involved in moral thinking and that sort of stuff, which is interesting in and of itself, but it tells you something more deep about how we think about morality. For instance, let me give you one example: you probably, you guys probably now have heard a bit about, sort of the different versions of the trolley dilemma.

S: Yeah.

B: Yeah.

M: Two basic forms, as you likely know, are the one in which there is this trolley coming down the road and it's about to hit and kill five people and you have, you happen to have a very convenient located lever next to you, that if you pull you're gonna divert the trolley on a second track where it is gonna kill only one person. Question: would you do it or not? Answer: empirically speaking, most people would say yes. That's interestingly, by the way, cross-cultural, depending on how you present the dilemma, pretty much people will respond in the same way. Eighty or ninety percent of people say yes. Then you switch into a second situation where you don't have the lever, you're on top of a bridge, there's this really bulky, big guy in front of you and the only option you have is to push the guy off the bridge to save the five people. Question: would you do it? Most people answer no. Now, the interesting question there is why would people answer, most people answer, yes to one and no to the other since at least at one level of analysis the two situations are perfectly analogous: in both cases you have five people you're about to save and one person that you're about to kill. Now, turns out that neurobiology sheds some light on this and it's perhaps not surprising, but it's interesting the way it works. It turns out that if you do a brain-scan of, you know, with all the limitations of course of neural scanning and current technology, but if you do a neural scan of people, an FMRI of people, when they are involved in thinking about the two versions of the dilemma, in the first case, the lever case, people tend to involve the areas of the brain, like the frontal cortex, that are involved typically in sort of rational, deliberate decision making. On the other hand, when people are thinking in terms of the second version of the dilemma, the pushing guy off of the bridge, a lot of the action switches to the amygdala, which of course is more connected to emotional reactions and fear and things like the sort. Now, that makes perfect sense, because basically the second version of the dilemma is much more personal. You're about to actually push somebody, as opposed to do something from a distance, like pulling a lever. So it makes perfect sense that people switch ways of thinking, they use different neural pathways essentially to think about this. That is very interesting and without the science we wouldn't find out why exactly people are doing that. The question however still remains, should you or should you not push the damn guy off the bridge?

S: Yeah.

M: Right.

J: I think an interesting way to look at it too are "what about the social ramifications." Like, you're gonna, you're actually breaking the law if you push the guy off the bridge, even though you're not gonna get arrested for not saving people's lives. Does that come into play?

M: Uh, it does, depending again, as I said earlier, there is a lot of different variants of the thought experiment, and yes, some of those do involve information about the, you know, consequences and if you, of course, were in moral philosophy, it's called a {{w|Consequentialism|consequentialist}} or {{w|Utilitarianism|utilitarian}} view, you will take those into account as well. But the basic version doesn't include those, and it's one of the things that comes out interestingly, for instance from the cognitive science literature, is that there is a small minority of people who do not change their mind, who both will push- uh, you know, pull the lever and push the guy off the bridge. Turns out that psychologically speaking those people corresponds to a somewhat sociopathic profile.

S: Mm-hmm.

M: Those are people that essentially do not engage with the amygdala, they don't engage the emotional reaction, they just think rationally about the whole thing. The reason I brought that up is because, so, now we have an evolutionary account of how we got morality to begin with, we have a neurobiological account of, we ''begin'' to have a neurobiological account of how we actually engage in that sort of thinking, and all of this is very interesting. The thing that we still need to deal with, however, is, okay, in interesting, complex, real-life situations, what are we ought to do, and now I think is where the philosophy, the interesting philosophy, comes in, because of course there are hundreds of years of discussions among philosophers that have been able to frame moral dilemmas according to two or three major ways of thinking about it. One is the one that I mentioned a minute ago, the utilitarian or consequentialist view. There is also the {{w|Ontology|ontological}} thinking which is based on rules essentially, and then there is the {{w|Virtue ethics}} thinking that is based on sort of character development, of what is the right thing to do in terms of what is the right person you wanna develop into. Anyway, those three frameworks help you think about the dilemma in a way that might lead you to reach a conclusion or consider a conclusion based on reason, so you go beyond your instinctual reaction, you go beyond what your amygdala is telling you and you think about it and say "well, wait a minute, here's the situation, here's what the right thing to do is and here's why."

S: Then there are those people like {{w|Sam_Harris_(author)|Sam Harris}}, who I know you have engaged with at least on your blog, who argue that: if we had enough scientific information, that could answer moral questions for us, essentially. You've pretty much explained what's wrong with that answer, but how have you responded to Sam Harris' position.

M: Well, let me give you a simple analogy. Imagine instead of talking about moral decision making, we're talking about mathematical abilities, right? So, how is it that people have developed, human beings have developed the ability to solve mathematical problems. Well, again, you got the same three sort of answers. From an evolutionary perspective it probably was useful at some point or another to start counting or to start thinking in terms of very simple abstract mathematical entities that helped our survival. That's of course speculation, we don't really have access to the relevant information, ecologically speaking, but it's very likely that something like that happened. Now, today you could put somebody that's, say, who's trying to prove {{w|Fermat's Last Theorem}}, you can put him under an FMRI-scan and you can figure out how active different areas of the brain are, and so on and so forth. There is one thing however, that neither this scan, nor the evolutionary story can actually tell you and that is "is the guy getting the proof of the Theorem right?"

S: "Is two plus two four?"

M: Yeah.

S: Well, Massimo. Thanks for joining us again on the show, it's always a pleasure, it always seems like it goes by faster and we're just scratching the surface. But for our listeners, ''Answers to Aristotle'', just tell us about that title for a second, because that's interesting.

M: Aristotle is in fact the philosopher that is most widely quoted or referred to in the book, and there is a reason for that. Aristotle was the first guy in the Western tradition, that really was doing exactly what a (GARBLED) book is about. He was doing philosophy, he is known for establishing the foundations of logic for writing the first comprehensive book about ethics and so on and so forth. But he also was doing science, I mean, most people don't realize this but Aristotle was actually doing field biology of a way on the island of Lesbos, among other places. And he was trying to figure out, okay, was interested in, for instance, shells and he was there and he was collecting samples and looking at things. Now, he got a lot of stuff wrong (inaudible) idea that we got answers for the questions that he asked that he certainly did not have access to. But he does embody the spirit of the book. He was the guy that figured out that "look, you need both factual questions and to ways reflect on the meaning of those questions," and that is sort of the science and philosophy combination in the broadest possible sense.

S: Well, thanks again Massimo!

J: Thanks Massimo.

B: Thank you.

M: It was a pleasure as usual.

== Science or Fiction <small>(1:01:19)</small> ==
''Voiceover: It's time for Science or Fiction''

S: Each week I come up with three science or news items or facts, two genuine and one fictitious. Then I challenge my panel of skeptics to tell me which one they think is the fake. Now before we get started this week, because this is the first Science or Fiction of 2013, I do have the stats, the full Science or Fiction stats, from last year.

E: Eurgh

S: These were sent to us by Cat, from sgutranscripts.org, so thanks Cat. So, here they are for 2012: Bob had played 47 games, lost 19, won 28 for a total of 59.6%.

B: Eurgh, damn.

S: Evan played 50, 25 and 25, exactly 50%.

E: Wow, I think wow, that's pretty good.

S: Jay also played 50, lost 26, won 24 so just shy of Even at 48%. I played 7, lost 3 and won 4 so am at 57.1%, just behind Bob and Rebecca played 44, lost 17, won 27 for a total of 61.4%.

E: Wow.

S: Just edged out Bob.

B: Nice.

S: Congratulations Rebecca.

R: Thank you.

B: Congratulations.

R: Thank you.

J: Overall we're way above average.

E: That was...

S: All doing better than random guessing.

B: Yeah but...

R: Hooray.

B: Rebecca and I did worse than last year though.

R: Yeah. I felt dumber this year.

E: Jay and I picked up the slack though.

B: How could I start off so well and then totally tank it?

S: Regression to the mean. Randomness.

J: Evan, our goal for this year, better than 50%.

E: You bet...

S: OK.

E: You bet buddy.

S: It's a brand new year though, guys. Are you all ready?

E: Clean slate.

S: We do have a theme for this week.

''(laughter)''

R: God damn it.

S: This theme... ''(laughter)'' this theme is dedicated to Jay. It's all about little babies.

R, B, E: Aw

J: OK

S: Prepare Jay for his...

R: Because Jay's a giant baby?

S: Yeah, for his upcoming...

E: Oh, is that what you mean?

S: ... child to be born in a few weeks.

R: Oh my...

''(overlapping comments)''

S: Hope all goes well. OK...

E: So excited.

S: Here we are - [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130101182012.htm item number one] - a study finds that maternal use of anti-depressants during pregnancy is associated with a greater risk of {{w|sudden infant death syndrome}} [SIDS]. [http://www.plu.edu/news/2012/12/infant-language/ Item number two] - a new study concludes that babies start learning language in the womb. And [http://news.temple.edu/news/2012-12-13/let-crying-babes-lie-study-supports-notion-leaving-infants-cry-themselves-back-sleep item number three] - new research finds that for most babies it is better to leave them alone when they cry at night rather than comforting them. Jay, 'cos this is a theme in your honor, you get to go first.

J: The first one, about the study that says that mothers that took anti-depressants while they were pregnant - that's interesting that it increases SIDS. Now I do know that SIDS... SIDS is when the baby stops breathing and I thought that that had to do with temperature. OK, the second one about the babies learning language in the womb, I believe that one is correct. I think that they can hear their mothers' voices before they're born and they can identify their mother's voice and actually start to pick up language. So I think that one is science and the third one, the last one about— it's better to leave most babies and let them cry at night instead of comforting them - I'm not sure about that. Now this one, of course Steve's not going to answer questions but, a new born baby absolutely needs to be fed on a regular basis and one of the reasons why a baby cries is because it wants to be fed. It could be just hungry, which, you should feed a hungry baby. The whole crying baby thing, to me, you gotta go in, you gotta check on the baby and feed them. But for some reason I'm thinking here Steve that because you're gonna be leaving the baby alone in a room that this could be later maybe not a newborn. I'm gonna say that because of how vague that third one is, I'm gonna say that the first one, the one about SIDS is the fake.

S: OK, Bob?

B: The babies start learning language in the womb, yeah that just makes sense. I would expect that the unborn baby can hear it's mother's voice. I remember reading a while back about how babies can recognize their mothers' voices soon after birth. It just makes sense that they would become accustomed to the language and be primed and ready to go right out of the gate so to speak, so that makes sense to me. Leaving crying babies alone, yeah that was the conventional wisdom 12, 14 years ago when I had an infant in the house. After Ashley was born it was pretty much - a lot of people were saying that, and it makes a lot of sense, you know the baby wakes up, there's some separation anxiety and if the parents come rushing in then the baby will get used to that and expect it all the time and if they can get used to waking up, being alone then going back to sleep, bam, perfect, that's what the baby will do. So that makes a lot of sense too so considering that two and three make so much sense to me, I just don't think that you could say that mothers who have had babies who died of SIDS, I just don't think you'd have a decent percentage of them that would be on anti-depressants. Yeah, I'm going to say the SIDS is fiction.

S: OK, Rebecca?

R: Ah, yeah. I don't know, but the one about leaving babies alone when they cry at night - there's like a huge can of worms in the parenting blogs and forums - I feel like that's one of those things that...

E: You read those?

R: I have friends who are parents who get involved in the mommy blogs and stuff - yeah, like that's for the past 30 years or so, that's been a huge thing - there's even a title for it, like it's a parenting style that's specifically based on remaining fairly detached from your children in the hopes that they will learn to fend for themselves. And everything that I've read, which admittedly is not a ton because I don't have a kid and I'm not planning to have one any time soon, but everything that I've read suggests that it's BS, that like Jay said, when the baby cries it's crying for a reason go pick it up. So I'm going to say that's the fiction.

S: And Evan?

E: Oh, everyone made very good cases for all of these. Bob, you, I think you hit on the SIDS one, anti-depressants during pregnancy associated with a greater risk of sudden infant death syndrome. Anti-depressants being more prescribed these days than they were way back when, but there was still SIDS occurring way back when so I'm thinking that that one's the fiction. But Rebecca, you brought up a good point, good points about the crying. Rebecca I hate to leave you alone out there I'm going to go with what my first instinct way I'm going to say that the SIDS is the fiction.

S: OK so... I'm a little surprised that you guys all believe that a new study concludes that babies start learning language in the womb is science.

E: Spanish or French?

B: Why?

S: You guys all believe that one - I don't know, that one struck me as being a little out there but that one is science.

B: Why did you think that one was out there?

R: That was the most obvious one to me.

J: Steve I read that one and I was talking to my wife Courtney about it and she goes "ah, I don't know that sounds like BS to me".

S: Yeah.

J: Which I thought was funny 'cos now it's on our game here.

S: It just struck me as like really, really? Alright, but this is true a study does conclude this, I'm not sure how much I totally buy the conclusion and this is the first time a study has shown that newborns are not naïve to the language of their mother.<ref> Moon, Lagercrantz & Kuhl (2013), [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/apa.12098/abstract Language experienced in utero affects vowel perception after birth: a two-country study], Acta Paediatrica, 102:2</ref> What the researcher did, this is Christine Moon, professor of psychology at Pacific Lutheran University, they studied infants that were just hours old and the research paradigm's interesting. They had them suck on a pacifier that was attached to a computer and when they sucked on the pacifier ''(laughter)'' - hang on - they sucked on the pacifier it would...

E: Ten thousand volts.

S: It would play a recording of vowels from either their mothers' native language or a foreign language.

B: Interesting.

S: And it would play for as long as they sucked and then when they stopped sucking it would stop and then when they started sucking again it would play a different vowel.

B: They sucked more.

S: So the question was would they listen more to the vowels...

B: Parent language.

S: From their parent language or their mothers' language specifically or from a foreign language and with the idea, and this was a paradigm used in other research, that they would listen longer to vowels that they were not familiar with.

B: Oh, interesting.

S: Because they were novel, the brain's like "hey, this is new, I've got to pay attention to this", not "oh this is something I've been hearing for months", you know? And in fact they found that the infants did listen longer, based upon their sucking on this pacifier, to vowel sounds from foreign languages than to their mothers' language.

R: But what if they found the mothers' language more soothing so wanted to listen to it longer?

B: Yeah.

S: As I said, this is, you've got to buy every link in this chain

R: Yeah, dumb, it's dumb.

S: You know, to buy this. But the thing is any difference, any difference you can take that they're not naïve and it was not that they're listening to sounds of their ''mother'', just vowels from their mothers' language or a foreign language. So any difference would— means that they're getting something, you know, if you believe the difference itself, if the data itself is compelling. Definitely the kind of study that I'd like to see replicated and looked at from different angles but that was what this study concluded.

E: Great.

S: Let's go to number one, a study finds that maternal use of anti-depressants during pregnancy is associated with a greater risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Rebecca thinks this one is science, the rest of you think this one is the fiction and this one is... the fiction.

B, E, J: ''(sounds of celebration)''

B: Yeah baby.

R: Not a good start.

B: One hundred, one hundred percent.

S: Ah so yeah, this one is interesting. So first of all, the news item that I was basing this on showed the opposite - the use of anti-depressants during pregnancy not linked with increased risk of still birth, infant death or other bad outcomes so that's very nice. And I did do a little research on, you know, 'cos I said let me just say the opposite and then I did some research just on SIDS and specifically what the literature shows is that depression in the mother is associated with increased risk of SIDS and in fact this leads to a recommendation that mothers be treated for their depression...

B: Interesting, woah.

S: In the hopes that it would decrease the risk of SIDS if anything, because untreated depression is a risk factor that has been identified for sudden infant death syndrome. Now SIDS still remains a little mysterious, you know, it's not like we completely understand exactly what is happening. We've identified lots of factors that increase or decrease the risk and it's thought that, you know, that they essentially they stop breathing. And over the years I've read so many different things like, you know, it's good if they're in the room with the parents because maybe the higher CO2 content drives the infant's respiration more. There are some drugs that are associated with an increased risk of SIDS and those are more for breast feeding now, not antenatal. So for breast feeding mothers, anti-depressants are still fine but you want to avoid anything that would be sedating. So Valium-like drugs are not good, lithium was also another one that was identified. So drugs that could pass through to the infant through breast feeding and can cause sedation will increase the risk of SIDS. The bottom line is if you're breast feeding, your OB should know every medication that you're taking, and you need to talk to them about is this something that would get passed through the breast milk to the infant and what risk or effects might it have. So don't just take— breast feeding is actually... you're still linked to the infant, you know, biologically. It's actually more metabolically demanding on the mother than being pregnant, breast feeding, you still need to take that very seriously. Alright, which means, new research finds that for most babies it is better to leave them alone when they cry at night rather than comfort them is science. Now, Rebecca, you're right in that this is a controversy and there's two sides, there's two schools of thought here. There's the... if you comfort them they'll feel reassured and more secure and if you leave them alone to cry they'll feel abandoned then the other side is what Bob articulated which is , kids need to learn, babies need to learn how to sooth themselves, if you run to them every time you hear them cry you're re-enforcing the behaviour, the crying, and they're not going to learn how to sooth themselves and that is essentially what this latest round now in this controversy has shown. Researchers have found that babies need to learn how to sooth themselves back to sleep. This is also based partly on the notion that infants have a sleep cycle just like everyone else, just like adults, and that sleep cycle involves, you know, going into deeper stages of sleep and then coming into lighter sleep, kind of waking up and then drifting off back to sleep again, that's natural. If the child is fussy or is, you know, upset at all when it wakes up it might cry during that stage of its sleep but that's perfectly normal for it to be quote unquote awake, you know, at that time and what the researchers found is that for some babies, again not for everyone but for some, that they were better sleepers later on in life, meaning like eighteen months, you know, two years, if they were allowed to sooth themselves back to sleep and that those babies whose parents picked them up every time they cried, that they had delayed learning of self-soothing and had a worse sleep later on. So, good job guys.

R: Meuhh.

S: Of to an ironic start, given that Rebecca won last year and...

E: Watch, she'll sweep the table the rest of the year.

S: Yeah, it's, hey, it's an endurance test, you know?

R: Yeah, it's a marathon.

S: It's like one basket in basketball, doesn't mean that much.

B: It's a marathon but right now you're in last place.

== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:16:01)</small> ==

S: So Jay, do you have a quote for us this week?

J: I have a quote that was sent in by a listener named Jim O'Rourke and this is a quote from one of my absolute favorite science popularists.

<blockquote>Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend things which are there.</blockquote>

E: Hmm.

J: Does that sound like anybody?

E: Arthur Clarke?

J: Nope. {{w|Richard Feynman}}.

B: Ah.

S: Richard Feynman.

B: He's got a lot of good quotes.

S: Yeah, he's very quotable.

J: Richard Feynman!

(laughter)

== Announcements ==
=== The Yellow Cab of the Universe <small>(1:16:34)</small> ===
* [http://www.yellowcabuniverse.com/ yellowcabuniverse.com]

J: A listener of our show emailed us and said that we had inspired him in part to create something that I looked into and I thought was one of the best things that I had found in 2012 as far as a learning tool, an entertainment tool. The listeners name is Eduardo Galvani and we started chit-chatting, he wrote a book for the iPad, it's called ''The Yellow Cab of the Universe'' whcih you could see how we may have inspired him. I loved it, I downloaded it, he gave me, he invited me to download his book, I did, it ended up— it's one of the best books I have ever downloaded on my iPad, it's amazingly interactive and it goes into a very simple yet very eloquent explanation of the universe and of the cosmos, it's just fantasic, this book is something that you could do with your kids I think as an after Christmas present, you know you want to buy something that you could do with your children that would really capture their attention, the book just keeps going on and on, the content is fantastic. He's, with his daughter, he's asking his daughter about her school, and she said "I don't like science, it's too boring," and it really bothered him, it shocked him, and he started to think "what's wrong? It's not the science, the science is incredible, it's the way that it's being taught," and he realised very soon after that that he had to create an interactive book, it all kind of gelled in his head, and he did. I don't recommend things often, I have absolutely zero stake in this other than I really am interested in having people spend time with their children and educate their kids on science, this is it, guys. This is one of those things that I think could really influence a young kid's mind to understand, not only understand the universe, understand science and have an interest in something that's important for the future. So you can go to his website, [http://www.yellowcabuniverse.com/ yellowcabuniverse.com], and that'll tell you everything that you need to know, you could also look it up in the iTunes store. Do it, enjoy it, and if you really liked it, send me an email and let me know what you think and tell me what your child's reaction was to it, I'd be curious to know what they got out of it.

S: All right, thanks Jay. And thanks for joining me all this week.

R: Thank you, Steve.

B: Thank you, Steve.

E: Thank you, Steve.

J: Happy new year to you and everybody, guys.

E: Happy new year, let's have a good one.

R: Happy new year.

S: Happy new year. Looking forward to a great 2013 and until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

{{Outro1}}

== References ==
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Crying babies - comfort or ignore? (SoF 390)

2014-07-05T12:06:00Z

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Crying babies - comfort or ignore? (SoF 390)

2014-07-05T12:03:25Z

Teleuteskitty: categorised redirect for segment in ep 390

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[[Category:Neuroscience & Psychology]]

Language learning in utero (SoF 390)

2014-07-05T11:57:04Z

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[[Category:Neuroscience & Psychology]]

SIDS and anti-depressants (SoF 390)

2014-07-05T11:55:03Z

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[[Category:Science & Medicine]]
[[Category:Neuroscience & Psychology]]

SIDS and anti-depressants (SoF 390)

2014-07-05T11:54:27Z

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[[Category:Science & Medicine]]
[[Category:Neurocience & Psychology]]

Massimo Pigliucci Interview: Answers for Aristotle (390)

2014-07-05T11:51:12Z

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[[Category:Interview]]
[[Category:Logic & Philosophy]]

Template:SGU episode list

2014-07-05T11:47:17Z

Teleuteskitty: updated 390 status

<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.

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.

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.

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.

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>
Below are links to all the SGU episodes with transcription pages.

Jump to: [[#2013|2013]], [[#2012|2012]], [[#2011|2011]], [[#2010|2010]], [[#2009|2009]], [[#2008|2008]], [[#2007|2007]], [[#2006|2006]], [[#2005|2005]]

{|
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|    {{tick}}
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{|style="margin:1em 3em"
|style="padding-right: 6em;white-space:nowrap" valign="top"|<span id="2014"><big>'''2014'''</big></span>
----
* [[SGU Episode 468]], Jun 28 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 467]], Jun 21 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 466]], Jun 14 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 465]], Jun 7 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 464]], May 31 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 463]], May 24 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 462]], May 17 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 461]], May 10 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 460]], May 3 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 459]], Apr 26 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 458]], Apr 19 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 457]], Apr 12 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 456]], Apr 5 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 455]], Mar 29 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 454]], Mar 22 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 453]], Mar 15 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 452]], Mar 8 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 451]], Mar 1 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 450]], Feb 22 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 449]], Feb 15 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 448]], Feb 10 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 447]], Feb 8 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 446]], Feb 1 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 445]], Jan 25 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 444]], Jan 18 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 443]], Jan 11 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 442]], Jan 4 2014 {{Open}}

<span id="2013"><big>'''2013'''</big></span>
----
* [[SGU Episode 441]], Dec 28 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 440]], Dec 21 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 439]], Dec 14 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 438]], Dec 7 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 437]], Nov 30 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 436]], Nov 23 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 435]], Nov 16 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 434]], Nov 9 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 433]], Nov 2 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 432]], Oct 26 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 431]], Oct 19 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 430]], Oct 12 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 429]], Oct 5 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 428]], Sep 28 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 427]], Sep 21 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 426]], Sep 14 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 425]], Sep 7 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 424]], Aug 31 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 423]], Aug 24 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 422]], Aug 17 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 421]], Aug 10 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 420]], Aug 3 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 419]], Jul 27 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 418]], Jul 20 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 417]], Jul 13 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 416]], Jul 6 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 415]], Jun 29 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 414]], Jun 22 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 413]], Jun 15 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}
* [[SGU Episode 412]], Jun 8 2013 {{i}}{{a}}
* [[SGU Episode 411]], Jun 1 2013 {{a}}
* [[SGU Episode 410]], May 25 2013 {{Tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 409]], May 18 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 408]], May 11 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 407]], May 4 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}
* [[SGU Episode 406]], Apr 27 2013 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 405]], Apr 20 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 404]], Apr 13 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 403]], Apr 6 2013 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 402]], Mar 30 2013 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 401]], Mar 23 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 400]], Mar 16 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 399]], Mar 9 2013 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 398]], Mar 2 2013 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 397]], Feb 23 2013 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 396]], Feb 16 2013 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 395]], Feb 9 2013 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 394]], Feb 2 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 393]], Jan 26 2013 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 392]], Jan 19 2013 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 391]], Jan 12 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 390]], Jan 5 2013 {{tick}}

<span id="2012"><big>'''2012'''</big></span>
----
* [[SGU Episode 389]], Dec 29 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 388]], Dec 22 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 387]], Dec 15 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 386]], Dec 8 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 385]], Dec 1 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 384]], Nov 24 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 383]], Nov 17 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 382]], Nov 10 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 381]], Nov 3 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 380]], Oct 27 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 379]], Oct 20 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 378]], Oct 13 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 377]], Oct 6 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 376]], Sep 29 2012 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 375]], Sep 22 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 374]], Sep 15 2012 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 373]], Sep 8 2012 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 372]], Sep 1 2012 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 371]], Aug 25 2012 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 370]], Aug 18 2012 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 369]], Aug 11 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 368]], Aug 4 2012 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 367]], Jul 28 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 366]], Jul 21 2012 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 365]], Jul 14 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 364]], Jul 7 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 363]], Jun 30 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 362]], Jun 23 2012 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 361]], Jun 16 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 360]], Jun 9 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 359]], Jun 2 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 358]], May 26 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 357]], May 19 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 345]], Feb 25 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 341]], Jan 28 2012 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 340]], Jan 21 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012 {{tick}}
|valign="top" style=white-space:nowrap|<span id="2011"><big>'''2011'''</big></span>
----
* [[SGU Episode 337]], Dec 31 2011 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 335]], Dec 17 2011 {{open}}
* [[SGU Episode 331]], Nov 19 2011 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 330]], Nov 11 2011 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011 {{tick}}
* [[SGU 24hr]], Sep 23-24 2011
* [[SGU Episode 320]], Aug 29 2011 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 312]], Jul 5 2011 {{open}}
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 298]], Mar 30 2011 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 287]], Jan 12 2011 {{Open}}

<span id="2010"><big>'''2010'''</big></span>
----
* [[SGU Episode 285]], Dec 29 2010 {{open}}
* [[SGU Episode 271]], Sep 22 2010 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 260]], Jun 30 2010 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 257]], Jun 14 2010 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 252]], May 12 2010 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 247]], Apr 7 2010 {{open}}
* [[SGU Episode 245]], Mar 25 2010 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 232]], Jan 1 2010 {{mag}}

<span id="2009"><big>'''2009'''</big></span>
----
* [[SGU Episode 220]], Oct 7 2009 {{open}}
* [[SGU Episode 216]], Sep 9 2009 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 185]], Feb 4 2009 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 184]], Jan 28 2009 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 183]], Jan 21 2009 {{i}}

<span id="2008"><big>'''2008'''</big></span>
----
* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 152]], Jun 11 2008 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 146]], May 7 2008 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 141]], Apr 2 2008 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 140]], Mar 26 2008 {{Open}}

<span id="2007"><big>'''2007'''</big></span>
----
* [[SGU Episode 127]], Dec 26, 2007 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 123]], Nov 28, 2007 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 116]], Oct 10, 2007 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 113]], Sep 19, 2007 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 111]], Sep 5, 2007 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 110]], Aug 28, 2007 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 109]], Aug 24, 2007 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 105]], Jul 25, 2007 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 104]], Jul 18, 2007 {{open}}
* [[SGU Episode 103]], Jul 11, 2007 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 102]], Jul 3, 2007 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 101]], June 20, 2007 {{open}}
* [[SGU Episode 100]], June 19, 2007 {{open}}
* [[SGU Episode 98]], June 6, 2007 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 97]], May 30 2007 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 89]], Apr 4, 2007 {{open}}
* [[SGU Episode 88]], Mar 28, 2007 {{open}}
* [[SGU Episode 79]], Jan 24, 2007 {{tick}}

<span id="2006"><big>'''2006'''</big></span>
----
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 68]], Nov 8 2006 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 62]], Sep 27 2006 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 61]], Sep 20 2006 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 55]], Aug 9 2006 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 49]], Jun 28 2006 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 47]], Jun 14 2006 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 46]], Jun 7 2006 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 38]], Apr 12 2006 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 29]], Feb 8 2006 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 28]], Feb 1 2006 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 27]], Jan 25 2006 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 26]], Jan 17 2006 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 25]], Jan 11 2006 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 24]], Jan 6 2006 {{mag}}

<span id="2005"><big>'''2005'''</big></span>
----
* [[SGU Episode 23]], Dec 21 2005 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 22]], Dec 14 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 21]], Dec 7 2005 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 20]], Nov 23 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 19]], Nov 16 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 18]], Nov 2 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 17]], Oct 26 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 16]], Oct 12 2005 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 15]], Oct 6 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 14]], Sep 28 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 13]], Sep 14 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 12]], Sep 7 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 11]], Aug 31 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 10]], Aug 23 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 9]], Aug 10 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 8]], Aug 2 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 7]], Jul 20 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 6]], Jul 7 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 4]], Jun 15 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 3]], Jun 7 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005 {{tick}}
|}

<noinclude>
[[Category: List templates]]
</noinclude>

SGU Episode 390

2014-07-05T11:46:20Z

Teleuteskitty: proofed, added categories

{{Editing required
|Today I Learned list = y
|segment redirects = y 
|}}
{{InfoBox
|episodeNum = 390
|episodeDate = 5<sup>th</sup> January 2013
|episodeIcon = File:FM_RADIO.gif
|rebecca = y
|bob = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
|guest1 = M: Massimo Pigliucci
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2013-01-05.mp3
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,44595.0.html
|qowText = Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend things which are there.
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman Richard Feynman]
|}}

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

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, January 2, 2013, 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: I have come to chew bubble gum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubble gum.

J: Evan, can you say that again, but do it twice as corny.

''(laughter)''

R: Yeah, no.

B: Impossible!

R: You're no Rowdy Roddy Piper.

E: Right? ''They Live.'' That movie. Gosh. Is that one of the worst movies ever?

B and R: Worst?

R: It's one of the best movies ever, are you kidding?

B: Oh, god, I love it.

J: It's a cult classic. I mean, yeah, it didn't hold up as good as I would have liked, but it's still

B: Oh, what doesn't hold up?

J: Whatever. It's still great. It's still good.

R: It's awesome.

B: The best bare-knuckled brawl I think in any movie.

E: I'm sorry. Look, I get campy and I get, you know, yes, I get the brawl scene. It was rated like one of the best brawl scenes in movie history and so forth. Rowdy Roddy Piper, John Carpenter directed it and all that. I'm sorry. That movie had so many flaws to it. I mean if we were ever to do a review of that movie, oh man, we could do a whole episode on that.

S: Maybe we should.

E: Maybe we should.

R: Yeah. I will defend that movie with my life.

''(laughter)''

E: All right. I'm gonna be your Gene Siskel to your Roger Ebert or vice versa, or whatever.

R: Oh, boy.

J: Steve, I'm getting a feeling like in the back of my head. I feel like I'm predicting that we're gonna do a show on predictions.

S: I know, I think you're right, Jay.

B: Damn, you're good.

E: One of these days.

S: It's a high probability hit.

== This Day in Skepticism <small>(1:43)</small> ==
* January 5, 1940: FM radio first commercial broadcast

S: But first, Rebecca's gonna tell us about January 5th.

R: Happy birthday, FM radio!

J: Awesome!

E: To all the kids out there.

J: What does the "F" in FM stand for?

R: Frequency.

B: {{w|Frequency modulation}}

J: Thank you.

R: Yes, sort of. You could probably pick any number of dates for the birthdate of FM radio, but on January 5, 1940, the first network program was broadcast on FM radio. It was called "Colonel Harrison Featherbottom and the Fart Man's Morning Zoo Hour."

''(laughter)''

E: What? No, it wasn't.

B: No way. I don't believe it.

J: I love it!

E: . . . skeptic.

R: Okay, that's not what it was called. But it was a 60-minute show that was designed to showcase several different types of audio and vocals and stuff that would eventually be broadcast. The show traveled from a station in Yonkers, New York that was operated by one C.R. Runyon, to a transmitter in Alpine, New Jersey operated by {{w|Edwin_Howard_Armstrong|Major Edwin Armstrong}} of Columbia University, who was heading up the effort; and then onto Meriden, Connecticut; Paxton, Massachusetts; and then finally Mount Washington, where it was transmitted by telelphone wire to Boston and then back to Yonkers. By all reports the FM broadcasts were found to have no apparent loss of quality. So, it was given the thumbs up. The first FM stations that had regular scheduling, programming, appeared later that year. FM.

J: That's cool.

S: Yeah. So, Jay, frequency modulation, that's how the information is encoded in the carrier wave, by modulating the frequency of a signal. As opposed to AM, which is amplitude modulation, they modify the amplitude of the signal.

E: Thank you, Dr. Marconi.

S: Right. And the FM band simply refers to, the FM has nothing to do with any frequency range itself, any band, but that's just the band that's assigned in various countries to transmit FM signals over. So in the U.S. and most places it's 87.5 to 108.0 megahertz.

== News Items ==
=== Psychic Predictions for 2012 <small>(3:51)</small>===
* The Rogues review predictions for last year and make some new ones for 2013

S: Well, as Jay way saying, as Jay predicted, this is our psychic predictions review episode. The first episode of every year we look back and see how did the psychics fare in predicting events of 2012.

B: Horribly.

E: As expected, though.

S: All right, so do you guys have your favorite psychic that you looked back over to see how they did?

E: Anyone else take Nikki because, you know.

R: I decided to skip Nikki this year.

S: She's always a favorite though.

J: She's awesome. She's the funniest.

R: Awesomely stupid.

E: Awesomely awful.

J: Yeah, but this year after reading, going through her stuff, I think she's either delusional or she's just shotgunning.

S: Or both. These are not mutually exclusive.

J: That's right.

S: She made like 180-something predictions. That's, by definition, shotgunning.

J: All right, so, I got, "More laser attacks against planes".

E: Oooo.

R: ''More'' laser attacks.

J: Yes, ''more'' laser attacks. That's what I thought was funny about that.

R: You mean like little kids with laser pointers?

S: Yes.

R: They're a menace to society.

S: Using laser pointers to blind pilots, yes.

J: I got, "Weird weather conditions worldwide, including snow in Hawaii, Las Vegas, and in the Caribbean".

S: Yeah, remember that snowstorm we had when we were in Las Vegas for TAM?

E: (laughs)

J: Giant prehistoric sea monsters under the sea.

E: As opposed to what, floating in the air?

S: Also, some of her predictions are not even sentences.

J: Yeah.

E: Yeah.

J: They're just snippets. Yeah. "Major UFO sightings, all over the world". Nope, that didn't happen.

E: "Earth will fall off its axis a little more"

J: Yeah, right?

E: What?

S: More than what?

E: Exactly.

J: I like how she, then this one goes, "A possible landing of a spaceship". Now, what does that really mean? A ''possible'' landing.

R: Like the Mars rover?

S: Well, we landed {{w|Curiosity (rover)|Curiosity}} on Mars.

E: Yeah.

R: I'm gonna call that a hit.

E: Okay. Hey, Nikki!

R: Good job, Nikki.

E: It's your first time ever.

J: Guys, guys. "A disabled man attempts to go around the world in his wheelchair".

E: What?

B: Oh, boy.

''(laughter)''

S: Is this a manual or one of those electronic wheelchairs? A power wheelchair.

J: Steve, tell me what's wrong with this one. "A huge pandemic, worldwide".

''(laughter)''

S: As opposed to a pandemic that's not worldwide, yeah.

E: A localized pandemic. Highly localized.

J: Now here are two that prove that she doesn't understand science at all. Ready? Earth will fall off its axis a little more,

S: You already said that.

E: Yeah, we did that.

J: Or, "A hole in the Earth's core".

S: A hole in the Earth's core, right.

B: Whoa, what the. . . what does that even mean?

R: A hollow earth thing, maybe?

B: A vacuum in the center of the Earth.

J: Bob, don't worry about that hole, because "The holy grail will be found".

S: The holy grail will be found.

E: I didn't know it was lost!

S: She wrote "problems with the Earth's magnetic fields."

''(laughter)''

B: Oh, nice.

S: What kind of problems?

J: Well, it must be that the city of Hong Kong is on fire, Steve, that threw off the magnetic fields, 'cause that's another one of her predictions.

S: Yeah.

J: "City of Hong Kong on fire".

R: Did that happen?

S: All of it?

J: No. All of it. City of Hong Kong. On fire.

S: It is funny when scientifically illiterate alleged psychics make science-related predictions. Like a hole in the Earth's core. Really?

J: Here's another good one. "Multiple rainbows in the sky, all over the world, within a 24 to 48-hour period".

B: Oh, no. Oh, my god.

R: That happened, too! I saw that, that double rainbow video.

S: Double rainbow!

E: What the heck is that?

B: Double rainbows are magnificent, though. I saw one last, like, two years ago. Oh my god, it's just mesmerizing.

E: We got tripped up on a science or fiction with that triple rainbow, remember?

J and S: Yeah.

E: Sucked.

J: Guys, how 'bout "a famous racehorse will be kidnapped"?

''(laughter)''

E: What, Man-o-War?

S: That was a Sherlock Holmes short story.

J: A meteorite shower hitting the Earth.

''(laughter)''

E: Oh, Nikki, Nikki. Go back to whatever your job was before.

S: Sometime in August. And then again in November. What are the odds?

J: But, and we're only reading a few, but when you read through, she'll get onto a quickie mini-theme inside her predictions. As if she just banged them out at her desk one afternoon.

E: Or her assistant did.

J: Like she'll get on to the theme of earthquakes and then she'll list like four earthquakes. As if, "Oh, yeah, earthquakes!" and then she writes more earthquake ones.

S: Earthquake in Russia. Yeah, I'm pretty sure there was an earthquake somewhere in Russia this year. Probably more than one. I covered psychic Roxanne, did any of you guys do Roxanne from spiritnow.com?

B: No.

R: Uh uh. I don't think I have Roxanne.

S: She has different, this is Roxanne Usleman Hulderman.

E: And her orchestra.

S: Yup, and her orchestra. She has different categories, and I'm just gonna go over the two categories that were most interesting. I didn't do like the celebrity predictions, who cares. These are her "spiritual" predictions. I'm not even sure what makes these spiritual, but here we go. "Einstein's predictions about the honey bees proves correct. They are becoming extinct, indicating it is the beginning of the end of the world."

B: Oh. Einstein?

E: ''(singing)'' Beginning of the end!

S: So I'm like, Einstein? Really? Einstein predicted that honey bees would become extinct? So I looked that up, and . . .

E: Joe Einstein.

S: there is a quote attributed to Albert Einstein that ''if'' the honey bees became extinct, mankind would become extinct within years. You know, by four years later. Just emphasizing how important bees were to humans.

E: And how important the preposition "if" is.

''(laughter)''

S: Yes. He didn't predict that they would become extinct. ''And'' it's not even sure if Einstein said that quote. It's not really sourced. He could have said it, but nobody knows. It was attributed to him, but, anyway.

B: Yeah, you know what that means.

S: Her number two. "Extra Terrestrials" - two words - "help to evolve our consciousness, uplifting our human vibration". Jay, was your vibration uplifted?

J: Well, from the waist down, yes.

S: Okay.

R: Wait. I found a thing about vibration, too. In a different psychic's predictions.

S: Yeah?

J: I heard that, too, Rebecca. I heard vibrations brought up quite a bit.

R: Okay, so, I watched the psychic twins video.

J: Oh, yeah.

S: Oh, yeah.

R: Terry and Linda Jamison.

E: Oh, yeah. I kicked their butt last year. Ha! Too bad nobody saw it.

R: They were hilariously wrong. They started off their "What's gonna happen in 2012" vodcast, podcast, I guess it was a podcast actually, just listing like all these horrific things that were gonna happen in 2012. Just like, it was just gonna be the absolute worst year for life on Earth, and amongst those, they predicted terrorist attacks in Boston, Florida, in Texas, New York, Detroit. They said that major schools would be victimized by young terrorists, which, I'm sure they're going to call a win, for last week.

S: Yeah.

E: They should be very proud of themselves.

R: They say that there would be major cyber attacks by people in China and Russia. There'd be a Chinese attack on the telephone systems. That's a direct quote. However, according to the medium Allie Cheslick, who was interviewing them about their predictions, all these things could have been thwarted only if people raise their own level of vibration.

J: Right.

S: Um hm.

R: So, apparently, we all did a really good job, raising our level of vibration to the point where none of those things, not, they weren't just thwarted by authorities, they just never actually happened.

E: Oh, those would be good vibrations.

B: I love when they give themselves their own out. You know, if it doesn't come true,

R: Right.

B: well, luckily everyone, you know, messed with, played with their vibrations. Win-win!

J: I'm not afraid to admit that they did get a couple of things right, I mean, you're supposed to, statistically, when you throw out as many predictions as these people do.

B: Oh, yeah.

J: Like they did say that there were gonna be lone wolf attacks in schools. And it did happen.

S: But that's just, again, that's a high probability thing. It's like "another Columbine's gonna happen ''some''time". Sure.

R: Right. Thanks for nothing.

S: Yeah. Somewhere by somebody. No details. It seems specific, but it really isn't, so that's one of the strategies. So, it's a high probability prediction, ''and'' there's so much shotgunning going around that of course two or three are gonna be glancing blows. So, next under her spiritual predictions, the "North and South poles reverse their positions.

E: I've heard that a lot of times.

S: Here we go. "Spiritual evolvement." Evolvement.

''(laughter)''

E: What? ''E''volvement?

S: Evolvement. I don't know why she didn't use "evolution." On this third dimension expands the fight between good and evil.

J: Now what does that mean, that weapons are being introduced? Like, what does that mean?

S: So, we're fighting the good fight against evil more and more. On the third dimension. Which is good, because her next prediction is that the third and fourth dimension begin to merge.

E: Oh, good! Finally!

B: I hate when that happens.

E: It's like when peanut butter and chocolate come together, it's good stuff!

S: But—

B: Don't you dare ''(inaudible)''

S: Hold onto your hats, now. With the great pyramids in Egypt being destroyed, you guys remember when that happened, right?

J & E: Yeah.

B: I missed it.

S: The entire planet's magnetic force shifts, symbolizing the end of times, then and only then do we realize that the pyramids have been holding our planet together.

J: Oh!

E: Oh, like a linchpin.

S: Yeah.

B: It's so clear in retrospect.

R: Yeah.

S: And her final one under that category is "Humans turning evermore towards spirituality" which is actually not happening.

J: Yeah, that's another theme that I kept hearing. The world is becoming more spiritual.

S: The environmental events around the globe, lots of high probability, "there's gonna be earthquakes." An earthquake impacts the state of Washington and California. What are the odds? Of an earthquake occurring in a major earthquake belt. All right, but here's my favorite of all of her predictions. "A solar star dwarf from the sun, breaking off, causing damage to the earth".

''(general excitement and confusion)''

B: Oh, my god.

R: Our sun? That could happen?

J: A solar star dwarf, like, what is that?

S: Right?

E: Phil Plait's gonna have to add a chapter to his book, I think.

''(laughter)''

S: Right! Yeah, a dwarf star apparently is gonna break away from our sun and that is going to damage the earth, which, I imagine it would. If that actually happened. It's like, is she flipping through a science book and just pulling out terms at random without understanding what they are.

B: Does she mean like a coronal mass ejection? Is that what she means?

E: Bob. Bob, you're given her w—a-a-a-a-y too much credit.

J: Bob, the only corona she knows is the beer

S: No, because the next prediction is "solar flares causing power outages", which I read on multiple psychics' lists. Solar flares causing power outages. Again, it's the kind of thing, like scientists say "this could happen someday" so they just pick up on that. It's a high probability prediction. "A contagious disease born of our environmental carelessness affects the world". Another pandemic prediction.

B: Nice. Solar star dwarf.

S: And then finally "Global environmental destruction connected with the end of times Mayan calendar". Wah-wah-waaah.

''(laughter)''

S: So there we go, psychic Roxanne.

R: You know, the psychic twins had another great prediction for 2012. They predicted that there would not be any hurricanes in 2012 that were as bad as the previous year. So no hurricanes as bad as Irene. Kind of missed the mark there. The interviewer, Allie Cheslick, predicted that the twins would have their own television show by March 20th of last year, which, I don't think happened.

J: No. The twins also said that it would take a miracle for Obama to get re-elected.

S: Well, I guess a miracle happened.

E: Well, there you go.

R: It's a miracle!

E: Proof that miracles happen.

B: I've got a few here. I've got a couple from two different psychics. One's Janet Russell, who's a Long Island-based intuitive spiritual medium/psychic. She's also the host of a New York top cable access show, ''Beyond the Unexplained''. And how someone like her can have their own TV show and we don't, I don't understand it. But she's known for her accuracy and honesty. She says "we'll be using solar energies instead of the old standby of gas and electric". Solar energies, in plural, which is very odd. And then, this one tickled me. She goes "and yes, the government will admit that we do have contact with other beings in other dimensions"! You know, it's not good enough that there are other beings, aliens or whatever, but they're also in another dimension. Just to make it, just the icing on the cake, you know. Different dimension.

R: I read Janet Russell's predictions as well, and my favorite one, I think,

B: Which one?

R: Okay, there were two. One was "People will be airing their dirty laundry on teleservices. This way they will have a constant audience." ''(laughing)'' What does that mean?

S: The last teleservice

R: I don't know. And the thing is, like, she's so obviously out of touch because my other favorite one was "I feel that one state will be open to alternative lifestyle and people will move to that state because they feel more comfortable." What? What does that mean, alternative? Does that mean gay marriage, does it mean pot? Because we have those things in several states. It's ... I don't know.

B: She just has her finger on the pulse of culture. There was another psychic, Nancy Bradley. Apparently, this psychic has 98.6% accuracy.

R: Wow

E: Wow

B: For 2011, so—

E: Take that temperature!

B: My first reaction was, well, yeah, that's total baloney. But then I read her predictions. Listen to these two. "Six more Hollywood icons will leave us in 2012, and two major music stars as well". What are the odds of people dying in 2012? That just kind of blew my mind a bit. Here's another one: "more protests across the world, and the U.S. as well, sit-ins as people stand up, much bloodshed". Wow. Who could have foreseen that?

E: Geez. People shedding blood.

B: And then she

S: Yeah, some psychics definitely go with the vague high probability hit.

B: Oh, my god.

S: I was reading a couple that did that. It's like "there will be protests in Egypt." Look! ''(laughter)'' Really?

B: And then she throws in one of these little sciencey ones that are kinda whacky: "a shift in the equator will be discovered and will change some of the weather patterns for countries on it." ''(laughter)'' A shift in the equator. I hate when that happens!

S: The equator shifts. Does she mean the continents ''on'' the equator?

B: Who knows what she meant? ''(laughter continues)'' It could mean anything.

E: The equator shifts! That's the best!

B: She could be referring to that solar dwarf star thing. ''(laughter still continues)''

S: But, guys, that was the best, right? The solar dwarf coming out of our sun.

E: Is it wearing a crown?

J: Wait, but Bob, Nancy Bradley also said "More aquatic ocean and lake animals make their way onto shore. Octopus, fish, etc. Also, as I told you last year, more species thought to be extinct are coming back, including those considered mystical, those that many thought never existed are coming back."

R: The unicorn, for instance. ''(overlapping excited comments)''

S: What about the events that psychics failed to predict for 2012?

B: Oh, yeah. That was easy.

J: How many do you want? I have plenty of 'em here.

B: Well, Hurricane Sandy, first of all. You'd think, you know, such a huge weather event. Somebody, somewhere—

S: And it's in their sweet spot!

B: Just one person.

S: They're predicting tsunamis and earthquakes, and they can't get that one hurricane right? Come on.

J: The shooting in Sandy Hook, Connecticut.

R: Although the psychic twins claim that –

E: Yeah, some will claim that they did that.

J: In order for them claim, and I thought about it, because they did make a lone gunman prediction. But, seriously, like that's just not good enough. Like you have to say more, it has to be more specific. If somebody said—

B: You need two things, Jay. You need two things. If somebody said "Newtown" or "Sandy Hook," that would be impressive as hell. Or even if they said "26 dead" or say "20 kids." If anyone said any of those three things, then, bam! That is a solid hit. Of course it wouldn't mean, you know, that psychics—

S: Yeah, there's different degrees of hits. They could have said "an elementary school." You know, they could have said "a lone shooter killing many kids in an elementary school."

R: Even then...

S: Even that would have been semi-impressive. But just "a lone wolf" or just—

B: No.

S: "terrorism in schools." Nah, it's way too vague.

B: Yeah, I'm talk— 'cause when you think of a psychic, if a psychic really existed, you would expect somebody, one person, or a few people, to have a really solid hit. Something really specific. I mean, isn't that what everyone really wants? That's what we want, right guys?

J: Yeah, but that's the thing, Bob, when you, every year when we read through all these psychic predictions, you know, we're just doing our research, it occurs to me, once again, they're just playing the odds. You can see them playing the odds. There's patterns. There is a reason why a lot of them predict the same types of things over and over again.

S: And they're also just probably going for the sensationalism. I mean the ones they know are not gonna come true. Like the solar dwarf. They're just trying to say impressive sounding things.

B: Right. And they—

S: Because they know no one's gonna care. Their target audience, they're not gonna go back and check up on 'em and see what happened.

B: And they don't care what we're saying.

S: They'll be reading the predictions for 2013. All right, what about the Causeway Cannibal?

J: Yeah, absolutely. ''(overlapping comments)'' Too specific though, Steve, too specific.

S: The fiscal cliff.

J: Yup.

B: Yeah.

S: The Petraeus scandal.

B: Yeah, I had that one, too.

E: Attack in Libya.

S: The Benghazi shooting.

J: The President supporting gay marriage.

B: How about deaths? I mean, did anyone predict the death of Whitney Houston, for example?

S: And if they're gonna dabble in science, how about, like if they ''really'' were going for a high-probability science prediction, how about the Higgs will be discovered?

E: Higgs boson, yeah. That would have been good. Or the lander will successfully, you know, everything will go smoothly there. You could even do that one.

J: How about Facebook going public?

B: Yeah.

E: Facebook, yup.

S: That debacle? Yeah, good one. All right, well, I listened to last year's episode to see what ''we'' all predicted.

B: I remember one prediction. I remember saying that Google Plus would die in 2012.

S: Okay.

B: Unfortunately I was wrong.

R: I mean it's on life support, but...

B: Yeah, it is.

E: My predictions.

S: Well, what were they, Evan?

E: I made one in each of the following categories: technology - the {{w|Aakash (tablet)|Aakash tablet}} would outsell the iPad by the end of 2012.

S: Um hmm. Fail.

R: And?

E: You know, the Aakash tablet. This is a $35 tablet that they made in India.

R; Oh, right.

E: They're already actually up to the Aakash 2. And I figured, all right, so you've got the Indian government, they're subsidizing this thing. They're gonna get this out to 500 million Indians, students and everyone in the country; just pure numbers, it's gonna overtake. Well, it didn't quite happen. I think some of the problems were in the technology itself. Even though it costs 35 bucks, they said it heats up very quickly, and poor design, cheap components. It won't play any of the apps that are out there. The battery life is poor. I think those things might have had something to do with it.

S: It's a $35 tablet, that's why.

E: You get what you pay for. In astronomy - a small meteor will collide with one of the many GPS satellites in orbit, rendering it inoperable. Now, that did not happen this year, but guess what's coming up next month, folks.

J: What?

E: ''(clears his throat theatrically)'' A small asteroid ''will'' pass inside the geosynchronous satellite ring.

J: Irrelevant! Irrelevant, you didn't get it.

E: 35,800—

B: Wow, that's damn close. How big is this thing?

E: —kilometers above the — 150 feet. 150 feet long.

B: Damn!

E: Astronomers say the asteroid may hit a communications satellite, so, you know...

J: It doesn't matter. It's irrelevant. No partial credit for you, sir.

B: You still missed it, dude.

E: Nothing irrelevant about that. Yes, it didn't happen, but the science behind it was revealed in the year, so I'll get a half-credit for that. Biology - Bio-engineered tooth regeneration will become available for humans. Well,

B: That'd be cool.

E: Because I've been following that, they're still doing more studies with mice and stuff, and they're making progress. They made more progress this year, but they didn't get to the humans. So I'll take a minus for that. In skepticism - a prominent skeptic will defect over to an alternative point of view. And that actually did come true, because a global warming skeptic {{w|Richard_A._Muller|Richard Muller}}, who was a proponent, you know, a big proponent saying that man-made global warming does not exist, in fact did leave his brand of skepticism behind and says, yes, it is actually happening. So I'll take a plus for that.

J: No. No one knows who that guy is. You can't take a plus for that.

E: Richard Muller? Steve?

S: Evan's right, but that was the wrong kind of skeptic.

E: I didn't ... hey, Steve.

S: It's all right. I gotcha.

E: Well, do you want me to say brown dwarves are gonna get crapped out of the sun? ''(laughter)'' Is that a better prediction.

R: Yeah, actually, it's awesome.

J: No, you didn't get any. Zero.

E: How 'bout this one? My last prediction: the largest glacier ever recorded will break off, right from the ice shelf. And that ''did'' happen, thank you very much. In Antarctica this year, that actually did happen.

J: No, it didn't.

''(laughter)''

S: Well I had one prediction last year, and it was a crypto-zoological prediction, if you remember. I predicted that Bigfoot would sweep into the White House with a gray alien as a running mate. And that ''did'' happen.

E: It almost happened.

S: But the cover-up is keeping you from knowing about it.

''(laughter)''

E: Right.

J: What did Rebecca do?

B: Good one, Steve.

S: Rebecca predicted Michael Douglas, Michael Douglas was her celebrity death. He's still kicking.

R: Oh. Good. I'm glad.

E: He had a problem. He had problems last year.

S: An ''Arrested Development'' movie.

B: Did I miss that?

R: Uuuh, it's... no, but ....

E: It's in production, right?

R: There is going to be a TV show.

S: Okay.

E: Oh, TV show.

S: And chimpanzees will be found to do something scientists thought only people did, previously.

R: That probably happened.

''(laughter)''

E: Somewhere. We may not have seen it or recorded it, but it might have happened.

J: It didn't happen.

R: Yeah, probably.

S: Jay, do you remember your one prediction?

J: Yes. And that's why I've been arguing so much with everyone. I predicted that none of our predictions would come true.

R: Yeah, that's right.

E: Wrong!

J: I'm more right than the rest of you. How about that?

E: That's why you were hard on me and my predictions, 'cause you wanted ''your'' prediction to come true.

S: All right, well. Who wants to go first in their predictions for 2013?

B: I will! Okay, in 2013, everyone will start referring to the year as "two thousand and thirteen" instead of "twenty-thirteen," ''(laughter)'' except for Rebecca. And the LHC will announce a nine sigma competence level in the Higgs boson. It's existence will—

E: English, Bob! English.

B: It's existence will be so obvious that fifth graders will start finding evidence for it. ''(laughter)'' And my only real prediction, scientists will create a living minimal genome cell from scratch. Please come true.

S: Jay?

J: I predict that Iran's ''(pronouncing it eye-ran)'' going to test a nuke.

S: Iran? ''(pronouncing it Ear-on)'' Yeah.

''(laughter)''

J: What?

S: Where did you run to, Jay?

''(laughter)''

J: Seriously? Like that's even pronounced wrong?

E: Just say Persia.

R: I-in-stine.

S: I-in-stine. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, next?

J: I predict another private company will start launching space missions.

S: Um hmm.

B: Okay.

E: Coca-Cola.

J: Beyond {{w|SpaceX}}. I predict that {{w|Billy Graham}} is gonna kick it.

B: Oh, we're doing celebrity deaths, too?

J: Yeah.

B: Okay.

J: I predict that George Bush ''Senior'' is gonna kick it.

E: Any other 90-something-year-old people gonna kick it, Jay?

J: Well, what d'ya want me to predict, like a 20-year-old?

E: How 'bout someone in their 70s or something. Make it a little challenging.

J: Okay, I predict that Evan Bernstein is gonna choke on a hot dog. ''(laughter)'' And my final prediction for 2013 is, I predict the end is {{w|Bill Nye}}.

''(laughter)''

B: Oh, nice.

R: Wait, what?

B: End is Nye.

E: Funny.

R: Mine are great. You're gonna find no fault with mine.

J: Bring it on. Beat "the end is Bill Nye." Beat that, right now. Go ahead.

R: All right. The Daily Mail will report that researchers have discovered pickles cause cancer.

B: Ooooh. I like it.

J: I like that, okay.

E: I don't eat 'em, so—

R: Number two. A whistleblower will reveal that the government has been hiding something.

''(laughter)''

E: Which government?

R: I'd rather not comment upon which government it is at this time, but, they may have the color red in their flag.

''(laughter)''

J: Okay.

R: Finally ...

E: —like the Swiss! I knew it!

R: I will beat the game FTL on normal mode, and finally get 100 percent on Skyrim.

B: You're reaching now.

J: No way.

E: Now your sun is crapping out brown dwarves, Rebecca.

R: It's on like Donkey Kong

S: Bob, what was your celebrity death?

B: Yeah, I've got a celebrity death, and it's not an octogenarian, Jay, or is a nonagenarian, is that how you pronounce that? Lindsay Lohan.

E: Oooh, she's on my list, Bob!

B: She's been rolling 20 for far too long, her time is ''up.''

J: Nope. I'm predicting she's not gonna die. Not even close.

E: Yeah, she's on mine. I've got three of 'em, that was one of 'em.

S: I predict ''she's'' gonna die, but her twin won't.

''(laughter)''

B: Nice.

R: Oh, we're all going to hell.

S: Evan, what've you got?

E: Okay, in addition to Lindsay Lohan. I predict a world leader, which is a president or a prime minister, will succumb while in office. A few options there, but it'll be very prominent. And, James Van Praagh.

J: Oh, why? What did you see? What did the spirits tell you?

E: Jay, it's something that's beyond sort of a description. In technology, there will be a ''m-a-a-a-jor'' data breach, most likely of a credit card company, or something along those lines. This breach will cost consumers and their insurers at least $1 billion worldwide. In astronomy, we will discover a Earth-like planet, known as "Earth's Twin."

S: Hey, that's been my prediction for the last three years.

''(laughter)''

E: And how's that worked out for ya?

S: I'm getting closer every year. And you're gonna try and take it from me now? That's like you're sitting down at my slot machine, Evan.

''(laughter)''

R: Evan just bid a dollar under your ''Price Is Right'' score. That's what just happened.

E: Well, we'll just share that one, Steve, if it comes true this year.

B: Good analogy, Rebecca.

E: In health, a hand-held breathalyzer will offer early detection of infections caused by microbes. What do you think of that? Aa! And, in the environment, I only did four this year, environment, we will find, scientists will find a way to harness energy from sand. Now, I admit, they will be small quantities of energy, but it'll be energy nonetheless.

S: Like the tar sands?

E: Simply sand.

S: Tar sands are already a major source of petroleum, but, I'm assuming you're not talking about that.

E: Okay, I'll refine it—

S: You'll refine the sand? or refine the petroleum?

E: Desert sand.

S: Okay. I have a celebrity death and two predictions. My celebrity death is Jerry Lewis, unfortunately. Great comedian, but, you know. His time

''(someone in background: Oh, lady! Lady!)''

S: I also predict that there will be a ''major'' pareidolia event this year.

B: Nice.

E: Face on the moon?

R: Major?

S: A major pareidolia event. And finally, conspiracy theorists will use anomaly hunting to argue that an innocent or natural event is actually a deliberate conspiracy.

R: Um hmm.

S: All right, so we will track those and we'll let you know next year how we all did.

=== Cosmic Rays and Dementia <small>(32:27)</small>===
* [http://m.phys.org/news/2012-12-houston-problem-space-brain.html Phys.Org: Houston, we have another problem: Study shows space travel is harmful to the brain]

S: All right well I think we have time for a few quick news items to round out the show, so Bob you're going to tell us about another risk of space travel.

B: In science fiction the biggest problems generally for space travel are usually things like aliens, black holes or warp core breaches, I really hate that last one.

S: And space worms, don't forget space worms.

B: Oh yeah, the worms. It's very annoying then to think that a little thing like ultra-tiny invisible radiation is essentially a total deal breaker right now for allowing humans to spend serious time beyond low earth orbit. We've known this for a while now, we've touched upon it in the past a bit, but most recently scientists have found even more bad news. A new study described in the PLOS ONE journal reveals for the first time that cosmic ray exposure to humans on a trip to Mars can make changes to the brain that could replicate or speed up the onset of {{w|Alzheimer's disease}}.<ref>Cherry et al. (2012),[http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0053275 ''Galactic Cosmic Radiation Leads to Cognitive Impairment and Increased Aβ Plaque Accumulation in a Mouse Model of Alzheimer’s Disease''], PLoS ONE 7(12))</ref> Now I'm calling this the "space brain syndrome" and it really stinks.

S: Space dementia.

B: That's a good one too, I like "space brain syndrome" better.

S: No. Space dementia.

B: Uh, we talked about the cosmic ray hazards in space but I learned a little bit more about some of these details and I'd like to share. It's pretty interesting. The culprit here is a specific type of cosmic ray, now these aren't rays of course, but they're bits of atoms that are propelled through space. Protons make up the majority of the cosmic rays, followed by alpha particles which is just like two neutrons and two protons. And then electrons kind of finish that list. Those are the majority, the vast majority of all cosmic rays. But a tiny, tiny percentage of cosmic rays are these relatively really big clumps of protons and neutrons and they're called these {{w|HZE_ions|HZE particles}} which stands for High Charge and Energy particles. And the Z, if you're familiar with chemistry, the Z is the universal symbol for atomic number which is the amount of protons in a nucleus, so that's what that stands for. Now so the more protons you have with no electrons to balance them out, you create a bigger and bigger charge. The E stands for energy obviously, so what you end up with is these bare atomic nuclei with lots of protons and a lot of energy and they can penetrate shielding of a ship and through the skin of the astronauts and just wreak havoc on your DNA causing cancer and a host of other issues. So this much we've known for a little while now, and if that wasn't annoying enough, they get this energy from supernovae and also the sun, I wasn't quite aware of this, the sun's solar flares and coronal mass ejections also can produce these HZE particles. As tiny as these— I mean percentage wise, HZEs are a fraction of a percent but they can cause more than 50% of the radiation damage inflicted on astronauts. So these are the big players in terms of astronauts having a problem with radiation in deep space.

S: Now Bob, because these are highly charged particles, would that mean that magnetic shielding would be a viable option?

B: Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, if they didn't have any charge then we'd be even worse off, so yeah that kind of leads into the potential, one of the potential ways for dealing with them. The experiments that these researchers did, particularly specifically on how these HZE particles can affect people, they used rats of course, the most helpful of guinea pigs. They exposed them—

R: Rats aren't guinea pigs.

B: (laughs) They exposed them to increasing doses of radiation, including the equivalent of what an astronaut would experience on a multi-year mission to Mars, which is pretty much how long it would take. Now they tested the rats' recall for certain objects and locations that they were previously exposed to and they found that those that had a bigger dose of radiation did increasingly more poor at those tasks, which of course indicates some level of neurological impairment. But the real kicker though was that I guess after the rat autopsies they revealed indications of not only changes in the brain vasculature but also in the accumulation of {{w|beta amyloid}}, which is that protein plaque that builds up in the brain of Alzheimer's victims. Now Steve, correct me if I'm wrong, but this plaque, that's pretty much the hallmark of that disease right? If you find that, it's like the red light going off that you have Alzheimer's right? These beta amyloid plaques, is that right?

S: They're important, they're not unique to Alzheimer's, it's more complicated than that, but yeah they're an important pathological finding in Alzheimer's disease.

B: Well that was, from what I could gather, that was one of the main reasons that they're all talking about Alzheimer's here. NASA of course is concerned about cosmic rays, especially considering they've had plans for a manned mission to an asteroid in 2021 and to Mars in 2035, I mean there's just no way that's going to happen if they don't deal with this problem. NASA subscribes to a policy known as {{w|ALARA}} which is ''As Low As Reasonably Achievable''. Any exposure to radiation has an element of risk of course, but NASA needs a very high confidence level that an astronaut's lifetime risk of terminal cancer from cosmic radiation is less than 3% so they will not cross that line, so they have to make 3% reasonably achievable to fit in with this whole idea of ALARA, and that's going to take revolutionary technology to pull that off. That's not going to be a quick and easy fix by any means.

S: All right, well thanks Bob.

== Who's That Noisy? & Logical Puzzle <small>(38:07)</small>==
* Answer to last week: Glass Harp playing Fur Elise

S: All right, well Evan we do have time for Who's That Noisy this week.

E: Well good, that's good because we need to reveal the answer to what was the last Who's That Noisy for 2012. I will play it for you now for memory's sake. Here we go.

''(Glass Harp playing Fur Elise)''

E: Lovely Ludwig Van.

S: Fur Elise, it's one of the pieces I had to play when I was taking piano lessons.

E: Did you enjoy it?

S: Yes, It's a pretty piece.

E: It is a pretty pieces. Well what kind of instrument was that, that was the question. And we had a lot of people guess that that was the {{w|Glass harmonica}} or the glass armonica also known as a bowl organ which is actually incorrect, although that instrument would create the same or similar-sounding notes but that was not it. What we were hearing was actually the {{w|Glass harp}}, which is a musical instrument made of upright wine glasses and it's played by running moistened or chalked fingers around the rim of the glass and each glass is tuned to a different pitch and thereby you're able to play all of the notes. That particular piece was performed by [http://www.roberttiso.com/ Robert Tiso] and you can [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47TGXJoVhQ8 see him on youtube playing this], and very talented in his own right. Yes, several people did get it correct, the first one to guess correctly, our friend from the message boards, Magnus M.

S: Mmmhmm.

E: Whose name we've sopken before. Well done, Magnus.

S: Magnus!

E: And congratulations for being first. OK, so 2013, we're going to change things up a little bit for the Who's That Noisy and the puzzle segment. For this year, we're going run a little contest for all the listeners, and here's how it's going to work. Each week when I play the Who's That Noisy or give the Logic Puzzle, everyone who answers correctly, their name will be put into a hat for that week. And that week I will draw a name from the hat at random and the person's name whom I draw will go into a final drawing which will occur at the last episode of the year and the winner of the final drawing will be invited to come onto the SGU to play a round of Science or Fiction with us.

If you're going to submit a guess, we're going to require your guess by the time we record our next show which is typically early to mid-week the following week, it varies from week to week but there is a little incentive there to get your guess in early and get your name eligible to be drawn for the final drawing. Since this is a new idea we are tinkering with, we're going to do this on the honor system. If we sense that there is any abuse by the participants of this we will have to make some modifications along the way, so we're trusting everyone to play fairly, play by the rules, if you know the answer go ahead and tell us, but you don't go sharing it with you know, 100,000 of your closest friends so that there's 100,000 names to draw from each week, that'll make my job a lot harder. So let's give this a try, folks and let's see what we can do.

S: All right, we'll see how it goes.

E: We're going to start this year with a puzzle, a logic puzzle. And this logic puzzle was submitted by listener Alvaro Ibanes, thank you Alvaro for submitting this, this is a very good one. <blockquote>A jeweller has nine pearls which all look and feel exactly alike. However, he knows that one of them weighs more than the other eight. He has access to a classic scale, you know the one with two arms often seen in Lady Justice's hand? What is the minimum number of measurements required to know with absolute certainty which pearl is the one that weighs more? </blockquote>

E: All right? Give us your guess?

S: It's a fun one.

E: Yeah, it is a fun one. Go ahead and give us your best guess, [mailto:info@theskepticsguide.org info@theskepticsguide.org] and our message boards are [http://sguforums.com sguforums.com]. Good luck everyone.

S: Thanks, Evan.

== Interview with Massimo Pigliucci <small>(42:33)</small> ==
S: We are joined now by Massimo Pigliucci. Massimo, welcome back to the Skeptics' Guide!

M: Thank you, it's a pleasure as usual.

S: And Massimo is the chair of the Department of Philosophy at CUNY-Lehman College, the editor in chief of the journal ''[http://www.philosophyandtheoryinbiology.org/ Philosophy & Theory in Biology]''. He's the host of a podcast called ''[http://rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/ Rationally Speaking]'' and also one of the authors on the [http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.co.uk/ blog by the same name]. The author of several books, including the book that we will be discussing this evening: ''[http://www.amazon.com/Answers-Aristotle-Science-Philosophy-Meaningful/dp/0465021387 Answers for Aristotle]''. But his greatest claim to skeptical and scientific fame, was that he was the first ever guest on The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

''(laughter)''

M: That's exactly right.

E: As if he needed anything else.

S: That's right. I was just- That's just the cherry on the top, Massimo.

''(laughter)''

S: Massimo, I talk about you a lot actually, in skeptical circles because like you're the one, in my opinion, like the one real philosopher that we have in the skeptical movement. I'm not saying you're the only philosopher, but you're the one who's active. Who's trying to keep the rest of us philosophically honest, if you will.

M: ''(laughter)''

S: And that, that's essentially what your recent book, ''Answers for Aristotle'', is about. So, tell us about it.

M: Yeah, in some sense. It is aimed at the general public, so it's not a technical book. But it is about the relationship between philosophy and science which I think that is something that certainly members of the skeptic movement should be aware of, or a little more sort of cognisant of. But the basic idea of the book is really that this is essentially a self-help book for people who don't believe in self-help books. The basic approach is that, look, when we're dealing with the big questions in life, you know: morality, or relationships, or you know, general views of the world and whatever, where do we get our best hints, our best information about that? I don't think we get them from religion. Common sense is helpful, but up to a certain point. So, it seems to me that the best combination of answers, or at least approaches to those kinds of questions, come from the two most effective traditions of thought in the Western - and possibly the world - history, which are of course science, as far as factual questions are concerned and philosophy, as far as how to reflect on the implications of those factual answers we get from science. So that's what the book is about, it's how to combine science and philosophy in what I sort of jokingly call Sci-Phi - actually, people pronounce it Sci-Fi, but it should be Sci-"Fee", because the second part is P-H-I for philosophy.

S: Sci-Phi?

M: Yeah, that's right. ''(laughter)'' But I think that Sci-Fi was more, I don't know, the publicist thought it was more, sounded better than Sci-Phi.

''(laughter)''

E: Right.

S: Right. Well, then why didn't the Sci-Fi Channel change it's name to Syfy?

M: Yeah, that's a good question!

''(laughter)''

B: That really pissed me off when they did that.

M: Agreed.

S: So, science gives us the facts, as it were, and philosophy tells us how to think about those facts. Is that a fair summary?

M: Well, yeah, it's, of course as you know that's a little, simple version of the whole thing. In reality there is no sharp distinction between science and philosophy. There are many areas of overlap, the most obvious one perhaps is philosophy of science, or, and in fact also {{w|epistemology}}. I mean, there are areas of philosophy that are directly relevant to science, and there are also areas of science that are definitely relevant to philosophy. I mean, one cannot do these days any serious philosophy of mind, for instance, unless one is well read in, you know, neurobiology and current science. So, there's quite a bit more overlap than the simple distinction between science and philosophy. But it is true that, you know, historically speaking and strictly in modern, in the modern academy, the true disciplines have evolved unto quite different directions and yes, broadly speaking, science deals with the best factual information we can get about the world, and philosophy deals with reflecting methods of reflecting about what that, that information tells us.

S: Yeah, so they're complementary intellectual disciplines—

M: Right.

S: —if you will. And, I think what's, I know you've made this point a lot, and I know in your blog as well, and also in our prior discussions that, scientists who think they can answer all questions, with just science, have to first realise, that when doing science they are also practicing philosophy, cause there has to be a philosophical underpinning of science itself.

M: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of the best summaries of that position was actually due to {{w|Daniel Dennett|Dan Dennett}}. As you know, several years ago he wrote ''{{w|Darwin's Dangerous Idea}}'', which is one of the most influential books, in sort of many people's understanding of evolution and implication of Darwinism and so on and so forth. But in that book, as much as that book is, of course, very much science friendly, and does take on-board, you know, evolutionary biology in particular, Dennett points out that there is no such a thing as philosophy-free science, there is only science that takes on-board the philosophy without examining it. No, now, the question is not that scientists should necessarily do philosophy, in fact I would discourage scientists from doing philosophy. Just in the same way in which I would discourage philosophers from doing science. Those are sufficiently separate activities, as I said, that require different skills, and also, by the way, they have developed huge technical literatures of their own so it's really difficult to do both in a reasonable way. But, what I do suggest is that both scientists, as academics, and sort of the general public at large, would be better off by respecting each other's territory and what comes out of the other field, and also being a little bit acquainted with what comes out of the other field.

S: Yeah, so just as, like in the skeptical movement in just, in general, we promote the idea that people should have a basic scientific literacy. Not that they should be able to practice science as a layperson, but just be scientifically literate. But by the same token, people should be philosophically literate as well, not to be able to engage at cutting-edge philosophical technical discussions, but to have some idea when philosophy is in play at least.

M: Correct. So for instance, a little bit of understanding of basic philosophy of science or epistemology for instance, would go quite a long way for skeptics, to develop a better appreciation not just for the power of science, which is, you know, unquestionable within the community, or unquestioned within the community, but also for the limits of science, you know, there is a lot of stuff that science hasn't figured out, maybe will never figure out, you know, there is a lot of— science needs to be seen for what it is: a very powerful, but nonetheless human epistemic activity, based on certain methods, those methods have certain problems and limitations. The skeptic is supposed to be thinking rationally about a broad range of issues and that ought to include, it seems to me, also the functioning of science itself.

S: Is there an area where you most frequently see science or skeptics go wrong when it comes to philosophy as it's relevant to what we do.

M: Oh, that's a great question. ''(laughter)'' I think there's more than one.

''(laughter)''

B: Give me your top three-

J: Slow down, slow down, don't, don't kill us.

M: No no no no. It's- So, one of the, I think, the major areas that I've seen coming up, quite often in the last, especially the last two or three years, is actually the relationship- it's ethics. And what science can or cannot tell us about ethics. There seems to be a lot of confusion about, you know, ethical reasoning and what it is about, and are there moral truths and how do we discover moral truths and all that sort of stuff. And of course, the naïve position among some skeptic quarters is that, well you know, either morality is all about- it's entirely a human invention, so it's essentially one step removed from {{w|moral relativism}}, which most of us don't wanna go to. ''Or'', then if it is about objective facts then those facts have to be of course matters that science can investigate and therefore we're gonna have, you know, you name it, evolutionary biology or neurobiology is gonna give us answers to moral questions. I think that the reality is a lot more complicated than that. I think that evolutionary biology tells us something very important about morality, that neurobiology tells us something very important about morality, but that neither one of those exhaust what, the province essentially of moral philosophy of ethics in general. So, let me give you a quick example: I think that evolutionary biology is absolutely necessary in order to understand where a sense of moral right and wrong comes from. I mean, we evolved it. We are social animals of a particular type and there is no magic behind it, it doesn't come from gods. It evolved over a period of time, the building blocks of a moral sense, a moral intuition if you will, or a moral instinct can be found in other primates and that makes perfect sense. I mean, it would be really bizarre if morality for some reason where the only thing that we cannot find any, sort of, gradual examples or partial examples in other species. So-

S: Yeah, birds have morality. I mean, birds punish each other for not-

M: Yeah.

S: -doing what the group is in the groups best interest. If one bird doesn't warn the others about a predator, then they won't get warned next time around. You know, so that's been-

J: Wow.

S: -demonstrated experimentally.

M: The thing that I quibble a little bit about that, is, I wouldn't go as far as saying that they have morality as in, obviously, as we understand it from a human perspective, meaning they don't have the ability to reply.

E: Dear Duane.

M: But they do have an instinct, that correspond, that if you were to see those actions in a human being, you would say, "oh that's a moral action."

S: Well that, that's, but my point is what you were saying that there are evolutionary antecedents we could see the elements of morality in other species, obviously an elementary form, not in the reflective form that we have, but they have an instinctive notion of reciprocity which informs our ethical senses, right?

M: Exactly, right. From there to neurobiology or the current science in general of moral decision making that also tells you something interesting. It tells you for instance, not only which areas of the brain tend to be involved in moral thinking and that sort of stuff, which is interesting in and of itself, but it tells you something more deep about how we think about morality. For instance, let me give you one example: you probably, you guys probably now have heard a bit about, sort of the different versions of the trolley dilemma.

S: Yeah.

B: Yeah.

M: Two basic forms, as you likely know, are the one in which there is this trolley coming down the road and it's about to hit and kill five people and you have, you happen to have a very convenient located lever next to you, that if you pull you're gonna divert the trolley on a second track where it is gonna kill only one person. Question: would you do it or not? Answer: empirically speaking, most people would say yes. That's interestingly, by the way, cross-cultural, depending on how you present the dilemma, pretty much people will respond in the same way. Eighty or ninety percent of people say yes. Then you switch into a second situation where you don't have the lever, you're on top of a bridge, there's this really bulky, big guy in front of you and the only option you have is to push the guy off the bridge to save the five people. Question: would you do it? Most people answer no. Now, the interesting question there is why would people answer, most people answer, yes to one and no to the other since at least at one level of analysis the two situations are perfectly analogous: in both cases you have five people you're about to save and one person that you're about to kill. Now, turns out that neurobiology sheds some light on this and it's perhaps not surprising, but it's interesting the way it works. It turns out that if you do a brain-scan of, you know, with all the limitations of course of neural scanning and current technology, but if you do a neural scan of people, an FMRI of people, when they are involved in thinking about the two versions of the dilemma, in the first case, the lever case, people tend to involve the areas of the brain, like the frontal cortex, that are involved typically in sort of rational, deliberate decision making. On the other hand, when people are thinking in terms of the second version of the dilemma, the pushing guy off of the bridge, a lot of the action switches to the amygdala, which of course is more connected to emotional reactions and fear and things like the sort. Now, that makes perfect sense, because basically the second version of the dilemma is much more personal. You're about to actually push somebody, as opposed to do something from a distance, like pulling a lever. So it makes perfect sense that people switch ways of thinking, they use different neural pathways essentially to think about this. That is very interesting and without the science we wouldn't find out why exactly people are doing that. The question however still remains, should you or should you not push the damn guy off the bridge?

S: Yeah.

M: Right.

J: I think an interesting way to look at it too are "what about the social ramifications." Like, you're gonna, you're actually breaking the law if you push the guy off the bridge, even though you're not gonna get arrested for not saving people's lives. Does that come into play?

M: Uh, it does, depending again, as I said earlier, there is a lot of different variants of the thought experiment, and yes, some of those do involve information about the, you know, consequences and if you, of course, were in moral philosophy, it's called a {{w|Consequentialism|consequentialist}} or {{w|Utilitarianism|utilitarian}} view, you will take those into account as well. But the basic version doesn't include those, and it's one of the things that comes out interestingly, for instance from the cognitive science literature, is that there is a small minority of people who do not change their mind, who both will push- uh, you know, pull the lever and push the guy off the bridge. Turns out that psychologically speaking those people corresponds to a somewhat sociopathic profile.

S: Mm-hmm.

M: Those are people that essentially do not engage with the amygdala, they don't engage the emotional reaction, they just think rationally about the whole thing. The reason I brought that up is because, so, now we have an evolutionary account of how we got morality to begin with, we have a neurobiological account of, we ''begin'' to have a neurobiological account of how we actually engage in that sort of thinking, and all of this is very interesting. The thing that we still need to deal with, however, is, okay, in interesting, complex, real-life situations, what are we ought to do, and now I think is where the philosophy, the interesting philosophy, comes in, because of course there are hundreds of years of discussions among philosophers that have been able to frame moral dilemmas according to two or three major ways of thinking about it. One is the one that I mentioned a minute ago, the utilitarian or consequentialist view. There is also the {{w|Ontology|ontological}} thinking which is based on rules essentially, and then there is the {{w|Virtue ethics}} thinking that is based on sort of character development, of what is the right thing to do in terms of what is the right person you wanna develop into. Anyway, those three frameworks help you think about the dilemma in a way that might lead you to reach a conclusion or consider a conclusion based on reason, so you go beyond your instinctual reaction, you go beyond what your amygdala is telling you and you think about it and say "well, wait a minute, here's the situation, here's what the right thing to do is and here's why."

S: Then there are those people like {{w|Sam_Harris_(author)|Sam Harris}}, who I know you have engaged with at least on your blog, who argue that: if we had enough scientific information, that could answer moral questions for us, essentially. You've pretty much explained what's wrong with that answer, but how have you responded to Sam Harris' position.

M: Well, let me give you a simple analogy. Imagine instead of talking about moral decision making, we're talking about mathematical abilities, right? So, how is it that people have developed, human beings have developed the ability to solve mathematical problems. Well, again, you got the same three sort of answers. From an evolutionary perspective it probably was useful at some point or another to start counting or to start thinking in terms of very simple abstract mathematical entities that helped our survival. That's of course speculation, we don't really have access to the relevant information, ecologically speaking, but it's very likely that something like that happened. Now, today you could put somebody that's, say, who's trying to prove {{w|Fermat's Last Theorem}}, you can put him under an FMRI-scan and you can figure out how active different areas of the brain are, and so on and so forth. There is one thing however, that neither this scan, nor the evolutionary story can actually tell you and that is "is the guy getting the proof of the Theorem right?"

S: "Is two plus two four?"

M: Yeah.

S: Well, Massimo. Thanks for joining us again on the show, it's always a pleasure, it always seems like it goes by faster and we're just scratching the surface. But for our listeners, ''Answers to Aristotle'', just tell us about that title for a second, because that's interesting.

M: Aristotle is in fact the philosopher that is most widely quoted or referred to in the book, and there is a reason for that. Aristotle was the first guy in the Western tradition, that really was doing exactly what a (GARBLED) book is about. He was doing philosophy, he is known for establishing the foundations of logic for writing the first comprehensive book about ethics and so on and so forth. But he also was doing science, I mean, most people don't realize this but Aristotle was actually doing field biology of a way on the island of Lesbos, among other places. And he was trying to figure out, okay, was interested in, for instance, shells and he was there and he was collecting samples and looking at things. Now, he got a lot of stuff wrong (inaudible) idea that we got answers for the questions that he asked that he certainly did not have access to. But he does embody the spirit of the book. He was the guy that figured out that "look, you need both factual questions and to ways reflect on the meaning of those questions," and that is sort of the science and philosophy combination in the broadest possible sense.

S: Well, thanks again Massimo!

J: Thanks Massimo.

B: Thank you.

M: It was a pleasure as usual.

== Science or Fiction <small>(1:01:19)</small> ==
''Voiceover: It's time for Science or Fiction''

S: Each week I come up with three science or news items or facts, two genuine and one fictitious. Then I challenge my panel of skeptics to tell me which one they think is the fake. Now before we get started this week, because this is the first Science or Fiction of 2013, I do have the stats, the full Science or Fiction stats, from last year.

E: Eurgh

S: These were sent to us by Cat, from sgutranscripts.org, so thanks Cat. So, here they are for 2012: Bob had played 47 games, lost 19, won 28 for a total of 59.6%.

B: Eurgh, damn.

S: Evan played 50, 25 and 25, exactly 50%.

E: Wow, I think wow, that's pretty good.

S: Jay also played 50, lost 26, won 24 so just shy of Even at 48%. I played 7, lost 3 and won 4 so am at 57.1%, just behind Bob and Rebecca played 44, lost 17, won 27 for a total of 61.4%.

E: Wow.

S: Just edged out Bob.

B: Nice.

S: Congratulations Rebecca.

R: Thank you.

B: Congratulations.

R: Thank you.

J: Overall we're way above average.

E: That was...

S: All doing better than random guessing.

B: Yeah but...

R: Hooray.

B: Rebecca and I did worse than last year though.

R: Yeah. I felt dumber this year.

E: Jay and I picked up the slack though.

B: How could I start off so well and then totally tank it?

S: Regression to the mean. Randomness.

J: Evan, our goal for this year, better than 50%.

E: You bet...

S: OK.

E: You bet buddy.

S: It's a brand new year though, guys. Are you all ready?

E: Clean slate.

S: We do have a theme for this week.

''(laughter)''

R: God damn it.

S: This theme... ''(laughter)'' this theme is dedicated to Jay. It's all about little babies.

R, B, E: Aw

J: OK

S: Prepare Jay for his...

R: Because Jay's a giant baby?

S: Yeah, for his upcoming...

E: Oh, is that what you mean?

S: ... child to be born in a few weeks.

R: Oh my...

''(overlapping comments)''

S: Hope all goes well. OK...

E: So excited.

S: Here we are - [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130101182012.htm item number one] - a study finds that maternal use of anti-depressants during pregnancy is associated with a greater risk of {{w|sudden infant death syndrome}} [SIDS]. [http://www.plu.edu/news/2012/12/infant-language/ Item number two] - a new study concludes that babies start learning language in the womb. And [http://news.temple.edu/news/2012-12-13/let-crying-babes-lie-study-supports-notion-leaving-infants-cry-themselves-back-sleep item number three] - new research finds that for most babies it is better to leave them alone when they cry at night rather than comforting them. Jay, 'cos this is a theme in your honor, you get to go first.

J: The first one, about the study that says that mothers that took anti-depressants while they were pregnant - that's interesting that it increases SIDS. Now I do know that SIDS... SIDS is when the baby stops breathing and I thought that that had to do with temperature. OK, the second one about the babies learning language in the womb, I believe that one is correct. I think that they can hear their mothers' voices before they're born and they can identify their mother's voice and actually start to pick up language. So I think that one is science and the third one, the last one about— it's better to leave most babies and let them cry at night instead of comforting them - I'm not sure about that. Now this one, of course Steve's not going to answer questions but, a new born baby absolutely needs to be fed on a regular basis and one of the reasons why a baby cries is because it wants to be fed. It could be just hungry, which, you should feed a hungry baby. The whole crying baby thing, to me, you gotta go in, you gotta check on the baby and feed them. But for some reason I'm thinking here Steve that because you're gonna be leaving the baby alone in a room that this could be later maybe not a newborn. I'm gonna say that because of how vague that third one is, I'm gonna say that the first one, the one about SIDS is the fake.

S: OK, Bob?

B: The babies start learning language in the womb, yeah that just makes sense. I would expect that the unborn baby can hear it's mother's voice. I remember reading a while back about how babies can recognize their mothers' voices soon after birth. It just makes sense that they would become accustomed to the language and be primed and ready to go right out of the gate so to speak, so that makes sense to me. Leaving crying babies alone, yeah that was the conventional wisdom 12, 14 years ago when I had an infant in the house. After Ashley was born it was pretty much - a lot of people were saying that, and it makes a lot of sense, you know the baby wakes up, there's some separation anxiety and if the parents come rushing in then the baby will get used to that and expect it all the time and if they can get used to waking up, being alone then going back to sleep, bam, perfect, that's what the baby will do. So that makes a lot of sense too so considering that two and three make so much sense to me, I just don't think that you could say that mothers who have had babies who died of SIDS, I just don't think you'd have a decent percentage of them that would be on anti-depressants. Yeah, I'm going to say the SIDS is fiction.

S: OK, Rebecca?

R: Ah, yeah. I don't know, but the one about leaving babies alone when they cry at night - there's like a huge can of worms in the parenting blogs and forums - I feel like that's one of those things that...

E: You read those?

R: I have friends who are parents who get involved in the mommy blogs and stuff - yeah, like that's for the past 30 years or so, that's been a huge thing - there's even a title for it, like it's a parenting style that's specifically based on remaining fairly detached from your children in the hopes that they will learn to fend for themselves. And everything that I've read, which admittedly is not a ton because I don't have a kid and I'm not planning to have one any time soon, but everything that I've read suggests that it's BS, that like Jay said, when the baby cries it's crying for a reason go pick it up. So I'm going to say that's the fiction.

S: And Evan?

E: Oh, everyone made very good cases for all of these. Bob, you, I think you hit on the SIDS one, anti-depressants during pregnancy associated with a greater risk of sudden infant death syndrome. Anti-depressants being more prescribed these days than they were way back when, but there was still SIDS occurring way back when so I'm thinking that that one's the fiction. But Rebecca, you brought up a good point, good points about the crying. Rebecca I hate to leave you alone out there I'm going to go with what my first instinct way I'm going to say that the SIDS is the fiction.

S: OK so... I'm a little surprised that you guys all believe that a new study concludes that babies start learning language in the womb is science.

E: Spanish or French?

B: Why?

S: You guys all believe that one - I don't know, that one struck me as being a little out there but that one is science.

B: Why did you think that one was out there?

R: That was the most obvious one to me.

J: Steve I read that one and I was talking to my wife Courtney about it and she goes "ah, I don't know that sounds like BS to me".

S: Yeah.

J: Which I thought was funny 'cos now it's on our game here.

S: It just struck me as like really, really? Alright, but this is true a study does conclude this, I'm not sure how much I totally buy the conclusion and this is the first time a study has shown that newborns are not naïve to the language of their mother.<ref> Moon, Lagercrantz & Kuhl (2013), [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/apa.12098/abstract Language experienced in utero affects vowel perception after birth: a two-country study], Acta Paediatrica, 102:2</ref> What the researcher did, this is Christine Moon, professor of psychology at Pacific Lutheran University, they studied infants that were just hours old and the research paradigm's interesting. They had them suck on a pacifier that was attached to a computer and when they sucked on the pacifier ''(laughter)'' - hang on - they sucked on the pacifier it would...

E: Ten thousand volts.

S: It would play a recording of vowels from either their mothers' native language or a foreign language.

B: Interesting.

S: And it would play for as long as they sucked and then when they stopped sucking it would stop and then when they started sucking again it would play a different vowel.

B: They sucked more.

S: So the question was would they listen more to the vowels...

B: Parent language.

S: From their parent language or their mothers' language specifically or from a foreign language and with the idea, and this was a paradigm used in other research, that they would listen longer to vowels that they were not familiar with.

B: Oh, interesting.

S: Because they were novel, the brain's like "hey, this is new, I've got to pay attention to this", not "oh this is something I've been hearing for months", you know? And in fact they found that the infants did listen longer, based upon their sucking on this pacifier, to vowel sounds from foreign languages than to their mothers' language.

R: But what if they found the mothers' language more soothing so wanted to listen to it longer?

B: Yeah.

S: As I said, this is, you've got to buy every link in this chain

R: Yeah, dumb, it's dumb.

S: You know, to buy this. But the thing is any difference, any difference you can take that they're not naïve and it was not that they're listening to sounds of their ''mother'', just vowels from their mothers' language or a foreign language. So any difference would— means that they're getting something, you know, if you believe the difference itself, if the data itself is compelling. Definitely the kind of study that I'd like to see replicated and looked at from different angles but that was what this study concluded.

E: Great.

S: Let's go to number one, a study finds that maternal use of anti-depressants during pregnancy is associated with a greater risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Rebecca thinks this one is science, the rest of you think this one is the fiction and this one is... the fiction.

B, E, J: ''(sounds of celebration)''

B: Yeah baby.

R: Not a good start.

B: One hundred, one hundred percent.

S: Ah so yeah, this one is interesting. So first of all, the news item that I was basing this on showed the opposite - the use of anti-depressants during pregnancy not linked with increased risk of still birth, infant death or other bad outcomes so that's very nice. And I did do a little research on, you know, 'cos I said let me just say the opposite and then I did some research just on SIDS and specifically what the literature shows is that depression in the mother is associated with increased risk of SIDS and in fact this leads to a recommendation that mothers be treated for their depression...

B: Interesting, woah.

S: In the hopes that it would decrease the risk of SIDS if anything, because untreated depression is a risk factor that has been identified for sudden infant death syndrome. Now SIDS still remains a little mysterious, you know, it's not like we completely understand exactly what is happening. We've identified lots of factors that increase or decrease the risk and it's thought that, you know, that they essentially they stop breathing. And over the years I've read so many different things like, you know, it's good if they're in the room with the parents because maybe the higher CO2 content drives the infant's respiration more. There are some drugs that are associated with an increased risk of SIDS and those are more for breast feeding now, not antenatal. So for breast feeding mothers, anti-depressants are still fine but you want to avoid anything that would be sedating. So Valium-like drugs are not good, lithium was also another one that was identified. So drugs that could pass through to the infant through breast feeding and can cause sedation will increase the risk of SIDS. The bottom line is if you're breast feeding, your OB should know every medication that you're taking, and you need to talk to them about is this something that would get passed through the breast milk to the infant and what risk or effects might it have. So don't just take— breast feeding is actually... you're still linked to the infant, you know, biologically. It's actually more metabolically demanding on the mother than being pregnant, breast feeding, you still need to take that very seriously. Alright, which means, new research finds that for most babies it is better to leave them alone when they cry at night rather than comfort them is science. Now, Rebecca, you're right in that this is a controversy and there's two sides, there's two schools of thought here. There's the... if you comfort them they'll feel reassured and more secure and if you leave them alone to cry they'll feel abandoned then the other side is what Bob articulated which is , kids need to learn, babies need to learn how to sooth themselves, if you run to them every time you hear them cry you're re-enforcing the behaviour, the crying, and they're not going to learn how to sooth themselves and that is essentially what this latest round now in this controversy has shown. Researchers have found that babies need to learn how to sooth themselves back to sleep. This is also based partly on the notion that infants have a sleep cycle just like everyone else, just like adults, and that sleep cycle involves, you know, going into deeper stages of sleep and then coming into lighter sleep, kind of waking up and then drifting off back to sleep again, that's natural. If the child is fussy or is, you know, upset at all when it wakes up it might cry during that stage of its sleep but that's perfectly normal for it to be quote unquote awake, you know, at that time and what the researchers found is that for some babies, again not for everyone but for some, that they were better sleepers later on in life, meaning like eighteen months, you know, two years, if they were allowed to sooth themselves back to sleep and that those babies whose parents picked them up every time they cried, that they had delayed learning of self-soothing and had a worse sleep later on. So, good job guys.

R: Meuhh.

S: Of to an ironic start, given that Rebecca won last year and...

E: Watch, she'll sweep the table the rest of the year.

S: Yeah, it's, hey, it's an endurance test, you know?

R: Yeah, it's a marathon.

S: It's like one basket in basketball, doesn't mean that much.

B: It's a marathon but right now you're in last place.

== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:16:01)</small> ==

S: So Jay, do you have a quote for us this week?

J: I have a quote that was sent in by a listener named Jim O'Rourke and this is a quote from one of my absolute favorite science popularists.

<blockquote>Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend things which are there.</blockquote>

E: Hmm.

J: Does that sound like anybody?

E: Arthur Clarke?

J: Nope. {{w|Richard Feynman}}.

B: Ah.

S: Richard Feynman.

B: He's got a lot of good quotes.

S: Yeah, he's very quotable.

J: Richard Feynman!

(laughter)

== Announcements ==
=== The Yellow Cab of the Universe <small>(1:16:34)</small> ===
* [http://www.yellowcabuniverse.com/ yellowcabuniverse.com]

J: A listener of our show emailed us and said that we had inspired him in part to create something that I looked into and I thought was one of the best things that I had found in 2012 as far as a learning tool, an entertainment tool. The listeners name is Eduardo Galvani and we started chit-chatting, he wrote a book for the iPad, it's called ''The Yellow Cab of the Universe'' whcih you could see how we may have inspired him. I loved it, I downloaded it, he gave me, he invited me to download his book, I did, it ended up— it's one of the best books I have ever downloaded on my iPad, it's amazingly interactive and it goes into a very simple yet very eloquent explanation of the universe and of the cosmos, it's just fantasic, this book is something that you could do with your kids I think as an after Christmas present, you know you want to buy something that you could do with your children that would really capture their attention, the book just keeps going on and on, the content is fantastic. He's, with his daughter, he's asking his daughter about her school, and she said "I don't like science, it's too boring," and it really bothered him, it shocked him, and he started to think "what's wrong? It's not the science, the science is incredible, it's the way that it's being taught," and he realised very soon after that that he had to create an interactive book, it all kind of gelled in his head, and he did. I don't recommend things often, I have absolutely zero stake in this other than I really am interested in having people spend time with their children and educate their kids on science, this is it, guys. This is one of those things that I think could really influence a young kid's mind to understand, not only understand the universe, understand science and have an interest in something that's important for the future. So you can go to his website, [http://www.yellowcabuniverse.com/ yellowcabuniverse.com], and that'll tell you everything that you need to know, you could also look it up in the iTunes store. Do it, enjoy it, and if you really liked it, send me an email and let me know what you think and tell me what your child's reaction was to it, I'd be curious to know what they got out of it.

S: All right, thanks Jay. And thanks for joining me all this week.

R: Thank you, Steve.

B: Thank you, Steve.

E: Thank you, Steve.

J: Happy new year to you and everybody, guys.

E: Happy new year, let's have a good one.

R: Happy new year.

S: Happy new year. Looking forward to a great 2013 and until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

{{Outro1}}

== References ==
<references/>

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SGU Episode 390

2014-06-29T16:40:14Z

Teleuteskitty: proof-read to 1:16

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|evan = y
|guest1 = M: Massimo Pigliucci
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2013-01-05.mp3
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,44595.0.html
|qowText = Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend things which are there.
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman Richard Feynman]
|}}

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

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, January 2, 2013, 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: I have come to chew bubble gum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubble gum.

J: Evan, can you say that again, but do it twice as corny.

''(laughter)''

R: Yeah, no.

B: Impossible!

R: You're no Rowdy Roddy Piper.

E: Right? ''They Live.'' That movie. Gosh. Is that one of the worst movies ever?

B and R: Worst?

R: It's one of the best movies ever, are you kidding?

B: Oh, god, I love it.

J: It's a cult classic. I mean, yeah, it didn't hold up as good as I would have liked, but it's still

B: Oh, what doesn't hold up?

J: Whatever. It's still great. It's still good.

R: It's awesome.

B: The best bare-knuckled brawl I think in any movie.

E: I'm sorry. Look, I get campy and I get, you know, yes, I get the brawl scene. It was rated like one of the best brawl scenes in movie history and so forth. Rowdy Roddy Piper, John Carpenter directed it and all that. I'm sorry. That movie had so many flaws to it. I mean if we were ever to do a review of that movie, oh man, we could do a whole episode on that.

S: Maybe we should.

E: Maybe we should.

R: Yeah. I will defend that movie with my life.

''(laughter)''

E: All right. I'm gonna be your Gene Siskel to your Roger Ebert or vice versa, or whatever.

R: Oh, boy.

J: Steve, I'm getting a feeling like in the back of my head. I feel like I'm predicting that we're gonna do a show on predictions.

S: I know, I think you're right, Jay.

B: Damn, you're good.

E: One of these days.

S: It's a high probability hit.

== This Day in Skepticism <small>(1:43)</small> ==
* January 5, 1940: FM radio first commercial broadcast

S: But first, Rebecca's gonna tell us about January 5th.

R: Happy birthday, FM radio!

J: Awesome!

E: To all the kids out there.

J: What does the "F" in FM stand for?

R: Frequency.

B: {{w|Frequency modulation}}

J: Thank you.

R: Yes, sort of. You could probably pick any number of dates for the birthdate of FM radio, but on January 5, 1940, the first network program was broadcast on FM radio. It was called "Colonel Harrison Featherbottom and the Fart Man's Morning Zoo Hour."

''(laughter)''

E: What? No, it wasn't.

B: No way. I don't believe it.

J: I love it!

E: . . . skeptic.

R: Okay, that's not what it was called. But it was a 60-minute show that was designed to showcase several different types of audio and vocals and stuff that would eventually be broadcast. The show traveled from a station in Yonkers, New York that was operated by one C.R. Runyon, to a transmitter in Alpine, New Jersey operated by {{w|Edwin_Howard_Armstrong|Major Edwin Armstrong}} of Columbia University, who was heading up the effort; and then onto Meriden, Connecticut; Paxton, Massachusetts; and then finally Mount Washington, where it was transmitted by telelphone wire to Boston and then back to Yonkers. By all reports the FM broadcasts were found to have no apparent loss of quality. So, it was given the thumbs up. The first FM stations that had regular scheduling, programming, appeared later that year. FM.

J: That's cool.

S: Yeah. So, Jay, frequency modulation, that's how the information is encoded in the carrier wave, by modulating the frequency of a signal. As opposed to AM, which is amplitude modulation, they modify the amplitude of the signal.

E: Thank you, Dr. Marconi.

S: Right. And the FM band simply refers to, the FM has nothing to do with any frequency range itself, any band, but that's just the band that's assigned in various countries to transmit FM signals over. So in the U.S. and most places it's 87.5 to 108.0 megahertz.

== News Items ==
=== Psychic Predictions for 2012 <small>(3:51)</small>===
* The Rogues review predictions for last year and make some new ones for 2013

S: Well, as Jay way saying, as Jay predicted, this is our psychic predictions review episode. The first episode of every year we look back and see how did the psychics fare in predicting events of 2012.

B: Horribly.

E: As expected, though.

S: All right, so do you guys have your favorite psychic that you looked back over to see how they did?

E: Anyone else take Nikki because, you know.

R: I decided to skip Nikki this year.

S: She's always a favorite though.

J: She's awesome. She's the funniest.

R: Awesomely stupid.

E: Awesomely awful.

J: Yeah, but this year after reading, going through her stuff, I think she's either delusional or she's just shotgunning.

S: Or both. These are not mutually exclusive.

J: That's right.

S: She made like 180-something predictions. That's, by definition, shotgunning.

J: All right, so, I got, "More laser attacks against planes".

E: Oooo.

R: ''More'' laser attacks.

J: Yes, ''more'' laser attacks. That's what I thought was funny about that.

R: You mean like little kids with laser pointers?

S: Yes.

R: They're a menace to society.

S: Using laser pointers to blind pilots, yes.

J: I got, "Weird weather conditions worldwide, including snow in Hawaii, Las Vegas, and in the Caribbean".

S: Yeah, remember that snowstorm we had when we were in Las Vegas for TAM?

E: (laughs)

J: Giant prehistoric sea monsters under the sea.

E: As opposed to what, floating in the air?

S: Also, some of her predictions are not even sentences.

J: Yeah.

E: Yeah.

J: They're just snippets. Yeah. "Major UFO sightings, all over the world". Nope, that didn't happen.

E: "Earth will fall off its axis a little more"

J: Yeah, right?

E: What?

S: More than what?

E: Exactly.

J: I like how she, then this one goes, "A possible landing of a spaceship". Now, what does that really mean? A ''possible'' landing.

R: Like the Mars rover?

S: Well, we landed {{w|Curiosity (rover)|Curiosity}} on Mars.

E: Yeah.

R: I'm gonna call that a hit.

E: Okay. Hey, Nikki!

R: Good job, Nikki.

E: It's your first time ever.

J: Guys, guys. "A disabled man attempts to go around the world in his wheelchair".

E: What?

B: Oh, boy.

''(laughter)''

S: Is this a manual or one of those electronic wheelchairs? A power wheelchair.

J: Steve, tell me what's wrong with this one. "A huge pandemic, worldwide".

''(laughter)''

S: As opposed to a pandemic that's not worldwide, yeah.

E: A localized pandemic. Highly localized.

J: Now here are two that prove that she doesn't understand science at all. Ready? Earth will fall off its axis a little more,

S: You already said that.

E: Yeah, we did that.

J: Or, "A hole in the Earth's core".

S: A hole in the Earth's core, right.

B: Whoa, what the. . . what does that even mean?

R: A hollow earth thing, maybe?

B: A vacuum in the center of the Earth.

J: Bob, don't worry about that hole, because "The holy grail will be found".

S: The holy grail will be found.

E: I didn't know it was lost!

S: She wrote "problems with the Earth's magnetic fields."

''(laughter)''

B: Oh, nice.

S: What kind of problems?

J: Well, it must be that the city of Hong Kong is on fire, Steve, that threw off the magnetic fields, 'cause that's another one of her predictions.

S: Yeah.

J: "City of Hong Kong on fire".

R: Did that happen?

S: All of it?

J: No. All of it. City of Hong Kong. On fire.

S: It is funny when scientifically illiterate alleged psychics make science-related predictions. Like a hole in the Earth's core. Really?

J: Here's another good one. "Multiple rainbows in the sky, all over the world, within a 24 to 48-hour period".

B: Oh, no. Oh, my god.

R: That happened, too! I saw that, that double rainbow video.

S: Double rainbow!

E: What the heck is that?

B: Double rainbows are magnificent, though. I saw one last, like, two years ago. Oh my god, it's just mesmerizing.

E: We got tripped up on a science or fiction with that triple rainbow, remember?

J and S: Yeah.

E: Sucked.

J: Guys, how 'bout "a famous racehorse will be kidnapped"?

''(laughter)''

E: What, Man-o-War?

S: That was a Sherlock Holmes short story.

J: A meteorite shower hitting the Earth.

''(laughter)''

E: Oh, Nikki, Nikki. Go back to whatever your job was before.

S: Sometime in August. And then again in November. What are the odds?

J: But, and we're only reading a few, but when you read through, she'll get onto a quickie mini-theme inside her predictions. As if she just banged them out at her desk one afternoon.

E: Or her assistant did.

J: Like she'll get on to the theme of earthquakes and then she'll list like four earthquakes. As if, "Oh, yeah, earthquakes!" and then she writes more earthquake ones.

S: Earthquake in Russia. Yeah, I'm pretty sure there was an earthquake somewhere in Russia this year. Probably more than one. I covered psychic Roxanne, did any of you guys do Roxanne from spiritnow.com?

B: No.

R: Uh uh. I don't think I have Roxanne.

S: She has different, this is Roxanne Usleman Hulderman.

E: And her orchestra.

S: Yup, and her orchestra. She has different categories, and I'm just gonna go over the two categories that were most interesting. I didn't do like the celebrity predictions, who cares. These are her "spiritual" predictions. I'm not even sure what makes these spiritual, but here we go. "Einstein's predictions about the honey bees proves correct. They are becoming extinct, indicating it is the beginning of the end of the world."

B: Oh. Einstein?

E: ''(singing)'' Beginning of the end!

S: So I'm like, Einstein? Really? Einstein predicted that honey bees would become extinct? So I looked that up, and . . .

E: Joe Einstein.

S: there is a quote attributed to Albert Einstein that ''if'' the honey bees became extinct, mankind would become extinct within years. You know, by four years later. Just emphasizing how important bees were to humans.

E: And how important the preposition "if" is.

''(laughter)''

S: Yes. He didn't predict that they would become extinct. ''And'' it's not even sure if Einstein said that quote. It's not really sourced. He could have said it, but nobody knows. It was attributed to him, but, anyway.

B: Yeah, you know what that means.

S: Her number two. "Extra Terrestrials" - two words - "help to evolve our consciousness, uplifting our human vibration". Jay, was your vibration uplifted?

J: Well, from the waist down, yes.

S: Okay.

R: Wait. I found a thing about vibration, too. In a different psychic's predictions.

S: Yeah?

J: I heard that, too, Rebecca. I heard vibrations brought up quite a bit.

R: Okay, so, I watched the psychic twins video.

J: Oh, yeah.

S: Oh, yeah.

R: Terry and Linda Jamison.

E: Oh, yeah. I kicked their butt last year. Ha! Too bad nobody saw it.

R: They were hilariously wrong. They started off their "What's gonna happen in 2012" vodcast, podcast, I guess it was a podcast actually, just listing like all these horrific things that were gonna happen in 2012. Just like, it was just gonna be the absolute worst year for life on Earth, and amongst those, they predicted terrorist attacks in Boston, Florida, in Texas, New York, Detroit. They said that major schools would be victimized by young terrorists, which, I'm sure they're going to call a win, for last week.

S: Yeah.

E: They should be very proud of themselves.

R: They say that there would be major cyber attacks by people in China and Russia. There'd be a Chinese attack on the telephone systems. That's a direct quote. However, according to the medium Allie Cheslick, who was interviewing them about their predictions, all these things could have been thwarted only if people raise their own level of vibration.

J: Right.

S: Um hm.

R: So, apparently, we all did a really good job, raising our level of vibration to the point where none of those things, not, they weren't just thwarted by authorities, they just never actually happened.

E: Oh, those would be good vibrations.

B: I love when they give themselves their own out. You know, if it doesn't come true,

R: Right.

B: well, luckily everyone, you know, messed with, played with their vibrations. Win-win!

J: I'm not afraid to admit that they did get a couple of things right, I mean, you're supposed to, statistically, when you throw out as many predictions as these people do.

B: Oh, yeah.

J: Like they did say that there were gonna be lone wolf attacks in schools. And it did happen.

S: But that's just, again, that's a high probability thing. It's like "another Columbine's gonna happen ''some''time". Sure.

R: Right. Thanks for nothing.

S: Yeah. Somewhere by somebody. No details. It seems specific, but it really isn't, so that's one of the strategies. So, it's a high probability prediction, ''and'' there's so much shotgunning going around that of course two or three are gonna be glancing blows. So, next under her spiritual predictions, the "North and South poles reverse their positions.

E: I've heard that a lot of times.

S: Here we go. "Spiritual evolvement." Evolvement.

''(laughter)''

E: What? ''E''volvement?

S: Evolvement. I don't know why she didn't use "evolution." On this third dimension expands the fight between good and evil.

J: Now what does that mean, that weapons are being introduced? Like, what does that mean?

S: So, we're fighting the good fight against evil more and more. On the third dimension. Which is good, because her next prediction is that the third and fourth dimension begin to merge.

E: Oh, good! Finally!

B: I hate when that happens.

E: It's like when peanut butter and chocolate come together, it's good stuff!

S: But—

B: Don't you dare ''(inaudible)''

S: Hold onto your hats, now. With the great pyramids in Egypt being destroyed, you guys remember when that happened, right?

J & E: Yeah.

B: I missed it.

S: The entire planet's magnetic force shifts, symbolizing the end of times, then and only then do we realize that the pyramids have been holding our planet together.

J: Oh!

E: Oh, like a linchpin.

S: Yeah.

B: It's so clear in retrospect.

R: Yeah.

S: And her final one under that category is "Humans turning evermore towards spirituality" which is actually not happening.

J: Yeah, that's another theme that I kept hearing. The world is becoming more spiritual.

S: The environmental events around the globe, lots of high probability, "there's gonna be earthquakes." An earthquake impacts the state of Washington and California. What are the odds? Of an earthquake occurring in a major earthquake belt. All right, but here's my favorite of all of her predictions. "A solar star dwarf from the sun, breaking off, causing damage to the earth".

''(general excitement and confusion)''

B: Oh, my god.

R: Our sun? That could happen?

J: A solar star dwarf, like, what is that?

S: Right?

E: Phil Plait's gonna have to add a chapter to his book, I think.

''(laughter)''

S: Right! Yeah, a dwarf star apparently is gonna break away from our sun and that is going to damage the earth, which, I imagine it would. If that actually happened. It's like, is she flipping through a science book and just pulling out terms at random without understanding what they are.

B: Does she mean like a coronal mass ejection? Is that what she means?

E: Bob. Bob, you're given her w—a-a-a-a-y too much credit.

J: Bob, the only corona she knows is the beer

S: No, because the next prediction is "solar flares causing power outages", which I read on multiple psychics' lists. Solar flares causing power outages. Again, it's the kind of thing, like scientists say "this could happen someday" so they just pick up on that. It's a high probability prediction. "A contagious disease born of our environmental carelessness affects the world". Another pandemic prediction.

B: Nice. Solar star dwarf.

S: And then finally "Global environmental destruction connected with the end of times Mayan calendar". Wah-wah-waaah.

''(laughter)''

S: So there we go, psychic Roxanne.

R: You know, the psychic twins had another great prediction for 2012. They predicted that there would not be any hurricanes in 2012 that were as bad as the previous year. So no hurricanes as bad as Irene. Kind of missed the mark there. The interviewer, Allie Cheslick, predicted that the twins would have their own television show by March 20th of last year, which, I don't think happened.

J: No. The twins also said that it would take a miracle for Obama to get re-elected.

S: Well, I guess a miracle happened.

E: Well, there you go.

R: It's a miracle!

E: Proof that miracles happen.

B: I've got a few here. I've got a couple from two different psychics. One's Janet Russell, who's a Long Island-based intuitive spiritual medium/psychic. She's also the host of a New York top cable access show, ''Beyond the Unexplained''. And how someone like her can have their own TV show and we don't, I don't understand it. But she's known for her accuracy and honesty. She says "we'll be using solar energies instead of the old standby of gas and electric". Solar energies, in plural, which is very odd. And then, this one tickled me. She goes "and yes, the government will admit that we do have contact with other beings in other dimensions"! You know, it's not good enough that there are other beings, aliens or whatever, but they're also in another dimension. Just to make it, just the icing on the cake, you know. Different dimension.

R: I read Janet Russell's predictions as well, and my favorite one, I think,

B: Which one?

R: Okay, there were two. One was "People will be airing their dirty laundry on teleservices. This way they will have a constant audience." ''(laughing)'' What does that mean?

S: The last teleservice

R: I don't know. And the thing is, like, she's so obviously out of touch because my other favorite one was "I feel that one state will be open to alternative lifestyle and people will move to that state because they feel more comfortable." What? What does that mean, alternative? Does that mean gay marriage, does it mean pot? Because we have those things in several states. It's ... I don't know.

B: She just has her finger on the pulse of culture. There was another psychic, Nancy Bradley. Apparently, this psychic has 98.6% accuracy.

R: Wow

E: Wow

B: For 2011, so—

E: Take that temperature!

B: My first reaction was, well, yeah, that's total baloney. But then I read her predictions. Listen to these two. "Six more Hollywood icons will leave us in 2012, and two major music stars as well". What are the odds of people dying in 2012? That just kind of blew my mind a bit. Here's another one: "more protests across the world, and the U.S. as well, sit-ins as people stand up, much bloodshed". Wow. Who could have foreseen that?

E: Geez. People shedding blood.

B: And then she

S: Yeah, some psychics definitely go with the vague high probability hit.

B: Oh, my god.

S: I was reading a couple that did that. It's like "there will be protests in Egypt." Look! ''(laughter)'' Really?

B: And then she throws in one of these little sciencey ones that are kinda whacky: "a shift in the equator will be discovered and will change some of the weather patterns for countries on it." ''(laughter)'' A shift in the equator. I hate when that happens!

S: The equator shifts. Does she mean the continents ''on'' the equator?

B: Who knows what she meant? ''(laughter continues)'' It could mean anything.

E: The equator shifts! That's the best!

B: She could be referring to that solar dwarf star thing. ''(laughter still continues)''

S: But, guys, that was the best, right? The solar dwarf coming out of our sun.

E: Is it wearing a crown?

J: Wait, but Bob, Nancy Bradley also said "More aquatic ocean and lake animals make their way onto shore. Octopus, fish, etc. Also, as I told you last year, more species thought to be extinct are coming back, including those considered mystical, those that many thought never existed are coming back."

R: The unicorn, for instance. ''(overlapping excited comments)''

S: What about the events that psychics failed to predict for 2012?

B: Oh, yeah. That was easy.

J: How many do you want? I have plenty of 'em here.

B: Well, Hurricane Sandy, first of all. You'd think, you know, such a huge weather event. Somebody, somewhere—

S: And it's in their sweet spot!

B: Just one person.

S: They're predicting tsunamis and earthquakes, and they can't get that one hurricane right? Come on.

J: The shooting in Sandy Hook, Connecticut.

R: Although the psychic twins claim that –

E: Yeah, some will claim that they did that.

J: In order for them claim, and I thought about it, because they did make a lone gunman prediction. But, seriously, like that's just not good enough. Like you have to say more, it has to be more specific. If somebody said—

B: You need two things, Jay. You need two things. If somebody said "Newtown" or "Sandy Hook," that would be impressive as hell. Or even if they said "26 dead" or say "20 kids." If anyone said any of those three things, then, bam! That is a solid hit. Of course it wouldn't mean, you know, that psychics—

S: Yeah, there's different degrees of hits. They could have said "an elementary school." You know, they could have said "a lone shooter killing many kids in an elementary school."

R: Even then...

S: Even that would have been semi-impressive. But just "a lone wolf" or just—

B: No.

S: "terrorism in schools." Nah, it's way too vague.

B: Yeah, I'm talk— 'cause when you think of a psychic, if a psychic really existed, you would expect somebody, one person, or a few people, to have a really solid hit. Something really specific. I mean, isn't that what everyone really wants? That's what we want, right guys?

J: Yeah, but that's the thing, Bob, when you, every year when we read through all these psychic predictions, you know, we're just doing our research, it occurs to me, once again, they're just playing the odds. You can see them playing the odds. There's patterns. There is a reason why a lot of them predict the same types of things over and over again.

S: And they're also just probably going for the sensationalism. I mean the ones they know are not gonna come true. Like the solar dwarf. They're just trying to say impressive sounding things.

B: Right. And they—

S: Because they know no one's gonna care. Their target audience, they're not gonna go back and check up on 'em and see what happened.

B: And they don't care what we're saying.

S: They'll be reading the predictions for 2013. All right, what about the Causeway Cannibal?

J: Yeah, absolutely. ''(overlapping comments)'' Too specific though, Steve, too specific.

S: The fiscal cliff.

J: Yup.

B: Yeah.

S: The Petraeus scandal.

B: Yeah, I had that one, too.

E: Attack in Libya.

S: The Benghazi shooting.

J: The President supporting gay marriage.

B: How about deaths? I mean, did anyone predict the death of Whitney Houston, for example?

S: And if they're gonna dabble in science, how about, like if they ''really'' were going for a high-probability science prediction, how about the Higgs will be discovered?

E: Higgs boson, yeah. That would have been good. Or the lander will successfully, you know, everything will go smoothly there. You could even do that one.

J: How about Facebook going public?

B: Yeah.

E: Facebook, yup.

S: That debacle? Yeah, good one. All right, well, I listened to last year's episode to see what ''we'' all predicted.

B: I remember one prediction. I remember saying that Google Plus would die in 2012.

S: Okay.

B: Unfortunately I was wrong.

R: I mean it's on life support, but...

B: Yeah, it is.

E: My predictions.

S: Well, what were they, Evan?

E: I made one in each of the following categories: technology - the {{w|Aakash (tablet)|Aakash tablet}} would outsell the iPad by the end of 2012.

S: Um hmm. Fail.

R: And?

E: You know, the Aakash tablet. This is a $35 tablet that they made in India.

R; Oh, right.

E: They're already actually up to the Aakash 2. And I figured, all right, so you've got the Indian government, they're subsidizing this thing. They're gonna get this out to 500 million Indians, students and everyone in the country; just pure numbers, it's gonna overtake. Well, it didn't quite happen. I think some of the problems were in the technology itself. Even though it costs 35 bucks, they said it heats up very quickly, and poor design, cheap components. It won't play any of the apps that are out there. The battery life is poor. I think those things might have had something to do with it.

S: It's a $35 tablet, that's why.

E: You get what you pay for. In astronomy - a small meteor will collide with one of the many GPS satellites in orbit, rendering it inoperable. Now, that did not happen this year, but guess what's coming up next month, folks.

J: What?

E: ''(clears his throat theatrically)'' A small asteroid ''will'' pass inside the geosynchronous satellite ring.

J: Irrelevant! Irrelevant, you didn't get it.

E: 35,800—

B: Wow, that's damn close. How big is this thing?

E: —kilometers above the — 150 feet. 150 feet long.

B: Damn!

E: Astronomers say the asteroid may hit a communications satellite, so, you know...

J: It doesn't matter. It's irrelevant. No partial credit for you, sir.

B: You still missed it, dude.

E: Nothing irrelevant about that. Yes, it didn't happen, but the science behind it was revealed in the year, so I'll get a half-credit for that. Biology - Bio-engineered tooth regeneration will become available for humans. Well,

B: That'd be cool.

E: Because I've been following that, they're still doing more studies with mice and stuff, and they're making progress. They made more progress this year, but they didn't get to the humans. So I'll take a minus for that. In skepticism - a prominent skeptic will defect over to an alternative point of view. And that actually did come true, because a global warming skeptic {{w|Richard_A._Muller|Richard Muller}}, who was a proponent, you know, a big proponent saying that man-made global warming does not exist, in fact did leave his brand of skepticism behind and says, yes, it is actually happening. So I'll take a plus for that.

J: No. No one knows who that guy is. You can't take a plus for that.

E: Richard Muller? Steve?

S: Evan's right, but that was the wrong kind of skeptic.

E: I didn't ... hey, Steve.

S: It's all right. I gotcha.

E: Well, do you want me to say brown dwarves are gonna get crapped out of the sun? ''(laughter)'' Is that a better prediction.

R: Yeah, actually, it's awesome.

J: No, you didn't get any. Zero.

E: How 'bout this one? My last prediction: the largest glacier ever recorded will break off, right from the ice shelf. And that ''did'' happen, thank you very much. In Antarctica this year, that actually did happen.

J: No, it didn't.

''(laughter)''

S: Well I had one prediction last year, and it was a crypto-zoological prediction, if you remember. I predicted that Bigfoot would sweep into the White House with a gray alien as a running mate. And that ''did'' happen.

E: It almost happened.

S: But the cover-up is keeping you from knowing about it.

''(laughter)''

E: Right.

J: What did Rebecca do?

B: Good one, Steve.

S: Rebecca predicted Michael Douglas, Michael Douglas was her celebrity death. He's still kicking.

R: Oh. Good. I'm glad.

E: He had a problem. He had problems last year.

S: An ''Arrested Development'' movie.

B: Did I miss that?

R: Uuuh, it's... no, but ....

E: It's in production, right?

R: There is going to be a TV show.

S: Okay.

E: Oh, TV show.

S: And chimpanzees will be found to do something scientists thought only people did, previously.

R: That probably happened.

''(laughter)''

E: Somewhere. We may not have seen it or recorded it, but it might have happened.

J: It didn't happen.

R: Yeah, probably.

S: Jay, do you remember your one prediction?

J: Yes. And that's why I've been arguing so much with everyone. I predicted that none of our predictions would come true.

R: Yeah, that's right.

E: Wrong!

J: I'm more right than the rest of you. How about that?

E: That's why you were hard on me and my predictions, 'cause you wanted ''your'' prediction to come true.

S: All right, well. Who wants to go first in their predictions for 2013?

B: I will! Okay, in 2013, everyone will start referring to the year as "two thousand and thirteen" instead of "twenty-thirteen," ''(laughter)'' except for Rebecca. And the LHC will announce a nine sigma competence level in the Higgs boson. It's existence will—

E: English, Bob! English.

B: It's existence will be so obvious that fifth graders will start finding evidence for it. ''(laughter)'' And my only real prediction, scientists will create a living minimal genome cell from scratch. Please come true.

S: Jay?

J: I predict that Iran's ''(pronouncing it eye-ran)'' going to test a nuke.

S: Iran? ''(pronouncing it Ear-on)'' Yeah.

''(laughter)''

J: What?

S: Where did you run to, Jay?

''(laughter)''

J: Seriously? Like that's even pronounced wrong?

E: Just say Persia.

R: I-in-stine.

S: I-in-stine. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, next?

J: I predict another private company will start launching space missions.

S: Um hmm.

B: Okay.

E: Coca-Cola.

J: Beyond {{w|SpaceX}}. I predict that {{w|Billy Graham}} is gonna kick it.

B: Oh, we're doing celebrity deaths, too?

J: Yeah.

B: Okay.

J: I predict that George Bush ''Senior'' is gonna kick it.

E: Any other 90-something-year-old people gonna kick it, Jay?

J: Well, what d'ya want me to predict, like a 20-year-old?

E: How 'bout someone in their 70s or something. Make it a little challenging.

J: Okay, I predict that Evan Bernstein is gonna choke on a hot dog. ''(laughter)'' And my final prediction for 2013 is, I predict the end is {{w|Bill Nye}}.

''(laughter)''

B: Oh, nice.

R: Wait, what?

B: End is Nye.

E: Funny.

R: Mine are great. You're gonna find no fault with mine.

J: Bring it on. Beat "the end is Bill Nye." Beat that, right now. Go ahead.

R: All right. The Daily Mail will report that researchers have discovered pickles cause cancer.

B: Ooooh. I like it.

J: I like that, okay.

E: I don't eat 'em, so—

R: Number two. A whistleblower will reveal that the government has been hiding something.

''(laughter)''

E: Which government?

R: I'd rather not comment upon which government it is at this time, but, they may have the color red in their flag.

''(laughter)''

J: Okay.

R: Finally ...

E: —like the Swiss! I knew it!

R: I will beat the game FTL on normal mode, and finally get 100 percent on Skyrim.

B: You're reaching now.

J: No way.

E: Now your sun is crapping out brown dwarves, Rebecca.

R: It's on like Donkey Kong

S: Bob, what was your celebrity death?

B: Yeah, I've got a celebrity death, and it's not an octogenarian, Jay, or is a nonagenarian, is that how you pronounce that? Lindsay Lohan.

E: Oooh, she's on my list, Bob!

B: She's been rolling 20 for far too long, her time is ''up.''

J: Nope. I'm predicting she's not gonna die. Not even close.

E: Yeah, she's on mine. I've got three of 'em, that was one of 'em.

S: I predict ''she's'' gonna die, but her twin won't.

''(laughter)''

B: Nice.

R: Oh, we're all going to hell.

S: Evan, what've you got?

E: Okay, in addition to Lindsay Lohan. I predict a world leader, which is a president or a prime minister, will succumb while in office. A few options there, but it'll be very prominent. And, James Van Praagh.

J: Oh, why? What did you see? What did the spirits tell you?

E: Jay, it's something that's beyond sort of a description. In technology, there will be a ''m-a-a-a-jor'' data breach, most likely of a credit card company, or something along those lines. This breach will cost consumers and their insurers at least $1 billion worldwide. In astronomy, we will discover a Earth-like planet, known as "Earth's Twin."

S: Hey, that's been my prediction for the last three years.

''(laughter)''

E: And how's that worked out for ya?

S: I'm getting closer every year. And you're gonna try and take it from me now? That's like you're sitting down at my slot machine, Evan.

''(laughter)''

R: Evan just bid a dollar under your ''Price Is Right'' score. That's what just happened.

E: Well, we'll just share that one, Steve, if it comes true this year.

B: Good analogy, Rebecca.

E: In health, a hand-held breathalyzer will offer early detection of infections caused by microbes. What do you think of that? Aa! And, in the environment, I only did four this year, environment, we will find, scientists will find a way to harness energy from sand. Now, I admit, they will be small quantities of energy, but it'll be energy nonetheless.

S: Like the tar sands?

E: Simply sand.

S: Tar sands are already a major source of petroleum, but, I'm assuming you're not talking about that.

E: Okay, I'll refine it—

S: You'll refine the sand? or refine the petroleum?

E: Desert sand.

S: Okay. I have a celebrity death and two predictions. My celebrity death is Jerry Lewis, unfortunately. Great comedian, but, you know. His time

''(someone in background: Oh, lady! Lady!)''

S: I also predict that there will be a ''major'' pareidolia event this year.

B: Nice.

E: Face on the moon?

R: Major?

S: A major pareidolia event. And finally, conspiracy theorists will use anomaly hunting to argue that an innocent or natural event is actually a deliberate conspiracy.

R: Um hmm.

S: All right, so we will track those and we'll let you know next year how we all did.

=== Cosmic Rays and Dementia <small>(32:27)</small>===
* [http://m.phys.org/news/2012-12-houston-problem-space-brain.html Phys.Org: Houston, we have another problem: Study shows space travel is harmful to the brain]

S: All right well I think we have time for a few quick news items to round out the show, so Bob you're going to tell us about another risk of space travel.

B: In science fiction the biggest problems generally for space travel are usually things like aliens, black holes or warp core breaches, I really hate that last one.

S: And space worms, don't forget space worms.

B: Oh yeah, the worms. It's very annoying then to think that a little thing like ultra-tiny invisible radiation is essentially a total deal breaker right now for allowing humans to spend serious time beyond low earth orbit. We've known this for a while now, we've touched upon it in the past a bit, but most recently scientists have found even more bad news. A new study described in the PLOS ONE journal reveals for the first time that cosmic ray exposure to humans on a trip to Mars can make changes to the brain that could replicate or speed up the onset of {{w|Alzheimer's disease}}.<ref>Cherry et al. (2012),[http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0053275 ''Galactic Cosmic Radiation Leads to Cognitive Impairment and Increased Aβ Plaque Accumulation in a Mouse Model of Alzheimer’s Disease''], PLoS ONE 7(12))</ref> Now I'm calling this the "space brain syndrome" and it really stinks.

S: Space dementia.

B: That's a good one too, I like "space brain syndrome" better.

S: No. Space dementia.

B: Uh, we talked about the cosmic ray hazards in space but I learned a little bit more about some of these details and I'd like to share. It's pretty interesting. The culprit here is a specific type of cosmic ray, now these aren't rays of course, but they're bits of atoms that are propelled through space. Protons make up the majority of the cosmic rays, followed by alpha particles which is just like two neutrons and two protons. And then electrons kind of finish that list. Those are the majority, the vast majority of all cosmic rays. But a tiny, tiny percentage of cosmic rays are these relatively really big clumps of protons and neutrons and they're called these {{w|HZE_ions|HZE particles}} which stands for High Charge and Energy particles. And the Z, if you're familiar with chemistry, the Z is the universal symbol for atomic number which is the amount of protons in a nucleus, so that's what that stands for. Now so the more protons you have with no electrons to balance them out, you create a bigger and bigger charge. The E stands for energy obviously, so what you end up with is these bare atomic nuclei with lots of protons and a lot of energy and they can penetrate shielding of a ship and through the skin of the astronauts and just wreak havoc on your DNA causing cancer and a host of other issues. So this much we've known for a little while now, and if that wasn't annoying enough, they get this energy from supernovae and also the sun, I wasn't quite aware of this, the sun's solar flares and coronal mass ejections also can produce these HZE particles. As tiny as these— I mean percentage wise, HZEs are a fraction of a percent but they can cause more than 50% of the radiation damage inflicted on astronauts. So these are the big players in terms of astronauts having a problem with radiation in deep space.

S: Now Bob, because these are highly charged particles, would that mean that magnetic shielding would be a viable option?

B: Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, if they didn't have any charge then we'd be even worse off, so yeah that kind of leads into the potential, one of the potential ways for dealing with them. The experiments that these researchers did, particularly specifically on how these HZE particles can affect people, they used rats of course, the most helpful of guinea pigs. They exposed them—

R: Rats aren't guinea pigs.

B: (laughs) They exposed them to increasing doses of radiation, including the equivalent of what an astronaut would experience on a multi-year mission to Mars, which is pretty much how long it would take. Now they tested the rats' recall for certain objects and locations that they were previously exposed to and they found that those that had a bigger dose of radiation did increasingly more poor at those tasks, which of course indicates some level of neurological impairment. But the real kicker though was that I guess after the rat autopsies they revealed indications of not only changes in the brain vasculature but also in the accumulation of {{w|beta amyloid}}, which is that protein plaque that builds up in the brain of Alzheimer's victims. Now Steve, correct me if I'm wrong, but this plaque, that's pretty much the hallmark of that disease right? If you find that, it's like the red light going off that you have Alzheimer's right? These beta amyloid plaques, is that right?

S: They're important, they're not unique to Alzheimer's, it's more complicated than that, but yeah they're an important pathological finding in Alzheimer's disease.

B: Well that was, from what I could gather, that was one of the main reasons that they're all talking about Alzheimer's here. NASA of course is concerned about cosmic rays, especially considering they've had plans for a manned mission to an asteroid in 2021 and to Mars in 2035, I mean there's just no way that's going to happen if they don't deal with this problem. NASA subscribes to a policy known as {{w|ALARA}} which is ''As Low As Reasonably Achievable''. Any exposure to radiation has an element of risk of course, but NASA needs a very high confidence level that an astronaut's lifetime risk of terminal cancer from cosmic radiation is less than 3% so they will not cross that line, so they have to make 3% reasonably achievable to fit in with this whole idea of ALARA, and that's going to take revolutionary technology to pull that off. That's not going to be a quick and easy fix by any means.

S: All right, well thanks Bob.

== Who's That Noisy? & Logical Puzzle <small>(38:07)</small>==
* Answer to last week: Glass Harp playing Fur Elise

S: All right, well Evan we do have time for Who's That Noisy this week.

E: Well good, that's good because we need to reveal the answer to what was the last Who's That Noisy for 2012. I will play it for you now for memory's sake. Here we go.

''(Glass Harp playing Fur Elise)''

E: Lovely Ludwig Van.

S: Fur Elise, it's one of the pieces I had to play when I was taking piano lessons.

E: Did you enjoy it?

S: Yes, It's a pretty piece.

E: It is a pretty pieces. Well what kind of instrument was that, that was the question. And we had a lot of people guess that that was the {{w|Glass harmonica}} or the glass armonica also known as a bowl organ which is actually incorrect, although that instrument would create the same or similar-sounding notes but that was not it. What we were hearing was actually the {{w|Glass harp}}, which is a musical instrument made of upright wine glasses and it's played by running moistened or chalked fingers around the rim of the glass and each glass is tuned to a different pitch and thereby you're able to play all of the notes. That particular piece was performed by [http://www.roberttiso.com/ Robert Tiso] and you can [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47TGXJoVhQ8 see him on youtube playing this], and very talented in his own right. Yes, several people did get it correct, the first one to guess correctly, our friend from the message boards, Magnus M.

S: Mmmhmm.

E: Whose name we've sopken before. Well done, Magnus.

S: Magnus!

E: And congratulations for being first. OK, so 2013, we're going to change things up a little bit for the Who's That Noisy and the puzzle segment. For this year, we're going run a little contest for all the listeners, and here's how it's going to work. Each week when I play the Who's That Noisy or give the Logic Puzzle, everyone who answers correctly, their name will be put into a hat for that week. And that week I will draw a name from the hat at random and the person's name whom I draw will go into a final drawing which will occur at the last episode of the year and the winner of the final drawing will be invited to come onto the SGU to play a round of Science or Fiction with us.

If you're going to submit a guess, we're going to require your guess by the time we record our next show which is typically early to mid-week the following week, it varies from week to week but there is a little incentive there to get your guess in early and get your name eligible to be drawn for the final drawing. Since this is a new idea we are tinkering with, we're going to do this on the honor system. If we sense that there is any abuse by the participants of this we will have to make some modifications along the way, so we're trusting everyone to play fairly, play by the rules, if you know the answer go ahead and tell us, but you don't go sharing it with you know, 100,000 of your closest friends so that there's 100,000 names to draw from each week, that'll make my job a lot harder. So let's give this a try, folks and let's see what we can do.

S: All right, we'll see how it goes.

E: We're going to start this year with a puzzle, a logic puzzle. And this logic puzzle was submitted by listener Alvaro Ibanes, thank you Alvaro for submitting this, this is a very good one. <blockquote>A jeweller has nine pearls which all look and feel exactly alike. However, he knows that one of them weighs more than the other eight. He has access to a classic scale, you know the one with two arms often seen in Lady Justice's hand? What is the minimum number of measurements required to know with absolute certainty which pearl is the one that weighs more? </blockquote>

E: All right? Give us your guess?

S: It's a fun one.

E: Yeah, it is a fun one. Go ahead and give us your best guess, [mailto:info@theskepticsguide.org info@theskepticsguide.org] and our message boards are [http://sguforums.com sguforums.com]. Good luck everyone.

S: Thanks, Evan.

== Interview with Massimo Pigliucci <small>(42:33)</small> ==
S: We are joined now by Massimo Pigliucci. Massimo, welcome back to the Skeptics' Guide!

M: Thank you, it's a pleasure as usual.

S: And Massimo is the chair of the Department of Philosophy at CUNY-Lehman College, the editor in chief of the journal ''[http://www.philosophyandtheoryinbiology.org/ Philosophy & Theory in Biology]''. He's the host of a podcast called ''[http://rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/ Rationally Speaking]'' and also one of the authors on the [http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.co.uk/ blog by the same name]. The author of several books, including the book that we will be discussing this evening: ''[http://www.amazon.com/Answers-Aristotle-Science-Philosophy-Meaningful/dp/0465021387 Answers for Aristotle]''. But his greatest claim to skeptical and scientific fame, was that he was the first ever guest on The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

''(laughter)''

M: That's exactly right.

E: As if he needed anything else.

S: That's right. I was just- That's just the cherry on the top, Massimo.

''(laughter)''

S: Massimo, I talk about you a lot actually, in skeptical circles because like you're the one, in my opinion, like the one real philosopher that we have in the skeptical movement. I'm not saying you're the only philosopher, but you're the one who's active. Who's trying to keep the rest of us philosophically honest, if you will.

M: ''(laughter)''

S: And that, that's essentially what your recent book, ''Answers for Aristotle'', is about. So, tell us about it.

M: Yeah, in some sense. It is aimed at the general public, so it's not a technical book. But it is about the relationship between philosophy and science which I think that is something that certainly members of the skeptic movement should be aware of, or a little more sort of cognisant of. But the basic idea of the book is really that this is essentially a self-help book for people who don't believe in self-help books. The basic approach is that, look, when we're dealing with the big questions in life, you know: morality, or relationships, or you know, general views of the world and whatever, where do we get our best hints, our best information about that? I don't think we get them from religion. Common sense is helpful, but up to a certain point. So, it seems to me that the best combination of answers, or at least approaches to those kinds of questions, come from the two most effective traditions of thought in the Western - and possibly the world - history, which are of course science, as far as factual questions are concerned and philosophy, as far as how to reflect on the implications of those factual answers we get from science. So that's what the book is about, it's how to combine science and philosophy in what I sort of jokingly call Sci-Phi - actually, people pronounce it Sci-Fi, but it should be Sci-"Fee", because the second part is P-H-I for philosophy.

S: Sci-Phi?

M: Yeah, that's right. ''(laughter)'' But I think that Sci-Fi was more, I don't know, the publicist thought it was more, sounded better than Sci-Phi.

''(laughter)''

E: Right.

S: Right. Well, then why didn't the Sci-Fi Channel change it's name to Syfy?

M: Yeah, that's a good question!

''(laughter)''

B: That really pissed me off when they did that.

M: Agreed.

S: So, science gives us the facts, as it were, and philosophy tells us how to think about those facts. Is that a fair summary?

M: Well, yeah, it's, of course as you know that's a little, simple version of the whole thing. In reality there is no sharp distinction between science and philosophy. There are many areas of overlap, the most obvious one perhaps is philosophy of science, or, and in fact also {{w|epistemology}}. I mean, there are areas of philosophy that are directly relevant to science, and there are also areas of science that are definitely relevant to philosophy. I mean, one cannot do these days any serious philosophy of mind, for instance, unless one is well read in, you know, neurobiology and current science. So, there's quite a bit more overlap than the simple distinction between science and philosophy. But it is true that, you know, historically speaking and strictly in modern, in the modern academy, the true disciplines have evolved unto quite different directions and yes, broadly speaking, science deals with the best factual information we can get about the world, and philosophy deals with reflecting methods of reflecting about what that, that information tells us.

S: Yeah, so they're complementary intellectual disciplines—

M: Right.

S: —if you will. And, I think what's, I know you've made this point a lot, and I know in your blog as well, and also in our prior discussions that, scientists who think they can answer all questions, with just science, have to first realise, that when doing science they are also practicing philosophy, cause there has to be a philosophical underpinning of science itself.

M: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of the best summaries of that position was actually due to {{w|Daniel Dennett|Dan Dennett}}. As you know, several years ago he wrote ''{{w|Darwin's Dangerous Idea}}'', which is one of the most influential books, in sort of many people's understanding of evolution and implication of Darwinism and so on and so forth. But in that book, as much as that book is, of course, very much science friendly, and does take on-board, you know, evolutionary biology in particular, Dennett points out that there is no such a thing as philosophy-free science, there is only science that takes on-board the philosophy without examining it. No, now, the question is not that scientists should necessarily do philosophy, in fact I would discourage scientists from doing philosophy. Just in the same way in which I would discourage philosophers from doing science. Those are sufficiently separate activities, as I said, that require different skills, and also, by the way, they have developed huge technical literatures of their own so it's really difficult to do both in a reasonable way. But, what I do suggest is that both scientists, as academics, and sort of the general public at large, would be better off by respecting each other's territory and what comes out of the other field, and also being a little bit acquainted with what comes out of the other field.

S: Yeah, so just as, like in the skeptical movement in just, in general, we promote the idea that people should have a basic scientific literacy. Not that they should be able to practice science as a layperson, but just be scientifically literate. But by the same token, people should be philosophically literate as well, not to be able to engage at cutting-edge philosophical technical discussions, but to have some idea when philosophy is in play at least.

M: Correct. So for instance, a little bit of understanding of basic philosophy of science or epistemology for instance, would go quite a long way for skeptics, to develop a better appreciation not just for the power of science, which is, you know, unquestionable within the community, or unquestioned within the community, but also for the limits of science, you know, there is a lot of stuff that science hasn't figured out, maybe will never figure out, you know, there is a lot of— science needs to be seen for what it is: a very powerful, but nonetheless human epistemic activity, based on certain methods, those methods have certain problems and limitations. The skeptic is supposed to be thinking rationally about a broad range of issues and that ought to include, it seems to me, also the functioning of science itself.

S: Is there an area where you most frequently see science or skeptics go wrong when it comes to philosophy as it's relevant to what we do.

M: Oh, that's a great question. ''(laughter)'' I think there's more than one.

''(laughter)''

B: Give me your top three-

J: Slow down, slow down, don't, don't kill us.

M: No no no no. It's- So, one of the, I think, the major areas that I've seen coming up, quite often in the last, especially the last two or three years, is actually the relationship- it's ethics. And what science can or cannot tell us about ethics. There seems to be a lot of confusion about, you know, ethical reasoning and what it is about, and are there moral truths and how do we discover moral truths and all that sort of stuff. And of course, the naïve position among some skeptic quarters is that, well you know, either morality is all about- it's entirely a human invention, so it's essentially one step removed from {{w|moral relativism}}, which most of us don't wanna go to. ''Or'', then if it is about objective facts then those facts have to be of course matters that science can investigate and therefore we're gonna have, you know, you name it, evolutionary biology or neurobiology is gonna give us answers to moral questions. I think that the reality is a lot more complicated than that. I think that evolutionary biology tells us something very important about morality, that neurobiology tells us something very important about morality, but that neither one of those exhaust what, the province essentially of moral philosophy of ethics in general. So, let me give you a quick example: I think that evolutionary biology is absolutely necessary in order to understand where a sense of moral right and wrong comes from. I mean, we evolved it. We are social animals of a particular type and there is no magic behind it, it doesn't come from gods. It evolved over a period of time, the building blocks of a moral sense, a moral intuition if you will, or a moral instinct can be found in other primates and that makes perfect sense. I mean, it would be really bizarre if morality for some reason where the only thing that we cannot find any, sort of, gradual examples or partial examples in other species. So-

S: Yeah, birds have morality. I mean, birds punish each other for not-

M: Yeah.

S: -doing what the group is in the groups best interest. If one bird doesn't warn the others about a predator, then they won't get warned next time around. You know, so that's been-

J: Wow.

S: -demonstrated experimentally.

M: The thing that I quibble a little bit about that, is, I wouldn't go as far as saying that they have morality as in, obviously, as we understand it from a human perspective, meaning they don't have the ability to reply.

E: Dear Duane.

M: But they do have an instinct, that correspond, that if you were to see those actions in a human being, you would say, "oh that's a moral action."

S: Well that, that's, but my point is what you were saying that there are evolutionary antecedents we could see the elements of morality in other species, obviously an elementary form, not in the reflective form that we have, but they have an instinctive notion of reciprocity which informs our ethical senses, right?

M: Exactly, right. From there to neurobiology or the current science in general of moral decision making that also tells you something interesting. It tells you for instance, not only which areas of the brain tend to be involved in moral thinking and that sort of stuff, which is interesting in and of itself, but it tells you something more deep about how we think about morality. For instance, let me give you one example: you probably, you guys probably now have heard a bit about, sort of the different versions of the trolley dilemma.

S: Yeah.

B: Yeah.

M: Two basic forms, as you likely know, are the one in which there is this trolley coming down the road and it's about to hit and kill five people and you have, you happen to have a very convenient located lever next to you, that if you pull you're gonna divert the trolley on a second track where it is gonna kill only one person. Question: would you do it or not? Answer: empirically speaking, most people would say yes. That's interestingly, by the way, cross-cultural, depending on how you present the dilemma, pretty much people will respond in the same way. Eighty or ninety percent of people say yes. Then you switch into a second situation where you don't have the lever, you're on top of a bridge, there's this really bulky, big guy in front of you and the only option you have is to push the guy off the bridge to save the five people. Question: would you do it? Most people answer no. Now, the interesting question there is why would people answer, most people answer, yes to one and no to the other since at least at one level of analysis the two situations are perfectly analogous: in both cases you have five people you're about to save and one person that you're about to kill. Now, turns out that neurobiology sheds some light on this and it's perhaps not surprising, but it's interesting the way it works. It turns out that if you do a brain-scan of, you know, with all the limitations of course of neural scanning and current technology, but if you do a neural scan of people, an FMRI of people, when they are involved in thinking about the two versions of the dilemma, in the first case, the lever case, people tend to involve the areas of the brain, like the frontal cortex, that are involved typically in sort of rational, deliberate decision making. On the other hand, when people are thinking in terms of the second version of the dilemma, the pushing guy off of the bridge, a lot of the action switches to the amygdala, which of course is more connected to emotional reactions and fear and things like the sort. Now, that makes perfect sense, because basically the second version of the dilemma is much more personal. You're about to actually push somebody, as opposed to do something from a distance, like pulling a lever. So it makes perfect sense that people switch ways of thinking, they use different neural pathways essentially to think about this. That is very interesting and without the science we wouldn't find out why exactly people are doing that. The question however still remains, should you or should you not push the damn guy off the bridge?

S: Yeah.

M: Right.

J: I think an interesting way to look at it too are "what about the social ramifications." Like, you're gonna, you're actually breaking the law if you push the guy off the bridge, even though you're not gonna get arrested for not saving people's lives. Does that come into play?

M: Uh, it does, depending again, as I said earlier, there is a lot of different variants of the thought experiment, and yes, some of those do involve information about the, you know, consequences and if you, of course, were in moral philosophy, it's called a {{w|Consequentialism|consequentialist}} or {{w|Utilitarianism|utilitarian}} view, you will take those into account as well. But the basic version doesn't include those, and it's one of the things that comes out interestingly, for instance from the cognitive science literature, is that there is a small minority of people who do not change their mind, who both will push- uh, you know, pull the lever and push the guy off the bridge. Turns out that psychologically speaking those people corresponds to a somewhat sociopathic profile.

S: Mm-hmm.

M: Those are people that essentially do not engage with the amygdala, they don't engage the emotional reaction, they just think rationally about the whole thing. The reason I brought that up is because, so, now we have an evolutionary account of how we got morality to begin with, we have a neurobiological account of, we ''begin'' to have a neurobiological account of how we actually engage in that sort of thinking, and all of this is very interesting. The thing that we still need to deal with, however, is, okay, in interesting, complex, real-life situations, what are we ought to do, and now I think is where the philosophy, the interesting philosophy, comes in, because of course there are hundreds of years of discussions among philosophers that have been able to frame moral dilemmas according to two or three major ways of thinking about it. One is the one that I mentioned a minute ago, the utilitarian or consequentialist view. There is also the {{w|Ontology|ontological}} thinking which is based on rules essentially, and then there is the {{w|Virtue ethics}} thinking that is based on sort of character development, of what is the right thing to do in terms of what is the right person you wanna develop into. Anyway, those three frameworks help you think about the dilemma in a way that might lead you to reach a conclusion or consider a conclusion based on reason, so you go beyond your instinctual reaction, you go beyond what your amygdala is telling you and you think about it and say "well, wait a minute, here's the situation, here's what the right thing to do is and here's why."

S: Then there are those people like {{w|Sam_Harris_(author)|Sam Harris}}, who I know you have engaged with at least on your blog, who argue that: if we had enough scientific information, that could answer moral questions for us, essentially. You've pretty much explained what's wrong with that answer, but how have you responded to Sam Harris' position.

M: Well, let me give you a simple analogy. Imagine instead of talking about moral decision making, we're talking about mathematical abilities, right? So, how is it that people have developed, human beings have developed the ability to solve mathematical problems. Well, again, you got the same three sort of answers. From an evolutionary perspective it probably was useful at some point or another to start counting or to start thinking in terms of very simple abstract mathematical entities that helped our survival. That's of course speculation, we don't really have access to the relevant information, ecologically speaking, but it's very likely that something like that happened. Now, today you could put somebody that's, say, who's trying to prove {{w|Fermat's Last Theorem}}, you can put him under an FMRI-scan and you can figure out how active different areas of the brain are, and so on and so forth. There is one thing however, that neither this scan, nor the evolutionary story can actually tell you and that is "is the guy getting the proof of the Theorem right?"

S: "Is two plus two four?"

M: Yeah.

S: Well, Massimo. Thanks for joining us again on the show, it's always a pleasure, it always seems like it goes by faster and we're just scratching the surface. But for our listeners, ''Answers to Aristotle'', just tell us about that title for a second, because that's interesting.

M: Aristotle is in fact the philosopher that is most widely quoted or referred to in the book, and there is a reason for that. Aristotle was the first guy in the Western tradition, that really was doing exactly what a (GARBLED) book is about. He was doing philosophy, he is known for establishing the foundations of logic for writing the first comprehensive book about ethics and so on and so forth. But he also was doing science, I mean, most people don't realize this but Aristotle was actually doing field biology of a way on the island of Lesbos, among other places. And he was trying to figure out, okay, was interested in, for instance, shells and he was there and he was collecting samples and looking at things. Now, he got a lot of stuff wrong (inaudible) idea that we got answers for the questions that he asked that he certainly did not have access to. But he does embody the spirit of the book. He was the guy that figured out that "look, you need both factual questions and to ways reflect on the meaning of those questions," and that is sort of the science and philosophy combination in the broadest possible sense.

S: Well, thanks again Massimo!

J: Thanks Massimo.

B: Thank you.

M: It was a pleasure as usual.

== Science or Fiction <small>(1:01:19)</small> ==
''Voiceover: It's time for Science or Fiction''

S: Each week I come up with three science or news items or facts, two genuine and one fictitious. Then I challenge my panel of skeptics to tell me which one they think is the fake. Now before we get started this week, because this is the first Science or Fiction of 2013, I do have the stats, the full Science or Fiction stats, from last year.

E: Eurgh

S: These were sent to us by Cat, from sgutranscripts.org, so thanks Cat. So, here they are for 2012: Bob had played 47 games, lost 19, won 28 for a total of 59.6%.

B: Eurgh, damn.

S: Evan played 50, 25 and 25, exactly 50%.

E: Wow, I think wow, that's pretty good.

S: Jay also played 50, lost 26, won 24 so just shy of Even at 48%. I played 7, lost 3 and won 4 so am at 57.1%, just behind Bob and Rebecca played 44, lost 17, won 27 for a total of 61.4%.

E: Wow.

S: Just edged out Bob.

B: Nice.

S: Congratulations Rebecca.

R: Thank you.

B: Congratulations.

R: Thank you.

J: Overall we're way above average.

E: That was...

S: All doing better than random guessing.

B: Yeah but...

R: Hooray.

B: Rebecca and I did worse than last year though.

R: Yeah. I felt dumber this year.

E: Jay and I picked up the slack though.

B: How could I start off so well and then totally tank it?

S: Regression to the mean. Randomness.

J: Evan, our goal for this year, better than 50%.

E: You bet...

S: OK.

E: You bet buddy.

S: It's a brand new year though, guys. Are you all ready?

E: Clean slate.

S: We do have a theme for this week.

''(laughter)''

R: God damn it.

S: This theme... ''(laughter)'' this theme is dedicated to Jay. It's all about little babies.

R, B, E: Aw

J: OK

S: Prepare Jay for his...

R: Because Jay's a giant baby?

S: Yeah, for his upcoming...

E: Oh, is that what you mean?

S: ... child to be born in a few weeks.

R: Oh my...

''(overlapping comments)''

S: Hope all goes well. OK...

E: So excited.

S: Here we are - [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130101182012.htm item number one] - a study finds that maternal use of anti-depressants during pregnancy is associated with a greater risk of {{w|sudden infant death syndrome}} [SIDS]. [http://www.plu.edu/news/2012/12/infant-language/ Item number two] - a new study concludes that babies start learning language in the womb. And [http://news.temple.edu/news/2012-12-13/let-crying-babes-lie-study-supports-notion-leaving-infants-cry-themselves-back-sleep item number three] - new research finds that for most babies it is better to leave them alone when they cry at night rather than comforting them. Jay, 'cos this is a theme in your honor, you get to go first.

J: The first one, about the study that says that mothers that took anti-depressants while they were pregnant - that's interesting that it increases SIDS. Now I do know that SIDS... SIDS is when the baby stops breathing and I thought that that had to do with temperature. OK, the second one about the babies learning language in the womb, I believe that one is correct. I think that they can hear their mothers' voices before they're born and they can identify their mother's voice and actually start to pick up language. So I think that one is science and the third one, the last one about— it's better to leave most babies and let them cry at night instead of comforting them - I'm not sure about that. Now this one, of course Steve's not going to answer questions but, a new born baby absolutely needs to be fed on a regular basis and one of the reasons why a baby cries is because it wants to be fed. It could be just hungry, which, you should feed a hungry baby. The whole crying baby thing, to me, you gotta go in, you gotta check on the baby and feed them. But for some reason I'm thinking here Steve that because you're gonna be leaving the baby alone in a room that this could be later maybe not a newborn. I'm gonna say that because of how vague that third one is, I'm gonna say that the first one, the one about SIDS is the fake.

S: OK, Bob?

B: The babies start learning language in the womb, yeah that just makes sense. I would expect that the unborn baby can hear it's mother's voice. I remember reading a while back about how babies can recognize their mothers' voices soon after birth. It just makes sense that they would become accustomed to the language and be primed and ready to go right out of the gate so to speak, so that makes sense to me. Leaving crying babies alone, yeah that was the conventional wisdom 12, 14 years ago when I had an infant in the house. After Ashley was born it was pretty much - a lot of people were saying that, and it makes a lot of sense, you know the baby wakes up, there's some separation anxiety and if the parents come rushing in then the baby will get used to that and expect it all the time and if they can get used to waking up, being alone then going back to sleep, bam, perfect, that's what the baby will do. So that makes a lot of sense too so considering that two and three make so much sense to me, I just don't think that you could say that mothers who have had babies who died of SIDS, I just don't think you'd have a decent percentage of them that would be on anti-depressants. Yeah, I'm going to say the SIDS is fiction.

S: OK, Rebecca?

R: Ah, yeah. I don't know, but the one about leaving babies alone when they cry at night - there's like a huge can of worms in the parenting blogs and forums - I feel like that's one of those things that...

E: You read those?

R: I have friends who are parents who get involved in the mommy blogs and stuff - yeah, like that's for the past 30 years or so, that's been a huge thing - there's even a title for it, like it's a parenting style that's specifically based on remaining fairly detached from your children in the hopes that they will learn to fend for themselves. And everything that I've read, which admittedly is not a ton because I don't have a kid and I'm not planning to have one any time soon, but everything that I've read suggests that it's BS, that like Jay said, when the baby cries it's crying for a reason go pick it up. So I'm going to say that's the fiction.

S: And Evan?

E: Oh, everyone made very good cases for all of these. Bob, you, I think you hit on the SIDS one, anti-depressants during pregnancy associated with a greater risk of sudden infant death syndrome. Anti-depressants being more prescribed these days than they were way back when, but there was still SIDS occurring way back when so I'm thinking that that one's the fiction. But Rebecca, you brought up a good point, good points about the crying. Rebecca I hate to leave you alone out there I'm going to go with what my first instinct way I'm going to say that the SIDS is the fiction.

S: OK so... I'm a little surprised that you guys all believe that a new study concludes that babies start learning language in the womb is science.

E: Spanish or French?

B: Why?

S: You guys all believe that one - I don't know, that one struck me as being a little out there but that one is science.

B: Why did you think that one was out there?

R: That was the most obvious one to me.

J: Steve I read that one and I was talking to my wife Courtney about it and she goes "ah, I don't know that sounds like BS to me".

S: Yeah.

J: Which I thought was funny 'cos now it's on our game here.

S: It just struck me as like really, really? Alright, but this is true a study does conclude this, I'm not sure how much I totally buy the conclusion and this is the first time a study has shown that newborns are not naïve to the language of their mother.<ref> Moon, Lagercrantz & Kuhl (2013), [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/apa.12098/abstract Language experienced in utero affects vowel perception after birth: a two-country study], Acta Paediatrica, 102:2</ref> What the researcher did, this is Christine Moon, professor of psychology at Pacific Lutheran University, they studied infants that were just hours old and the research paradigm's interesting. They had them suck on a pacifier that was attached to a computer and when they sucked on the pacifier ''(laughter)'' - hang on - they sucked on the pacifier it would...

E: Ten thousand volts.

S: It would play a recording of vowels from either their mothers' native language or a foreign language.

B: Interesting.

S: And it would play for as long as they sucked and then when they stopped sucking it would stop and then when they started sucking again it would play a different vowel.

B: They sucked more.

S: So the question was would they listen more to the vowels...

B: Parent language.

S: From their parent language or their mothers' language specifically or from a foreign language and with the idea, and this was a paradigm used in other research, that they would listen longer to vowels that they were not familiar with.

B: Oh, interesting.

S: Because they were novel, the brain's like "hey, this is new, I've got to pay attention to this", not "oh this is something I've been hearing for months", you know? And in fact they found that the infants did listen longer, based upon their sucking on this pacifier, to vowel sounds from foreign languages than to their mothers' language.

R: But what if they found the mothers' language more soothing so wanted to listen to it longer?

B: Yeah.

S: As I said, this is, you've got to buy every link in this chain

R: Yeah, dumb, it's dumb.

S: You know, to buy this. But the thing is any difference, any difference you can take that they're not naïve and it was not that they're listening to sounds of their ''mother'', just vowels from their mothers' language or a foreign language. So any difference would— means that they're getting something, you know, if you believe the difference itself, if the data itself is compelling. Definitely the kind of study that I'd like to see replicated and looked at from different angles but that was what this study concluded.

E: Great.

S: Let's go to number one, a study finds that maternal use of anti-depressants during pregnancy is associated with a greater risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Rebecca thinks this one is science, the rest of you think this one is the fiction and this one is... the fiction.

B, E, J: ''(sounds of celebration)''

B: Yeah baby.

R: Not a good start.

B: One hundred, one hundred percent.

S: Ah so yeah, this one is interesting. So first of all, the news item that I was basing this on showed the opposite - the use of anti-depressants during pregnancy not linked with increased risk of still birth, infant death or other bad outcomes so that's very nice. And I did do a little research on, you know, 'cos I said let me just say the opposite and then I did some research just on SIDS and specifically what the literature shows is that depression in the mother is associated with increased risk of SIDS and in fact this leads to a recommendation that mothers be treated for their depression...

B: Interesting, woah.

S: In the hopes that it would decrease the risk of SIDS if anything, because untreated depression is a risk factor that has been identified for sudden infant death syndrome. Now SIDS still remains a little mysterious, you know, it's not like we completely understand exactly what is happening. We've identified lots of factors that increase or decrease the risk and it's thought that, you know, that they essentially they stop breathing. And over the years I've read so many different things like, you know, it's good if they're in the room with the parents because maybe the higher CO2 content drives the infant's respiration more. There are some drugs that are associated with an increased risk of SIDS and those are more for breast feeding now, not antenatal. So for breast feeding mothers, anti-depressants are still fine but you want to avoid anything that would be sedating. So Valium-like drugs are not good, lithium was also another one that was identified. So drugs that could pass through to the infant through breast feeding and can cause sedation will increase the risk of SIDS. The bottom line is if you're breast feeding, your OB should know every medication that you're taking, and you need to talk to them about is this something that would get passed through the breast milk to the infant and what risk or effects might it have. So don't just take— breast feeding is actually... you're still linked to the infant, you know, biologically. It's actually more metabolically demanding on the mother than being pregnant, breast feeding, you still need to take that very seriously. Alright, which means, new research finds that for most babies it is better to leave them alone when they cry at night rather than comfort them is science. Now, Rebecca, you're right in that this is a controversy and there's two sides, there's two schools of thought here. There's the... if you comfort them they'll feel reassured and more secure and if you leave them alone to cry they'll feel abandoned then the other side is what Bob articulated which is , kids need to learn, babies need to learn how to sooth themselves, if you run to them every time you hear them cry you're re-enforcing the behaviour, the crying, and they're not going to learn how to sooth themselves and that is essentially what this latest round now in this controversy has shown. Researchers have found that babies need to learn how to sooth themselves back to sleep. This is also based partly on the notion that infants have a sleep cycle just like everyone else, just like adults, and that sleep cycle involves, you know, going into deeper stages of sleep and then coming into lighter sleep, kind of waking up and then drifting off back to sleep again, that's natural. If the child is fussy or is, you know, upset at all when it wakes up it might cry during that stage of its sleep but that's perfectly normal for it to be quote unquote awake, you know, at that time and what the researchers found is that for some babies, again not for everyone but for some, that they were better sleepers later on in life, meaning like eighteen months, you know, two years, if they were allowed to sooth themselves back to sleep and that those babies whose parents picked them up every time they cried, that they had delayed learning of self-soothing and had a worse sleep later on. So, good job guys.

R: Meuhh.

S: Of to an ironic start, given that Rebecca won last year and...

E: Watch, she'll sweep the table the rest of the year.

S: Yeah, it's, hey, it's an endurance test, you know?

R: Yeah, it's a marathon.

S: It's like one basket in basketball, doesn't mean that much.

B: It's a marathon but right now you're in last place.

== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:16:01)</small> ==

S: So Jay, do you have a quote for us this week?

J: I have a quote that was sent in by a listener named Jim O'Rourke and this is a quote from one of my absolute favourite science popularists.

<blockquote>Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend things which are there.</blockquote>

E: Hmm.

J: Does that sound like anybody?

E: Arthur Clarke?

J: Nope. Richard Feynman.

B: Ah.

S: Richard Feynman.

B: He's got a lot of good quotes.

S: Yeah, he's very quotable.

J: Richard Feynman!

(laughter)

== Announcements ==
=== The Yellow Cab of the Universe <small>(1:16:34)</small> ===
* http://www.yellowcabuniverse.com/

J: A listener of our show emailed us and said that we had inspired him in part to create something that I looked into and I thought was one of the best things that I had found in 2012 as far as a learning tool, an entertainment tool. The listeners name is Eduardo Galvani and we started chit-chatting, he wrote a book for the iPad, it's called ''The Yellow Cab of the Universe'' whcih you could see how we may have inspired him. I loved it, I downloaded it, he gave me, he invited me to download his book, I did, it ended up, it's one of the best books I have ever downloaded on my iPad, it's amazingly interactive and it goes into a very simple yet very eloquent explanation of the universe and of the cosmos, it's just fantasic, this book is something that you could do with your kids I think as an after Christmas present, you know you want to buy something that you could do with your children that would really capture their attention, the book just keeps going on and on, the content is fantastic. He's, with his daughter, he's asking his daughter about her school, and she said "I don't like science, it's too boring," and it really bothered him, it shocked him, and he started to think "what's wrong? It's not the science, the science is incredible, it's the way it's being taught," and he realised very soon after that that he had to create an interactive book that it all kind of gelled in his head, and he did. I don't recommend things often, I have absolutely zero stake in this other than I really am interested in having people spend time with their children and educate their kids on science, this is it, guys. This is one of those things that I think could really influence a young kid's mind to understand, not only understand the universe, understand science and have an interest in that something that's important for the future. So you can go to his website, [http://www.yellowcabuniverse.com/ yellowcabuniverse.com], and that'll tell you everything that you need to know, you could also look it up in the iTunes store. Do it, enjoy it, and if you really liked it, send me an email and let me know what you think and tell me what your child's reaction to it was, I'd be curious to know what they got out of it.

S: All right, thanks Jay. And thanks for joining me all this week.

R: Thank you, Steve.

B: Thank you, Steve.

E: Thank you, Steve.

J: Happy new year to you and everybody, guys.

E: Happy new year, let's have a good one.

R: Happy new year.

S: Happy new year. Looking forward to a great 2013 and until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

{{Outro1}}

== References ==
<references/>

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 390

2014-06-29T14:29:33Z

Teleuteskitty: proofread to 1:01

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

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, January 2, 2013, 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: I have come to chew bubble gum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubble gum.

J: Evan, can you say that again, but do it twice as corny.

''(laughter)''

R: Yeah, no.

B: Impossible!

R: You're no Rowdy Roddy Piper.

E: Right? ''They Live.'' That movie. Gosh. Is that one of the worst movies ever?

B and R: Worst?

R: It's one of the best movies ever, are you kidding?

B: Oh, god, I love it.

J: It's a cult classic. I mean, yeah, it didn't hold up as good as I would have liked, but it's still

B: Oh, what doesn't hold up?

J: Whatever. It's still great. It's still good.

R: It's awesome.

B: The best bare-knuckled brawl I think in any movie.

E: I'm sorry. Look, I get campy and I get, you know, yes, I get the brawl scene. It was rated like one of the best brawl scenes in movie history and so forth. Rowdy Roddy Piper, John Carpenter directed it and all that. I'm sorry. That movie had so many flaws to it. I mean if we were ever to do a review of that movie, oh man, we could do a whole episode on that.

S: Maybe we should.

E: Maybe we should.

R: Yeah. I will defend that movie with my life.

''(laughter)''

E: All right. I'm gonna be your Gene Siskel to your Roger Ebert or vice versa, or whatever.

R: Oh, boy.

J: Steve, I'm getting a feeling like in the back of my head. I feel like I'm predicting that we're gonna do a show on predictions.

S: I know, I think you're right, Jay.

B: Damn, you're good.

E: One of these days.

S: It's a high probability hit.

== This Day in Skepticism <small>(1:43)</small> ==
* January 5, 1940: FM radio first commercial broadcast

S: But first, Rebecca's gonna tell us about January 5th.

R: Happy birthday, FM radio!

J: Awesome!

E: To all the kids out there.

J: What does the "F" in FM stand for?

R: Frequency.

B: {{w|Frequency modulation}}

J: Thank you.

R: Yes, sort of. You could probably pick any number of dates for the birthdate of FM radio, but on January 5, 1940, the first network program was broadcast on FM radio. It was called "Colonel Harrison Featherbottom and the Fart Man's Morning Zoo Hour."

''(laughter)''

E: What? No, it wasn't.

B: No way. I don't believe it.

J: I love it!

E: . . . skeptic.

R: Okay, that's not what it was called. But it was a 60-minute show that was designed to showcase several different types of audio and vocals and stuff that would eventually be broadcast. The show traveled from a station in Yonkers, New York that was operated by one C.R. Runyon, to a transmitter in Alpine, New Jersey operated by {{w|Edwin_Howard_Armstrong|Major Edwin Armstrong}} of Columbia University, who was heading up the effort; and then onto Meriden, Connecticut; Paxton, Massachusetts; and then finally Mount Washington, where it was transmitted by telelphone wire to Boston and then back to Yonkers. By all reports the FM broadcasts were found to have no apparent loss of quality. So, it was given the thumbs up. The first FM stations that had regular scheduling, programming, appeared later that year. FM.

J: That's cool.

S: Yeah. So, Jay, frequency modulation, that's how the information is encoded in the carrier wave, by modulating the frequency of a signal. As opposed to AM, which is amplitude modulation, they modify the amplitude of the signal.

E: Thank you, Dr. Marconi.

S: Right. And the FM band simply refers to, the FM has nothing to do with any frequency range itself, any band, but that's just the band that's assigned in various countries to transmit FM signals over. So in the U.S. and most places it's 87.5 to 108.0 megahertz.

== News Items ==
=== Psychic Predictions for 2012 <small>(3:51)</small>===
* The Rogues review predictions for last year and make some new ones for 2013

S: Well, as Jay way saying, as Jay predicted, this is our psychic predictions review episode. The first episode of every year we look back and see how did the psychics fare in predicting events of 2012.

B: Horribly.

E: As expected, though.

S: All right, so do you guys have your favorite psychic that you looked back over to see how they did?

E: Anyone else take Nikki because, you know.

R: I decided to skip Nikki this year.

S: She's always a favorite though.

J: She's awesome. She's the funniest.

R: Awesomely stupid.

E: Awesomely awful.

J: Yeah, but this year after reading, going through her stuff, I think she's either delusional or she's just shotgunning.

S: Or both. These are not mutually exclusive.

J: That's right.

S: She made like 180-something predictions. That's, by definition, shotgunning.

J: All right, so, I got, "More laser attacks against planes".

E: Oooo.

R: ''More'' laser attacks.

J: Yes, ''more'' laser attacks. That's what I thought was funny about that.

R: You mean like little kids with laser pointers?

S: Yes.

R: They're a menace to society.

S: Using laser pointers to blind pilots, yes.

J: I got, "Weird weather conditions worldwide, including snow in Hawaii, Las Vegas, and in the Caribbean".

S: Yeah, remember that snowstorm we had when we were in Las Vegas for TAM?

E: (laughs)

J: Giant prehistoric sea monsters under the sea.

E: As opposed to what, floating in the air?

S: Also, some of her predictions are not even sentences.

J: Yeah.

E: Yeah.

J: They're just snippets. Yeah. "Major UFO sightings, all over the world". Nope, that didn't happen.

E: "Earth will fall off its axis a little more"

J: Yeah, right?

E: What?

S: More than what?

E: Exactly.

J: I like how she, then this one goes, "A possible landing of a spaceship". Now, what does that really mean? A ''possible'' landing.

R: Like the Mars rover?

S: Well, we landed {{w|Curiosity (rover)|Curiosity}} on Mars.

E: Yeah.

R: I'm gonna call that a hit.

E: Okay. Hey, Nikki!

R: Good job, Nikki.

E: It's your first time ever.

J: Guys, guys. "A disabled man attempts to go around the world in his wheelchair".

E: What?

B: Oh, boy.

''(laughter)''

S: Is this a manual or one of those electronic wheelchairs? A power wheelchair.

J: Steve, tell me what's wrong with this one. "A huge pandemic, worldwide".

''(laughter)''

S: As opposed to a pandemic that's not worldwide, yeah.

E: A localized pandemic. Highly localized.

J: Now here are two that prove that she doesn't understand science at all. Ready? Earth will fall off its axis a little more,

S: You already said that.

E: Yeah, we did that.

J: Or, "A hole in the Earth's core".

S: A hole in the Earth's core, right.

B: Whoa, what the. . . what does that even mean?

R: A hollow earth thing, maybe?

B: A vacuum in the center of the Earth.

J: Bob, don't worry about that hole, because "The holy grail will be found".

S: The holy grail will be found.

E: I didn't know it was lost!

S: She wrote "problems with the Earth's magnetic fields."

''(laughter)''

B: Oh, nice.

S: What kind of problems?

J: Well, it must be that the city of Hong Kong is on fire, Steve, that threw off the magnetic fields, 'cause that's another one of her predictions.

S: Yeah.

J: "City of Hong Kong on fire".

R: Did that happen?

S: All of it?

J: No. All of it. City of Hong Kong. On fire.

S: It is funny when scientifically illiterate alleged psychics make science-related predictions. Like a hole in the Earth's core. Really?

J: Here's another good one. "Multiple rainbows in the sky, all over the world, within a 24 to 48-hour period".

B: Oh, no. Oh, my god.

R: That happened, too! I saw that, that double rainbow video.

S: Double rainbow!

E: What the heck is that?

B: Double rainbows are magnificent, though. I saw one last, like, two years ago. Oh my god, it's just mesmerizing.

E: We got tripped up on a science or fiction with that triple rainbow, remember?

J and S: Yeah.

E: Sucked.

J: Guys, how 'bout "a famous racehorse will be kidnapped"?

''(laughter)''

E: What, Man-o-War?

S: That was a Sherlock Holmes short story.

J: A meteorite shower hitting the Earth.

''(laughter)''

E: Oh, Nikki, Nikki. Go back to whatever your job was before.

S: Sometime in August. And then again in November. What are the odds?

J: But, and we're only reading a few, but when you read through, she'll get onto a quickie mini-theme inside her predictions. As if she just banged them out at her desk one afternoon.

E: Or her assistant did.

J: Like she'll get on to the theme of earthquakes and then she'll list like four earthquakes. As if, "Oh, yeah, earthquakes!" and then she writes more earthquake ones.

S: Earthquake in Russia. Yeah, I'm pretty sure there was an earthquake somewhere in Russia this year. Probably more than one. I covered psychic Roxanne, did any of you guys do Roxanne from spiritnow.com?

B: No.

R: Uh uh. I don't think I have Roxanne.

S: She has different, this is Roxanne Usleman Hulderman.

E: And her orchestra.

S: Yup, and her orchestra. She has different categories, and I'm just gonna go over the two categories that were most interesting. I didn't do like the celebrity predictions, who cares. These are her "spiritual" predictions. I'm not even sure what makes these spiritual, but here we go. "Einstein's predictions about the honey bees proves correct. They are becoming extinct, indicating it is the beginning of the end of the world."

B: Oh. Einstein?

E: ''(singing)'' Beginning of the end!

S: So I'm like, Einstein? Really? Einstein predicted that honey bees would become extinct? So I looked that up, and . . .

E: Joe Einstein.

S: there is a quote attributed to Albert Einstein that ''if'' the honey bees became extinct, mankind would become extinct within years. You know, by four years later. Just emphasizing how important bees were to humans.

E: And how important the preposition "if" is.

''(laughter)''

S: Yes. He didn't predict that they would become extinct. ''And'' it's not even sure if Einstein said that quote. It's not really sourced. He could have said it, but nobody knows. It was attributed to him, but, anyway.

B: Yeah, you know what that means.

S: Her number two. "Extra Terrestrials" - two words - "help to evolve our consciousness, uplifting our human vibration". Jay, was your vibration uplifted?

J: Well, from the waist down, yes.

S: Okay.

R: Wait. I found a thing about vibration, too. In a different psychic's predictions.

S: Yeah?

J: I heard that, too, Rebecca. I heard vibrations brought up quite a bit.

R: Okay, so, I watched the psychic twins video.

J: Oh, yeah.

S: Oh, yeah.

R: Terry and Linda Jamison.

E: Oh, yeah. I kicked their butt last year. Ha! Too bad nobody saw it.

R: They were hilariously wrong. They started off their "What's gonna happen in 2012" vodcast, podcast, I guess it was a podcast actually, just listing like all these horrific things that were gonna happen in 2012. Just like, it was just gonna be the absolute worst year for life on Earth, and amongst those, they predicted terrorist attacks in Boston, Florida, in Texas, New York, Detroit. They said that major schools would be victimized by young terrorists, which, I'm sure they're going to call a win, for last week.

S: Yeah.

E: They should be very proud of themselves.

R: They say that there would be major cyber attacks by people in China and Russia. There'd be a Chinese attack on the telephone systems. That's a direct quote. However, according to the medium Allie Cheslick, who was interviewing them about their predictions, all these things could have been thwarted only if people raise their own level of vibration.

J: Right.

S: Um hm.

R: So, apparently, we all did a really good job, raising our level of vibration to the point where none of those things, not, they weren't just thwarted by authorities, they just never actually happened.

E: Oh, those would be good vibrations.

B: I love when they give themselves their own out. You know, if it doesn't come true,

R: Right.

B: well, luckily everyone, you know, messed with, played with their vibrations. Win-win!

J: I'm not afraid to admit that they did get a couple of things right, I mean, you're supposed to, statistically, when you throw out as many predictions as these people do.

B: Oh, yeah.

J: Like they did say that there were gonna be lone wolf attacks in schools. And it did happen.

S: But that's just, again, that's a high probability thing. It's like "another Columbine's gonna happen ''some''time". Sure.

R: Right. Thanks for nothing.

S: Yeah. Somewhere by somebody. No details. It seems specific, but it really isn't, so that's one of the strategies. So, it's a high probability prediction, ''and'' there's so much shotgunning going around that of course two or three are gonna be glancing blows. So, next under her spiritual predictions, the "North and South poles reverse their positions.

E: I've heard that a lot of times.

S: Here we go. "Spiritual evolvement." Evolvement.

''(laughter)''

E: What? ''E''volvement?

S: Evolvement. I don't know why she didn't use "evolution." On this third dimension expands the fight between good and evil.

J: Now what does that mean, that weapons are being introduced? Like, what does that mean?

S: So, we're fighting the good fight against evil more and more. On the third dimension. Which is good, because her next prediction is that the third and fourth dimension begin to merge.

E: Oh, good! Finally!

B: I hate when that happens.

E: It's like when peanut butter and chocolate come together, it's good stuff!

S: But—

B: Don't you dare ''(inaudible)''

S: Hold onto your hats, now. With the great pyramids in Egypt being destroyed, you guys remember when that happened, right?

J & E: Yeah.

B: I missed it.

S: The entire planet's magnetic force shifts, symbolizing the end of times, then and only then do we realize that the pyramids have been holding our planet together.

J: Oh!

E: Oh, like a linchpin.

S: Yeah.

B: It's so clear in retrospect.

R: Yeah.

S: And her final one under that category is "Humans turning evermore towards spirituality" which is actually not happening.

J: Yeah, that's another theme that I kept hearing. The world is becoming more spiritual.

S: The environmental events around the globe, lots of high probability, "there's gonna be earthquakes." An earthquake impacts the state of Washington and California. What are the odds? Of an earthquake occurring in a major earthquake belt. All right, but here's my favorite of all of her predictions. "A solar star dwarf from the sun, breaking off, causing damage to the earth".

''(general excitement and confusion)''

B: Oh, my god.

R: Our sun? That could happen?

J: A solar star dwarf, like, what is that?

S: Right?

E: Phil Plait's gonna have to add a chapter to his book, I think.

''(laughter)''

S: Right! Yeah, a dwarf star apparently is gonna break away from our sun and that is going to damage the earth, which, I imagine it would. If that actually happened. It's like, is she flipping through a science book and just pulling out terms at random without understanding what they are.

B: Does she mean like a coronal mass ejection? Is that what she means?

E: Bob. Bob, you're given her w—a-a-a-a-y too much credit.

J: Bob, the only corona she knows is the beer

S: No, because the next prediction is "solar flares causing power outages", which I read on multiple psychics' lists. Solar flares causing power outages. Again, it's the kind of thing, like scientists say "this could happen someday" so they just pick up on that. It's a high probability prediction. "A contagious disease born of our environmental carelessness affects the world". Another pandemic prediction.

B: Nice. Solar star dwarf.

S: And then finally "Global environmental destruction connected with the end of times Mayan calendar". Wah-wah-waaah.

''(laughter)''

S: So there we go, psychic Roxanne.

R: You know, the psychic twins had another great prediction for 2012. They predicted that there would not be any hurricanes in 2012 that were as bad as the previous year. So no hurricanes as bad as Irene. Kind of missed the mark there. The interviewer, Allie Cheslick, predicted that the twins would have their own television show by March 20th of last year, which, I don't think happened.

J: No. The twins also said that it would take a miracle for Obama to get re-elected.

S: Well, I guess a miracle happened.

E: Well, there you go.

R: It's a miracle!

E: Proof that miracles happen.

B: I've got a few here. I've got a couple from two different psychics. One's Janet Russell, who's a Long Island-based intuitive spiritual medium/psychic. She's also the host of a New York top cable access show, ''Beyond the Unexplained''. And how someone like her can have their own TV show and we don't, I don't understand it. But she's known for her accuracy and honesty. She says "we'll be using solar energies instead of the old standby of gas and electric". Solar energies, in plural, which is very odd. And then, this one tickled me. She goes "and yes, the government will admit that we do have contact with other beings in other dimensions"! You know, it's not good enough that there are other beings, aliens or whatever, but they're also in another dimension. Just to make it, just the icing on the cake, you know. Different dimension.

R: I read Janet Russell's predictions as well, and my favorite one, I think,

B: Which one?

R: Okay, there were two. One was "People will be airing their dirty laundry on teleservices. This way they will have a constant audience." ''(laughing)'' What does that mean?

S: The last teleservice

R: I don't know. And the thing is, like, she's so obviously out of touch because my other favorite one was "I feel that one state will be open to alternative lifestyle and people will move to that state because they feel more comfortable." What? What does that mean, alternative? Does that mean gay marriage, does it mean pot? Because we have those things in several states. It's ... I don't know.

B: She just has her finger on the pulse of culture. There was another psychic, Nancy Bradley. Apparently, this psychic has 98.6% accuracy.

R: Wow

E: Wow

B: For 2011, so—

E: Take that temperature!

B: My first reaction was, well, yeah, that's total baloney. But then I read her predictions. Listen to these two. "Six more Hollywood icons will leave us in 2012, and two major music stars as well". What are the odds of people dying in 2012? That just kind of blew my mind a bit. Here's another one: "more protests across the world, and the U.S. as well, sit-ins as people stand up, much bloodshed". Wow. Who could have foreseen that?

E: Geez. People shedding blood.

B: And then she

S: Yeah, some psychics definitely go with the vague high probability hit.

B: Oh, my god.

S: I was reading a couple that did that. It's like "there will be protests in Egypt." Look! ''(laughter)'' Really?

B: And then she throws in one of these little sciencey ones that are kinda whacky: "a shift in the equator will be discovered and will change some of the weather patterns for countries on it." ''(laughter)'' A shift in the equator. I hate when that happens!

S: The equator shifts. Does she mean the continents ''on'' the equator?

B: Who knows what she meant? ''(laughter continues)'' It could mean anything.

E: The equator shifts! That's the best!

B: She could be referring to that solar dwarf star thing. ''(laughter still continues)''

S: But, guys, that was the best, right? The solar dwarf coming out of our sun.

E: Is it wearing a crown?

J: Wait, but Bob, Nancy Bradley also said "More aquatic ocean and lake animals make their way onto shore. Octopus, fish, etc. Also, as I told you last year, more species thought to be extinct are coming back, including those considered mystical, those that many thought never existed are coming back."

R: The unicorn, for instance. ''(overlapping excited comments)''

S: What about the events that psychics failed to predict for 2012?

B: Oh, yeah. That was easy.

J: How many do you want? I have plenty of 'em here.

B: Well, Hurricane Sandy, first of all. You'd think, you know, such a huge weather event. Somebody, somewhere—

S: And it's in their sweet spot!

B: Just one person.

S: They're predicting tsunamis and earthquakes, and they can't get that one hurricane right? Come on.

J: The shooting in Sandy Hook, Connecticut.

R: Although the psychic twins claim that –

E: Yeah, some will claim that they did that.

J: In order for them claim, and I thought about it, because they did make a lone gunman prediction. But, seriously, like that's just not good enough. Like you have to say more, it has to be more specific. If somebody said—

B: You need two things, Jay. You need two things. If somebody said "Newtown" or "Sandy Hook," that would be impressive as hell. Or even if they said "26 dead" or say "20 kids." If anyone said any of those three things, then, bam! That is a solid hit. Of course it wouldn't mean, you know, that psychics—

S: Yeah, there's different degrees of hits. They could have said "an elementary school." You know, they could have said "a lone shooter killing many kids in an elementary school."

R: Even then...

S: Even that would have been semi-impressive. But just "a lone wolf" or just—

B: No.

S: "terrorism in schools." Nah, it's way too vague.

B: Yeah, I'm talk— 'cause when you think of a psychic, if a psychic really existed, you would expect somebody, one person, or a few people, to have a really solid hit. Something really specific. I mean, isn't that what everyone really wants? That's what we want, right guys?

J: Yeah, but that's the thing, Bob, when you, every year when we read through all these psychic predictions, you know, we're just doing our research, it occurs to me, once again, they're just playing the odds. You can see them playing the odds. There's patterns. There is a reason why a lot of them predict the same types of things over and over again.

S: And they're also just probably going for the sensationalism. I mean the ones they know are not gonna come true. Like the solar dwarf. They're just trying to say impressive sounding things.

B: Right. And they—

S: Because they know no one's gonna care. Their target audience, they're not gonna go back and check up on 'em and see what happened.

B: And they don't care what we're saying.

S: They'll be reading the predictions for 2013. All right, what about the Causeway Cannibal?

J: Yeah, absolutely. ''(overlapping comments)'' Too specific though, Steve, too specific.

S: The fiscal cliff.

J: Yup.

B: Yeah.

S: The Petraeus scandal.

B: Yeah, I had that one, too.

E: Attack in Libya.

S: The Benghazi shooting.

J: The President supporting gay marriage.

B: How about deaths? I mean, did anyone predict the death of Whitney Houston, for example?

S: And if they're gonna dabble in science, how about, like if they ''really'' were going for a high-probability science prediction, how about the Higgs will be discovered?

E: Higgs boson, yeah. That would have been good. Or the lander will successfully, you know, everything will go smoothly there. You could even do that one.

J: How about Facebook going public?

B: Yeah.

E: Facebook, yup.

S: That debacle? Yeah, good one. All right, well, I listened to last year's episode to see what ''we'' all predicted.

B: I remember one prediction. I remember saying that Google Plus would die in 2012.

S: Okay.

B: Unfortunately I was wrong.

R: I mean it's on life support, but...

B: Yeah, it is.

E: My predictions.

S: Well, what were they, Evan?

E: I made one in each of the following categories: technology - the {{w|Aakash (tablet)|Aakash tablet}} would outsell the iPad by the end of 2012.

S: Um hmm. Fail.

R: And?

E: You know, the Aakash tablet. This is a $35 tablet that they made in India.

R; Oh, right.

E: They're already actually up to the Aakash 2. And I figured, all right, so you've got the Indian government, they're subsidizing this thing. They're gonna get this out to 500 million Indians, students and everyone in the country; just pure numbers, it's gonna overtake. Well, it didn't quite happen. I think some of the problems were in the technology itself. Even though it costs 35 bucks, they said it heats up very quickly, and poor design, cheap components. It won't play any of the apps that are out there. The battery life is poor. I think those things might have had something to do with it.

S: It's a $35 tablet, that's why.

E: You get what you pay for. In astronomy - a small meteor will collide with one of the many GPS satellites in orbit, rendering it inoperable. Now, that did not happen this year, but guess what's coming up next month, folks.

J: What?

E: ''(clears his throat theatrically)'' A small asteroid ''will'' pass inside the geosynchronous satellite ring.

J: Irrelevant! Irrelevant, you didn't get it.

E: 35,800—

B: Wow, that's damn close. How big is this thing?

E: —kilometers above the — 150 feet. 150 feet long.

B: Damn!

E: Astronomers say the asteroid may hit a communications satellite, so, you know...

J: It doesn't matter. It's irrelevant. No partial credit for you, sir.

B: You still missed it, dude.

E: Nothing irrelevant about that. Yes, it didn't happen, but the science behind it was revealed in the year, so I'll get a half-credit for that. Biology - Bio-engineered tooth regeneration will become available for humans. Well,

B: That'd be cool.

E: Because I've been following that, they're still doing more studies with mice and stuff, and they're making progress. They made more progress this year, but they didn't get to the humans. So I'll take a minus for that. In skepticism - a prominent skeptic will defect over to an alternative point of view. And that actually did come true, because a global warming skeptic {{w|Richard_A._Muller|Richard Muller}}, who was a proponent, you know, a big proponent saying that man-made global warming does not exist, in fact did leave his brand of skepticism behind and says, yes, it is actually happening. So I'll take a plus for that.

J: No. No one knows who that guy is. You can't take a plus for that.

E: Richard Muller? Steve?

S: Evan's right, but that was the wrong kind of skeptic.

E: I didn't ... hey, Steve.

S: It's all right. I gotcha.

E: Well, do you want me to say brown dwarves are gonna get crapped out of the sun? ''(laughter)'' Is that a better prediction.

R: Yeah, actually, it's awesome.

J: No, you didn't get any. Zero.

E: How 'bout this one? My last prediction: the largest glacier ever recorded will break off, right from the ice shelf. And that ''did'' happen, thank you very much. In Antarctica this year, that actually did happen.

J: No, it didn't.

''(laughter)''

S: Well I had one prediction last year, and it was a crypto-zoological prediction, if you remember. I predicted that Bigfoot would sweep into the White House with a gray alien as a running mate. And that ''did'' happen.

E: It almost happened.

S: But the cover-up is keeping you from knowing about it.

''(laughter)''

E: Right.

J: What did Rebecca do?

B: Good one, Steve.

S: Rebecca predicted Michael Douglas, Michael Douglas was her celebrity death. He's still kicking.

R: Oh. Good. I'm glad.

E: He had a problem. He had problems last year.

S: An ''Arrested Development'' movie.

B: Did I miss that?

R: Uuuh, it's... no, but ....

E: It's in production, right?

R: There is going to be a TV show.

S: Okay.

E: Oh, TV show.

S: And chimpanzees will be found to do something scientists thought only people did, previously.

R: That probably happened.

''(laughter)''

E: Somewhere. We may not have seen it or recorded it, but it might have happened.

J: It didn't happen.

R: Yeah, probably.

S: Jay, do you remember your one prediction?

J: Yes. And that's why I've been arguing so much with everyone. I predicted that none of our predictions would come true.

R: Yeah, that's right.

E: Wrong!

J: I'm more right than the rest of you. How about that?

E: That's why you were hard on me and my predictions, 'cause you wanted ''your'' prediction to come true.

S: All right, well. Who wants to go first in their predictions for 2013?

B: I will! Okay, in 2013, everyone will start referring to the year as "two thousand and thirteen" instead of "twenty-thirteen," ''(laughter)'' except for Rebecca. And the LHC will announce a nine sigma competence level in the Higgs boson. It's existence will—

E: English, Bob! English.

B: It's existence will be so obvious that fifth graders will start finding evidence for it. ''(laughter)'' And my only real prediction, scientists will create a living minimal genome cell from scratch. Please come true.

S: Jay?

J: I predict that Iran's ''(pronouncing it eye-ran)'' going to test a nuke.

S: Iran? ''(pronouncing it Ear-on)'' Yeah.

''(laughter)''

J: What?

S: Where did you run to, Jay?

''(laughter)''

J: Seriously? Like that's even pronounced wrong?

E: Just say Persia.

R: I-in-stine.

S: I-in-stine. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, next?

J: I predict another private company will start launching space missions.

S: Um hmm.

B: Okay.

E: Coca-Cola.

J: Beyond {{w|SpaceX}}. I predict that {{w|Billy Graham}} is gonna kick it.

B: Oh, we're doing celebrity deaths, too?

J: Yeah.

B: Okay.

J: I predict that George Bush ''Senior'' is gonna kick it.

E: Any other 90-something-year-old people gonna kick it, Jay?

J: Well, what d'ya want me to predict, like a 20-year-old?

E: How 'bout someone in their 70s or something. Make it a little challenging.

J: Okay, I predict that Evan Bernstein is gonna choke on a hot dog. ''(laughter)'' And my final prediction for 2013 is, I predict the end is {{w|Bill Nye}}.

''(laughter)''

B: Oh, nice.

R: Wait, what?

B: End is Nye.

E: Funny.

R: Mine are great. You're gonna find no fault with mine.

J: Bring it on. Beat "the end is Bill Nye." Beat that, right now. Go ahead.

R: All right. The Daily Mail will report that researchers have discovered pickles cause cancer.

B: Ooooh. I like it.

J: I like that, okay.

E: I don't eat 'em, so—

R: Number two. A whistleblower will reveal that the government has been hiding something.

''(laughter)''

E: Which government?

R: I'd rather not comment upon which government it is at this time, but, they may have the color red in their flag.

''(laughter)''

J: Okay.

R: Finally ...

E: —like the Swiss! I knew it!

R: I will beat the game FTL on normal mode, and finally get 100 percent on Skyrim.

B: You're reaching now.

J: No way.

E: Now your sun is crapping out brown dwarves, Rebecca.

R: It's on like Donkey Kong

S: Bob, what was your celebrity death?

B: Yeah, I've got a celebrity death, and it's not an octogenarian, Jay, or is a nonagenarian, is that how you pronounce that? Lindsay Lohan.

E: Oooh, she's on my list, Bob!

B: She's been rolling 20 for far too long, her time is ''up.''

J: Nope. I'm predicting she's not gonna die. Not even close.

E: Yeah, she's on mine. I've got three of 'em, that was one of 'em.

S: I predict ''she's'' gonna die, but her twin won't.

''(laughter)''

B: Nice.

R: Oh, we're all going to hell.

S: Evan, what've you got?

E: Okay, in addition to Lindsay Lohan. I predict a world leader, which is a president or a prime minister, will succumb while in office. A few options there, but it'll be very prominent. And, James Van Praagh.

J: Oh, why? What did you see? What did the spirits tell you?

E: Jay, it's something that's beyond sort of a description. In technology, there will be a ''m-a-a-a-jor'' data breach, most likely of a credit card company, or something along those lines. This breach will cost consumers and their insurers at least $1 billion worldwide. In astronomy, we will discover a Earth-like planet, known as "Earth's Twin."

S: Hey, that's been my prediction for the last three years.

''(laughter)''

E: And how's that worked out for ya?

S: I'm getting closer every year. And you're gonna try and take it from me now? That's like you're sitting down at my slot machine, Evan.

''(laughter)''

R: Evan just bid a dollar under your ''Price Is Right'' score. That's what just happened.

E: Well, we'll just share that one, Steve, if it comes true this year.

B: Good analogy, Rebecca.

E: In health, a hand-held breathalyzer will offer early detection of infections caused by microbes. What do you think of that? Aa! And, in the environment, I only did four this year, environment, we will find, scientists will find a way to harness energy from sand. Now, I admit, they will be small quantities of energy, but it'll be energy nonetheless.

S: Like the tar sands?

E: Simply sand.

S: Tar sands are already a major source of petroleum, but, I'm assuming you're not talking about that.

E: Okay, I'll refine it—

S: You'll refine the sand? or refine the petroleum?

E: Desert sand.

S: Okay. I have a celebrity death and two predictions. My celebrity death is Jerry Lewis, unfortunately. Great comedian, but, you know. His time

''(someone in background: Oh, lady! Lady!)''

S: I also predict that there will be a ''major'' pareidolia event this year.

B: Nice.

E: Face on the moon?

R: Major?

S: A major pareidolia event. And finally, conspiracy theorists will use anomaly hunting to argue that an innocent or natural event is actually a deliberate conspiracy.

R: Um hmm.

S: All right, so we will track those and we'll let you know next year how we all did.

=== Cosmic Rays and Dementia <small>(32:27)</small>===
* [http://m.phys.org/news/2012-12-houston-problem-space-brain.html Phys.Org: Houston, we have another problem: Study shows space travel is harmful to the brain]

S: All right well I think we have time for a few quick news items to round out the show, so Bob you're going to tell us about another risk of space travel.

B: In science fiction the biggest problems generally for space travel are usually things like aliens, black holes or warp core breaches, I really hate that last one.

S: And space worms, don't forget space worms.

B: Oh yeah, the worms. It's very annoying then to think that a little thing like ultra-tiny invisible radiation is essentially a total deal breaker right now for allowing humans to spend serious time beyond low earth orbit. We've known this for a while now, we've touched upon it in the past a bit, but most recently scientists have found even more bad news. A new study described in the PLOS ONE journal reveals for the first time that cosmic ray exposure to humans on a trip to Mars can make changes to the brain that could replicate or speed up the onset of {{w|Alzheimer's disease}}.<ref>Cherry et al. (2012). ''Galactic Cosmic Radiation Leads to Cognitive Impairment and Increased Aβ Plaque Accumulation in a Mouse Model of Alzheimer’s Disease'' ([http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0053275 PLOS ONE article])</ref> Now I'm calling this the "space brain syndrome" and it really stinks.

S: Space dementia.

B: That's a good one too, I like "space brain syndrome" better.

S: No. Space dementia.

B: Uh, we talked about the cosmic ray hazards in space but I learned a little bit more about some of these details and I'd like to share. It's pretty interesting. The culprit here is a specific type of cosmic ray, now these aren't rays of course, but they're bits of atoms that are propelled through space. Protons make up the majority of the cosmic rays, followed by alpha particles which is just like two neutrons and two protons. And then electrons kind of finish that list. Those are the majority, the vast majority of all cosmic rays. But a tiny, tiny percentage of cosmic rays are these relatively really big clumps of protons and neutrons and they're called these {{w|HZE_ions|HZE particles}} which stands for High Charge and Energy particles. And the Z, if you're familiar with chemistry, the Z is the universal symbol for atomic number which is the amount of protons in a nucleus, so that's what that stands for. Now so the more protons you have with no electrons to balance them out, you create a bigger and bigger charge. The E stands for energy obviously, so what you end up with is these bare atomic nuclei with lots of protons and a lot of energy and they can penetrate shielding of a ship and through the skin of the astronauts and just wreak havoc on your DNA causing cancer and a host of other issues. So this much we've known for a little while now, and if that wasn't annoying enough, they get this energy from supernovae and also the sun, I wasn't quite aware of this, the sun's solar flares and coronal mass ejections also can produce these HZE particles. As tiny as these— I mean percentage wise, HZEs are a fraction of a percent but they can cause more than 50% of the radiation damage inflicted on astronauts. So these are the big players in terms of astronauts having a problem with radiation in deep space.

S: Now Bob, because these are highly charged particles, would that mean that magnetic shielding would be a viable option?

B: Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, if they didn't have any charge then we'd be even worse off, so yeah that kind of leads into the potential, one of the potential ways for dealing with them. The experiments that these researchers did, particularly specifically on how these HZE particles can affect people, they used rats of course, the most helpful of guinea pigs. They exposed them—

R: Rats aren't guinea pigs.

B: (laughs) They exposed them to increasing doses of radiation, including the equivalent of what an astronaut would experience on a multi-year mission to Mars, which is pretty much how long it would take. Now they tested the rats' recall for certain objects and locations that they were previously exposed to and they found that those that had a bigger dose of radiation did increasingly more poor at those tasks, which of course indicates some level of neurological impairment. But the real kicker though was that I guess after the rat autopsies they revealed indications of not only changes in the brain vasculature but also in the accumulation of {{w|beta amyloid}}, which is that protein plaque that builds up in the brain of Alzheimer's victims. Now Steve, correct me if I'm wrong, but this plaque, that's pretty much the hallmark of that disease right? If you find that, it's like the red light going off that you have Alzheimer's right? These beta amyloid plaques, is that right?

S: They're important, they're not unique to Alzheimer's, it's more complicated than that, but yeah they're an important pathological finding in Alzheimer's disease.

B: Well that was, from what I could gather, that was one of the main reasons that they're all talking about Alzheimer's here. NASA of course is concerned about cosmic rays, especially considering they've had plans for a manned mission to an asteroid in 2021 and to Mars in 2035, I mean there's just no way that's going to happen if they don't deal with this problem. NASA subscribes to a policy known as {{w|ALARA}} which is ''As Low As Reasonably Achievable''. Any exposure to radiation has an element of risk of course, but NASA needs a very high confidence level that an astronaut's lifetime risk of terminal cancer from cosmic radiation is less than 3% so they will not cross that line, so they have to make 3% reasonably achievable to fit in with this whole idea of ALARA, and that's going to take revolutionary technology to pull that off. That's not going to be a quick and easy fix by any means.

S: All right, well thanks Bob.

== Who's That Noisy? & Logical Puzzle <small>(38:07)</small>==
* Answer to last week: Glass Harp playing Fur Elise

S: All right, well Evan we do have time for Who's That Noisy this week.

E: Well good, that's good because we need to reveal the answer to what was the last Who's That Noisy for 2012. I will play it for you now for memory's sake. Here we go.

''(Glass Harp playing Fur Elise)''

E: Lovely Ludwig Van.

S: Fur Elise, it's one of the pieces I had to play when I was taking piano lessons.

E: Did you enjoy it?

S: Yes, It's a pretty piece.

E: It is a pretty pieces. Well what kind of instrument was that, that was the question. And we had a lot of people guess that that was the {{w|Glass harmonica}} or the glass armonica also known as a bowl organ which is actually incorrect, although that instrument would create the same or similar-sounding notes but that was not it. What we were hearing was actually the {{w|Glass harp}}, which is a musical instrument made of upright wine glasses and it's played by running moistened or chalked fingers around the rim of the glass and each glass is tuned to a different pitch and thereby you're able to play all of the notes. That particular piece was performed by [http://www.roberttiso.com/ Robert Tiso] and you can [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47TGXJoVhQ8 see him on youtube playing this], and very talented in his own right. Yes, several people did get it correct, the first one to guess correctly, our friend from the message boards, Magnus M.

S: Mmmhmm.

E: Whose name we've sopken before. Well done, Magnus.

S: Magnus!

E: And congratulations for being first. OK, so 2013, we're going to change things up a little bit for the Who's That Noisy and the puzzle segment. For this year, we're going run a little contest for all the listeners, and here's how it's going to work. Each week when I play the Who's That Noisy or give the Logic Puzzle, everyone who answers correctly, their name will be put into a hat for that week. And that week I will draw a name from the hat at random and the person's name whom I draw will go into a final drawing which will occur at the last episode of the year and the winner of the final drawing will be invited to come onto the SGU to play a round of Science or Fiction with us.

If you're going to submit a guess, we're going to require your guess by the time we record our next show which is typically early to mid-week the following week, it varies from week to week but there is a little incentive there to get your guess in early and get your name eligible to be drawn for the final drawing. Since this is a new idea we are tinkering with, we're going to do this on the honour system. If we sense that there is any abuse by the participants of this we will have to make some modifications along the way, so we're trusting everyone to play fairly, play by the rules, if you know the answer go ahead and tell us, but you don't go sharing it with you know, 100,000 of your closest friends so that there's 100,000 names to draw from each week, that'll make my job a lot harder. So let's give this a try, folks and let's see what we can do.

S: All right, we'll see how it goes.

E: We're going to start this year with a puzzle, a logic puzzle. And this logic puzzle was submitted by listener Alvaro Ibanes, thank you Alvaro for submitting this, this is a very good one. <blockquote>A jeweller has nine pearls which all look and feel exactly alike. However, he knows that one of them weighs more than the other eight. He has access to a classic scale, you know the one with two arms often seen in Lady Justice's hand? What is the minimum number of measurements required to know with absolute certainty which pearl is the one that weighs more? </blockquote>

E: All right? Give us your guess?

S: It's a fun one.

E: Yeah, it is a fun one. Go ahead and give us your best guess, [mailto:info@theskepticsguide.org info@theskepticsguide.org] and our message boards are [http://sguforums.com sguforums.com]. Good luck everyone.

S: Thanks, Evan.

== Interview with Massimo Pigliucci <small>(42:33)</small> ==
S: We are joined now by Massimo Pigliucci. Massimo, welcome back to the Skeptics' Guide!

M: Thank you, it's a pleasure as usual.

S: And Massimo is the chair of the Department of Philosophy at CUNY-Lehman College, the editor in chief of the journal ''[http://www.philosophyandtheoryinbiology.org/ Philosophy & Theory in Biology]''. He's the host of a podcast called ''[http://rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/ Rationally Speaking]'' and also one of the authors on the [http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.co.uk/ blog by the same name]. The author of several books, including the book that we will be discussing this evening: ''[http://www.amazon.com/Answers-Aristotle-Science-Philosophy-Meaningful/dp/0465021387 Answers for Aristotle]''. But his greatest claim to skeptical and scientific fame, was that he was the first ever guest on The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

''(laughter)''

M: That's exactly right.

E: As if he needed anything else.

S: That's right. I was just- That's just the cherry on the top, Massimo.

''(laughter)''

S: Massimo, I talk about you a lot actually, in skeptical circles because like you're the one, in my opinion, like the one real philosopher that we have in the skeptical movement. I'm not saying you're the only philosopher, but you're the one who's active. Who's trying to keep the rest of us philosophically honest, if you will.

M: ''(laughter)''

S: And that, that's essentially what your recent book, ''Answers for Aristotle'', is about. So, tell us about it.

M: Yeah, in some sense. It is aimed at the general public, so it's not a technical book. But it is about the relationship between philosophy and science which I think that is something that certainly members of the skeptic movement should be aware of, or a little more sort of cognisant of. But the basic idea of the book is really that this is essentially a self-help book for people who don't believe in self-help books. The basic approach is that, look, when we're dealing with the big questions in life, you know: morality, or relationships, or you know, general views of the world and whatever, where do we get our best hints, our best information about that? I don't think we get them from religion. Common sense is helpful, but up to a certain point. So, it seems to me that the best combination of answers, or at least approaches to those kinds of questions, come from the two most effective traditions of thought in the Western - and possibly the world - history, which are of course science, as far as factual questions are concerned and philosophy, as far as how to reflect on the implications of those factual answers we get from science. So that's what the book is about, it's how to combine science and philosophy in what I sort of jokingly call Sci-Phi - actually, people pronounce it Sci-Fi, but it should be Sci-"Fee", because the second part is P-H-I for philosophy.

S: Sci-Phi?

M: Yeah, that's right. ''(laughter)'' But I think that Sci-Fi was more, I don't know, the publicist thought it was more, sounded better than Sci-Phi.

''(laughter)''

E: Right.

S: Right. Well, then why didn't the Sci-Fi Channel change it's name to Syfy?

M: Yeah, that's a good question!

''(laughter)''

B: That really pissed me off when they did that.

M: Agreed.

S: So, science gives us the facts, as it were, and philosophy tells us how to think about those facts. Is that a fair summary?

M: Well, yeah, it's, of course as you know that's a little, simple version of the whole thing. In reality there is no sharp distinction between science and philosophy. There are many areas of overlap, the most obvious one perhaps is philosophy of science, or, and in fact also {{w|epistemology}}. I mean, there are areas of philosophy that are directly relevant to science, and there are also areas of science that are definitely relevant to philosophy. I mean, one cannot do these days any serious philosophy of mind, for instance, unless one is well read in, you know, neurobiology and current science. So, there's quite a bit more overlap than the simple distinction between science and philosophy. But it is true that, you know, historically speaking and strictly in modern, in the modern academy, the true disciplines have evolved unto quite different directions and yes, broadly speaking, science deals with the best factual information we can get about the world, and philosophy deals with reflecting methods of reflecting about what that, that information tells us.

S: Yeah, so they're complementary intellectual disciplines—

M: Right.

S: —if you will. And, I think what's, I know you've made this point a lot, and I know in your blog as well, and also in our prior discussions that, scientists who think they can answer all questions, with just science, have to first realise, that when doing science they are also practicing philosophy, cause there has to be a philosophical underpinning of science itself.

M: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of the best summaries of that position was actually due to {{w|Daniel Dennett|Dan Dennett}}. As you know, several years ago he wrote ''{{w|Darwin's Dangerous Idea}}'', which is one of the most influential books, in sort of many people's understanding of evolution and implication of Darwinism and so on and so forth. But in that book, as much as that book is, of course, very much science friendly, and does take on-board, you know, evolutionary biology in particular, Dennett points out that there is no such a thing as philosophy-free science, there is only science that takes on-board the philosophy without examining it. No, now, the question is not that scientists should necessarily do philosophy, in fact I would discourage scientists from doing philosophy. Just in the same way in which I would discourage philosophers from doing science. Those are sufficiently separate activities, as I said, that require different skills, and also, by the way, they have developed huge technical literatures of their own so it's really difficult to do both in a reasonable way. But, what I do suggest is that both scientists, as academics, and sort of the general public at large, would be better off by respecting each other's territory and what comes out of the other field, and also being a little bit acquainted with what comes out of the other field.

S: Yeah, so just as, like in the skeptical movement in just, in general, we promote the idea that people should have a basic scientific literacy. Not that they should be able to practice science as a layperson, but just be scientifically literate. But by the same token, people should be philosophically literate as well, not to be able to engage at cutting-edge philosophical technical discussions, but to have some idea when philosophy is in play at least.

M: Correct. So for instance, a little bit of understanding of basic philosophy of science or epistemology for instance, would go quite a long way for skeptics, to develop a better appreciation not just for the power of science, which is, you know, unquestionable within the community, or unquestioned within the community, but also for the limits of science, you know, there is a lot of stuff that science hasn't figured out, maybe will never figure out, you know, there is a lot of— science needs to be seen for what it is: a very powerful, but nonetheless human epistemic activity, based on certain methods, those methods have certain problems and limitations. The skeptic is supposed to be thinking rationally about a broad range of issues and that ought to include, it seems to me, also the functioning of science itself.

S: Is there an area where you most frequently see science or skeptics go wrong when it comes to philosophy as it's relevant to what we do.

M: Oh, that's a great question. ''(laughter)'' I think there's more than one.

''(laughter)''

B: Give me your top three-

J: Slow down, slow down, don't, don't kill us.

M: No no no no. It's- So, one of the, I think, the major areas that I've seen coming up, quite often in the last, especially the last two or three years, is actually the relationship- it's ethics. And what science can or cannot tell us about ethics. There seems to be a lot of confusion about, you know, ethical reasoning and what it is about, and are there moral truths and how do we discover moral truths and all that sort of stuff. And of course, the naïve position among some skeptic quarters is that, well you know, either morality is all about- it's entirely a human invention, so it's essentially one step removed from {{w|moral relativism}}, which most of us don't wanna go to. ''Or'', then if it is about objective facts then those facts have to be of course matters that science can investigate and therefore we're gonna have, you know, you name it, evolutionary biology or neurobiology is gonna give us answers to moral questions. I think that the reality is a lot more complicated than that. I think that evolutionary biology tells us something very important about morality, that neurobiology tells us something very important about morality, but that neither one of those exhaust what, the province essentially of moral philosophy of ethics in general. So, let me give you a quick example: I think that evolutionary biology is absolutely necessary in order to understand where a sense of moral right and wrong comes from. I mean, we evolved it. We are social animals of a particular type and there is no magic behind it, it doesn't come from gods. It evolved over a period of time, the building blocks of a moral sense, a moral intuition if you will, or a moral instinct can be found in other primates and that makes perfect sense. I mean, it would be really bizarre if morality for some reason where the only thing that we cannot find any, sort of, gradual examples or partial examples in other species. So-

S: Yeah, birds have morality. I mean, birds punish each other for not-

M: Yeah.

S: -doing what the group is in the groups best interest. If one bird doesn't warn the others about a predator, then they won't get warned next time around. You know, so that's been-

J: Wow.

S: -demonstrated experimentally.

M: The thing that I quibble a little bit about that, is, I wouldn't go as far as saying that they have morality as in, obviously, as we understand it from a human perspective, meaning they don't have the ability to reply.

E: Dear Duane.

M: But they do have an instinct, that correspond, that if you were to see those actions in a human being, you would say, "oh that's a moral action."

S: Well that, that's, but my point is what you were saying that there are evolutionary antecedents we could see the elements of morality in other species, obviously an elementary form, not in the reflective form that we have, but they have an instinctive notion of reciprocity which informs our ethical senses, right?

M: Exactly, right. From there to neurobiology or the current science in general of moral decision making that also tells you something interesting. It tells you for instance, not only which areas of the brain tend to be involved in moral thinking and that sort of stuff, which is interesting in and of itself, but it tells you something more deep about how we think about morality. For instance, let me give you one example: you probably, you guys probably now have heard a bit about, sort of the different versions of the trolley dilemma.

S: Yeah.

B: Yeah.

M: Two basic forms, as you likely know, are the one in which there is this trolley coming down the road and it's about to hit and kill five people and you have, you happen to have a very convenient located lever next to you, that if you pull you're gonna divert the trolley on a second track where it is gonna kill only one person. Question: would you do it or not? Answer: empirically speaking, most people would say yes. That's interestingly, by the way, cross-cultural, depending on how you present the dilemma, pretty much people will respond in the same way. Eighty or ninety percent of people say yes. Then you switch into a second situation where you don't have the lever, you're on top of a bridge, there's this really bulky, big guy in front of you and the only option you have is to push the guy off the bridge to save the five people. Question: would you do it? Most people answer no. Now, the interesting question there is why would people answer, most people answer, yes to one and no to the other since at least at one level of analysis the two situations are perfectly analogous: in both cases you have five people you're about to save and one person that you're about to kill. Now, turns out that neurobiology sheds some light on this and it's perhaps not surprising, but it's interesting the way it works. It turns out that if you do a brain-scan of, you know, with all the limitations of course of neural scanning and current technology, but if you do a neural scan of people, an FMRI of people, when they are involved in thinking about the two versions of the dilemma, in the first case, the lever case, people tend to involve the areas of the brain, like the frontal cortex, that are involved typically in sort of rational, deliberate decision making. On the other hand, when people are thinking in terms of the second version of the dilemma, the pushing guy off of the bridge, a lot of the action switches to the amygdala, which of course is more connected to emotional reactions and fear and things like the sort. Now, that makes perfect sense, because basically the second version of the dilemma is much more personal. You're about to actually push somebody, as opposed to do something from a distance, like pulling a lever. So it makes perfect sense that people switch ways of thinking, they use different neural pathways essentially to think about this. That is very interesting and without the science we wouldn't find out why exactly people are doing that. The question however still remains, should you or should you not push the damn guy off the bridge?

S: Yeah.

M: Right.

J: I think an interesting way to look at it too are "what about the social ramifications." Like, you're gonna, you're actually breaking the law if you push the guy off the bridge, even though you're not gonna get arrested for not saving people's lives. Does that come into play?

M: Uh, it does, depending again, as I said earlier, there is a lot of different variants of the thought experiment, and yes, some of those do involve information about the, you know, consequences and if you, of course, were in moral philosophy, it's called a {{w|Consequentialism|consequentialist}} or {{w|Utilitarianism|utilitarian}} view, you will take those into account as well. But the basic version doesn't include those, and it's one of the things that comes out interestingly, for instance from the cognitive science literature, is that there is a small minority of people who do not change their mind, who both will push- uh, you know, pull the lever and push the guy off the bridge. Turns out that psychologically speaking those people corresponds to a somewhat sociopathic profile.

S: Mm-hmm.

M: Those are people that essentially do not engage with the amygdala, they don't engage the emotional reaction, they just think rationally about the whole thing. The reason I brought that up is because, so, now we have an evolutionary account of how we got morality to begin with, we have a neurobiological account of, we ''begin'' to have a neurobiological account of how we actually engage in that sort of thinking, and all of this is very interesting. The thing that we still need to deal with, however, is, okay, in interesting, complex, real-life situations, what are we ought to do, and now I think is where the philosophy, the interesting philosophy, comes in, because of course there are hundreds of years of discussions among philosophers that have been able to frame moral dilemmas according to two or three major ways of thinking about it. One is the one that I mentioned a minute ago, the utilitarian or consequentialist view. There is also the {{w|Ontology|ontological}} thinking which is based on rules essentially, and then there is the {{w|Virtue ethics}} thinking that is based on sort of character development, of what is the right thing to do in terms of what is the right person you wanna develop into. Anyway, those three frameworks help you think about the dilemma in a way that might lead you to reach a conclusion or consider a conclusion based on reason, so you go beyond your instinctual reaction, you go beyond what your amygdala is telling you and you think about it and say "well, wait a minute, here's the situation, here's what the right thing to do is and here's why."

S: Then there are those people like {{w|Sam_Harris_(author)|Sam Harris}}, who I know you have engaged with at least on your blog, who argue that: if we had enough scientific information, that could answer moral questions for us, essentially. You've pretty much explained what's wrong with that answer, but how have you responded to Sam Harris' position.

M: Well, let me give you a simple analogy. Imagine instead of talking about moral decision making, we're talking about mathematical abilities, right? So, how is it that people have developed, human beings have developed the ability to solve mathematical problems. Well, again, you got the same three sort of answers. From an evolutionary perspective it probably was useful at some point or another to start counting or to start thinking in terms of very simple abstract mathematical entities that helped our survival. That's of course speculation, we don't really have access to the relevant information, ecologically speaking, but it's very likely that something like that happened. Now, today you could put somebody that's, say, who's trying to prove {{w|Fermat's Last Theorem}}, you can put him under an FMRI-scan and you can figure out how active different areas of the brain are, and so on and so forth. There is one thing however, that neither this scan, nor the evolutionary story can actually tell you and that is "is the guy getting the proof of the Theorem right?"

S: "Is two plus two four?"

M: Yeah.

S: Well, Massimo. Thanks for joining us again on the show, it's always a pleasure, it always seems like it goes by faster and we're just scratching the surface. But for our listeners, ''Answers to Aristotle'', just tell us about that title for a second, because that's interesting.

M: Aristotle is in fact the philosopher that is most widely quoted or referred to in the book, and there is a reason for that. Aristotle was the first guy in the Western tradition, that really was doing exactly what a (GARBLED) book is about. He was doing philosophy, he is known for establishing the foundations of logic for writing the first comprehensive book about ethics and so on and so forth. But he also was doing science, I mean, most people don't realize this but Aristotle was actually doing field biology of a way on the island of Lesbos, among other places. And he was trying to figure out, okay, was interested in, for instance, shells and he was there and he was collecting samples and looking at things. Now, he got a lot of stuff wrong (inaudible) idea that we got answers for the questions that he asked that he certainly did not have access to. But he does embody the spirit of the book. He was the guy that figured out that "look, you need both factual questions and to ways reflect on the meaning of those questions," and that is sort of the science and philosophy combination in the broadest possible sense.

S: Well, thanks again Massimo!

J: Thanks Massimo.

B: Thank you.

M: It was a pleasure as usual.

== Science or Fiction <small>(1:01:19)</small> ==
''Voiceover: It's time for Science or Fiction''

S: Each week I come up with three science or news items or facts, two genuine and one fictitious. Then I challenge my panel of sceptics to tell me which one they think is the fake. Now before we get started this week, because this is the first Science or Fiction of 2013, I do have the stats, the full Science or Fiction stats, from last year.

E: Eurgh

S: These were sent to us by Cat, from sgutranscripts.org, so thanks Cat. So, here they are for 2012: Bob had played 47 games, lost 19, won 28 for a total of 59.6%.

B: Eurgh, damn.

S: Evan played 50, 25 and 25, exactly 50%.

E: Wow, I think wow, that's pretty good.

S: Jay also played 50, lost 26, won 24 so just shy of Even at 48%. I played 7, lost 3 and won 4 so am at 57.1%, just behind Bob and Rebecca played 44, lost 17, won 27 for a total of 61.4%.

E: Wow.

S: Just edged out Bob.

B: Nice.

S: Congratulations Rebecca.

R: Thank you.

B: Congratulations.

R: Thank you.

J: Overall we're way above average.

E: That was...

S: All doing better than random guessing.

B: Yeah but...

R: Hooray.

B: Rebecca and I did worse than last year though.

R: Yeah. I felt dumber this year.

E: Jay and I picked up the slack though.

B: How could I start off so well and then totally tank it?

S: Regression to the mean. Randomness.

J: Evan, our goal for this year, better than 50%.

E: You bet...

S: OK.

E: You bet buddy.

S: It's a brand new year though, guys. Are you all ready?

E: Clean slate.

S: We do have a theme for this week.

''(laughter)''

R: God damn it.

S: This theme... ''(laughter)'' this theme is dedicated to Jay. It's all about little babies.

''(overlapping comments)''

J: OK

S: Prepare Jay for his...

R: Because Jay's a giant baby?

S: Yeah, for his upcoming...

E: Oh, is that what you mean?

S: ... child to be born in a few weeks.

R: Oh my...

''(overlapping comments)''

S: Hope all goes well. OK...

E: So excited.

S: Here we are - [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130101182012.htm item number one] - a study finds that maternal use of anti-depressants during pregnancy is associated with a greater risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). [http://www.plu.edu/news/2012/12/infant-language/ Item number two] - a new study concludes that babies start learning language in the womb. And [http://news.temple.edu/news/2012-12-13/let-crying-babes-lie-study-supports-notion-leaving-infants-cry-themselves-back-sleep item number three] - new research finds that for most babies it is better to leave them alone when they cry at night rather than comforting them. Jay, 'cos this is a theme in your honour, you get to go first.

J: The first one, about the study that says that mothers that took anti-depressants while they were pregnant - that's interesting that it increases SIDS. Now I do know that SIDS... SIDS is when the baby stops breathing and I thought that that had to do with temperature. OK, the second one about the babies learning language in the womb, I believe that one is correct. I think that they can hear their mothers' voices before they're born and they can identify their mother's voice and actually start to pick up language. So I think that one is science and the third one, the last one about... it's better to leave most babies and let them cry at night instead of comforting them - I'm not sure about that. Now this one, of course Steve's not going to answer questions but, a new born baby absolutely needs to be fed on a regular basis and one of those reasons why a baby cries is because it wants to be fed. It could be just hungry, which, you should feed a hungry baby. The whole crying baby thing, to me, you gotta go in, you gotta check on the baby and feed them. But for some reason I'm thinking here Steve that because you're gonna be leaving the baby alone in a room that this could be later maybe not a new born. I'm gonna say that because of how vague that third one is, I'm gonna say that the first one, the one about SIDS is the fake.

S: OK, Bob?

B: The babies start learning language in the womb, yeah that just makes sense. I would expect that the unborn baby can hear it's mother's voice. I remember reading a while back about how babies can recognise their mothers' voices soon after birth. It just makes sense that they would become accustomed to the language and be primed and ready to go right out of the gate so to speak so that makes sense to me. Leaving crying babies alone, yeah that was the conventional wisdom twelve, fourteen years ago when I had an infant in the house. After Ashley was born it was pretty much - a lot of people were saying that and it makes a lot of sense, you know the baby wakes up, there's some separation anxiety and if the parents come rushing in then the baby will get used to that and expect it all the time and if they can get used to waking up, being alone then going back to sleep, bam, perfect, that's what the baby will do. So that makes a lot of sense too so considering that two and three make so much sense to me, I just think that you could say that mothers who have had babies who died of SIDS, I just don't think you'd have a decent percentage of them that would be on anti-depressants. Yeah, I'm going to say the SIDS is fiction.

S: OK, Rebecca?

R: Ah, yeah. I don't know but the one about leaving babies alone when they cry at night - there's like a huge can of worms in the parenting blogs and forums - I feel like that's one of those things that...

E: You read those?

R: I have friends who are parents who get involved in the mommy blogs and stuff - yeah that's for the past thirty years or so that's been a huge thing - there's even a title for it like it's a parenting style that's specifically based on remaining fairly detached from your children in the hopes that they will learn to fend for themselves and everything that I've read, which admittedly is not a ton because I don't have a kid and I'm not planning to have one any time soon, but everything that I've read suggests that it's BS, that like Jay said, when the baby cries it's crying for a reason go pick it up. So I'm going to say that's the fiction.

S: And Evan?

E: Oh, everyone made very good cases for all of these. Bob, you, I think you hit on the SIDS one, anti-depressants during pregnancy associated with a greater risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Anti-depressants being more prescribed these days than they were way back when but there was still SIDS occurring way back when so I'm thinking that that one's the fiction. But Rebecca, you brought up a good point, good points about the crying. Rebecca I hate to leave you alone out there I'm going to go with what my first instinct way I'm going to say that the SIDS is the fiction.

S: OK so... I'm a little surprised that you guys all believe that a new study concludes that babies start learning language in the womb is science.

E: Spanish or French?

B: Why?

S: You guys all believe that one - I don't know, that one struck me as being a little out there but that one is science.

B: Why did you think that one was out there?

R: That was the most obvious one to me.

J: Steve I read that one and I was talking to my wife Courtney about it and she goes ah I don't know that sounds like BS to me.

S: Yeah.

J: Which I thought was funny 'cos now it's on our game here.

S: It just struck me as like really, really? Alright, but this is true a study does conclude this, I'm not sure how much I totally buy the conclusion and this is the first time a study has shown that newborns are not naive to the language of their mother. What the researcher did, this is Christine Moon, professor of psychology at Pacific Lutheran University, they studied infants that were just hours old and the research paradigm's interesting. They had them suck on a pacifier that was attached to a computer and when they sucked on the pacifier ''(laughter)'' - hang on - they sucked on the pacifier it would...

E: Ten thousand volts.

S: It would play a recording of vowels from either their mothers' native language or a foreign language.

B: Interesting.

S: And it would play for as long as they sucked and then when they stopped sucking it would stop and then when they started sucking again it would play a different vowel.

B: They sucked more.

S: So the question was would they listen more to the vowels...

B: Parent language.

S: From their parent language or their mothers' language specifically or from a foreign language and with the idea, and this was a paradigm used in other research, that they would listen longer to vowels that they were not familiar with.

B: Oh, interesting.

S: Because they were novel, the brain's like hey, this is new, I've got to pay attention to this, not oh this is something I've been hearing for months, you know? And in fact they found that the infants did listen longer, you know based upon their sucking on this pacifier, to vowel sounds from foreign languages than to their mothers' language.

R: But what if they found the mothers' language more soothing so wanted to listen to it longer?

B: Yeah.

S: As I said, this is, you've got to buy every link in this chain...

R: Yeah, dumb, it's dumb.

S: You know, to buy this. But the thing is any difference, any difference you can take that they're not naive and it was not that they're listening to sounds of their mother, just vowels from their mothers' language or a foreign language. So any difference would... means that they're getting something, you know, if you believe the difference itself, if the data itself is compelling. Definitely the kind of study that I'd like to see replicated and looked at from different angles but that was what this study concluded.

E: Great.

S: Let's go to number 1, a study finds that maternal use of anti-depressants during pregnancy is associated with a greater risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Rebecca thinks this one is science, the rest of you think this one is the fiction and this one is... the fiction.

''(overlapping comments)''

B: Yeah baby.

R: Not a good start.

B: One hundred, one hundred percent.

S: Ah so yeah, this is interesting. So first of all the news item that I was basing this on showed the opposite - the use of anti-depressants during pregnancy not linked with increased risk of still birth, infant death or other bad outcomes so that's very nice. And I did do a little research on, you know, 'cos I said let me just say the opposite and then I did some research just on SIDS and specifically what the literature shows is that depression in the mother is associated with increased risk of SIDS and in fact this leads to a recommendation that mothers be treated for their depression...

B: Interesting, woah.

S: In the hopes that it would decrease the risk of SIDS if anything because untreated depression is a risk factor that has been identified for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Now SIDS still remains a little mysterious, you know, it's not like we completely understand exactly what, you know, what is happening, we've identified lots of factors, you know, that increase or decrease the risk and it's thought that, you know, it is... that they essentially they stop breathing. And over the years I've read so many different things like, you know, it's good if they're in the room with the parents because maybe the higher CO2 content drives the infant's respiration more. There are some drugs that are associated with an increased risk of SIDS and those are more for breast feeding now, not anti-natal. So for breast feeding mothers, anti-depressants are still fine but you want to avoid anything that would be sedating so Valium-like drugs are not good, lithium was also another one that was identified, so drugs that could pass through to the infant through breast feeding and can cause sedation will increase the risk of SIDS. The bottom line is if you're breast feeding, your OB should know every medication that you're taking and you need to talk to them about is this something that would get passed through the breast milk to the infant and what risk or effects might it have. So don't just take... breast feeding is actually... you're still linked to the infant, you know, biologically. It's actually more metabolically demanding on the mother than being pregnant, breast feeding, you still need to take that very seriously. Alright, which means, new research finds that for most babies it is better to leave them alone when they cry at night rather than comfort them is science. Now, Rebecca, you're right in that this is a controversy and there's two sides, there's two schools of thought here. There's the... if you comfort them they'll feel reassured and more secure and if you leave them alone to cry they'll feel abandoned then the other side is what Bob articulated which is they, kids need to learn, babies need to learn how to sooth themselves, if you run to them every time you hear them cry you're re-enforcing the behaviour, the crying, and they're not going to learn how to sooth themselves and that is essentially what this latest round now in this controversy has shown. Researchers have found that babies need to learn how to sooth themselves back to sleep. This is also based partly on the notion that infants have a sleep cycle just like everyone else, just like adults, and that sleep cycle involves, you know, going into deeper stages of sleep and then coming into lighter sleep, kind of waking up and then drifting off back to sleep again, that's natural. If the child is fussy or is, you know, upset at all when it wakes up it might cry during that stage of its sleep but that's perfectly normal for it to be quote unquote awake, you know, at that time and what the researchers found is that for some babies, again not for everyone but for some, that they were better sleepers later on in life, meaning like eighteen months, you know, two years, if they were allowed to sooth themselves back to sleep and that those babies whose parents picked them up every time they cried, that they had delayed learning of self-soothing and had a worse sleep later on. So, good job guys.

R: Meuhh.

S: Of to an ironic start, given that Rebecca won last year and...

E: Watch, she'll sweep the table the rest of the year.

S: Yeah, it's, hey, it's an endurance test, you know?

R: Yeah, it's a marathon.

S: It's like one basket in basketball, doesn't mean that much.

B: It's a marathon but right now you're in last place.

== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:16:01)</small> ==

S: So Jay, do you have a quote for us this week?

J: I have a quote that was sent in by a listener named Jim O'Rourke and this is a quote from one of my absolute favourite science popularists.

<blockquote>Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend things which are there.</blockquote>

E: Hmm.

J: Does that sound like anybody?

E: Arthur Clarke?

J: Nope. Richard Feynman.

B: Ah.

S: Richard Feynman.

B: He's got a lot of good quotes.

S: Yeah, he's very quotable.

J: Richard Feynman!

(laughter)

== Announcements ==
=== The Yellow Cab of the Universe <small>(1:16:34)</small> ===
* http://www.yellowcabuniverse.com/

J: A listener of our show emailed us and said that we had inspired him in part to create something that I looked into and I thought was one of the best things that I had found in 2012 as far as a learning tool, an entertainment tool. The listeners name is Eduardo Galvani and we started chit-chatting, he wrote a book for the iPad, it's called ''The Yellow Cab of the Universe'' whcih you could see how we may have inspired him. I loved it, I downloaded it, he gave me, he invited me to download his book, I did, it ended up, it's one of the best books I have ever downloaded on my iPad, it's amazingly interactive and it goes into a very simple yet very eloquent explanation of the universe and of the cosmos, it's just fantasic, this book is something that you could do with your kids I think as an after Christmas present, you know you want to buy something that you could do with your children that would really capture their attention, the book just keeps going on and on, the content is fantastic. He's, with his daughter, he's asking his daughter about her school, and she said "I don't like science, it's too boring," and it really bothered him, it shocked him, and he started to think "what's wrong? It's not the science, the science is incredible, it's the way it's being taught," and he realised very soon after that that he had to create an interactive book that it all kind of gelled in his head, and he did. I don't recommend things often, I have absolutely zero stake in this other than I really am interested in having people spend time with their children and educate their kids on science, this is it, guys. This is one of those things that I think could really influence a young kid's mind to understand, not only understand the universe, understand science and have an interest in that something that's important for the future. So you can go to his website, [http://www.yellowcabuniverse.com/ yellowcabuniverse.com], and that'll tell you everything that you need to know, you could also look it up in the iTunes store. Do it, enjoy it, and if you really liked it, send me an email and let me know what you think and tell me what your child's reaction to it was, I'd be curious to know what they got out of it.

S: All right, thanks Jay. And thanks for joining me all this week.

R: Thank you, Steve.

B: Thank you, Steve.

E: Thank you, Steve.

J: Happy new year to you and everybody, guys.

E: Happy new year, let's have a good one.

R: Happy new year.

S: Happy new year. Looking forward to a great 2013 and until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

{{Outro1}}

== References ==
<references/>

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 390

2014-05-25T19:58:01Z

Teleuteskitty: proofread to 47:25

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|episodeDate = 5<sup>th</sup> January 2013
|episodeIcon = File:FM_RADIO.gif
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|guest1 = M: Massimo Pigliucci
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|qowText = Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend things which are there.
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== Introduction ==
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, January 2, 2013, 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: I have come to chew bubble gum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubble gum.

J: Evan, can you say that again, but do it twice as corny.

''(laughter)''

R: Yeah, no.

B: Impossible!

R: You're no Rowdy Roddy Piper.

E: Right? ''They Live.'' That movie. Gosh. Is that one of the worst movies ever?

B and R: Worst?

R: It's one of the best movies ever, are you kidding?

B: Oh, god, I love it.

J: It's a cult classic. I mean, yeah, it didn't hold up as good as I would have liked, but it's still

B: Oh, what doesn't hold up?

J: Whatever. It's still great. It's still good.

R: It's awesome.

B: The best bare-knuckled brawl I think in any movie.

E: I'm sorry. Look, I get campy and I get, you know, yes, I get the brawl scene. It was rated like one of the best brawl scenes in movie history and so forth. Rowdy Roddy Piper, John Carpenter directed it and all that. I'm sorry. That movie had so many flaws to it. I mean if we were ever to do a review of that movie, oh man, we could do a whole episode on that.

S: Maybe we should.

E: Maybe we should.

R: Yeah. I will defend that movie with my life.

''(laughter)''

E: All right. I'm gonna be your Gene Siskel to your Roger Ebert or vice versa, or whatever.

R: Oh, boy.

J: Steve, I'm getting a feeling like in the back of my head. I feel like I'm predicting that we're gonna do a show on predictions.

S: I know, I think you're right, Jay.

B: Damn, you're good.

E: One of these days.

S: It's a high probability hit.

== This Day in Skepticism <small>(1:43)</small> ==
* January 5, 1940: FM radio first commercial broadcast

S: But first, Rebecca's gonna tell us about January 5th.

R: Happy birthday, FM radio!

J: Awesome!

E: To all the kids out there.

J: What does the "F" in FM stand for?

R: Frequency.

B: {{w|Frequency modulation}}

J: Thank you.

R: Yes, sort of. You could probably pick any number of dates for the birthdate of FM radio, but on January 5, 1940, the first network program was broadcast on FM radio. It was called "Colonel Harrison Featherbottom and the Fart Man's Morning Zoo Hour."

''(laughter)''

E: What? No, it wasn't.

B: No way. I don't believe it.

J: I love it!

E: . . . skeptic.

R: Okay, that's not what it was called. But it was a 60-minute show that was designed to showcase several different types of audio and vocals and stuff that would eventually be broadcast. The show traveled from a station in Yonkers, New York that was operated by one C.R. Runyon, to a transmitter in Alpine, New Jersey operated by {{w|Edwin_Howard_Armstrong|Major Edwin Armstrong}} of Columbia University, who was heading up the effort; and then onto Meriden, Connecticut; Paxton, Massachusetts; and then finally Mount Washington, where it was transmitted by telelphone wire to Boston and then back to Yonkers. By all reports the FM broadcasts were found to have no apparent loss of quality. So, it was given the thumbs up. The first FM stations that had regular scheduling, programming, appeared later that year. FM.

J: That's cool.

S: Yeah. So, Jay, frequency modulation, that's how the information is encoded in the carrier wave, by modulating the frequency of a signal. As opposed to AM, which is amplitude modulation, they modify the amplitude of the signal.

E: Thank you, Dr. Marconi.

S: Right. And the FM band simply refers to, the FM has nothing to do with any frequency range itself, any band, but that's just the band that's assigned in various countries to transmit FM signals over. So in the U.S. and most places it's 87.5 to 108.0 megahertz.

== News Items ==
=== Psychic Predictions for 2012 <small>(3:51)</small>===
* The Rogues review predictions for last year and make some new ones for 2013

S: Well, as Jay way saying, as Jay predicted, this is our psychic predictions review episode. The first episode of every year we look back and see how did the psychics fare in predicting events of 2012.

B: Horribly.

E: As expected, though.

S: All right, so do you guys have your favorite psychic that you looked back over to see how they did?

E: Anyone else take Nikki because, you know.

R: I decided to skip Nikki this year.

S: She's always a favorite though.

J: She's awesome. She's the funniest.

R: Awesomely stupid.

E: Awesomely awful.

J: Yeah, but this year after reading, going through her stuff, I think she's either delusional or she's just shotgunning.

S: Or both. These are not mutually exclusive.

J: That's right.

S: She made like 180-something predictions. That's, by definition, shotgunning.

J: All right, so, I got, "More laser attacks against planes".

E: Oooo.

R: ''More'' laser attacks.

J: Yes, ''more'' laser attacks. That's what I thought was funny about that.

R: You mean like little kids with laser pointers?

S: Yes.

R: They're a menace to society.

S: Using laser pointers to blind pilots, yes.

J: I got, "Weird weather conditions worldwide, including snow in Hawaii, Las Vegas, and in the Caribbean".

S: Yeah, remember that snowstorm we had when we were in Las Vegas for TAM?

E: (laughs)

J: Giant prehistoric sea monsters under the sea.

E: As opposed to what, floating in the air?

S: Also, some of her predictions are not even sentences.

J: Yeah.

E: Yeah.

J: They're just snippets. Yeah. "Major UFO sightings, all over the world". Nope, that didn't happen.

E: "Earth will fall off its axis a little more"

J: Yeah, right?

E: What?

S: More than what?

E: Exactly.

J: I like how she, then this one goes, "A possible landing of a spaceship". Now, what does that really mean? A ''possible'' landing.

R: Like the Mars rover?

S: Well, we landed {{w|Curiosity (rover)|Curiosity}} on Mars.

E: Yeah.

R: I'm gonna call that a hit.

E: Okay. Hey, Nikki!

R: Good job, Nikki.

E: It's your first time ever.

J: Guys, guys. "A disabled man attempts to go around the world in his wheelchair".

E: What?

B: Oh, boy.

''(laughter)''

S: Is this a manual or one of those electronic wheelchairs? A power wheelchair.

J: Steve, tell me what's wrong with this one. "A huge pandemic, worldwide".

''(laughter)''

S: As opposed to a pandemic that's not worldwide, yeah.

E: A localized pandemic. Highly localized.

J: Now here are two that prove that she doesn't understand science at all. Ready? Earth will fall off its axis a little more,

S: You already said that.

E: Yeah, we did that.

J: Or, "A hole in the Earth's core".

S: A hole in the Earth's core, right.

B: Whoa, what the. . . what does that even mean?

R: A hollow earth thing, maybe?

B: A vacuum in the center of the Earth.

J: Bob, don't worry about that hole, because "The holy grail will be found".

S: The holy grail will be found.

E: I didn't know it was lost!

S: She wrote "problems with the Earth's magnetic fields."

''(laughter)''

B: Oh, nice.

S: What kind of problems?

J: Well, it must be that the city of Hong Kong is on fire, Steve, that threw off the magnetic fields, 'cause that's another one of her predictions.

S: Yeah.

J: "City of Hong Kong on fire".

R: Did that happen?

S: All of it?

J: No. All of it. City of Hong Kong. On fire.

S: It is funny when scientifically illiterate alleged psychics make science-related predictions. Like a hole in the Earth's core. Really?

J: Here's another good one. "Multiple rainbows in the sky, all over the world, within a 24 to 48-hour period".

B: Oh, no. Oh, my god.

R: That happened, too! I saw that, that double rainbow video.

S: Double rainbow!

E: What the heck is that?

B: Double rainbows are magnificent, though. I saw one last, like, two years ago. Oh my god, it's just mesmerizing.

E: We got tripped up on a science or fiction with that triple rainbow, remember?

J and S: Yeah.

E: Sucked.

J: Guys, how 'bout "a famous racehorse will be kidnapped"?

''(laughter)''

E: What, Man-o-War?

S: That was a Sherlock Holmes short story.

J: A meteorite shower hitting the Earth.

''(laughter)''

E: Oh, Nikki, Nikki. Go back to whatever your job was before.

S: Sometime in August. And then again in November. What are the odds?

J: But, and we're only reading a few, but when you read through, she'll get onto a quickie mini-theme inside her predictions. As if she just banged them out at her desk one afternoon.

E: Or her assistant did.

J: Like she'll get on to the theme of earthquakes and then she'll list like four earthquakes. As if, "Oh, yeah, earthquakes!" and then she writes more earthquake ones.

S: Earthquake in Russia. Yeah, I'm pretty sure there was an earthquake somewhere in Russia this year. Probably more than one. I covered psychic Roxanne, did any of you guys do Roxanne from spiritnow.com?

B: No.

R: Uh uh. I don't think I have Roxanne.

S: She has different, this is Roxanne Usleman Hulderman.

E: And her orchestra.

S: Yup, and her orchestra. She has different categories, and I'm just gonna go over the two categories that were most interesting. I didn't do like the celebrity predictions, who cares. These are her "spiritual" predictions. I'm not even sure what makes these spiritual, but here we go. "Einstein's predictions about the honey bees proves correct. They are becoming extinct, indicating it is the beginning of the end of the world."

B: Oh. Einstein?

E: ''(singing)'' Beginning of the end!

S: So I'm like, Einstein? Really? Einstein predicted that honey bees would become extinct? So I looked that up, and . . .

E: Joe Einstein.

S: there is a quote attributed to Albert Einstein that ''if'' the honey bees became extinct, mankind would become extinct within years. You know, by four years later. Just emphasizing how important bees were to humans.

E: And how important the preposition "if" is.

''(laughter)''

S: Yes. He didn't predict that they would become extinct. ''And'' it's not even sure if Einstein said that quote. It's not really sourced. He could have said it, but nobody knows. It was attributed to him, but, anyway.

B: Yeah, you know what that means.

S: Her number two. "Extra Terrestrials" - two words - "help to evolve our consciousness, uplifting our human vibration". Jay, was your vibration uplifted?

J: Well, from the waist down, yes.

S: Okay.

R: Wait. I found a thing about vibration, too. In a different psychic's predictions.

S: Yeah?

J: I heard that, too, Rebecca. I heard vibrations brought up quite a bit.

R: Okay, so, I watched the psychic twins video.

J: Oh, yeah.

S: Oh, yeah.

R: Terry and Linda Jamison.

E: Oh, yeah. I kicked their butt last year. Ha! Too bad nobody saw it.

R: They were hilariously wrong. They started off their "What's gonna happen in 2012" vodcast, podcast, I guess it was a podcast actually, just listing like all these horrific things that were gonna happen in 2012. Just like, it was just gonna be the absolute worst year for life on Earth, and amongst those, they predicted terrorist attacks in Boston, Florida, in Texas, New York, Detroit. They said that major schools would be victimized by young terrorists, which, I'm sure they're going to call a win, for last week.

S: Yeah.

E: They should be very proud of themselves.

R: They say that there would be major cyber attacks by people in China and Russia. There'd be a Chinese attack on the telephone systems. That's a direct quote. However, according to the medium Allie Cheslick, who was interviewing them about their predictions, all these things could have been thwarted only if people raise their own level of vibration.

J: Right.

S: Um hm.

R: So, apparently, we all did a really good job, raising our level of vibration to the point where none of those things, not, they weren't just thwarted by authorities, they just never actually happened.

E: Oh, those would be good vibrations.

B: I love when they give themselves their own out. You know, if it doesn't come true,

R: Right.

B: well, luckily everyone, you know, messed with, played with their vibrations. Win-win!

J: I'm not afraid to admit that they did get a couple of things right, I mean, you're supposed to, statistically, when you throw out as many predictions as these people do.

B: Oh, yeah.

J: Like they did say that there were gonna be lone wolf attacks in schools. And it did happen.

S: But that's just, again, that's a high probability thing. It's like "another Columbine's gonna happen ''some''time". Sure.

R: Right. Thanks for nothing.

S: Yeah. Somewhere by somebody. No details. It seems specific, but it really isn't, so that's one of the strategies. So, it's a high probability prediction, ''and'' there's so much shotgunning going around that of course two or three are gonna be glancing blows. So, next under her spiritual predictions, the "North and South poles reverse their positions.

E: I've heard that a lot of times.

S: Here we go. "Spiritual evolvement." Evolvement.

''(laughter)''

E: What? ''E''volvement?

S: Evolvement. I don't know why she didn't use "evolution." On this third dimension expands the fight between good and evil.

J: Now what does that mean, that weapons are being introduced? Like, what does that mean?

S: So, we're fighting the good fight against evil more and more. On the third dimension. Which is good, because her next prediction is that the third and fourth dimension begin to merge.

E: Oh, good! Finally!

B: I hate when that happens.

E: It's like when peanut butter and chocolate come together, it's good stuff!

S: But—

B: Don't you dare ''(inaudible)''

S: Hold onto your hats, now. With the great pyramids in Egypt being destroyed, you guys remember when that happened, right?

J & E: Yeah.

B: I missed it.

S: The entire planet's magnetic force shifts, symbolizing the end of times, then and only then do we realize that the pyramids have been holding our planet together.

J: Oh!

E: Oh, like a linchpin.

S: Yeah.

B: It's so clear in retrospect.

R: Yeah.

S: And her final one under that category is "Humans turning evermore towards spirituality" which is actually not happening.

J: Yeah, that's another theme that I kept hearing. The world is becoming more spiritual.

S: The environmental events around the globe, lots of high probability, "there's gonna be earthquakes." An earthquake impacts the state of Washington and California. What are the odds? Of an earthquake occurring in a major earthquake belt. All right, but here's my favorite of all of her predictions. "A solar star dwarf from the sun, breaking off, causing damage to the earth".

''(general excitement and confusion)''

B: Oh, my god.

R: Our sun? That could happen?

J: A solar star dwarf, like, what is that?

S: Right?

E: Phil Plait's gonna have to add a chapter to his book, I think.

''(laughter)''

S: Right! Yeah, a dwarf star apparently is gonna break away from our sun and that is going to damage the earth, which, I imagine it would. If that actually happened. It's like, is she flipping through a science book and just pulling out terms at random without understanding what they are.

B: Does she mean like a coronal mass ejection? Is that what she means?

E: Bob. Bob, you're given her w—a-a-a-a-y too much credit.

J: Bob, the only corona she knows is the beer

S: No, because the next prediction is "solar flares causing power outages", which I read on multiple psychics' lists. Solar flares causing power outages. Again, it's the kind of thing, like scientists say "this could happen someday" so they just pick up on that. It's a high probability prediction. "A contagious disease born of our environmental carelessness affects the world". Another pandemic prediction.

B: Nice. Solar star dwarf.

S: And then finally "Global environmental destruction connected with the end of times Mayan calendar". Wah-wah-waaah.

''(laughter)''

S: So there we go, psychic Roxanne.

R: You know, the psychic twins had another great prediction for 2012. They predicted that there would not be any hurricanes in 2012 that were as bad as the previous year. So no hurricanes as bad as Irene. Kind of missed the mark there. The interviewer, Allie Cheslick, predicted that the twins would have their own television show by March 20th of last year, which, I don't think happened.

J: No. The twins also said that it would take a miracle for Obama to get re-elected.

S: Well, I guess a miracle happened.

E: Well, there you go.

R: It's a miracle!

E: Proof that miracles happen.

B: I've got a few here. I've got a couple from two different psychics. One's Janet Russell, who's a Long Island-based intuitive spiritual medium/psychic. She's also the host of a New York top cable access show, ''Beyond the Unexplained''. And how someone like her can have their own TV show and we don't, I don't understand it. But she's known for her accuracy and honesty. She says "we'll be using solar energies instead of the old standby of gas and electric". Solar energies, in plural, which is very odd. And then, this one tickled me. She goes "and yes, the government will admit that we do have contact with other beings in other dimensions"! You know, it's not good enough that there are other beings, aliens or whatever, but they're also in another dimension. Just to make it, just the icing on the cake, you know. Different dimension.

R: I read Janet Russell's predictions as well, and my favorite one, I think,

B: Which one?

R: Okay, there were two. One was "People will be airing their dirty laundry on teleservices. This way they will have a constant audience." ''(laughing)'' What does that mean?

S: The last teleservice

R: I don't know. And the thing is, like, she's so obviously out of touch because my other favorite one was "I feel that one state will be open to alternative lifestyle and people will move to that state because they feel more comfortable." What? What does that mean, alternative? Does that mean gay marriage, does it mean pot? Because we have those things in several states. It's ... I don't know.

B: She just has her finger on the pulse of culture. There was another psychic, Nancy Bradley. Apparently, this psychic has 98.6% accuracy.

R: Wow

E: Wow

B: For 2011, so—

E: Take that temperature!

B: My first reaction was, well, yeah, that's total baloney. But then I read her predictions. Listen to these two. "Six more Hollywood icons will leave us in 2012, and two major music stars as well". What are the odds of people dying in 2012? That just kind of blew my mind a bit. Here's another one: "more protests across the world, and the U.S. as well, sit-ins as people stand up, much bloodshed". Wow. Who could have foreseen that?

E: Geez. People shedding blood.

B: And then she

S: Yeah, some psychics definitely go with the vague high probability hit.

B: Oh, my god.

S: I was reading a couple that did that. It's like "there will be protests in Egypt." Look! ''(laughter)'' Really?

B: And then she throws in one of these little sciencey ones that are kinda whacky: "a shift in the equator will be discovered and will change some of the weather patterns for countries on it." ''(laughter)'' A shift in the equator. I hate when that happens!

S: The equator shifts. Does she mean the continents ''on'' the equator?

B: Who knows what she meant? ''(laughter continues)'' It could mean anything.

E: The equator shifts! That's the best!

B: She could be referring to that solar dwarf star thing. ''(laughter still continues)''

S: But, guys, that was the best, right? The solar dwarf coming out of our sun.

E: Is it wearing a crown?

J: Wait, but Bob, Nancy Bradley also said "More aquatic ocean and lake animals make their way onto shore. Octopus, fish, etc. Also, as I told you last year, more species thought to be extinct are coming back, including those considered mystical, those that many thought never existed are coming back."

R: The unicorn, for instance. ''(overlapping excited comments)''

S: What about the events that psychics failed to predict for 2012?

B: Oh, yeah. That was easy.

J: How many do you want? I have plenty of 'em here.

B: Well, Hurricane Sandy, first of all. You'd think, you know, such a huge weather event. Somebody, somewhere—

S: And it's in their sweet spot!

B: Just one person.

S: They're predicting tsunamis and earthquakes, and they can't get that one hurricane right? Come on.

J: The shooting in Sandy Hook, Connecticut.

R: Although the psychic twins claim that –

E: Yeah, some will claim that they did that.

J: In order for them claim, and I thought about it, because they did make a lone gunman prediction. But, seriously, like that's just not good enough. Like you have to say more, it has to be more specific. If somebody said—

B: You need two things, Jay. You need two things. If somebody said "Newtown" or "Sandy Hook," that would be impressive as hell. Or even if they said "26 dead" or say "20 kids." If anyone said any of those three things, then, bam! That is a solid hit. Of course it wouldn't mean, you know, that psychics—

S: Yeah, there's different degrees of hits. They could have said "an elementary school." You know, they could have said "a lone shooter killing many kids in an elementary school."

R: Even then...

S: Even that would have been semi-impressive. But just "a lone wolf" or just—

B: No.

S: "terrorism in schools." Nah, it's way too vague.

B: Yeah, I'm talk— 'cause when you think of a psychic, if a psychic really existed, you would expect somebody, one person, or a few people, to have a really solid hit. Something really specific. I mean, isn't that what everyone really wants? That's what we want, right guys?

J: Yeah, but that's the thing, Bob, when you, every year when we read through all these psychic predictions, you know, we're just doing our research, it occurs to me, once again, they're just playing the odds. You can see them playing the odds. There's patterns. There is a reason why a lot of them predict the same types of things over and over again.

S: And they're also just probably going for the sensationalism. I mean the ones they know are not gonna come true. Like the solar dwarf. They're just trying to say impressive sounding things.

B: Right. And they—

S: Because they know no one's gonna care. Their target audience, they're not gonna go back and check up on 'em and see what happened.

B: And they don't care what we're saying.

S: They'll be reading the predictions for 2013. All right, what about the Causeway Cannibal?

J: Yeah, absolutely. ''(overlapping comments)'' Too specific though, Steve, too specific.

S: The fiscal cliff.

J: Yup.

B: Yeah.

S: The Petraeus scandal.

B: Yeah, I had that one, too.

E: Attack in Libya.

S: The Benghazi shooting.

J: The President supporting gay marriage.

B: How about deaths? I mean, did anyone predict the death of Whitney Houston, for example?

S: And if they're gonna dabble in science, how about, like if they ''really'' were going for a high-probability science prediction, how about the Higgs will be discovered?

E: Higgs boson, yeah. That would have been good. Or the lander will successfully, you know, everything will go smoothly there. You could even do that one.

J: How about Facebook going public?

B: Yeah.

E: Facebook, yup.

S: That debacle? Yeah, good one. All right, well, I listened to last year's episode to see what ''we'' all predicted.

B: I remember one prediction. I remember saying that Google Plus would die in 2012.

S: Okay.

B: Unfortunately I was wrong.

R: I mean it's on life support, but...

B: Yeah, it is.

E: My predictions.

S: Well, what were they, Evan?

E: I made one in each of the following categories: technology - the {{w|Aakash (tablet)|Aakash tablet}} would outsell the iPad by the end of 2012.

S: Um hmm. Fail.

R: And?

E: You know, the Aakash tablet. This is a $35 tablet that they made in India.

R; Oh, right.

E: They're already actually up to the Aakash 2. And I figured, all right, so you've got the Indian government, they're subsidizing this thing. They're gonna get this out to 500 million Indians, students and everyone in the country; just pure numbers, it's gonna overtake. Well, it didn't quite happen. I think some of the problems were in the technology itself. Even though it costs 35 bucks, they said it heats up very quickly, and poor design, cheap components. It won't play any of the apps that are out there. The battery life is poor. I think those things might have had something to do with it.

S: It's a $35 tablet, that's why.

E: You get what you pay for. In astronomy - a small meteor will collide with one of the many GPS satellites in orbit, rendering it inoperable. Now, that did not happen this year, but guess what's coming up next month, folks.

J: What?

E: ''(clears his throat theatrically)'' A small asteroid ''will'' pass inside the geosynchronous satellite ring.

J: Irrelevant! Irrelevant, you didn't get it.

E: 35,800—

B: Wow, that's damn close. How big is this thing?

E: —kilometers above the — 150 feet. 150 feet long.

B: Damn!

E: Astronomers say the asteroid may hit a communications satellite, so, you know...

J: It doesn't matter. It's irrelevant. No partial credit for you, sir.

B: You still missed it, dude.

E: Nothing irrelevant about that. Yes, it didn't happen, but the science behind it was revealed in the year, so I'll get a half-credit for that. Biology - Bio-engineered tooth regeneration will become available for humans. Well,

B: That'd be cool.

E: Because I've been following that, they're still doing more studies with mice and stuff, and they're making progress. They made more progress this year, but they didn't get to the humans. So I'll take a minus for that. In skepticism - a prominent skeptic will defect over to an alternative point of view. And that actually did come true, because a global warming skeptic {{w|Richard_A._Muller|Richard Muller}}, who was a proponent, you know, a big proponent saying that man-made global warming does not exist, in fact did leave his brand of skepticism behind and says, yes, it is actually happening. So I'll take a plus for that.

J: No. No one knows who that guy is. You can't take a plus for that.

E: Richard Muller? Steve?

S: Evan's right, but that was the wrong kind of skeptic.

E: I didn't ... hey, Steve.

S: It's all right. I gotcha.

E: Well, do you want me to say brown dwarves are gonna get crapped out of the sun? ''(laughter)'' Is that a better prediction.

R: Yeah, actually, it's awesome.

J: No, you didn't get any. Zero.

E: How 'bout this one? My last prediction: the largest glacier ever recorded will break off, right from the ice shelf. And that ''did'' happen, thank you very much. In Antarctica this year, that actually did happen.

J: No, it didn't.

''(laughter)''

S: Well I had one prediction last year, and it was a crypto-zoological prediction, if you remember. I predicted that Bigfoot would sweep into the White House with a gray alien as a running mate. And that ''did'' happen.

E: It almost happened.

S: But the cover-up is keeping you from knowing about it.

''(laughter)''

E: Right.

J: What did Rebecca do?

B: Good one, Steve.

S: Rebecca predicted Michael Douglas, Michael Douglas was her celebrity death. He's still kicking.

R: Oh. Good. I'm glad.

E: He had a problem. He had problems last year.

S: An ''Arrested Development'' movie.

B: Did I miss that?

R: Uuuh, it's... no, but ....

E: It's in production, right?

R: There is going to be a TV show.

S: Okay.

E: Oh, TV show.

S: And chimpanzees will be found to do something scientists thought only people did, previously.

R: That probably happened.

''(laughter)''

E: Somewhere. We may not have seen it or recorded it, but it might have happened.

J: It didn't happen.

R: Yeah, probably.

S: Jay, do you remember your one prediction?

J: Yes. And that's why I've been arguing so much with everyone. I predicted that none of our predictions would come true.

R: Yeah, that's right.

E: Wrong!

J: I'm more right than the rest of you. How about that?

E: That's why you were hard on me and my predictions, 'cause you wanted ''your'' prediction to come true.

S: All right, well. Who wants to go first in their predictions for 2013?

B: I will! Okay, in 2013, everyone will start referring to the year as "two thousand and thirteen" instead of "twenty-thirteen," ''(laughter)'' except for Rebecca. And the LHC will announce a nine sigma competence level in the Higgs boson. It's existence will—

E: English, Bob! English.

B: It's existence will be so obvious that fifth graders will start finding evidence for it. ''(laughter)'' And my only real prediction, scientists will create a living minimal genome cell from scratch. Please come true.

S: Jay?

J: I predict that Iran's ''(pronouncing it eye-ran)'' going to test a nuke.

S: Iran? ''(pronouncing it Ear-on)'' Yeah.

''(laughter)''

J: What?

S: Where did you run to, Jay?

''(laughter)''

J: Seriously? Like that's even pronounced wrong?

E: Just say Persia.

R: I-in-stine.

S: I-in-stine. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, next?

J: I predict another private company will start launching space missions.

S: Um hmm.

B: Okay.

E: Coca-Cola.

J: Beyond {{w|SpaceX}}. I predict that {{w|Billy Graham}} is gonna kick it.

B: Oh, we're doing celebrity deaths, too?

J: Yeah.

B: Okay.

J: I predict that George Bush ''Senior'' is gonna kick it.

E: Any other 90-something-year-old people gonna kick it, Jay?

J: Well, what d'ya want me to predict, like a 20-year-old?

E: How 'bout someone in their 70s or something. Make it a little challenging.

J: Okay, I predict that Evan Bernstein is gonna choke on a hot dog. ''(laughter)'' And my final prediction for 2013 is, I predict the end is {{w|Bill Nye}}.

''(laughter)''

B: Oh, nice.

R: Wait, what?

B: End is Nye.

E: Funny.

R: Mine are great. You're gonna find no fault with mine.

J: Bring it on. Beat "the end is Bill Nye." Beat that, right now. Go ahead.

R: All right. The Daily Mail will report that researchers have discovered pickles cause cancer.

B: Ooooh. I like it.

J: I like that, okay.

E: I don't eat 'em, so—

R: Number two. A whistleblower will reveal that the government has been hiding something.

''(laughter)''

E: Which government?

R: I'd rather not comment upon which government it is at this time, but, they may have the color red in their flag.

''(laughter)''

J: Okay.

R: Finally ...

E: —like the Swiss! I knew it!

R: I will beat the game FTL on normal mode, and finally get 100 percent on Skyrim.

B: You're reaching now.

J: No way.

E: Now your sun is crapping out brown dwarves, Rebecca.

R: It's on like Donkey Kong

S: Bob, what was your celebrity death?

B: Yeah, I've got a celebrity death, and it's not an octogenarian, Jay, or is a nonagenarian, is that how you pronounce that? Lindsay Lohan.

E: Oooh, she's on my list, Bob!

B: She's been rolling 20 for far too long, her time is ''up.''

J: Nope. I'm predicting she's not gonna die. Not even close.

E: Yeah, she's on mine. I've got three of 'em, that was one of 'em.

S: I predict ''she's'' gonna die, but her twin won't.

''(laughter)''

B: Nice.

R: Oh, we're all going to hell.

S: Evan, what've you got?

E: Okay, in addition to Lindsay Lohan. I predict a world leader, which is a president or a prime minister, will succumb while in office. A few options there, but it'll be very prominent. And, James Van Praagh.

J: Oh, why? What did you see? What did the spirits tell you?

E: Jay, it's something that's beyond sort of a description. In technology, there will be a ''m-a-a-a-jor'' data breach, most likely of a credit card company, or something along those lines. This breach will cost consumers and their insurers at least $1 billion worldwide. In astronomy, we will discover a Earth-like planet, known as "Earth's Twin."

S: Hey, that's been my prediction for the last three years.

''(laughter)''

E: And how's that worked out for ya?

S: I'm getting closer every year. And you're gonna try and take it from me now? That's like you're sitting down at my slot machine, Evan.

''(laughter)''

R: Evan just bid a dollar under your ''Price Is Right'' score. That's what just happened.

E: Well, we'll just share that one, Steve, if it comes true this year.

B: Good analogy, Rebecca.

E: In health, a hand-held breathalyzer will offer early detection of infections caused by microbes. What do you think of that? Aa! And, in the environment, I only did four this year, environment, we will find, scientists will find a way to harness energy from sand. Now, I admit, they will be small quantities of energy, but it'll be energy nonetheless.

S: Like the tar sands?

E: Simply sand.

S: Tar sands are already a major source of petroleum, but, I'm assuming you're not talking about that.

E: Okay, I'll refine it—

S: You'll refine the sand? or refine the petroleum?

E: Desert sand.

S: Okay. I have a celebrity death and two predictions. My celebrity death is Jerry Lewis, unfortunately. Great comedian, but, you know. His time

''(someone in background: Oh, lady! Lady!)''

S: I also predict that there will be a ''major'' pareidolia event this year.

B: Nice.

E: Face on the moon?

R: Major?

S: A major pareidolia event. And finally, conspiracy theorists will use anomaly hunting to argue that an innocent or natural event is actually a deliberate conspiracy.

R: Um hmm.

S: All right, so we will track those and we'll let you know next year how we all did.

=== Cosmic Rays and Dementia <small>(32:27)</small>===
* [http://m.phys.org/news/2012-12-houston-problem-space-brain.html Phys.Org: Houston, we have another problem: Study shows space travel is harmful to the brain]

S: All right well I think we have time for a few quick news items to round out the show, so Bob you're going to tell us about another risk of space travel.

B: In science fiction the biggest problems generally for space travel are usually things like aliens, black holes or warp core breaches, I really hate that last one.

S: And space worms, don't forget space worms.

B: Oh yeah, the worms. It's very annoying then to think that a little thing like ultra-tiny invisible radiation is essentially a total deal breaker right now for allowing humans to spend serious time beyond low earth orbit. We've known this for a while now, we've touched upon it in the past a bit, but most recently scientists have found even more bad news. A new study described in the PLOS ONE journal reveals for the first time that cosmic ray exposure to humans on a trip to Mars can make changes to the brain that could replicate or speed up the onset of {{w|Alzheimer's disease}}.<ref>Cherry et al. (2012). ''Galactic Cosmic Radiation Leads to Cognitive Impairment and Increased Aβ Plaque Accumulation in a Mouse Model of Alzheimer’s Disease'' ([http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0053275 PLOS ONE article])</ref> Now I'm calling this the "space brain syndrome" and it really stinks.

S: Space dementia.

B: That's a good one too, I like "space brain syndrome" better.

S: No. Space dementia.

B: Uh, we talked about the cosmic ray hazards in space but I learned a little bit more about some of these details and I'd like to share. It's pretty interesting. The culprit here is a specific type of cosmic ray, now these aren't rays of course, but they're bits of atoms that are propelled through space. Protons make up the majority of the cosmic rays, followed by alpha particles which is just like two neutrons and two protons. And then electrons kind of finish that list. Those are the majority, the vast majority of all cosmic rays. But a tiny, tiny percentage of cosmic rays are these relatively really big clumps of protons and neutrons and they're called these {{w|HZE_ions|HZE particles}} which stands for High Charge and Energy particles. And the Z, if you're familiar with chemistry, the Z is the universal symbol for atomic number which is the amount of protons in a nucleus, so that's what that stands for. Now so the more protons you have with no electrons to balance them out, you create a bigger and bigger charge. The E stands for energy obviously, so what you end up with is these bare atomic nuclei with lots of protons and a lot of energy and they can penetrate shielding of a ship and through the skin of the astronauts and just wreak havoc on your DNA causing cancer and a host of other issues. So this much we've known for a little while now, and if that wasn't annoying enough, they get this energy from supernovae and also the sun, I wasn't quite aware of this, the sun's solar flares and coronal mass ejections also can produce these HZE particles. As tiny as these— I mean percentage wise, HZEs are a fraction of a percent but they can cause more than 50% of the radiation damage inflicted on astronauts. So these are the big players in terms of astronauts having a problem with radiation in deep space.

S: Now Bob, because these are highly charged particles, would that mean that magnetic shielding would be a viable option?

B: Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, if they didn't have any charge then we'd be even worse off, so yeah that kind of leads into the potential, one of the potential ways for dealing with them. The experiments that these researchers did, particularly specifically on how these HZE particles can affect people, they used rats of course, the most helpful of guinea pigs. They exposed them—

R: Rats aren't guinea pigs.

B: (laughs) They exposed them to increasing doses of radiation, including the equivalent of what an astronaut would experience on a multi-year mission to Mars, which is pretty much how long it would take. Now they tested the rats' recall for certain objects and locations that they were previously exposed to and they found that those that had a bigger dose of radiation did increasingly more poor at those tasks, which of course indicates some level of neurological impairment. But the real kicker though was that I guess after the rat autopsies they revealed indications of not only changes in the brain vasculature but also in the accumulation of {{w|beta amyloid}}, which is that protein plaque that builds up in the brain of Alzheimer's victims. Now Steve, correct me if I'm wrong, but this plaque, that's pretty much the hallmark of that disease right? If you find that, it's like the red light going off that you have Alzheimer's right? These beta amyloid plaques, is that right?

S: They're important, they're not unique to Alzheimer's, it's more complicated than that, but yeah they're an important pathological finding in Alzheimer's disease.

B: Well that was, from what I could gather, that was one of the main reasons that they're all talking about Alzheimer's here. NASA of course is concerned about cosmic rays, especially considering they've had plans for a manned mission to an asteroid in 2021 and to Mars in 2035, I mean there's just no way that's going to happen if they don't deal with this problem. NASA subscribes to a policy known as {{w|ALARA}} which is ''As Low As Reasonably Achievable''. Any exposure to radiation has an element of risk of course, but NASA needs a very high confidence level that an astronaut's lifetime risk of terminal cancer from cosmic radiation is less than 3% so they will not cross that line, so they have to make 3% reasonably achievable to fit in with this whole idea of ALARA, and that's going to take revolutionary technology to pull that off. That's not going to be a quick and easy fix by any means.

S: All right, well thanks Bob.

== Who's That Noisy? & Logical Puzzle <small>(38:07)</small>==
* Answer to last week: Glass Harp playing Fur Elise

S: All right, well Evan we do have time for Who's That Noisy this week.

E: Well good, that's good because we need to reveal the answer to what was the last Who's That Noisy for 2012. I will play it for you now for memory's sake. Here we go.

''(Glass Harp playing Fur Elise)''

E: Lovely Ludwig Van.

S: Fur Elise, it's one of the pieces I had to play when I was taking piano lessons.

E: Did you enjoy it?

S: Yes, It's a pretty piece.

E: It is a pretty pieces. Well what kind of instrument was that, that was the question. And we had a lot of people guess that that was the {{w|Glass harmonica}} or the glass armonica also known as a bowl organ which is actually incorrect, although that instrument would create the same or similar-sounding notes but that was not it. What we were hearing was actually the {{w|Glass harp}}, which is a musical instrument made of upright wine glasses and it's played by running moistened or chalked fingers around the rim of the glass and each glass is tuned to a different pitch and thereby you're able to play all of the notes. That particular piece was performed by [http://www.roberttiso.com/ Robert Tiso] and you can [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47TGXJoVhQ8 see him on youtube playing this], and very talented in his own right. Yes, several people did get it correct, the first one to guess correctly, our friend from the message boards, Magnus M.

S: Mmmhmm.

E: Whose name we've sopken before. Well done, Magnus.

S: Magnus!

E: And congratulations for being first. OK, so 2013, we're going to change things up a little bit for the Who's That Noisy and the puzzle segment. For this year, we're going run a little contest for all the listeners, and here's how it's going to work. Each week when I play the Who's That Noisy or give the Logic Puzzle, everyone who answers correctly, their name will be put into a hat for that week. And that week I will draw a name from the hat at random and the person's name whom I draw will go into a final drawing which will occur at the last episode of the year and the winner of the final drawing will be invited to come onto the SGU to play a round of Science or Fiction with us.

If you're going to submit a guess, we're going to require your guess by the time we record our next show which is typically early to mid-week the following week, it varies from week to week but there is a little incentive there to get your guess in early and get your name eligible to be drawn for the final drawing. Since this is a new idea we are tinkering with, we're going to do this on the honour system. If we sense that there is any abuse by the participants of this we will have to make some modifications along the way, so we're trusting everyone to play fairly, play by the rules, if you know the answer go ahead and tell us, but you don't go sharing it with you know, 100,000 of your closest friends so that there's 100,000 names to draw from each week, that'll make my job a lot harder. So let's give this a try, folks and let's see what we can do.

S: All right, we'll see how it goes.

E: We're going to start this year with a puzzle, a logic puzzle. And this logic puzzle was submitted by listener Alvaro Ibanes, thank you Alvaro for submitting this, this is a very good one. <blockquote>A jeweller has nine pearls which all look and feel exactly alike. However, he knows that one of them weighs more than the other eight. He has access to a classic scale, you know the one with two arms often seen in Lady Justice's hand? What is the minimum number of measurements required to know with absolute certainty which pearl is the one that weighs more? </blockquote>

E: All right? Give us your guess?

S: It's a fun one.

E: Yeah, it is a fun one. Go ahead and give us your best guess, [mailto:info@theskepticsguide.org info@theskepticsguide.org] and our message boards are [http://sguforums.com sguforums.com]. Good luck everyone.

S: Thanks, Evan.

== Interview with Massimo Pigliucci <small>(42:33)</small> ==
S: We are joined now by Massimo Pigliucci. Massimo, welcome back to the Skeptics' Guide!

M: Thank you, it's a pleasure as usual.

S: And Massimo is the chair of the Department of Philosophy at CUNY-Lehman College, the editor in chief of the journal ''[http://www.philosophyandtheoryinbiology.org/ Philosophy & Theory in Biology]''. He's the host of a podcast called ''[http://rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/ Rationally Speaking]'' and also one of the authors on the [http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.co.uk/ blog by the same name]. The author of several books, including the book that we will be discussing this evening: ''[http://www.amazristotle-Science-Philosophy-Meaningful/dp/0465021387/ref=la_B001IU0D3K_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1343828923&sr=1-6on.com/Answers-A Answers for Aristotle]''. But his greatest claim to skeptical and scientific fame, was that he was the first ever guest on The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

''(laughter)''

M: That's exactly right.

E: As if he needed anything else.

S: That's right. I was just- That's just the cherry on the top, Massimo.

''(laughter)''

S: Massimo, I talk about you a lot actually, in skeptical circles because like you're the one, in my opinion, like the one real philosopher that we have in the skeptical movement. I'm not saying you're the only philosopher, but you're the one who's active. Who's trying to keep the rest of us philosophically honest, if you will.

M: ''(laughter)''

S: And that, that's essentially what your recent book, ''Answers for Aristotle'', is about. So, tell us about it.

M: Yeah, in some sense. It is aimed at the general public, so it's not a technical book. But it is about the relationship between philosophy and science which I think that is something that certainly members of the skeptic movement should be aware of, or a little more sort of cognisant of. But the basic idea of the book is really that this is essentially a self-help book for people who don't believe in self-help books. The basic approach is that, look, when we're dealing with the big questions in life, you know: morality, or relationships, or you know, general views of the world and whatever, where do we get our best hints, our best information about that? I don't think we get them from religion. Common sense is helpful, but up to a certain point. So, it seems to me that the best combination of answers, or at least approaches to those kinds of questions, come from the two most effective traditions of thought in the Western - and possibly the world - history, which are of course science, as far as factual questions are concerned and philosophy, as far as how to reflect on the implications of those factual answers we get from science. So that's what the book is about, it's how to combine science and philosophy in what I sort of jokingly call Sci-Phi - actually, people pronounce it Sci-Fi, but it should be Sci-"Fee", because the second part is P-H-I for philosophy.

S: Sci-Phi?

M: Yeah, that's right. ''(laughter)'' But I think that Sci-Fi was more, I don't know, the publicist thought it was more, sounded better than Sci-Phi.

''(laughter)''

E: Right.

S: Right. Well, then why didn't the Sci-Fi Channel change it's name to Syfy?

M: Yeah, that's a good question!

''(laughter)''

B: That really pissed me of when they did that.

M: Agreed.

S: So, science gives us the facts, as it were, and philosophy tells us how to think about those facts. Is that a fair summary?

M: Well, yeah, it's, of course as you know that's a little, simple version of the whole thing. In reality there is no sharp distinction between science and philosophy. There are many areas of overlap, the most obvious one perhaps is philosophy of science, or, and in fact also {{w|epistemology}}. I mean, there are areas of philosophy that are directly relevant to science, and there are also areas of science that are definitely relevant to philosophy. I mean, one cannot do these days any serious philosophy of mind, for instance, unless one is well read in, you know, neurobiology and current science. So, there's quite a bit more overlap than the simple distinction between science and philosophy. But it is true that, you know, historically speaking and strictly in modern, in the modern academy, the true disciplines have evolved unto quite different directions and yes, broadly speaking, science deals with the best factual information we can get about the world, and philosophy deals with reflecting methods of reflecting about what that, that information tells us.

S: Yeah, so they're complementary intellectual disciplines—

M: Right.

S: —if you will. And, I think what's, I know you've made this point a lot, and I know in your blog as well, and also in our prior discussions that, scientists who think they can answer all questions, with just science, have to first realise, that when doing science they are also practicing philosophy, cause there has to be a philosophical underpinning of science itself.

M: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of the best summaries of that position was actually due to {{w|Daniel Dennett|Dan Dennett}}. As you know, several years ago he wrote ''{{w|Darwin's Dangerous Idea}}'', which is one of the most influential books, in, in sort of many peoples understanding of evolution and implication of Darwinism and so on and so forth. But in that book, as much as that book is, of course, very much science friendly, and does take on-board, you know, evolutionary biology in particular, Dennett points out that there is no such a thing as philosophy-free science, there is only science that takes on-board the philosophy without examining it. No, now, the question is now that scientist shouldn't necessary do philosophy, in fact I would discourage scientists from doing philosophy. Just in the same way in which I would discourage philosophers from doing science. Those are sufficiently separate activities, as I said, that requires different skills, and also, by the way, they have developed huge technical literature of their own so it's really difficult to do both in a reasonable way. But, what I do suggest is that both scientists, as academics, and sort of general public at large, would be better of by respecting each others territory and what comes out of the other field, and also being a little bit acquainted with what comes out of the other field.

S: Yeah, so just as, like in the skeptical movement in just, in general, we promote the idea that people should have a basic scientific literacy, not that they should be able to practice science as a layperson, but just be scientifically literate. By the same token, people should be philosophically literate as well, not to be able to engage at cutting-edge philosophical technical discussions, but to have some idea when philosophy is in play at least.

M: Correct. So for instance, a little bit of understanding of basic philosophy or science or epistemology for instance, would go quite a long way for skeptics, to have, to develop a better appreciation not just for the power of science, which is, you know, unquestionable within the community, or unquestioned within the community, but also for the limits of science, you know, there is a lot of stuff that science hasn't figured, maybe will never figure out, you know, there is a lot of, you know, science needs to be seen for what it is: a very powerful, but nonetheless human epistemic activity, based on certain methods, those methods have certain problems and limitations. The skeptic is supposed to be thinking rationally about broad range of issues and that ought to include, it seems to me, also the functioning of science itself.

S: Is there an area where you most frequently see science or skeptics go wrong when it comes to philosophy as it's relevant to what we do.

M: Oh, that's a great question. ''(laughter)'' I think there's more than one.

''(laughter)''

S: Give your top three-

J: Slow down, slow down, don't, don't kill us.

M: No no no no. It's- So, one of the, I think, the major areas that I've seen coming up, quite often in the last, especially the last two-three years, is actually the relationship- it's ethics. And what science can or cannot tell us about ethics. There seems to be a lot of confusion about, you know, ethical reasoning and what it is about, and are there moral truths and how do we discover moral truths and all that sort of stuff. And of course, the naïve position among some skeptic quarters is that well you know, either morality is all about- it's entirely a human invention, so it's essentially one step removed from moral relativism, which most of us don't wanna go to, or, then if it is about objective fact then those facts have to be of course matters that science can investigate and therefore we're gonna have, you know, you name it, evolutionary biology or neurobiology is gonna give us answers to moral questions. I think that the reality is a lot more complicated than that. I think that evolutionary biology tells us something very important about morality, that neurobiology tells us something very important about morality, but that neither one of those exhaust what, you know, the province essentially of moral (GARBLED) of ethics in general. So, let me give you a quick example: I think that evolutionary biology is absolutely necessary in order to understand where a sense of moral, right and wrong, comes from. I mean, we evolved it. We are social animals of a particular type and there is no magic behind it, it doesn't come from gods, it evolved over a period of time, the building blocks of a moral sense, a moral intuition if you will, or a moral instinct can be found in other primates and that makes perfect sense. I mean, it would be really bizarre if morality for some reason where the only thing that we cannot find any, sort of, gradual examples or partial examples in other species. So-

S: Yeah, birds have morality. I mean, birds punish each other for not-

M: Yeah.

S: -doing what the group is in the groups best interest. If one bird doesn't warn the others about a predator, then they won't get warned next time around. You know, so that's been-

J: Wow.

S: -demonstrated experimentally.

M: (GARBLED) Quibble a little bit about that, is, I wouldn't go as far as saying that they have morality as in, obviously, as we understand it from a human perspective, meaning they don't have the ability to reply.

E: Dear Duane.

M: But they do have an instinct, that correspond, that if you were to see those actions in a human being, you would say, "oh that's a moral action."

S: Well that, that's, but my point is what you were saying that there are evolutionary antecedents we could see the elements of morality in other species, obviously an elementary form, not in the reflective form that we have, but they have an instinctive notion of reciprocity which informs our ethical senses, right?

M: Exactly, right. From there to neurobiology or the current science in general of moral decision making that also tells you something interesting. It tells you for instance, not only which areas of the brain tend to be involved in moral thinking and that sort of stuff, which is interesting in and of itself, but it tells you something more deep about how we think about morality. For instance, let me give you one example: you probably, you guys probably now have heard a bit about, sort of the different versions of the trolley dilemma.

S: Yeah.

B: Yeah.

M: Two basic forms, as you likely know, are the one in which there is this trolley coming down the road and it's about to hit and kill five people and you have, you happen to have a very convenient located lever next to you, that if you pull you're gonna divert the trolley on a second track where it is gonna kill only one person. Question: would you do it or not? Answer: empirically speaking, most people would say yes. That's interestingly, by the way, cross-cultural, depending (GARBLED) how you present the dilemma, pretty much people will respond in the same way. Eighty or ninety percent of people say yes. Then you switch into a second situation where you don't have the lever, you're on top of a bridge, there's this really bulky, big guy in front of you and the only option you have is to push the guy of the bridge to save the five people. Question: would you do it? Most people answer no. Now, the interesting question there is why would people answer, most people answer, yes to one and no to the other since at least at one level of analysis the two situations are perfectly analogous: in both cases you have five people you're about to save and one person that you're about to kill. Now, turns out that neurobiology sheds some light on this and it's perhaps not surprising, but it's interesting the way it works. It turns out that if you do a brain-scan of, you know, with all the limitations of course of neural scanning and current technology, but if you do a neural scan of people, an FMRI of people, when they are involved in thinking about the two versions of the dilemma, in the first case, the lever case, people tend to involve the areas of the brain, like the frontal cortex, that are involved typically in sort of rational, deliberate decision making. On the other hand, when people are thinking in terms of the second version of the dilemma, the pushing guy of the bridge, a lot of the action switches to the amygdala, which of course is more connected to emotional reactions and fear and things like the sort. Now, that makes perfect sense, because basically the second version of the dilemma is much more personal. You're about to actually push somebody, as opposed to do something from a distance, like pulling a lever. So it makes perfect sense that people switch ways of thinking, they use different neural pathways essentially to think about this. That is very interesting and without the science we wouldn't find out why exactly people are doing that. The question however still remains, should you or should you not push the damn guy of the bridge?

S: Yeah.

M: Right.

J: I think an interesting way to look at it too are "what about the social ramifications." Like, you're gonna, you're actually breaking the law if you push the guy of the bridge, even though you're not gonna get arrested for not saving people's lives. Does that come into play?
M: Uh, it does, it depend again, as I said earlier, there is a lot of different variants of the thought experiment, and yes, some of those do involve information about the, you know, consequences and if you, of course, were in moral philosophy (GARBLED) it's called a consequentialist (GARBLED), you will take those into account as well. But the basic version doesn't include those and it's one of the things comes out interestingly, for instance from the cognitive science literature, is that there is a small minority of people who do not change their mind, who both will push- uh, you know, pull the lever and push the guy of the bridge. Turns out that psychologically speaking those people corresponds to a somewhat sociopathic profile.

S: Mhmm.

M: Those are people that essentially do not engage with the amygdala, they don't engage the emotional reaction, they just think rationally about the whole thing. The reason I brought that up is because, so, now we have an evolutionary account of how we got morality to begin with, we have a neurobiological account of, we begin to have a neurobiological account of how we actually engage in that sort of thinking, and all of this is very interesting. The thing that we still need to deal with, however, is, okay, in interesting, complex, real-life situations, what we ought to do, and now I think is where the philosophy, the interesting philosophy, comes in, because of course there are hundreds of years of discussions among philosophers that have been able to frame moral dilemmas according to two or three major ways of thinking about it. One is the one that I mentioned a minute ago, the (GARBLED) consequentialist view. There is also the ontological thinking which is based on rules essentially and then there is vitalistic(?) thinking that is based on sort of character development, of what is the right thing to do in terms of what is the right person you wanna develop into. Anyway, those three frameworks help you think about the dilemma in a way that might lead you to reach a conclusion or consider a conclusion based on reason, so you go beyond your instinctual reaction, you go beyond what amygdala is telling you and you think about it and say "well, wait a minute, here's the situation, here's what the right thing to do is and here's why."

S: Then there are those people like Sam Harris, who I know you have engaged with at least on your blog, who argue that: if we had enough scientific information, that could answer moral questions for us, essentially. You've pretty much explained what's wrong with that answer, but how have you responded to Sam Harris' position.

M: Well, let me give you a simple analogy. Imagine instead of talking about moral decision making, were talking about mathematical abilities, right? So, how is it that people have developed, human beings have developed the ability to solve mathematical problems. Well, again, you got the same three sort of answers. From an evolutionary perspective it probably was useful at some point or another to start counting or to start thinking in terms of very simple abstract mathematical entities that helped our survival. That's of course speculation, we don't really have access to the relevant information, ecologically speaking, but it's very likely that something like that happened. Now, today you could put somebody that's, say, who's trying to prove Fermat's Last Theorem, you can put him under an FMRI-scan and you can figure out how active different areas of the brain are, and so on and so forth. There is one thing however, that neither this scan, nor the evolutionary story can actually tell you and that is "is the guy getting the proof of the Theorem right?"

S: "Is two plus two four?"

M: Yeah.

S: Well, Massimo. Thanks for joining us again on the show, it's always a pleasure, it always seems like it goes by faster and we're just scratching the surface. But for our listeners, Answers to Aristotle, just tell us about that title for a second, because that's interesting.

M: Aristotle is in fact the philosopher that is most widely quoted or referred to in the book and there is a reason for that. Aristotle was the first guy in the Western tradition, that really was doing exactly what a (GARBLED) the book is about. He was doing philosophy, he is known for establishing the foundations of logic for writing the first comprehensive book about ethics and so on and so forth. But he also was doing science, I mean, most people don't realise this but Aristotle was actually doing field biology of a way on the island of Lesbos, among other places. And he was trying to figure out, okay, was interested in, for instance, shells and he was there and he was collecting samples and looking at things. Now, he got a lot of stuff wrong (GARBLED) idea that we got answers for the questions that he asked that he certainly did not have access to. But he does embody the spirit of the book. He was the guy that figured out that "look, you need both factual questions and to ways reflect on the meaning of those questions," and that is sort of the science and philosophy combination in the broadest possible sense.

S: Well, thanks again Massimo!

J: Thanks Massimo.

B: Thank you.

M: It was a pleasure as usual.

== Science or Fiction <small>(1:01:19)</small> ==
''Voiceover: It's time for Science or Fiction''

S: Each week I come up with three science or news items or facts, two genuine and one fictitious. Then I challenge my panel of sceptics to tell me which one they think is the fake. Now before we get started this week, because this is the first Science or Fiction of 2013, I do have the stats, the full Science or Fiction stats, from last year.

E: Eurgh

S: These were sent to us by Cat, from sgutranscripts.org, so thanks Cat. So, here they are for 2012: Bob had played 47 games, lost 19, won 28 for a total of 59.6%.

B: Eurgh, damn.

S: Evan played 50, 25 and 25, exactly 50%.

E: Wow, I think wow, that's pretty good.

S: Jay also played 50, lost 26, won 24 so just shy of Even at 48%. I played 7, lost 3 and won 4 so am at 57.1%, just behind Bob and Rebecca played 44, lost 17, won 27 for a total of 61.4%.

E: Wow.

S: Just edged out Bob.

B: Nice.

S: Congratulations Rebecca.

R: Thank you.

B: Congratulations.

R: Thank you.

J: Overall we're way above average.

E: That was...

S: All doing better than random guessing.

B: Yeah but...

R: Hooray.

B: Rebecca and I did worse than last year though.

R: Yeah. I felt dumber this year.

E: Jay and I picked up the slack though.

B: How could I start off so well and then totally tank it?

S: Regression to the mean. Randomness.

J: Evan, our goal for this year, better than 50%.

E: You bet...

S: OK.

E: You bet buddy.

S: It's a brand new year though, guys. Are you all ready?

E: Clean slate.

S: We do have a theme for this week.

''(laughter)''

R: God damn it.

S: This theme... ''(laughter)'' this theme is dedicated to Jay. It's all about little babies.

''(overlapping comments)''

J: OK

S: Prepare Jay for his...

R: Because Jay's a giant baby?

S: Yeah, for his upcoming...

E: Oh, is that what you mean?

S: ... child to be born in a few weeks.

R: Oh my...

''(overlapping comments)''

S: Hope all goes well. OK...

E: So excited.

S: Here we are - [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130101182012.htm item number one] - a study finds that maternal use of anti-depressants during pregnancy is associated with a greater risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). [http://www.plu.edu/news/2012/12/infant-language/ Item number two] - a new study concludes that babies start learning language in the womb. And [http://news.temple.edu/news/2012-12-13/let-crying-babes-lie-study-supports-notion-leaving-infants-cry-themselves-back-sleep item number three] - new research finds that for most babies it is better to leave them alone when they cry at night rather than comforting them. Jay, 'cos this is a theme in your honour, you get to go first.

J: The first one, about the study that says that mothers that took anti-depressants while they were pregnant - that's interesting that it increases SIDS. Now I do know that SIDS... SIDS is when the baby stops breathing and I thought that that had to do with temperature. OK, the second one about the babies learning language in the womb, I believe that one is correct. I think that they can hear their mothers' voices before they're born and they can identify their mother's voice and actually start to pick up language. So I think that one is science and the third one, the last one about... it's better to leave most babies and let them cry at night instead of comforting them - I'm not sure about that. Now this one, of course Steve's not going to answer questions but, a new born baby absolutely needs to be fed on a regular basis and one of those reasons why a baby cries is because it wants to be fed. It could be just hungry, which, you should feed a hungry baby. The whole crying baby thing, to me, you gotta go in, you gotta check on the baby and feed them. But for some reason I'm thinking here Steve that because you're gonna be leaving the baby alone in a room that this could be later maybe not a new born. I'm gonna say that because of how vague that third one is, I'm gonna say that the first one, the one about SIDS is the fake.

S: OK, Bob?

B: The babies start learning language in the womb, yeah that just makes sense. I would expect that the unborn baby can hear it's mother's voice. I remember reading a while back about how babies can recognise their mothers' voices soon after birth. It just makes sense that they would become accustomed to the language and be primed and ready to go right out of the gate so to speak so that makes sense to me. Leaving crying babies alone, yeah that was the conventional wisdom twelve, fourteen years ago when I had an infant in the house. After Ashley was born it was pretty much - a lot of people were saying that and it makes a lot of sense, you know the baby wakes up, there's some separation anxiety and if the parents come rushing in then the baby will get used to that and expect it all the time and if they can get used to waking up, being alone then going back to sleep, bam, perfect, that's what the baby will do. So that makes a lot of sense too so considering that two and three make so much sense to me, I just think that you could say that mothers who have had babies who died of SIDS, I just don't think you'd have a decent percentage of them that would be on anti-depressants. Yeah, I'm going to say the SIDS is fiction.

S: OK, Rebecca?

R: Ah, yeah. I don't know but the one about leaving babies alone when they cry at night - there's like a huge can of worms in the parenting blogs and forums - I feel like that's one of those things that...

E: You read those?

R: I have friends who are parents who get involved in the mommy blogs and stuff - yeah that's for the past thirty years or so that's been a huge thing - there's even a title for it like it's a parenting style that's specifically based on remaining fairly detached from your children in the hopes that they will learn to fend for themselves and everything that I've read, which admittedly is not a ton because I don't have a kid and I'm not planning to have one any time soon, but everything that I've read suggests that it's BS, that like Jay said, when the baby cries it's crying for a reason go pick it up. So I'm going to say that's the fiction.

S: And Evan?

E: Oh, everyone made very good cases for all of these. Bob, you, I think you hit on the SIDS one, anti-depressants during pregnancy associated with a greater risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Anti-depressants being more prescribed these days than they were way back when but there was still SIDS occurring way back when so I'm thinking that that one's the fiction. But Rebecca, you brought up a good point, good points about the crying. Rebecca I hate to leave you alone out there I'm going to go with what my first instinct way I'm going to say that the SIDS is the fiction.

S: OK so... I'm a little surprised that you guys all believe that a new study concludes that babies start learning language in the womb is science.

E: Spanish or French?

B: Why?

S: You guys all believe that one - I don't know, that one struck me as being a little out there but that one is science.

B: Why did you think that one was out there?

R: That was the most obvious one to me.

J: Steve I read that one and I was talking to my wife Courtney about it and she goes ah I don't know that sounds like BS to me.

S: Yeah.

J: Which I thought was funny 'cos now it's on our game here.

S: It just struck me as like really, really? Alright, but this is true a study does conclude this, I'm not sure how much I totally buy the conclusion and this is the first time a study has shown that newborns are not naive to the language of their mother. What the researcher did, this is Christine Moon, professor of psychology at Pacific Lutheran University, they studied infants that were just hours old and the research paradigm's interesting. They had them suck on a pacifier that was attached to a computer and when they sucked on the pacifier ''(laughter)'' - hang on - they sucked on the pacifier it would...

E: Ten thousand volts.

S: It would play a recording of vowels from either their mothers' native language or a foreign language.

B: Interesting.

S: And it would play for as long as they sucked and then when they stopped sucking it would stop and then when they started sucking again it would play a different vowel.

B: They sucked more.

S: So the question was would they listen more to the vowels...

B: Parent language.

S: From their parent language or their mothers' language specifically or from a foreign language and with the idea, and this was a paradigm used in other research, that they would listen longer to vowels that they were not familiar with.

B: Oh, interesting.

S: Because they were novel, the brain's like hey, this is new, I've got to pay attention to this, not oh this is something I've been hearing for months, you know? And in fact they found that the infants did listen longer, you know based upon their sucking on this pacifier, to vowel sounds from foreign languages than to their mothers' language.

R: But what if they found the mothers' language more soothing so wanted to listen to it longer?

B: Yeah.

S: As I said, this is, you've got to buy every link in this chain...

R: Yeah, dumb, it's dumb.

S: You know, to buy this. But the thing is any difference, any difference you can take that they're not naive and it was not that they're listening to sounds of their mother, just vowels from their mothers' language or a foreign language. So any difference would... means that they're getting something, you know, if you believe the difference itself, if the data itself is compelling. Definitely the kind of study that I'd like to see replicated and looked at from different angles but that was what this study concluded.

E: Great.

S: Let's go to number 1, a study finds that maternal use of anti-depressants during pregnancy is associated with a greater risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Rebecca thinks this one is science, the rest of you think this one is the fiction and this one is... the fiction.

''(overlapping comments)''

B: Yeah baby.

R: Not a good start.

B: One hundred, one hundred percent.

S: Ah so yeah, this is interesting. So first of all the news item that I was basing this on showed the opposite - the use of anti-depressants during pregnancy not linked with increased risk of still birth, infant death or other bad outcomes so that's very nice. And I did do a little research on, you know, 'cos I said let me just say the opposite and then I did some research just on SIDS and specifically what the literature shows is that depression in the mother is associated with increased risk of SIDS and in fact this leads to a recommendation that mothers be treated for their depression...

B: Interesting, woah.

S: In the hopes that it would decrease the risk of SIDS if anything because untreated depression is a risk factor that has been identified for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Now SIDS still remains a little mysterious, you know, it's not like we completely understand exactly what, you know, what is happening, we've identified lots of factors, you know, that increase or decrease the risk and it's thought that, you know, it is... that they essentially they stop breathing. And over the years I've read so many different things like, you know, it's good if they're in the room with the parents because maybe the higher CO2 content drives the infant's respiration more. There are some drugs that are associated with an increased risk of SIDS and those are more for breast feeding now, not anti-natal. So for breast feeding mothers, anti-depressants are still fine but you want to avoid anything that would be sedating so Valium-like drugs are not good, lithium was also another one that was identified, so drugs that could pass through to the infant through breast feeding and can cause sedation will increase the risk of SIDS. The bottom line is if you're breast feeding, your OB should know every medication that you're taking and you need to talk to them about is this something that would get passed through the breast milk to the infant and what risk or effects might it have. So don't just take... breast feeding is actually... you're still linked to the infant, you know, biologically. It's actually more metabolically demanding on the mother than being pregnant, breast feeding, you still need to take that very seriously. Alright, which means, new research finds that for most babies it is better to leave them alone when they cry at night rather than comfort them is science. Now, Rebecca, you're right in that this is a controversy and there's two sides, there's two schools of thought here. There's the... if you comfort them they'll feel reassured and more secure and if you leave them alone to cry they'll feel abandoned then the other side is what Bob articulated which is they, kids need to learn, babies need to learn how to sooth themselves, if you run to them every time you hear them cry you're re-enforcing the behaviour, the crying, and they're not going to learn how to sooth themselves and that is essentially what this latest round now in this controversy has shown. Researchers have found that babies need to learn how to sooth themselves back to sleep. This is also based partly on the notion that infants have a sleep cycle just like everyone else, just like adults, and that sleep cycle involves, you know, going into deeper stages of sleep and then coming into lighter sleep, kind of waking up and then drifting off back to sleep again, that's natural. If the child is fussy or is, you know, upset at all when it wakes up it might cry during that stage of its sleep but that's perfectly normal for it to be quote unquote awake, you know, at that time and what the researchers found is that for some babies, again not for everyone but for some, that they were better sleepers later on in life, meaning like eighteen months, you know, two years, if they were allowed to sooth themselves back to sleep and that those babies whose parents picked them up every time they cried, that they had delayed learning of self-soothing and had a worse sleep later on. So, good job guys.

R: Meuhh.

S: Of to an ironic start, given that Rebecca won last year and...

E: Watch, she'll sweep the table the rest of the year.

S: Yeah, it's, hey, it's an endurance test, you know?

R: Yeah, it's a marathon.

S: It's like one basket in basketball, doesn't mean that much.

B: It's a marathon but right now you're in last place.

== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:16:01)</small> ==

S: So Jay, do you have a quote for us this week?

J: I have a quote that was sent in by a listener named Jim O'Rourke and this is a quote from one of my absolute favourite science popularists.

<blockquote>Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend things which are there.</blockquote>

E: Hmm.

J: Does that sound like anybody?

E: Arthur Clarke?

J: Nope. Richard Feynman.

B: Ah.

S: Richard Feynman.

B: He's got a lot of good quotes.

S: Yeah, he's very quotable.

J: Richard Feynman!

(laughter)

== Announcements ==
=== The Yellow Cab of the Universe <small>(1:16:34)</small> ===
* http://www.yellowcabuniverse.com/

J: A listener of our show emailed us and said that we had inspired him in part to create something that I looked into and I thought was one of the best things that I had found in 2012 as far as a learning tool, an entertainment tool. The listeners name is Eduardo Galvani and we started chit-chatting, he wrote a book for the iPad, it's called ''The Yellow Cab of the Universe'' whcih you could see how we may have inspired him. I loved it, I downloaded it, he gave me, he invited me to download his book, I did, it ended up, it's one of the best books I have ever downloaded on my iPad, it's amazingly interactive and it goes into a very simple yet very eloquent explanation of the universe and of the cosmos, it's just fantasic, this book is something that you could do with your kids I think as an after Christmas present, you know you want to buy something that you could do with your children that would really capture their attention, the book just keeps going on and on, the content is fantastic. He's, with his daughter, he's asking his daughter about her school, and she said "I don't like science, it's too boring," and it really bothered him, it shocked him, and he started to think "what's wrong? It's not the science, the science is incredible, it's the way it's being taught," and he realised very soon after that that he had to create an interactive book that it all kind of gelled in his head, and he did. I don't recommend things often, I have absolutely zero stake in this other than I really am interested in having people spend time with their children and educate their kids on science, this is it, guys. This is one of those things that I think could really influence a young kid's mind to understand, not only understand the universe, understand science and have an interest in that something that's important for the future. So you can go to his website, [http://www.yellowcabuniverse.com/ yellowcabuniverse.com], and that'll tell you everything that you need to know, you could also look it up in the iTunes store. Do it, enjoy it, and if you really liked it, send me an email and let me know what you think and tell me what your child's reaction to it was, I'd be curious to know what they got out of it.

S: All right, thanks Jay. And thanks for joining me all this week.

R: Thank you, Steve.

B: Thank you, Steve.

E: Thank you, Steve.

J: Happy new year to you and everybody, guys.

E: Happy new year, let's have a good one.

R: Happy new year.

S: Happy new year. Looking forward to a great 2013 and until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

{{Outro1}}

== References ==
<references/>

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 390

2014-05-18T20:14:52Z

Teleuteskitty: Proof-read up to 42:33

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|episodeNum = 390
|episodeDate = 5<sup>th</sup> January 2013
|episodeIcon = File:FM_RADIO.gif
|rebecca = y
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|guest1 = M: Massimo Pigliucci
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2013-01-05.mp3
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|qowText = Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend things which are there.
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman Richard Feynman]
|}}

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

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, January 2, 2013, 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: I have come to chew bubble gum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubble gum.

J: Evan, can you say that again, but do it twice as corny.

''(laughter)''

R: Yeah, no.

B: Impossible!

R: You're no Rowdy Roddy Piper.

E: Right? ''They Live.'' That movie. Gosh. Is that one of the worst movies ever?

B and R: Worst?

R: It's one of the best movies ever, are you kidding?

B: Oh, god, I love it.

J: It's a cult classic. I mean, yeah, it didn't hold up as good as I would have liked, but it's still

B: Oh, what doesn't hold up?

J: Whatever. It's still great. It's still good.

R: It's awesome.

B: The best bare-knuckled brawl I think in any movie.

E: I'm sorry. Look, I get campy and I get, you know, yes, I get the brawl scene. It was rated like one of the best brawl scenes in movie history and so forth. Rowdy Roddy Piper, John Carpenter directed it and all that. I'm sorry. That movie had so many flaws to it. I mean if we were ever to do a review of that movie, oh man, we could do a whole episode on that.

S: Maybe we should.

E: Maybe we should.

R: Yeah. I will defend that movie with my life.

''(laughter)''

E: All right. I'm gonna be your Gene Siskel to your Roger Ebert or vice versa, or whatever.

R: Oh, boy.

J: Steve, I'm getting a feeling like in the back of my head. I feel like I'm predicting that we're gonna do a show on predictions.

S: I know, I think you're right, Jay.

B: Damn, you're good.

E: One of these days.

S: It's a high probability hit.

== This Day in Skepticism <small>(1:43)</small> ==
* January 5, 1940: FM radio first commercial broadcast

S: But first, Rebecca's gonna tell us about January 5th.

R: Happy birthday, FM radio!

J: Awesome!

E: To all the kids out there.

J: What does the "F" in FM stand for?

R: Frequency.

B: {{w|Frequency modulation}}

J: Thank you.

R: Yes, sort of. You could probably pick any number of dates for the birthdate of FM radio, but on January 5, 1940, the first network program was broadcast on FM radio. It was called "Colonel Harrison Featherbottom and the Fart Man's Morning Zoo Hour."

''(laughter)''

E: What? No, it wasn't.

B: No way. I don't believe it.

J: I love it!

E: . . . skeptic.

R: Okay, that's not what it was called. But it was a 60-minute show that was designed to showcase several different types of audio and vocals and stuff that would eventually be broadcast. The show traveled from a station in Yonkers, New York that was operated by one C.R. Runyon, to a transmitter in Alpine, New Jersey operated by {{w|Edwin_Howard_Armstrong|Major Edwin Armstrong}} of Columbia University, who was heading up the effort; and then onto Meriden, Connecticut; Paxton, Massachusetts; and then finally Mount Washington, where it was transmitted by telelphone wire to Boston and then back to Yonkers. By all reports the FM broadcasts were found to have no apparent loss of quality. So, it was given the thumbs up. The first FM stations that had regular scheduling, programming, appeared later that year. FM.

J: That's cool.

S: Yeah. So, Jay, frequency modulation, that's how the information is encoded in the carrier wave, by modulating the frequency of a signal. As opposed to AM, which is amplitude modulation, they modify the amplitude of the signal.

E: Thank you, Dr. Marconi.

S: Right. And the FM band simply refers to, the FM has nothing to do with any frequency range itself, any band, but that's just the band that's assigned in various countries to transmit FM signals over. So in the U.S. and most places it's 87.5 to 108.0 megahertz.

== News Items ==
=== Psychic Predictions for 2012 <small>(3:51)</small>===
* The Rogues review predictions for last year and make some new ones for 2013

S: Well, as Jay way saying, as Jay predicted, this is our psychic predictions review episode. The first episode of every year we look back and see how did the psychics fare in predicting events of 2012.

B: Horribly.

E: As expected, though.

S: All right, so do you guys have your favorite psychic that you looked back over to see how they did?

E: Anyone else take Nikki because, you know.

R: I decided to skip Nikki this year.

S: She's always a favorite though.

J: She's awesome. She's the funniest.

R: Awesomely stupid.

E: Awesomely awful.

J: Yeah, but this year after reading, going through her stuff, I think she's either delusional or she's just shotgunning.

S: Or both. These are not mutually exclusive.

J: That's right.

S: She made like 180-something predictions. That's, by definition, shotgunning.

J: All right, so, I got, "More laser attacks against planes".

E: Oooo.

R: ''More'' laser attacks.

J: Yes, ''more'' laser attacks. That's what I thought was funny about that.

R: You mean like little kids with laser pointers?

S: Yes.

R: They're a menace to society.

S: Using laser pointers to blind pilots, yes.

J: I got, "Weird weather conditions worldwide, including snow in Hawaii, Las Vegas, and in the Caribbean".

S: Yeah, remember that snowstorm we had when we were in Las Vegas for TAM?

E: (laughs)

J: Giant prehistoric sea monsters under the sea.

E: As opposed to what, floating in the air?

S: Also, some of her predictions are not even sentences.

J: Yeah.

E: Yeah.

J: They're just snippets. Yeah. "Major UFO sightings, all over the world". Nope, that didn't happen.

E: "Earth will fall off its axis a little more"

J: Yeah, right?

E: What?

S: More than what?

E: Exactly.

J: I like how she, then this one goes, "A possible landing of a spaceship". Now, what does that really mean? A ''possible'' landing.

R: Like the Mars rover?

S: Well, we landed {{w|Curiosity (rover)|Curiosity}} on Mars.

E: Yeah.

R: I'm gonna call that a hit.

E: Okay. Hey, Nikki!

R: Good job, Nikki.

E: It's your first time ever.

J: Guys, guys. "A disabled man attempts to go around the world in his wheelchair".

E: What?

B: Oh, boy.

''(laughter)''

S: Is this a manual or one of those electronic wheelchairs? A power wheelchair.

J: Steve, tell me what's wrong with this one. "A huge pandemic, worldwide".

''(laughter)''

S: As opposed to a pandemic that's not worldwide, yeah.

E: A localized pandemic. Highly localized.

J: Now here are two that prove that she doesn't understand science at all. Ready? Earth will fall off its axis a little more,

S: You already said that.

E: Yeah, we did that.

J: Or, "A hole in the Earth's core".

S: A hole in the Earth's core, right.

B: Whoa, what the. . . what does that even mean?

R: A hollow earth thing, maybe?

B: A vacuum in the center of the Earth.

J: Bob, don't worry about that hole, because "The holy grail will be found".

S: The holy grail will be found.

E: I didn't know it was lost!

S: She wrote "problems with the Earth's magnetic fields."

''(laughter)''

B: Oh, nice.

S: What kind of problems?

J: Well, it must be that the city of Hong Kong is on fire, Steve, that threw off the magnetic fields, 'cause that's another one of her predictions.

S: Yeah.

J: "City of Hong Kong on fire".

R: Did that happen?

S: All of it?

J: No. All of it. City of Hong Kong. On fire.

S: It is funny when scientifically illiterate alleged psychics make science-related predictions. Like a hole in the Earth's core. Really?

J: Here's another good one. "Multiple rainbows in the sky, all over the world, within a 24 to 48-hour period".

B: Oh, no. Oh, my god.

R: That happened, too! I saw that, that double rainbow video.

S: Double rainbow!

E: What the heck is that?

B: Double rainbows are magnificent, though. I saw one last, like, two years ago. Oh my god, it's just mesmerizing.

E: We got tripped up on a science or fiction with that triple rainbow, remember?

J and S: Yeah.

E: Sucked.

J: Guys, how 'bout "a famous racehorse will be kidnapped"?

''(laughter)''

E: What, Man-o-War?

S: That was a Sherlock Holmes short story.

J: A meteorite shower hitting the Earth.

''(laughter)''

E: Oh, Nikki, Nikki. Go back to whatever your job was before.

S: Sometime in August. And then again in November. What are the odds?

J: But, and we're only reading a few, but when you read through, she'll get onto a quickie mini-theme inside her predictions. As if she just banged them out at her desk one afternoon.

E: Or her assistant did.

J: Like she'll get on to the theme of earthquakes and then she'll list like four earthquakes. As if, "Oh, yeah, earthquakes!" and then she writes more earthquake ones.

S: Earthquake in Russia. Yeah, I'm pretty sure there was an earthquake somewhere in Russia this year. Probably more than one. I covered psychic Roxanne, did any of you guys do Roxanne from spiritnow.com?

B: No.

R: Uh uh. I don't think I have Roxanne.

S: She has different, this is Roxanne Usleman Hulderman.

E: And her orchestra.

S: Yup, and her orchestra. She has different categories, and I'm just gonna go over the two categories that were most interesting. I didn't do like the celebrity predictions, who cares. These are her "spiritual" predictions. I'm not even sure what makes these spiritual, but here we go. "Einstein's predictions about the honey bees proves correct. They are becoming extinct, indicating it is the beginning of the end of the world."

B: Oh. Einstein?

E: ''(singing)'' Beginning of the end!

S: So I'm like, Einstein? Really? Einstein predicted that honey bees would become extinct? So I looked that up, and . . .

E: Joe Einstein.

S: there is a quote attributed to Albert Einstein that ''if'' the honey bees became extinct, mankind would become extinct within years. You know, by four years later. Just emphasizing how important bees were to humans.

E: And how important the preposition "if" is.

''(laughter)''

S: Yes. He didn't predict that they would become extinct. ''And'' it's not even sure if Einstein said that quote. It's not really sourced. He could have said it, but nobody knows. It was attributed to him, but, anyway.

B: Yeah, you know what that means.

S: Her number two. "Extra Terrestrials" - two words - "help to evolve our consciousness, uplifting our human vibration". Jay, was your vibration uplifted?

J: Well, from the waist down, yes.

S: Okay.

R: Wait. I found a thing about vibration, too. In a different psychic's predictions.

S: Yeah?

J: I heard that, too, Rebecca. I heard vibrations brought up quite a bit.

R: Okay, so, I watched the psychic twins video.

J: Oh, yeah.

S: Oh, yeah.

R: Terry and Linda Jamison.

E: Oh, yeah. I kicked their butt last year. Ha! Too bad nobody saw it.

R: They were hilariously wrong. They started off their "What's gonna happen in 2012" vodcast, podcast, I guess it was a podcast actually, just listing like all these horrific things that were gonna happen in 2012. Just like, it was just gonna be the absolute worst year for life on Earth, and amongst those, they predicted terrorist attacks in Boston, Florida, in Texas, New York, Detroit. They said that major schools would be victimized by young terrorists, which, I'm sure they're going to call a win, for last week.

S: Yeah.

E: They should be very proud of themselves.

R: They say that there would be major cyber attacks by people in China and Russia. There'd be a Chinese attack on the telephone systems. That's a direct quote. However, according to the medium Allie Cheslick, who was interviewing them about their predictions, all these things could have been thwarted only if people raise their own level of vibration.

J: Right.

S: Um hm.

R: So, apparently, we all did a really good job, raising our level of vibration to the point where none of those things, not, they weren't just thwarted by authorities, they just never actually happened.

E: Oh, those would be good vibrations.

B: I love when they give themselves their own out. You know, if it doesn't come true,

R: Right.

B: well, luckily everyone, you know, messed with, played with their vibrations. Win-win!

J: I'm not afraid to admit that they did get a couple of things right, I mean, you're supposed to, statistically, when you throw out as many predictions as these people do.

B: Oh, yeah.

J: Like they did say that there were gonna be lone wolf attacks in schools. And it did happen.

S: But that's just, again, that's a high probability thing. It's like "another Columbine's gonna happen ''some''time". Sure.

R: Right. Thanks for nothing.

S: Yeah. Somewhere by somebody. No details. It seems specific, but it really isn't, so that's one of the strategies. So, it's a high probability prediction, ''and'' there's so much shotgunning going around that of course two or three are gonna be glancing blows. So, next under her spiritual predictions, the "North and South poles reverse their positions.

E: I've heard that a lot of times.

S: Here we go. "Spiritual evolvement." Evolvement.

''(laughter)''

E: What? ''E''volvement?

S: Evolvement. I don't know why she didn't use "evolution." On this third dimension expands the fight between good and evil.

J: Now what does that mean, that weapons are being introduced? Like, what does that mean?

S: So, we're fighting the good fight against evil more and more. On the third dimension. Which is good, because her next prediction is that the third and fourth dimension begin to merge.

E: Oh, good! Finally!

B: I hate when that happens.

E: It's like when peanut butter and chocolate come together, it's good stuff!

S: But—

B: Don't you dare ''(inaudible)''

S: Hold onto your hats, now. With the great pyramids in Egypt being destroyed, you guys remember when that happened, right?

J & E: Yeah.

B: I missed it.

S: The entire planet's magnetic force shifts, symbolizing the end of times, then and only then do we realize that the pyramids have been holding our planet together.

J: Oh!

E: Oh, like a linchpin.

S: Yeah.

B: It's so clear in retrospect.

R: Yeah.

S: And her final one under that category is "Humans turning evermore towards spirituality" which is actually not happening.

J: Yeah, that's another theme that I kept hearing. The world is becoming more spiritual.

S: The environmental events around the globe, lots of high probability, "there's gonna be earthquakes." An earthquake impacts the state of Washington and California. What are the odds? Of an earthquake occurring in a major earthquake belt. All right, but here's my favorite of all of her predictions. "A solar star dwarf from the sun, breaking off, causing damage to the earth".

''(general excitement and confusion)''

B: Oh, my god.

R: Our sun? That could happen?

J: A solar star dwarf, like, what is that?

S: Right?

E: Phil Plait's gonna have to add a chapter to his book, I think.

''(laughter)''

S: Right! Yeah, a dwarf star apparently is gonna break away from our sun and that is going to damage the earth, which, I imagine it would. If that actually happened. It's like, is she flipping through a science book and just pulling out terms at random without understanding what they are.

B: Does she mean like a coronal mass ejection? Is that what she means?

E: Bob. Bob, you're given her w—a-a-a-a-y too much credit.

J: Bob, the only corona she knows is the beer

S: No, because the next prediction is "solar flares causing power outages", which I read on multiple psychics' lists. Solar flares causing power outages. Again, it's the kind of thing, like scientists say "this could happen someday" so they just pick up on that. It's a high probability prediction. "A contagious disease born of our environmental carelessness affects the world". Another pandemic prediction.

B: Nice. Solar star dwarf.

S: And then finally "Global environmental destruction connected with the end of times Mayan calendar". Wah-wah-waaah.

''(laughter)''

S: So there we go, psychic Roxanne.

R: You know, the psychic twins had another great prediction for 2012. They predicted that there would not be any hurricanes in 2012 that were as bad as the previous year. So no hurricanes as bad as Irene. Kind of missed the mark there. The interviewer, Allie Cheslick, predicted that the twins would have their own television show by March 20th of last year, which, I don't think happened.

J: No. The twins also said that it would take a miracle for Obama to get re-elected.

S: Well, I guess a miracle happened.

E: Well, there you go.

R: It's a miracle!

E: Proof that miracles happen.

B: I've got a few here. I've got a couple from two different psychics. One's Janet Russell, who's a Long Island-based intuitive spiritual medium/psychic. She's also the host of a New York top cable access show, ''Beyond the Unexplained''. And how someone like her can have their own TV show and we don't, I don't understand it. But she's known for her accuracy and honesty. She says "we'll be using solar energies instead of the old standby of gas and electric". Solar energies, in plural, which is very odd. And then, this one tickled me. She goes "and yes, the government will admit that we do have contact with other beings in other dimensions"! You know, it's not good enough that there are other beings, aliens or whatever, but they're also in another dimension. Just to make it, just the icing on the cake, you know. Different dimension.

R: I read Janet Russell's predictions as well, and my favorite one, I think,

B: Which one?

R: Okay, there were two. One was "People will be airing their dirty laundry on teleservices. This way they will have a constant audience." ''(laughing)'' What does that mean?

S: The last teleservice

R: I don't know. And the thing is, like, she's so obviously out of touch because my other favorite one was "I feel that one state will be open to alternative lifestyle and people will move to that state because they feel more comfortable." What? What does that mean, alternative? Does that mean gay marriage, does it mean pot? Because we have those things in several states. It's ... I don't know.

B: She just has her finger on the pulse of culture. There was another psychic, Nancy Bradley. Apparently, this psychic has 98.6% accuracy.

R: Wow

E: Wow

B: For 2011, so—

E: Take that temperature!

B: My first reaction was, well, yeah, that's total baloney. But then I read her predictions. Listen to these two. "Six more Hollywood icons will leave us in 2012, and two major music stars as well". What are the odds of people dying in 2012? That just kind of blew my mind a bit. Here's another one: "more protests across the world, and the U.S. as well, sit-ins as people stand up, much bloodshed". Wow. Who could have foreseen that?

E: Geez. People shedding blood.

B: And then she

S: Yeah, some psychics definitely go with the vague high probability hit.

B: Oh, my god.

S: I was reading a couple that did that. It's like "there will be protests in Egypt." Look! ''(laughter)'' Really?

B: And then she throws in one of these little sciencey ones that are kinda whacky: "a shift in the equator will be discovered and will change some of the weather patterns for countries on it." ''(laughter)'' A shift in the equator. I hate when that happens!

S: The equator shifts. Does she mean the continents ''on'' the equator?

B: Who knows what she meant? ''(laughter continues)'' It could mean anything.

E: The equator shifts! That's the best!

B: She could be referring to that solar dwarf star thing. ''(laughter still continues)''

S: But, guys, that was the best, right? The solar dwarf coming out of our sun.

E: Is it wearing a crown?

J: Wait, but Bob, Nancy Bradley also said "More aquatic ocean and lake animals make their way onto shore. Octopus, fish, etc. Also, as I told you last year, more species thought to be extinct are coming back, including those considered mystical, those that many thought never existed are coming back."

R: The unicorn, for instance. ''(overlapping excited comments)''

S: What about the events that psychics failed to predict for 2012?

B: Oh, yeah. That was easy.

J: How many do you want? I have plenty of 'em here.

B: Well, Hurricane Sandy, first of all. You'd think, you know, such a huge weather event. Somebody, somewhere—

S: And it's in their sweet spot!

B: Just one person.

S: They're predicting tsunamis and earthquakes, and they can't get that one hurricane right? Come on.

J: The shooting in Sandy Hook, Connecticut.

R: Although the psychic twins claim that –

E: Yeah, some will claim that they did that.

J: In order for them claim, and I thought about it, because they did make a lone gunman prediction. But, seriously, like that's just not good enough. Like you have to say more, it has to be more specific. If somebody said—

B: You need two things, Jay. You need two things. If somebody said "Newtown" or "Sandy Hook," that would be impressive as hell. Or even if they said "26 dead" or say "20 kids." If anyone said any of those three things, then, bam! That is a solid hit. Of course it wouldn't mean, you know, that psychics—

S: Yeah, there's different degrees of hits. They could have said "an elementary school." You know, they could have said "a lone shooter killing many kids in an elementary school."

R: Even then...

S: Even that would have been semi-impressive. But just "a lone wolf" or just—

B: No.

S: "terrorism in schools." Nah, it's way too vague.

B: Yeah, I'm talk— 'cause when you think of a psychic, if a psychic really existed, you would expect somebody, one person, or a few people, to have a really solid hit. Something really specific. I mean, isn't that what everyone really wants? That's what we want, right guys?

J: Yeah, but that's the thing, Bob, when you, every year when we read through all these psychic predictions, you know, we're just doing our research, it occurs to me, once again, they're just playing the odds. You can see them playing the odds. There's patterns. There is a reason why a lot of them predict the same types of things over and over again.

S: And they're also just probably going for the sensationalism. I mean the ones they know are not gonna come true. Like the solar dwarf. They're just trying to say impressive sounding things.

B: Right. And they—

S: Because they know no one's gonna care. Their target audience, they're not gonna go back and check up on 'em and see what happened.

B: And they don't care what we're saying.

S: They'll be reading the predictions for 2013. All right, what about the Causeway Cannibal?

J: Yeah, absolutely. ''(overlapping comments)'' Too specific though, Steve, too specific.

S: The fiscal cliff.

J: Yup.

B: Yeah.

S: The Petraeus scandal.

B: Yeah, I had that one, too.

E: Attack in Libya.

S: The Benghazi shooting.

J: The President supporting gay marriage.

B: How about deaths? I mean, did anyone predict the death of Whitney Houston, for example?

S: And if they're gonna dabble in science, how about, like if they ''really'' were going for a high-probability science prediction, how about the Higgs will be discovered?

E: Higgs boson, yeah. That would have been good. Or the lander will successfully, you know, everything will go smoothly there. You could even do that one.

J: How about Facebook going public?

B: Yeah.

E: Facebook, yup.

S: That debacle? Yeah, good one. All right, well, I listened to last year's episode to see what ''we'' all predicted.

B: I remember one prediction. I remember saying that Google Plus would die in 2012.

S: Okay.

B: Unfortunately I was wrong.

R: I mean it's on life support, but...

B: Yeah, it is.

E: My predictions.

S: Well, what were they, Evan?

E: I made one in each of the following categories: technology - the {{w|Aakash (tablet)|Aakash tablet}} would outsell the iPad by the end of 2012.

S: Um hmm. Fail.

R: And?

E: You know, the Aakash tablet. This is a $35 tablet that they made in India.

R; Oh, right.

E: They're already actually up to the Aakash 2. And I figured, all right, so you've got the Indian government, they're subsidizing this thing. They're gonna get this out to 500 million Indians, students and everyone in the country; just pure numbers, it's gonna overtake. Well, it didn't quite happen. I think some of the problems were in the technology itself. Even though it costs 35 bucks, they said it heats up very quickly, and poor design, cheap components. It won't play any of the apps that are out there. The battery life is poor. I think those things might have had something to do with it.

S: It's a $35 tablet, that's why.

E: You get what you pay for. In astronomy - a small meteor will collide with one of the many GPS satellites in orbit, rendering it inoperable. Now, that did not happen this year, but guess what's coming up next month, folks.

J: What?

E: ''(clears his throat theatrically)'' A small asteroid ''will'' pass inside the geosynchronous satellite ring.

J: Irrelevant! Irrelevant, you didn't get it.

E: 35,800—

B: Wow, that's damn close. How big is this thing?

E: —kilometers above the — 150 feet. 150 feet long.

B: Damn!

E: Astronomers say the asteroid may hit a communications satellite, so, you know...

J: It doesn't matter. It's irrelevant. No partial credit for you, sir.

B: You still missed it, dude.

E: Nothing irrelevant about that. Yes, it didn't happen, but the science behind it was revealed in the year, so I'll get a half-credit for that. Biology - Bio-engineered tooth regeneration will become available for humans. Well,

B: That'd be cool.

E: Because I've been following that, they're still doing more studies with mice and stuff, and they're making progress. They made more progress this year, but they didn't get to the humans. So I'll take a minus for that. In skepticism - a prominent skeptic will defect over to an alternative point of view. And that actually did come true, because a global warming skeptic {{w|Richard_A._Muller|Richard Muller}}, who was a proponent, you know, a big proponent saying that man-made global warming does not exist, in fact did leave his brand of skepticism behind and says, yes, it is actually happening. So I'll take a plus for that.

J: No. No one knows who that guy is. You can't take a plus for that.

E: Richard Muller? Steve?

S: Evan's right, but that was the wrong kind of skeptic.

E: I didn't ... hey, Steve.

S: It's all right. I gotcha.

E: Well, do you want me to say brown dwarves are gonna get crapped out of the sun? ''(laughter)'' Is that a better prediction.

R: Yeah, actually, it's awesome.

J: No, you didn't get any. Zero.

E: How 'bout this one? My last prediction: the largest glacier ever recorded will break off, right from the ice shelf. And that ''did'' happen, thank you very much. In Antarctica this year, that actually did happen.

J: No, it didn't.

''(laughter)''

S: Well I had one prediction last year, and it was a crypto-zoological prediction, if you remember. I predicted that Bigfoot would sweep into the White House with a gray alien as a running mate. And that ''did'' happen.

E: It almost happened.

S: But the cover-up is keeping you from knowing about it.

''(laughter)''

E: Right.

J: What did Rebecca do?

B: Good one, Steve.

S: Rebecca predicted Michael Douglas, Michael Douglas was her celebrity death. He's still kicking.

R: Oh. Good. I'm glad.

E: He had a problem. He had problems last year.

S: An ''Arrested Development'' movie.

B: Did I miss that?

R: Uuuh, it's... no, but ....

E: It's in production, right?

R: There is going to be a TV show.

S: Okay.

E: Oh, TV show.

S: And chimpanzees will be found to do something scientists thought only people did, previously.

R: That probably happened.

''(laughter)''

E: Somewhere. We may not have seen it or recorded it, but it might have happened.

J: It didn't happen.

R: Yeah, probably.

S: Jay, do you remember your one prediction?

J: Yes. And that's why I've been arguing so much with everyone. I predicted that none of our predictions would come true.

R: Yeah, that's right.

E: Wrong!

J: I'm more right than the rest of you. How about that?

E: That's why you were hard on me and my predictions, 'cause you wanted ''your'' prediction to come true.

S: All right, well. Who wants to go first in their predictions for 2013?

B: I will! Okay, in 2013, everyone will start referring to the year as "two thousand and thirteen" instead of "twenty-thirteen," ''(laughter)'' except for Rebecca. And the LHC will announce a nine sigma competence level in the Higgs boson. It's existence will—

E: English, Bob! English.

B: It's existence will be so obvious that fifth graders will start finding evidence for it. ''(laughter)'' And my only real prediction, scientists will create a living minimal genome cell from scratch. Please come true.

S: Jay?

J: I predict that Iran's ''(pronouncing it eye-ran)'' going to test a nuke.

S: Iran? ''(pronouncing it Ear-on)'' Yeah.

''(laughter)''

J: What?

S: Where did you run to, Jay?

''(laughter)''

J: Seriously? Like that's even pronounced wrong?

E: Just say Persia.

R: I-in-stine.

S: I-in-stine. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, next?

J: I predict another private company will start launching space missions.

S: Um hmm.

B: Okay.

E: Coca-Cola.

J: Beyond {{w|SpaceX}}. I predict that {{w|Billy Graham}} is gonna kick it.

B: Oh, we're doing celebrity deaths, too?

J: Yeah.

B: Okay.

J: I predict that George Bush ''Senior'' is gonna kick it.

E: Any other 90-something-year-old people gonna kick it, Jay?

J: Well, what d'ya want me to predict, like a 20-year-old?

E: How 'bout someone in their 70s or something. Make it a little challenging.

J: Okay, I predict that Evan Bernstein is gonna choke on a hot dog. ''(laughter)'' And my final prediction for 2013 is, I predict the end is {{w|Bill Nye}}.

''(laughter)''

B: Oh, nice.

R: Wait, what?

B: End is Nye.

E: Funny.

R: Mine are great. You're gonna find no fault with mine.

J: Bring it on. Beat "the end is Bill Nye." Beat that, right now. Go ahead.

R: All right. The Daily Mail will report that researchers have discovered pickles cause cancer.

B: Ooooh. I like it.

J: I like that, okay.

E: I don't eat 'em, so—

R: Number two. A whistleblower will reveal that the government has been hiding something.

''(laughter)''

E: Which government?

R: I'd rather not comment upon which government it is at this time, but, they may have the color red in their flag.

''(laughter)''

J: Okay.

R: Finally ...

E: —like the Swiss! I knew it!

R: I will beat the game FTL on normal mode, and finally get 100 percent on Skyrim.

B: You're reaching now.

J: No way.

E: Now your sun is crapping out brown dwarves, Rebecca.

R: It's on like Donkey Kong

S: Bob, what was your celebrity death?

B: Yeah, I've got a celebrity death, and it's not an octogenarian, Jay, or is a nonagenarian, is that how you pronounce that? Lindsay Lohan.

E: Oooh, she's on my list, Bob!

B: She's been rolling 20 for far too long, her time is ''up.''

J: Nope. I'm predicting she's not gonna die. Not even close.

E: Yeah, she's on mine. I've got three of 'em, that was one of 'em.

S: I predict ''she's'' gonna die, but her twin won't.

''(laughter)''

B: Nice.

R: Oh, we're all going to hell.

S: Evan, what've you got?

E: Okay, in addition to Lindsay Lohan. I predict a world leader, which is a president or a prime minister, will succumb while in office. A few options there, but it'll be very prominent. And, James Van Praagh.

J: Oh, why? What did you see? What did the spirits tell you?

E: Jay, it's something that's beyond sort of a description. In technology, there will be a ''m-a-a-a-jor'' data breach, most likely of a credit card company, or something along those lines. This breach will cost consumers and their insurers at least $1 billion worldwide. In astronomy, we will discover a Earth-like planet, known as "Earth's Twin."

S: Hey, that's been my prediction for the last three years.

''(laughter)''

E: And how's that worked out for ya?

S: I'm getting closer every year. And you're gonna try and take it from me now? That's like you're sitting down at my slot machine, Evan.

''(laughter)''

R: Evan just bid a dollar under your ''Price Is Right'' score. That's what just happened.

E: Well, we'll just share that one, Steve, if it comes true this year.

B: Good analogy, Rebecca.

E: In health, a hand-held breathalyzer will offer early detection of infections caused by microbes. What do you think of that? Aa! And, in the environment, I only did four this year, environment, we will find, scientists will find a way to harness energy from sand. Now, I admit, they will be small quantities of energy, but it'll be energy nonetheless.

S: Like the tar sands?

E: Simply sand.

S: Tar sands are already a major source of petroleum, but, I'm assuming you're not talking about that.

E: Okay, I'll refine it—

S: You'll refine the sand? or refine the petroleum?

E: Desert sand.

S: Okay. I have a celebrity death and two predictions. My celebrity death is Jerry Lewis, unfortunately. Great comedian, but, you know. His time

''(someone in background: Oh, lady! Lady!)''

S: I also predict that there will be a ''major'' pareidolia event this year.

B: Nice.

E: Face on the moon?

R: Major?

S: A major pareidolia event. And finally, conspiracy theorists will use anomaly hunting to argue that an innocent or natural event is actually a deliberate conspiracy.

R: Um hmm.

S: All right, so we will track those and we'll let you know next year how we all did.

=== Cosmic Rays and Dementia <small>(32:27)</small>===
* [http://m.phys.org/news/2012-12-houston-problem-space-brain.html Phys.Org: Houston, we have another problem: Study shows space travel is harmful to the brain]

S: All right well I think we have time for a few quick news items to round out the show, so Bob you're going to tell us about another risk of space travel.

B: In science fiction the biggest problems generally for space travel are usually things like aliens, black holes or warp core breaches, I really hate that last one.

S: And space worms, don't forget space worms.

B: Oh yeah, the worms. It's very annoying then to think that a little thing like ultra-tiny invisible radiation is essentially a total deal breaker right now for allowing humans to spend serious time beyond low earth orbit. We've known this for a while now, we've touched upon it in the past a bit, but most recently scientists have found even more bad news. A new study described in the PLOS ONE journal reveals for the first time that cosmic ray exposure to humans on a trip to Mars can make changes to the brain that could replicate or speed up the onset of {{w|Alzheimer's disease}}.<ref>Cherry et al. (2012). ''Galactic Cosmic Radiation Leads to Cognitive Impairment and Increased Aβ Plaque Accumulation in a Mouse Model of Alzheimer’s Disease'' ([http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0053275 PLOS ONE article])</ref> Now I'm calling this the "space brain syndrome" and it really stinks.

S: Space dementia.

B: That's a good one too, I like "space brain syndrome" better.

S: No. Space dementia.

B: Uh, we talked about the cosmic ray hazards in space but I learned a little bit more about some of these details and I'd like to share. It's pretty interesting. The culprit here is a specific type of cosmic ray, now these aren't rays of course, but they're bits of atoms that are propelled through space. Protons make up the majority of the cosmic rays, followed by alpha particles which is just like two neutrons and two protons. And then electrons kind of finish that list. Those are the majority, the vast majority of all cosmic rays. But a tiny, tiny percentage of cosmic rays are these relatively really big clumps of protons and neutrons and they're called these {{w|HZE_ions|HZE particles}} which stands for High Charge and Energy particles. And the Z, if you're familiar with chemistry, the Z is the universal symbol for atomic number which is the amount of protons in a nucleus, so that's what that stands for. Now so the more protons you have with no electrons to balance them out, you create a bigger and bigger charge. The E stands for energy obviously, so what you end up with is these bare atomic nuclei with lots of protons and a lot of energy and they can penetrate shielding of a ship and through the skin of the astronauts and just wreak havoc on your DNA causing cancer and a host of other issues. So this much we've known for a little while now, and if that wasn't annoying enough, they get this energy from supernovae and also the sun, I wasn't quite aware of this, the sun's solar flares and coronal mass ejections also can produce these HZE particles. As tiny as these— I mean percentage wise, HZEs are a fraction of a percent but they can cause more than 50% of the radiation damage inflicted on astronauts. So these are the big players in terms of astronauts having a problem with radiation in deep space.

S: Now Bob, because these are highly charged particles, would that mean that magnetic shielding would be a viable option?

B: Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, if they didn't have any charge then we'd be even worse off, so yeah that kind of leads into the potential, one of the potential ways for dealing with them. The experiments that these researchers did, particularly specifically on how these HZE particles can affect people, they used rats of course, the most helpful of guinea pigs. They exposed them—

R: Rats aren't guinea pigs.

B: (laughs) They exposed them to increasing doses of radiation, including the equivalent of what an astronaut would experience on a multi-year mission to Mars, which is pretty much how long it would take. Now they tested the rats' recall for certain objects and locations that they were previously exposed to and they found that those that had a bigger dose of radiation did increasingly more poor at those tasks, which of course indicates some level of neurological impairment. But the real kicker though was that I guess after the rat autopsies they revealed indications of not only changes in the brain vasculature but also in the accumulation of {{w|beta amyloid}}, which is that protein plaque that builds up in the brain of Alzheimer's victims. Now Steve, correct me if I'm wrong, but this plaque, that's pretty much the hallmark of that disease right? If you find that, it's like the red light going off that you have Alzheimer's right? These beta amyloid plaques, is that right?

S: They're important, they're not unique to Alzheimer's, it's more complicated than that, but yeah they're an important pathological finding in Alzheimer's disease.

B: Well that was, from what I could gather, that was one of the main reasons that they're all talking about Alzheimer's here. NASA of course is concerned about cosmic rays, especially considering they've had plans for a manned mission to an asteroid in 2021 and to Mars in 2035, I mean there's just no way that's going to happen if they don't deal with this problem. NASA subscribes to a policy known as {{w|ALARA}} which is ''As Low As Reasonably Achievable''. Any exposure to radiation has an element of risk of course, but NASA needs a very high confidence level that an astronaut's lifetime risk of terminal cancer from cosmic radiation is less than 3% so they will not cross that line, so they have to make 3% reasonably achievable to fit in with this whole idea of ALARA, and that's going to take revolutionary technology to pull that off. That's not going to be a quick and easy fix by any means.

S: All right, well thanks Bob.

== Who's That Noisy? & Logical Puzzle <small>(38:07)</small>==
* Answer to last week: Glass Harp playing Fur Elise

S: All right, well Evan we do have time for Who's That Noisy this week.

E: Well good, that's good because we need to reveal the answer to what was the last Who's That Noisy for 2012. I will play it for you now for memory's sake. Here we go.

''(Glass Harp playing Fur Elise)''

E: Lovely Ludwig Van.

S: Fur Elise, it's one of the pieces I had to play when I was taking piano lessons.

E: Did you enjoy it?

S: Yes, It's a pretty piece.

E: It is a pretty pieces. Well what kind of instrument was that, that was the question. And we had a lot of people guess that that was the {{w|Glass harmonica}} or the glass armonica also known as a bowl organ which is actually incorrect, although that instrument would create the same or similar-sounding notes but that was not it. What we were hearing was actually the {{w|Glass harp}}, which is a musical instrument made of upright wine glasses and it's played by running moistened or chalked fingers around the rim of the glass and each glass is tuned to a different pitch and thereby you're able to play all of the notes. That particular piece was performed by [http://www.roberttiso.com/ Robert Tiso] and you can [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47TGXJoVhQ8 see him on youtube playing this], and very talented in his own right. Yes, several people did get it correct, the first one to guess correctly, our friend from the message boards, Magnus M.

S: Mmmhmm.

E: Whose name we've sopken before. Well done, Magnus.

S: Magnus!

E: And congratulations for being first. OK, so 2013, we're going to change things up a little bit for the Who's That Noisy and the puzzle segment. For this year, we're going run a little contest for all the listeners, and here's how it's going to work. Each week when I play the Who's That Noisy or give the Logic Puzzle, everyone who answers correctly, their name will be put into a hat for that week. And that week I will draw a name from the hat at random and the person's name whom I draw will go into a final drawing which will occur at the last episode of the year and the winner of the final drawing will be invited to come onto the SGU to play a round of Science or Fiction with us.

If you're going to submit a guess, we're going to require your guess by the time we record our next show which is typically early to mid-week the following week, it varies from week to week but there is a little incentive there to get your guess in early and get your name eligible to be drawn for the final drawing. Since this is a new idea we are tinkering with, we're going to do this on the honour system. If we sense that there is any abuse by the participants of this we will have to make some modifications along the way, so we're trusting everyone to play fairly, play by the rules, if you know the answer go ahead and tell us, but you don't go sharing it with you know, 100,000 of your closest friends so that there's 100,000 names to draw from each week, that'll make my job a lot harder. So let's give this a try, folks and let's see what we can do.

S: All right, we'll see how it goes.

E: We're going to start this year with a puzzle, a logic puzzle. And this logic puzzle was submitted by listener Alvaro Ibanes, thank you Alvaro for submitting this, this is a very good one. <blockquote>A jeweller has nine pearls which all look and feel exactly alike. However, he knows that one of them weighs more than the other eight. He has access to a classic scale, you know the one with two arms often seen in Lady Justice's hand? What is the minimum number of measurements required to know with absolute certainty which pearl is the one that weighs more? </blockquote>

E: All right? Give us your guess?

S: It's a fun one.

E: Yeah, it is a fun one. Go ahead and give us your best guess, [mailto:info@theskepticsguide.org info@theskepticsguide.org] and our message boards are [http://sguforums.com sguforums.com]. Good luck everyone.

S: Thanks, Evan.

== Interview with Massimo Pigliucci <small>(42:33)</small> ==
S: We are joined now by Massimo Pigliucci. Massimo, welcome back to the Skeptics' Guide!

M: Thank you, it's a pleasure as usual.

S: And Massimo is the chair of the Department of Philosophy at CUNY-Lehman College, the editor in chief of the journal Philosophy & Theory in Biology. He's the host of a podcast called Rationally Speaking and also one of the authors on the blog by the same name. The author of several books, including the book that we will be discussing this evening: [http://www.amazon.com/Answers-Aristotle-Science-Philosophy-Meaningful/dp/0465021387/ref=la_B001IU0D3K_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1343828923&sr=1-6 Answers for Aristotle]. But his greatest claim to skeptical and scientific fame, was that he was the first ever guest on The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

''(laughter)''

M: That's exactly right.

E: As if he needed anything else.

S: That's right. I was just- That's just the cherry on the top, Massimo.

''(laughter)''

S: Massimo, I talk about you a lot actually, in skeptical circles because like you're the one, in my opinion, like the one real philosopher that we have in the skeptical movement. I'm not saying you're the only philosopher, but you're the one who's active. Who's trying to keep the rest of us philosophically honest, if you will.

M: ''(laughter)''

S: And that, that's essentially what your recent book, Answer for Aristotle, is about. So, tell us about it.

M: Yeah, in some sense. It is aimed at the general public, so it's not a technical book. But it is about the relationship between philosophy and science which I think that is something that certainly members of the skeptic movement should be aware of, or a little more sort of cognisant of. But the basic idea of the book is really that this is essentially a self-help book for people who don't believe in self-help books. The basic approach is that, look, when we're dealing with the big questions in life, you know: morality, or relationships, or you know, general views of the world and whatever, where do we get our best hints, our best information about that? I don't think we get them from religion. Common sense is helpful, but up to a certain point. So, it seems to me that the best combination of answers, or at least approaches to those kinds of questions, come from the two most effective traditions of thought in the Western -- possibly the world -- history, which are of course science, as far as factual questions are concerned and philosophy, as far as how to reflect on the implications of those factual answers we get from science. So that's what the book is about, it's how to combine science and philosophy in what I sort of jokingly call Sci-Phi -- actually, people pronounce it Sci-Fi, but it should be Sci-Phi, because the second part is P-H-I for philosophy.

S: Sci-Phi?

M: Yeah, that's right. ''(laughter)'' But I think that Sci-Fi was more, I don't know, the publicist thought it was more, sounded better than Sci-Phi.

''(laughter)''

E: Right.

S: Right. Well, then why didn't the Sci-Fi Channel change it's name to Sci-Phi?

M: Yeah, that's a good question!

''(laughter)''

B: That really pissed me of when they did that.

M: Agreed.

S: So, science gives us the facts, as it were, and philosophy tells us how to think about those facts. Is that a fair summary?

M: Well, yeah, it's, of course as you know that's a little simple version of the whole thing. In reality there is no sharp distinction between science and philosophy. There are many areas of overlap, the most obvious one perhaps is philosophy of science, or, and in fact also epistemology. I mean, there are areas of philosophy that are directly relevant to science and there also areas of science that are definitely relevant to philosophy, I mean, one cannot do these days any serious philosophy of mind, for instance, unless one is well read in, you know, neurobiology and current science. So, there's quite a bit more overlap than the simple distinction between science and philosophy. But it is true that, you know, historically speaking and strictly in modern, in the modern (GARBLED), the true disciplines have evolved unto quite different directions and yes, broadly speaking, science deals with the best factual information we can get about the world, and philosophy deals with reflecting, you know, methods of reflecting about what that, that information tells us.

S: Yeah, so they're complementary intellectual disciplines-

M: Right.

S: -if you will. And, I think what's, I know you've made this point a lot, and I know in your blog as well, and also in our prior discussions that, scientists who think they can answer all questions, with just science, have to first realise, that when doing science they are also practicing philosophy, cause there has to be a philosophical underpinning of science itself.

M: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of the best summaries of that position was actually due to Dan Dennett. As you know, several years ago he wrote Darwin's Dangerous Idea, which is one of the most influential books, in, in sort of many peoples understanding of evolution and implication of Darwinism and so on and so forth. But in that book, as much as that book is, of course, very much science friendly, and does take on-board, you know, evolutionary biology in particular, Dennett points out that there is no such a thing as philosophy-free science, there is only science that takes on-board the philosophy without examining it. No, now, the question is now that scientist shouldn't necessary do philosophy, in fact I would discourage scientists from doing philosophy. Just in the same way in which I would discourage philosophers from doing science. Those are sufficiently separate activities, as I said, that requires different skills, and also, by the way, they have developed huge technical literature of their own so it's really difficult to do both in a reasonable way. But, what I do suggest is that both scientists, as academics, and sort of general public at large, would be better of by respecting each others territory and what comes out of the other field, and also being a little bit acquainted with what comes out of the other field.

S: Yeah, so just as, like in the skeptical movement in just, in general, we promote the idea that people should have a basic scientific literacy, not that they should be able to practice science as a layperson, but just be scientifically literate. By the same token, people should be philosophically literate as well, not to be able to engage at cutting-edge philosophical technical discussions, but to have some idea when philosophy is in play at least.

M: Correct. So for instance, a little bit of understanding of basic philosophy or science or epistemology for instance, would go quite a long way for skeptics, to have, to develop a better appreciation not just for the power of science, which is, you know, unquestionable within the community, or unquestioned within the community, but also for the limits of science, you know, there is a lot of stuff that science hasn't figured, maybe will never figure out, you know, there is a lot of, you know, science needs to be seen for what it is: a very powerful, but nonetheless human epistemic activity, based on certain methods, those methods have certain problems and limitations. The skeptic is supposed to be thinking rationally about broad range of issues and that ought to include, it seems to me, also the functioning of science itself.

S: Is there an area where you most frequently see science or skeptics go wrong when it comes to philosophy as it's relevant to what we do.

M: Oh, that's a great question. ''(laughter)'' I think there's more than one.

''(laughter)''

S: Give your top three-

J: Slow down, slow down, don't, don't kill us.

M: No no no no. It's- So, one of the, I think, the major areas that I've seen coming up, quite often in the last, especially the last two-three years, is actually the relationship- it's ethics. And what science can or cannot tell us about ethics. There seems to be a lot of confusion about, you know, ethical reasoning and what it is about, and are there moral truths and how do we discover moral truths and all that sort of stuff. And of course, the naïve position among some skeptic quarters is that well you know, either morality is all about- it's entirely a human invention, so it's essentially one step removed from moral relativism, which most of us don't wanna go to, or, then if it is about objective fact then those facts have to be of course matters that science can investigate and therefore we're gonna have, you know, you name it, evolutionary biology or neurobiology is gonna give us answers to moral questions. I think that the reality is a lot more complicated than that. I think that evolutionary biology tells us something very important about morality, that neurobiology tells us something very important about morality, but that neither one of those exhaust what, you know, the province essentially of moral (GARBLED) of ethics in general. So, let me give you a quick example: I think that evolutionary biology is absolutely necessary in order to understand where a sense of moral, right and wrong, comes from. I mean, we evolved it. We are social animals of a particular type and there is no magic behind it, it doesn't come from gods, it evolved over a period of time, the building blocks of a moral sense, a moral intuition if you will, or a moral instinct can be found in other primates and that makes perfect sense. I mean, it would be really bizarre if morality for some reason where the only thing that we cannot find any, sort of, gradual examples or partial examples in other species. So-

S: Yeah, birds have morality. I mean, birds punish each other for not-

M: Yeah.

S: -doing what the group is in the groups best interest. If one bird doesn't warn the others about a predator, then they won't get warned next time around. You know, so that's been-

J: Wow.

S: -demonstrated experimentally.

M: (GARBLED) Quibble a little bit about that, is, I wouldn't go as far as saying that they have morality as in, obviously, as we understand it from a human perspective, meaning they don't have the ability to reply.

E: Dear Duane.

M: But they do have an instinct, that correspond, that if you were to see those actions in a human being, you would say, "oh that's a moral action."

S: Well that, that's, but my point is what you were saying that there are evolutionary antecedents we could see the elements of morality in other species, obviously an elementary form, not in the reflective form that we have, but they have an instinctive notion of reciprocity which informs our ethical senses, right?

M: Exactly, right. From there to neurobiology or the current science in general of moral decision making that also tells you something interesting. It tells you for instance, not only which areas of the brain tend to be involved in moral thinking and that sort of stuff, which is interesting in and of itself, but it tells you something more deep about how we think about morality. For instance, let me give you one example: you probably, you guys probably now have heard a bit about, sort of the different versions of the trolley dilemma.

S: Yeah.

B: Yeah.

M: Two basic forms, as you likely know, are the one in which there is this trolley coming down the road and it's about to hit and kill five people and you have, you happen to have a very convenient located lever next to you, that if you pull you're gonna divert the trolley on a second track where it is gonna kill only one person. Question: would you do it or not? Answer: empirically speaking, most people would say yes. That's interestingly, by the way, cross-cultural, depending (GARBLED) how you present the dilemma, pretty much people will respond in the same way. Eighty or ninety percent of people say yes. Then you switch into a second situation where you don't have the lever, you're on top of a bridge, there's this really bulky, big guy in front of you and the only option you have is to push the guy of the bridge to save the five people. Question: would you do it? Most people answer no. Now, the interesting question there is why would people answer, most people answer, yes to one and no to the other since at least at one level of analysis the two situations are perfectly analogous: in both cases you have five people you're about to save and one person that you're about to kill. Now, turns out that neurobiology sheds some light on this and it's perhaps not surprising, but it's interesting the way it works. It turns out that if you do a brain-scan of, you know, with all the limitations of course of neural scanning and current technology, but if you do a neural scan of people, an FMRI of people, when they are involved in thinking about the two versions of the dilemma, in the first case, the lever case, people tend to involve the areas of the brain, like the frontal cortex, that are involved typically in sort of rational, deliberate decision making. On the other hand, when people are thinking in terms of the second version of the dilemma, the pushing guy of the bridge, a lot of the action switches to the amygdala, which of course is more connected to emotional reactions and fear and things like the sort. Now, that makes perfect sense, because basically the second version of the dilemma is much more personal. You're about to actually push somebody, as opposed to do something from a distance, like pulling a lever. So it makes perfect sense that people switch ways of thinking, they use different neural pathways essentially to think about this. That is very interesting and without the science we wouldn't find out why exactly people are doing that. The question however still remains, should you or should you not push the damn guy of the bridge?

S: Yeah.

M: Right.

J: I think an interesting way to look at it too are "what about the social ramifications." Like, you're gonna, you're actually breaking the law if you push the guy of the bridge, even though you're not gonna get arrested for not saving people's lives. Does that come into play?
M: Uh, it does, it depend again, as I said earlier, there is a lot of different variants of the thought experiment, and yes, some of those do involve information about the, you know, consequences and if you, of course, were in moral philosophy (GARBLED) it's called a consequentialist (GARBLED), you will take those into account as well. But the basic version doesn't include those and it's one of the things comes out interestingly, for instance from the cognitive science literature, is that there is a small minority of people who do not change their mind, who both will push- uh, you know, pull the lever and push the guy of the bridge. Turns out that psychologically speaking those people corresponds to a somewhat sociopathic profile.

S: Mhmm.

M: Those are people that essentially do not engage with the amygdala, they don't engage the emotional reaction, they just think rationally about the whole thing. The reason I brought that up is because, so, now we have an evolutionary account of how we got morality to begin with, we have a neurobiological account of, we begin to have a neurobiological account of how we actually engage in that sort of thinking, and all of this is very interesting. The thing that we still need to deal with, however, is, okay, in interesting, complex, real-life situations, what we ought to do, and now I think is where the philosophy, the interesting philosophy, comes in, because of course there are hundreds of years of discussions among philosophers that have been able to frame moral dilemmas according to two or three major ways of thinking about it. One is the one that I mentioned a minute ago, the (GARBLED) consequentialist view. There is also the ontological thinking which is based on rules essentially and then there is vitalistic(?) thinking that is based on sort of character development, of what is the right thing to do in terms of what is the right person you wanna develop into. Anyway, those three frameworks help you think about the dilemma in a way that might lead you to reach a conclusion or consider a conclusion based on reason, so you go beyond your instinctual reaction, you go beyond what amygdala is telling you and you think about it and say "well, wait a minute, here's the situation, here's what the right thing to do is and here's why."

S: Then there are those people like Sam Harris, who I know you have engaged with at least on your blog, who argue that: if we had enough scientific information, that could answer moral questions for us, essentially. You've pretty much explained what's wrong with that answer, but how have you responded to Sam Harris' position.

M: Well, let me give you a simple analogy. Imagine instead of talking about moral decision making, were talking about mathematical abilities, right? So, how is it that people have developed, human beings have developed the ability to solve mathematical problems. Well, again, you got the same three sort of answers. From an evolutionary perspective it probably was useful at some point or another to start counting or to start thinking in terms of very simple abstract mathematical entities that helped our survival. That's of course speculation, we don't really have access to the relevant information, ecologically speaking, but it's very likely that something like that happened. Now, today you could put somebody that's, say, who's trying to prove Fermat's Last Theorem, you can put him under an FMRI-scan and you can figure out how active different areas of the brain are, and so on and so forth. There is one thing however, that neither this scan, nor the evolutionary story can actually tell you and that is "is the guy getting the proof of the Theorem right?"

S: "Is two plus two four?"

M: Yeah.

S: Well, Massimo. Thanks for joining us again on the show, it's always a pleasure, it always seems like it goes by faster and we're just scratching the surface. But for our listeners, Answers to Aristotle, just tell us about that title for a second, because that's interesting.

M: Aristotle is in fact the philosopher that is most widely quoted or referred to in the book and there is a reason for that. Aristotle was the first guy in the Western tradition, that really was doing exactly what a (GARBLED) the book is about. He was doing philosophy, he is known for establishing the foundations of logic for writing the first comprehensive book about ethics and so on and so forth. But he also was doing science, I mean, most people don't realise this but Aristotle was actually doing field biology of a way on the island of Lesbos, among other places. And he was trying to figure out, okay, was interested in, for instance, shells and he was there and he was collecting samples and looking at things. Now, he got a lot of stuff wrong (GARBLED) idea that we got answers for the questions that he asked that he certainly did not have access to. But he does embody the spirit of the book. He was the guy that figured out that "look, you need both factual questions and to ways reflect on the meaning of those questions," and that is sort of the science and philosophy combination in the broadest possible sense.

S: Well, thanks again Massimo!

J: Thanks Massimo.

B: Thank you.

M: It was a pleasure as usual.

== Science or Fiction <small>(1:01:19)</small> ==
''Voiceover: It's time for Science or Fiction''

S: Each week I come up with three science or news items or facts, two genuine and one fictitious. Then I challenge my panel of sceptics to tell me which one they think is the fake. Now before we get started this week, because this is the first Science or Fiction of 2013, I do have the stats, the full Science or Fiction stats, from last year.

E: Eurgh

S: These were sent to us by Cat, from sgutranscripts.org, so thanks Cat. So, here they are for 2012: Bob had played 47 games, lost 19, won 28 for a total of 59.6%.

B: Eurgh, damn.

S: Evan played 50, 25 and 25, exactly 50%.

E: Wow, I think wow, that's pretty good.

S: Jay also played 50, lost 26, won 24 so just shy of Even at 48%. I played 7, lost 3 and won 4 so am at 57.1%, just behind Bob and Rebecca played 44, lost 17, won 27 for a total of 61.4%.

E: Wow.

S: Just edged out Bob.

B: Nice.

S: Congratulations Rebecca.

R: Thank you.

B: Congratulations.

R: Thank you.

J: Overall we're way above average.

E: That was...

S: All doing better than random guessing.

B: Yeah but...

R: Hooray.

B: Rebecca and I did worse than last year though.

R: Yeah. I felt dumber this year.

E: Jay and I picked up the slack though.

B: How could I start off so well and then totally tank it?

S: Regression to the mean. Randomness.

J: Evan, our goal for this year, better than 50%.

E: You bet...

S: OK.

E: You bet buddy.

S: It's a brand new year though, guys. Are you all ready?

E: Clean slate.

S: We do have a theme for this week.

''(laughter)''

R: God damn it.

S: This theme... ''(laughter)'' this theme is dedicated to Jay. It's all about little babies.

''(overlapping comments)''

J: OK

S: Prepare Jay for his...

R: Because Jay's a giant baby?

S: Yeah, for his upcoming...

E: Oh, is that what you mean?

S: ... child to be born in a few weeks.

R: Oh my...

''(overlapping comments)''

S: Hope all goes well. OK...

E: So excited.

S: Here we are - [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130101182012.htm item number one] - a study finds that maternal use of anti-depressants during pregnancy is associated with a greater risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). [http://www.plu.edu/news/2012/12/infant-language/ Item number two] - a new study concludes that babies start learning language in the womb. And [http://news.temple.edu/news/2012-12-13/let-crying-babes-lie-study-supports-notion-leaving-infants-cry-themselves-back-sleep item number three] - new research finds that for most babies it is better to leave them alone when they cry at night rather than comforting them. Jay, 'cos this is a theme in your honour, you get to go first.

J: The first one, about the study that says that mothers that took anti-depressants while they were pregnant - that's interesting that it increases SIDS. Now I do know that SIDS... SIDS is when the baby stops breathing and I thought that that had to do with temperature. OK, the second one about the babies learning language in the womb, I believe that one is correct. I think that they can hear their mothers' voices before they're born and they can identify their mother's voice and actually start to pick up language. So I think that one is science and the third one, the last one about... it's better to leave most babies and let them cry at night instead of comforting them - I'm not sure about that. Now this one, of course Steve's not going to answer questions but, a new born baby absolutely needs to be fed on a regular basis and one of those reasons why a baby cries is because it wants to be fed. It could be just hungry, which, you should feed a hungry baby. The whole crying baby thing, to me, you gotta go in, you gotta check on the baby and feed them. But for some reason I'm thinking here Steve that because you're gonna be leaving the baby alone in a room that this could be later maybe not a new born. I'm gonna say that because of how vague that third one is, I'm gonna say that the first one, the one about SIDS is the fake.

S: OK, Bob?

B: The babies start learning language in the womb, yeah that just makes sense. I would expect that the unborn baby can hear it's mother's voice. I remember reading a while back about how babies can recognise their mothers' voices soon after birth. It just makes sense that they would become accustomed to the language and be primed and ready to go right out of the gate so to speak so that makes sense to me. Leaving crying babies alone, yeah that was the conventional wisdom twelve, fourteen years ago when I had an infant in the house. After Ashley was born it was pretty much - a lot of people were saying that and it makes a lot of sense, you know the baby wakes up, there's some separation anxiety and if the parents come rushing in then the baby will get used to that and expect it all the time and if they can get used to waking up, being alone then going back to sleep, bam, perfect, that's what the baby will do. So that makes a lot of sense too so considering that two and three make so much sense to me, I just think that you could say that mothers who have had babies who died of SIDS, I just don't think you'd have a decent percentage of them that would be on anti-depressants. Yeah, I'm going to say the SIDS is fiction.

S: OK, Rebecca?

R: Ah, yeah. I don't know but the one about leaving babies alone when they cry at night - there's like a huge can of worms in the parenting blogs and forums - I feel like that's one of those things that...

E: You read those?

R: I have friends who are parents who get involved in the mommy blogs and stuff - yeah that's for the past thirty years or so that's been a huge thing - there's even a title for it like it's a parenting style that's specifically based on remaining fairly detached from your children in the hopes that they will learn to fend for themselves and everything that I've read, which admittedly is not a ton because I don't have a kid and I'm not planning to have one any time soon, but everything that I've read suggests that it's BS, that like Jay said, when the baby cries it's crying for a reason go pick it up. So I'm going to say that's the fiction.

S: And Evan?

E: Oh, everyone made very good cases for all of these. Bob, you, I think you hit on the SIDS one, anti-depressants during pregnancy associated with a greater risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Anti-depressants being more prescribed these days than they were way back when but there was still SIDS occurring way back when so I'm thinking that that one's the fiction. But Rebecca, you brought up a good point, good points about the crying. Rebecca I hate to leave you alone out there I'm going to go with what my first instinct way I'm going to say that the SIDS is the fiction.

S: OK so... I'm a little surprised that you guys all believe that a new study concludes that babies start learning language in the womb is science.

E: Spanish or French?

B: Why?

S: You guys all believe that one - I don't know, that one struck me as being a little out there but that one is science.

B: Why did you think that one was out there?

R: That was the most obvious one to me.

J: Steve I read that one and I was talking to my wife Courtney about it and she goes ah I don't know that sounds like BS to me.

S: Yeah.

J: Which I thought was funny 'cos now it's on our game here.

S: It just struck me as like really, really? Alright, but this is true a study does conclude this, I'm not sure how much I totally buy the conclusion and this is the first time a study has shown that newborns are not naive to the language of their mother. What the researcher did, this is Christine Moon, professor of psychology at Pacific Lutheran University, they studied infants that were just hours old and the research paradigm's interesting. They had them suck on a pacifier that was attached to a computer and when they sucked on the pacifier ''(laughter)'' - hang on - they sucked on the pacifier it would...

E: Ten thousand volts.

S: It would play a recording of vowels from either their mothers' native language or a foreign language.

B: Interesting.

S: And it would play for as long as they sucked and then when they stopped sucking it would stop and then when they started sucking again it would play a different vowel.

B: They sucked more.

S: So the question was would they listen more to the vowels...

B: Parent language.

S: From their parent language or their mothers' language specifically or from a foreign language and with the idea, and this was a paradigm used in other research, that they would listen longer to vowels that they were not familiar with.

B: Oh, interesting.

S: Because they were novel, the brain's like hey, this is new, I've got to pay attention to this, not oh this is something I've been hearing for months, you know? And in fact they found that the infants did listen longer, you know based upon their sucking on this pacifier, to vowel sounds from foreign languages than to their mothers' language.

R: But what if they found the mothers' language more soothing so wanted to listen to it longer?

B: Yeah.

S: As I said, this is, you've got to buy every link in this chain...

R: Yeah, dumb, it's dumb.

S: You know, to buy this. But the thing is any difference, any difference you can take that they're not naive and it was not that they're listening to sounds of their mother, just vowels from their mothers' language or a foreign language. So any difference would... means that they're getting something, you know, if you believe the difference itself, if the data itself is compelling. Definitely the kind of study that I'd like to see replicated and looked at from different angles but that was what this study concluded.

E: Great.

S: Let's go to number 1, a study finds that maternal use of anti-depressants during pregnancy is associated with a greater risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Rebecca thinks this one is science, the rest of you think this one is the fiction and this one is... the fiction.

''(overlapping comments)''

B: Yeah baby.

R: Not a good start.

B: One hundred, one hundred percent.

S: Ah so yeah, this is interesting. So first of all the news item that I was basing this on showed the opposite - the use of anti-depressants during pregnancy not linked with increased risk of still birth, infant death or other bad outcomes so that's very nice. And I did do a little research on, you know, 'cos I said let me just say the opposite and then I did some research just on SIDS and specifically what the literature shows is that depression in the mother is associated with increased risk of SIDS and in fact this leads to a recommendation that mothers be treated for their depression...

B: Interesting, woah.

S: In the hopes that it would decrease the risk of SIDS if anything because untreated depression is a risk factor that has been identified for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Now SIDS still remains a little mysterious, you know, it's not like we completely understand exactly what, you know, what is happening, we've identified lots of factors, you know, that increase or decrease the risk and it's thought that, you know, it is... that they essentially they stop breathing. And over the years I've read so many different things like, you know, it's good if they're in the room with the parents because maybe the higher CO2 content drives the infant's respiration more. There are some drugs that are associated with an increased risk of SIDS and those are more for breast feeding now, not anti-natal. So for breast feeding mothers, anti-depressants are still fine but you want to avoid anything that would be sedating so Valium-like drugs are not good, lithium was also another one that was identified, so drugs that could pass through to the infant through breast feeding and can cause sedation will increase the risk of SIDS. The bottom line is if you're breast feeding, your OB should know every medication that you're taking and you need to talk to them about is this something that would get passed through the breast milk to the infant and what risk or effects might it have. So don't just take... breast feeding is actually... you're still linked to the infant, you know, biologically. It's actually more metabolically demanding on the mother than being pregnant, breast feeding, you still need to take that very seriously. Alright, which means, new research finds that for most babies it is better to leave them alone when they cry at night rather than comfort them is science. Now, Rebecca, you're right in that this is a controversy and there's two sides, there's two schools of thought here. There's the... if you comfort them they'll feel reassured and more secure and if you leave them alone to cry they'll feel abandoned then the other side is what Bob articulated which is they, kids need to learn, babies need to learn how to sooth themselves, if you run to them every time you hear them cry you're re-enforcing the behaviour, the crying, and they're not going to learn how to sooth themselves and that is essentially what this latest round now in this controversy has shown. Researchers have found that babies need to learn how to sooth themselves back to sleep. This is also based partly on the notion that infants have a sleep cycle just like everyone else, just like adults, and that sleep cycle involves, you know, going into deeper stages of sleep and then coming into lighter sleep, kind of waking up and then drifting off back to sleep again, that's natural. If the child is fussy or is, you know, upset at all when it wakes up it might cry during that stage of its sleep but that's perfectly normal for it to be quote unquote awake, you know, at that time and what the researchers found is that for some babies, again not for everyone but for some, that they were better sleepers later on in life, meaning like eighteen months, you know, two years, if they were allowed to sooth themselves back to sleep and that those babies whose parents picked them up every time they cried, that they had delayed learning of self-soothing and had a worse sleep later on. So, good job guys.

R: Meuhh.

S: Of to an ironic start, given that Rebecca won last year and...

E: Watch, she'll sweep the table the rest of the year.

S: Yeah, it's, hey, it's an endurance test, you know?

R: Yeah, it's a marathon.

S: It's like one basket in basketball, doesn't mean that much.

B: It's a marathon but right now you're in last place.

== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:16:01)</small> ==

S: So Jay, do you have a quote for us this week?

J: I have a quote that was sent in by a listener named Jim O'Rourke and this is a quote from one of my absolute favourite science popularists.

<blockquote>Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend things which are there.</blockquote>

E: Hmm.

J: Does that sound like anybody?

E: Arthur Clarke?

J: Nope. Richard Feynman.

B: Ah.

S: Richard Feynman.

B: He's got a lot of good quotes.

S: Yeah, he's very quotable.

J: Richard Feynman!

(laughter)

== Announcements ==
=== The Yellow Cab of the Universe <small>(1:16:34)</small> ===
* http://www.yellowcabuniverse.com/

J: A listener of our show emailed us and said that we had inspired him in part to create something that I looked into and I thought was one of the best things that I had found in 2012 as far as a learning tool, an entertainment tool. The listeners name is Eduardo Galvani and we started chit-chatting, he wrote a book for the iPad, it's called ''The Yellow Cab of the Universe'' whcih you could see how we may have inspired him. I loved it, I downloaded it, he gave me, he invited me to download his book, I did, it ended up, it's one of the best books I have ever downloaded on my iPad, it's amazingly interactive and it goes into a very simple yet very eloquent explanation of the universe and of the cosmos, it's just fantasic, this book is something that you could do with your kids I think as an after Christmas present, you know you want to buy something that you could do with your children that would really capture their attention, the book just keeps going on and on, the content is fantastic. He's, with his daughter, he's asking his daughter about her school, and she said "I don't like science, it's too boring," and it really bothered him, it shocked him, and he started to think "what's wrong? It's not the science, the science is incredible, it's the way it's being taught," and he realised very soon after that that he had to create an interactive book that it all kind of gelled in his head, and he did. I don't recommend things often, I have absolutely zero stake in this other than I really am interested in having people spend time with their children and educate their kids on science, this is it, guys. This is one of those things that I think could really influence a young kid's mind to understand, not only understand the universe, understand science and have an interest in that something that's important for the future. So you can go to his website, [http://www.yellowcabuniverse.com/ yellowcabuniverse.com], and that'll tell you everything that you need to know, you could also look it up in the iTunes store. Do it, enjoy it, and if you really liked it, send me an email and let me know what you think and tell me what your child's reaction to it was, I'd be curious to know what they got out of it.

S: All right, thanks Jay. And thanks for joining me all this week.

R: Thank you, Steve.

B: Thank you, Steve.

E: Thank you, Steve.

J: Happy new year to you and everybody, guys.

E: Happy new year, let's have a good one.

R: Happy new year.

S: Happy new year. Looking forward to a great 2013 and until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

{{Outro1}}

== References ==
<references/>

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 390

2014-05-18T18:52:02Z

Teleuteskitty: proofread to 38:07

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{{InfoBox
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|episodeDate = 5<sup>th</sup> January 2013
|episodeIcon = File:FM_RADIO.gif
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|guest1 = M: Massimo Pigliucci
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2013-01-05.mp3
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|qowText = Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend things which are there.
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman Richard Feynman]
|}}

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

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, January 2, 2013, 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: I have come to chew bubble gum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubble gum.

J: Evan, can you say that again, but do it twice as corny.

''(laughter)''

R: Yeah, no.

B: Impossible!

R: You're no Rowdy Roddy Piper.

E: Right? ''They Live.'' That movie. Gosh. Is that one of the worst movies ever?

B and R: Worst?

R: It's one of the best movies ever, are you kidding?

B: Oh, god, I love it.

J: It's a cult classic. I mean, yeah, it didn't hold up as good as I would have liked, but it's still

B: Oh, what doesn't hold up?

J: Whatever. It's still great. It's still good.

R: It's awesome.

B: The best bare-knuckled brawl I think in any movie.

E: I'm sorry. Look, I get campy and I get, you know, yes, I get the brawl scene. It was rated like one of the best brawl scenes in movie history and so forth. Rowdy Roddy Piper, John Carpenter directed it and all that. I'm sorry. That movie had so many flaws to it. I mean if we were ever to do a review of that movie, oh man, we could do a whole episode on that.

S: Maybe we should.

E: Maybe we should.

R: Yeah. I will defend that movie with my life.

''(laughter)''

E: All right. I'm gonna be your Gene Siskel to your Roger Ebert or vice versa, or whatever.

R: Oh, boy.

J: Steve, I'm getting a feeling like in the back of my head. I feel like I'm predicting that we're gonna do a show on predictions.

S: I know, I think you're right, Jay.

B: Damn, you're good.

E: One of these days.

S: It's a high probability hit.

== This Day in Skepticism <small>(1:43)</small> ==
* January 5, 1940: FM radio first commercial broadcast

S: But first, Rebecca's gonna tell us about January 5th.

R: Happy birthday, FM radio!

J: Awesome!

E: To all the kids out there.

J: What does the "F" in FM stand for?

R: Frequency.

B: {{w|Frequency modulation}}

J: Thank you.

R: Yes, sort of. You could probably pick any number of dates for the birthdate of FM radio, but on January 5, 1940, the first network program was broadcast on FM radio. It was called "Colonel Harrison Featherbottom and the Fart Man's Morning Zoo Hour."

''(laughter)''

E: What? No, it wasn't.

B: No way. I don't believe it.

J: I love it!

E: . . . skeptic.

R: Okay, that's not what it was called. But it was a 60-minute show that was designed to showcase several different types of audio and vocals and stuff that would eventually be broadcast. The show traveled from a station in Yonkers, New York that was operated by one C.R. Runyon, to a transmitter in Alpine, New Jersey operated by {{w|Edwin_Howard_Armstrong|Major Edwin Armstrong}} of Columbia University, who was heading up the effort; and then onto Meriden, Connecticut; Paxton, Massachusetts; and then finally Mount Washington, where it was transmitted by telelphone wire to Boston and then back to Yonkers. By all reports the FM broadcasts were found to have no apparent loss of quality. So, it was given the thumbs up. The first FM stations that had regular scheduling, programming, appeared later that year. FM.

J: That's cool.

S: Yeah. So, Jay, frequency modulation, that's how the information is encoded in the carrier wave, by modulating the frequency of a signal. As opposed to AM, which is amplitude modulation, they modify the amplitude of the signal.

E: Thank you, Dr. Marconi.

S: Right. And the FM band simply refers to, the FM has nothing to do with any frequency range itself, any band, but that's just the band that's assigned in various countries to transmit FM signals over. So in the U.S. and most places it's 87.5 to 108.0 megahertz.

== News Items ==
=== Psychic Predictions for 2012 <small>(3:51)</small>===
* The Rogues review predictions for last year and make some new ones for 2013

S: Well, as Jay way saying, as Jay predicted, this is our psychic predictions review episode. The first episode of every year we look back and see how did the psychics fare in predicting events of 2012.

B: Horribly.

E: As expected, though.

S: All right, so do you guys have your favorite psychic that you looked back over to see how they did?

E: Anyone else take Nikki because, you know.

R: I decided to skip Nikki this year.

S: She's always a favorite though.

J: She's awesome. She's the funniest.

R: Awesomely stupid.

E: Awesomely awful.

J: Yeah, but this year after reading, going through her stuff, I think she's either delusional or she's just shotgunning.

S: Or both. These are not mutually exclusive.

J: That's right.

S: She made like 180-something predictions. That's, by definition, shotgunning.

J: All right, so, I got, "More laser attacks against planes".

E: Oooo.

R: ''More'' laser attacks.

J: Yes, ''more'' laser attacks. That's what I thought was funny about that.

R: You mean like little kids with laser pointers?

S: Yes.

R: They're a menace to society.

S: Using laser pointers to blind pilots, yes.

J: I got, "Weird weather conditions worldwide, including snow in Hawaii, Las Vegas, and in the Caribbean".

S: Yeah, remember that snowstorm we had when we were in Las Vegas for TAM?

E: (laughs)

J: Giant prehistoric sea monsters under the sea.

E: As opposed to what, floating in the air?

S: Also, some of her predictions are not even sentences.

J: Yeah.

E: Yeah.

J: They're just snippets. Yeah. "Major UFO sightings, all over the world". Nope, that didn't happen.

E: "Earth will fall off its axis a little more"

J: Yeah, right?

E: What?

S: More than what?

E: Exactly.

J: I like how she, then this one goes, "A possible landing of a spaceship". Now, what does that really mean? A ''possible'' landing.

R: Like the Mars rover?

S: Well, we landed {{w|Curiosity (rover)|Curiosity}} on Mars.

E: Yeah.

R: I'm gonna call that a hit.

E: Okay. Hey, Nikki!

R: Good job, Nikki.

E: It's your first time ever.

J: Guys, guys. "A disabled man attempts to go around the world in his wheelchair".

E: What?

B: Oh, boy.

''(laughter)''

S: Is this a manual or one of those electronic wheelchairs? A power wheelchair.

J: Steve, tell me what's wrong with this one. "A huge pandemic, worldwide".

''(laughter)''

S: As opposed to a pandemic that's not worldwide, yeah.

E: A localized pandemic. Highly localized.

J: Now here are two that prove that she doesn't understand science at all. Ready? Earth will fall off its axis a little more,

S: You already said that.

E: Yeah, we did that.

J: Or, "A hole in the Earth's core".

S: A hole in the Earth's core, right.

B: Whoa, what the. . . what does that even mean?

R: A hollow earth thing, maybe?

B: A vacuum in the center of the Earth.

J: Bob, don't worry about that hole, because "The holy grail will be found".

S: The holy grail will be found.

E: I didn't know it was lost!

S: She wrote "problems with the Earth's magnetic fields."

''(laughter)''

B: Oh, nice.

S: What kind of problems?

J: Well, it must be that the city of Hong Kong is on fire, Steve, that threw off the magnetic fields, 'cause that's another one of her predictions.

S: Yeah.

J: "City of Hong Kong on fire".

R: Did that happen?

S: All of it?

J: No. All of it. City of Hong Kong. On fire.

S: It is funny when scientifically illiterate alleged psychics make science-related predictions. Like a hole in the Earth's core. Really?

J: Here's another good one. "Multiple rainbows in the sky, all over the world, within a 24 to 48-hour period".

B: Oh, no. Oh, my god.

R: That happened, too! I saw that, that double rainbow video.

S: Double rainbow!

E: What the heck is that?

B: Double rainbows are magnificent, though. I saw one last, like, two years ago. Oh my god, it's just mesmerizing.

E: We got tripped up on a science or fiction with that triple rainbow, remember?

J and S: Yeah.

E: Sucked.

J: Guys, how 'bout "a famous racehorse will be kidnapped"?

''(laughter)''

E: What, Man-o-War?

S: That was a Sherlock Holmes short story.

J: A meteorite shower hitting the Earth.

''(laughter)''

E: Oh, Nikki, Nikki. Go back to whatever your job was before.

S: Sometime in August. And then again in November. What are the odds?

J: But, and we're only reading a few, but when you read through, she'll get onto a quickie mini-theme inside her predictions. As if she just banged them out at her desk one afternoon.

E: Or her assistant did.

J: Like she'll get on to the theme of earthquakes and then she'll list like four earthquakes. As if, "Oh, yeah, earthquakes!" and then she writes more earthquake ones.

S: Earthquake in Russia. Yeah, I'm pretty sure there was an earthquake somewhere in Russia this year. Probably more than one. I covered psychic Roxanne, did any of you guys do Roxanne from spiritnow.com?

B: No.

R: Uh uh. I don't think I have Roxanne.

S: She has different, this is Roxanne Usleman Hulderman.

E: And her orchestra.

S: Yup, and her orchestra. She has different categories, and I'm just gonna go over the two categories that were most interesting. I didn't do like the celebrity predictions, who cares. These are her "spiritual" predictions. I'm not even sure what makes these spiritual, but here we go. "Einstein's predictions about the honey bees proves correct. They are becoming extinct, indicating it is the beginning of the end of the world."

B: Oh. Einstein?

E: ''(singing)'' Beginning of the end!

S: So I'm like, Einstein? Really? Einstein predicted that honey bees would become extinct? So I looked that up, and . . .

E: Joe Einstein.

S: there is a quote attributed to Albert Einstein that ''if'' the honey bees became extinct, mankind would become extinct within years. You know, by four years later. Just emphasizing how important bees were to humans.

E: And how important the preposition "if" is.

''(laughter)''

S: Yes. He didn't predict that they would become extinct. ''And'' it's not even sure if Einstein said that quote. It's not really sourced. He could have said it, but nobody knows. It was attributed to him, but, anyway.

B: Yeah, you know what that means.

S: Her number two. "Extra Terrestrials" - two words - "help to evolve our consciousness, uplifting our human vibration". Jay, was your vibration uplifted?

J: Well, from the waist down, yes.

S: Okay.

R: Wait. I found a thing about vibration, too. In a different psychic's predictions.

S: Yeah?

J: I heard that, too, Rebecca. I heard vibrations brought up quite a bit.

R: Okay, so, I watched the psychic twins video.

J: Oh, yeah.

S: Oh, yeah.

R: Terry and Linda Jamison.

E: Oh, yeah. I kicked their butt last year. Ha! Too bad nobody saw it.

R: They were hilariously wrong. They started off their "What's gonna happen in 2012" vodcast, podcast, I guess it was a podcast actually, just listing like all these horrific things that were gonna happen in 2012. Just like, it was just gonna be the absolute worst year for life on Earth, and amongst those, they predicted terrorist attacks in Boston, Florida, in Texas, New York, Detroit. They said that major schools would be victimized by young terrorists, which, I'm sure they're going to call a win, for last week.

S: Yeah.

E: They should be very proud of themselves.

R: They say that there would be major cyber attacks by people in China and Russia. There'd be a Chinese attack on the telephone systems. That's a direct quote. However, according to the medium Allie Cheslick, who was interviewing them about their predictions, all these things could have been thwarted only if people raise their own level of vibration.

J: Right.

S: Um hm.

R: So, apparently, we all did a really good job, raising our level of vibration to the point where none of those things, not, they weren't just thwarted by authorities, they just never actually happened.

E: Oh, those would be good vibrations.

B: I love when they give themselves their own out. You know, if it doesn't come true,

R: Right.

B: well, luckily everyone, you know, messed with, played with their vibrations. Win-win!

J: I'm not afraid to admit that they did get a couple of things right, I mean, you're supposed to, statistically, when you throw out as many predictions as these people do.

B: Oh, yeah.

J: Like they did say that there were gonna be lone wolf attacks in schools. And it did happen.

S: But that's just, again, that's a high probability thing. It's like "another Columbine's gonna happen ''some''time". Sure.

R: Right. Thanks for nothing.

S: Yeah. Somewhere by somebody. No details. It seems specific, but it really isn't, so that's one of the strategies. So, it's a high probability prediction, ''and'' there's so much shotgunning going around that of course two or three are gonna be glancing blows. So, next under her spiritual predictions, the "North and South poles reverse their positions.

E: I've heard that a lot of times.

S: Here we go. "Spiritual evolvement." Evolvement.

''(laughter)''

E: What? ''E''volvement?

S: Evolvement. I don't know why she didn't use "evolution." On this third dimension expands the fight between good and evil.

J: Now what does that mean, that weapons are being introduced? Like, what does that mean?

S: So, we're fighting the good fight against evil more and more. On the third dimension. Which is good, because her next prediction is that the third and fourth dimension begin to merge.

E: Oh, good! Finally!

B: I hate when that happens.

E: It's like when peanut butter and chocolate come together, it's good stuff!

S: But—

B: Don't you dare ''(inaudible)''

S: Hold onto your hats, now. With the great pyramids in Egypt being destroyed, you guys remember when that happened, right?

J & E: Yeah.

B: I missed it.

S: The entire planet's magnetic force shifts, symbolizing the end of times, then and only then do we realize that the pyramids have been holding our planet together.

J: Oh!

E: Oh, like a linchpin.

S: Yeah.

B: It's so clear in retrospect.

R: Yeah.

S: And her final one under that category is "Humans turning evermore towards spirituality" which is actually not happening.

J: Yeah, that's another theme that I kept hearing. The world is becoming more spiritual.

S: The environmental events around the globe, lots of high probability, "there's gonna be earthquakes." An earthquake impacts the state of Washington and California. What are the odds? Of an earthquake occurring in a major earthquake belt. All right, but here's my favorite of all of her predictions. "A solar star dwarf from the sun, breaking off, causing damage to the earth".

''(general excitement and confusion)''

B: Oh, my god.

R: Our sun? That could happen?

J: A solar star dwarf, like, what is that?

S: Right?

E: Phil Plait's gonna have to add a chapter to his book, I think.

''(laughter)''

S: Right! Yeah, a dwarf star apparently is gonna break away from our sun and that is going to damage the earth, which, I imagine it would. If that actually happened. It's like, is she flipping through a science book and just pulling out terms at random without understanding what they are.

B: Does she mean like a coronal mass ejection? Is that what she means?

E: Bob. Bob, you're given her w—a-a-a-a-y too much credit.

J: Bob, the only corona she knows is the beer

S: No, because the next prediction is "solar flares causing power outages", which I read on multiple psychics' lists. Solar flares causing power outages. Again, it's the kind of thing, like scientists say "this could happen someday" so they just pick up on that. It's a high probability prediction. "A contagious disease born of our environmental carelessness affects the world". Another pandemic prediction.

B: Nice. Solar star dwarf.

S: And then finally "Global environmental destruction connected with the end of times Mayan calendar". Wah-wah-waaah.

''(laughter)''

S: So there we go, psychic Roxanne.

R: You know, the psychic twins had another great prediction for 2012. They predicted that there would not be any hurricanes in 2012 that were as bad as the previous year. So no hurricanes as bad as Irene. Kind of missed the mark there. The interviewer, Allie Cheslick, predicted that the twins would have their own television show by March 20th of last year, which, I don't think happened.

J: No. The twins also said that it would take a miracle for Obama to get re-elected.

S: Well, I guess a miracle happened.

E: Well, there you go.

R: It's a miracle!

E: Proof that miracles happen.

B: I've got a few here. I've got a couple from two different psychics. One's Janet Russell, who's a Long Island-based intuitive spiritual medium/psychic. She's also the host of a New York top cable access show, ''Beyond the Unexplained''. And how someone like her can have their own TV show and we don't, I don't understand it. But she's known for her accuracy and honesty. She says "we'll be using solar energies instead of the old standby of gas and electric". Solar energies, in plural, which is very odd. And then, this one tickled me. She goes "and yes, the government will admit that we do have contact with other beings in other dimensions"! You know, it's not good enough that there are other beings, aliens or whatever, but they're also in another dimension. Just to make it, just the icing on the cake, you know. Different dimension.

R: I read Janet Russell's predictions as well, and my favorite one, I think,

B: Which one?

R: Okay, there were two. One was "People will be airing their dirty laundry on teleservices. This way they will have a constant audience." ''(laughing)'' What does that mean?

S: The last teleservice

R: I don't know. And the thing is, like, she's so obviously out of touch because my other favorite one was "I feel that one state will be open to alternative lifestyle and people will move to that state because they feel more comfortable." What? What does that mean, alternative? Does that mean gay marriage, does it mean pot? Because we have those things in several states. It's ... I don't know.

B: She just has her finger on the pulse of culture. There was another psychic, Nancy Bradley. Apparently, this psychic has 98.6% accuracy.

R: Wow

E: Wow

B: For 2011, so—

E: Take that temperature!

B: My first reaction was, well, yeah, that's total baloney. But then I read her predictions. Listen to these two. "Six more Hollywood icons will leave us in 2012, and two major music stars as well". What are the odds of people dying in 2012? That just kind of blew my mind a bit. Here's another one: "more protests across the world, and the U.S. as well, sit-ins as people stand up, much bloodshed". Wow. Who could have foreseen that?

E: Geez. People shedding blood.

B: And then she

S: Yeah, some psychics definitely go with the vague high probability hit.

B: Oh, my god.

S: I was reading a couple that did that. It's like "there will be protests in Egypt." Look! ''(laughter)'' Really?

B: And then she throws in one of these little sciencey ones that are kinda whacky: "a shift in the equator will be discovered and will change some of the weather patterns for countries on it." ''(laughter)'' A shift in the equator. I hate when that happens!

S: The equator shifts. Does she mean the continents ''on'' the equator?

B: Who knows what she meant? ''(laughter continues)'' It could mean anything.

E: The equator shifts! That's the best!

B: She could be referring to that solar dwarf star thing. ''(laughter still continues)''

S: But, guys, that was the best, right? The solar dwarf coming out of our sun.

E: Is it wearing a crown?

J: Wait, but Bob, Nancy Bradley also said "More aquatic ocean and lake animals make their way onto shore. Octopus, fish, etc. Also, as I told you last year, more species thought to be extinct are coming back, including those considered mystical, those that many thought never existed are coming back."

R: The unicorn, for instance. ''(overlapping excited comments)''

S: What about the events that psychics failed to predict for 2012?

B: Oh, yeah. That was easy.

J: How many do you want? I have plenty of 'em here.

B: Well, Hurricane Sandy, first of all. You'd think, you know, such a huge weather event. Somebody, somewhere—

S: And it's in their sweet spot!

B: Just one person.

S: They're predicting tsunamis and earthquakes, and they can't get that one hurricane right? Come on.

J: The shooting in Sandy Hook, Connecticut.

R: Although the psychic twins claim that –

E: Yeah, some will claim that they did that.

J: In order for them claim, and I thought about it, because they did make a lone gunman prediction. But, seriously, like that's just not good enough. Like you have to say more, it has to be more specific. If somebody said—

B: You need two things, Jay. You need two things. If somebody said "Newtown" or "Sandy Hook," that would be impressive as hell. Or even if they said "26 dead" or say "20 kids." If anyone said any of those three things, then, bam! That is a solid hit. Of course it wouldn't mean, you know, that psychics—

S: Yeah, there's different degrees of hits. They could have said "an elementary school." You know, they could have said "a lone shooter killing many kids in an elementary school."

R: Even then...

S: Even that would have been semi-impressive. But just "a lone wolf" or just—

B: No.

S: "terrorism in schools." Nah, it's way too vague.

B: Yeah, I'm talk— 'cause when you think of a psychic, if a psychic really existed, you would expect somebody, one person, or a few people, to have a really solid hit. Something really specific. I mean, isn't that what everyone really wants? That's what we want, right guys?

J: Yeah, but that's the thing, Bob, when you, every year when we read through all these psychic predictions, you know, we're just doing our research, it occurs to me, once again, they're just playing the odds. You can see them playing the odds. There's patterns. There is a reason why a lot of them predict the same types of things over and over again.

S: And they're also just probably going for the sensationalism. I mean the ones they know are not gonna come true. Like the solar dwarf. They're just trying to say impressive sounding things.

B: Right. And they—

S: Because they know no one's gonna care. Their target audience, they're not gonna go back and check up on 'em and see what happened.

B: And they don't care what we're saying.

S: They'll be reading the predictions for 2013. All right, what about the Causeway Cannibal?

J: Yeah, absolutely. ''(overlapping comments)'' Too specific though, Steve, too specific.

S: The fiscal cliff.

J: Yup.

B: Yeah.

S: The Petraeus scandal.

B: Yeah, I had that one, too.

E: Attack in Libya.

S: The Benghazi shooting.

J: The President supporting gay marriage.

B: How about deaths? I mean, did anyone predict the death of Whitney Houston, for example?

S: And if they're gonna dabble in science, how about, like if they ''really'' were going for a high-probability science prediction, how about the Higgs will be discovered?

E: Higgs boson, yeah. That would have been good. Or the lander will successfully, you know, everything will go smoothly there. You could even do that one.

J: How about Facebook going public?

B: Yeah.

E: Facebook, yup.

S: That debacle? Yeah, good one. All right, well, I listened to last year's episode to see what ''we'' all predicted.

B: I remember one prediction. I remember saying that Google Plus would die in 2012.

S: Okay.

B: Unfortunately I was wrong.

R: I mean it's on life support, but...

B: Yeah, it is.

E: My predictions.

S: Well, what were they, Evan?

E: I made one in each of the following categories: technology - the {{w|Aakash (tablet)|Aakash tablet}} would outsell the iPad by the end of 2012.

S: Um hmm. Fail.

R: And?

E: You know, the Aakash tablet. This is a $35 tablet that they made in India.

R; Oh, right.

E: They're already actually up to the Aakash 2. And I figured, all right, so you've got the Indian government, they're subsidizing this thing. They're gonna get this out to 500 million Indians, students and everyone in the country; just pure numbers, it's gonna overtake. Well, it didn't quite happen. I think some of the problems were in the technology itself. Even though it costs 35 bucks, they said it heats up very quickly, and poor design, cheap components. It won't play any of the apps that are out there. The battery life is poor. I think those things might have had something to do with it.

S: It's a $35 tablet, that's why.

E: You get what you pay for. In astronomy - a small meteor will collide with one of the many GPS satellites in orbit, rendering it inoperable. Now, that did not happen this year, but guess what's coming up next month, folks.

J: What?

E: ''(clears his throat theatrically)'' A small asteroid ''will'' pass inside the geosynchronous satellite ring.

J: Irrelevant! Irrelevant, you didn't get it.

E: 35,800—

B: Wow, that's damn close. How big is this thing?

E: —kilometers above the — 150 feet. 150 feet long.

B: Damn!

E: Astronomers say the asteroid may hit a communications satellite, so, you know...

J: It doesn't matter. It's irrelevant. No partial credit for you, sir.

B: You still missed it, dude.

E: Nothing irrelevant about that. Yes, it didn't happen, but the science behind it was revealed in the year, so I'll get a half-credit for that. Biology - Bio-engineered tooth regeneration will become available for humans. Well,

B: That'd be cool.

E: Because I've been following that, they're still doing more studies with mice and stuff, and they're making progress. They made more progress this year, but they didn't get to the humans. So I'll take a minus for that. In skepticism - a prominent skeptic will defect over to an alternative point of view. And that actually did come true, because a global warming skeptic {{w|Richard_A._Muller|Richard Muller}}, who was a proponent, you know, a big proponent saying that man-made global warming does not exist, in fact did leave his brand of skepticism behind and says, yes, it is actually happening. So I'll take a plus for that.

J: No. No one knows who that guy is. You can't take a plus for that.

E: Richard Muller? Steve?

S: Evan's right, but that was the wrong kind of skeptic.

E: I didn't ... hey, Steve.

S: It's all right. I gotcha.

E: Well, do you want me to say brown dwarves are gonna get crapped out of the sun? ''(laughter)'' Is that a better prediction.

R: Yeah, actually, it's awesome.

J: No, you didn't get any. Zero.

E: How 'bout this one? My last prediction: the largest glacier ever recorded will break off, right from the ice shelf. And that ''did'' happen, thank you very much. In Antarctica this year, that actually did happen.

J: No, it didn't.

''(laughter)''

S: Well I had one prediction last year, and it was a crypto-zoological prediction, if you remember. I predicted that Bigfoot would sweep into the White House with a gray alien as a running mate. And that ''did'' happen.

E: It almost happened.

S: But the cover-up is keeping you from knowing about it.

''(laughter)''

E: Right.

J: What did Rebecca do?

B: Good one, Steve.

S: Rebecca predicted Michael Douglas, Michael Douglas was her celebrity death. He's still kicking.

R: Oh. Good. I'm glad.

E: He had a problem. He had problems last year.

S: An ''Arrested Development'' movie.

B: Did I miss that?

R: Uuuh, it's... no, but ....

E: It's in production, right?

R: There is going to be a TV show.

S: Okay.

E: Oh, TV show.

S: And chimpanzees will be found to do something scientists thought only people did, previously.

R: That probably happened.

''(laughter)''

E: Somewhere. We may not have seen it or recorded it, but it might have happened.

J: It didn't happen.

R: Yeah, probably.

S: Jay, do you remember your one prediction?

J: Yes. And that's why I've been arguing so much with everyone. I predicted that none of our predictions would come true.

R: Yeah, that's right.

E: Wrong!

J: I'm more right than the rest of you. How about that?

E: That's why you were hard on me and my predictions, 'cause you wanted ''your'' prediction to come true.

S: All right, well. Who wants to go first in their predictions for 2013?

B: I will! Okay, in 2013, everyone will start referring to the year as "two thousand and thirteen" instead of "twenty-thirteen," ''(laughter)'' except for Rebecca. And the LHC will announce a nine sigma competence level in the Higgs boson. It's existence will—

E: English, Bob! English.

B: It's existence will be so obvious that fifth graders will start finding evidence for it. ''(laughter)'' And my only real prediction, scientists will create a living minimal genome cell from scratch. Please come true.

S: Jay?

J: I predict that Iran's ''(pronouncing it eye-ran)'' going to test a nuke.

S: Iran? ''(pronouncing it Ear-on)'' Yeah.

''(laughter)''

J: What?

S: Where did you run to, Jay?

''(laughter)''

J: Seriously? Like that's even pronounced wrong?

E: Just say Persia.

R: I-in-stine.

S: I-in-stine. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, next?

J: I predict another private company will start launching space missions.

S: Um hmm.

B: Okay.

E: Coca-Cola.

J: Beyond {{w|SpaceX}}. I predict that {{w|Billy Graham}} is gonna kick it.

B: Oh, we're doing celebrity deaths, too?

J: Yeah.

B: Okay.

J: I predict that George Bush ''Senior'' is gonna kick it.

E: Any other 90-something-year-old people gonna kick it, Jay?

J: Well, what d'ya want me to predict, like a 20-year-old?

E: How 'bout someone in their 70s or something. Make it a little challenging.

J: Okay, I predict that Evan Bernstein is gonna choke on a hot dog. ''(laughter)'' And my final prediction for 2013 is, I predict the end is {{w|Bill Nye}}.

''(laughter)''

B: Oh, nice.

R: Wait, what?

B: End is Nye.

E: Funny.

R: Mine are great. You're gonna find no fault with mine.

J: Bring it on. Beat "the end is Bill Nye." Beat that, right now. Go ahead.

R: All right. The Daily Mail will report that researchers have discovered pickles cause cancer.

B: Ooooh. I like it.

J: I like that, okay.

E: I don't eat 'em, so—

R: Number two. A whistleblower will reveal that the government has been hiding something.

''(laughter)''

E: Which government?

R: I'd rather not comment upon which government it is at this time, but, they may have the color red in their flag.

''(laughter)''

J: Okay.

R: Finally ...

E: —like the Swiss! I knew it!

R: I will beat the game FTL on normal mode, and finally get 100 percent on Skyrim.

B: You're reaching now.

J: No way.

E: Now your sun is crapping out brown dwarves, Rebecca.

R: It's on like Donkey Kong

S: Bob, what was your celebrity death?

B: Yeah, I've got a celebrity death, and it's not an octogenarian, Jay, or is a nonagenarian, is that how you pronounce that? Lindsay Lohan.

E: Oooh, she's on my list, Bob!

B: She's been rolling 20 for far too long, her time is ''up.''

J: Nope. I'm predicting she's not gonna die. Not even close.

E: Yeah, she's on mine. I've got three of 'em, that was one of 'em.

S: I predict ''she's'' gonna die, but her twin won't.

''(laughter)''

B: Nice.

R: Oh, we're all going to hell.

S: Evan, what've you got?

E: Okay, in addition to Lindsay Lohan. I predict a world leader, which is a president or a prime minister, will succumb while in office. A few options there, but it'll be very prominent. And, James Van Praagh.

J: Oh, why? What did you see? What did the spirits tell you?

E: Jay, it's something that's beyond sort of a description. In technology, there will be a ''m-a-a-a-jor'' data breach, most likely of a credit card company, or something along those lines. This breach will cost consumers and their insurers at least $1 billion worldwide. In astronomy, we will discover a Earth-like planet, known as "Earth's Twin."

S: Hey, that's been my prediction for the last three years.

''(laughter)''

E: And how's that worked out for ya?

S: I'm getting closer every year. And you're gonna try and take it from me now? That's like you're sitting down at my slot machine, Evan.

''(laughter)''

R: Evan just bid a dollar under your ''Price Is Right'' score. That's what just happened.

E: Well, we'll just share that one, Steve, if it comes true this year.

B: Good analogy, Rebecca.

E: In health, a hand-held breathalyzer will offer early detection of infections caused by microbes. What do you think of that? Aa! And, in the environment, I only did four this year, environment, we will find, scientists will find a way to harness energy from sand. Now, I admit, they will be small quantities of energy, but it'll be energy nonetheless.

S: Like the tar sands?

E: Simply sand.

S: Tar sands are already a major source of petroleum, but, I'm assuming you're not talking about that.

E: Okay, I'll refine it—

S: You'll refine the sand? or refine the petroleum?

E: Desert sand.

S: Okay. I have a celebrity death and two predictions. My celebrity death is Jerry Lewis, unfortunately. Great comedian, but, you know. His time

''(someone in background: Oh, lady! Lady!)''

S: I also predict that there will be a ''major'' pareidolia event this year.

B: Nice.

E: Face on the moon?

R: Major?

S: A major pareidolia event. And finally, conspiracy theorists will use anomaly hunting to argue that an innocent or natural event is actually a deliberate conspiracy.

R: Um hmm.

S: All right, so we will track those and we'll let you know next year how we all did.

=== Cosmic Rays and Dementia <small>(32:27)</small>===
* [http://m.phys.org/news/2012-12-houston-problem-space-brain.html Phys.Org: Houston, we have another problem: Study shows space travel is harmful to the brain]

S: All right well I think we have time for a few quick news items to round out the show, so Bob you're going to tell us about another risk of space travel.

B: In science fiction the biggest problems generally for space travel are usually things like aliens, black holes or warp core breaches, I really hate that last one.

S: And space worms, don't forget space worms.

B: Oh yeah, the worms. It's very annoying then to think that a little thing like ultra-tiny invisible radiation is essentially a total deal breaker right now for allowing humans to spend serious time beyond low earth orbit. We've known this for a while now, we've touched upon it in the past a bit, but most recently scientists have found even more bad news. A new study described in the PLOS ONE journal reveals for the first time that cosmic ray exposure to humans on a trip to Mars can make changes to the brain that could replicate or speed up the onset of {{w|Alzheimer's disease}}.<ref>Cherry et al. (2012). ''Galactic Cosmic Radiation Leads to Cognitive Impairment and Increased Aβ Plaque Accumulation in a Mouse Model of Alzheimer’s Disease'' ([http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0053275 PLOS ONE article])</ref> Now I'm calling this the "space brain syndrome" and it really stinks.

S: Space dementia.

B: That's a good one too, I like "space brain syndrome" better.

S: No. Space dementia.

B: Uh, we talked about the cosmic ray hazards in space but I learned a little bit more about some of these details and I'd like to share. It's pretty interesting. The culprit here is a specific type of cosmic ray, now these aren't rays of course, but they're bits of atoms that are propelled through space. Protons make up the majority of the cosmic rays, followed by alpha particles which is just like two neutrons and two protons. And then electrons kind of finish that list. Those are the majority, the vast majority of all cosmic rays. But a tiny, tiny percentage of cosmic rays are these relatively really big clumps of protons and neutrons and they're called these {{w|HZE_ions|HZE particles}} which stands for High Charge and Energy particles. And the Z, if you're familiar with chemistry, the Z is the universal symbol for atomic number which is the amount of protons in a nucleus, so that's what that stands for. Now so the more protons you have with no electrons to balance them out, you create a bigger and bigger charge. The E stands for energy obviously, so what you end up with is these bare atomic nuclei with lots of protons and a lot of energy and they can penetrate shielding of a ship and through the skin of the astronauts and just wreak havoc on your DNA causing cancer and a host of other issues. So this much we've known for a little while now, and if that wasn't annoying enough, they get this energy from supernovae and also the sun, I wasn't quite aware of this, the sun's solar flares and coronal mass ejections also can produce these HZE particles. As tiny as these— I mean percentage wise, HZEs are a fraction of a percent but they can cause more than 50% of the radiation damage inflicted on astronauts. So these are the big players in terms of astronauts having a problem with radiation in deep space.

S: Now Bob, because these are highly charged particles, would that mean that magnetic shielding would be a viable option?

B: Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, if they didn't have any charge then we'd be even worse off, so yeah that kind of leads into the potential, one of the potential ways for dealing with them. The experiments that these researchers did, particularly specifically on how these HZE particles can affect people, they used rats of course, the most helpful of guinea pigs. They exposed them—

R: Rats aren't guinea pigs.

B: (laughs) They exposed them to increasing doses of radiation, including the equivalent of what an astronaut would experience on a multi-year mission to Mars, which is pretty much how long it would take. Now they tested the rats' recall for certain objects and locations that they were previously exposed to and they found that those that had a bigger dose of radiation did increasingly more poor at those tasks, which of course indicates some level of neurological impairment. But the real kicker though was that I guess after the rat autopsies they revealed indications of not only changes in the brain vasculature but also in the accumulation of {{w|beta amyloid}}, which is that protein plaque that builds up in the brain of Alzheimer's victims. Now Steve, correct me if I'm wrong, but this plaque, that's pretty much the hallmark of that disease right? If you find that, it's like the red light going off that you have Alzheimer's right? These beta amyloid plaques, is that right?

S: They're important, they're not unique to Alzheimer's, it's more complicated than that, but yeah they're an important pathological finding in Alzheimer's disease.

B: Well that was, from what I could gather, that was one of the main reasons that they're all talking about Alzheimer's here. NASA of course is concerned about cosmic rays, especially considering they've had plans for a manned mission to an asteroid in 2021 and to Mars in 2035, I mean there's just no way that's going to happen if they don't deal with this problem. NASA subscribes to a policy known as {{w|ALARA}} which is ''As Low As Reasonably Achievable''. Any exposure to radiation has an element of risk of course, but NASA needs a very high confidence level that an astronaut's lifetime risk of terminal cancer from cosmic radiation is less than 3% so they will not cross that line, so they have to make 3% reasonably achievable to fit in with this whole idea of ALARA, and that's going to take revolutionary technology to pull that off. That's not going to be a quick and easy fix by any means.

S: All right, well thanks Bob.

== Who's That Noisy? <small>(38:07)</small>==
* Answer to last week: Glass Harp playing Fur Elise

S: All right, well Evan we do have time for Who's That Noisy this week.

E: Well good, that's good because we need to reveal the answer to what was the last Who's That Noisy for 2012. I will play it for you now for memory's sake. Here we go.

(Glass Harp playing Fur Elise)

E: Lovely Ludwig Van.

S: Fur Elise, it's one of the pieces I had to play when I was taking piano lessons.

E: Did you enjoy it.

S: It's a pretty piece.

E: It is a pretty pieces. Well what kind of instrument was that, that was the question. And we had a lot of people gguess that that was the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_harmonica glass harmonica] or the glass armonica also known as a bowl organ which is actually incorrect, although that instrument would create the same or similar-sounding notes but that was not it. What we were hearing was actually the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_harp glass harp], which is a musical instrument made of upright wine glasses and it's played by running moistened or chalked fingers around the rim of the glass and each glass is tuned to a different pitch and thereby you're able to play all of the notes. That particular piece was performed by [http://www.roberttiso.com/ Robert Tiso] and you can [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47TGXJoVhQ8 see him on youtube playing this] and very talented in his own right. Yes, several people did get it correct, the first one to guess correctly, our friend from the message boards, Magnus M.

S: Mmmhmm.

E: Whose name we've sopken before. Well done, Magnus.

S: Magnus!

E: And congratulations for being first. OK, so 2013, we're going to change things up a little bit for the Who's That Noisy and the puzzle segment. For this year, we're going run a little contest for all the listeners, and here's how it's going to work. Each week when I play the Who's That Noisy or give the Logic Puzzle, everyone who answers correctly, their name will be put into a hat for that week. And that week I will draw a name from the hat at random and the person's name whom I draw will go into a final drawing which will occur at the last episode of the year and the winner of the final drawing will be invited to come onto the SGU to play a round of Science or Fiction with us. If you're going to submit a guess, we're going to require your guess by the time we record our next show which is typically early to mid-week the following week, it varies from week to week but there is a little insentive there to get your guess in early and get your name eligible to be drawn for the final drawing. Since this is a new idea we are tinkering with, we're going to do this on the honour system. If we sense that there is any abuse by the participants of this we will have to make some modifications along the way, so we're trusting everyone to play fairly, play by the rules, if you know the answer go ahead and tell us, but you don't go sharing it with you know, 100,000 of your closest friends so that there's 100,000 names to draw from each week, that'll make my job a lot harder. So let's give this a try, folks and let's see what we can do.

S: All right, we'll see how it goes.

E: We're going to start this year with a puzzle, a logic puzzle. And this logic puzzle was submitted by listener Alvaro Ibanes, thank you Alvaro for submitting this, this is a very good one. A jeweller has nine pearls which all look and feel exactly alike. However, he knows that one of them weighs more than the other eight. He has access to a classic scale, you know the one with two arms often seen in Lady Justice's hand? What is the minimum number of measurements required to know with absolute certainty which pearl is the one that weighs more? All right? Give us your guess?

S: It's a fun one.

E: Yeah, it is a fun one. Go ahead and give us your best guess, [mailto:info@theskepticsguide.org info@theskepticsguide.org] and our message boards are [http://sguforums.com sguforums.com]. Good luck everyone.

S: Thanks, Evan.

== Interview with Massimo Pigliucci <small>(42:33)</small> ==
S: We are joined now by Massimo Pigliucci. Massimo, welcome back to the Skeptics' Guide!

M: Thank you, it's a pleasure as usual.

S: And Massimo is the chair of the Department of Philosophy at CUNY-Lehman College, the editor in chief of the journal Philosophy & Theory in Biology. He's the host of a podcast called Rationally Speaking and also one of the authors on the blog by the same name. The author of several books, including the book that we will be discussing this evening: [http://www.amazon.com/Answers-Aristotle-Science-Philosophy-Meaningful/dp/0465021387/ref=la_B001IU0D3K_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1343828923&sr=1-6 Answers for Aristotle]. But his greatest claim to skeptical and scientific fame, was that he was the first ever guest on The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

''(laughter)''

M: That's exactly right.

E: As if he needed anything else.

S: That's right. I was just- That's just the cherry on the top, Massimo.

''(laughter)''

S: Massimo, I talk about you a lot actually, in skeptical circles because like you're the one, in my opinion, like the one real philosopher that we have in the skeptical movement. I'm not saying you're the only philosopher, but you're the one who's active. Who's trying to keep the rest of us philosophically honest, if you will.

M: ''(laughter)''

S: And that, that's essentially what your recent book, Answer for Aristotle, is about. So, tell us about it.

M: Yeah, in some sense. It is aimed at the general public, so it's not a technical book. But it is about the relationship between philosophy and science which I think that is something that certainly members of the skeptic movement should be aware of, or a little more sort of cognisant of. But the basic idea of the book is really that this is essentially a self-help book for people who don't believe in self-help books. The basic approach is that, look, when we're dealing with the big questions in life, you know: morality, or relationships, or you know, general views of the world and whatever, where do we get our best hints, our best information about that? I don't think we get them from religion. Common sense is helpful, but up to a certain point. So, it seems to me that the best combination of answers, or at least approaches to those kinds of questions, come from the two most effective traditions of thought in the Western -- possibly the world -- history, which are of course science, as far as factual questions are concerned and philosophy, as far as how to reflect on the implications of those factual answers we get from science. So that's what the book is about, it's how to combine science and philosophy in what I sort of jokingly call Sci-Phi -- actually, people pronounce it Sci-Fi, but it should be Sci-Phi, because the second part is P-H-I for philosophy.

S: Sci-Phi?

M: Yeah, that's right. ''(laughter)'' But I think that Sci-Fi was more, I don't know, the publicist thought it was more, sounded better than Sci-Phi.

''(laughter)''

E: Right.

S: Right. Well, then why didn't the Sci-Fi Channel change it's name to Sci-Phi?

M: Yeah, that's a good question!

''(laughter)''

B: That really pissed me of when they did that.

M: Agreed.

S: So, science gives us the facts, as it were, and philosophy tells us how to think about those facts. Is that a fair summary?

M: Well, yeah, it's, of course as you know that's a little simple version of the whole thing. In reality there is no sharp distinction between science and philosophy. There are many areas of overlap, the most obvious one perhaps is philosophy of science, or, and in fact also epistemology. I mean, there are areas of philosophy that are directly relevant to science and there also areas of science that are definitely relevant to philosophy, I mean, one cannot do these days any serious philosophy of mind, for instance, unless one is well read in, you know, neurobiology and current science. So, there's quite a bit more overlap than the simple distinction between science and philosophy. But it is true that, you know, historically speaking and strictly in modern, in the modern (GARBLED), the true disciplines have evolved unto quite different directions and yes, broadly speaking, science deals with the best factual information we can get about the world, and philosophy deals with reflecting, you know, methods of reflecting about what that, that information tells us.

S: Yeah, so they're complementary intellectual disciplines-

M: Right.

S: -if you will. And, I think what's, I know you've made this point a lot, and I know in your blog as well, and also in our prior discussions that, scientists who think they can answer all questions, with just science, have to first realise, that when doing science they are also practicing philosophy, cause there has to be a philosophical underpinning of science itself.

M: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of the best summaries of that position was actually due to Dan Dennett. As you know, several years ago he wrote Darwin's Dangerous Idea, which is one of the most influential books, in, in sort of many peoples understanding of evolution and implication of Darwinism and so on and so forth. But in that book, as much as that book is, of course, very much science friendly, and does take on-board, you know, evolutionary biology in particular, Dennett points out that there is no such a thing as philosophy-free science, there is only science that takes on-board the philosophy without examining it. No, now, the question is now that scientist shouldn't necessary do philosophy, in fact I would discourage scientists from doing philosophy. Just in the same way in which I would discourage philosophers from doing science. Those are sufficiently separate activities, as I said, that requires different skills, and also, by the way, they have developed huge technical literature of their own so it's really difficult to do both in a reasonable way. But, what I do suggest is that both scientists, as academics, and sort of general public at large, would be better of by respecting each others territory and what comes out of the other field, and also being a little bit acquainted with what comes out of the other field.

S: Yeah, so just as, like in the skeptical movement in just, in general, we promote the idea that people should have a basic scientific literacy, not that they should be able to practice science as a layperson, but just be scientifically literate. By the same token, people should be philosophically literate as well, not to be able to engage at cutting-edge philosophical technical discussions, but to have some idea when philosophy is in play at least.

M: Correct. So for instance, a little bit of understanding of basic philosophy or science or epistemology for instance, would go quite a long way for skeptics, to have, to develop a better appreciation not just for the power of science, which is, you know, unquestionable within the community, or unquestioned within the community, but also for the limits of science, you know, there is a lot of stuff that science hasn't figured, maybe will never figure out, you know, there is a lot of, you know, science needs to be seen for what it is: a very powerful, but nonetheless human epistemic activity, based on certain methods, those methods have certain problems and limitations. The skeptic is supposed to be thinking rationally about broad range of issues and that ought to include, it seems to me, also the functioning of science itself.

S: Is there an area where you most frequently see science or skeptics go wrong when it comes to philosophy as it's relevant to what we do.

M: Oh, that's a great question. ''(laughter)'' I think there's more than one.

''(laughter)''

S: Give your top three-

J: Slow down, slow down, don't, don't kill us.

M: No no no no. It's- So, one of the, I think, the major areas that I've seen coming up, quite often in the last, especially the last two-three years, is actually the relationship- it's ethics. And what science can or cannot tell us about ethics. There seems to be a lot of confusion about, you know, ethical reasoning and what it is about, and are there moral truths and how do we discover moral truths and all that sort of stuff. And of course, the naïve position among some skeptic quarters is that well you know, either morality is all about- it's entirely a human invention, so it's essentially one step removed from moral relativism, which most of us don't wanna go to, or, then if it is about objective fact then those facts have to be of course matters that science can investigate and therefore we're gonna have, you know, you name it, evolutionary biology or neurobiology is gonna give us answers to moral questions. I think that the reality is a lot more complicated than that. I think that evolutionary biology tells us something very important about morality, that neurobiology tells us something very important about morality, but that neither one of those exhaust what, you know, the province essentially of moral (GARBLED) of ethics in general. So, let me give you a quick example: I think that evolutionary biology is absolutely necessary in order to understand where a sense of moral, right and wrong, comes from. I mean, we evolved it. We are social animals of a particular type and there is no magic behind it, it doesn't come from gods, it evolved over a period of time, the building blocks of a moral sense, a moral intuition if you will, or a moral instinct can be found in other primates and that makes perfect sense. I mean, it would be really bizarre if morality for some reason where the only thing that we cannot find any, sort of, gradual examples or partial examples in other species. So-

S: Yeah, birds have morality. I mean, birds punish each other for not-

M: Yeah.

S: -doing what the group is in the groups best interest. If one bird doesn't warn the others about a predator, then they won't get warned next time around. You know, so that's been-

J: Wow.

S: -demonstrated experimentally.

M: (GARBLED) Quibble a little bit about that, is, I wouldn't go as far as saying that they have morality as in, obviously, as we understand it from a human perspective, meaning they don't have the ability to reply.

E: Dear Duane.

M: But they do have an instinct, that correspond, that if you were to see those actions in a human being, you would say, "oh that's a moral action."

S: Well that, that's, but my point is what you were saying that there are evolutionary antecedents we could see the elements of morality in other species, obviously an elementary form, not in the reflective form that we have, but they have an instinctive notion of reciprocity which informs our ethical senses, right?

M: Exactly, right. From there to neurobiology or the current science in general of moral decision making that also tells you something interesting. It tells you for instance, not only which areas of the brain tend to be involved in moral thinking and that sort of stuff, which is interesting in and of itself, but it tells you something more deep about how we think about morality. For instance, let me give you one example: you probably, you guys probably now have heard a bit about, sort of the different versions of the trolley dilemma.

S: Yeah.

B: Yeah.

M: Two basic forms, as you likely know, are the one in which there is this trolley coming down the road and it's about to hit and kill five people and you have, you happen to have a very convenient located lever next to you, that if you pull you're gonna divert the trolley on a second track where it is gonna kill only one person. Question: would you do it or not? Answer: empirically speaking, most people would say yes. That's interestingly, by the way, cross-cultural, depending (GARBLED) how you present the dilemma, pretty much people will respond in the same way. Eighty or ninety percent of people say yes. Then you switch into a second situation where you don't have the lever, you're on top of a bridge, there's this really bulky, big guy in front of you and the only option you have is to push the guy of the bridge to save the five people. Question: would you do it? Most people answer no. Now, the interesting question there is why would people answer, most people answer, yes to one and no to the other since at least at one level of analysis the two situations are perfectly analogous: in both cases you have five people you're about to save and one person that you're about to kill. Now, turns out that neurobiology sheds some light on this and it's perhaps not surprising, but it's interesting the way it works. It turns out that if you do a brain-scan of, you know, with all the limitations of course of neural scanning and current technology, but if you do a neural scan of people, an FMRI of people, when they are involved in thinking about the two versions of the dilemma, in the first case, the lever case, people tend to involve the areas of the brain, like the frontal cortex, that are involved typically in sort of rational, deliberate decision making. On the other hand, when people are thinking in terms of the second version of the dilemma, the pushing guy of the bridge, a lot of the action switches to the amygdala, which of course is more connected to emotional reactions and fear and things like the sort. Now, that makes perfect sense, because basically the second version of the dilemma is much more personal. You're about to actually push somebody, as opposed to do something from a distance, like pulling a lever. So it makes perfect sense that people switch ways of thinking, they use different neural pathways essentially to think about this. That is very interesting and without the science we wouldn't find out why exactly people are doing that. The question however still remains, should you or should you not push the damn guy of the bridge?

S: Yeah.

M: Right.

J: I think an interesting way to look at it too are "what about the social ramifications." Like, you're gonna, you're actually breaking the law if you push the guy of the bridge, even though you're not gonna get arrested for not saving people's lives. Does that come into play?
M: Uh, it does, it depend again, as I said earlier, there is a lot of different variants of the thought experiment, and yes, some of those do involve information about the, you know, consequences and if you, of course, were in moral philosophy (GARBLED) it's called a consequentialist (GARBLED), you will take those into account as well. But the basic version doesn't include those and it's one of the things comes out interestingly, for instance from the cognitive science literature, is that there is a small minority of people who do not change their mind, who both will push- uh, you know, pull the lever and push the guy of the bridge. Turns out that psychologically speaking those people corresponds to a somewhat sociopathic profile.

S: Mhmm.

M: Those are people that essentially do not engage with the amygdala, they don't engage the emotional reaction, they just think rationally about the whole thing. The reason I brought that up is because, so, now we have an evolutionary account of how we got morality to begin with, we have a neurobiological account of, we begin to have a neurobiological account of how we actually engage in that sort of thinking, and all of this is very interesting. The thing that we still need to deal with, however, is, okay, in interesting, complex, real-life situations, what we ought to do, and now I think is where the philosophy, the interesting philosophy, comes in, because of course there are hundreds of years of discussions among philosophers that have been able to frame moral dilemmas according to two or three major ways of thinking about it. One is the one that I mentioned a minute ago, the (GARBLED) consequentialist view. There is also the ontological thinking which is based on rules essentially and then there is vitalistic(?) thinking that is based on sort of character development, of what is the right thing to do in terms of what is the right person you wanna develop into. Anyway, those three frameworks help you think about the dilemma in a way that might lead you to reach a conclusion or consider a conclusion based on reason, so you go beyond your instinctual reaction, you go beyond what amygdala is telling you and you think about it and say "well, wait a minute, here's the situation, here's what the right thing to do is and here's why."

S: Then there are those people like Sam Harris, who I know you have engaged with at least on your blog, who argue that: if we had enough scientific information, that could answer moral questions for us, essentially. You've pretty much explained what's wrong with that answer, but how have you responded to Sam Harris' position.

M: Well, let me give you a simple analogy. Imagine instead of talking about moral decision making, were talking about mathematical abilities, right? So, how is it that people have developed, human beings have developed the ability to solve mathematical problems. Well, again, you got the same three sort of answers. From an evolutionary perspective it probably was useful at some point or another to start counting or to start thinking in terms of very simple abstract mathematical entities that helped our survival. That's of course speculation, we don't really have access to the relevant information, ecologically speaking, but it's very likely that something like that happened. Now, today you could put somebody that's, say, who's trying to prove Fermat's Last Theorem, you can put him under an FMRI-scan and you can figure out how active different areas of the brain are, and so on and so forth. There is one thing however, that neither this scan, nor the evolutionary story can actually tell you and that is "is the guy getting the proof of the Theorem right?"

S: "Is two plus two four?"

M: Yeah.

S: Well, Massimo. Thanks for joining us again on the show, it's always a pleasure, it always seems like it goes by faster and we're just scratching the surface. But for our listeners, Answers to Aristotle, just tell us about that title for a second, because that's interesting.

M: Aristotle is in fact the philosopher that is most widely quoted or referred to in the book and there is a reason for that. Aristotle was the first guy in the Western tradition, that really was doing exactly what a (GARBLED) the book is about. He was doing philosophy, he is known for establishing the foundations of logic for writing the first comprehensive book about ethics and so on and so forth. But he also was doing science, I mean, most people don't realise this but Aristotle was actually doing field biology of a way on the island of Lesbos, among other places. And he was trying to figure out, okay, was interested in, for instance, shells and he was there and he was collecting samples and looking at things. Now, he got a lot of stuff wrong (GARBLED) idea that we got answers for the questions that he asked that he certainly did not have access to. But he does embody the spirit of the book. He was the guy that figured out that "look, you need both factual questions and to ways reflect on the meaning of those questions," and that is sort of the science and philosophy combination in the broadest possible sense.

S: Well, thanks again Massimo!

J: Thanks Massimo.

B: Thank you.

M: It was a pleasure as usual.

== Science or Fiction <small>(1:01:19)</small> ==
''Voiceover: It's time for Science or Fiction''

S: Each week I come up with three science or news items or facts, two genuine and one fictitious. Then I challenge my panel of sceptics to tell me which one they think is the fake. Now before we get started this week, because this is the first Science or Fiction of 2013, I do have the stats, the full Science or Fiction stats, from last year.

E: Eurgh

S: These were sent to us by Cat, from sgutranscripts.org, so thanks Cat. So, here they are for 2012: Bob had played 47 games, lost 19, won 28 for a total of 59.6%.

B: Eurgh, damn.

S: Evan played 50, 25 and 25, exactly 50%.

E: Wow, I think wow, that's pretty good.

S: Jay also played 50, lost 26, won 24 so just shy of Even at 48%. I played 7, lost 3 and won 4 so am at 57.1%, just behind Bob and Rebecca played 44, lost 17, won 27 for a total of 61.4%.

E: Wow.

S: Just edged out Bob.

B: Nice.

S: Congratulations Rebecca.

R: Thank you.

B: Congratulations.

R: Thank you.

J: Overall we're way above average.

E: That was...

S: All doing better than random guessing.

B: Yeah but...

R: Hooray.

B: Rebecca and I did worse than last year though.

R: Yeah. I felt dumber this year.

E: Jay and I picked up the slack though.

B: How could I start off so well and then totally tank it?

S: Regression to the mean. Randomness.

J: Evan, our goal for this year, better than 50%.

E: You bet...

S: OK.

E: You bet buddy.

S: It's a brand new year though, guys. Are you all ready?

E: Clean slate.

S: We do have a theme for this week.

''(laughter)''

R: God damn it.

S: This theme... ''(laughter)'' this theme is dedicated to Jay. It's all about little babies.

''(overlapping comments)''

J: OK

S: Prepare Jay for his...

R: Because Jay's a giant baby?

S: Yeah, for his upcoming...

E: Oh, is that what you mean?

S: ... child to be born in a few weeks.

R: Oh my...

''(overlapping comments)''

S: Hope all goes well. OK...

E: So excited.

S: Here we are - [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130101182012.htm item number one] - a study finds that maternal use of anti-depressants during pregnancy is associated with a greater risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). [http://www.plu.edu/news/2012/12/infant-language/ Item number two] - a new study concludes that babies start learning language in the womb. And [http://news.temple.edu/news/2012-12-13/let-crying-babes-lie-study-supports-notion-leaving-infants-cry-themselves-back-sleep item number three] - new research finds that for most babies it is better to leave them alone when they cry at night rather than comforting them. Jay, 'cos this is a theme in your honour, you get to go first.

J: The first one, about the study that says that mothers that took anti-depressants while they were pregnant - that's interesting that it increases SIDS. Now I do know that SIDS... SIDS is when the baby stops breathing and I thought that that had to do with temperature. OK, the second one about the babies learning language in the womb, I believe that one is correct. I think that they can hear their mothers' voices before they're born and they can identify their mother's voice and actually start to pick up language. So I think that one is science and the third one, the last one about... it's better to leave most babies and let them cry at night instead of comforting them - I'm not sure about that. Now this one, of course Steve's not going to answer questions but, a new born baby absolutely needs to be fed on a regular basis and one of those reasons why a baby cries is because it wants to be fed. It could be just hungry, which, you should feed a hungry baby. The whole crying baby thing, to me, you gotta go in, you gotta check on the baby and feed them. But for some reason I'm thinking here Steve that because you're gonna be leaving the baby alone in a room that this could be later maybe not a new born. I'm gonna say that because of how vague that third one is, I'm gonna say that the first one, the one about SIDS is the fake.

S: OK, Bob?

B: The babies start learning language in the womb, yeah that just makes sense. I would expect that the unborn baby can hear it's mother's voice. I remember reading a while back about how babies can recognise their mothers' voices soon after birth. It just makes sense that they would become accustomed to the language and be primed and ready to go right out of the gate so to speak so that makes sense to me. Leaving crying babies alone, yeah that was the conventional wisdom twelve, fourteen years ago when I had an infant in the house. After Ashley was born it was pretty much - a lot of people were saying that and it makes a lot of sense, you know the baby wakes up, there's some separation anxiety and if the parents come rushing in then the baby will get used to that and expect it all the time and if they can get used to waking up, being alone then going back to sleep, bam, perfect, that's what the baby will do. So that makes a lot of sense too so considering that two and three make so much sense to me, I just think that you could say that mothers who have had babies who died of SIDS, I just don't think you'd have a decent percentage of them that would be on anti-depressants. Yeah, I'm going to say the SIDS is fiction.

S: OK, Rebecca?

R: Ah, yeah. I don't know but the one about leaving babies alone when they cry at night - there's like a huge can of worms in the parenting blogs and forums - I feel like that's one of those things that...

E: You read those?

R: I have friends who are parents who get involved in the mommy blogs and stuff - yeah that's for the past thirty years or so that's been a huge thing - there's even a title for it like it's a parenting style that's specifically based on remaining fairly detached from your children in the hopes that they will learn to fend for themselves and everything that I've read, which admittedly is not a ton because I don't have a kid and I'm not planning to have one any time soon, but everything that I've read suggests that it's BS, that like Jay said, when the baby cries it's crying for a reason go pick it up. So I'm going to say that's the fiction.

S: And Evan?

E: Oh, everyone made very good cases for all of these. Bob, you, I think you hit on the SIDS one, anti-depressants during pregnancy associated with a greater risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Anti-depressants being more prescribed these days than they were way back when but there was still SIDS occurring way back when so I'm thinking that that one's the fiction. But Rebecca, you brought up a good point, good points about the crying. Rebecca I hate to leave you alone out there I'm going to go with what my first instinct way I'm going to say that the SIDS is the fiction.

S: OK so... I'm a little surprised that you guys all believe that a new study concludes that babies start learning language in the womb is science.

E: Spanish or French?

B: Why?

S: You guys all believe that one - I don't know, that one struck me as being a little out there but that one is science.

B: Why did you think that one was out there?

R: That was the most obvious one to me.

J: Steve I read that one and I was talking to my wife Courtney about it and she goes ah I don't know that sounds like BS to me.

S: Yeah.

J: Which I thought was funny 'cos now it's on our game here.

S: It just struck me as like really, really? Alright, but this is true a study does conclude this, I'm not sure how much I totally buy the conclusion and this is the first time a study has shown that newborns are not naive to the language of their mother. What the researcher did, this is Christine Moon, professor of psychology at Pacific Lutheran University, they studied infants that were just hours old and the research paradigm's interesting. They had them suck on a pacifier that was attached to a computer and when they sucked on the pacifier ''(laughter)'' - hang on - they sucked on the pacifier it would...

E: Ten thousand volts.

S: It would play a recording of vowels from either their mothers' native language or a foreign language.

B: Interesting.

S: And it would play for as long as they sucked and then when they stopped sucking it would stop and then when they started sucking again it would play a different vowel.

B: They sucked more.

S: So the question was would they listen more to the vowels...

B: Parent language.

S: From their parent language or their mothers' language specifically or from a foreign language and with the idea, and this was a paradigm used in other research, that they would listen longer to vowels that they were not familiar with.

B: Oh, interesting.

S: Because they were novel, the brain's like hey, this is new, I've got to pay attention to this, not oh this is something I've been hearing for months, you know? And in fact they found that the infants did listen longer, you know based upon their sucking on this pacifier, to vowel sounds from foreign languages than to their mothers' language.

R: But what if they found the mothers' language more soothing so wanted to listen to it longer?

B: Yeah.

S: As I said, this is, you've got to buy every link in this chain...

R: Yeah, dumb, it's dumb.

S: You know, to buy this. But the thing is any difference, any difference you can take that they're not naive and it was not that they're listening to sounds of their mother, just vowels from their mothers' language or a foreign language. So any difference would... means that they're getting something, you know, if you believe the difference itself, if the data itself is compelling. Definitely the kind of study that I'd like to see replicated and looked at from different angles but that was what this study concluded.

E: Great.

S: Let's go to number 1, a study finds that maternal use of anti-depressants during pregnancy is associated with a greater risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Rebecca thinks this one is science, the rest of you think this one is the fiction and this one is... the fiction.

''(overlapping comments)''

B: Yeah baby.

R: Not a good start.

B: One hundred, one hundred percent.

S: Ah so yeah, this is interesting. So first of all the news item that I was basing this on showed the opposite - the use of anti-depressants during pregnancy not linked with increased risk of still birth, infant death or other bad outcomes so that's very nice. And I did do a little research on, you know, 'cos I said let me just say the opposite and then I did some research just on SIDS and specifically what the literature shows is that depression in the mother is associated with increased risk of SIDS and in fact this leads to a recommendation that mothers be treated for their depression...

B: Interesting, woah.

S: In the hopes that it would decrease the risk of SIDS if anything because untreated depression is a risk factor that has been identified for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Now SIDS still remains a little mysterious, you know, it's not like we completely understand exactly what, you know, what is happening, we've identified lots of factors, you know, that increase or decrease the risk and it's thought that, you know, it is... that they essentially they stop breathing. And over the years I've read so many different things like, you know, it's good if they're in the room with the parents because maybe the higher CO2 content drives the infant's respiration more. There are some drugs that are associated with an increased risk of SIDS and those are more for breast feeding now, not anti-natal. So for breast feeding mothers, anti-depressants are still fine but you want to avoid anything that would be sedating so Valium-like drugs are not good, lithium was also another one that was identified, so drugs that could pass through to the infant through breast feeding and can cause sedation will increase the risk of SIDS. The bottom line is if you're breast feeding, your OB should know every medication that you're taking and you need to talk to them about is this something that would get passed through the breast milk to the infant and what risk or effects might it have. So don't just take... breast feeding is actually... you're still linked to the infant, you know, biologically. It's actually more metabolically demanding on the mother than being pregnant, breast feeding, you still need to take that very seriously. Alright, which means, new research finds that for most babies it is better to leave them alone when they cry at night rather than comfort them is science. Now, Rebecca, you're right in that this is a controversy and there's two sides, there's two schools of thought here. There's the... if you comfort them they'll feel reassured and more secure and if you leave them alone to cry they'll feel abandoned then the other side is what Bob articulated which is they, kids need to learn, babies need to learn how to sooth themselves, if you run to them every time you hear them cry you're re-enforcing the behaviour, the crying, and they're not going to learn how to sooth themselves and that is essentially what this latest round now in this controversy has shown. Researchers have found that babies need to learn how to sooth themselves back to sleep. This is also based partly on the notion that infants have a sleep cycle just like everyone else, just like adults, and that sleep cycle involves, you know, going into deeper stages of sleep and then coming into lighter sleep, kind of waking up and then drifting off back to sleep again, that's natural. If the child is fussy or is, you know, upset at all when it wakes up it might cry during that stage of its sleep but that's perfectly normal for it to be quote unquote awake, you know, at that time and what the researchers found is that for some babies, again not for everyone but for some, that they were better sleepers later on in life, meaning like eighteen months, you know, two years, if they were allowed to sooth themselves back to sleep and that those babies whose parents picked them up every time they cried, that they had delayed learning of self-soothing and had a worse sleep later on. So, good job guys.

R: Meuhh.

S: Of to an ironic start, given that Rebecca won last year and...

E: Watch, she'll sweep the table the rest of the year.

S: Yeah, it's, hey, it's an endurance test, you know?

R: Yeah, it's a marathon.

S: It's like one basket in basketball, doesn't mean that much.

B: It's a marathon but right now you're in last place.

== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:16:01)</small> ==

S: So Jay, do you have a quote for us this week?

J: I have a quote that was sent in by a listener named Jim O'Rourke and this is a quote from one of my absolute favourite science popularists.

<blockquote>Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend things which are there.</blockquote>

E: Hmm.

J: Does that sound like anybody?

E: Arthur Clarke?

J: Nope. Richard Feynman.

B: Ah.

S: Richard Feynman.

B: He's got a lot of good quotes.

S: Yeah, he's very quotable.

J: Richard Feynman!

(laughter)

== Announcements ==
=== The Yellow Cab of the Universe <small>(1:16:34)</small> ===
* http://www.yellowcabuniverse.com/

J: A listener of our show emailed us and said that we had inspired him in part to create something that I looked into and I thought was one of the best things that I had found in 2012 as far as a learning tool, an entertainment tool. The listeners name is Eduardo Galvani and we started chit-chatting, he wrote a book for the iPad, it's called ''The Yellow Cab of the Universe'' whcih you could see how we may have inspired him. I loved it, I downloaded it, he gave me, he invited me to download his book, I did, it ended up, it's one of the best books I have ever downloaded on my iPad, it's amazingly interactive and it goes into a very simple yet very eloquent explanation of the universe and of the cosmos, it's just fantasic, this book is something that you could do with your kids I think as an after Christmas present, you know you want to buy something that you could do with your children that would really capture their attention, the book just keeps going on and on, the content is fantastic. He's, with his daughter, he's asking his daughter about her school, and she said "I don't like science, it's too boring," and it really bothered him, it shocked him, and he started to think "what's wrong? It's not the science, the science is incredible, it's the way it's being taught," and he realised very soon after that that he had to create an interactive book that it all kind of gelled in his head, and he did. I don't recommend things often, I have absolutely zero stake in this other than I really am interested in having people spend time with their children and educate their kids on science, this is it, guys. This is one of those things that I think could really influence a young kid's mind to understand, not only understand the universe, understand science and have an interest in that something that's important for the future. So you can go to his website, [http://www.yellowcabuniverse.com/ yellowcabuniverse.com], and that'll tell you everything that you need to know, you could also look it up in the iTunes store. Do it, enjoy it, and if you really liked it, send me an email and let me know what you think and tell me what your child's reaction to it was, I'd be curious to know what they got out of it.

S: All right, thanks Jay. And thanks for joining me all this week.

R: Thank you, Steve.

B: Thank you, Steve.

E: Thank you, Steve.

J: Happy new year to you and everybody, guys.

E: Happy new year, let's have a good one.

R: Happy new year.

S: Happy new year. Looking forward to a great 2013 and until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

{{Outro1}}

== References ==
<references/>

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 390

2014-05-18T14:40:53Z

Teleuteskitty: proofread to 32:27

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|episodeDate = 5<sup>th</sup> January 2013
|episodeIcon = File:FM_RADIO.gif
|rebecca = y
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|guest1 = M: Massimo Pigliucci
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2013-01-05.mp3
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|qowText = Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend things which are there.
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman Richard Feynman]
|}}

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

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, January 2, 2013, 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: I have come to chew bubble gum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubble gum.

J: Evan, can you say that again, but do it twice as corny.

''(laughter)''

R: Yeah, no.

B: Impossible!

R: You're no Rowdy Roddy Piper.

E: Right? ''They Live.'' That movie. Gosh. Is that one of the worst movies ever?

B and R: Worst?

R: It's one of the best movies ever, are you kidding?

B: Oh, god, I love it.

J: It's a cult classic. I mean, yeah, it didn't hold up as good as I would have liked, but it's still

B: Oh, what doesn't hold up?

J: Whatever. It's still great. It's still good.

R: It's awesome.

B: The best bare-knuckled brawl I think in any movie.

E: I'm sorry. Look, I get campy and I get, you know, yes, I get the brawl scene. It was rated like one of the best brawl scenes in movie history and so forth. Rowdy Roddy Piper, John Carpenter directed it and all that. I'm sorry. That movie had so many flaws to it. I mean if we were ever to do a review of that movie, oh man, we could do a whole episode on that.

S: Maybe we should.

E: Maybe we should.

R: Yeah. I will defend that movie with my life.

''(laughter)''

E: All right. I'm gonna be your Gene Siskel to your Roger Ebert or vice versa, or whatever.

R: Oh, boy.

J: Steve, I'm getting a feeling like in the back of my head. I feel like I'm predicting that we're gonna do a show on predictions.

S: I know, I think you're right, Jay.

B: Damn, you're good.

E: One of these days.

S: It's a high probability hit.

== This Day in Skepticism <small>(1:43)</small> ==
* January 5, 1940: FM radio first commercial broadcast

S: But first, Rebecca's gonna tell us about January 5th.

R: Happy birthday, FM radio!

J: Awesome!

E: To all the kids out there.

J: What does the "F" in FM stand for?

R: Frequency.

B: {{w|Frequency modulation}}

J: Thank you.

R: Yes, sort of. You could probably pick any number of dates for the birthdate of FM radio, but on January 5, 1940, the first network program was broadcast on FM radio. It was called "Colonel Harrison Featherbottom and the Fart Man's Morning Zoo Hour."

''(laughter)''

E: What? No, it wasn't.

B: No way. I don't believe it.

J: I love it!

E: . . . skeptic.

R: Okay, that's not what it was called. But it was a 60-minute show that was designed to showcase several different types of audio and vocals and stuff that would eventually be broadcast. The show traveled from a station in Yonkers, New York that was operated by one C.R. Runyon, to a transmitter in Alpine, New Jersey operated by {{w|Edwin_Howard_Armstrong|Major Edwin Armstrong}} of Columbia University, who was heading up the effort; and then onto Meriden, Connecticut; Paxton, Massachusetts; and then finally Mount Washington, where it was transmitted by telelphone wire to Boston and then back to Yonkers. By all reports the FM broadcasts were found to have no apparent loss of quality. So, it was given the thumbs up. The first FM stations that had regular scheduling, programming, appeared later that year. FM.

J: That's cool.

S: Yeah. So, Jay, frequency modulation, that's how the information is encoded in the carrier wave, by modulating the frequency of a signal. As opposed to AM, which is amplitude modulation, they modify the amplitude of the signal.

E: Thank you, Dr. Marconi.

S: Right. And the FM band simply refers to, the FM has nothing to do with any frequency range itself, any band, but that's just the band that's assigned in various countries to transmit FM signals over. So in the U.S. and most places it's 87.5 to 108.0 megahertz.

== News Items ==
=== Psychic Predictions for 2012 <small>(3:51)</small>===
* The Rogues review predictions for last year and make some new ones for 2013

S: Well, as Jay way saying, as Jay predicted, this is our psychic predictions review episode. The first episode of every year we look back and see how did the psychics fare in predicting events of 2012.

B: Horribly.

E: As expected, though.

S: All right, so do you guys have your favorite psychic that you looked back over to see how they did?

E: Anyone else take Nikki because, you know.

R: I decided to skip Nikki this year.

S: She's always a favorite though.

J: She's awesome. She's the funniest.

R: Awesomely stupid.

E: Awesomely awful.

J: Yeah, but this year after reading, going through her stuff, I think she's either delusional or she's just shotgunning.

S: Or both. These are not mutually exclusive.

J: That's right.

S: She made like 180-something predictions. That's, by definition, shotgunning.

J: All right, so, I got, "More laser attacks against planes".

E: Oooo.

R: ''More'' laser attacks.

J: Yes, ''more'' laser attacks. That's what I thought was funny about that.

R: You mean like little kids with laser pointers?

S: Yes.

R: They're a menace to society.

S: Using laser pointers to blind pilots, yes.

J: I got, "Weird weather conditions worldwide, including snow in Hawaii, Las Vegas, and in the Caribbean".

S: Yeah, remember that snowstorm we had when we were in Las Vegas for TAM?

E: (laughs)

J: Giant prehistoric sea monsters under the sea.

E: As opposed to what, floating in the air?

S: Also, some of her predictions are not even sentences.

J: Yeah.

E: Yeah.

J: They're just snippets. Yeah. "Major UFO sightings, all over the world". Nope, that didn't happen.

E: "Earth will fall off its axis a little more"

J: Yeah, right?

E: What?

S: More than what?

E: Exactly.

J: I like how she, then this one goes, "A possible landing of a spaceship". Now, what does that really mean? A ''possible'' landing.

R: Like the Mars rover?

S: Well, we landed {{w|Curiosity (rover)|Curiosity}} on Mars.

E: Yeah.

R: I'm gonna call that a hit.

E: Okay. Hey, Nikki!

R: Good job, Nikki.

E: It's your first time ever.

J: Guys, guys. "A disabled man attempts to go around the world in his wheelchair".

E: What?

B: Oh, boy.

''(laughter)''

S: Is this a manual or one of those electronic wheelchairs? A power wheelchair.

J: Steve, tell me what's wrong with this one. "A huge pandemic, worldwide".

''(laughter)''

S: As opposed to a pandemic that's not worldwide, yeah.

E: A localized pandemic. Highly localized.

J: Now here are two that prove that she doesn't understand science at all. Ready? Earth will fall off its axis a little more,

S: You already said that.

E: Yeah, we did that.

J: Or, "A hole in the Earth's core".

S: A hole in the Earth's core, right.

B: Whoa, what the. . . what does that even mean?

R: A hollow earth thing, maybe?

B: A vacuum in the center of the Earth.

J: Bob, don't worry about that hole, because "The holy grail will be found".

S: The holy grail will be found.

E: I didn't know it was lost!

S: She wrote "problems with the Earth's magnetic fields."

''(laughter)''

B: Oh, nice.

S: What kind of problems?

J: Well, it must be that the city of Hong Kong is on fire, Steve, that threw off the magnetic fields, 'cause that's another one of her predictions.

S: Yeah.

J: "City of Hong Kong on fire".

R: Did that happen?

S: All of it?

J: No. All of it. City of Hong Kong. On fire.

S: It is funny when scientifically illiterate alleged psychics make science-related predictions. Like a hole in the Earth's core. Really?

J: Here's another good one. "Multiple rainbows in the sky, all over the world, within a 24 to 48-hour period".

B: Oh, no. Oh, my god.

R: That happened, too! I saw that, that double rainbow video.

S: Double rainbow!

E: What the heck is that?

B: Double rainbows are magnificent, though. I saw one last, like, two years ago. Oh my god, it's just mesmerizing.

E: We got tripped up on a science or fiction with that triple rainbow, remember?

J and S: Yeah.

E: Sucked.

J: Guys, how 'bout "a famous racehorse will be kidnapped"?

''(laughter)''

E: What, Man-o-War?

S: That was a Sherlock Holmes short story.

J: A meteorite shower hitting the Earth.

''(laughter)''

E: Oh, Nikki, Nikki. Go back to whatever your job was before.

S: Sometime in August. And then again in November. What are the odds?

J: But, and we're only reading a few, but when you read through, she'll get onto a quickie mini-theme inside her predictions. As if she just banged them out at her desk one afternoon.

E: Or her assistant did.

J: Like she'll get on to the theme of earthquakes and then she'll list like four earthquakes. As if, "Oh, yeah, earthquakes!" and then she writes more earthquake ones.

S: Earthquake in Russia. Yeah, I'm pretty sure there was an earthquake somewhere in Russia this year. Probably more than one. I covered psychic Roxanne, did any of you guys do Roxanne from spiritnow.com?

B: No.

R: Uh uh. I don't think I have Roxanne.

S: She has different, this is Roxanne Usleman Hulderman.

E: And her orchestra.

S: Yup, and her orchestra. She has different categories, and I'm just gonna go over the two categories that were most interesting. I didn't do like the celebrity predictions, who cares. These are her "spiritual" predictions. I'm not even sure what makes these spiritual, but here we go. "Einstein's predictions about the honey bees proves correct. They are becoming extinct, indicating it is the beginning of the end of the world."

B: Oh. Einstein?

E: ''(singing)'' Beginning of the end!

S: So I'm like, Einstein? Really? Einstein predicted that honey bees would become extinct? So I looked that up, and . . .

E: Joe Einstein.

S: there is a quote attributed to Albert Einstein that ''if'' the honey bees became extinct, mankind would become extinct within years. You know, by four years later. Just emphasizing how important bees were to humans.

E: And how important the preposition "if" is.

''(laughter)''

S: Yes. He didn't predict that they would become extinct. ''And'' it's not even sure if Einstein said that quote. It's not really sourced. He could have said it, but nobody knows. It was attributed to him, but, anyway.

B: Yeah, you know what that means.

S: Her number two. "Extra Terrestrials" - two words - "help to evolve our consciousness, uplifting our human vibration". Jay, was your vibration uplifted?

J: Well, from the waist down, yes.

S: Okay.

R: Wait. I found a thing about vibration, too. In a different psychic's predictions.

S: Yeah?

J: I heard that, too, Rebecca. I heard vibrations brought up quite a bit.

R: Okay, so, I watched the psychic twins video.

J: Oh, yeah.

S: Oh, yeah.

R: Terry and Linda Jamison.

E: Oh, yeah. I kicked their butt last year. Ha! Too bad nobody saw it.

R: They were hilariously wrong. They started off their "What's gonna happen in 2012" vodcast, podcast, I guess it was a podcast actually, just listing like all these horrific things that were gonna happen in 2012. Just like, it was just gonna be the absolute worst year for life on Earth, and amongst those, they predicted terrorist attacks in Boston, Florida, in Texas, New York, Detroit. They said that major schools would be victimized by young terrorists, which, I'm sure they're going to call a win, for last week.

S: Yeah.

E: They should be very proud of themselves.

R: They say that there would be major cyber attacks by people in China and Russia. There'd be a Chinese attack on the telephone systems. That's a direct quote. However, according to the medium Allie Cheslick, who was interviewing them about their predictions, all these things could have been thwarted only if people raise their own level of vibration.

J: Right.

S: Um hm.

R: So, apparently, we all did a really good job, raising our level of vibration to the point where none of those things, not, they weren't just thwarted by authorities, they just never actually happened.

E: Oh, those would be good vibrations.

B: I love when they give themselves their own out. You know, if it doesn't come true,

R: Right.

B: well, luckily everyone, you know, messed with, played with their vibrations. Win-win!

J: I'm not afraid to admit that they did get a couple of things right, I mean, you're supposed to, statistically, when you throw out as many predictions as these people do.

B: Oh, yeah.

J: Like they did say that there were gonna be lone wolf attacks in schools. And it did happen.

S: But that's just, again, that's a high probability thing. It's like "another Columbine's gonna happen ''some''time". Sure.

R: Right. Thanks for nothing.

S: Yeah. Somewhere by somebody. No details. It seems specific, but it really isn't, so that's one of the strategies. So, it's a high probability prediction, ''and'' there's so much shotgunning going around that of course two or three are gonna be glancing blows. So, next under her spiritual predictions, the "North and South poles reverse their positions.

E: I've heard that a lot of times.

S: Here we go. "Spiritual evolvement." Evolvement.

''(laughter)''

E: What? ''E''volvement?

S: Evolvement. I don't know why she didn't use "evolution." On this third dimension expands the fight between good and evil.

J: Now what does that mean, that weapons are being introduced? Like, what does that mean?

S: So, we're fighting the good fight against evil more and more. On the third dimension. Which is good, because her next prediction is that the third and fourth dimension begin to merge.

E: Oh, good! Finally!

B: I hate when that happens.

E: It's like when peanut butter and chocolate come together, it's good stuff!

S: But—

B: Don't you dare ''(inaudible)''

S: Hold onto your hats, now. With the great pyramids in Egypt being destroyed, you guys remember when that happened, right?

J & E: Yeah.

B: I missed it.

S: The entire planet's magnetic force shifts, symbolizing the end of times, then and only then do we realize that the pyramids have been holding our planet together.

J: Oh!

E: Oh, like a linchpin.

S: Yeah.

B: It's so clear in retrospect.

R: Yeah.

S: And her final one under that category is "Humans turning evermore towards spirituality" which is actually not happening.

J: Yeah, that's another theme that I kept hearing. The world is becoming more spiritual.

S: The environmental events around the globe, lots of high probability, "there's gonna be earthquakes." An earthquake impacts the state of Washington and California. What are the odds? Of an earthquake occurring in a major earthquake belt. All right, but here's my favorite of all of her predictions. "A solar star dwarf from the sun, breaking off, causing damage to the earth".

''(general excitement and confusion)''

B: Oh, my god.

R: Our sun? That could happen?

J: A solar star dwarf, like, what is that?

S: Right?

E: Phil Plait's gonna have to add a chapter to his book, I think.

''(laughter)''

S: Right! Yeah, a dwarf star apparently is gonna break away from our sun and that is going to damage the earth, which, I imagine it would. If that actually happened. It's like, is she flipping through a science book and just pulling out terms at random without understanding what they are.

B: Does she mean like a coronal mass ejection? Is that what she means?

E: Bob. Bob, you're given her w—a-a-a-a-y too much credit.

J: Bob, the only corona she knows is the beer

S: No, because the next prediction is "solar flares causing power outages", which I read on multiple psychics' lists. Solar flares causing power outages. Again, it's the kind of thing, like scientists say "this could happen someday" so they just pick up on that. It's a high probability prediction. "A contagious disease born of our environmental carelessness affects the world". Another pandemic prediction.

B: Nice. Solar star dwarf.

S: And then finally "Global environmental destruction connected with the end of times Mayan calendar". Wah-wah-waaah.

''(laughter)''

S: So there we go, psychic Roxanne.

R: You know, the psychic twins had another great prediction for 2012. They predicted that there would not be any hurricanes in 2012 that were as bad as the previous year. So no hurricanes as bad as Irene. Kind of missed the mark there. The interviewer, Allie Cheslick, predicted that the twins would have their own television show by March 20th of last year, which, I don't think happened.

J: No. The twins also said that it would take a miracle for Obama to get re-elected.

S: Well, I guess a miracle happened.

E: Well, there you go.

R: It's a miracle!

E: Proof that miracles happen.

B: I've got a few here. I've got a couple from two different psychics. One's Janet Russell, who's a Long Island-based intuitive spiritual medium/psychic. She's also the host of a New York top cable access show, ''Beyond the Unexplained''. And how someone like her can have their own TV show and we don't, I don't understand it. But she's known for her accuracy and honesty. She says "we'll be using solar energies instead of the old standby of gas and electric". Solar energies, in plural, which is very odd. And then, this one tickled me. She goes "and yes, the government will admit that we do have contact with other beings in other dimensions"! You know, it's not good enough that there are other beings, aliens or whatever, but they're also in another dimension. Just to make it, just the icing on the cake, you know. Different dimension.

R: I read Janet Russell's predictions as well, and my favorite one, I think,

B: Which one?

R: Okay, there were two. One was "People will be airing their dirty laundry on teleservices. This way they will have a constant audience." ''(laughing)'' What does that mean?

S: The last teleservice

R: I don't know. And the thing is, like, she's so obviously out of touch because my other favorite one was "I feel that one state will be open to alternative lifestyle and people will move to that state because they feel more comfortable." What? What does that mean, alternative? Does that mean gay marriage, does it mean pot? Because we have those things in several states. It's ... I don't know.

B: She just has her finger on the pulse of culture. There was another psychic, Nancy Bradley. Apparently, this psychic has 98.6% accuracy.

R: Wow

E: Wow

B: For 2011, so—

E: Take that temperature!

B: My first reaction was, well, yeah, that's total baloney. But then I read her predictions. Listen to these two. "Six more Hollywood icons will leave us in 2012, and two major music stars as well". What are the odds of people dying in 2012? That just kind of blew my mind a bit. Here's another one: "more protests across the world, and the U.S. as well, sit-ins as people stand up, much bloodshed". Wow. Who could have foreseen that?

E: Geez. People shedding blood.

B: And then she

S: Yeah, some psychics definitely go with the vague high probability hit.

B: Oh, my god.

S: I was reading a couple that did that. It's like "there will be protests in Egypt." Look! ''(laughter)'' Really?

B: And then she throws in one of these little sciencey ones that are kinda whacky: "a shift in the equator will be discovered and will change some of the weather patterns for countries on it." ''(laughter)'' A shift in the equator. I hate when that happens!

S: The equator shifts. Does she mean the continents ''on'' the equator?

B: Who knows what she meant? ''(laughter continues)'' It could mean anything.

E: The equator shifts! That's the best!

B: She could be referring to that solar dwarf star thing. ''(laughter still continues)''

S: But, guys, that was the best, right? The solar dwarf coming out of our sun.

E: Is it wearing a crown?

J: Wait, but Bob, Nancy Bradley also said "More aquatic ocean and lake animals make their way onto shore. Octopus, fish, etc. Also, as I told you last year, more species thought to be extinct are coming back, including those considered mystical, those that many thought never existed are coming back."

R: The unicorn, for instance. ''(overlapping excited comments)''

S: What about the events that psychics failed to predict for 2012?

B: Oh, yeah. That was easy.

J: How many do you want? I have plenty of 'em here.

B: Well, Hurricane Sandy, first of all. You'd think, you know, such a huge weather event. Somebody, somewhere—

S: And it's in their sweet spot!

B: Just one person.

S: They're predicting tsunamis and earthquakes, and they can't get that one hurricane right? Come on.

J: The shooting in Sandy Hook, Connecticut.

R: Although the psychic twins claim that –

E: Yeah, some will claim that they did that.

J: In order for them claim, and I thought about it, because they did make a lone gunman prediction. But, seriously, like that's just not good enough. Like you have to say more, it has to be more specific. If somebody said—

B: You need two things, Jay. You need two things. If somebody said "Newtown" or "Sandy Hook," that would be impressive as hell. Or even if they said "26 dead" or say "20 kids." If anyone said any of those three things, then, bam! That is a solid hit. Of course it wouldn't mean, you know, that psychics—

S: Yeah, there's different degrees of hits. They could have said "an elementary school." You know, they could have said "a lone shooter killing many kids in an elementary school."

R: Even then...

S: Even that would have been semi-impressive. But just "a lone wolf" or just—

B: No.

S: "terrorism in schools." Nah, it's way too vague.

B: Yeah, I'm talk— 'cause when you think of a psychic, if a psychic really existed, you would expect somebody, one person, or a few people, to have a really solid hit. Something really specific. I mean, isn't that what everyone really wants? That's what we want, right guys?

J: Yeah, but that's the thing, Bob, when you, every year when we read through all these psychic predictions, you know, we're just doing our research, it occurs to me, once again, they're just playing the odds. You can see them playing the odds. There's patterns. There is a reason why a lot of them predict the same types of things over and over again.

S: And they're also just probably going for the sensationalism. I mean the ones they know are not gonna come true. Like the solar dwarf. They're just trying to say impressive sounding things.

B: Right. And they—

S: Because they know no one's gonna care. Their target audience, they're not gonna go back and check up on 'em and see what happened.

B: And they don't care what we're saying.

S: They'll be reading the predictions for 2013. All right, what about the Causeway Cannibal?

J: Yeah, absolutely. ''(overlapping comments)'' Too specific though, Steve, too specific.

S: The fiscal cliff.

J: Yup.

B: Yeah.

S: The Petraeus scandal.

B: Yeah, I had that one, too.

E: Attack in Libya.

S: The Benghazi shooting.

J: The President supporting gay marriage.

B: How about deaths? I mean, did anyone predict the death of Whitney Houston, for example?

S: And if they're gonna dabble in science, how about, like if they ''really'' were going for a high-probability science prediction, how about the Higgs will be discovered?

E: Higgs boson, yeah. That would have been good. Or the lander will successfully, you know, everything will go smoothly there. You could even do that one.

J: How about Facebook going public?

B: Yeah.

E: Facebook, yup.

S: That debacle? Yeah, good one. All right, well, I listened to last year's episode to see what ''we'' all predicted.

B: I remember one prediction. I remember saying that Google Plus would die in 2012.

S: Okay.

B: Unfortunately I was wrong.

R: I mean it's on life support, but...

B: Yeah, it is.

E: My predictions.

S: Well, what were they, Evan?

E: I made one in each of the following categories: technology - the {{w|Aakash (tablet)|Aakash tablet}} would outsell the iPad by the end of 2012.

S: Um hmm. Fail.

R: And?

E: You know, the Aakash tablet. This is a $35 tablet that they made in India.

R; Oh, right.

E: They're already actually up to the Aakash 2. And I figured, all right, so you've got the Indian government, they're subsidizing this thing. They're gonna get this out to 500 million Indians, students and everyone in the country; just pure numbers, it's gonna overtake. Well, it didn't quite happen. I think some of the problems were in the technology itself. Even though it costs 35 bucks, they said it heats up very quickly, and poor design, cheap components. It won't play any of the apps that are out there. The battery life is poor. I think those things might have had something to do with it.

S: It's a $35 tablet, that's why.

E: You get what you pay for. In astronomy - a small meteor will collide with one of the many GPS satellites in orbit, rendering it inoperable. Now, that did not happen this year, but guess what's coming up next month, folks.

J: What?

E: ''(clears his throat theatrically)'' A small asteroid ''will'' pass inside the geosynchronous satellite ring.

J: Irrelevant! Irrelevant, you didn't get it.

E: 35,800—

B: Wow, that's damn close. How big is this thing?

E: —kilometers above the — 150 feet. 150 feet long.

B: Damn!

E: Astronomers say the asteroid may hit a communications satellite, so, you know...

J: It doesn't matter. It's irrelevant. No partial credit for you, sir.

B: You still missed it, dude.

E: Nothing irrelevant about that. Yes, it didn't happen, but the science behind it was revealed in the year, so I'll get a half-credit for that. Biology - Bio-engineered tooth regeneration will become available for humans. Well,

B: That'd be cool.

E: Because I've been following that, they're still doing more studies with mice and stuff, and they're making progress. They made more progress this year, but they didn't get to the humans. So I'll take a minus for that. In skepticism - a prominent skeptic will defect over to an alternative point of view. And that actually did come true, because a global warming skeptic {{w|Richard_A._Muller|Richard Muller}}, who was a proponent, you know, a big proponent saying that man-made global warming does not exist, in fact did leave his brand of skepticism behind and says, yes, it is actually happening. So I'll take a plus for that.

J: No. No one knows who that guy is. You can't take a plus for that.

E: Richard Muller? Steve?

S: Evan's right, but that was the wrong kind of skeptic.

E: I didn't ... hey, Steve.

S: It's all right. I gotcha.

E: Well, do you want me to say brown dwarves are gonna get crapped out of the sun? ''(laughter)'' Is that a better prediction.

R: Yeah, actually, it's awesome.

J: No, you didn't get any. Zero.

E: How 'bout this one? My last prediction: the largest glacier ever recorded will break off, right from the ice shelf. And that ''did'' happen, thank you very much. In Antarctica this year, that actually did happen.

J: No, it didn't.

''(laughter)''

S: Well I had one prediction last year, and it was a crypto-zoological prediction, if you remember. I predicted that Bigfoot would sweep into the White House with a gray alien as a running mate. And that ''did'' happen.

E: It almost happened.

S: But the cover-up is keeping you from knowing about it.

''(laughter)''

E: Right.

J: What did Rebecca do?

B: Good one, Steve.

S: Rebecca predicted Michael Douglas, Michael Douglas was her celebrity death. He's still kicking.

R: Oh. Good. I'm glad.

E: He had a problem. He had problems last year.

S: An ''Arrested Development'' movie.

B: Did I miss that?

R: Uuuh, it's... no, but ....

E: It's in production, right?

R: There is going to be a TV show.

S: Okay.

E: Oh, TV show.

S: And chimpanzees will be found to do something scientists thought only people did, previously.

R: That probably happened.

''(laughter)''

E: Somewhere. We may not have seen it or recorded it, but it might have happened.

J: It didn't happen.

R: Yeah, probably.

S: Jay, do you remember your one prediction?

J: Yes. And that's why I've been arguing so much with everyone. I predicted that none of our predictions would come true.

R: Yeah, that's right.

E: Wrong!

J: I'm more right than the rest of you. How about that?

E: That's why you were hard on me and my predictions, 'cause you wanted ''your'' prediction to come true.

S: All right, well. Who wants to go first in their predictions for 2013?

B: I will! Okay, in 2013, everyone will start referring to the year as "two thousand and thirteen" instead of "twenty-thirteen," ''(laughter)'' except for Rebecca. And the LHC will announce a nine sigma competence level in the Higgs boson. It's existence will—

E: English, Bob! English.

B: It's existence will be so obvious that fifth graders will start finding evidence for it. ''(laughter)'' And my only real prediction, scientists will create a living minimal genome cell from scratch. Please come true.

S: Jay?

J: I predict that Iran's ''(pronouncing it eye-ran)'' going to test a nuke.

S: Iran? ''(pronouncing it Ear-on)'' Yeah.

''(laughter)''

J: What?

S: Where did you run to, Jay?

''(laughter)''

J: Seriously? Like that's even pronounced wrong?

E: Just say Persia.

R: I-in-stine.

S: I-in-stine. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, next?

J: I predict another private company will start launching space missions.

S: Um hmm.

B: Okay.

E: Coca-Cola.

J: Beyond {{w|SpaceX}}. I predict that {{w|Billy Graham}} is gonna kick it.

B: Oh, we're doing celebrity deaths, too?

J: Yeah.

B: Okay.

J: I predict that George Bush ''Senior'' is gonna kick it.

E: Any other 90-something-year-old people gonna kick it, Jay?

J: Well, what d'ya want me to predict, like a 20-year-old?

E: How 'bout someone in their 70s or something. Make it a little challenging.

J: Okay, I predict that Evan Bernstein is gonna choke on a hot dog. ''(laughter)'' And my final prediction for 2013 is, I predict the end is {{w|Bill Nye}}.

''(laughter)''

B: Oh, nice.

R: Wait, what?

B: End is Nye.

E: Funny.

R: Mine are great. You're gonna find no fault with mine.

J: Bring it on. Beat "the end is Bill Nye." Beat that, right now. Go ahead.

R: All right. The Daily Mail will report that researchers have discovered pickles cause cancer.

B: Ooooh. I like it.

J: I like that, okay.

E: I don't eat 'em, so—

R: Number two. A whistleblower will reveal that the government has been hiding something.

''(laughter)''

E: Which government?

R: I'd rather not comment upon which government it is at this time, but, they may have the color red in their flag.

''(laughter)''

J: Okay.

R: Finally ...

E: —like the Swiss! I knew it!

R: I will beat the game FTL on normal mode, and finally get 100 percent on Skyrim.

B: You're reaching now.

J: No way.

E: Now your sun is crapping out brown dwarves, Rebecca.

R: It's on like Donkey Kong

S: Bob, what was your celebrity death?

B: Yeah, I've got a celebrity death, and it's not an octogenarian, Jay, or is a nonagenarian, is that how you pronounce that? Lindsay Lohan.

E: Oooh, she's on my list, Bob!

B: She's been rolling 20 for far too long, her time is ''up.''

J: Nope. I'm predicting she's not gonna die. Not even close.

E: Yeah, she's on mine. I've got three of 'em, that was one of 'em.

S: I predict ''she's'' gonna die, but her twin won't.

''(laughter)''

B: Nice.

R: Oh, we're all going to hell.

S: Evan, what've you got?

E: Okay, in addition to Lindsay Lohan. I predict a world leader, which is a president or a prime minister, will succumb while in office. A few options there, but it'll be very prominent. And, James Van Praagh.

J: Oh, why? What did you see? What did the spirits tell you?

E: Jay, it's something that's beyond sort of a description. In technology, there will be a ''m-a-a-a-jor'' data breach, most likely of a credit card company, or something along those lines. This breach will cost consumers and their insurers at least $1 billion worldwide. In astronomy, we will discover a Earth-like planet, known as "Earth's Twin."

S: Hey, that's been my prediction for the last three years.

''(laughter)''

E: And how's that worked out for ya?

S: I'm getting closer every year. And you're gonna try and take it from me now? That's like you're sitting down at my slot machine, Evan.

''(laughter)''

R: Evan just bid a dollar under your ''Price Is Right'' score. That's what just happened.

E: Well, we'll just share that one, Steve, if it comes true this year.

B: Good analogy, Rebecca.

E: In health, a hand-held breathalyzer will offer early detection of infections caused by microbes. What do you think of that? Aa! And, in the environment, I only did four this year, environment, we will find, scientists will find a way to harness energy from sand. Now, I admit, they will be small quantities of energy, but it'll be energy nonetheless.

S: Like the tar sands?

E: Simply sand.

S: Tar sands are already a major source of petroleum, but, I'm assuming you're not talking about that.

E: Okay, I'll refine it—

S: You'll refine the sand? or refine the petroleum?

E: Desert sand.

S: Okay. I have a celebrity death and two predictions. My celebrity death is Jerry Lewis, unfortunately. Great comedian, but, you know. His time

''(someone in background: Oh, lady! Lady!)''

S: I also predict that there will be a ''major'' pareidolia event this year.

B: Nice.

E: Face on the moon?

R: Major?

S: A major pareidolia event. And finally, conspiracy theorists will use anomaly hunting to argue that an innocent or natural event is actually a deliberate conspiracy.

R: Um hmm.

S: All right, so we will track those and we'll let you know next year how we all did.

=== Cosmic Rays and Dementia <small>(32:27)</small>===
* [http://m.phys.org/news/2012-12-houston-problem-space-brain.html Houston, we have another problem: Study shows space travel is harmful to the brain]

S: All right well I think we have time for a few quick news items to round out the show, so Bob you're going to tell us about another risk of space travel.

B: In science fiction the biggest problems generally for space travel are usually things like aliens, black holes or warp core breaches, I really hate that last one.

S: And space worms, don't forget space worms.

B: Oh yeah, the worms. It's very annoying then to think that a little thing like ultra-tiny invisible radiation is essentially a total deal breaker right now for allowing humans to spend serious time beyond low earth orbit. We've known this for a while now, we've touched upon it in the past a bit but most recently scientists have found even more bad news. A new study described in the [http://www.plosone.org/ PLOS ONE] journal reveals for the first time that cosmic ray exposure to humans on a trip to Mars can make changes to the brain that could replicate or speed up the onset of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alzheimer%27s_disease Alzheimer's disease]. Now I'm calling this the "space brain syndrome" and it really stinks.

S: Space dementia.

B: That's a good one too, I like space brain syndrome better.

S: No. Space dementia.

B: Uh, we talked about the cosmic ray hazards in space but I learned a little bit more about some of these details and I'd like to share. It's pretty interesting. The culprit here is a specific type of cosmic ray, now these aren't rays of course but they're bits of atoms that are propelled through space. Protons make up the majority of the cosmic rays, followed by alpha particles which is just like two neutrons and two protons. And then electrons kind of finish that list. Those are the majority, the vast majority of all cosmic rays. But a tiny, tiny percentage of cosmic rays are these relatively really big clumps of protons and neutrons and they're called these [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HZE_ions HZE particles] which stands for High Charge and Energy particles. And the Z, if you're familiar with chemistry, the Z is the universal symbol for atomic number which is the amount of protons within the nucleus, so that's what that stands for. Now so the more protons you have with no electrons to balance them out, you create a bigger and bigger charge. The E stands for energy obviously, so what you end up with is these bare atomic nuclei with lots of protons and a lot of energy and they can penetrate shielding of a ship and through the skin of the astronauts and just wreak havoc on your DNA causing cancer and a host of other issues. So this much we've known for a little while and if that wasn't annoying enough, they get this energy from supernovae and also the sun, I wasn't quite aware that the sun's solar flares and coronal mass ejections also can produce these HZE particles. As tiny as these, I mean percentage wise, HZEs are a fraction of a percent but they can cause more than 50% of the radiation damage inflicted on astronauts. So these are the big players in terms of astronauts having a problem with radiation in deep space.

S: Now Bob, because these are highly charged particles, would that mean that magnetic shielding would be a viable option?

B: Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, if they didn't have any charge then we'd be even worse off, so yeah that kind of leads into the potential, one of the potential ways for dealing with them. The experiments that these researchers did, particularly specifically on how these HZE particles can affect people, they used rats of course, the most helpful of guinea pigs. They exposed them...

R: Rats aren't guinea pigs.

B: (laughs) They exposed them to increasing doses of radiation, including the equivalent of what an astronaut would experience on a multi-year mission to Mars, which is pretty much how long it would take. Now they tested the rats' recall for certain objects and locations that they were previously exposed to and they found that those that had a bigger dose of radiation did increasingly more poor at those tasks which of course indicates some level of neurological impairment, but the real kicker though was that I guess after the rat autopsies they revealed indications of not only changes in the brain vasculature but also in the accumulation of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_amyloid beta amyloid] which is that protein plaque that builds up in the brain of Alzheimer's victims. Now Steve, correct me if I'm wrong, but this plaque, that's pretty much the hallmark of that disease right? If you find that, it's like the red light going off that you have Alzheimer's right? These beta amyloid plaques, is that right?

S: They're important, they're not unique to Alzheimer's, it's more complicated than that, but yeah they're an important pathological finding in Alzheimer's disease.

B: Well that was, from what I could gather, that was one of the main reasons that they're all talking about Alzheimer's here. NASA of course is concerned about cosmic rays, especially considering they've had plans for a manned mission to an asteroid in 2021 and to Mars in 2035, I mean there's just no way that's going to happen if they don't deal with this problem. NASA subscribes to a policy known as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALARA ALARA] which is As Low As Reasonably Achievable. Any exposure to radiation has an element of risk of course, but NASA needs a very high confidence level that an astronaut's lifetime risk of terminal cancer from cosmic radiation is less than 3% so they will not cross that line, so they have to make 3% reasonably achievable to fit in with this ALARA and that's going to take revolutionary technology to pull that off. That's not going to be a quick and easy fix by any means.

S: All right, well thanks Bob.

== Who's That Noisy? <small>(38:07)</small>==
* Answer to last week: Glass Harp playing Fur Elise

S: All right, well Evan we do have time for Who's That Noisy this week.

E: Well good, that's good because we need to reveal the answer to what was the last Who's That Noisy for 2012. I will play it for you now for memory's sake. Here we go.

(Glass Harp playing Fur Elise)

E: Lovely Ludwig Van.

S: Fur Elise, it's one of the pieces I had to play when I was taking piano lessons.

E: Did you enjoy it.

S: It's a pretty piece.

E: It is a pretty pieces. Well what kind of instrument was that, that was the question. And we had a lot of people gguess that that was the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_harmonica glass harmonica] or the glass armonica also known as a bowl organ which is actually incorrect, although that instrument would create the same or similar-sounding notes but that was not it. What we were hearing was actually the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_harp glass harp], which is a musical instrument made of upright wine glasses and it's played by running moistened or chalked fingers around the rim of the glass and each glass is tuned to a different pitch and thereby you're able to play all of the notes. That particular piece was performed by [http://www.roberttiso.com/ Robert Tiso] and you can [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47TGXJoVhQ8 see him on youtube playing this] and very talented in his own right. Yes, several people did get it correct, the first one to guess correctly, our friend from the message boards, Magnus M.

S: Mmmhmm.

E: Whose name we've sopken before. Well done, Magnus.

S: Magnus!

E: And congratulations for being first. OK, so 2013, we're going to change things up a little bit for the Who's That Noisy and the puzzle segment. For this year, we're going run a little contest for all the listeners, and here's how it's going to work. Each week when I play the Who's That Noisy or give the Logic Puzzle, everyone who answers correctly, their name will be put into a hat for that week. And that week I will draw a name from the hat at random and the person's name whom I draw will go into a final drawing which will occur at the last episode of the year and the winner of the final drawing will be invited to come onto the SGU to play a round of Science or Fiction with us. If you're going to submit a guess, we're going to require your guess by the time we record our next show which is typically early to mid-week the following week, it varies from week to week but there is a little insentive there to get your guess in early and get your name eligible to be drawn for the final drawing. Since this is a new idea we are tinkering with, we're going to do this on the honour system. If we sense that there is any abuse by the participants of this we will have to make some modifications along the way, so we're trusting everyone to play fairly, play by the rules, if you know the answer go ahead and tell us, but you don't go sharing it with you know, 100,000 of your closest friends so that there's 100,000 names to draw from each week, that'll make my job a lot harder. So let's give this a try, folks and let's see what we can do.

S: All right, we'll see how it goes.

E: We're going to start this year with a puzzle, a logic puzzle. And this logic puzzle was submitted by listener Alvaro Ibanes, thank you Alvaro for submitting this, this is a very good one. A jeweller has nine pearls which all look and feel exactly alike. However, he knows that one of them weighs more than the other eight. He has access to a classic scale, you know the one with two arms often seen in Lady Justice's hand? What is the minimum number of measurements required to know with absolute certainty which pearl is the one that weighs more? All right? Give us your guess?

S: It's a fun one.

E: Yeah, it is a fun one. Go ahead and give us your best guess, [mailto:info@theskepticsguide.org info@theskepticsguide.org] and our message boards are [http://sguforums.com sguforums.com]. Good luck everyone.

S: Thanks, Evan.

== Interview with Massimo Pigliucci <small>(42:33)</small> ==
S: We are joined now by Massimo Pigliucci. Massimo, welcome back to the Skeptics' Guide!

M: Thank you, it's a pleasure as usual.

S: And Massimo is the chair of the Department of Philosophy at CUNY-Lehman College, the editor in chief of the journal Philosophy & Theory in Biology. He's the host of a podcast called Rationally Speaking and also one of the authors on the blog by the same name. The author of several books, including the book that we will be discussing this evening: [http://www.amazon.com/Answers-Aristotle-Science-Philosophy-Meaningful/dp/0465021387/ref=la_B001IU0D3K_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1343828923&sr=1-6 Answers for Aristotle]. But his greatest claim to skeptical and scientific fame, was that he was the first ever guest on The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

''(laughter)''

M: That's exactly right.

E: As if he needed anything else.

S: That's right. I was just- That's just the cherry on the top, Massimo.

''(laughter)''

S: Massimo, I talk about you a lot actually, in skeptical circles because like you're the one, in my opinion, like the one real philosopher that we have in the skeptical movement. I'm not saying you're the only philosopher, but you're the one who's active. Who's trying to keep the rest of us philosophically honest, if you will.

M: ''(laughter)''

S: And that, that's essentially what your recent book, Answer for Aristotle, is about. So, tell us about it.

M: Yeah, in some sense. It is aimed at the general public, so it's not a technical book. But it is about the relationship between philosophy and science which I think that is something that certainly members of the skeptic movement should be aware of, or a little more sort of cognisant of. But the basic idea of the book is really that this is essentially a self-help book for people who don't believe in self-help books. The basic approach is that, look, when we're dealing with the big questions in life, you know: morality, or relationships, or you know, general views of the world and whatever, where do we get our best hints, our best information about that? I don't think we get them from religion. Common sense is helpful, but up to a certain point. So, it seems to me that the best combination of answers, or at least approaches to those kinds of questions, come from the two most effective traditions of thought in the Western -- possibly the world -- history, which are of course science, as far as factual questions are concerned and philosophy, as far as how to reflect on the implications of those factual answers we get from science. So that's what the book is about, it's how to combine science and philosophy in what I sort of jokingly call Sci-Phi -- actually, people pronounce it Sci-Fi, but it should be Sci-Phi, because the second part is P-H-I for philosophy.

S: Sci-Phi?

M: Yeah, that's right. ''(laughter)'' But I think that Sci-Fi was more, I don't know, the publicist thought it was more, sounded better than Sci-Phi.

''(laughter)''

E: Right.

S: Right. Well, then why didn't the Sci-Fi Channel change it's name to Sci-Phi?

M: Yeah, that's a good question!

''(laughter)''

B: That really pissed me of when they did that.

M: Agreed.

S: So, science gives us the facts, as it were, and philosophy tells us how to think about those facts. Is that a fair summary?

M: Well, yeah, it's, of course as you know that's a little simple version of the whole thing. In reality there is no sharp distinction between science and philosophy. There are many areas of overlap, the most obvious one perhaps is philosophy of science, or, and in fact also epistemology. I mean, there are areas of philosophy that are directly relevant to science and there also areas of science that are definitely relevant to philosophy, I mean, one cannot do these days any serious philosophy of mind, for instance, unless one is well read in, you know, neurobiology and current science. So, there's quite a bit more overlap than the simple distinction between science and philosophy. But it is true that, you know, historically speaking and strictly in modern, in the modern (GARBLED), the true disciplines have evolved unto quite different directions and yes, broadly speaking, science deals with the best factual information we can get about the world, and philosophy deals with reflecting, you know, methods of reflecting about what that, that information tells us.

S: Yeah, so they're complementary intellectual disciplines-

M: Right.

S: -if you will. And, I think what's, I know you've made this point a lot, and I know in your blog as well, and also in our prior discussions that, scientists who think they can answer all questions, with just science, have to first realise, that when doing science they are also practicing philosophy, cause there has to be a philosophical underpinning of science itself.

M: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of the best summaries of that position was actually due to Dan Dennett. As you know, several years ago he wrote Darwin's Dangerous Idea, which is one of the most influential books, in, in sort of many peoples understanding of evolution and implication of Darwinism and so on and so forth. But in that book, as much as that book is, of course, very much science friendly, and does take on-board, you know, evolutionary biology in particular, Dennett points out that there is no such a thing as philosophy-free science, there is only science that takes on-board the philosophy without examining it. No, now, the question is now that scientist shouldn't necessary do philosophy, in fact I would discourage scientists from doing philosophy. Just in the same way in which I would discourage philosophers from doing science. Those are sufficiently separate activities, as I said, that requires different skills, and also, by the way, they have developed huge technical literature of their own so it's really difficult to do both in a reasonable way. But, what I do suggest is that both scientists, as academics, and sort of general public at large, would be better of by respecting each others territory and what comes out of the other field, and also being a little bit acquainted with what comes out of the other field.

S: Yeah, so just as, like in the skeptical movement in just, in general, we promote the idea that people should have a basic scientific literacy, not that they should be able to practice science as a layperson, but just be scientifically literate. By the same token, people should be philosophically literate as well, not to be able to engage at cutting-edge philosophical technical discussions, but to have some idea when philosophy is in play at least.

M: Correct. So for instance, a little bit of understanding of basic philosophy or science or epistemology for instance, would go quite a long way for skeptics, to have, to develop a better appreciation not just for the power of science, which is, you know, unquestionable within the community, or unquestioned within the community, but also for the limits of science, you know, there is a lot of stuff that science hasn't figured, maybe will never figure out, you know, there is a lot of, you know, science needs to be seen for what it is: a very powerful, but nonetheless human epistemic activity, based on certain methods, those methods have certain problems and limitations. The skeptic is supposed to be thinking rationally about broad range of issues and that ought to include, it seems to me, also the functioning of science itself.

S: Is there an area where you most frequently see science or skeptics go wrong when it comes to philosophy as it's relevant to what we do.

M: Oh, that's a great question. ''(laughter)'' I think there's more than one.

''(laughter)''

S: Give your top three-

J: Slow down, slow down, don't, don't kill us.

M: No no no no. It's- So, one of the, I think, the major areas that I've seen coming up, quite often in the last, especially the last two-three years, is actually the relationship- it's ethics. And what science can or cannot tell us about ethics. There seems to be a lot of confusion about, you know, ethical reasoning and what it is about, and are there moral truths and how do we discover moral truths and all that sort of stuff. And of course, the naïve position among some skeptic quarters is that well you know, either morality is all about- it's entirely a human invention, so it's essentially one step removed from moral relativism, which most of us don't wanna go to, or, then if it is about objective fact then those facts have to be of course matters that science can investigate and therefore we're gonna have, you know, you name it, evolutionary biology or neurobiology is gonna give us answers to moral questions. I think that the reality is a lot more complicated than that. I think that evolutionary biology tells us something very important about morality, that neurobiology tells us something very important about morality, but that neither one of those exhaust what, you know, the province essentially of moral (GARBLED) of ethics in general. So, let me give you a quick example: I think that evolutionary biology is absolutely necessary in order to understand where a sense of moral, right and wrong, comes from. I mean, we evolved it. We are social animals of a particular type and there is no magic behind it, it doesn't come from gods, it evolved over a period of time, the building blocks of a moral sense, a moral intuition if you will, or a moral instinct can be found in other primates and that makes perfect sense. I mean, it would be really bizarre if morality for some reason where the only thing that we cannot find any, sort of, gradual examples or partial examples in other species. So-

S: Yeah, birds have morality. I mean, birds punish each other for not-

M: Yeah.

S: -doing what the group is in the groups best interest. If one bird doesn't warn the others about a predator, then they won't get warned next time around. You know, so that's been-

J: Wow.

S: -demonstrated experimentally.

M: (GARBLED) Quibble a little bit about that, is, I wouldn't go as far as saying that they have morality as in, obviously, as we understand it from a human perspective, meaning they don't have the ability to reply.

E: Dear Duane.

M: But they do have an instinct, that correspond, that if you were to see those actions in a human being, you would say, "oh that's a moral action."

S: Well that, that's, but my point is what you were saying that there are evolutionary antecedents we could see the elements of morality in other species, obviously an elementary form, not in the reflective form that we have, but they have an instinctive notion of reciprocity which informs our ethical senses, right?

M: Exactly, right. From there to neurobiology or the current science in general of moral decision making that also tells you something interesting. It tells you for instance, not only which areas of the brain tend to be involved in moral thinking and that sort of stuff, which is interesting in and of itself, but it tells you something more deep about how we think about morality. For instance, let me give you one example: you probably, you guys probably now have heard a bit about, sort of the different versions of the trolley dilemma.

S: Yeah.

B: Yeah.

M: Two basic forms, as you likely know, are the one in which there is this trolley coming down the road and it's about to hit and kill five people and you have, you happen to have a very convenient located lever next to you, that if you pull you're gonna divert the trolley on a second track where it is gonna kill only one person. Question: would you do it or not? Answer: empirically speaking, most people would say yes. That's interestingly, by the way, cross-cultural, depending (GARBLED) how you present the dilemma, pretty much people will respond in the same way. Eighty or ninety percent of people say yes. Then you switch into a second situation where you don't have the lever, you're on top of a bridge, there's this really bulky, big guy in front of you and the only option you have is to push the guy of the bridge to save the five people. Question: would you do it? Most people answer no. Now, the interesting question there is why would people answer, most people answer, yes to one and no to the other since at least at one level of analysis the two situations are perfectly analogous: in both cases you have five people you're about to save and one person that you're about to kill. Now, turns out that neurobiology sheds some light on this and it's perhaps not surprising, but it's interesting the way it works. It turns out that if you do a brain-scan of, you know, with all the limitations of course of neural scanning and current technology, but if you do a neural scan of people, an FMRI of people, when they are involved in thinking about the two versions of the dilemma, in the first case, the lever case, people tend to involve the areas of the brain, like the frontal cortex, that are involved typically in sort of rational, deliberate decision making. On the other hand, when people are thinking in terms of the second version of the dilemma, the pushing guy of the bridge, a lot of the action switches to the amygdala, which of course is more connected to emotional reactions and fear and things like the sort. Now, that makes perfect sense, because basically the second version of the dilemma is much more personal. You're about to actually push somebody, as opposed to do something from a distance, like pulling a lever. So it makes perfect sense that people switch ways of thinking, they use different neural pathways essentially to think about this. That is very interesting and without the science we wouldn't find out why exactly people are doing that. The question however still remains, should you or should you not push the damn guy of the bridge?

S: Yeah.

M: Right.

J: I think an interesting way to look at it too are "what about the social ramifications." Like, you're gonna, you're actually breaking the law if you push the guy of the bridge, even though you're not gonna get arrested for not saving people's lives. Does that come into play?
M: Uh, it does, it depend again, as I said earlier, there is a lot of different variants of the thought experiment, and yes, some of those do involve information about the, you know, consequences and if you, of course, were in moral philosophy (GARBLED) it's called a consequentialist (GARBLED), you will take those into account as well. But the basic version doesn't include those and it's one of the things comes out interestingly, for instance from the cognitive science literature, is that there is a small minority of people who do not change their mind, who both will push- uh, you know, pull the lever and push the guy of the bridge. Turns out that psychologically speaking those people corresponds to a somewhat sociopathic profile.

S: Mhmm.

M: Those are people that essentially do not engage with the amygdala, they don't engage the emotional reaction, they just think rationally about the whole thing. The reason I brought that up is because, so, now we have an evolutionary account of how we got morality to begin with, we have a neurobiological account of, we begin to have a neurobiological account of how we actually engage in that sort of thinking, and all of this is very interesting. The thing that we still need to deal with, however, is, okay, in interesting, complex, real-life situations, what we ought to do, and now I think is where the philosophy, the interesting philosophy, comes in, because of course there are hundreds of years of discussions among philosophers that have been able to frame moral dilemmas according to two or three major ways of thinking about it. One is the one that I mentioned a minute ago, the (GARBLED) consequentialist view. There is also the ontological thinking which is based on rules essentially and then there is vitalistic(?) thinking that is based on sort of character development, of what is the right thing to do in terms of what is the right person you wanna develop into. Anyway, those three frameworks help you think about the dilemma in a way that might lead you to reach a conclusion or consider a conclusion based on reason, so you go beyond your instinctual reaction, you go beyond what amygdala is telling you and you think about it and say "well, wait a minute, here's the situation, here's what the right thing to do is and here's why."

S: Then there are those people like Sam Harris, who I know you have engaged with at least on your blog, who argue that: if we had enough scientific information, that could answer moral questions for us, essentially. You've pretty much explained what's wrong with that answer, but how have you responded to Sam Harris' position.

M: Well, let me give you a simple analogy. Imagine instead of talking about moral decision making, were talking about mathematical abilities, right? So, how is it that people have developed, human beings have developed the ability to solve mathematical problems. Well, again, you got the same three sort of answers. From an evolutionary perspective it probably was useful at some point or another to start counting or to start thinking in terms of very simple abstract mathematical entities that helped our survival. That's of course speculation, we don't really have access to the relevant information, ecologically speaking, but it's very likely that something like that happened. Now, today you could put somebody that's, say, who's trying to prove Fermat's Last Theorem, you can put him under an FMRI-scan and you can figure out how active different areas of the brain are, and so on and so forth. There is one thing however, that neither this scan, nor the evolutionary story can actually tell you and that is "is the guy getting the proof of the Theorem right?"

S: "Is two plus two four?"

M: Yeah.

S: Well, Massimo. Thanks for joining us again on the show, it's always a pleasure, it always seems like it goes by faster and we're just scratching the surface. But for our listeners, Answers to Aristotle, just tell us about that title for a second, because that's interesting.

M: Aristotle is in fact the philosopher that is most widely quoted or referred to in the book and there is a reason for that. Aristotle was the first guy in the Western tradition, that really was doing exactly what a (GARBLED) the book is about. He was doing philosophy, he is known for establishing the foundations of logic for writing the first comprehensive book about ethics and so on and so forth. But he also was doing science, I mean, most people don't realise this but Aristotle was actually doing field biology of a way on the island of Lesbos, among other places. And he was trying to figure out, okay, was interested in, for instance, shells and he was there and he was collecting samples and looking at things. Now, he got a lot of stuff wrong (GARBLED) idea that we got answers for the questions that he asked that he certainly did not have access to. But he does embody the spirit of the book. He was the guy that figured out that "look, you need both factual questions and to ways reflect on the meaning of those questions," and that is sort of the science and philosophy combination in the broadest possible sense.

S: Well, thanks again Massimo!

J: Thanks Massimo.

B: Thank you.

M: It was a pleasure as usual.

== Science or Fiction <small>(1:01:19)</small> ==
''Voiceover: It's time for Science or Fiction''

S: Each week I come up with three science or news items or facts, two genuine and one fictitious. Then I challenge my panel of sceptics to tell me which one they think is the fake. Now before we get started this week, because this is the first Science or Fiction of 2013, I do have the stats, the full Science or Fiction stats, from last year.

E: Eurgh

S: These were sent to us by Cat, from sgutranscripts.org, so thanks Cat. So, here they are for 2012: Bob had played 47 games, lost 19, won 28 for a total of 59.6%.

B: Eurgh, damn.

S: Evan played 50, 25 and 25, exactly 50%.

E: Wow, I think wow, that's pretty good.

S: Jay also played 50, lost 26, won 24 so just shy of Even at 48%. I played 7, lost 3 and won 4 so am at 57.1%, just behind Bob and Rebecca played 44, lost 17, won 27 for a total of 61.4%.

E: Wow.

S: Just edged out Bob.

B: Nice.

S: Congratulations Rebecca.

R: Thank you.

B: Congratulations.

R: Thank you.

J: Overall we're way above average.

E: That was...

S: All doing better than random guessing.

B: Yeah but...

R: Hooray.

B: Rebecca and I did worse than last year though.

R: Yeah. I felt dumber this year.

E: Jay and I picked up the slack though.

B: How could I start off so well and then totally tank it?

S: Regression to the mean. Randomness.

J: Evan, our goal for this year, better than 50%.

E: You bet...

S: OK.

E: You bet buddy.

S: It's a brand new year though, guys. Are you all ready?

E: Clean slate.

S: We do have a theme for this week.

''(laughter)''

R: God damn it.

S: This theme... ''(laughter)'' this theme is dedicated to Jay. It's all about little babies.

''(overlapping comments)''

J: OK

S: Prepare Jay for his...

R: Because Jay's a giant baby?

S: Yeah, for his upcoming...

E: Oh, is that what you mean?

S: ... child to be born in a few weeks.

R: Oh my...

''(overlapping comments)''

S: Hope all goes well. OK...

E: So excited.

S: Here we are - [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130101182012.htm item number one] - a study finds that maternal use of anti-depressants during pregnancy is associated with a greater risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). [http://www.plu.edu/news/2012/12/infant-language/ Item number two] - a new study concludes that babies start learning language in the womb. And [http://news.temple.edu/news/2012-12-13/let-crying-babes-lie-study-supports-notion-leaving-infants-cry-themselves-back-sleep item number three] - new research finds that for most babies it is better to leave them alone when they cry at night rather than comforting them. Jay, 'cos this is a theme in your honour, you get to go first.

J: The first one, about the study that says that mothers that took anti-depressants while they were pregnant - that's interesting that it increases SIDS. Now I do know that SIDS... SIDS is when the baby stops breathing and I thought that that had to do with temperature. OK, the second one about the babies learning language in the womb, I believe that one is correct. I think that they can hear their mothers' voices before they're born and they can identify their mother's voice and actually start to pick up language. So I think that one is science and the third one, the last one about... it's better to leave most babies and let them cry at night instead of comforting them - I'm not sure about that. Now this one, of course Steve's not going to answer questions but, a new born baby absolutely needs to be fed on a regular basis and one of those reasons why a baby cries is because it wants to be fed. It could be just hungry, which, you should feed a hungry baby. The whole crying baby thing, to me, you gotta go in, you gotta check on the baby and feed them. But for some reason I'm thinking here Steve that because you're gonna be leaving the baby alone in a room that this could be later maybe not a new born. I'm gonna say that because of how vague that third one is, I'm gonna say that the first one, the one about SIDS is the fake.

S: OK, Bob?

B: The babies start learning language in the womb, yeah that just makes sense. I would expect that the unborn baby can hear it's mother's voice. I remember reading a while back about how babies can recognise their mothers' voices soon after birth. It just makes sense that they would become accustomed to the language and be primed and ready to go right out of the gate so to speak so that makes sense to me. Leaving crying babies alone, yeah that was the conventional wisdom twelve, fourteen years ago when I had an infant in the house. After Ashley was born it was pretty much - a lot of people were saying that and it makes a lot of sense, you know the baby wakes up, there's some separation anxiety and if the parents come rushing in then the baby will get used to that and expect it all the time and if they can get used to waking up, being alone then going back to sleep, bam, perfect, that's what the baby will do. So that makes a lot of sense too so considering that two and three make so much sense to me, I just think that you could say that mothers who have had babies who died of SIDS, I just don't think you'd have a decent percentage of them that would be on anti-depressants. Yeah, I'm going to say the SIDS is fiction.

S: OK, Rebecca?

R: Ah, yeah. I don't know but the one about leaving babies alone when they cry at night - there's like a huge can of worms in the parenting blogs and forums - I feel like that's one of those things that...

E: You read those?

R: I have friends who are parents who get involved in the mommy blogs and stuff - yeah that's for the past thirty years or so that's been a huge thing - there's even a title for it like it's a parenting style that's specifically based on remaining fairly detached from your children in the hopes that they will learn to fend for themselves and everything that I've read, which admittedly is not a ton because I don't have a kid and I'm not planning to have one any time soon, but everything that I've read suggests that it's BS, that like Jay said, when the baby cries it's crying for a reason go pick it up. So I'm going to say that's the fiction.

S: And Evan?

E: Oh, everyone made very good cases for all of these. Bob, you, I think you hit on the SIDS one, anti-depressants during pregnancy associated with a greater risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Anti-depressants being more prescribed these days than they were way back when but there was still SIDS occurring way back when so I'm thinking that that one's the fiction. But Rebecca, you brought up a good point, good points about the crying. Rebecca I hate to leave you alone out there I'm going to go with what my first instinct way I'm going to say that the SIDS is the fiction.

S: OK so... I'm a little surprised that you guys all believe that a new study concludes that babies start learning language in the womb is science.

E: Spanish or French?

B: Why?

S: You guys all believe that one - I don't know, that one struck me as being a little out there but that one is science.

B: Why did you think that one was out there?

R: That was the most obvious one to me.

J: Steve I read that one and I was talking to my wife Courtney about it and she goes ah I don't know that sounds like BS to me.

S: Yeah.

J: Which I thought was funny 'cos now it's on our game here.

S: It just struck me as like really, really? Alright, but this is true a study does conclude this, I'm not sure how much I totally buy the conclusion and this is the first time a study has shown that newborns are not naive to the language of their mother. What the researcher did, this is Christine Moon, professor of psychology at Pacific Lutheran University, they studied infants that were just hours old and the research paradigm's interesting. They had them suck on a pacifier that was attached to a computer and when they sucked on the pacifier ''(laughter)'' - hang on - they sucked on the pacifier it would...

E: Ten thousand volts.

S: It would play a recording of vowels from either their mothers' native language or a foreign language.

B: Interesting.

S: And it would play for as long as they sucked and then when they stopped sucking it would stop and then when they started sucking again it would play a different vowel.

B: They sucked more.

S: So the question was would they listen more to the vowels...

B: Parent language.

S: From their parent language or their mothers' language specifically or from a foreign language and with the idea, and this was a paradigm used in other research, that they would listen longer to vowels that they were not familiar with.

B: Oh, interesting.

S: Because they were novel, the brain's like hey, this is new, I've got to pay attention to this, not oh this is something I've been hearing for months, you know? And in fact they found that the infants did listen longer, you know based upon their sucking on this pacifier, to vowel sounds from foreign languages than to their mothers' language.

R: But what if they found the mothers' language more soothing so wanted to listen to it longer?

B: Yeah.

S: As I said, this is, you've got to buy every link in this chain...

R: Yeah, dumb, it's dumb.

S: You know, to buy this. But the thing is any difference, any difference you can take that they're not naive and it was not that they're listening to sounds of their mother, just vowels from their mothers' language or a foreign language. So any difference would... means that they're getting something, you know, if you believe the difference itself, if the data itself is compelling. Definitely the kind of study that I'd like to see replicated and looked at from different angles but that was what this study concluded.

E: Great.

S: Let's go to number 1, a study finds that maternal use of anti-depressants during pregnancy is associated with a greater risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Rebecca thinks this one is science, the rest of you think this one is the fiction and this one is... the fiction.

''(overlapping comments)''

B: Yeah baby.

R: Not a good start.

B: One hundred, one hundred percent.

S: Ah so yeah, this is interesting. So first of all the news item that I was basing this on showed the opposite - the use of anti-depressants during pregnancy not linked with increased risk of still birth, infant death or other bad outcomes so that's very nice. And I did do a little research on, you know, 'cos I said let me just say the opposite and then I did some research just on SIDS and specifically what the literature shows is that depression in the mother is associated with increased risk of SIDS and in fact this leads to a recommendation that mothers be treated for their depression...

B: Interesting, woah.

S: In the hopes that it would decrease the risk of SIDS if anything because untreated depression is a risk factor that has been identified for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Now SIDS still remains a little mysterious, you know, it's not like we completely understand exactly what, you know, what is happening, we've identified lots of factors, you know, that increase or decrease the risk and it's thought that, you know, it is... that they essentially they stop breathing. And over the years I've read so many different things like, you know, it's good if they're in the room with the parents because maybe the higher CO2 content drives the infant's respiration more. There are some drugs that are associated with an increased risk of SIDS and those are more for breast feeding now, not anti-natal. So for breast feeding mothers, anti-depressants are still fine but you want to avoid anything that would be sedating so Valium-like drugs are not good, lithium was also another one that was identified, so drugs that could pass through to the infant through breast feeding and can cause sedation will increase the risk of SIDS. The bottom line is if you're breast feeding, your OB should know every medication that you're taking and you need to talk to them about is this something that would get passed through the breast milk to the infant and what risk or effects might it have. So don't just take... breast feeding is actually... you're still linked to the infant, you know, biologically. It's actually more metabolically demanding on the mother than being pregnant, breast feeding, you still need to take that very seriously. Alright, which means, new research finds that for most babies it is better to leave them alone when they cry at night rather than comfort them is science. Now, Rebecca, you're right in that this is a controversy and there's two sides, there's two schools of thought here. There's the... if you comfort them they'll feel reassured and more secure and if you leave them alone to cry they'll feel abandoned then the other side is what Bob articulated which is they, kids need to learn, babies need to learn how to sooth themselves, if you run to them every time you hear them cry you're re-enforcing the behaviour, the crying, and they're not going to learn how to sooth themselves and that is essentially what this latest round now in this controversy has shown. Researchers have found that babies need to learn how to sooth themselves back to sleep. This is also based partly on the notion that infants have a sleep cycle just like everyone else, just like adults, and that sleep cycle involves, you know, going into deeper stages of sleep and then coming into lighter sleep, kind of waking up and then drifting off back to sleep again, that's natural. If the child is fussy or is, you know, upset at all when it wakes up it might cry during that stage of its sleep but that's perfectly normal for it to be quote unquote awake, you know, at that time and what the researchers found is that for some babies, again not for everyone but for some, that they were better sleepers later on in life, meaning like eighteen months, you know, two years, if they were allowed to sooth themselves back to sleep and that those babies whose parents picked them up every time they cried, that they had delayed learning of self-soothing and had a worse sleep later on. So, good job guys.

R: Meuhh.

S: Of to an ironic start, given that Rebecca won last year and...

E: Watch, she'll sweep the table the rest of the year.

S: Yeah, it's, hey, it's an endurance test, you know?

R: Yeah, it's a marathon.

S: It's like one basket in basketball, doesn't mean that much.

B: It's a marathon but right now you're in last place.

== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:16:01)</small> ==

S: So Jay, do you have a quote for us this week?

J: I have a quote that was sent in by a listener named Jim O'Rourke and this is a quote from one of my absolute favourite science popularists.

<blockquote>Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend things which are there.</blockquote>

E: Hmm.

J: Does that sound like anybody?

E: Arthur Clarke?

J: Nope. Richard Feynman.

B: Ah.

S: Richard Feynman.

B: He's got a lot of good quotes.

S: Yeah, he's very quotable.

J: Richard Feynman!

(laughter)

== Announcements ==
=== The Yellow Cab of the Universe <small>(1:16:34)</small> ===
* http://www.yellowcabuniverse.com/

J: A listener of our show emailed us and said that we had inspired him in part to create something that I looked into and I thought was one of the best things that I had found in 2012 as far as a learning tool, an entertainment tool. The listeners name is Eduardo Galvani and we started chit-chatting, he wrote a book for the iPad, it's called ''The Yellow Cab of the Universe'' whcih you could see how we may have inspired him. I loved it, I downloaded it, he gave me, he invited me to download his book, I did, it ended up, it's one of the best books I have ever downloaded on my iPad, it's amazingly interactive and it goes into a very simple yet very eloquent explanation of the universe and of the cosmos, it's just fantasic, this book is something that you could do with your kids I think as an after Christmas present, you know you want to buy something that you could do with your children that would really capture their attention, the book just keeps going on and on, the content is fantastic. He's, with his daughter, he's asking his daughter about her school, and she said "I don't like science, it's too boring," and it really bothered him, it shocked him, and he started to think "what's wrong? It's not the science, the science is incredible, it's the way it's being taught," and he realised very soon after that that he had to create an interactive book that it all kind of gelled in his head, and he did. I don't recommend things often, I have absolutely zero stake in this other than I really am interested in having people spend time with their children and educate their kids on science, this is it, guys. This is one of those things that I think could really influence a young kid's mind to understand, not only understand the universe, understand science and have an interest in that something that's important for the future. So you can go to his website, [http://www.yellowcabuniverse.com/ yellowcabuniverse.com], and that'll tell you everything that you need to know, you could also look it up in the iTunes store. Do it, enjoy it, and if you really liked it, send me an email and let me know what you think and tell me what your child's reaction to it was, I'd be curious to know what they got out of it.

S: All right, thanks Jay. And thanks for joining me all this week.

R: Thank you, Steve.

B: Thank you, Steve.

E: Thank you, Steve.

J: Happy new year to you and everybody, guys.

E: Happy new year, let's have a good one.

R: Happy new year.

S: Happy new year. Looking forward to a great 2013 and until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

{{Outro1}}

== References ==
<references/>

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 390

2014-05-18T13:28:00Z

Teleuteskitty: proofread to 15:52

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{{InfoBox
|episodeNum = 390
|episodeDate = 5<sup>th</sup> January 2013
|episodeIcon = File:FM_RADIO.gif
|rebecca = y
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|jay = y
|evan = y
|guest1 = M: Massimo Pigliucci
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2013-01-05.mp3
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,44595.0.html
|qowText = Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend things which are there.
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman Richard Feynman]
|}}

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

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, January 2, 2013, 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: I have come to chew bubble gum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubble gum.

J: Evan, can you say that again, but do it twice as corny.

''(laughter)''

R: Yeah, no.

B: Impossible!

R: You're no Rowdy Roddy Piper.

E: Right? ''They Live.'' That movie. Gosh. Is that one of the worst movies ever?

B and R: Worst?

R: It's one of the best movies ever, are you kidding?

B: Oh, god, I love it.

J: It's a cult classic. I mean, yeah, it didn't hold up as good as I would have liked, but it's still

B: Oh, what doesn't hold up?

J: Whatever. It's still great. It's still good.

R: It's awesome.

B: The best bare-knuckled brawl I think in any movie.

E: I'm sorry. Look, I get campy and I get, you know, yes, I get the brawl scene. It was rated like one of the best brawl scenes in movie history and so forth. Rowdy Roddy Piper, John Carpenter directed it and all that. I'm sorry. That movie had so many flaws to it. I mean if we were ever to do a review of that movie, oh man, we could do a whole episode on that.

S: Maybe we should.

E: Maybe we should.

R: Yeah. I will defend that movie with my life.

''(laughter)''

E: All right. I'm gonna be your Gene Siskel to your Roger Ebert or vice versa, or whatever.

R: Oh, boy.

J: Steve, I'm getting a feeling like in the back of my head. I feel like I'm predicting that we're gonna do a show on predictions.

S: I know, I think you're right, Jay.

B: Damn, you're good.

E: One of these days.

S: It's a high probability hit.

== This Day in Skepticism <small>(1:43)</small> ==
* January 5, 1940: FM radio first commercial broadcast

S: But first, Rebecca's gonna tell us about January 5th.

R: Happy birthday, FM radio!

J: Awesome!

E: To all the kids out there.

J: What does the "F" in FM stand for?

R: Frequency.

B: {{w|Frequency modulation}}

J: Thank you.

R: Yes, sort of. You could probably pick any number of dates for the birthdate of FM radio, but on January 5, 1940, the first network program was broadcast on FM radio. It was called "Colonel Harrison Featherbottom and the Fart Man's Morning Zoo Hour."

''(laughter)''

E: What? No, it wasn't.

B: No way. I don't believe it.

J: I love it!

E: . . . skeptic.

R: Okay, that's not what it was called. But it was a 60-minute show that was designed to showcase several different types of audio and vocals and stuff that would eventually be broadcast. The show traveled from a station in Yonkers, New York that was operated by one C.R. Runyon, to a transmitter in Alpine, New Jersey operated by {{w|Edwin_Howard_Armstrong|Major Edwin Armstrong}} of Columbia University, who was heading up the effort; and then onto Meriden, Connecticut; Paxton, Massachusetts; and then finally Mount Washington, where it was transmitted by telelphone wire to Boston and then back to Yonkers. By all reports the FM broadcasts were found to have no apparent loss of quality. So, it was given the thumbs up. The first FM stations that had regular scheduling, programming, appeared later that year. FM.

J: That's cool.

S: Yeah. So, Jay, frequency modulation, that's how the information is encoded in the carrier wave, by modulating the frequency of a signal. As opposed to AM, which is amplitude modulation, they modify the amplitude of the signal.

E: Thank you, Dr. Marconi.

S: Right. And the FM band simply refers to, the FM has nothing to do with any frequency range itself, any band, but that's just the band that's assigned in various countries to transmit FM signals over. So in the U.S. and most places it's 87.5 to 108.0 megahertz.

== News Items ==
=== Psychic Predictions for 2012 <small>(3:51)</small>===
* The Rogues review predictions for last year and make some new ones for 2013

S: Well, as Jay way saying, as Jay predicted, this is our psychic predictions review episode. The first episode of every year we look back and see how did the psychics fare in predicting events of 2012.

B: Horribly.

E: As expected, though.

S: All right, so do you guys have your favorite psychic that you looked back over to see how they did?

E: Anyone else take Nikki because, you know.

R: I decided to skip Nikki this year.

S: She's always a favorite though.

J: She's awesome. She's the funniest.

R: Awesomely stupid.

E: Awesomely awful.

J: Yeah, but this year after reading, going through her stuff, I think she's either delusional or she's just shotgunning.

S: Or both. These are not mutually exclusive.

J: That's right.

S: She made like 180-something predictions. That's, by definition, shotgunning.

J: All right, so, I got, "More laser attacks against planes".

E: Oooo.

R: ''More'' laser attacks.

J: Yes, ''more'' laser attacks. That's what I thought was funny about that.

R: You mean like little kids with laser pointers?

S: Yes.

R: They're a menace to society.

S: Using laser pointers to blind pilots, yes.

J: I got, "Weird weather conditions worldwide, including snow in Hawaii, Las Vegas, and in the Caribbean".

S: Yeah, remember that snowstorm we had when we were in Las Vegas for TAM?

E: (laughs)

J: Giant prehistoric sea monsters under the sea.

E: As opposed to what, floating in the air?

S: Also, some of her predictions are not even sentences.

J: Yeah.

E: Yeah.

J: They're just snippets. Yeah. "Major UFO sightings, all over the world". Nope, that didn't happen.

E: "Earth will fall off its axis a little more"

J: Yeah, right?

E: What?

S: More than what?

E: Exactly.

J: I like how she, then this one goes, "A possible landing of a spaceship". Now, what does that really mean? A ''possible'' landing.

R: Like the Mars rover?

S: Well, we landed {{w|Curiosity (rover)|Curiosity}} on Mars.

E: Yeah.

R: I'm gonna call that a hit.

E: Okay. Hey, Nikki!

R: Good job, Nikki.

E: It's your first time ever.

J: Guys, guys. "A disabled man attempts to go around the world in his wheelchair".

E: What?

B: Oh, boy.

''(laughter)''

S: Is this a manual or one of those electronic wheelchairs? A power wheelchair.

J: Steve, tell me what's wrong with this one. "A huge pandemic, worldwide".

''(laughter)''

S: As opposed to a pandemic that's not worldwide, yeah.

E: A localized pandemic. Highly localized.

J: Now here are two that prove that she doesn't understand science at all. Ready? Earth will fall off its axis a little more,

S: You already said that.

E: Yeah, we did that.

J: Or, "A hole in the Earth's core".

S: A hole in the Earth's core, right.

B: Whoa, what the. . . what does that even mean?

R: A hollow earth thing, maybe?

B: A vacuum in the center of the Earth.

J: Bob, don't worry about that hole, because "The holy grail will be found".

S: The holy grail will be found.

E: I didn't know it was lost!

S: She wrote "problems with the Earth's magnetic fields."

''(laughter)''

B: Oh, nice.

S: What kind of problems?

J: Well, it must be that the city of Hong Kong is on fire, Steve, that threw off the magnetic fields, 'cause that's another one of her predictions.

S: Yeah.

J: "City of Hong Kong on fire".

R: Did that happen?

S: All of it?

J: No. All of it. City of Hong Kong. On fire.

S: It is funny when scientifically illiterate alleged psychics make science-related predictions. Like a hole in the Earth's core. Really?

J: Here's another good one. "Multiple rainbows in the sky, all over the world, within a 24 to 48-hour period".

B: Oh, no. Oh, my god.

R: That happened, too! I saw that, that double rainbow video.

S: Double rainbow!

E: What the heck is that?

B: Double rainbows are magnificent, though. I saw one last, like, two years ago. Oh my god, it's just mesmerizing.

E: We got tripped up on a science or fiction with that triple rainbow, remember?

J and S: Yeah.

E: Sucked.

J: Guys, how 'bout "a famous racehorse will be kidnapped"?

''(laughter)''

E: What, Man-o-War?

S: That was a Sherlock Holmes short story.

J: A meteorite shower hitting the Earth.

''(laughter)''

E: Oh, Nikki, Nikki. Go back to whatever your job was before.

S: Sometime in August. And then again in November. What are the odds?

J: But, and we're only reading a few, but when you read through, she'll get onto a quickie mini-theme inside her predictions. As if she just banged them out at her desk one afternoon.

E: Or her assistant did.

J: Like she'll get on to the theme of earthquakes and then she'll list like four earthquakes. As if, "Oh, yeah, earthquakes!" and then she writes more earthquake ones.

S: Earthquake in Russia. Yeah, I'm pretty sure there was an earthquake somewhere in Russia this year. Probably more than one. I covered psychic Roxanne, did any of you guys do Roxanne from spiritnow.com?

B: No.

R: Uh uh. I don't think I have Roxanne.

S: She has different, this is Roxanne Usleman Hulderman.

E: And her orchestra.

S: Yup, and her orchestra. She has different categories, and I'm just gonna go over the two categories that were most interesting. I didn't do like the celebrity predictions, who cares. These are her "spiritual" predictions. I'm not even sure what makes these spiritual, but here we go. "Einstein's predictions about the honey bees proves correct. They are becoming extinct, indicating it is the beginning of the end of the world."

B: Oh. Einstein?

E: ''(singing)'' Beginning of the end!

S: So I'm like, Einstein? Really? Einstein predicted that honey bees would become extinct? So I looked that up, and . . .

E: Joe Einstein.

S: there is a quote attributed to Albert Einstein that ''if'' the honey bees became extinct, mankind would become extinct within years. You know, by four years later. Just emphasizing how important bees were to humans.

E: And how important the preposition "if" is.

''(laughter)''

S: Yes. He didn't predict that they would become extinct. ''And'' it's not even sure if Einstein said that quote. It's not really sourced. He could have said it, but nobody knows. It was attributed to him, but, anyway.

B: Yeah, you know what that means.

S: Her number two. "Extra Terrestrials" - two words - "help to evolve our consciousness, uplifting our human vibration". Jay, was your vibration uplifted?

J: Well, from the waist down, yes.

S: Okay.

R: Wait. I found a thing about vibration, too. In a different psychic's predictions.

S: Yeah?

J: I heard that, too, Rebecca. I heard vibrations brought up quite a bit.

R: Okay, so, I watched the psychic twins video.

J: Oh, yeah.

S: Oh, yeah.

R: Terry and Linda Jamison.

E: Oh, yeah. I kicked their butt last year. Ha! Too bad nobody saw it.

R: They were hilariously wrong. They started off their "What's gonna happen in 2012" vodcast, podcast, I guess it was a podcast actually, just listing like all these horrific things that were gonna happen in 2012. Just like, it was just gonna be the absolute worst year for life on Earth, and amongst those, they predicted terrorist attacks in Boston, Florida, in Texas, New York, Detroit. They said that major schools would be victimized by young terrorists, which, I'm sure they're going to call a win, for last week.

S: Yeah.

E: They should be very proud of themselves.

R: They say that there would be major cyber attacks by people in China and Russia. There'd be a Chinese attack on the telephone systems. That's a direct quote. However, according to the medium Allie Cheslick, who was interviewing them about their predictions, all these things could have been thwarted only if people raise their own level of vibration.

J: Right.

S: Um hm.

R: So, apparently, we all did a really good job, raising our level of vibration to the point where none of those things, not, they weren't just thwarted by authorities, they just never actually happened.

E: Oh, those would be good vibrations.

B: I love when they give themselves their own out. You know, if it doesn't come true,

R: Right.

B: well, luckily everyone, you know, messed with, played with their vibrations. Win-win!

J: I'm not afraid to admit that they did get a couple of things right, I mean, you're supposed to, statistically, when you throw out as many predictions as these people do.

B: Oh, yeah.

J: Like they did say that there were gonna be lone wolf attacks in schools. And it did happen.

S: But that's just, again, that's a high probability thing. It's like "another Columbine's gonna happen ''some''time". Sure.

R: Right. Thanks for nothing.

S: Yeah. Somewhere by somebody. No details. It seems specific, but it really isn't, so that's one of the strategies. So, it's a high probability prediction, ''and'' there's so much shotgunning going around that of course two or three are gonna be glancing blows. So, next under her spiritual predictions, the "North and South poles reverse their positions.

E: I've heard that a lot of times.

S: Here we go. "Spiritual evolvement." Evolvement.

''(laughter)''

E: What? ''E''volvement?

S: Evolvement. I don't know why she didn't use "evolution." On this third dimension expands the fight between good and evil.

J: Now what does that mean, that weapons are being introduced? Like, what does that mean?

S: So, we're fighting the good fight against evil more and more. On the third dimension. Which is good, because her next prediction is that the third and fourth dimension begin to merge.

E: Oh, good! Finally!

B: I hate when that happens.

E: It's like when peanut butter and chocolate come together, it's good stuff!

S: But—

B: Don't you dare ''(inaudible)''

S: Hold onto your hats, now. With the great pyramids in Egypt being destroyed, you guys remember when that happened, right?

J & E: Yeah.

B: I missed it.

S: The entire planet's magnetic force shifts, symbolizing the end of times, then and only then do we realize that the pyramids have been holding our planet together.

J: Oh!

E: Oh, like a linchpin.

S: Yeah.

B: It's so clear in retrospect.

R: Yeah.

S: And her final one under that category is "Humans turning evermore towards spirituality" which is actually not happening.

J: Yeah, that's another theme that I kept hearing. The world is becoming more spiritual.

S: The environmental events around the globe, lots of high probability, "there's gonna be earthquakes." An earthquake impacts the state of Washington and California. What are the odds? Of an earthquake occurring in a major earthquake belt. All right, but here's my favorite of all of her predictions. "A solar star dwarf from the sun, breaking off, causing damage to the earth".

''(general excitement and confusion)''

B: Oh, my god.

R: Our sun? That could happen?

J: A solar star dwarf, like, what is that?

S: Right?

E: Phil Plait's gonna have to add a chapter to his book, I think.

''(laughter)''

S: Right! Yeah, a dwarf star apparently is gonna break away from our sun and that is going to damage the earth, which, I imagine it would. If that actually happened. It's like, is she flipping through a science book and just pulling out terms at random without understanding what they are.

B: Does she mean like a coronal mass ejection? Is that what she means?

E: Bob. Bob, you're given her w—a-a-a-a-y too much credit.

J: Bob, the only corona she knows is the beer

S: No, because the next prediction is "solar flares causing power outages", which I read on multiple psychics' lists. Solar flares causing power outages. Again, it's the kind of thing, like scientists say "this could happen someday" so they just pick up on that. It's a high probability prediction. "A contagious disease born of our environmental carelessness affects the world". Another pandemic prediction.

B: Nice. Solar star dwarf.

S: And then finally "Global environmental destruction connected with the end of times Mayan calendar". Wah-wah-waaah.

''(laughter)''

S: So there we go, psychic Roxanne.

R: You know, the psychic twins had another great prediction for 2012. They predicted that there would not be any hurricanes in 2012 that were as bad as the previous year. So no hurricanes as bad as Irene. Kind of missed the mark there. The interviewer, Allie Cheslick, predicted that the twins would have their own television show by March 20th of last year, which, I don't think happened.

J: No. The twins also said that it would take a miracle for Obama to get re-elected.

S: Well, I guess a miracle happened.

E: Well, there you go.

R: It's a miracle!

E: Proof that miracles happen.


B: I've got a few here. I've got a couple from two different psychics. One's Janet Russell, who's a Long Island-based intuitive spiritual medium/psychic. She's also the host of a New York top cable access show, Beyond the Unexplained. And how someone like her can have their own TV show and we don't, I don't understand it. But she's known for her accuracy and honesty. She say we'll be using solar energies instead of the old standby of gas and electric. Solar energies, plural, which is very odd. And then, this one tickled me. She goes "and yes, the government will admit that we do have contact with other beings in other dimensions"! You know, it's not good enough that there are other beings, aliens or whatever, but they're also in another dimension. Just to make it, just the icing on the cake, you know. Different dimension.

R: I read Janet Russell's predictions as well, and my favorite one, I think,

B: Which one?

R: Okay, there were two. One was "People will be airing their dirty laundry on teleservices. This way they will have a constant audience." ''(laughing)'' What does that mean? I don't know. And the thing is, like, she's so obviously out of touch because my other favorite one was "I feel that one state will be open to alternative lifestyle and people will move to that state because they feel more comfortable." What? What does that mean, alternative? Does that mean gay marriage, does it mean pot? Because we have those things in several states. It's . . . I don't know.

B: She just has her finger on the pulse of culture. There was another psychic, Nancy Bradley. Apparently, this psychic has 98.6% accuracy.

R: Wow.

E: Wow.

B: For 2011, so

E: Take that temperature!

B: My first reaction was, well, yeah, that's total baloney. But then I read her predictions. Listen to these two. Six more Hollywood icons will leave us in 2012, and two major music stars as well. What are the odds of people dying in 2012? That just kind of blew my mind a bit. Here's another one: more protests across the world, and the U.S. as well, sit-ins as people stand up, much bloodshed. Wow. Who could have foreseen that?

E: Geez. People shedding blood.

B: And then she

S: Yeah, some psychics definitely go with the vague high probability hit.

B: Oh, my god.

S: I was reading a couple that did that. It's like "there will be protests in Egypt." Look! ''(laughter)'' Really?

B: And then she throws in one of these little sciency ones that are kinda whacky: "a shift in the equator will be discovered and will change some of the weather patterns for countries on it." ''(laughter)'' A shift in the equator. I hate when that happens!

S: The equator shifts. Does she mean the continents ''on'' the equator?

B: Who knows what she meant? ''(laughter continues)'' It could mean anything.

E: The equator shifts! That's the best!

B: She could be referring to that solar dwarf star thing. ''(laughter still continues)''

S: But, guys, that was the best, right? The solar dwarf coming out of our sun.

E: Is it wearing a crown?

J: Wait, but Bob, Nancy Bradley also said "More aquatic ocean and lake animals make their way onto shore. Octopus, fish, etc. Also, as I told you last year, more species thought to be extinct are coming back, including those considered mystical, those that many thought never existed are coming back."

R: The unicorn, for instance. ''(overlapping comments)''

S: What about the events that psychics failed to predict for 2012?

B: Oh, yeah. That was easy.

J: How many do you want? I have plenty of 'em here.

B: Well, Hurricane Sandy, first of all. You'd think, you know, such a huge weather event. Somebody, somewhere

S: And it's in their sweet spot!

B: ''(inaudible)'' one person.

S: They're predicting tsunamis and earthquakes, and they can't get that one hurricane right? Come on.

J: The shooting in Sandy Hook, Connecticut.

R: Although the psychic twins claim that –

E: Yeah, some will claim that they did that.

J: In order for them claim, and I thought about it, because they did make a lone gunman prediction. But, seriously, like that's just not good enough. Like you have to say more, it has to be more specific. If somebody said –

B: You need two things, Jay. You need two things. If somebody said "Newtown" or "Sandy Hook," that would be impressive as hell. Or even if they said "26 dead" or "20 kids." If anyone said any of those three things, then, bam! That is a solid hit. 'Course it wouldn't mean, you know, that psychics—

S: Yeah, there's different degrees of hits. They could have said "an elementary school." You know, they could have said "a lone shooter killing many kids in an elementary school."

R: Even then,

S: Even that would have been semi-impressive. But just "a lone wolf" or just –

B: No.

S: "terrorism in schools." Nah, it's way too vague.

B: Yeah, I'm talk . . .'cause when you think of a psychic, if a psychic really existed, you would expect somebody, one person, or a few people, to have a really solid hit. Something really specific. I mean, isn't that what everyone really wants? That's what we want, right guys?

J: Yeah, but that's the thing, Bob, when you, every year when we read through all these psychic predictions, you know, we're just doing our research, it occurs to me, they're, once again, they're just playing the odds. You can see them playing the odds. There's patterns. There is a reason why a lot of them predict the same types of things over and over again.

S: And they're also just probably going for the sensationalism. I mean the ones they know are not gonna come true. Like the solar dwarf. They're just trying to say impressive sounding things.

B: Right. And they—

S: Because they know no one's gonna care. Their target audience, they're not gonna go back and check up on 'em and see what happened.

B: And they don't care what we're saying.

S: They'll be reading the predictions for 2013. All right, what about the Causeway Cannibal?

J: Yeah, absolutely. ''(overlapping comments)'' Too specific thought, Steve, too specific.

S: The fiscal cliff.

J: Yup.

B: Yeah.

S: The Petraeus scandal.

B: Yeah, I had that one, too.

E: Attack in Libya.

S: The Benghazi shooting.

J: The President supporting gay marriage.

B: How about deaths? I mean, did anyone predict the death of Whitney Houston, for example?

S: And if they're gonna dabble in science, how about, like if they ''really'' were going for a high-probability science prediction, how about the Higgs will be discovered?

E: Higgs boson, yeah. That would have been good. Or the lander will successfully, you know, everything will go smoothly there. You could even do that one.

J: How about Facebook going public?

B: Yeah.

E: Facebook, yup.

S: That debacle? Yeah, good one. All right, well, I listened to last year's episode to see what ''we'' all predicted.

B: I remember one prediction. I remember saying that Google Plus would die in 2012.

S: Okay.

B: Unfortunately I was wrong.

R: I mean it's on life support, but

B: Yeah, it is.

E: My predictions.

S: Well, what were they, Evan?

E: I made one in each of the following categories: technology: the Aakash tablet would outsell the iPad by the end of 2012.

S: Um hmm. Fail.

R: And?

E: You know, the Aakash tablet. This is a $35 tablet that they made in India.

R; Oh, right.

E: They're already actually up to the Aakash 2. And I figured, all right, so you've got the Indian government, they're subsidizing this thing. They're gonna get this out to 500 million Indians, students and everyone in the country; pure numbers, it's gonna overtake. Well, it didn't quite happen. I think some of the problems were in the technology itself. Even though it costs 35 bucks, they said it heats up very quickly, and poor design, cheap components. It won't play any of the apps that are out there. The battery life is poor. I think those things might have had something to do with it.

S: It's a $35 tablet, that's why.

E: You get what you pay for. In astronomy: a small meteor will collide with one of the many GPS satellites in orbit, rendering it inoperable. Now, that did not happen this year, but guess what's coming up next month, folks.

J: What?

E: ''(clears his throat theatrically)'' A small asteroid ''will'' pass inside the geosynchronous satellite ring.

J: Irrelevant! Irrelevant, you didn't get it.

E: 35,800

B: Wow, that's damn close. How big is this thing?

E: kilometers above the . . . 150 feet. 150 feet long.

B: Damn!

E: Astronomers say the asteroid may hit a communications satellite, so. . .

J: It doesn't matter. It's irrelevant. No partial credit for you, sir.

B: You still missed it, dude.

E: Nothing irrelevant about that. Yes, it didn't happen, but the science behind it was revealed in the year, so I'll get a half-credit for that. Biology: Bio-engineered tooth regeneration will become available for humans. Well,

B: That'd be cool.

E: Because I've been following that, they're still doing more studies with mice and stuff, and they're making progress. They made more progress this year, but they didn't get to the humans. So I'll take a minus for that. In skepticism: a prominent skeptic will defect over to an alternative point of view. And that actually did come true, because a global warming skeptic Richard Muller, who was a proponent, you know, a big proponent saying that man-made global warming does not exist, in fact did leave his brand of skepticism behind and says, yes, it is actually happening. So I'll take a plus for that.

J: No. No one knows who that guy is. You can't take a plus for that.

E: Richard Muller? Steve?

S: Evan's right, but that was the wrong kind of skeptic.

E: I didn't . . . hey, Steve.

S: It's all right. I gotcha.

E: Well, do you want me to say brown dwarves are gonna get crapped out of the sun? ''(laughter)'' Is that a better prediction.

R: Yeah, actually, it's awesome.

J: No, you didn't get any. Zero.

E: How 'bout this one? My last prediction: the largest glacier ever recorded will break off, right from the ice shelf. And that ''did'' happen, thank you very much. In Antarctica a, in Antarctica this year, that actually did happen.

J: No, it didn't.

''(laughter)''

S: Well I had one prediction last year, and it was a crypto-zoological prediction, if you remember. I predicted that Bigfoot would sweep into the White House with a gray alien as a running mate. And that ''did'' happen.

E: It almost happened.

S: But the cover-up is keeping you from knowing about it.

''(laughter)''

E: Right.

J: What did Rebecca do?

B: Good one, Steve.

S: Rebecca predicted Michael Douglas, Michael Douglas was here celebrity death. He's still kicking.

R: Oh. Good. I'm glad.

E: He had a problem. He had problems last year.

S: An ''Arrested Development'' movie.

B: Did I miss that?

R: Uuuh, it's. . . no, but . . .

E: It's in production, right?

R: there is going to be a TV show.

S: Okay.

E: Oh, TV show.

S: And chimpanzees will be found to do something scientists thought only people did, previously.

R: That probably happened.

''(laughter)''

E: Somewhere. We may not have seen it or recorded it, but it might have happened.

J: It didn't happen.

R: Yeah, probably.

S: Jay, do you remember your one prediction?

J: Yes. And that's why I've been arguing so much with everyone. I predicted that none of our predictions would come true.

R: Yeah, that's right.

E: Wrong!

J: I'm more right than the rest of you. How 'bout that?

E: That's why you were hard on me and my predictions, 'cause you wanted ''your'' prediction to come true.

S: All right, well. Who wants to go first in their predictions for 2013?

B: I will! Okay, in twenty-thirteen, everyone will start referring to the year as "two thousand and thirteen" instead of "twenty-thirteen," ''(laughter)'' except for Rebecca. And the LHC will announce a nine sigma competence level in the Higgs boson. It's existence will . . .

E: English, Bob! English.

B: It's existence will be so obvious that fifth graders will start finding evidence for it. ''(laughter)'' And my only real prediction, scientists will create a living minimal genome cell from scratch. Please come true.

S: Jay?

J: I predict that Iran's ''(pronouncing it I-RAN)'' going to test a nuke.

S: Iran? ''(pronouncing it Ear-on)'' Yeah.

''(laughter)''

J: What?

S: Where did you run to, Jay?

''(laughter)''

J: Seriously? Like that's even pronounced wrong?

E: Just say Persia.

R: I-in-stine.

S: I-in-stine. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, next?

J: I predict another private company will start launching space missions.

S: Um hmm.

B: Okay.

E: Coca-Cola.

J: Beyond Space X. I predict that Billy Graham is gonna kick it.

B: Oh, we're doing celebrity deaths, too?

J: Yeah.

B: Okay.

J: I predict that George Bush ''Senior'' is gonna kick it.

E: Any other 90-something-year-old people gonna kick it, Jay?

J: Well, what d'ya want me to predict, like a 20-year-old?

E: How 'bout someone in their 70s or something. Make it a little challenging.

J: Okay, I predict that Evan Bernstein is gonna choke on a hot dog. ''(laughter)'' And my final prediction for 2013 is, I predict the end is Bill Nye.

''(laughter)''

B: Oh, nice.

R: Wait, what?

B: End is nigh.

E: Funny.

R: Mine are great. You're gonna find no fault with mine.

J: Bring it on. Beat "the end is Bill Nye." Beat that, right now. Go ahead.

R: All right. The Daily Mail will report that researchers have discovered pickles cause cancer.

B: oooo. I like it.

J: I like that, okay.

E: I don't eat 'em, so—

R: Number two. A whistleblower will reveal that the government has been hiding something.

''(laughter)''

R: I'd rather not comment upon which government it is at this time, but, they may have the color red in their flag.

''(laughter)''

J: Okay.

R: Finally . . .

E: ''(inaudible)'' –like the Swiss! I knew it!

R: I will beat the game FTL on normal mode, and finally get 100 percent on Skyrim.

B: You're reaching now.

J: No way.

E: Now your sun is crapping out brown dwarves, Rebecca.

R: ''(inaudible)'' –Donkey Kong

S: Bob, what was your celebrity death?

B: Yeah, I've got a celebrity death, and it's not an octogenarian, Jay, or is a nonagenarian, is that how you pronounce that? Lindsay Lohan.

E: Ooo, she's on my list, Bob!

B: She's been rolling 20 for far too long, her time is ''up.''

J: Nope. I'm predicting she's not gonna die. Not even close.

E: Yeah, she's on mine. I've got three of 'em, that was one of 'em.

S: I predict ''she's'' gonna die, but her twin won't.

''(laughter)''

B: Nice.

R: Oh, we're all going to hell.

S: Evan, what've you got?

E: Okay, in addition to Lindsay Lohan. I predict a world leader, which is a president or a prime minister, will succumb while in office. A few options there, but it'll be very prominent. And, James Van Praagh.

J: Oh, why? What did you see? What did the spirits tell you?

E: Jay, it's something that's beyond sort of a description. In technology, there will be a ''m-a-a-a-jor'' data breach, most likely of a credit card company, or something along those lines. This breach will costs consumers and their insurers at least $1 billion worldwide. In astronomy, we will discover a Earth-like planet, known as "Earth's Twin."

S: Hey, that's been my prediction for the last three years. ''(laughter)''

E: And how's that worked out for ya?

S: I'm getting closer every year. And you're gonna take it from me now? That's like you're sitting down at my slot machine, Evan. ''(laughter)''

R: Evan just bid a dollar under your ''Price Is Right'' score. That's what just happened.

E: Well, we'll just share that one, Steve, if it comes true this year.

B: Good analogy, Rebecca.

E: In health, a hand-held breathalyzer will offer early detection of infections caused by microbes. What do you think of that? Aa! And, in the environment, I only did four this year, environment, we will find, scientists will find a way to harness energy from sand. Now, I admit, they will be small quantities of energy, but it'll be energy nonetheless.

S: Like the tar sands?

E: Simply sand.

S: Tar sands are already a major source of petroleum, but, I'm assuming you're not talking about that.

E: Okay, I'll refine it. Desert sand.

''(Steve and Evan talking at once, so unable to determine what each says.)''

S: Okay. I have a celebrity death and two predictions. My celebrity death is Jerry Lewis, unfortunately. Great comedian, but, you know. His time

''(someone in background: Oh, lady! Lady!)''

S: I also predict that there will be a ''major'' pareidolia event this year.

B: Nice.

E: Face on the moon?

S: A major pareidolia event. And finally, conspiracy theorists will use anomaly hunting to argue that an innocent or natural event is actually a deliberate conspiracy.

R: Um hmm.

S: All right, so we will track those and we'll let you know next year how we all did.

=== Cosmic Rays and Dementia <small>(32:27)</small>===
* [http://m.phys.org/news/2012-12-houston-problem-space-brain.html Houston, we have another problem: Study shows space travel is harmful to the brain]

S: All right well I think we have time for a few quick news items to round out the show, so Bob you're going to tell us about another risk of space travel.

B: In science fiction the biggest problems generally for space travel are usually things like aliens, black holes or warp core breaches, I really hate that last one.

S: And space worms, don't forget space worms.

B: Oh yeah, the worms. It's very annoying then to think that a little thing like ultra-tiny invisible radiation is essentially a total deal breaker right now for allowing humans to spend serious time beyond low earth orbit. We've known this for a while now, we've touched upon it in the past a bit but most recently scientists have found even more bad news. A new study described in the [http://www.plosone.org/ PLOS ONE] journal reveals for the first time that cosmic ray exposure to humans on a trip to Mars can make changes to the brain that could replicate or speed up the onset of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alzheimer%27s_disease Alzheimer's disease]. Now I'm calling this the "space brain syndrome" and it really stinks.

S: Space dementia.

B: That's a good one too, I like space brain syndrome better.

S: No. Space dementia.

B: Uh, we talked about the cosmic ray hazards in space but I learned a little bit more about some of these details and I'd like to share. It's pretty interesting. The culprit here is a specific type of cosmic ray, now these aren't rays of course but they're bits of atoms that are propelled through space. Protons make up the majority of the cosmic rays, followed by alpha particles which is just like two neutrons and two protons. And then electrons kind of finish that list. Those are the majority, the vast majority of all cosmic rays. But a tiny, tiny percentage of cosmic rays are these relatively really big clumps of protons and neutrons and they're called these [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HZE_ions HZE particles] which stands for High Charge and Energy particles. And the Z, if you're familiar with chemistry, the Z is the universal symbol for atomic number which is the amount of protons within the nucleus, so that's what that stands for. Now so the more protons you have with no electrons to balance them out, you create a bigger and bigger charge. The E stands for energy obviously, so what you end up with is these bare atomic nuclei with lots of protons and a lot of energy and they can penetrate shielding of a ship and through the skin of the astronauts and just wreak havoc on your DNA causing cancer and a host of other issues. So this much we've known for a little while and if that wasn't annoying enough, they get this energy from supernovae and also the sun, I wasn't quite aware that the sun's solar flares and coronal mass ejections also can produce these HZE particles. As tiny as these, I mean percentage wise, HZEs are a fraction of a percent but they can cause more than 50% of the radiation damage inflicted on astronauts. So these are the big players in terms of astronauts having a problem with radiation in deep space.

S: Now Bob, because these are highly charged particles, would that mean that magnetic shielding would be a viable option?

B: Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, if they didn't have any charge then we'd be even worse off, so yeah that kind of leads into the potential, one of the potential ways for dealing with them. The experiments that these researchers did, particularly specifically on how these HZE particles can affect people, they used rats of course, the most helpful of guinea pigs. They exposed them...

R: Rats aren't guinea pigs.

B: (laughs) They exposed them to increasing doses of radiation, including the equivalent of what an astronaut would experience on a multi-year mission to Mars, which is pretty much how long it would take. Now they tested the rats' recall for certain objects and locations that they were previously exposed to and they found that those that had a bigger dose of radiation did increasingly more poor at those tasks which of course indicates some level of neurological impairment, but the real kicker though was that I guess after the rat autopsies they revealed indications of not only changes in the brain vasculature but also in the accumulation of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_amyloid beta amyloid] which is that protein plaque that builds up in the brain of Alzheimer's victims. Now Steve, correct me if I'm wrong, but this plaque, that's pretty much the hallmark of that disease right? If you find that, it's like the red light going off that you have Alzheimer's right? These beta amyloid plaques, is that right?

S: They're important, they're not unique to Alzheimer's, it's more complicated than that, but yeah they're an important pathological finding in Alzheimer's disease.

B: Well that was, from what I could gather, that was one of the main reasons that they're all talking about Alzheimer's here. NASA of course is concerned about cosmic rays, especially considering they've had plans for a manned mission to an asteroid in 2021 and to Mars in 2035, I mean there's just no way that's going to happen if they don't deal with this problem. NASA subscribes to a policy known as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALARA ALARA] which is As Low As Reasonably Achievable. Any exposure to radiation has an element of risk of course, but NASA needs a very high confidence level that an astronaut's lifetime risk of terminal cancer from cosmic radiation is less than 3% so they will not cross that line, so they have to make 3% reasonably achievable to fit in with this ALARA and that's going to take revolutionary technology to pull that off. That's not going to be a quick and easy fix by any means.

S: All right, well thanks Bob.

== Who's That Noisy? <small>(38:07)</small>==
* Answer to last week: Glass Harp playing Fur Elise

S: All right, well Evan we do have time for Who's That Noisy this week.

E: Well good, that's good because we need to reveal the answer to what was the last Who's That Noisy for 2012. I will play it for you now for memory's sake. Here we go.

(Glass Harp playing Fur Elise)

E: Lovely Ludwig Van.

S: Fur Elise, it's one of the pieces I had to play when I was taking piano lessons.

E: Did you enjoy it.

S: It's a pretty piece.

E: It is a pretty pieces. Well what kind of instrument was that, that was the question. And we had a lot of people gguess that that was the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_harmonica glass harmonica] or the glass armonica also known as a bowl organ which is actually incorrect, although that instrument would create the same or similar-sounding notes but that was not it. What we were hearing was actually the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_harp glass harp], which is a musical instrument made of upright wine glasses and it's played by running moistened or chalked fingers around the rim of the glass and each glass is tuned to a different pitch and thereby you're able to play all of the notes. That particular piece was performed by [http://www.roberttiso.com/ Robert Tiso] and you can [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47TGXJoVhQ8 see him on youtube playing this] and very talented in his own right. Yes, several people did get it correct, the first one to guess correctly, our friend from the message boards, Magnus M.

S: Mmmhmm.

E: Whose name we've sopken before. Well done, Magnus.

S: Magnus!

E: And congratulations for being first. OK, so 2013, we're going to change things up a little bit for the Who's That Noisy and the puzzle segment. For this year, we're going run a little contest for all the listeners, and here's how it's going to work. Each week when I play the Who's That Noisy or give the Logic Puzzle, everyone who answers correctly, their name will be put into a hat for that week. And that week I will draw a name from the hat at random and the person's name whom I draw will go into a final drawing which will occur at the last episode of the year and the winner of the final drawing will be invited to come onto the SGU to play a round of Science or Fiction with us. If you're going to submit a guess, we're going to require your guess by the time we record our next show which is typically early to mid-week the following week, it varies from week to week but there is a little insentive there to get your guess in early and get your name eligible to be drawn for the final drawing. Since this is a new idea we are tinkering with, we're going to do this on the honour system. If we sense that there is any abuse by the participants of this we will have to make some modifications along the way, so we're trusting everyone to play fairly, play by the rules, if you know the answer go ahead and tell us, but you don't go sharing it with you know, 100,000 of your closest friends so that there's 100,000 names to draw from each week, that'll make my job a lot harder. So let's give this a try, folks and let's see what we can do.

S: All right, we'll see how it goes.

E: We're going to start this year with a puzzle, a logic puzzle. And this logic puzzle was submitted by listener Alvaro Ibanes, thank you Alvaro for submitting this, this is a very good one. A jeweller has nine pearls which all look and feel exactly alike. However, he knows that one of them weighs more than the other eight. He has access to a classic scale, you know the one with two arms often seen in Lady Justice's hand? What is the minimum number of measurements required to know with absolute certainty which pearl is the one that weighs more? All right? Give us your guess?

S: It's a fun one.

E: Yeah, it is a fun one. Go ahead and give us your best guess, [mailto:info@theskepticsguide.org info@theskepticsguide.org] and our message boards are [http://sguforums.com sguforums.com]. Good luck everyone.

S: Thanks, Evan.

== Interview with Massimo Pigliucci <small>(42:33)</small> ==
S: We are joined now by Massimo Pigliucci. Massimo, welcome back to the Skeptics' Guide!

M: Thank you, it's a pleasure as usual.

S: And Massimo is the chair of the Department of Philosophy at CUNY-Lehman College, the editor in chief of the journal Philosophy & Theory in Biology. He's the host of a podcast called Rationally Speaking and also one of the authors on the blog by the same name. The author of several books, including the book that we will be discussing this evening: [http://www.amazon.com/Answers-Aristotle-Science-Philosophy-Meaningful/dp/0465021387/ref=la_B001IU0D3K_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1343828923&sr=1-6 Answers for Aristotle]. But his greatest claim to skeptical and scientific fame, was that he was the first ever guest on The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

''(laughter)''

M: That's exactly right.

E: As if he needed anything else.

S: That's right. I was just- That's just the cherry on the top, Massimo.

''(laughter)''

S: Massimo, I talk about you a lot actually, in skeptical circles because like you're the one, in my opinion, like the one real philosopher that we have in the skeptical movement. I'm not saying you're the only philosopher, but you're the one who's active. Who's trying to keep the rest of us philosophically honest, if you will.

M: ''(laughter)''

S: And that, that's essentially what your recent book, Answer for Aristotle, is about. So, tell us about it.

M: Yeah, in some sense. It is aimed at the general public, so it's not a technical book. But it is about the relationship between philosophy and science which I think that is something that certainly members of the skeptic movement should be aware of, or a little more sort of cognisant of. But the basic idea of the book is really that this is essentially a self-help book for people who don't believe in self-help books. The basic approach is that, look, when we're dealing with the big questions in life, you know: morality, or relationships, or you know, general views of the world and whatever, where do we get our best hints, our best information about that? I don't think we get them from religion. Common sense is helpful, but up to a certain point. So, it seems to me that the best combination of answers, or at least approaches to those kinds of questions, come from the two most effective traditions of thought in the Western -- possibly the world -- history, which are of course science, as far as factual questions are concerned and philosophy, as far as how to reflect on the implications of those factual answers we get from science. So that's what the book is about, it's how to combine science and philosophy in what I sort of jokingly call Sci-Phi -- actually, people pronounce it Sci-Fi, but it should be Sci-Phi, because the second part is P-H-I for philosophy.

S: Sci-Phi?

M: Yeah, that's right. ''(laughter)'' But I think that Sci-Fi was more, I don't know, the publicist thought it was more, sounded better than Sci-Phi.

''(laughter)''

E: Right.

S: Right. Well, then why didn't the Sci-Fi Channel change it's name to Sci-Phi?

M: Yeah, that's a good question!

''(laughter)''

B: That really pissed me of when they did that.

M: Agreed.

S: So, science gives us the facts, as it were, and philosophy tells us how to think about those facts. Is that a fair summary?

M: Well, yeah, it's, of course as you know that's a little simple version of the whole thing. In reality there is no sharp distinction between science and philosophy. There are many areas of overlap, the most obvious one perhaps is philosophy of science, or, and in fact also epistemology. I mean, there are areas of philosophy that are directly relevant to science and there also areas of science that are definitely relevant to philosophy, I mean, one cannot do these days any serious philosophy of mind, for instance, unless one is well read in, you know, neurobiology and current science. So, there's quite a bit more overlap than the simple distinction between science and philosophy. But it is true that, you know, historically speaking and strictly in modern, in the modern (GARBLED), the true disciplines have evolved unto quite different directions and yes, broadly speaking, science deals with the best factual information we can get about the world, and philosophy deals with reflecting, you know, methods of reflecting about what that, that information tells us.

S: Yeah, so they're complementary intellectual disciplines-

M: Right.

S: -if you will. And, I think what's, I know you've made this point a lot, and I know in your blog as well, and also in our prior discussions that, scientists who think they can answer all questions, with just science, have to first realise, that when doing science they are also practicing philosophy, cause there has to be a philosophical underpinning of science itself.

M: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of the best summaries of that position was actually due to Dan Dennett. As you know, several years ago he wrote Darwin's Dangerous Idea, which is one of the most influential books, in, in sort of many peoples understanding of evolution and implication of Darwinism and so on and so forth. But in that book, as much as that book is, of course, very much science friendly, and does take on-board, you know, evolutionary biology in particular, Dennett points out that there is no such a thing as philosophy-free science, there is only science that takes on-board the philosophy without examining it. No, now, the question is now that scientist shouldn't necessary do philosophy, in fact I would discourage scientists from doing philosophy. Just in the same way in which I would discourage philosophers from doing science. Those are sufficiently separate activities, as I said, that requires different skills, and also, by the way, they have developed huge technical literature of their own so it's really difficult to do both in a reasonable way. But, what I do suggest is that both scientists, as academics, and sort of general public at large, would be better of by respecting each others territory and what comes out of the other field, and also being a little bit acquainted with what comes out of the other field.

S: Yeah, so just as, like in the skeptical movement in just, in general, we promote the idea that people should have a basic scientific literacy, not that they should be able to practice science as a layperson, but just be scientifically literate. By the same token, people should be philosophically literate as well, not to be able to engage at cutting-edge philosophical technical discussions, but to have some idea when philosophy is in play at least.

M: Correct. So for instance, a little bit of understanding of basic philosophy or science or epistemology for instance, would go quite a long way for skeptics, to have, to develop a better appreciation not just for the power of science, which is, you know, unquestionable within the community, or unquestioned within the community, but also for the limits of science, you know, there is a lot of stuff that science hasn't figured, maybe will never figure out, you know, there is a lot of, you know, science needs to be seen for what it is: a very powerful, but nonetheless human epistemic activity, based on certain methods, those methods have certain problems and limitations. The skeptic is supposed to be thinking rationally about broad range of issues and that ought to include, it seems to me, also the functioning of science itself.

S: Is there an area where you most frequently see science or skeptics go wrong when it comes to philosophy as it's relevant to what we do.

M: Oh, that's a great question. ''(laughter)'' I think there's more than one.

''(laughter)''

S: Give your top three-

J: Slow down, slow down, don't, don't kill us.

M: No no no no. It's- So, one of the, I think, the major areas that I've seen coming up, quite often in the last, especially the last two-three years, is actually the relationship- it's ethics. And what science can or cannot tell us about ethics. There seems to be a lot of confusion about, you know, ethical reasoning and what it is about, and are there moral truths and how do we discover moral truths and all that sort of stuff. And of course, the naïve position among some skeptic quarters is that well you know, either morality is all about- it's entirely a human invention, so it's essentially one step removed from moral relativism, which most of us don't wanna go to, or, then if it is about objective fact then those facts have to be of course matters that science can investigate and therefore we're gonna have, you know, you name it, evolutionary biology or neurobiology is gonna give us answers to moral questions. I think that the reality is a lot more complicated than that. I think that evolutionary biology tells us something very important about morality, that neurobiology tells us something very important about morality, but that neither one of those exhaust what, you know, the province essentially of moral (GARBLED) of ethics in general. So, let me give you a quick example: I think that evolutionary biology is absolutely necessary in order to understand where a sense of moral, right and wrong, comes from. I mean, we evolved it. We are social animals of a particular type and there is no magic behind it, it doesn't come from gods, it evolved over a period of time, the building blocks of a moral sense, a moral intuition if you will, or a moral instinct can be found in other primates and that makes perfect sense. I mean, it would be really bizarre if morality for some reason where the only thing that we cannot find any, sort of, gradual examples or partial examples in other species. So-

S: Yeah, birds have morality. I mean, birds punish each other for not-

M: Yeah.

S: -doing what the group is in the groups best interest. If one bird doesn't warn the others about a predator, then they won't get warned next time around. You know, so that's been-

J: Wow.

S: -demonstrated experimentally.

M: (GARBLED) Quibble a little bit about that, is, I wouldn't go as far as saying that they have morality as in, obviously, as we understand it from a human perspective, meaning they don't have the ability to reply.

E: Dear Duane.

M: But they do have an instinct, that correspond, that if you were to see those actions in a human being, you would say, "oh that's a moral action."

S: Well that, that's, but my point is what you were saying that there are evolutionary antecedents we could see the elements of morality in other species, obviously an elementary form, not in the reflective form that we have, but they have an instinctive notion of reciprocity which informs our ethical senses, right?

M: Exactly, right. From there to neurobiology or the current science in general of moral decision making that also tells you something interesting. It tells you for instance, not only which areas of the brain tend to be involved in moral thinking and that sort of stuff, which is interesting in and of itself, but it tells you something more deep about how we think about morality. For instance, let me give you one example: you probably, you guys probably now have heard a bit about, sort of the different versions of the trolley dilemma.

S: Yeah.

B: Yeah.

M: Two basic forms, as you likely know, are the one in which there is this trolley coming down the road and it's about to hit and kill five people and you have, you happen to have a very convenient located lever next to you, that if you pull you're gonna divert the trolley on a second track where it is gonna kill only one person. Question: would you do it or not? Answer: empirically speaking, most people would say yes. That's interestingly, by the way, cross-cultural, depending (GARBLED) how you present the dilemma, pretty much people will respond in the same way. Eighty or ninety percent of people say yes. Then you switch into a second situation where you don't have the lever, you're on top of a bridge, there's this really bulky, big guy in front of you and the only option you have is to push the guy of the bridge to save the five people. Question: would you do it? Most people answer no. Now, the interesting question there is why would people answer, most people answer, yes to one and no to the other since at least at one level of analysis the two situations are perfectly analogous: in both cases you have five people you're about to save and one person that you're about to kill. Now, turns out that neurobiology sheds some light on this and it's perhaps not surprising, but it's interesting the way it works. It turns out that if you do a brain-scan of, you know, with all the limitations of course of neural scanning and current technology, but if you do a neural scan of people, an FMRI of people, when they are involved in thinking about the two versions of the dilemma, in the first case, the lever case, people tend to involve the areas of the brain, like the frontal cortex, that are involved typically in sort of rational, deliberate decision making. On the other hand, when people are thinking in terms of the second version of the dilemma, the pushing guy of the bridge, a lot of the action switches to the amygdala, which of course is more connected to emotional reactions and fear and things like the sort. Now, that makes perfect sense, because basically the second version of the dilemma is much more personal. You're about to actually push somebody, as opposed to do something from a distance, like pulling a lever. So it makes perfect sense that people switch ways of thinking, they use different neural pathways essentially to think about this. That is very interesting and without the science we wouldn't find out why exactly people are doing that. The question however still remains, should you or should you not push the damn guy of the bridge?

S: Yeah.

M: Right.

J: I think an interesting way to look at it too are "what about the social ramifications." Like, you're gonna, you're actually breaking the law if you push the guy of the bridge, even though you're not gonna get arrested for not saving people's lives. Does that come into play?
M: Uh, it does, it depend again, as I said earlier, there is a lot of different variants of the thought experiment, and yes, some of those do involve information about the, you know, consequences and if you, of course, were in moral philosophy (GARBLED) it's called a consequentialist (GARBLED), you will take those into account as well. But the basic version doesn't include those and it's one of the things comes out interestingly, for instance from the cognitive science literature, is that there is a small minority of people who do not change their mind, who both will push- uh, you know, pull the lever and push the guy of the bridge. Turns out that psychologically speaking those people corresponds to a somewhat sociopathic profile.

S: Mhmm.

M: Those are people that essentially do not engage with the amygdala, they don't engage the emotional reaction, they just think rationally about the whole thing. The reason I brought that up is because, so, now we have an evolutionary account of how we got morality to begin with, we have a neurobiological account of, we begin to have a neurobiological account of how we actually engage in that sort of thinking, and all of this is very interesting. The thing that we still need to deal with, however, is, okay, in interesting, complex, real-life situations, what we ought to do, and now I think is where the philosophy, the interesting philosophy, comes in, because of course there are hundreds of years of discussions among philosophers that have been able to frame moral dilemmas according to two or three major ways of thinking about it. One is the one that I mentioned a minute ago, the (GARBLED) consequentialist view. There is also the ontological thinking which is based on rules essentially and then there is vitalistic(?) thinking that is based on sort of character development, of what is the right thing to do in terms of what is the right person you wanna develop into. Anyway, those three frameworks help you think about the dilemma in a way that might lead you to reach a conclusion or consider a conclusion based on reason, so you go beyond your instinctual reaction, you go beyond what amygdala is telling you and you think about it and say "well, wait a minute, here's the situation, here's what the right thing to do is and here's why."

S: Then there are those people like Sam Harris, who I know you have engaged with at least on your blog, who argue that: if we had enough scientific information, that could answer moral questions for us, essentially. You've pretty much explained what's wrong with that answer, but how have you responded to Sam Harris' position.

M: Well, let me give you a simple analogy. Imagine instead of talking about moral decision making, were talking about mathematical abilities, right? So, how is it that people have developed, human beings have developed the ability to solve mathematical problems. Well, again, you got the same three sort of answers. From an evolutionary perspective it probably was useful at some point or another to start counting or to start thinking in terms of very simple abstract mathematical entities that helped our survival. That's of course speculation, we don't really have access to the relevant information, ecologically speaking, but it's very likely that something like that happened. Now, today you could put somebody that's, say, who's trying to prove Fermat's Last Theorem, you can put him under an FMRI-scan and you can figure out how active different areas of the brain are, and so on and so forth. There is one thing however, that neither this scan, nor the evolutionary story can actually tell you and that is "is the guy getting the proof of the Theorem right?"

S: "Is two plus two four?"

M: Yeah.

S: Well, Massimo. Thanks for joining us again on the show, it's always a pleasure, it always seems like it goes by faster and we're just scratching the surface. But for our listeners, Answers to Aristotle, just tell us about that title for a second, because that's interesting.

M: Aristotle is in fact the philosopher that is most widely quoted or referred to in the book and there is a reason for that. Aristotle was the first guy in the Western tradition, that really was doing exactly what a (GARBLED) the book is about. He was doing philosophy, he is known for establishing the foundations of logic for writing the first comprehensive book about ethics and so on and so forth. But he also was doing science, I mean, most people don't realise this but Aristotle was actually doing field biology of a way on the island of Lesbos, among other places. And he was trying to figure out, okay, was interested in, for instance, shells and he was there and he was collecting samples and looking at things. Now, he got a lot of stuff wrong (GARBLED) idea that we got answers for the questions that he asked that he certainly did not have access to. But he does embody the spirit of the book. He was the guy that figured out that "look, you need both factual questions and to ways reflect on the meaning of those questions," and that is sort of the science and philosophy combination in the broadest possible sense.

S: Well, thanks again Massimo!

J: Thanks Massimo.

B: Thank you.

M: It was a pleasure as usual.

== Science or Fiction <small>(1:01:19)</small> ==
''Voiceover: It's time for Science or Fiction''

S: Each week I come up with three science or news items or facts, two genuine and one fictitious. Then I challenge my panel of sceptics to tell me which one they think is the fake. Now before we get started this week, because this is the first Science or Fiction of 2013, I do have the stats, the full Science or Fiction stats, from last year.

E: Eurgh

S: These were sent to us by Cat, from sgutranscripts.org, so thanks Cat. So, here they are for 2012: Bob had played 47 games, lost 19, won 28 for a total of 59.6%.

B: Eurgh, damn.

S: Evan played 50, 25 and 25, exactly 50%.

E: Wow, I think wow, that's pretty good.

S: Jay also played 50, lost 26, won 24 so just shy of Even at 48%. I played 7, lost 3 and won 4 so am at 57.1%, just behind Bob and Rebecca played 44, lost 17, won 27 for a total of 61.4%.

E: Wow.

S: Just edged out Bob.

B: Nice.

S: Congratulations Rebecca.

R: Thank you.

B: Congratulations.

R: Thank you.

J: Overall we're way above average.

E: That was...

S: All doing better than random guessing.

B: Yeah but...

R: Hooray.

B: Rebecca and I did worse than last year though.

R: Yeah. I felt dumber this year.

E: Jay and I picked up the slack though.

B: How could I start off so well and then totally tank it?

S: Regression to the mean. Randomness.

J: Evan, our goal for this year, better than 50%.

E: You bet...

S: OK.

E: You bet buddy.

S: It's a brand new year though, guys. Are you all ready?

E: Clean slate.

S: We do have a theme for this week.

''(laughter)''

R: God damn it.

S: This theme... ''(laughter)'' this theme is dedicated to Jay. It's all about little babies.

''(overlapping comments)''

J: OK

S: Prepare Jay for his...

R: Because Jay's a giant baby?

S: Yeah, for his upcoming...

E: Oh, is that what you mean?

S: ... child to be born in a few weeks.

R: Oh my...

''(overlapping comments)''

S: Hope all goes well. OK...

E: So excited.

S: Here we are - [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130101182012.htm item number one] - a study finds that maternal use of anti-depressants during pregnancy is associated with a greater risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). [http://www.plu.edu/news/2012/12/infant-language/ Item number two] - a new study concludes that babies start learning language in the womb. And [http://news.temple.edu/news/2012-12-13/let-crying-babes-lie-study-supports-notion-leaving-infants-cry-themselves-back-sleep item number three] - new research finds that for most babies it is better to leave them alone when they cry at night rather than comforting them. Jay, 'cos this is a theme in your honour, you get to go first.

J: The first one, about the study that says that mothers that took anti-depressants while they were pregnant - that's interesting that it increases SIDS. Now I do know that SIDS... SIDS is when the baby stops breathing and I thought that that had to do with temperature. OK, the second one about the babies learning language in the womb, I believe that one is correct. I think that they can hear their mothers' voices before they're born and they can identify their mother's voice and actually start to pick up language. So I think that one is science and the third one, the last one about... it's better to leave most babies and let them cry at night instead of comforting them - I'm not sure about that. Now this one, of course Steve's not going to answer questions but, a new born baby absolutely needs to be fed on a regular basis and one of those reasons why a baby cries is because it wants to be fed. It could be just hungry, which, you should feed a hungry baby. The whole crying baby thing, to me, you gotta go in, you gotta check on the baby and feed them. But for some reason I'm thinking here Steve that because you're gonna be leaving the baby alone in a room that this could be later maybe not a new born. I'm gonna say that because of how vague that third one is, I'm gonna say that the first one, the one about SIDS is the fake.

S: OK, Bob?

B: The babies start learning language in the womb, yeah that just makes sense. I would expect that the unborn baby can hear it's mother's voice. I remember reading a while back about how babies can recognise their mothers' voices soon after birth. It just makes sense that they would become accustomed to the language and be primed and ready to go right out of the gate so to speak so that makes sense to me. Leaving crying babies alone, yeah that was the conventional wisdom twelve, fourteen years ago when I had an infant in the house. After Ashley was born it was pretty much - a lot of people were saying that and it makes a lot of sense, you know the baby wakes up, there's some separation anxiety and if the parents come rushing in then the baby will get used to that and expect it all the time and if they can get used to waking up, being alone then going back to sleep, bam, perfect, that's what the baby will do. So that makes a lot of sense too so considering that two and three make so much sense to me, I just think that you could say that mothers who have had babies who died of SIDS, I just don't think you'd have a decent percentage of them that would be on anti-depressants. Yeah, I'm going to say the SIDS is fiction.

S: OK, Rebecca?

R: Ah, yeah. I don't know but the one about leaving babies alone when they cry at night - there's like a huge can of worms in the parenting blogs and forums - I feel like that's one of those things that...

E: You read those?

R: I have friends who are parents who get involved in the mommy blogs and stuff - yeah that's for the past thirty years or so that's been a huge thing - there's even a title for it like it's a parenting style that's specifically based on remaining fairly detached from your children in the hopes that they will learn to fend for themselves and everything that I've read, which admittedly is not a ton because I don't have a kid and I'm not planning to have one any time soon, but everything that I've read suggests that it's BS, that like Jay said, when the baby cries it's crying for a reason go pick it up. So I'm going to say that's the fiction.

S: And Evan?

E: Oh, everyone made very good cases for all of these. Bob, you, I think you hit on the SIDS one, anti-depressants during pregnancy associated with a greater risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Anti-depressants being more prescribed these days than they were way back when but there was still SIDS occurring way back when so I'm thinking that that one's the fiction. But Rebecca, you brought up a good point, good points about the crying. Rebecca I hate to leave you alone out there I'm going to go with what my first instinct way I'm going to say that the SIDS is the fiction.

S: OK so... I'm a little surprised that you guys all believe that a new study concludes that babies start learning language in the womb is science.

E: Spanish or French?

B: Why?

S: You guys all believe that one - I don't know, that one struck me as being a little out there but that one is science.

B: Why did you think that one was out there?

R: That was the most obvious one to me.

J: Steve I read that one and I was talking to my wife Courtney about it and she goes ah I don't know that sounds like BS to me.

S: Yeah.

J: Which I thought was funny 'cos now it's on our game here.

S: It just struck me as like really, really? Alright, but this is true a study does conclude this, I'm not sure how much I totally buy the conclusion and this is the first time a study has shown that newborns are not naive to the language of their mother. What the researcher did, this is Christine Moon, professor of psychology at Pacific Lutheran University, they studied infants that were just hours old and the research paradigm's interesting. They had them suck on a pacifier that was attached to a computer and when they sucked on the pacifier ''(laughter)'' - hang on - they sucked on the pacifier it would...

E: Ten thousand volts.

S: It would play a recording of vowels from either their mothers' native language or a foreign language.

B: Interesting.

S: And it would play for as long as they sucked and then when they stopped sucking it would stop and then when they started sucking again it would play a different vowel.

B: They sucked more.

S: So the question was would they listen more to the vowels...

B: Parent language.

S: From their parent language or their mothers' language specifically or from a foreign language and with the idea, and this was a paradigm used in other research, that they would listen longer to vowels that they were not familiar with.

B: Oh, interesting.

S: Because they were novel, the brain's like hey, this is new, I've got to pay attention to this, not oh this is something I've been hearing for months, you know? And in fact they found that the infants did listen longer, you know based upon their sucking on this pacifier, to vowel sounds from foreign languages than to their mothers' language.

R: But what if they found the mothers' language more soothing so wanted to listen to it longer?

B: Yeah.

S: As I said, this is, you've got to buy every link in this chain...

R: Yeah, dumb, it's dumb.

S: You know, to buy this. But the thing is any difference, any difference you can take that they're not naive and it was not that they're listening to sounds of their mother, just vowels from their mothers' language or a foreign language. So any difference would... means that they're getting something, you know, if you believe the difference itself, if the data itself is compelling. Definitely the kind of study that I'd like to see replicated and looked at from different angles but that was what this study concluded.

E: Great.

S: Let's go to number 1, a study finds that maternal use of anti-depressants during pregnancy is associated with a greater risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Rebecca thinks this one is science, the rest of you think this one is the fiction and this one is... the fiction.

''(overlapping comments)''

B: Yeah baby.

R: Not a good start.

B: One hundred, one hundred percent.

S: Ah so yeah, this is interesting. So first of all the news item that I was basing this on showed the opposite - the use of anti-depressants during pregnancy not linked with increased risk of still birth, infant death or other bad outcomes so that's very nice. And I did do a little research on, you know, 'cos I said let me just say the opposite and then I did some research just on SIDS and specifically what the literature shows is that depression in the mother is associated with increased risk of SIDS and in fact this leads to a recommendation that mothers be treated for their depression...

B: Interesting, woah.

S: In the hopes that it would decrease the risk of SIDS if anything because untreated depression is a risk factor that has been identified for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Now SIDS still remains a little mysterious, you know, it's not like we completely understand exactly what, you know, what is happening, we've identified lots of factors, you know, that increase or decrease the risk and it's thought that, you know, it is... that they essentially they stop breathing. And over the years I've read so many different things like, you know, it's good if they're in the room with the parents because maybe the higher CO2 content drives the infant's respiration more. There are some drugs that are associated with an increased risk of SIDS and those are more for breast feeding now, not anti-natal. So for breast feeding mothers, anti-depressants are still fine but you want to avoid anything that would be sedating so Valium-like drugs are not good, lithium was also another one that was identified, so drugs that could pass through to the infant through breast feeding and can cause sedation will increase the risk of SIDS. The bottom line is if you're breast feeding, your OB should know every medication that you're taking and you need to talk to them about is this something that would get passed through the breast milk to the infant and what risk or effects might it have. So don't just take... breast feeding is actually... you're still linked to the infant, you know, biologically. It's actually more metabolically demanding on the mother than being pregnant, breast feeding, you still need to take that very seriously. Alright, which means, new research finds that for most babies it is better to leave them alone when they cry at night rather than comfort them is science. Now, Rebecca, you're right in that this is a controversy and there's two sides, there's two schools of thought here. There's the... if you comfort them they'll feel reassured and more secure and if you leave them alone to cry they'll feel abandoned then the other side is what Bob articulated which is they, kids need to learn, babies need to learn how to sooth themselves, if you run to them every time you hear them cry you're re-enforcing the behaviour, the crying, and they're not going to learn how to sooth themselves and that is essentially what this latest round now in this controversy has shown. Researchers have found that babies need to learn how to sooth themselves back to sleep. This is also based partly on the notion that infants have a sleep cycle just like everyone else, just like adults, and that sleep cycle involves, you know, going into deeper stages of sleep and then coming into lighter sleep, kind of waking up and then drifting off back to sleep again, that's natural. If the child is fussy or is, you know, upset at all when it wakes up it might cry during that stage of its sleep but that's perfectly normal for it to be quote unquote awake, you know, at that time and what the researchers found is that for some babies, again not for everyone but for some, that they were better sleepers later on in life, meaning like eighteen months, you know, two years, if they were allowed to sooth themselves back to sleep and that those babies whose parents picked them up every time they cried, that they had delayed learning of self-soothing and had a worse sleep later on. So, good job guys.

R: Meuhh.

S: Of to an ironic start, given that Rebecca won last year and...

E: Watch, she'll sweep the table the rest of the year.

S: Yeah, it's, hey, it's an endurance test, you know?

R: Yeah, it's a marathon.

S: It's like one basket in basketball, doesn't mean that much.

B: It's a marathon but right now you're in last place.

== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:16:01)</small> ==

S: So Jay, do you have a quote for us this week?

J: I have a quote that was sent in by a listener named Jim O'Rourke and this is a quote from one of my absolute favourite science popularists.

<blockquote>Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend things which are there.</blockquote>

E: Hmm.

J: Does that sound like anybody?

E: Arthur Clarke?

J: Nope. Richard Feynman.

B: Ah.

S: Richard Feynman.

B: He's got a lot of good quotes.

S: Yeah, he's very quotable.

J: Richard Feynman!

(laughter)

== Announcements ==
=== The Yellow Cab of the Universe <small>(1:16:34)</small> ===
* http://www.yellowcabuniverse.com/

J: A listener of our show emailed us and said that we had inspired him in part to create something that I looked into and I thought was one of the best things that I had found in 2012 as far as a learning tool, an entertainment tool. The listeners name is Eduardo Galvani and we started chit-chatting, he wrote a book for the iPad, it's called ''The Yellow Cab of the Universe'' whcih you could see how we may have inspired him. I loved it, I downloaded it, he gave me, he invited me to download his book, I did, it ended up, it's one of the best books I have ever downloaded on my iPad, it's amazingly interactive and it goes into a very simple yet very eloquent explanation of the universe and of the cosmos, it's just fantasic, this book is something that you could do with your kids I think as an after Christmas present, you know you want to buy something that you could do with your children that would really capture their attention, the book just keeps going on and on, the content is fantastic. He's, with his daughter, he's asking his daughter about her school, and she said "I don't like science, it's too boring," and it really bothered him, it shocked him, and he started to think "what's wrong? It's not the science, the science is incredible, it's the way it's being taught," and he realised very soon after that that he had to create an interactive book that it all kind of gelled in his head, and he did. I don't recommend things often, I have absolutely zero stake in this other than I really am interested in having people spend time with their children and educate their kids on science, this is it, guys. This is one of those things that I think could really influence a young kid's mind to understand, not only understand the universe, understand science and have an interest in that something that's important for the future. So you can go to his website, [http://www.yellowcabuniverse.com/ yellowcabuniverse.com], and that'll tell you everything that you need to know, you could also look it up in the iTunes store. Do it, enjoy it, and if you really liked it, send me an email and let me know what you think and tell me what your child's reaction to it was, I'd be curious to know what they got out of it.

S: All right, thanks Jay. And thanks for joining me all this week.

R: Thank you, Steve.

B: Thank you, Steve.

E: Thank you, Steve.

J: Happy new year to you and everybody, guys.

E: Happy new year, let's have a good one.

R: Happy new year.

S: Happy new year. Looking forward to a great 2013 and until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

{{Outro1}}

== References ==
<references/>

{{Navigation}}

Help:Getting Started

2014-02-28T21:29:46Z

Teleuteskitty: fixed fake headers

This page covers the basics of setting up and editing a page, for more detailed information, see the list of [[#Useful_links|useful links]] below. If you have any other questions or suggestions, please add them to the [[SGUTranscripts:Community portal|Community portal]], where one of us will be happy to help.

If you'd like to just try your hand at transcribing, we suggest you start with an SGU 5x5 as these are much shorter, or a single segment from an episode.

== Adding pages to episode lists ==
By adding your page to the episode list templates, they will appear on both the [[Main Page]], and the individual [[SGU Episodes]] pages. Currently, all SGU 5X5 episodes have been added to the [[5X5 Episodes]] list, for information on how to edit entries in the [[Template:5X5 episode list]], see [[Template:5X5 list entry]].

It's easy to add your transcript of choice to [[Template:SGU episode list]]. Click "Edit" on the top right and you will see the wiki markup for that page. Don't worry, it's quite simple. Find the spot where your transcript belongs chronologically, and add the episode link, date and status template.

Adding a status template indicates what stage the transcription is at by including a linked icon.

{| class="wikitable"
! Description
! Appearance on page
! What you type
|-
|Entire page reserved for transcription

Use [[Template:i]]
|
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{i}}
|<pre>* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{i}}</pre>
|-
|Episode open for transcription

Use [[Template:i]]
|
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{open}}
|<pre>* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{open}}</pre>
|-
|Transcription complete, proofreading required

Use [[Template:mag]]
|
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{mag}}
|<pre>* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{mag}}</pre>
|-
|Episode complete and proof-read

Use [[Template:tick]]
|
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{tick}}
|<pre>* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{tick}}</pre>
|}

Putting the page name between double square brackets inserts the link to the page (see the [[#Links|links section]] below). Click "Show preview" to make sure everything looks right. Add a summary to describe your edit, something like "added link to episode 355", and hit "Save page".

Now, if you go to the [[Main Page]], or [[SGU Episodes]], you will see your new edit in place. If you click on the link, you will be taken to an edit box for your new page, and you're good to go.

=== Reserving episodes/segments ===
To indicate that you are working on the transcript for a whole episode, add the [[Template:transcribing all|transcribing all]] template at the top of the page, and insert your user name (optional):

<pre>{{transcribing all
|transcriber = user name
|date = yyyy-mm-dd
}}</pre>

This will appear on your page like this:
{{transcribing all
|transcriber = user name
|date = yyyy-mm-dd
}}

If you would like to work on a single section of the transcription, then you can use the [[Template:transcribing|transcribing]] template instead, placed in the relevant section on the page:
{{transcribing
|transcriber = user name
|date = yyyy-mm-dd
}}

== Editing pages ==
If you want to get transcribing right away, we are more than happy for you to do a text-only transcript, as this is really the lion's share of the work.

You can edit any page by clicking the "Edit" tab at the top of the page, which allows you to edit the whole page. If you just want to edit one section, you can click on the "Edit" link to the right of the section heading.

After entering your content into the edit box, enter a description of what you did in the summary field, then click 'preview' to ensure that your work is being displayed as intended.

It's generally best to check the preview before saving a page in order to avoid excessive entries in the [[Special:RecentChanges|Recent changes]] log. This log shows all changes made to the website, and is useful for checking for new additions, such as messages in the [[SGUTranscripts:Community portal|Community portal]]. However, be careful not to lose your work by navigating away from the edit page.

When you're happy with the page, or want to save your progress and come back to it later, click 'save page', which will show your newly edited page in all its glory.

=== Edit summary ===
When saving a page, it is considered good practice to add a brief summary of the edit in the field above the save and preview buttons. For example, "Interview segment transcribed", "transcript completed", or "proof-read to 45:30".

Adding a summary helps us quickly see what's been done on a page, and distinguishes between different revisions of the page should users wish to compare edits or return to an earlier version. All versions of a page are automatically saved in their revision history, and can be viewed by clicking on the 'View history' tab of the page itself, or from the link in the [[Special:RecentChanges|Recent changes]] log.

You can set your user preferences to show an alert if you try to save a page without entering a summary. When you are logged in, a 'My preferences' link appears at the top of the screen. If you click on this, and go to the 'Editing' tab, you will see a list of check-boxes, including one stating "Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary".

=== Adding comments ===
If you would like someone to look over your transcription to help with distinguishing between Rogues, or to help with any parts of the transcription, it is helpful if you can insert a comment stating the time in the podcast at that point, and post a message on the [[SGUTranscripts:Community portal|Community portal]]. Comments are entered between <code><nowiki>""</nowiki></code> in the editing box and do not appear on the saved page. For example:
<pre></pre>
makes that text visible only in the editing box, not the page itself. This means that any user that tries to help with this problem will be able to get to the root of the issue quickly.

Comments can also be very useful when you want to come back to a section later, for example to add to the [[Help:How to Contribute#Today I Learned...|''Today I Learned...'' list]], or to add links.

== Wiki mark-up ==
Here, we briefly describe the most commonly used wikitext markup and HTML tags for pages on this site.
HTML tags take the form <code><nowiki><tag></nowiki></code> to start, and <code><nowiki></tag></nowiki></code> to end, encompassing the text that the tag applies to. Most require a closing tag, but not all of them (e.g <code><nowiki><br /></nowiki></code> and <code><nowiki><references/></nowiki></code>).

For more detail, see [[metawikipedia:Help:Advanced_editing|Meta-Wiki: Advanced editing]]

:&otimes; If you would like to leave the mark-up to someone else, or if you have any questions or suggestions, just put a note in the [[SGUTranscripts:Community portal|Community portal]], and someone will be happy to help out. (see [[#Community_Portal|notes on the Community portal]] below)

=== Headers ===
These are used to mark the different podcast segments, and are automatically incorporated into a table of contents that appears at the top of the page.

An example of the different headers used in transcription pages can be found at the [[Episode skeleton]] page

{| class="wikitable"
! width="40%"| Description
! width="20%"| Appearance on page
! width="20%"| What you type
|-
|Headers for each of the different segments of the podcast are made by using 2 'equals' signs.
These are second level headers.
|
<span style="font-size: 150%; margin-bottom: .6em; border-bottom: 1px solid #aaa; page-break-after: avoid;">
Podcast Segment</span>
|<pre>==Podcast Segment==</pre>
|-
|Headers for subsections within the podcast segments are made by using 3 'equals' signs.
These are third level headers.
|
<span style="font-size: 132%; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: .3em; page-break-after: avoid;">
Segment subsection</span>
|<pre>===Segment subsection===</pre>
|-
|We also include the time at which podcast segments start in a small font, using the <code><nowiki><small></nowiki></code> and <code><nowiki></small></nowiki></code> tags.

|
<span style="font-size: 132%; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: .3em; page-break-after: avoid;">News Item 2 <small>(24:32)</small></span>
|<pre>=== News Item 2 <small>(24:32)</small>===</pre>
|}

There are a couple of guidelines to follow on these:
* Quickies with Bob should be second level headers
** If these occur between news items, then they should be followed by a second level header "News items continued" without a time stamp, and a third level header ''with'' time stampsfor the next news items. (e.g. [[SGU Episode 349]])
* Questions and Emails use a second level header for the section title, and third level headers for each question/email (e.g. [[SGU Episode 357]])

=== Line breaks and paragraphs ===
{| class="wikitable"
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! width="20%"| What you type
|-
| To start a new paragraph, leave an empty line between text in the editing window.
Use this to separate lines by different speakers
| S: This is the first line
R: This is the second line
|<pre>S: This is the first line

R: This is the second line</pre>
|-
| Starting a new line in the editing window does not appear on the actual page as a line break.
| This is my first lineThis is my second line
|<pre>This is my first line
This is my second line</pre>
|-
| To start a new line, use the <code><nowiki><br></nowiki></code> tag, which doesn't require a closing tag.
You can use this on the same line, or on a new line.
|
This is my first line<br>This is my second line
|<pre>This is my first line
<br>This is my second line</pre>
|}

=== Text formatting ===
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|-
| Words in italics are indicated by double apostrophes.
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| <pre>We want to ''emphasize'' words</pre>
|-
| Words in bold are indicated by triple apostrophes.
| We want to '''emphasize''' words
| <pre>We want to '''emphasize''' words</pre>
|-
| Superscript text is placed between <code><nowiki><sup></nowiki></code> and <code><nowiki></sup></nowiki></code> tags
| November 15<sup>th</sup> 2011
| <pre>November 15<sup>th</sup> 2011</pre>
|-
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| Water: H<sub>2</sub>O
| <pre>Water: H<sub>2</sub>O</pre>
|-
| Special characters can be inserted using wikitext.
For a list of special character codes, see [[metawikipedia:Help:Advanced_editing#Special_characters|Meta-Wiki - Advanced editing]]
| ï é
Naïveté
| <pre><nowiki>&iuml; &eacute;

Na&iuml;vet&eacute; </nowiki></pre>
|}

=== Quotes ===
{| class="wikitable"
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|-
| Long quotes are defined using the <code><nowiki><blockquote></nowiki></code> and <code><nowiki></blockquote></nowiki></code> tags.
This indents the text from both margins.
| <blockquote>All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players</blockquote>
| <pre><blockquote>All the world's a
stage, And all the men and women
merely players</blockquote></pre>
|}

=== Links ===
The default source for links used here is Wikipedia, unless there is good reason to use an alternative source. This helps to keep things uniform across transcript pages, and also means that you don't have to search for the ''ultimate'' website to explain the subject.

{| class="wikitable"
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|-
| Wikipedia links can be inserted using [[Template:W]]
To use alternative text, insert <code>|</code>
| {{w|James Randi}}
{{w|James Randi|Randi}}
| <pre>{{w|James Randi}}
{{w|James Randi|Randi}}
</pre>
|-
| Internal links (pages on sgutranscripts.org) are given within double square brackets.
To use alternative text, insert <code>|</code>
| [[Main Page]]
[[Main Page|Home]]
|<pre>[[Main Page]]
[[Main Page|Home]]</pre>
|-
| Internal links to sections of pages are identified using <code>#</code>
| [[Help:Getting Started#Wiki mark-up]]
|<pre>[[Help:Getting Started#Wiki mark-up]]</pre>
|-
| If an internal link is used, but no such page exists, the link is displayed in red.
| [[Birds vs Monkeys]]
|<pre>[[Birds vs Monkeys]]</pre>
|-
| To use different text for internal links, add a pipe-line between the page name and the text.
| [[Help:Getting Started#Wiki mark-up|Mark-up]]
| <span style="font-size:90%"><pre>[[Help:Getting Started#Wiki mark-up|Mark-up]]</pre></span>
|-
| To assign external links to text, add a space after the URL, insert the required text and enclose using single square brackets.
Remember to include <code><nowiki>http://</nowiki></code>.
| [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/ SGU website]
| <span style="font-size:90%"><pre>[http://www.theskepticsguide.org/ SGU website]</pre></span>
|-
| If no text is assigned to a link within single brackets, it appears numbered.
This should be avoided, and references should be used in cases where it is not appropriate to embed the link in text. ([[#References|see below]])
| [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/]
| <pre>[http://www.theskepticsguide.org/]</pre>
|}

=== References ===
When it does not make sense to assign a link to words in the transcription, you can use references.


References can include both text and URLs, and appear as super-scripted numbered links on the page. These link to a reference section, usually inserted at the bottom of the page, which in turn links back to the point in the text where the reference was made.

References are usually placed ''after'' punctuation. 

{| class="wikitable"
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|-
| Mark each reference separately at the relevant point in the text, using <code><nowiki><ref></nowiki></code> and <code><nowiki></ref></nowiki></code> tags.
Include the text/links you want to appear in the reference section between the tage.<br>
Clicking on the reference links in this example will take you to the examples in the next row.
| This article.<ref>Example 1</ref>
That article.<ref>Example 2</ref>
| <pre>This article.<ref>Example 1</ref>
That article.<ref>Example 2</ref></pre>
|-
|If you need to use the same reference more than once, it will need to be named using <code><nowiki><ref name=example></nowiki></code> on the first time it is used, and <code><nowiki><ref name=example/></nowiki></code> on subsequent references.
|First<ref name=ex3>Example 3</ref>
Second<ref name=ex3/>
|<pre>First<ref name=ex3>Example 3</ref>
Second<ref name=ex3/></pre>
|-
|Pages with references must contain a section for listing these including the <code><nowiki><references/></nowiki></code> tag.
This automatically lists all references on the page.

Clicking on the arrows takes you back to the place where the reference was made. When multiple references are made to the same source, links to each are given by number.

If <code><nowiki><references/></nowiki></code> is not included, an alert is shown when previewing or editing the page.
|
<span style="font-size:150%;border-bottom: 1px solid #aaa">References       </span>
<references/>
|<pre>== References ==
<references/></pre>
|}
For more information on references, see [[wikipedia:Help:Footnotes|Wiki Help:Footnotes]].

== Tips for Transcription ==
You should use whatever method of transcription you find suits you best. So far, we don't know of any speech recognition software available to do the task for us, so the following is for manual transcription only. Here's some quick info on what we've found useful so far.

Please let us know if you have any suggestions to add.
=== Audio software ===
[http://www.nch.com.au/scribe/index.html ExpressScribe] is a free program that allows you a lot of control over the audio playback, whilst using the text editor of your choice. You can assign hot-keys to actions such as play, pause, speed up, skip back etc. that are system-wide (i.e. they work no matter what other program you're in at the time). You can also use this program with a foot pedal. You can find an overview of ExpressScribe functions in [http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/transcribe-audio-video-files-text-express-scribe/ this article]

[http://www.videolan.org/index.html VLC media player] can be also used, by using the playback speed function. Dialling down the speed until you can type comfortably in your favourite text editor, a quick alt-tab to switch to vlc, then shift-left a couple of times will skip back a few seconds if you missed something. Alt-left and alt-right skips larger chunks of time. With a little practice these commands become second nature.

=== Text editing software ===
Ultimately, it doesn't matter what program you use for writing your transcription, but most have their advantages and disadvantages.

Here are some things you might want to consider:
*'''Spell-checking''' – the editing box on this site underlines unrecognized and/or misspelled words with a dotted red line, but is relatively limited.
*'''Automatic correction''' – some text editors (e.g. MS Word) automatically correct common typos, e.g. 'taht', 'beleive' and 'sicence'. This can be very handy, however, it can sometimes cause problems if a false correction is made and not noticed.
*'''Grammar checking''' – not for the podcast content itself, but for errors such as lower case letters after full-stops and two spaces in a row etc.
*'''Formatting''' – e.g. only 'straight' (or 'typewriter') apostrophes are recognised in wiki-markup for bold and italics etc., 'curly' (or typographic) apostrophes, as often used in MS Word, are not.
**To change this in MS Word 2010, go to ''File''>''Options''>''Proofing'' and click ''AutoCorrect Options''. In the pop-up window, deselect the checkbox for replacing ''"Straight quotes" with "smart quotes"'', in both the ''AutoFormat'' and ''AutoFormat As You Type'' tabs.
**To change this in older versions of MS Word, go to ''Tools''>''AutoCorrect Options''>''AutoFormat As You Type'' and deselect the checkbox for replacing ''"Straight quotes" with "smart quotes".


== Community Portal ==
The [[SGUTranscripts:Community portal|Community portal]] is a page where you can post messages about the website. This is the place to ask for help, make suggestions etc.

You can post a message here by editing and saving the page like any other, entering new topics at the top, and adding to threads within them at the bottom of the thread.

If you are replying to a post, or adding a new post within a current topic, click on the "edie" link to the righ of that topic's header. This means that it will be clear what your comment is about when others see it on the [[Special:RecentChanges|Recent changes page]], or the [http://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=SGUTranscripts:Community_portal&action=history Community Portal history page]. If you are replying to a post, you should indent your text by including one or more colons, ":"

Automatically insert your user name and the time of the post by using 4 tildes <nowiki>"~~~~"</nowiki>, or by clicking the signature button at the top of your editing box.

== Useful links ==
* Consult the [[metawikipedia:Help:Contents|User's Guide]] for information on using the wiki software.
* [[mw:Manual:Configuration_settings|Configuration settings list]]
* [[mw:Manual:FAQ|MediaWiki FAQ]]
* [https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce MediaWiki release mailing list]
* [[metawikipedia:Help:Advanced_editing|Wikimedia Help:Advanced editing]]

[[Category:Help]]

Template:SGU episode list

2014-02-28T21:12:12Z

Teleuteskitty: updated for 2014

<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.

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.

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.

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.

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>
Below are links to all the SGU episodes with transcription pages.

Jump to: [[#2013|2013]], [[#2012|2012]], [[#2011|2011]], [[#2010|2010]], [[#2009|2009]], [[#2008|2008]], [[#2007|2007]], [[#2006|2006]], [[#2005|2005]]

{|
!Key:
|-
|    {{tick}}
| –  episode proof-read
|     {{mag}}
|  –  transcription complete and needs proof-reading
|-
|    {{i}}
| –  transcription in progress
|     {{Open}}
|  –  contains sections that need transcribing
|-
|    {{a}}
|colspan="3"| –  first pass of transcription performed by Google Speech API
|}

{|style="margin:1em 3em"
|style="padding-right: 6em;white-space:nowrap" valign="top"|<span id="2014"><big>'''2014'''</big></span>
----
* [[SGU Episode 450]], Feb 22 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 449]], Feb 15 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 448]], Feb 10 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 447]], Feb 8 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 446]], Feb 1 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 445]], Jan 25 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 444]], Jan 18 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 443]], Jan 11 2014 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 442]], Jan 4 2014 {{Open}}

<span id="2013"><big>'''2013'''</big></span>
----
* [[SGU Episode 441]], Dec 28 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 440]], Dec 21 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 439]], Dec 14 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 438]], Dec 7 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 437]], Nov 30 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 436]], Nov 23 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 435]], Nov 16 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 434]], Nov 9 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 433]], Nov 2 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 432]], Oct 26 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 431]], Oct 19 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 430]], Oct 12 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 429]], Oct 5 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 428]], Sep 28 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 427]], Sep 21 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 426]], Sep 14 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 425]], Sep 7 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 424]], Aug 31 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 423]], Aug 24 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 422]], Aug 17 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 421]], Aug 10 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 420]], Aug 3 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 419]], Jul 27 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 418]], Jul 20 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 417]], Jul 13 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 416]], Jul 6 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 415]], Jun 29 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 414]], Jun 22 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 413]], Jun 15 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}
* [[SGU Episode 412]], Jun 8 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}
* [[SGU Episode 411]], Jun 1 2013 {{a}}
* [[SGU Episode 410]], May 25 2013 {{Tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 409]], May 18 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 408]], May 11 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 407]], May 4 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}
* [[SGU Episode 406]], Apr 27 2013 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 405]], Apr 20 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 404]], Apr 13 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 403]], Apr 6 2013 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 402]], Mar 30 2013 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 401]], Mar 23 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 400]], Mar 16 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 399]], Mar 9 2013 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 398]], Mar 2 2013 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 397]], Feb 23 2013 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 396]], Feb 16 2013 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 395]], Feb 9 2013 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 394]], Feb 2 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 393]], Jan 26 2013 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 392]], Jan 19 2013 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 391]], Jan 12 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 390]], Jan 5 2013 {{mag}}

<span id="2012"><big>'''2012'''</big></span>
----
* [[SGU Episode 389]], Dec 29 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 388]], Dec 22 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 387]], Dec 15 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 386]], Dec 8 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 385]], Dec 1 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 384]], Nov 24 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 383]], Nov 17 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 382]], Nov 10 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 381]], Nov 3 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 380]], Oct 27 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 379]], Oct 20 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 378]], Oct 13 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 377]], Oct 6 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 376]], Sep 29 2012 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 375]], Sep 22 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 374]], Sep 15 2012 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 373]], Sep 8 2012 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 372]], Sep 1 2012 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 371]], Aug 25 2012 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 370]], Aug 18 2012 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 369]], Aug 11 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 368]], Aug 4 2012 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 367]], Jul 28 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 366]], Jul 21 2012 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 365]], Jul 14 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 364]], Jul 7 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 363]], Jun 30 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 362]], Jun 23 2012 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 361]], Jun 16 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 360]], Jun 9 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 359]], Jun 2 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 358]], May 26 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 357]], May 19 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 345]], Feb 25 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 341]], Jan 28 2012 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 340]], Jan 21 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012 {{tick}}
|valign="top" style=white-space:nowrap|<span id="2011"><big>'''2011'''</big></span>
----
* [[SGU Episode 337]], Dec 31 2011 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 335]], Dec 17 2011 {{open}}
* [[SGU Episode 331]], Nov 19 2011 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 330]], Nov 11 2011 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011 {{tick}}
* [[SGU 24hr]], Sep 23-24 2011
* [[SGU Episode 320]], Aug 29 2011 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 312]], Jul 5 2011 {{open}}
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 298]], Mar 30 2011 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 287]], Jan 12 2011 {{Open}}

<span id="2010"><big>'''2010'''</big></span>
----
* [[SGU Episode 285]], Dec 29 2010 {{open}}
* [[SGU Episode 271]], Sep 22 2010 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 260]], Jun 30 2010 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 257]], Jun 14 2010 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 252]], May 12 2010 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 247]], Apr 7 2010 {{open}}
* [[SGU Episode 245]], Mar 25 2010 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 232]], Jan 1 2010 {{mag}}

<span id="2009"><big>'''2009'''</big></span>
----
* [[SGU Episode 220]], Oct 7 2009 {{open}}
* [[SGU Episode 216]], Sep 9 2009 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 185]], Feb 4 2009 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 184]], Jan 28 2009 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 183]], Jan 21 2009 {{i}}

<span id="2008"><big>'''2008'''</big></span>
----
* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 152]], Jun 11 2008 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 146]], May 7 2008 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 141]], Apr 2 2008 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 140]], Mar 26 2008 {{Open}}

<span id="2007"><big>'''2007'''</big></span>
----
* [[SGU Episode 127]], Dec 26, 2007 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 123]], Nov 28, 2007 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 116]], Oct 10, 2007 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 113]], Sep 19, 2007 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 111]], Sep 5, 2007 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 110]], Aug 28, 2007 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 109]], Aug 24, 2007 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 105]], Jul 25, 2007 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 104]], Jul 18, 2007 {{open}}
* [[SGU Episode 103]], Jul 11, 2007 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 102]], Jul 3, 2007 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 101]], June 20, 2007 {{open}}
* [[SGU Episode 100]], June 19, 2007 {{open}}
* [[SGU Episode 98]], June 6, 2007 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 97]], May 30 2007 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 89]], Apr 4, 2007 {{open}}
* [[SGU Episode 88]], Mar 28, 2007 {{open}}
* [[SGU Episode 79]], Jan 24, 2007 {{tick}}

<span id="2006"><big>'''2006'''</big></span>
----
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 68]], Nov 8 2006 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 62]], Sep 27 2006 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 61]], Sep 20 2006 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 55]], Aug 9 2006 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 49]], Jun 28 2006 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 47]], Jun 14 2006 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 46]], Jun 7 2006 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 38]], Apr 12 2006 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 29]], Feb 8 2006 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 28]], Feb 1 2006 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 27]], Jan 25 2006 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 26]], Jan 17 2006 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 25]], Jan 11 2006 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 24]], Jan 6 2006 {{mag}}

<span id="2005"><big>'''2005'''</big></span>
----
* [[SGU Episode 23]], Dec 21 2005 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 22]], Dec 14 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 21]], Dec 7 2005 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 20]], Nov 23 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 19]], Nov 16 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 18]], Nov 2 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 17]], Oct 26 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 16]], Oct 12 2005 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 15]], Oct 6 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 14]], Sep 28 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 13]], Sep 14 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 12]], Sep 7 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 11]], Aug 31 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 10]], Aug 23 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 9]], Aug 10 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 8]], Aug 2 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 7]], Jul 20 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 6]], Jul 7 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 4]], Jun 15 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 3]], Jun 7 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005 {{tick}}
|}

<noinclude>
[[Category: List templates]]
</noinclude>

SGU transcription competition 2

2013-10-15T18:18:54Z

Teleuteskitty: updated

<big>'''This competition has now been won! Congratulations to Droidberg.'''</big>

The terms of competition 2 were:

'''Be the biggest new contributor of the month and win SGU swag!'''

In [[SGU Episode 426|episode 426]], Jay announced the new competition: Whoever signs up and transcribes the most over the next month will win some SGU swag!

We don't mind if you do a segment or a full episode, it's minutes of podcast transcribed that will count toward your total.

'''Details''':
* You must have registered with SGUTranscripts.org after 14th September, 6pm UTC (2pm EDT)
* Contributions will be recorded up until 6pm UTC on 14th October
* The shortest single contribution accepted will be a 5x5 episode or a full segment - as defined by the headings in the episode's show notes.
* Only transcription counts (although feel free to [[Help:How to Contribute|help out]] in whatever way, it just won't get you swag, sorry)
* Minutes will always awarded the to the original contributor (so if you're working on something, [[Help:Getting_Started#Reserving_episodes.2Fsegments|reserve it]]!)

The [[Admins]] (who have once again self-sacrificingly excluded themselves from the competition) will verify the contributions (we're keeping track of them right now), and pass the winner's details on to the Rogues at the SGU.

See the [[Help:Contents| help pages]] for advice on setting started, and don't forget to include your segment time-stamps!

<div style="text-align: center;">If you have any further questions, please contact us at [mailto:info@sgutranscripts.org info@sgutranscripts.org]</div>

[[File:SGUheader.jpg|link=|center|300px]]

= SGU transcription competition 1 =

<big>'''This competition has now been won! Congratulations to Geneocide.'''</big>

Here's a photo of him wearing his SGU t-shirt:

[[File:Contest Winner.jpg|left|300px]]

The terms of competition 1 were:

'''Be the first to transcribe 5 SGU episodes (or 400 podcast minutes) and win an SGU t-shirt!'''

As announced on [[SGU Episode 378|episode 378]], the Rogues will bestow an ''SGU t-shirt of your choice'' upon the first contributor to complete 5 full SGU episodes.

To include as much transcription work as possible and encourage work in segment sized chunks, we've put the benchmark at 400 minutes of transcribed podcast time, so you can make up your total from as many different segments as you like. Once you think you've transcribed your 400 minutes, send us an email us at [mailto:info@sgutranscripts.org info@sgutranscripts.org]. The [[admins]] (who are self-sacrificingly excluded from the competition) will verify the contributions (we're keeping track of them right now), and pass the winner's details on to the Rogues at the SGU.

The shortest single contribution accepted will be a 5x5 episode or a full segment - as defined by the headings in the episode's show notes. See [[Help:Getting Started]] for advice on setting up transcription pages, and don't forget to include your segment time-stamps! We're watching out for copy-pasting and will always award the minutes to the original contributor.

If you have any further questions, please contact [mailto:info@sgutranscripts.org info@sgutranscripts.org]

Main Page

2013-10-15T18:15:18Z

Teleuteskitty: updated comp. 2 block

__NOTOC__
==Welcome to the SGU Transcripts==
We aim to provide transcripts of the [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/ Skeptics' Guide to the Universe] podcast for linking, searching and improved accessibility.

We're just getting started, [[Help:How_to_Contribute|'''please help''']]!

{|style="margin: auto"

|style="vertical-align: top;" |
{| style="border: 1px solid #9DB7C4;background:#F2F4F7;margin: 0.5em;width:240px;height:240px;vertical-align: top;" cellspacing="3"
|-
|style="background-color:#CCD4EC;text-align:center;font-size:110%;height:35px;"|<big>[[SGU Episodes|<span style="color:black;">'''SGU Transcripts'''</span>]]</big>
|-
|style="text-align:center;height:170px"|[[File:LogoSGU.png|link=SGU Episodes|160px]]
|-
|style="text-align:center;"|[[SGU Episodes|List of episode pages]]
|}

|style="vertical-align: top;" |
{| style="border: 1px solid #9DB7C4;background:#F2F4F7;margin: 0.5em;width:240px;height:240px;" cellspacing="3"
|-
|style="background-color:#CCD4EC;text-align:center;font-size:110%;height:35px;"|<big>[[5X5 Episodes|<span style="color:black;">'''5x5 Transcripts'''</span>]]</big>
|-
|style="text-align:center;height:170px"|[[File:Logo5x5.png|link=5X5 Episodes|160px]]
|-
|style="text-align:center;"|[[5X5 Episodes|List of 5x5 pages]]
|}

|style="vertical-align: top;" |
{| style="border: 1px solid #d7aa53;background:#ede3cf;margin: 0.5em;width:255px;height:243px;" cellspacing="3"
|-
|style="background-color:#e3bb6e;text-align:center;font-size:110%;height:35px;"|<big>[[SGU transcription competition 2|<span style="color:black;">'''Transcription Competition 2'''</span>]]</big>
|-
|style="padding-left:1em;padding-right:1em;padding-top:0.6em;text-align:center;"| <big>'''Congratulations to Droidberg for winning our 2nd competition!'''

And a big '''thank you''' to all who signed up and contributed!</big>
|}

|}
{|style="margin: auto"
|style="vertical-align: top;" |
{| style="border: 1px solid #B7DAC7;background:#F2FBF6;margin: 0.5em;width:260px;height:270px;" cellspacing="3"cellpadding="1"
|-
|style="background-color:#C7DEC7;text-align:center;height:35px;"|<big>[[Browse Categories|<span style="color:black;">'''Browse by Category'''</span>]]</big>
|-
|style="padding-left:1em;padding-right:1em;padding-top:0.6em;" valign="top"| Each SGU episode covers a variety of topics, from [[:Category:Astronomy & Space Science|astronomy]] and [[:Category:Nature & Evolution|evolution]], to [[:Category:Alternative Medicine|alternative medicine]] and the [[:Category:Paranormal|paranormal]].

They also include regular features, such as [[:Category:Interview|interviews]], [[:Category:Guest Rogues|guest rogues]] and [[:Category:Live Recording|live recordings]].

You can browse episodes and segments by category by clicking on the links below
|}
|style="vertical-align: top;" |
{| style="border: 1px solid #B7DAC7;background:#F2FBF6;margin: 0.5em;width:260px;height:270px;" cellspacing="3"cellpadding="1"
|-
|style="background-color:#C7DEC7;text-align:center;height:35px;"|<big>'''Quotes'''</big>
|-
|style="padding-left:1em;padding-right:1em;padding-top:0.6em;" valign="top"| '''[[Skeptical Quote Collection]]''' – The Skeptics' Guide includes a weekly quote. This page puts them all in one place for you.

'''[[Favorite Rogue Quotes]]''' – Our friends at the SGU often say some pretty profound and/or hilarious things. We've put together some of our favorites, why not add your own?
|}
|style="vertical-align: top;" |
{| style="border: 1px solid #B7DAC7;background:#F2FBF6;margin: 0.5em;width:260px;height:270px;" cellspacing="3"cellpadding="1"
|-
|style="background-color:#C7DEC7;text-align:center;height:35px;"|<big>[[Help:Contents|<span style="color:black;">'''Support'''</span>]]</big>
|-
|style="padding-left:1em;padding-right:1em;padding-top:0.6em;" valign="top"|SGUTranscripts.org is a community project, and with so much fantastic material to cover, we could do with some help.
|-
|style="padding-left:1em;padding-right:1em;"| '''[[Help:Getting Started|Getting Started]]''' – The basics of setting up and editing a page.
|-
|style="padding-left:1em;padding-right:1em;"| '''[[Help:How to Contribute|How to Contribute]]''' – There are plenty of different ways to help out, from adding links and proof-reading pages, to compiling fact lists for episodes.
|}
|}

== Categories ==
[[:Category:Categorized|{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Categorized}} transcripts]] have been categorized so far{{#ifeq: {{PAGESINCATEGORY:Needs categories}}|0||, [[:Category:Needs categories|{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Needs categories}} transcripts]] are waiting to be categorized}}. 

Numbers in parentheses indicate the number of links in each category, including both episode and individual segment links.
=== Features: ===
{|style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto;text-align: center; border-spacing: 0; padding: 2;" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0"
{{Cat. table entry
|category = Guest Rogues
|icon = CatIcon_guest.png
}}
{{Cat. table entry
|category = Live Recording
|icon = CatIcon_live.png
}}
{{Cat. table entry
|category = Interview
|icon = CatIcon_interview.png
}}
{{Cat. table entry
|category = Randi Speaks
|icon = CatIcon randi.png
}}
{{Cat. table entry
|category = Skeptical Puzzle
|icon = CatIcon puzzle.png
}}
{{Cat. table entry
|category = Amendments
|icon = CatIcon amendments.png
}}
|}

===Topics:===
{|style="margin: 1em auto 0 auto;text-align: center; border-spacing: 0; padding: 2;" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0"
{{Cat. table entry
|category = Alternative Medicine
|categoryLabel = Alternative<br>Medicine
|icon = CatIcon_altMed.png
}}
{{Cat. table entry
|category = Energy Healing
|categoryLabel = Alt med:<br>Energy Healing
|icon = CatIcon energy.png
}}
{{Cat. table entry
|category = Homeopathy
|categoryLabel = Alt med:<br>Homeopathy
|icon = CatIcon homeopathy.png
}}
{{Cat. table entry
|category = Astronomy & Space Science
|categoryLabel = Astronomy &<br>Space Science
|icon = CatIcon space.png
}}
{{Cat. table entry
|category = Cons, Scams & Hoaxes
|categoryLabel = Cons, Scams<br>& Hoaxes
|icon = CatIcon scam.png
}}
{{Cat. table entry
|category = Conspiracy Theories
|categoryLabel = Conspiracy<br>Theories
|icon = CatIcon conspiracy.png
}}
|-
{{Cat. table entry
|category = Entertainment
|categoryLabel = Entertainment<br>
|icon = CatIcon entertainment.png
}}
{{Cat. table entry
|category = General Science
|categoryLabel = General<br>Science
|icon = CatIcon science.png
}}
{{Cat. table entry
|category = History
|categoryLabel = History<br>
|icon = CatIcon history.png
}}
{{Cat. table entry
|category = Humor
|categoryLabel = Humor<br>
|icon = CatIcon humor.png
}}
{{Cat. table entry
|category = Legal Issues & Regulations
|categoryLabel = Legal Issues<br>& Regulations
|icon = CatIcon legal.png
}}
{{Cat. table entry
|category = Logic & Philosophy‏‎
|categoryLabel = Logic &<br>Philosophy
|icon = CatIcon logic.png
}}
|-
{{Cat. table entry
|category = Myths & Misconceptions‏‎
|categoryLabel = Myths &<br>Misconceptions‏‎
|icon = CatIcon myths.png
}}
{{Cat. table entry
|category = Nature & Evolution
|categoryLabel = Nature &<br>Evolution
|icon = CatIcon nature.png
}}
{{Cat. table entry
|category = Neuroscience & Psychology
|categoryLabel = Neuroscience<br>& Psychology
|icon = CatIcon neuro.png
}}
{{Cat. table entry
|category = New Age
|categoryLabel = New Age<br>
|icon = CatIcon newage.png
}}
{{Cat. table entry
|category = Paranormal
|categoryLabel = Paranormal<br>
|icon = CatIcon paranormal.png
}}
{{Cat. table entry
|category = Cryptozoology
|categoryLabel = Paranormal:<br>Cryptozoology
|icon = CatIcon crypto.png
}}
|-
{{Cat. table entry
|category = ESP
|categoryLabel = Paranormal:<br>ESP
|icon = CatIcon esp.png
}}
{{Cat. table entry
|category = Ghosts & Demons
|categoryLabel = Paranormal:<br>Ghosts & Demons
|icon = CatIcon ghosts.png
}}
{{Cat. table entry
|category = UFOs & Aliens
|categoryLabel = Paranormal:<br>UFOs & Aliens
|icon = CatIcon ufo.png
}}
{{Cat. table entry
|category = Physics & Mechanics‏‎
|categoryLabel = Physics &<br>Mechanics‏‎
|icon = CatIcon physics.png
}}
{{Cat. table entry
|category = Politics
|categoryLabel = Politics<br>
|icon = CatIcon politics.png
}}
{{Cat. table entry
|category = Prophecy
|categoryLabel = Prophecy<br>
|icon = CatIcon prophecy.png
}}
|-
{{Cat. table entry
|category = Pseudoscience
|categoryLabel = Pseudoscience<br>
|icon = CatIcon pseudoscience.png
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{{Cat. table entry
|category = Religion & Faith‏‎
|categoryLabel = Religion<br>& Faith‏‎
|icon = CatIcon religion.png
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{{Cat. table entry
|category = Creationism & ID
|categoryLabel = R&F: Creationism &<br>Intelligent Design
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{{Cat. table entry
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|categoryLabel = Science &<br>Education
|icon = CatIcon edu.png
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{{Cat. table entry
|category = Science & Medicine
|categoryLabel = Science<br>& Medicine
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}}
{{Cat. table entry
|category = Science & the Media
|categoryLabel = Science &<br>the Media
|icon = CatIcon media.png
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|}
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|}

== SGU Transcripts ==
{{SGU episode list}}

== 5X5 Transcripts ==
This is a sortable table of all of the transcribed 5X5 episodes, the date they were released, what was covered, and the topic categories.

Episodes with a tick {{tick}} as their status have been proof-read. Episodes marked with {{i}} are in progress, and those with {{Open}} need transcription.
{{5X5 episode list}}
[[Category:Navigation pages]]

Template:SGU episode list

2013-09-29T14:10:44Z

Teleuteskitty: updated 396

<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.

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.

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.

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.

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>
Below are links to all the SGU episodes with transcription pages.

Jump to: [[#2012|2012]], [[#2011|2011]], [[#2010|2010]], [[#2009|2009]], [[#2008|2008]], [[#2007|2007]], [[#2006|2006]], [[#2005|2005]]

{|
!Key:
|-
|    {{tick}}
| –  episode proof-read
|     {{mag}}
|  –  transcription complete and needs proof-reading
|-
|    {{i}}
| –  transcription in progress
|     {{Open}}
|  –  contains sections that need transcribing
|-
|    {{a}}
|colspan="3"| –  first pass of transcription performed by Google Speech API
|}

{|style="margin:1em 3em"
|style="padding-right: 6em;white-space:nowrap" valign="top"|<span id="2013"><big>'''2013'''</big></span>
----
* [[SGU Episode 428]], Sep 28 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 427]], Sep 21 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 426]], Sep 14 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 425]], Sep 7 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 424]], Aug 31 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 423]], Aug 24 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 422]], Aug 17 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 421]], Aug 10 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 420]], Aug 3 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 419]], Jul 27 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 418]], Jul 20 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 417]], Jul 13 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 416]], Jul 6 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 415]], Jun 29 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 414]], Jun 22 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 413]], Jun 15 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}
* [[SGU Episode 412]], Jun 8 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}
* [[SGU Episode 411]], Jun 1 2013 {{a}}
* [[SGU Episode 410]], May 25 2013 {{Tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 409]], May 18 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 408]], May 11 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 407]], May 4 2013 {{Open}}{{a}}
* [[SGU Episode 406]], Apr 27 2013 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 405]], Apr 20 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 404]], Apr 13 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 403]], Apr 6 2013 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 402]], Mar 30 2013 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 401]], Mar 23 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 400]], Mar 16 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 399]], Mar 9 2013 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 398]], Mar 2 2013 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 397]], Feb 23 2013 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 396]], Feb 16 2013 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 395]], Feb 9 2013 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 394]], Feb 2 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 393]], Jan 26 2013 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 392]], Jan 19 2013 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 391]], Jan 12 2013 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 390]], Jan 5 2013 {{mag}}

<span id="2012"><big>'''2012'''</big></span>
----
* [[SGU Episode 389]], Dec 29 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 388]], Dec 22 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 387]], Dec 15 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 386]], Dec 8 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 385]], Dec 1 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 384]], Nov 24 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 383]], Nov 17 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 382]], Nov 10 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 381]], Nov 3 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 380]], Oct 27 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 379]], Oct 20 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 378]], Oct 13 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 377]], Oct 6 2012 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 376]], Sep 29 2012 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 375]], Sep 22 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 374]], Sep 15 2012 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 373]], Sep 8 2012 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 372]], Sep 1 2012 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 371]], Aug 25 2012 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 370]], Aug 18 2012 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 369]], Aug 11 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 368]], Aug 4 2012 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 367]], Jul 28 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 366]], Jul 21 2012 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 365]], Jul 14 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 364]], Jul 7 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 363]], Jun 30 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 362]], Jun 23 2012 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 361]], Jun 16 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 360]], Jun 9 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 359]], Jun 2 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 358]], May 26 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 357]], May 19 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 345]], Feb 25 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 341]], Jan 28 2012 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 340]], Jan 21 2012 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012 {{tick}}

<span id="2011"><big>'''2011'''</big></span>
----
* [[SGU Episode 337]], Dec 31 2011 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 335]], Dec 17 2011 {{open}}
* [[SGU Episode 331]], Nov 19 2011 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 330]], Nov 11 2011 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011 {{tick}}
* [[SGU 24hr]], Sep 23-24 2011
* [[SGU Episode 320]], Aug 29 2011 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 312]], Jul 5 2011 {{open}}
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 298]], Mar 30 2011 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 287]], Jan 12 2011 {{Open}}
|valign="top" style=white-space:nowrap|<span id="2010"><big>'''2010'''</big></span>
----
* [[SGU Episode 285]], Dec 29 2010 {{open}}
* [[SGU Episode 271]], Sep 22 2010 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 260]], Jun 30 2010 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 257]], Jun 14 2010 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 252]], May 12 2010 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 247]], Apr 7 2010 {{open}}
* [[SGU Episode 245]], Mar 25 2010 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 232]], Jan 1 2010 {{mag}}

<span id="2009"><big>'''2009'''</big></span>
----
* [[SGU Episode 220]], Oct 7 2009 {{open}}
* [[SGU Episode 216]], Sep 9 2009 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 185]], Feb 4 2009 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 184]], Jan 28 2009 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 183]], Jan 21 2009 {{i}}

<span id="2008"><big>'''2008'''</big></span>
----
* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 152]], Jun 11 2008 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 146]], May 7 2008 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 141]], Apr 2 2008 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 140]], Mar 26 2008 {{Open}}

<span id="2007"><big>'''2007'''</big></span>
----
* [[SGU Episode 127]], Dec 26, 2007 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 123]], Nov 28, 2007 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 116]], Oct 10, 2007 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 113]], Sep 19, 2007 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 111]], Sep 5, 2007 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 110]], Aug 28, 2007 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 109]], Aug 24, 2007 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 105]], Jul 25, 2007 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 103]], Jul 11, 2007 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 102]], Jul 3, 2007 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 100]], June 19, 2007 {{open}}
* [[SGU Episode 98]], June 6, 2007 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 97]], May 30 2007 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 89]], Apr 4, 2007 {{open}}
* [[SGU Episode 79]], Jan 24, 2007 {{tick}}

<span id="2006"><big>'''2006'''</big></span>
----
* [[SGU Episode 73]], Dec 13 2006 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 68]], Nov 8 2006 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 62]], Sep 27 2006 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 61]], Sep 20 2006 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 55]], Aug 9 2006 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 49]], Jun 28 2006 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 47]], Jun 14 2006 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 46]], Jun 7 2006 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 38]], Apr 12 2006 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{Open}}
* [[SGU Episode 27]], Jan 25 2006 {{tick}}

<span id="2005"><big>'''2005'''</big></span>
----
* [[SGU Episode 23]], Dec 21 2005 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 22]], Dec 14 2005 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 21]], Dec 7 2005 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 20]], Nov 23 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 19]], Nov 16 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 18]], Nov 2 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 17]], Oct 26 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 16]], Oct 12 2005 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 15]], Oct 6 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 14]], Sep 28 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 13]], Sep 14 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 12]], Sep 7 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 11]], Aug 31 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 10]], Aug 23 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 9]], Aug 10 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 8]], Aug 2 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 7]], Jul 20 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 6]], Jul 7 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{mag}}
* [[SGU Episode 4]], Jun 15 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 3]], Jun 7 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005 {{tick}}
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005 {{tick}}
|}

<noinclude>
[[Category: List templates]]
</noinclude>

SGU Episode 396

2013-09-29T14:09:54Z

Teleuteskitty: finished proof-read, categories added

{{Editing required
|Today I Learned list = y
|segment redirects = y
|}}
{{InfoBox
|verified = y
|episodeNum = 396
|episodeDate = 16<sup>th</sup> February 2013
|episodeIcon = File:Eosinopteryx_S.jpg
|rebecca = y
|bob = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
|guest1 = BW: [http://necss.org/speakers/brian-wecht/ Brian Wecht]
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2013-02-16.mp3
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php?topic=45058.0
|qowText = Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known.
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_de_Montaigne Michel de Montaigne]
|}}

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

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday February 13<sup>th</sup> 2013 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: Hot Damn!

S: And Evan Bernstein.

E: By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground for out of it you were taken, for you are dust. Into dust you shall return.

R: That was weird and depressing. OK!

J: What's up with that?

E: Ash Wednesday.

S: Yeah it is Ash Wednesday.

R: Oooh.

B: Oh, it is?

E: Yeah.

S: Yeah, I was seeing a patient today and I thought they had some kind of dark and suspicious looking mole under their hair.

(laughter)

S: So even though I'm a neurologist I still examine the whole patient, and so I brushed their hair aside to see what it was, and it was... you know... they were Catholic.

E: You brushed their hair aside, you didn't just ask them?

R: You didn't lick your finger and rub it on their face did you?

S: No, I didn't wipe it off.

J: Guys! Guys!

E: Huh? Yeah? What? Oh hey, Jay.

J: I have a son. I have a baby boy. (laughs)

R: Yeah! Well done.

S: Is that where you were last week?

B: Why didn't you tell us?

R: Well done to Courtney I guess, you didn't really do much.

J: Uh, come on it was very hard to watch.

R: I bet.

J: That is serious stuff, man.

E: I know, you almost spilled your popcorn, I know.

J: It was epic. It was incredible, the whole experience was absolutely incredible. I don't recommend it, it's not for everybody.

R: You don't recommend it?

J: It's not for everyone I mean, it's not for everyone. It's absolutely fantastic if you want it and you're ready for it and I absolutely was ready for it.

S: Was that for the benefit of our younger listeners, Jay? The...

J: Absolutely, yeah I wasn't talking to Rebecca here, she already knows all of that.

R: Yeah, I know the birds and the bees.

J: You know, it's all the clichés, you know I wish I had a different profound thought to share other than when it happens and it's right it's the best thing in the world, it's fantastic.

S: The clichés are all true is what you're saying.

J: They are, and it's inexplicable, you have to experience this for yourself.

S: Well congratulations, brother.

J: Thanks, sorry I wasn't here for two weeks, guys. I didn't want it to be that way but you know.

R: Eh, what are you going to do?

S: Life intrudes on our little project here unfortunately.

J: You know, just so you know, babies make incredibly cute noises.

S: Yes, they do. The cooing noises?

R: Uh yeah, when it's yours. Before it starts that horrible screaming sound.

S: Well it gets cuter though Jay, when they start to form those noises into words, proto-language. It gets really cute.

J: I just want to share something.

R: Alright.

(cooing noises)

R: I'm pretty sure that was a seal.

J: (laughs) Come on that's adorable.

R: Yeah, it's alright, it's pretty cute.

== This Day in Skepticism <small>(3:02)</small> ==
February 16, 1997 Physicist {{w|Chien-Shiung Wu}} died.

R: Hey, it's time for this day in whatever, are you ready?

S: Yeah.

B: Whatever.

R: It's exciting. I usually try to avoid "this is the day somebody died" events because you know, it's depressing. But in this case the person was so awesome that I wanted to talk about her. Today, February 16<sup>th</sup> in 1997, Chien-Shiung Wu died. So Chien-Shiung Wu was born in China in 1912 to a father who believed in the equality of the sexes, so much so that he started a vocational school for women. When she was 11, Wu left her home town to pursue her education which continued up through university where she studied physics, and upon graduation she became a researcher at the institute of physics at a Chinese academy. At the age of 24 she decided that she'd gone as far as she could possibly go in China, so she hopped a steam ship to the US and she landed in San Francisco and she enrolled at UC Berkley in grad school and she eventually finished here PhD there in 1940. Then she moved East. She became a faculty member at Smith, then Princeton, then finally at Columbia, where she did research for the {{w|Manhattan Project}} doing amazing things like helping to figure out how to separate uranium metal using gaseous diffusion. Also at Columbia, she hooked up with these two theoretical physicists who came up with an idea that the hypothetical law of {{w|Parity (physics)|conservation of parity}} was wrong when it came to the weak nuclear force. Wu was able to develop the experiment that proved them right. The theoretical physicists won the Nobel Prize for it and Wu won the first ever {{w|Wolf prize}} in physics for it in 1978. So she was a really amazing woman, she did tons of awesome stuff and I was very excited to note that we have something in common. She also has an asteroid named after her.

B: (laughs)

S: Cool.

R: So yeah. Chien-Shiung Wu. Awesome lady.

S: The Chinese Marie Curie, apparently.

R: Yeah.

E: Nice.

R: Although I like to think that Marie Curie is the European Chien-Shiung Wu.

E: Ah. Touché

S: Well that's what they say in China.

R: Right.

J: That is cool.

== News Items ==
=== AI Doctor <small>(5:23)</small>===
Gigaom.com: [http://gigaom.com/2013/02/11/researchers-say-ai-prescribes-better-treatment-than-doctors/ Researchers Say AI Prescribes Better Treatment than Doctors]

S: So Jay, you're going to start off the News Segment by telling us about computers practising medicine.

J: Right. But first.

<blockquote>Old Gray!</blockquote>

B: (laughs) Old Gray!

R: Why?

J: I'm just celebrating.

E: Should I know what that is?

Everyone: Old Gray.

B: Oh my god, Evan.

J: We need to talk after the show.

E: Now I remember you referencing that a long time ago, I never bothered to latch on.

J: You never bothered to watch like internet absolutely incredible?

B: You never bothered to laugh?

E: I was busy then.

R: Do you not have joy in your life, Evan?

E: Apparently not, apparently I am sorely lacking.

R: Why do you hate happiness?

J: OK so, two Indiana University researchers Casey Bennett and Kris Hauser have developed something called an expert machine. This is something we've talked about on the show before,{{Link needed}} it's like {{w|Watson (computer)|IBM's Watson}}, remember that program they were using to play Jeopardy.

R: No relation.

B: Yep.

S: Oh yeah.

E: And it kicked ass.

J: This is something called, like I said, an expert machine, but this one is specialized in determining patient illness and treatments. Which I've been waiting for this, I've actually talked to Steve about this many times, I'm like 'Steve, why don't they have a computer to do all the heavy lifting and have the doctor do the fine tuning?' Well that's exactly what these guys did. The technology uses machine learning and is the same computer science discipline that in part supported some of these cool things that we all are getting to see now like voice recognition, we all have that on our cell phones, the self-driving cars, like the stuff, the work, that Google is doing with their cars, and credit card fraud detection systems which, I don't know if many people know about but that's a pretty significant system that they use, a very robust system that is in place to help prevent fraud and to capture people who are committing fraud. So at its core the new system uses a pair of predictive modelling techniques, one of them called the {{w|Markov Decision Process}} and the second one is {{w|Dynamic decision-making|Dynamic Decision Networks}}. These are two cool things that you should read about, each of them distinct; in conjunction, they are making something that was not too long ago impossible. The idea behind the research and eventual development is pretty straight forward. If doctors can stop relying in their intuition and instead focus on the known facts, they would be able to make better decisions. I know it sounds very simple, but in essence, that's what they set out to do. It uses sequential decision making where each decision opens up new pathways and those simulate alternative treatments and as new data becomes available it plans and re-plans its path and they say that, quote-unquote, "it can think like a doctor." So I know that that might sound like a contradiction, because I just said before that it could work better than doctors or doctors are using intuition to come to their decision. It's going to use the process that a doctor would use but on an amazingly huge scale, right? And this is where you need the huge processing power of computers to do it. The idea being that if they took say all of the medical records of the entire country, the entire United States, which as many of you know are rapidly becoming– our healthcare system is becoming electronic, and that all of our data is going online. Many of the people who have gone to the doctor over the past couple of years have noticed that they're using software now, they're asking you to restate all these questions so you can give them your information, they're plugging it into the system. Well that system's data very soon will become global and accessible, especially for research purposes, it would be an incredible win for everybody. Instead of a doctor seeing say a couple of thousand patients a year that have a similar illness, the software will look at hundreds of thousands of patients, take all that data, use it in a way, with their algorithms, use it so that it can determine what statistically is the best course of action, not just in the single doctor's experience or in a small practice's experience.

R: Would that open up privacy concerns?

S: Well if you're going to use data, healthcare data, there are rules for that. It has to be scrubbed of any patient identifying information.

R: Mmm. OK.

J: Sure. Do you care if you're a number in some spreadsheet or some electronic process that says–

S: Well apparently people ''do'' care, because you've got to get permission from people to use it.

R: Yeah I mean I would care just because of the amount of times things go wrong.

J: Yeah but it's not like some person's going to be at the doctor in California, Rebecca, and your picture's not going to come up on their screen saying this person has this phenomenally awful disease. It's just data, it's just statistical data they're going to be using.

S: Yeah, you can ask systems like this, how many people who have this diagnosis are on this drug? Or how many people who are on this drug are also on this other one, and how many times did they get admitted to the hospital over the last three years. So it won't give you any specific information about any specific individuals, but you can ask statistical questions about the database.

R: Right.

S: Yep.

J: So Casey Bennett, one of the researchers, said:
<blockquote>"The Markov Decision Process and Dynamic Decision Networks enable the system to deliberate about the future, considering all the different possible sequences of actions and effects in advance even in cases where we are unsure of the effects."<ref name=Indiana>Indiana University press release - [http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/23795.html Can computers save health care? IU research shows lower costs, better outcomes]</ref></blockquote>

J: Their research tries to answer three issues concerning US healthcare. Steve, I'd like to know what you have about these three things. The rising cost, expected to reach 30% of the gross domestic product by 2050. A quality of care where patients receive correct diagnoses and treatment less than half the time on a first visit. And a lag time of 13 to 17 years between research and practice in clinical care.

B: Whoa.

S: Yeah, those are all correct.

B: 13 to 17 years?

J: Well sure, Bob, if you think about–

B: What kind of bullshit is that?

J: Well, no that's not bullshit.

S: Well it depends what kind of penetration you're talking about. I mean the younger doctors actually are a little bit better on that score, on incorporating the latest information. Academic physicians are better. But if you want to penetrate to the old guys out in the community, those are the hold outs, those are the people who are not necessarily getting all the critical updates that they should be in a timely fashion, and it takes a while to percolate through the culture of medicine. That is a significant problem. I think that the system of continuing medical education tries to address that, but it does so in my opinion in a very haphazard way, not in a systematic way. So there's still, I think, a lot of room for improvement there.

J: Well here are the facts guys. Bennett also said, that researcher also said later on that "the framework here easily outperforms the current treatment as usual, case rate fee-for-service models of healthcare." So listen to these statistics. With 500 real random patients, their software cost-per-patient difference was $495 down to $189, an improvement of 58.5% and the patient outcomes can be improved by, guys, a dramatic 41.9% at the peak performance of their system. That is huge, huge.

S: That's all a little theoretical though. It's not unreasonable, but it's also the system using its own criteria to assess itself, you know? So it would be nice to see how it works in the real world. Put it at the point of care in doctors' offices and then measure what effect it has, that would be more, I think, more of a meaningful measurement. But it shows that the potential is there, there's the potential for cost savings and improved outcomes. Essentially this is an expert system, these are nothing new, meaning that it's a system designed to be used by experts to give them– to augment their information, to give them the information they need when they need it. And I think that we ''have'' to go this way, it's just overwhelming, the amount of information, and ''new'' information that's being published. There's thousands and thousands of papers, even in a narrow area of expertise, that's being published every year. Plus, as Jay was saying, the number of permutations that physicians get presented with is staggering, every patient is unique in a way, in that they have their own medical history, they have a combination of medical problems, they're on a certain combination of medications, and then you're going to introduce a new element, a treatment or whatever, into that mix, and you could make only statistical statements about what's likely to happen but physicians are, by necessity, are using a simplified version of the data analysis. Even if we are trying to look it up at the time, how could I really know, for example what the interaction is going to be between a new medication and the five other medications that a patient is on? I know what the ''individual'' interactions are, but what are all the combinations? Where expert systems work well is in doing what humans don't do well, right? So they could do the heavy lifting, the number crunching, taking into consideration vast amounts of information that no human brain can hold, and then the physician can take that information, that recommendation: don't forget to do this, consider that, watch out for this interaction, this is the best evidence-based treatment right now, or here are the three options prioritized by the ones that are most likely to have the best outcome, and then the physician can individualize it for the patient a little bit more, taking into consideration some variables that maybe the system wasn't designed to take into consideration, not the least of which is patient preference, you know? There are some things where it's just patients care more about certain things than other things and you have to ask patients, what's more important, treating the symptom or avoiding the side effect? And you get different answers from different patients and that determines what treatment they might want. I think a good analogy is chess masters, right? If you think of physicians like chess-masters? They're very good at pattern recognition, they're very good at remembering the classic moves that really work, whereas a computer chess player can crunch hundreds of possible moves.

E: It'll play thousands of games in moments.

B: Brute force.

S: Yeah, you could brute force it in a way that a person can't. And for a while the human pattern recognition was better than computers, but now computers are better than the human. But imagine the two together. Imagine a chess master where the computer says I suggest you do this move, these are the things you've got to worry about and then he could use that ''in addition'' to his intuition and pattern recognition and then you get the best of both worlds.

R: Sounds like a great new buddy comedy.

(laughter)

E: Yeah

R: I got ya.

S: The odd couple?

E: You need to come up with a funny name for the computer of course, you know.

S: Hit it.

E: Felix?

(laughter)

S: Would the computer be Felix or Oscar? I guess Felix. One thing, a limiting factor here is that it takes a lot of time to create these algorithms and to feed it all the information. Keep in mind that this is just looking at treating one disease. All of the development is just coming up with: alright here's an algorithm to treat this one little thing, now we've got to build a ''thousand'' of these in order to really address the full breadth, and then keep them all of them updated as new information comes in. This is a massive project. That's really why these things aren't already in every doctor's office is because it's a massive project to create these things.

E: That's why I'm not so sure about the savings, the cost savings, maybe in the very long run you'll eventually see some cost savings, but I think there's still a lot of money that still needs to go into getting these things up to speed before you see the return on investment.

S: Yeah there are huge investments upfront, absolutely, but as the infrastructure becomes ubiquitous within medicine, the cost of adding some expert systems onto it will go down.

=== Ball and Cup Magic <small>(17:16)</small> ===
Scientific American: [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=magic-revealed-cups-trick-found-to-be-more-effective-than-thought Magic Revealed: Cups Trick Found to Be More Effective Than Thought]

S: Alright let's move on. Evan, you're going to tell us about the science of magic tricks.

E: Yes, I have some magic tricks, and specifically the cups-and-balls trick. Now 'cups and balls' is a culturally ubiquitous illusion by which the stage magician takes three cups and three balls, or what at least appears to the audience to be three balls, and with the magicians' sleight of hand, they're able to make the balls appear and disappear seemingly at will. I say it's culturally ubiquitous because stage magicians have been performing this illusion all over the world for reportedly thousands of years. Now, there are many variations to the trick but the general premise is the same, now you see the balls and with the help of the cups, now you don't. Youtube it, there are tons of examples to be seen. But scientists, they're analysing how magicians such as Penn and Teller, are performing this illusion, and they're now revealing that some aspects of the magic trick are even more effective at manipulating audiences than the magicians perceive or they predicted. Neuroscientists have increasingly been analyzing magicians' performances to gain insight into the human mind and if you remember back in Skeptics' Guide to the Universe [[SGU Episode 326|episode 326]], we presented an interview with Neuroscientists [http://www.sleightsofmind.com/about-the-authors/ Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde] which was a really great interview, they talked with us about some of their work that they've done with {{w|Penn & Teller|Penn and Teller}}, among other professional tricksters, and how they studied their techniques for tricking the brain, and it was all put down in their book called ''[http://www.sleightsofmind.com/ Sleights of Mind - What the neuroscience of magic reveals about our everyday deceptions]''. I don't know if you read that book, Steve?

S: Oh yeah.

E: A really good book and it was a great interview, now magic tricks work because humans have a hard-wired process of attention and awareness that is, well, for lack of a better term, hackable. And a good magician uses your mind's own intrinsic properties against you. By understanding how magicians can effectively hack our brain we can better understand how the sort of same cognitive tricks are at work in other ways, for example in business negotiations or how people are influenced by advertising strategies or other sorts of interpersonal relations. But while Macknik and Conde-Martinez were specifically studying the cups and balls trick as performed by Teller of Penn and Teller, they realized something rather astounding.<ref>Rieiro, H, Martinez-Conde, S & Macknik, S.L (2013), [https://peerj.com/articles/19/ Perceptual elements in Penn & Teller’s “Cups and Balls” magic trick], PeerJ</ref> What they did is they had seven volunteers and they watched 10-12 second long video clips of Teller performing the cup and balls illusion. In the experiments, the volunteers reported when they saw balls get removed from or placed under cups by pressing buttons. The researchers at the same time used cameras pointed at the eyes of the volunteers to track their gazes. Now during the course of the illusion, the balls, one by one, are being placed atop the cups and then the cups at one point get tilted, they kind of tilt forward, and the ball rolls off the top of the cup and into the magician's hand. Now this action of the ball rolling off the cup is designed to focus the audience's attention on that ball rolling off the cup so that you're not watching the magician's other hand as he's palming another ball and placing it in the proper position for the next part of the trick. However, what the researchers found is that while the audience is watching the falling ball, and it definitely drew their attention, other aspects of the trick were actually stronger at making the illusion work, which were not the results that the performer was expecting to get, the magician was not expecting that, they expect people were looking at the ball rolling off, therefore they're free to do their other manipulations and stuff, but this research reveals it's really not working that way. It's not a knock against the performer right, it's just a more accurate understanding as to what's going on in the mind of the audience member.

R: There are two concepts here that the researchers claimed to have debunked in a way, that are standard things that magicians learn. One is the idea of social misdirection, the idea that the audience will look where the magician looks, so you always look at the hand that's, for instance, supposed to contain the coin. You know, if the coin is actually in your other hand, it doesn't matter, you look at your left hand, and the audience will look there as well. And the other thing being that the audience will follow motion. If you consider there's a very basic, like the first move that most magicians learn is the {{w|French Drop}}.

S: Yeah

R: and that's a method of making a coin disappear. And one of the first things you have to learn about that is that you don't move the hand that's doing the tricky stuff because the audience is going to look at the motion. You move the hand that is supposed to contain the coin that's not there because that's where the audience is going to look. So those are two really basic concepts that the researchers have claimed to show don't necessarily hold up. But that said, I read the study and I found it, I mean it's interesting, but at the same time it was a sample size of seven people, and I don't really feel like they did a very good job of proving this, even to the point where– like, I think it gets headlines because it's interesting, it's about magic, it's fun, it's got Penn and Teller, but I don't think that it's really worthy of much else. If anything it would be something that should encourage people to explore on a larger basis. But the thing is, this sort of stuff has been tested before, the researchers themselves cite a paper from 2011 that also showed that social misdirection doesn't work very well, this time using, I think, a coin trick instead of cups and balls.<ref>Cui et al.(2011), [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22046155 Social misdirection fails to enhance a magic illusion, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience [Note: Macknik & Martinez-Conde are also authors of this paper]</ref> But again, that study contained three different experiments that had nine people in the first, six people in the second, eight people in the third. So it's like these are such tiny studies, it would be really interesting to do this stuff on a larger scale. But as it is, I just don't find it terribly impressive, mostly because of the small sample size.

E: You know something else they talked a little bit about as sort of a tangent to this, is they're working on, Conde-Martinez and Macknik are working on a hypothesis that magic tricks which rely on social cues are less effective in people with autism.

S: Huh

E: They believe that autistics have a hard time paying attention to what other people are paying attention to and they give some examples of some people who were diagnosed with autism when they were young and they relayed their stories about how they would watch magic tricks, and like Rebecca you were describing how the magician looks this way and most everyone else in the audience looked that way but these people who had the autism were not influenced by the direction that the magician was looking in, instead they were looking at whatever little cups, ball and whatever other props were going on, much to the magicians' dismay, because... you know–

S: Yeah, they were harder to fool because they were harder to predict how they'd respond.

R: Another thing I'd be curious about with social misdirection would be both of these studies that claim to show that it doesn't work very well were done using video of the magicians, and so I'd be interested in seeing if there's a difference with in-person magicians because I feel like if a magician is standing right in front of you you're going to have a stronger reaction to those social cues, but I don't know.

=== Gorilla in the Bronchi <small>(24:48)</small> ===
Neurologica: [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/gorilla-in-the-bronchi/ Gorilla in the Bronchi]

S: Rebecca, in I guess a somewhat related item, there was an interesting article that you found very intriguing, this actually combines the first two news items we were talking about, physician performance and misdirection.

R: Indeed. yeah this was a story that I laughed out loud when I first saw it and then got slightly scared. So you've all heard, I'm sure, of the [http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/gorilla_experiment.html invisible gorilla test] by now. For those who haven't heard of it, I will ruin it for you now. You should pause the podcast now and look it up on YouTube first if you don't want it to be ruined. But the video is– basically the experiment is subjects watched a video of basketball players who were passing a basketball back and forth, and the subjects were told that they had to count the number of passes just between certain players. And throughout the video a gorilla walks into the frame, stands there, beats his chest and then slowly walks off to the other side, and it's really painfully obvious but half of the people, half of the subjects in the study missed him entirely, and this is sort of held up generally to find that you've got a 50:50 chance if you're showing somebody who's never seen it before, a 50:50 chance that they will miss him entirely. This is something called {{w| inattentional blindness}}, the idea is that when a person is consumed with one task, they become blind to looking at other things around them. So that study is pretty much always done on what we will call, and what the researchers of the upcoming study call, naïve: people who have no special training in spotting things. And certainly no special training in spotting gorillas that walk through basketball games. So psychology students at {{w|Brigham and Women's Hospital}} in Boston were curious to see whether or not professional anomaly hunters, basically, could perform any better.<ref>Drew, T., Võ, M. L. H., Wolfe, J. M. (2013). [http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/07/17/0956797613479386.abstract The invisible gorilla strikes again: Sustained inattentional blindness in expert observers], Psychological Science.</ref> So they showed 24 experienced radiologists the CT scans for 5 different patients, and each of those cases included hundreds of images of lung tissue. They asked the radiologists to sort through the images and find 10 nodules which were signs of lung cancer hidden throughout the scans. So the difference here is that these are trained professionals who are doing what they trained to do. So to test whether or not they would be subject to inattentional blindness, the researchers on the very last case they gave the radiologists, inserted a small, poorly photoshopped picture of a gorilla into the lung image. The gorilla was about the size of a matchbox or about 48 times the size of the nodules that the radiologists were looking for, so it was quite substantial, relatively speaking. The gorilla started out translucent in early images but then became more and more opaque until by the time the radiologists got to the final images, it was incredibly obviously staring out from the lung. So at the end of the trial, the researchers asked each radiologist if the last trial seemed any different, if the last case seemed different, and if they noticed anything unusual about it, and finally they just straight up asked, did you notice the gorilla? Of the 24 radiologists, only 4 of them noticed the gorilla. When the others who didn't see the gorilla were shown those last slides again, they all immediately saw it, and also eye tracking data suggested that they all ''had'' looked directly at it during their first pass.

B: Ha! They tracked their eyes, awesome.

R: Yeah, but they didn't even process it. So it's funny and it's especially funny if you see the image of this ridiculous gorilla in a CT scan of a lung, but also it's a little scary because radiologists aren't just looking for a specific thing when they view these CT scans, they're looking for a specific thing while also supposedly keeping a general eye out for anything else unusual like that gorilla could have just as easily have been a tumor, a gorilla tumor.

E: But they were told specifically to look for the nodules, right? I mean if they'd just been told, here's some images, tell me what you see.

R: Well that's, in a way, and maybe Steve can expand upon this in a second, but I think that the purpose of this was to mimic what they would actually do in their work. They would be looking for a very specific thing, like they know they have to look out for these nodules, but they are also going to be looking out for anything that might be wrong in these scans. I don't think they're generally just given scans and just told, find something. They're told what they're supposed to be looking for, is that right Steve?

S: Yeah, basically. So radiologists are often given a history, like this is a patient with this history and I'm ordering this CT scan because I'm concerned about X. So they are going to pay particular attention to whatever it is the ordering physician is interested in. But they're also trained to read the whole scan, not just focus on the one thing that they're interested in. I did wonder myself though, whether or not there was an artefact in the study in that they knew they were being challenged, they knew they were being studied and they were specifically told, find the cancer nodules. And essentially that was meant, that was a test of inattentional blindness. They were given a task, and looking for something different than the gorilla and so they were processing information, filtering it in a way to look for the nodules, and they didn't process the gorilla, that's the whole point of inattentional blindness. I looked at– so when I first came across the study, I looked at the scan, I didn't see the gorilla either.

R: Yeah.

S: Because I was looking for pathology, not that I'm a radiologist, and I've read scans, so I was looking for stuff I was familiar with, but it was completely unfamiliar. It's also black on black, I mean let's point that out.

R: With a white border around it.

S: Yeah, but it's a black gorilla on the black lung, and it was just easy for me to completely filter it out.

J: Ah, here come the excuses. Come on, you missed it.

S: I missed it. It was inattentional blindness.

B: Steve, I just looked at the image that's on your blog right now, I mean a few minutes ago. And it took, I didn't see it immediately, I saw an alien head in this image, but I did not see the gorilla until I really started looking around.

S: Yeah.

R: Well it's worth noting again though, after they were told there is a gorilla in this picture, they all ''immediately'' saw it. ''Immediately''.

S: Yes. And now I ''can't not'' see it, looking at the scan. It's blaring out at me. But first time I looked at it, I didn't see it.

R: There's a bit of reassurance here because in addition to showing the radiologists these CT scans, the researchers had a control group of the average naïve observer, so somebody who was not trained to look for any of this. And in the control group, not a single one of them saw the gorilla, so it's possible that the radiologists are so good at looking for things like these nodules that they have a bit more ability to look for general problems and so they are actually better than the average person at inattentional blindness, at least when it comes to CT scans. The headlines on this, I've noticed, have been really grim, like ‘83% of radiologists miss a gorilla in a CT scan’. But I think it's actually reassuring that they’re doing–

S: It misses the point, yeah.

R: Yeah, they're doing quite a bit better than the average person, which to me suggests that this could be something that radiologists and others in similar positions can learn from and they can actually work to develop their skills at spotting these things.

S: Well let me tie this into the news item that Jay talked about, about the artificial intelligence. There are software programs that analyse images and highlight anything unusual. And again, it's a perfect combination of the pattern recognition of a radiologist with the ''lack'' of inattentional blindness, lack of all the cognitive biases that we have, information processing that a computer has, the combination of those two is much better than either one alone, and this is just an example of that, you know a computer wouldn't be fooled by that because it doesn't suffer inattentional blindness. Let me give one other aside. I wrote about this, when I was doing some further background research on it I came across a very interesting bit. Do you know when the first study was published that demonstrated the phenomenon of inattentional blindness was?

E: Uh, 1959?

S: (laughs) Cheater. Yes, 1959.<ref name=cornell>Cornell, A. D. (1959). An experiment in apparitional observation and findings Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 40 (701), 120-124<br>See Simons (2011), [http://theinvisiblegorilla.com/blog/2011/10/31/ghost-busters-parapsychology-and-the-first-study-of-inattentional-blindness/ Ghost busters, parapsychology, and the first study of inattentional blindness] on [http://theinvisiblegorilla.com/ theInvisibleGorilla.com]</ref> But this is fascinating, this was a researcher, was a ''ghost'' researcher publishing in the journal of the society for psychical research and they were, they did an interesting study where the guy draped himself in a white sheet and strolled down the middle of a campus, and nobody reported noticing anything unusual.

J: What, that is so– did they see him and fear to do the report? Or did they not see the guy?

S: Well hang on. So then he did a follow-up study where, during a movie trailer, he walked out onto the stage, you know all theaters have, like they had a screen on a stage, you know what I mean? So you could walk on the stage. So he walked across the stage in the ghost costume, in the sheet, and only 50% of the audience noticed anything unusual. So he inadvertently did the first experiment demonstrating inattentional blindness, even came up with the 50% figure, the same thing as the invisible gorilla. Although ''he'' interpreted it differently, he said, ‘ah, there must be something psychic and different about genuine ghost encounters’.

B: Ugh.

S: Because people notice them.

R: I don't think he had any figures on what percentage of people noticed an actual ghost.

S: No, still that was his conclusion. He also, in discussing it, was perplexed by the peoples' inability to notice the ghost and couldn't understand it. But of course now we know it's inattentional blindness. Isn't that interesting?

B: Yeah, it's cool.

E: Very.

=== Feathered Dino Follow Up <small>(35:34)</small> ===
Neurologica: [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/transition-denial-and-feathered-dinosaurs/ Transition Denial and Feathered Dinosaurs]

S: Alright well let's move on. I'm going to do a quick follow-up to the feathered dinosaur piece that I talked about [[SGU_Episode_395#Feathered_Dinosaurs_.2840:40.29|last week]]. If you recall, scientists have discovered yet another feathered dinosaur in China, {{w| Eosinopteryx|Eosinopteryx brevipenna}}. It's a small feathered {{w|Theropoda|Theropod dinosaur}}, stubby wings, couldn't fly, with teeth, a bony tail, fingers and toes, lack of a lot of bird features, but it does have a lot of other features that are similar to birds so it puts it in that middle-zone between theropod dinosaurs and full birds. A beautiful transitional fossil, I wrote about the fact that Ken Ham and the ''Answers in Genesis'' creationists were denying that this is a transitional fossil, they said it was just a bird. So this is on the Answers in Genesis website, this is now their response to criticism, including from some of their own people, that how could you call this just a bird? This is by Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell, and let me just read you the money quote. She goes on and on quoting nonsense, then she says, "apart from those evolutionary pre-suppositions though, extinct birds that happen to have feathers, teeth, wings, claws and no bony keel remain just another kind of bird."<ref>Mitchell (2013), [http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2013/02/09/news-to-note-02092013 How can we say it’s a bird?], AnswersInGenesis.org</ref>

B: Oh god.

S: So she's like, she's saying that, ok so in the past there are extinct species of birds that happened to have teeth and bony tails and winged claws and couldn't fly because they had stubby wings, but they're just another kind of bird. Allrighty.

J: That's like saying. 'That's not a dinosaur, that's just a ''huge'' gecko with big sharp teeth that likes to eat flesh'. Please.

''(laughter)''

S: Right. So it's just defining out of existence transitional species, just calling it "just a bird". Calling it "just a bird" doesn't mean that ''in the past'' there were birds that looked awfully a lot like theropod dinosaurs and it's just a massive coincidence. Right. Pure, mindless denialism, I don't know what else to say about that. But I just thought that that follow up was interesting.

== Who's That Noisy? <small>(37:54)</small>==

S: Evan

E: Doctor?

S: Tell us about Who's That Noisy.

E: I'll play for you last week's Who's that Noisy.

B: You do that.

E: Here we go.

<blockquote>I love oxygen because it plays such an important role in keeping alive the terrestrial animals on this planet.</blockquote>

E: So, who was that?

R: She makes a lot of sense.

E: (laughs) Yes, a lot of sense.

R: I'll say that much. I agree with her.

E: A lot of correct answers. A lot of people are very familiar with the one and only {{w|Jane Goodall|Dr. Jane Goodall].

S: Jane Goodall.

R: Ah.

E: Talking about the importance of oxygen. From a segment from something called the RI channel called ''[http://richannel.org/collections/2012/my-favourite-element#/jane-goodall--oxygen My Favourite Element]'' in which they– this particular segment of this show goes around, and they talk to scientists and other famous personalities about, well, their favorite element and they give a little brief explanation as to why. So that was Jane Goodall's take on that. For those of you who don't know, Jane Goodall is a British primatologist, ethologist, anthropologist and a UN messenger of peace. She said in an interview once with Ira Flatow that she believes Bigfoot exists, I don't know if she retracted that since, this was many years ago, but you know...

R: Didn't she just say that she was hopeful or something? I don't think she came out and said he exists, did she?

E: Uh, here's what she said:
<blockquote>"I've talked to so many native Americans who all describe the same sounds, who have seen them, I've probably got about oh 30 books that have come from different parts of the world, from China, all over the place, and there's a little tiny snippet in the newspaper just last week which says that the British scientists have found what they believe to be Yeti hair, and the scientists in the Natural History Museum in London couldn't identify it as any known animal."<ref>Jane Goodall, Friday, September 27, 2002, during National Public Radio's (NPR) [http://www.sciencefriday.com/ Talk of the Nation: Science Friday] with Ira Flatow ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NmCmfdFAhQ YouTube clip])</ref></blockquote>

R: It's the worst.

E: "You'll be amazed when I tell you that I'm sure they exist." That's her quote.

R: Ah.

S: Although she does also say, "it's strange that there's never been a single authentic hide or hair of the bigfoot." So still she's...

E: So she's...

R: It's like she ''has'' the facts. Not using them the way they're meant to be used.

E: She just has to implement them. Come on doctor, just take the next step, you know what to do. But otherwise, you know, very famous.

S: Let's not focus on that, she's an awesome primatologist.

E: Yes, I agree.

S: An incredible legacy, great scientist.

E: And she loves oxygen, like so many others.

S: Yes, very fond of oxygen.

E: No doubt. Danny H is this week's winner.

S: Danny.

E: From alllll the people who guessed correctly, and there were a lot of you, thank you all for playing, but Danny from the message board.

S: Danny. I've got a Prescott(?).

(laughter)

E: Oh my gosh. Wonderful. Well done. Well played.

S: All right, so what have you got for this week?

E: This week, here we go. We have a puzzle this week because we know how much people love puzzles and there's never any controversy.

S: They're so puzzling.

E: Alright, here we go, this week's puzzle. "There are three switches downstairs."

S: These are light switches?

E: Light switches, thank you.

S: OK.

E: "There are three light switches downstairs."

J: (shouting) There are four lights!

(laughter)

R: I knew it was coming, I knew it was coming.

B: Oh, I didn't.

E: Wow. "There are three light switches downstairs. Each corresponds to one of three incandescent light bulbs up in the attic. You cannot see the lights in the attic from where the switches are located. You can turn the switches on and off and leave them in any position. How would you identify which switch corresponds to which light bulb, if you are only allowed one trip upstairs? You got that?

S: Very tricky.

B: Yep, it's a good one.

E: Go ahead and give us your answer to that. wtn at theskepticsguide.org is the official email address for your answers, or post them on our forums, [http://sguforums.com sguforums.com] and as I like to say every week, good luck everyone.

S: Thank you Evan.

E: Thank you.

== Name That Logical Fallacy <small>(41:57)</small> ==

S: We're going to do a Name That Logical Fallacy this week this email comes from Paul.

(baby sounds)

S: From Lynwood, Washington.

E: You OK, Jay?

S: (laughs) And he writes:

<blockquote>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiohalo Radiohalos] proves young earth. By the way, where is the missing link? Still missing? Have a blessed day, and know that GOD still holds you in his heart. Enjoy your show very much, always amused when man tries to disprove the glory of GODS [sic] creation. Take care.</blockquote>

S: Well thank you Paul, we appreciate your kind words.

E: And for listening.

R: Argument from ridiculous nonsense.

S: (laughs)

B: Yep, that's about it.

S: There might be some problems with the arguments. So there are, can we get the factual problems out of the way first? We actually did a segment, Bob I think you did this on the radio halos<ref>Episode 201: [[SGU_Episode_201#Questions_and_E-mails|Polonium Halos]]</ref>, these are the polonium halos, just refer you to that previous segment on the Sketpics' Guide, we went into that in detail. But no, it doesn't prove a young Earth, that has completely scientifically been demolished. The polonium halos are perfectly consistent with a 4 billion year old Earth, thank you. And we've talked about the missing link more than once on the show. There's no such thing as ''the'' missing link. There are of course gaps in the fossil record, but you'll never fill in all the gaps to an arbitrary level of detail. We have found connections between many major groups including, I don't know if he's specifically referring to a human-ape missing link, but you know we have– we find and keep finding more examples of hominids filling out the space between humans and our closest ape ancestors, so this is not– this is evidence for evolution, this is not a problem for evolution. But what do you think about his other sentiments here?

E: Well having a blessed day, I've got a big problem with that.

''(laughter)''

R: He's offered no evidence that the day is blessed.

J: You have no joy in your life Evan.

R: We've already established&ndash,

E: Apparently not, because I don't know that clip that you played earlier, but–

S: But he is amused when man tries to disprove the glory of God's creation.

J: Everything is the glory of God in his paradigm, so there's no way to prove or disprove anything.

S: Well I mean I think the main thing, to me, is that he's assuming his conclusion, he's making a circular argument here. He's assuming that God created the Earth and we're trying to disprove something that he knows to be true, the glory of God's creation. The question is, did God create the Earth, is the Earth the product of creation or of Evolution? That is a question we can address scientifically. He's stating his amusement in such a fashion where he's assuming his conclusion. Now I don't know if Paul is sincere in saying that he enjoys our show, and he may be listening to our show, if for no other reason than to hear what the quote-unquote "other side" has to say and we been emailed by other people who said that they started listening to our show to hear what the skeptics had to say, and that over time we slowly won them over, and in fact there's a couple who were creationists who listed to our show to mock us, and then now they're staunch skeptics who reject creationism.

B: Yeah, that was awesome.

E: Yeah, that was very satisfying.

S: We should not give up hope that Paul will eventually come around if he is listening to our show and absorbing much of it. So Paul, this is my challenge to you: you brought up two challenges to evolutionary theory, the missing link and radio halos. Investigate them, ''honestly''. Take a look at those, we talked about it, you can do the same research that we did, and then come back to us. Email us back if you're listening to this, and tell us what you think about those arguments after doing some actual research and looking into what the scientists have to say about these two points, because what we're saying is that you're just ''completely'' factually wrong on these two points about radio halos and the missing link. You got it wrong, in my opinion, because you're listening to propaganda, to secondary hostile sources, you are not listening to what scientists are actually saying. If you do, you'll see that we are completely right on those two points, and you're completely wrong. And if you think that that's incorrect, please explain to me in detail, without gratuitous reference to your conclusions, explain to me ''why'' those arguments debunk evolution. We'd be happy to go around with you on that. That was the real reason why I wanted to talk about this news item.

R: So you could throw down the gauntlet.

S: Yes.

E: Yeah.

J: (laughs) Steve. The poor guy.

E: Throw down with Steven Novella.

S: Alright, guys

R: You're just trash talking him.

== Interview with Brian Wecht ==
=== Propellantless Space Drive "EmDrive" Made in China <small>(46:56)</small> ===

DailyTech.com: [http://www.dailytech.com/Propellantless+Space+Drive+Called+EmDrive+Made+in+China/article29862.htm Propellantless Space Drive Called "EmDrive" Made in China]

S: Alright guys, let's go on to our interview. Joining us now is [http://necss.org/speakers/brian-wecht/ Brian Wecht]. Brian, welcome back to the Skeptics' Guide.

BW: Hey, thanks so much for having me.

B: Hey, Brian.

S: Brian is a theoretical physicist, a musician and a comedian.

BW: Mm-hmm.

S: Your physics work is on string theory. so basically you're Sheldon Cooper.

BW: I am Sheldon Cooper.

''(laughter)''

S: So Brian, we're bringing you on tonight ''mainly'' to talk about this one news item that has been making the rounds. Now I found this really fascinating. So tell us about this, this is a Chinese researcher claims he's actually produced a propellantless drive, or a so-called EM or electromagnetic drive. This is based upon some work that a British researcher has done. So get us up to speed, what is this all about.

BW: So based on, and I should say this is, it's a bit outside of my field, but based on what I've been reading, the idea is they create a cavity, so they have some metal plates that are arranged in a particular shape which is a cone here, and they put some electromagnetic radiation in, in this case it's microwaves. And the claim is that by doing that, and by having the cavity be shaped a particular way, effectively the waves can exert a pressure on one side of the cavity more than they can on the other, and make the thing move.

S: So there's a net force in one direction.

BW: That's the claim.

S: But that's supposed to be impossible.

BW: It is supposed to be impossible and I have to say that in reading this, everything in my gut as a physicist said that this should not be allowed to happen.

B: Primarily wouldn't that be for a couple of things, like {{w|Newton's_laws_of_motion#Newton.27s_third_law|Newton's third law}}, and the {{w|Momentum|conservation of momentum}}, those are the two that I keep seeing and it kind of makes sense. The idea with Newton's Third Law is that every action has an equal an opposite reaction clearly isn't really happening here. And then there's conservation of momentum, you've got this closed system, momentum has got to be constant, and this kind of ties back into Newton's third law, so if a rocket moves in one direction without something moving in the opposite direction, how is it going to, it can't really go.

BW: The big one is especially the conservation of momentum. So unless you're exerting a net force on something from the outside, then momentum should be conserved, and here it's a closed system, momentum should be conserved. I mean it's not like anyone is pushing it from the outside, so it appears to violate conservation of momentum. Now if you read the papers, what they claim, and I don't really buy this claim, the claim is that because the electromagnetic field has some momentum in it, so this is something that I think may or may not be widely appreciated, but an electromagnetic wave actually carries momentum.

B: Right.

BW: I don't know if you guys, do you guys know what {{w|optical tweezers}} are?

B: Oh yeah, they're cool.

BW: They're the best things ever, basically you use little lasers to push beads or random objects around. You can finely tune these lasers to actually move objects. So electromagnetic radiation certainly can exert a force on things, so I think from what I've been reading, the scientists' claim is that ok, so you're taking momentum out of the radiation inside the cavity but still momentum should be conserved, so I don't understand how the thing can actually move.

S: Yeah so here [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EmDrive Roger Sawyer] is the British researcher who has been pushing this for a while and/ he wrote a reply to a New Scientist article about this and this is what he says. He says:
<blockquote>As the engine accelerates, momentum is lost by the electromagnetic wave, and gained by the spacecraft, thus satisfying the conservation of momentum. In this process energy is lost within the resonator, thus satisfying the conservation of energy.<ref>New Scientist blog: [http://www.newscientist.com/blog/fromthepublisher/2006_10_01_archive.html Em drive on trial] (Oct 3 2006)</ref></blockquote>

S: So that seems to be the crux of the claim, that they're ''transferring'' momentum from the electromagnetic wave to the spacecraft itself. To me, as a non-theoretical physicist, it kind of seems reasonable. To me, so here's the analogy that came to my mind, you tell me if this is apt. There's a conservation of energy, energy can't be created or destroyed, but it can change forms, you could essentially do E=mc<sup>2</sup>, matter could be converted into energy, and that could superficially ''seem'' as if you're creating energy until you account for the fact that mass, matter, is energy, just another form of it. So does the same apply to conservation of momentum where momentum is conserved, but you're converting from one form, in this case electromagnetic wave, to another form, the spacecraft. Could that hold? Could that make sense?

BW: I mean you can, you can use an electromagnetic wave to push things, like the optical tweezers, but at the end of the day, if it's a closed system, the net momentum of the thing– you know what the momentum is because you can measure the center of mass and there's no radiation outside that thing either, it's all contained inside. So I don't understand how you can actually get a net momentum of the thing if it really is an honestly closed system. Because you can actually set– the average momentum is the mass times the velocity of the thing, very roughly speaking. So OK, maybe there's some momentum, there certainly is momentum in the electromagnetic wave, but at the end of the day the thing either has a momentum or it doesn't, and if there's no external force there shouldn't be any change in the momentum, momentum must be conserved.

B: Yeah Steve, I think the fact that it's a closed system is one of the things that is most against this. The only thing that I've come across that even makes remote sense to me is that you could have some sort of asymmetric thermal glow around the box but that would be so tiny and that kind of reminds me of the... what was it?

S: The Pioneer?

B: The Pioneer probes, but that would be negligible and ridiculous, as low as even what they're claiming, it would be smaller than that I think. But it's the closed system I think that really is the nasty part of this that won't go away. And I mean if he's got this, great, send it to us, have somebody look at it. Send it to some university or some government agency and have them check this and just ''prove'' it, it shouldn't be hard to prove that you can do this, it's like a perpetual motion machine.

BW: The thing I love is, like you said I'm a string theorist, so when I see something with data, I'm like "Oh my god, that's real science." So yeah, that's exactly my reaction too is that if this really happens, it shouldn't be– you know it may be very sensitive, but it should not be impossible to duplicate.

B: Guys real quick, don't forget, {{w|Boeing_Phantom_Works|Boeing's Phantom Works}} actually looked at one of this guy's prototypes and they didn't pursue it. So to me, I mean, that's not evidence that this is baloney, but to me this is just another little thing that you've got to consider.

S: But that's where we are now, so the Chinese say that they've built one, it's producing this tiny amount of acceleration, and this is like the perpetual motion machines where they say 'OK I've built one and it's producing this tiny amount of energy, but we can scale it up'. But of course, it never scales up–

B: (laughs)

S: –because the tiny amount of energy, or in this case the tiny amount of momentum, is probably a round-off error that they're then multiplying by 50,000 and producing an apparent effect. Or they're just– their measurements are off by a teeny tiny, itsy bitsy amount, right?

BW: That's the big question, right. Is the effect they're claiming, how does that compare to their error? Their ability to detect. And that's something I certainly don't know the answer to, but if they can't convincingly say that the effect they're measuring is much larger than their precision it doesn't matter, that's not a result.

S: Yeah now some people are saying, 'yeah start pushing satellites around, and then we'll believe you'. That's like, you know, run your house off your perpetual motion machine and then I'll pay attention. You know, your free energy device or whatever it is. But it never scales up to anything practical because they're all living in the world below the threshold of noise, where it's just all in the errors whether it's mathematical or tiny measurement errors or whatever, and it never does scale up. But, we'll see, I mean this one is interesting, it seems that the consensus is that this is the equivalent of perpetual motion, you can't violate conservation of momentum. His hand-waving explanation of transferring electromagnetic momentum from the electromagnetic wave to the spacecraft superficially sounds OK, but I guess it doesn't really solve the problem of the conservation of momentum. It's also called the ''reactionless'' dive because it's not reacting with the outside world in any way, so if you were sending electromagnetic waves off in one direction then sure, that would produce thrust, but that's not a reactionless drive.

B: Yeah, the other aspect of that is some people kind of confuse it and they say, oh it's a rocket engine with no fuel, and that's really not true, it's without reaction mass.

S: Without propellant.

B: Right, or propellant. The fuel is whatever you would use to power the reactor that generates the electricity.

BW: Do you guys know the article about this, this has appeared in a journal or not? I don't remember offhand.

S: Well the Chinese are not disclosing their information because they're saying oh we have to make sure we have all the patents and we don't get scooped, so they're saying it's going to take them a year before they're actually going to have transparency with their data. So that's fishy, right?

BW: Yeah. Super fishy.

B: Alright. See you in a year.

S: That's super fishy. Shawyer, he wrote the theoretical papers and they're online, you can get them on the New Scientist website that I'll link to, or at [http://www.emdrive.com emdrive.com].

BW: Yeah, he has a website with a FAQ and all these, you know the answers to every objection that you could possibly raise to his device, right.

S: Right. And reading the comments is funny because the cold fusion people have jumped on board with this.

B: Oh boy. Yeah, yeah.

BW: Yeah.

S: And all the conspiracy theories about you know, the scientific priesthood says it's impossible so they don't want to research it.

E: Scientific priesthood, yep.

S: Well what we need to do is hook up a cold fusion reactor to an EM drive, then we basically have anti-gravity, man.

BW: Unlimited power.

E: Mwa-ha-ha.

S: It would be super cool if this worked.

BW: If this somehow works, it's cool from ''any number'' of perspectives, right? It's cool from any number of perspectives, it's cool from a practical perspective, like we might actually be able to use this thing for thrust. But then it also says that clearly a lot of people maybe don't really understand physics as well as they thought.

S: Yeah

BW: So anytime you have to go back and reevaluate your assumptions, that's great.

S: Yeah I mean it's worth saying, we would ''love'' for this to work.

B: Oh my god. Some people were predicting that if you had a superconducting cavity, something like an EM drive, you could eventually lift 3 tons with just 1 kW of input power, I mean, can you imagine? Three tons.

S: That sounds crazy.

B: Yeah, it would be amazing.

S: Even if what they're claiming now is the limit of it, which is a tiny amount of propulsion, that is a very effective way of moving ships around the solar system because you won't have to carry propellant with you and you won't have to accelerate the propellant, and therefore the rocket equation is off the table and this would be ''massively'' efficient, even with its tiny acceleration.

B: It's actually even more efficient than an {{w|ion thruster}}, it's like four times as much thrust, half as much power, with no propellant needed to be carried on.

BW: Certainly the effects that they're describing right now are really, really tiny.

B: Yeah, 72 grams of thrust with 2,500 watts of electricity

S: Right, well you just need a lot of them. So it would be cool, but don't hold your breath is the bottom line.

BW: Yes, that's right. I'm... doubtful.

S: You're skeptical, right.

BW: Actually I was going to say skeptical, then stopped.

''(laughter)''

J: Hey but there's something cool that you don't have to hold your breath for that's coming up.

BW: Amazing segue.

R: Yeah, we're really good at those.

BW: Yeah, I know.

S: We've been getting better, we've been practising.

R: Yeah, you should have heard us seven years ago.

S: So what are you talking about, Jay?

R: Get to the point, Jay.

=== Stimulus, Response - NECSS of science and improvisation <small>(59:15)</small>===

J: Brian and George Hrab were tasked with coming up with a new event for [http://necss.org NECSS] that's unique to NECSS that's going to be a unique event. Brian, why don't you tell us what you guys came up with?

BW: So the idea, what George and I came up with, we're both super psyched about it. It's called ''Stimulus, Response - NECSS of science and improvisation'' and the idea is that we wanted to create an event which was really particularly unique, and also unique to NECSS so the idea is that we're going to have two improvised performances, so the evening is going to start out with George and his cousin, is that right? Roman?

J: That's right, yep.

BW: Yep. So George of course is an incredible musician, and his cousin Roman is an artist and they're going to spontaneously create a simultaneous work of music and art at the same time and draw inspiration off of each other. So that'll be the first act. After that we're going to get a panel together of George and Roman, we're going to have Steve, and Steve will talk about the neuroscience of improvisation, we'll get to hear his scientific input on how exactly you're able to create these events, how you're able to spontaneously come up with the kind of stuff that people have seen. Also {{w|H. A. Berlin|Heather Berlin}}, who is a phenomenal scientist, will be on the panel as well. I'll be moderating. And then we're also going to get some improv comedians, the second act is this panel discussion of the nature of improvisation and in part, the sort of like'what the hell were you thinking when you did this?', and then go to the scientists, Steve and Heather, for their scientific input. Then also talk to some people who improvise comedy on a regular basis, and then they're going to take over in act three and then do a whole improvised set, basically a comedy set based on an interview with some prominent NECSS attendee, which we're not announcing yet because we have yet to confirm, but some really awesome person who will talk about their life or talk about some particularly interesting thing that they've done. The comedians are then going to draw inspiration from him or her and then create a 20-25 minute set based on that.

B: Awesome.

J: I can't wait to see this thing, man.

S: All right Brian, thanks for coming on the show with us and helping us debunk this latest bit of pseudoscience.

E: Yep

BW: (laughs) Well great, thanks.

S: And I'll really look forward to NECSS, and seeing you there and to what you guys put together on Friday night.

BW: Yeah thanks so much for having me and I can't wait to see you guys in April.

S: Alright take care.

BW: You too.

B: Thanks, Brian.

R: Thanks, Brian.

E: See ya, Brian.

== Science or Fiction <small>(1:01:44)</small> ==

S: Each week, I come up with three science news items or facts, two real and one fake. I challenge my panel of skeptics to tell me which one is the fake.

E: You almost yelled the work fake at us.

R: Yeah. There's a lot of anger there.

S: Fake stuff gets me mad, what can I tell you? Are you guys ready for this week.

B: Then why are you making it up? Yes!

E: Sure.

R: Mm-hmm.

S: I know, I hate myself when I do it. Here we go. [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD000980.pub4/abstract;jsessionid=DE22CBF8899F8609FE829A25BCF257A5.d03t04 Item #1]: A new review concludes that Vitamin C supplementation halves the incidence of the common cold. [http://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2013/february/feb13_unconsciousthought.html Item #2]: New research finds that decision making continues subconsciously even when we have turned our attention to a new task. And [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130212075117.htm item #3]: A recent study finds that African American women require twice the supplemental doses of vitamin D as do Caucasian women. Jay, go first.

J: The one about the vitamin C, I would be shocked if that's true, right out of the gate. Just because I've read so many times that vitamin C does not have an effect on that. I'm assuming here, by the way it's written down, you say vitamin C supplementation, that it's not just that they take it when you have a cold, that over a long period of time. Because we know that if you take it when you get a cold that it does absolutely nothing, or so I think. But OK, alright that one's on the back burner. The second one about decision making continuing even after you've turned your attention to a new task, I think that's true, of course it's true, your brain isn't just thinking or working on what's in the front of your mind, what's in the front of your mind, what's in your conscious mind, it's constantly, ''constantly'' pulling apart things and analyzing things, so that one to me 100% fact, without a question of a doubt. And the third one about African American women requiring twice the supplemental doses of vitamin D as Caucasian women, that's interesting. It's interesting, you know maybe in a low-sun situation under normal living conditions, people are indoors more than outdoors and maybe because of the color of their skin they don't absorb as much vitamin D somehow? Meaning they need longer exposure to sunlight to absorb the same amount of vitamin D for their skin to produce as much vitamin D as a Caucasian person. Huh. That's OK, so I could make an argument either way for that. So now it's the vitamin C one which we already know for ''years and years'' we've all heard that vitamin C does not help with the common cold mow this is a reverse on that. Interesting. Or the third one. I'm going against my gut and I'm going to select the third one, the vitamin D one as the fake. And the die roll is... number 1.

S: OK, Rebecca.

R: Alright, this is tough because I had an immediate reaction to these in that vitamin C, the vitamin C one ''immediately'' sounded wrong and the other two immediately sounded right to me. And in fact African American women requiring twice as much vitamin D, in my head that's obvious and solved and done. I was already under the impression that African Americans required more vitamin D and that vitamin D deficiency led to a higher incidence of certain diseases and maybe even cancers in African Americans compared to in Caucasians. But I don't know, so that one immediately sounded right, and the idea that your decision making continues subconsciously, that immediately seems right not because I've seen any studies on it but just because I've always felt like that's what works for me, like I input things in my brain before I go to bed and then I wake up with the answer, things like that. Or if I'm working on something creative and I'm hitting a roadblock I just go play video games or I do something else or I work out or something and then when I come back I've got it, you know. So that seems obvious to me too, and like Jay said, everything I thought I knew about vitamin C is that it was ineffective. But I'm always suspicious when things seem that obvious that means that something's screwy.

B: Or maybe that's what he wants you to think!

R: I know! Maybe it's the old double cross! I'm going to go with the vitamin C one being wrong, because I fell for it I guess, I don't know. That one.

S: OK. Evan.

E: Vitamin C supplementation halves the incidence of the common cold. I think we've talked about vitamin C before in this regard, Jay some of the things you were talking about ring bells. If you were to build it up in your body ahead of time and maintain a higher than average level of vitamin C then perhaps that could work. Decision making continues subconsciously even when we've turned our attention to a new task. Sure, I don't see why that couldn't be the case, which makes me suspicious. Continues subconsciously, boy we do so many things subconsciously, I'm probably doing a whole bunch of things subconsciously right now and I couldn't describe them because they are, what? Subconscious. And I'm already on to a new task because I'm on to the third one. African American women require twice the supplemental doses of vitamin D as do Caucasian women. Would that be because the African American women have a harder time absorbing the vitamin D from the sun, from sunlight? That would seem to make sense on some level, but I've not heard vitamin D being part of the need for women, as opposed to men, so I don't know about this one, I'm kind of thinking that this one's wrong because twice the supplemental doses of vitamin D, yeah I don't think that's right at all actually, I don't think that Caucasian women need supplements of vitamin D at all and therefore African American women would not require twice the supplemental dose so I'll say that one's the fiction.

S: And Bob.

B: I had a similar reaction to Rebecca. Seemed pretty straightforward. I'll start with three. African Americans requiring more vitamin D, yeah it made total sense, you've got more melanin, you absorb less sun, therefore you make less vitamin D. Twice as much may sound like a lot but you don't necessarily need a lot anyway, so twice of a little is still not that big. The subconscious decision making yeah, I mean my go-to example for that is I'm trying to think of a word, can't think of it, and then almost invariably, 10, 15 minutes, an hour later, bam! It just totally pops right into my head, clearly something was looking for it without my conscious control. And then the vitamin C, yeah I mean how long have we heard that it's not dramatic, you don't really need to go crazy with vitamin C, it's not going to have that much of an effect on the common cold. So what the hell, I know it's... I'm just going to go with the common cold and say that one is fiction.

R: You and me, Bob. You and me.

S: OK, interesting. So you all agree on the middle one that new research finds that decision making continues subconsciously even when we have turned our attention to a new task, you all think that one is science, and that one is... science. Yep, that was the easy one this week. But what new researchers found is they did actual brain studies where they imaged the different parts of the brain functioning and they had subjects, they gave them a task, then they had them move on to a different task and they found that the decision making parts of the brain were still active even when they had moved on to a distracting task.

B: That's cool.

S: Something that didn't involve decision making, that was something like doing math, you know just something specific but not involved in the decision-making process. They also said this is consistent with research that shows that decision making is improved when– well this is actually a follow-up to that research, so prior research showed that if you take a break from a decision making task, that it may actually improve the quality of the decisions that you make. Now the question was, is that because your brain is still working on the problem or is it because you take a break from the problem and then you come back with a fresh look, fresh outlook? You know does it sort of recharge your batteries? So this study gave the subjects the task, then gave them a distracting task and it showed that the brain is still working in the background, subconsciously, same parts of the brain are active, the decision-making, you know the parts that were active during the active decision-making. So that, pretty strong evidence that that is the case. Not surprising, I agree with Bob, I think most people probably have a similar experience of trying to think of something and then you move on and then the boom! The information pops into your head. What's going on there? Obviously it seems like it was, the solution was derived subconsciously and then presented to your conscious self and that does seem to be what the neuroscience shows. Well let's go back to number one, a new review concludes that vitamin C supplementation halves the incidence of the common cold. Bob and Rebecca think this one is the fiction. Jay and Evan think this one is science. And this one is... science.

J: Aha.

E: Oooh.

R: Aaargh.

B: Shit.

R: Damn you, Novella!

S: A little surprising. This is a {{w|Cochrane Library|Cochrane Library review. Now there's some details in here that are worth pointing out.

B: I'm sure there are.

S: The improvement in the– the reduction I should say, the ''reduction'' in the incidence of contracting the common cold was only in those studies that showed– that involved people that were under some kind of physical activity, like engaging in a sport or in the military or essentially they were under some physical stress. If you weren't under physical stress that 50% figure does not hold.

B: Under physical stress or do you mean generally fit?

S: No no, under physical stress, yeah not just in good shape, but you had to be, at the time you were supplementing, were subjected to some kind of physical stress. So the thinking there is that the vitamin C is helping you somehow compensate for that physical stress. The review identified 5 double blind placebo controlled trials which showed that. Jay, you pointed out something that was very important though. These were ''supplementation'' trials meaning that you're taking it all the time. Treatment trials where you give vitamin C once you contract the cold generally show no effect. The review did note that in adults, the duration of the cold is reduced by about 8% with vitamin C supplementation and in children by about 14%. These have generally been considered to be clinically insignificant, what are you going to have your cold lessened by a few hours, you know? This is 1 to 2 grams a day. The effects of vitamin C are pretty modest outside of this one parameter. I have to say, personally I'm not 100% convinced of this, I have to like really dissect the quality of the trials that they're citing.

R: Then ''maybe'' it shouldn't have been in Science or Fiction, I'm just saying, Steve. Just saying.

S: Well that's why I said "a study concludes".

R: Just saying.

S: A review concludes that.

R: I don't like your weasel language.

S: I'm not concluding that.

R: Yeah, weasel.

S: I didn't say "demonstrates", I just said that a review concludes.

R: The used car sales man of self-lies.

E: You called him a whistle-pig

S: The whistle-pig? I picked that wording very deliberately. But it is what it is. I mean it's a Cochrane Review, it seems pretty up and up, but I'm just a little suspicious of it. The conclusion, I don't agree with the authors' ''recommendations'' based upon this because they say that regular supplementation is inexpensive and low risk so why not do it even if you're not sure if it's worthwhile or not. And they eventually said, as an individual you could try it out and see if it works for you, which I think is kind of a worthless recommendation. You're not going to be able to ''tell'' if it works for you, its all going to be placebo effect and anecdote. But the other thing is given the number of colds that the average person has a year, it's really not worth, in my opinion, taking a gram or two of vitamin C all year round just to prevent one cold, even if this data is consistent, or shorten the duration by a tiny amount.

R: Maybe spend that money on hand soap, or one of those face masks.

S: Yeah right. It's probably, yeah probably better off just having good hand hygiene. And I'm not so convinced that high doses of vitamin C are benign. It could be associated with a higher risk of heart disease, for example. So I would not give the same bottom line recommendation as this study. I think that the only thing that this really adds that you could really make a case for is if you are going to be under extreme physical stress, then supplementing with vitamin C may help your body deal with that stress. A general recommendation for supplementation I think is not warranted by this data. All of this means that "a recent study finds that African American women require twice the supplemental doses of vitamin D as do Caucasian women" is the fiction and Bob and Rebecca, you engaged in exactly the reasoning I was hoping that you would because that certainly was my thought.

B: Screw you.

S: And it's plausible, this is why it was studied, because people with dark skin absorb less vitamin D from the sun and so you might think they might need more supplementation. But what they found, what the study found was that African American women and Caucasian women required the exact same amount of vitamin D supplementation, that their base levels that they're getting from the sun didn't really have an effect on how much oral supplementation they needed, that the same recommendations would suffice for both groups.

B: I disagree with that conclusion.

S: (laughs)

E: So women do need additional vitamin D?

S: Well it depends, I think that the best recommendation right now is just to get your vitamin D levels checked with your primary care doctor, and then if it's on the low side then it's reasonable to supplement. If you're not under the regular care of a physician, then it's a little hard to say because there's so many variables, where do you live, how much sun exposure do you get, how dark is your skin. Combine all those, and also the time of year. You know your needs in January are going to be different than your needs in July, but if you really want to know just get your levels checked.

R: What about men?

S: The study only involved women so I don't know, I'm assuming it's the same.

R: What about men?

S: I don't know, this study...

R: I'm not assuming does(?).

S: Yeah I know. I would suspect that it would not be dramatically different but this study only involved women for whatever reason. So good work, Jay and Evan.

J: Thank you.

E: Yeah.

S: And the die went with Bob and Rebecca this time and failed. So we should note that

J: The die died.

== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:17:24)</small> ==

S: Well Jay, do you have a quote for us this week?

J: I sure do. This is a quote sent in by my friend Craig Good over at Pixar. Craig wanted to congratulate me about my son and also sent a pretty cool quote. The quote is:

<blockquote>Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known.</blockquote>

J: That quote was penned by {{w|Michel de Montaigne}}. Montiag-ne. Montiai. Taig.

S: Montaigne.

J: Montaigne (shouting) Michael de Montaigne yeah!

S: Alright, thanks Jay. And thanks for joining me this week everyone.

B: You're welcome, Steve.

R: Thank you, Steve.

E: It was good to be joined to you.

J: Thanks Stevie!

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

{{Outro1}}

== References ==
<references/>

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SGU transcription competition 1

2013-09-23T06:09:11Z

Teleuteskitty: typo

* '''This competition has now been won!''' Congratulations to Geneocide. Here's a photo of him wearing his SGU t-shirt:

[[File:Contest Winner.jpg|left|300px]]

The terms of competition 1 were:

'''Be the first to transcribe 5 SGU episodes (or 400 podcast minutes) and win an SGU t-shirt!'''

As announced on episode 378, the Rogues will bestow an ''SGU t-shirt of your choice'' upon the first contributor to complete 5 full SGU episodes.

To include as much transcription work as possible and encourage work in segment sized chunks, we've put the benchmark at 400 minutes of transcribed podcast time, so you can make up your total from as many different segments as you like. Once you think you've transcribed your 400 minutes, send us an email us at [mailto:info@sgutranscripts.org info@sgutranscripts.org]. The [[admins]] (who are self-sacrificingly excluded from the competition) will verify the contributions (we're keeping track of them right now), and pass the winner's details on to the Rogues at the SGU.

The shortest single contribution accepted will be a 5x5 episode or a full segment - as defined by the headings in the episode's show notes. See [[Help:Getting Started]] for advice on setting up transcription pages, and don't forget to include your segment time-stamps! We're watching out for copy-pasting and will always award the minutes to the original contributor.

If you have any further questions, please contact [mailto:info@sgutranscripts.org info@sgutranscripts.org]

SGU transcription competition 2

2013-09-22T21:23:36Z

Teleuteskitty: added comp 1 page below

<big>'''Be the biggest new contributor of the month and win SGU swag!'''</big>

In episode 426, Jay announced the new competition: Whoever signs up and transcribes the most over the next month will win some SGU swag!

We don't mind if you do a segment or a full episode, it's minutes of podcast transcribed that will count toward your total.

'''Details''':
* You must have registered with SGUTranscripts.org after 14th September, 6pm UTC (2pm EDT)
* Contributions will be recorded up until 6pm UTC on 14th October
* The shortest single contribution accepted will be a 5x5 episode or a full segment - as defined by the headings in the episode's show notes.
* Only transcription counts (although feel free to [[Help:How to Contribute|help out]] in whatever way, it just won't get you swag, sorry)
* Minutes will always awarded the to the original contributor (so if you're working on something, [[Help:Getting_Started#Reserving_episodes.2Fsegments|reserve it]]!)

The [[Admins]] (who have once again self-sacrificingly excluded themselves from the competition) will verify the contributions (we're keeping track of them right now), and pass the winner's details on to the Rogues at the SGU.

See the [[Help:Contents| help pages]] for advice on setting started, and don't forget to include your segment time-stamps!

<div style="text-align: center;">If you have any further questions, please contact us at [mailto:info@sgutranscripts.org info@sgutranscripts.org]</div>

[[File:SGUheader.jpg|link=|center|300px]]

= SGU transcription competition 1 =

<big>'''This competition has now been won! Contgratulations to Geneocide.'''</big>

Here's a photo of him wearing his SGU t-shirt:

[[File:Contest Winner.jpg|left|300px]]

The terms of competition 1 were:

'''Be the first to transcribe 5 SGU episodes (or 400 podcast minutes) and win an SGU t-shirt!'''

As announced on episode 378, the Rogues will bestow an ''SGU t-shirt of your choice'' upon the first contributor to complete 5 full SGU episodes.

To include as much transcription work as possible and encourage work in segment sized chunks, we've put the benchmark at 400 minutes of transcribed podcast time, so you can make up your total from as many different segments as you like. Once you think you've transcribed your 400 minutes, send us an email us at [mailto:info@sgutranscripts.org info@sgutranscripts.org]. The [[admins]] (who are self-sacrificingly excluded from the competition) will verify the contributions (we're keeping track of them right now), and pass the winner's details on to the Rogues at the SGU.

The shortest single contribution accepted will be a 5x5 episode or a full segment - as defined by the headings in the episode's show notes. See [[Help:Getting Started]] for advice on setting up transcription pages, and don't forget to include your segment time-stamps! We're watching out for copy-pasting and will always award the minutes to the original contributor.

If you have any further questions, please contact [mailto:info@sgutranscripts.org info@sgutranscripts.org]

SGU Episode 396

2013-09-22T21:18:53Z

Teleuteskitty: typos fixed

{{Proof reading all
|proofer = Teleuteskitty
|date = 2013-09-07}}
{{Editing required
|proof-reading = y
|links = y
|Today I Learned list = y
|categories = y
|segment redirects = y 
|}}
{{InfoBox
|episodeNum = 396
|episodeDate = 16<sup>th</sup> February 2013
|episodeIcon = File:Eosinopteryx_S.jpg
|rebecca = y
|bob = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
|guest1 = BW: [http://necss.org/speakers/brian-wecht/ Brian Wecht]
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2013-02-16.mp3
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php?topic=45058.0
|qowText = Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known.
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_de_Montaigne Michel de Montaigne]
|}}

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

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday February 13<sup>th</sup> 2013 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: Hot Damn!

S: And Evan Bernstein.

E: By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground for out of it you were taken, for you are dust. Into dust you shall return.

R: That was weird and depressing. OK!

J: What's up with that?

E: Ash Wednesday.

S: Yeah it is Ash Wednesday.

R: Oooh.

B: Oh, it is?

E: Yeah.

S: Yeah, I was seeing a patient today and I thought they had some kind of dark and suspicious looking mole under their hair.

(laughter)

S: So even though I'm a neurologist I still examine the whole patient, and so I brushed their hair aside to see what it was, and it was... you know... they were Catholic.

E: You brushed their hair aside, you didn't just ask them?

R: You didn't lick your finger and rub it on their face did you?

S: No, I didn't wipe it off.

J: Guys! Guys!

E: Huh? Yeah? What? Oh hey, Jay.

J: I have a son. I have a baby boy. (laughs)

R: Yeah! Well done.

S: Is that where you were last week?

B: Why didn't you tell us?

R: Well done to Courtney I guess, you didn't really do much.

J: Uh, come on it was very hard to watch.

R: I bet.

J: That is serious stuff, man.

E: I know, you almost spilled your popcorn, I know.

J: It was epic. It was incredible, the whole experience was absolutely incredible. I don't recommend it, it's not for everybody.

R: You don't recommend it?

J: It's not for everyone I mean, it's not for everyone. It's absolutely fantastic if you want it and you're ready for it and I absolutely was ready for it.

S: Was that for the benefit of our younger listeners, Jay? The...

J: Absolutely, yeah I wasn't talking to Rebecca here, she already knows all of that.

R: Yeah, I know the birds and the bees.

J: You know, it's all the clichés, you know I wish I had a different profound thought to share other than when it happens and it's right it's the best thing in the world, it's fantastic.

S: The clichés are all true is what you're saying.

J: They are, and it's inexplicable, you have to experience this for yourself.

S: Well congratulations, brother.

J: Thanks, sorry I wasn't here for two weeks, guys. I didn't want it to be that way but you know.

R: Eh, what are you going to do?

S: Life intrudes on our little project here unfortunately.

J: You know, just so you know, babies make incredibly cute noises.

S: Yes, they do. The cooing noises?

R: Uh yeah, when it's yours. Before it starts that horrible screaming sound.

S: Well it gets cuter though Jay, when they start to form those noises into words, proto-language. It gets really cute.

J: I just want to share something.

R: Alright.

(cooing noises)

R: I'm pretty sure that was a seal.

J: (laughs) Come on that's adorable.

R: Yeah, it's alright, it's pretty cute.

== This Day in Skepticism <small>(3:02)</small> ==
February 16, 1997 Physicist {{w|Chien-Shiung Wu}} died.

R: Hey, it's time for this day in whatever, are you ready?

S: Yeah.

B: Whatever.

R: It's exciting. I usually try to avoid "this is the day somebody died" events because you know, it's depressing. But in this case the person was so awesome that I wanted to talk about her. Today, February 16<sup>th</sup> in 1997, Chien-Shiung Wu died. So Chien-Shiung Wu was born in China in 1912 to a father who believed in the equality of the sexes, so much so that he started a vocational school for women. When she was 11, Wu left her home town to pursue her education which continued up through university where she studied physics, and upon graduation she became a researcher at the institute of physics at a Chinese academy. At the age of 24 she decided that she'd gone as far as she could possibly go in China, so she hopped a steam ship to the US and she landed in San Francisco and she enrolled at UC Berkley in grad school and she eventually finished here PhD there in 1940. Then she moved East. She became a faculty member at Smith, then Princeton, then finally at Columbia, where she did research for the {{w|Manhattan Project}} doing amazing things like helping to figure out how to separate uranium metal using gaseous diffusion. Also at Columbia, she hooked up with these two theoretical physicists who came up with an idea that the hypothetical law of {{w|Parity (physics)|conservation of parity}} was wrong when it came to the weak nuclear force. Wu was able to develop the experiment that proved them right. The theoretical physicists won the Nobel Prize for it and Wu won the first ever {{w|Wolf prize}} in physics for it in 1978. So she was a really amazing woman, she did tons of awesome stuff and I was very excited to note that we have something in common. She also has an asteroid named after her.

B: (laughs)

S: Cool.

R: So yeah. Chien-Shiung Wu. Awesome lady.

S: The Chinese Marie Curie, apparently.

R: Yeah.

E: Nice.

R: Although I like to think that Marie Curie is the European Chien-Shiung Wu.

E: Ah. Touché

S: Well that's what they say in China.

R: Right.

J: That is cool.

== News Items ==
=== AI Doctor <small>(5:23)</small>===
Gigaom.com: [http://gigaom.com/2013/02/11/researchers-say-ai-prescribes-better-treatment-than-doctors/ Researchers Say AI Prescribes Better Treatment than Doctors]

S: So Jay, you're going to start off the News Segment by telling us about computers practising medicine.

J: Right. But first.

<blockquote>Old Gray!</blockquote>

B: (laughs) Old Gray!

R: Why?

J: I'm just celebrating.

E: Should I know what that is?

Everyone: Old Gray.

B: Oh my god, Evan.

J: We need to talk after the show.

E: Now I remember you referencing that a long time ago, I never bothered to latch on.

J: You never bothered to watch like internet absolutely incredible?

B: You never bothered to laugh?

E: I was busy then.

R: Do you not have joy in your life, Evan?

E: Apparently not, apparently I am sorely lacking.

R: Why do you hate happiness?

J: OK so, two Indiana University researchers Casey Bennett and Kris Hauser have developed something called an expert machine. This is something we've talked about on the show before,{{Link needed}} it's like {{w|Watson (computer)|IBM's Watson}}, remember that program they were using to play Jeopardy.

R: No relation.

B: Yep.

S: Oh yeah.

E: And it kicked ass.

J: This is something called, like I said, an expert machine, but this one is specialized in determining patient illness and treatments. Which I've been waiting for this, I've actually talked to Steve about this many times, I'm like 'Steve, why don't they have a computer to do all the heavy lifting and have the doctor do the fine tuning?' Well that's exactly what these guys did. The technology uses machine learning and is the same computer science discipline that in part supported some of these cool things that we all are getting to see now like voice recognition, we all have that on our cell phones, the self-driving cars, like the stuff, the work, that Google is doing with their cars, and credit card fraud detection systems which, I don't know if many people know about but that's a pretty significant system that they use, a very robust system that is in place to help prevent fraud and to capture people who are committing fraud. So at its core the new system uses a pair of predictive modelling techniques, one of them called the {{w|Markov Decision Process}} and the second one is {{w|Dynamic decision-making|Dynamic Decision Networks}}. These are two cool things that you should read about, each of them distinct; in conjunction, they are making something that was not too long ago impossible. The idea behind the research and eventual development is pretty straight forward. If doctors can stop relying in their intuition and instead focus on the known facts, they would be able to make better decisions. I know it sounds very simple, but in essence, that's what they set out to do. It uses sequential decision making where each decision opens up new pathways and those simulate alternative treatments and as new data becomes available it plans and re-plans its path and they say that, quote-unquote, "it can think like a doctor." So I know that that might sound like a contradiction, because I just said before that it could work better than doctors or doctors are using intuition to come to their decision. It's going to use the process that a doctor would use but on an amazingly huge scale, right? And this is where you need the huge processing power of computers to do it. The idea being that if they took say all of the medical records of the entire country, the entire United States, which as many of you know are rapidly becoming– our healthcare system is becoming electronic, and that all of our data is going online. Many of the people who have gone to the doctor over the past couple of years have noticed that they're using software now, they're asking you to restate all these questions so you can give them your information, they're plugging it into the system. Well that system's data very soon will become global and accessible, especially for research purposes, it would be an incredible win for everybody. Instead of a doctor seeing say a couple of thousand patients a year that have a similar illness, the software will look at hundreds of thousands of patients, take all that data, use it in a way, with their algorithms, use it so that it can determine what statistically is the best course of action, not just in the single doctor's experience or in a small practice's experience.

R: Would that open up privacy concerns?

S: Well if you're going to use data, healthcare data, there are rules for that. It has to be scrubbed of any patient identifying information.

R: Mmm. OK.

J: Sure. Do you care if you're a number in some spreadsheet or some electronic process that says–

S: Well apparently people ''do'' care, because you've got to get permission from people to use it.

R: Yeah I mean I would care just because of the amount of times things go wrong.

J: Yeah but it's not like some person's going to be at the doctor in California, Rebecca, and your picture's not going to come up on their screen saying this person has this phenomenally awful disease. It's just data, it's just statistical data they're going to be using.

S: Yeah, you can ask systems like this, how many people who have this diagnosis are on this drug? Or how many people who are on this drug are also on this other one, and how many times did they get admitted to the hospital over the last three years. So it won't give you any specific information about any specific individuals, but you can ask statistical questions about the database.

R: Right.

S: Yep.

J: So Casey Bennett, one of the researchers, said:
<blockquote>"The Markov Decision Process and Dynamic Decision Networks enable the system to deliberate about the future, considering all the different possible sequences of actions and effects in advance even in cases where we are unsure of the effects."<ref name=Indiana>Indiana University press release - [http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/23795.html Can computers save health care? IU research shows lower costs, better outcomes]</ref></blockquote>

J: Their research tries to answer three issues concerning US healthcare. Steve, I'd like to know what you have about these three things. The rising cost, expected to reach 30% of the gross domestic product by 2050. A quality of care where patients receive correct diagnoses and treatment less than half the time on a first visit. And a lag time of 13 to 17 years between research and practice in clinical care.

B: Whoa.

S: Yeah, those are all correct.

B: 13 to 17 years?

J: Well sure, Bob, if you think about–

B: What kind of bullshit is that?

J: Well, no that's not bullshit.

S: Well it depends what kind of penetration you're talking about. I mean the younger doctors actually are a little bit better on that score, on incorporating the latest information. Academic physicians are better. But if you want to penetrate to the old guys out in the community, those are the hold outs, those are the people who are not necessarily getting all the critical updates that they should be in a timely fashion, and it takes a while to percolate through the culture of medicine. That is a significant problem. I think that the system of continuing medical education tries to address that, but it does so in my opinion in a very haphazard way, not in a systematic way. So there's still, I think, a lot of room for improvement there.

J: Well here are the facts guys. Bennett also said, that researcher also said later on that "the framework here easily outperforms the current treatment as usual, case rate fee-for-service models of healthcare." So listen to these statistics. With 500 real random patients, their software cost-per-patient difference was $495 down to $189, an improvement of 58.5% and the patient outcomes can be improved by, guys, a dramatic 41.9% at the peak performance of their system. That is huge, huge.

S: That's all a little theoretical though. It's not unreasonable, but it's also the system using its own criteria to assess itself, you know? So it would be nice to see how it works in the real world. Put it at the point of care in doctors' offices and then measure what effect it has, that would be more, I think, more of a meaningful measurement. But it shows that the potential is there, there's the potential for cost savings and improved outcomes. Essentially this is an expert system, these are nothing new, meaning that it's a system designed to be used by experts to give them– to augment their information, to give them the information they need when they need it. And I think that we ''have'' to go this way, it's just overwhelming, the amount of information, and ''new'' information that's being published. There's thousands and thousands of papers, even in a narrow area of expertise, that's being published every year. Plus, as Jay was saying, the number of permutations that physicians get presented with is staggering, every patient is unique in a way, in that they have their own medical history, they have a combination of medical problems, they're on a certain combination of medications, and then you're going to introduce a new element, a treatment or whatever, into that mix, and you could make only statistical statements about what's likely to happen but physicians are, by necessity, are using a simplified version of the data analysis. Even if we are trying to look it up at the time, how could I really know, for example what the interaction is going to be between a new medication and the five other medications that a patient is on? I know what the ''individual'' interactions are, but what are all the combinations? Where expert systems work well is in doing what humans don't do well, right? So they could do the heavy lifting, the number crunching, taking into consideration vast amounts of information that no human brain can hold, and then the physician can take that information, that recommendation: don't forget to do this, consider that, watch out for this interaction, this is the best evidence-based treatment right now, or here are the three options prioritized by the ones that are most likely to have the best outcome, and then the physician can individualize it for the patient a little bit more, taking into consideration some variables that maybe the system wasn't designed to take into consideration, not the least of which is patient preference, you know? There are some things where it's just patients care more about certain things than other things and you have to ask patients, what's more important, treating the symptom or avoiding the side effect? And you get different answers from different patients and that determines what treatment they might want. I think a good analogy is chess masters, right? If you think of physicians like chess-masters? They're very good at pattern recognition, they're very good at remembering the classic moves that really work, whereas a computer chess player can crunch hundreds of possible moves.

E: It'll play thousands of games in moments.

B: Brute force.

S: Yeah, you could brute force it in a way that a person can't. And for a while the human pattern recognition was better than computers, but now computers are better than the human. But imagine the two together. Imagine a chess master where the computer says I suggest you do this move, these are the things you've got to worry about and then he could use that ''in addition'' to his intuition and pattern recognition and then you get the best of both worlds.

R: Sounds like a great new buddy comedy.

(laughter)

E: Yeah

R: I got ya.

S: The odd couple?

E: You need to come up with a funny name for the computer of course, you know.

S: Hit it.

E: Felix?

(laughter)

S: Would the computer be Felix or Oscar? I guess Felix. One thing, a limiting factor here is that it takes a lot of time to create these algorithms and to feed it all the information. Keep in mind that this is just looking at treating one disease. All of the development is just coming up with: alright here's an algorithm to treat this one little thing, now we've got to build a ''thousand'' of these in order to really address the full breadth, and then keep them all of them updated as new information comes in. This is a massive project. That's really why these things aren't already in every doctor's office is because it's a massive project to create these things.

E: That's why I'm not so sure about the savings, the cost savings, maybe in the very long run you'll eventually see some cost savings, but I think there's still a lot of money that still needs to go into getting these things up to speed before you see the return on investment.

S: Yeah there are huge investments upfront, absolutely, but as the infrastructure becomes ubiquitous within medicine, the cost of adding some expert systems onto it will go down.

=== Ball and Cup Magic <small>(17:16)</small> ===
Scientific American: [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=magic-revealed-cups-trick-found-to-be-more-effective-than-thought Magic Revealed: Cups Trick Found to Be More Effective Than Thought]

S: Alright let's move on. Evan, you're going to tell us about the science of magic tricks.

E: Yes, I have some magic tricks, and specifically the cups-and-balls trick. Now 'cups and balls' is a culturally ubiquitous illusion by which the stage magician takes three cups and three balls, or what at least appears to the audience to be three balls, and with the magicians' sleight of hand, they're able to make the balls appear and disappear seemingly at will. I say it's culturally ubiquitous because stage magicians have been performing this illusion all over the world for reportedly thousands of years. Now, there are many variations to the trick but the general premise is the same, now you see the balls and with the help of the cups, now you don't. Youtube it, there are tons of examples to be seen. But scientists, they're analysing how magicians such as Penn and Teller, are performing this illusion, and they're now revealing that some aspects of the magic trick are even more effective at manipulating audiences than the magicians perceive or they predicted. Neuroscientists have increasingly been analyzing magicians' performances to gain insight into the human mind and if you remember back in Skeptics' Guide to the Universe [[SGU Episode 326|episode 326]], we presented an interview with Neuroscientists [http://www.sleightsofmind.com/about-the-authors/ Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde] which was a really great interview, they talked with us about some of their work that they've done with {{w|Penn & Teller|Penn and Teller}}, among other professional tricksters, and how they studied their techniques for tricking the brain, and it was all put down in their book called ''[http://www.sleightsofmind.com/ Sleights of Mind - What the neuroscience of magic reveals about our everyday deceptions]''. I don't know if you read that book, Steve?

S: Oh yeah.

E: A really good book and it was a great interview, now magic tricks work because humans have a hard-wired process of attention and awareness that is, well, for lack of a better term, hackable. And a good magician uses your mind's own intrinsic properties against you. By understanding how magicians can effectively hack our brain we can better understand how the sort of same cognitive tricks are at work in other ways, for example in business negotiations or how people are influenced by advertising strategies or other sorts of interpersonal relations. But while Macknik and Conde-Martinez were specifically studying the cups and balls trick as performed by Teller of Penn and Teller, they realized something rather astounding.<ref>Rieiro, H, Martinez-Conde, S & Macknik, S.L (2013), [https://peerj.com/articles/19/ Perceptual elements in Penn & Teller’s “Cups and Balls” magic trick], PeerJ</ref> What they did is they had seven volunteers and they watched 10-12 second long video clips of Teller performing the cup and balls illusion. In the experiments, the volunteers reported when they saw balls get removed from or placed under cups by pressing buttons. The researchers at the same time used cameras pointed at the eyes of the volunteers to track their gazes. Now during the course of the illusion, the balls, one by one, are being placed atop the cups and then the cups at one point get tilted, they kind of tilt forward, and the ball rolls off the top of the cup and into the magician's hand. Now this action of the ball rolling off the cup is designed to focus the audience's attention on that ball rolling off the cup so that you're not watching the magician's other hand as he's palming another ball and placing it in the proper position for the next part of the trick. However, what the researchers found is that while the audience is watching the falling ball, and it definitely drew their attention, other aspects of the trick were actually stronger at making the illusion work, which were not the results that the performer was expecting to get, the magician was not expecting that, they expect people were looking at the ball rolling off, therefore they're free to do their other manipulations and stuff, but this research reveals it's really not working that way. It's not a knock against the performer right, it's just a more accurate understanding as to what's going on in the mind of the audience member.

R: There are two concepts here that the researchers claimed to have debunked in a way, that are standard things that magicians learn. One is the idea of social misdirection, the idea that the audience will look where the magician looks, so you always look at the hand that's, for instance, supposed to contain the coin. You know, if the coin is actually in your other hand, it doesn't matter, you look at your left hand, and the audience will look there as well. And the other thing being that the audience will follow motion. If you consider there's a very basic, like the first move that most magicians learn is the {{w|French Drop}}.

S: Yeah

R: and that's a method of making a coin disappear. And one of the first things you have to learn about that is that you don't move the hand that's doing the tricky stuff because the audience is going to look at the motion. You move the hand that is supposed to contain the coin that's not there because that's where the audience is going to look. So those are two really basic concepts that the researchers have claimed to show don't necessarily hold up. But that said, I read the study and I found it, I mean it's interesting, but at the same time it was a sample size of seven people, and I don't really feel like they did a very good job of proving this, even to the point where– like, I think it gets headlines because it's interesting, it's about magic, it's fun, it's got Penn and Teller, but I don't think that it's really worthy of much else. If anything it would be something that should encourage people to explore on a larger basis. But the thing is, this sort of stuff has been tested before, the researchers themselves cite a paper from 2011 that also showed that social misdirection doesn't work very well, this time using, I think, a coin trick instead of cups and balls.<ref>Cui et al.(2011), [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22046155 Social misdirection fails to enhance a magic illusion, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience [Note: Macknik & Martinez-Conde are also authors of this paper]</ref> But again, that study contained three different experiments that had nine people in the first, six people in the second, eight people in the third. So it's like these are such tiny studies, it would be really interesting to do this stuff on a larger scale. But as it is, I just don't find it terribly impressive, mostly because of the small sample size.

E: You know something else they talked a little bit about as sort of a tangent to this, is they're working on, Conde-Martinez and Macknik are working on a hypothesis that magic tricks which rely on social cues are less effective in people with autism.

S: Huh

E: They believe that autistics have a hard time paying attention to what other people are paying attention to and they give some examples of some people who were diagnosed with autism when they were young and they relayed their stories about how they would watch magic tricks, and like Rebecca you were describing how the magician looks this way and most everyone else in the audience looked that way but these people who had the autism were not influenced by the direction that the magician was looking in, instead they were looking at whatever little cups, ball and whatever other props were going on, much to the magicians' dismay, because... you know–

S: Yeah, they were harder to fool because they were harder to predict how they'd respond.

R: Another thing I'd be curious about with social misdirection would be both of these studies that claim to show that it doesn't work very well were done using video of the magicians, and so I'd be interested in seeing if there's a difference with in-person magicians because I feel like if a magician is standing right in front of you you're going to have a stronger reaction to those social cues, but I don't know.

=== Gorilla in the Bronchi <small>(24:48)</small> ===
Neurologica: [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/gorilla-in-the-bronchi/ Gorilla in the Bronchi]

S: Rebecca, in I guess a somewhat related item, there was an interesting article that you found very intriguing, this actually combines the first two news items we were talking about, physician performance and misdirection.

R: Indeed. yeah this was a story that I laughed out loud when I first saw it and then got slightly scared. So you've all heard, I'm sure, of the [http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/gorilla_experiment.html invisible gorilla test] by now. For those who haven't heard of it, I will ruin it for you now. You should pause the podcast now and look it up on YouTube first if you don't want it to be ruined. But the video is– basically the experiment is subjects watched a video of basketball players who were passing a basketball back and forth, and the subjects were told that they had to count the number of passes just between certain players. And throughout the video a gorilla walks into the frame, stands there, beats his chest and then slowly walks off to the other side, and it's really painfully obvious but half of the people, half of the subjects in the study missed him entirely, and this is sort of held up generally to find that you've got a 50:50 chance if you're showing somebody who's never seen it before, a 50:50 chance that they will miss him entirely. This is something called {{w| inattentional blindness}}, the idea is that when a person is consumed with one task, they become blind to looking at other things around them. So that study is pretty much always done on what we will call, and what the researchers of the upcoming study call, naïve: people who have no special training in spotting things. And certainly no special training in spotting gorillas that walk through basketball games. So psychology students at {{w|Brigham and Women's Hospital}} in Boston were curious to see whether or not professional anomaly hunters, basically, could perform any better.<ref>Drew, T., Võ, M. L. H., Wolfe, J. M. (2013). [http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/07/17/0956797613479386.abstract The invisible gorilla strikes again: Sustained inattentional blindness in expert observers], Psychological Science.</ref> So they showed 24 experienced radiologists the CT scans for 5 different patients, and each of those cases included hundreds of images of lung tissue. They asked the radiologists to sort through the images and find 10 nodules which were signs of lung cancer hidden throughout the scans. So the difference here is that these are trained professionals who are doing what they trained to do. So to test whether or not they would be subject to inattentional blindness, the researchers on the very last case they gave the radiologists, inserted a small, poorly photoshopped picture of a gorilla into the lung image. The gorilla was about the size of a matchbox or about 48 times the size of the nodules that the radiologists were looking for, so it was quite substantial, relatively speaking. The gorilla started out translucent in early images but then became more and more opaque until by the time the radiologists got to the final images, it was incredibly obviously staring out from the lung. So at the end of the trial, the researchers asked each radiologist if the last trial seemed any different, if the last case seemed different, and if they noticed anything unusual about it, and finally they just straight up asked, did you notice the gorilla? Of the 24 radiologists, only 4 of them noticed the gorilla. When the others who didn't see the gorilla were shown those last slides again, they all immediately saw it, and also eye tracking data suggested that they all ''had'' looked directly at it during their first pass.

B: Ha! They tracked their eyes, awesome.

R: Yeah, but they didn't even process it. So it's funny and it's especially funny if you see the image of this ridiculous gorilla in a CT scan of a lung, but also it's a little scary because radiologists aren't just looking for a specific thing when they view these CT scans, they're looking for a specific thing while also supposedly keeping a general eye out for anything else unusual like that gorilla could have just as easily have been a tumor, a gorilla tumor.

E: But they were told specifically to look for the nodules, right? I mean if they'd just been told, here's some images, tell me what you see.

R: Well that's, in a way, and maybe Steve can expand upon this in a second, but I think that the purpose of this was to mimic what they would actually do in their work. They would be looking for a very specific thing, like they know they have to look out for these nodules, but they are also going to be looking out for anything that might be wrong in these scans. I don't think they're generally just given scans and just told, find something. They're told what they're supposed to be looking for, is that right Steve?

S: Yeah, basically. So radiologists are often given a history, like this is a patient with this history and I'm ordering this CT scan because I'm concerned about X. So they are going to pay particular attention to whatever it is the ordering physician is interested in. But they're also trained to read the whole scan, not just focus on the one thing that they're interested in. I did wonder myself though, whether or not there was an artefact in the study in that they knew they were being challenged, they knew they were being studied and they were specifically told, find the cancer nodules. And essentially that was meant, that was a test of inattentional blindness. They were given a task, and looking for something different than the gorilla and so they were processing information, filtering it in a way to look for the nodules, and they didn't process the gorilla, that's the whole point of inattentional blindness. I looked at– so when I first came across the study, I looked at the scan, I didn't see the gorilla either.

R: Yeah.

S: Because I was looking for pathology, not that I'm a radiologist, and I've read scans, so I was looking for stuff I was familiar with, but it was completely unfamiliar. It's also black on black, I mean let's point that out.

R: With a white border around it.

S: Yeah, but it's a black gorilla on the black lung, and it was just easy for me to completely filter it out.

J: Ah, here come the excuses. Come on, you missed it.

S: I missed it. It was inattentional blindness.

B: Steve, I just looked at the image that's on your blog right now, I mean a few minutes ago. And it took, I didn't see it immediately, I saw an alien head in this image, but I did not see the gorilla until I really started looking around.

S: Yeah.

R: Well it's worth noting again though, after they were told there is a gorilla in this picture, they all ''immediately'' saw it. ''Immediately''.

S: Yes. And now I ''can't not'' see it, looking at the scan. It's blaring out at me. But first time I looked at it, I didn't see it.

R: There's a bit of reassurance here because in addition to showing the radiologists these CT scans, the researchers had a control group of the average naïve observer, so somebody who was not trained to look for any of this. And in the control group, not a single one of them saw the gorilla, so it's possible that the radiologists are so good at looking for things like these nodules that they have a bit more ability to look for general problems and so they are actually better than the average person at inattentional blindness, at least when it comes to CT scans. The headlines on this, I've noticed, have been really grim, like ‘83% of radiologists miss a gorilla in a CT scan’. But I think it's actually reassuring that they’re doing–

S: It misses the point, yeah.

R: Yeah, they're doing quite a bit better than the average person, which to me suggests that this could be something that radiologists and others in similar positions can learn from and they can actually work to develop their skills at spotting these things.

S: Well let me tie this into the news item that Jay talked about, about the artificial intelligence. There are software programs that analyse images and highlight anything unusual. And again, it's a perfect combination of the pattern recognition of a radiologist with the ''lack'' of inattentional blindness, lack of all the cognitive biases that we have, information processing that a computer has, the combination of those two is much better than either one alone, and this is just an example of that, you know a computer wouldn't be fooled by that because it doesn't suffer inattentional blindness. Let me give one other aside. I wrote about this, when I was doing some further background research on it I came across a very interesting bit. Do you know when the first study was published that demonstrated the phenomenon of inattentional blindness was?

E: Uh, 1959?

S: (laughs) Cheater. Yes, 1959.<ref name=cornell>Cornell, A. D. (1959). An experiment in apparitional observation and findings Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 40 (701), 120-124<br>See Simons (2011), [http://theinvisiblegorilla.com/blog/2011/10/31/ghost-busters-parapsychology-and-the-first-study-of-inattentional-blindness/ Ghost busters, parapsychology, and the first study of inattentional blindness] on [http://theinvisiblegorilla.com/ theInvisibleGorilla.com]</ref> But this is fascinating, this was a researcher, was a ''ghost'' researcher publishing in the journal of the society for psychical research and they were, they did an interesting study where the guy draped himself in a white sheet and strolled down the middle of a campus, and nobody reported noticing anything unusual.

J: What, that is so– did they see him and fear to do the report? Or did they not see the guy?

S: Well hang on. So then he did a follow-up study where, during a movie trailer, he walked out onto the stage, you know all theaters have, like they had a screen on a stage, you know what I mean? So you could walk on the stage. So he walked across the stage in the ghost costume, in the sheet, and only 50% of the audience noticed anything unusual. So he inadvertently did the first experiment demonstrating inattentional blindness, even came up with the 50% figure, the same thing as the invisible gorilla. Although ''he'' interpreted it differently, he said, ‘ah, there must be something psychic and different about genuine ghost encounters’.

B: Ugh.

S: Because people notice them.

R: I don't think he had any figures on what percentage of people noticed an actual ghost.

S: No, still that was his conclusion. He also, in discussing it, was perplexed by the peoples' inability to notice the ghost and couldn't understand it. But of course now we know it's inattentional blindness. Isn't that interesting?

B: Yeah, it's cool.

E: Very.

=== Feathered Dino Follow Up <small>(35:34)</small> ===
Neurologica: [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/transition-denial-and-feathered-dinosaurs/ Transition Denial and Feathered Dinosaurs]

S: Alright well let's move on. I'm going to do a quick follow-up to the feathered dinosaur piece that I talked about [[SGU_Episode_395#Feathered_Dinosaurs_.2840:40.29|last week]]. If you recall, scientists have discovered yet another feathered dinosaur in China, {{w| Eosinopteryx|Eosinopteryx brevipenna}}. It's a small feathered {{w|Theropoda|Theropod dinosaur}}, stubby wings, couldn't fly, with teeth, a bony tail, fingers and toes, lack of a lot of bird features, but it does have a lot of other features that are similar to birds so it puts it in that middle-zone between theropod dinosaurs and full birds. A beautiful transitional fossil, I wrote about the fact that Ken Ham and the ''Answers in Genesis'' creationists were denying that this is a transitional fossil, they said it was just a bird. So this is on the Answers in Genesis website, this is now their response to criticism, including from some of their own people, that how could you call this just a bird? This is by Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell, and let me just read you the money quote. She goes on and on quoting nonsense, then she says, "apart from those evolutionary pre-suppositions though, extinct birds that happen to have feathers, teeth, wings, claws and no bony keel remain just another kind of bird."<ref>Mitchell (2013), [http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2013/02/09/news-to-note-02092013 How can we say it’s a bird?], AnswersInGenesis.org</ref>

B: Oh god.

S: So she's like, she's saying that, ok so in the past there are extinct species of birds that happened to have teeth and bony tails and winged claws and couldn't fly because they had stubby wings, but they're just another kind of bird. Allrighty.

J: That's like saying. 'That's not a dinosaur, that's just a ''huge'' gecko with big sharp teeth that likes to eat flesh'. Please.

''(laughter)''

S: Right. So it's just defining out of existence transitional species, just calling it "just a bird". Calling it "just a bird" doesn't mean that ''in the past'' there were birds that looked awfully a lot like theropod dinosaurs and it's just a massive coincidence. Right. Pure, mindless denialism, I don't know what else to say about that. But I just thought that that follow up was interesting.

== Who's That Noisy? <small>(37:54)</small>==

S: Evan

E: Doctor?

S: Tell us about Who's That Noisy.

E: I'll play for you last week's Who's that Noisy.

B: You do that.

E: Here we go.

<blockquote>I love oxygen because it plays such an important role in keeping alive the terrestrial animals on this planet.</blockquote>

E: So, who was that?

R: She makes a lot of sense.

E: (laughs) Yes, a lot of sense.

R: I'll say that much. I agree with her.

E: A lot of correct answers. A lot of people are very familiar with the one and only {{w|Jane Goodall|Dr. Jane Goodall].

S: Jane Goodall.

R: Ah.

E: Talking about the importance of oxygen. From a segment from something called the RI channel called ''[http://richannel.org/collections/2012/my-favourite-element#/jane-goodall--oxygen My Favourite Element]'' in which they– this particular segment of this show goes around, and they talk to scientists and other famous personalities about, well, their favorite element and they give a little brief explanation as to why. So that was Jane Goodall's take on that. For those of you who don't know, Jane Goodall is a British primatologist, ethologist, anthropologist and a UN messenger of peace. She said in an interview once with Ira Flatow that she believes Bigfoot exists, I don't know if she retracted that since, this was many years ago, but you know...

R: Didn't she just say that she was hopeful or something? I don't think she came out and said he exists, did she?

E: Uh, here's what she said:
<blockquote>"I've talked to so many native Americans who all describe the same sounds, who have seen them, I've probably got about oh 30 books that have come from different parts of the world, from China, all over the place, and there's a little tiny snippet in the newspaper just last week which says that the British scientists have found what they believe to be Yeti hair, and the scientists in the Natural History Museum in London couldn't identify it as any known animal."<ref>Jane Goodall, Friday, September 27, 2002, during National Public Radio's (NPR) [http://www.sciencefriday.com/ Talk of the Nation: Science Friday] with Ira Flatow ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NmCmfdFAhQ YouTube clip])</ref></blockquote>

R: It's the worst.

E: "You'll be amazed when I tell you that I'm sure they exist." That's her quote.

R: Ah.

S: Although she does also say, "it's strange that there's never been a single authentic hide or hair of the bigfoot." So still she's...

E: So she's...

R: It's like she ''has'' the facts. Not using them the way they're meant to be used.

E: She just has to implement them. Come on doctor, just take the next step, you know what to do. But otherwise, you know, very famous.

S: Let's not focus on that, she's an awesome primatologist.

E: Yes, I agree.

S: An incredible legacy, great scientist.

E: And she loves oxygen, like so many others.

S: Yes, very fond of oxygen.

E: No doubt. Danny H is this week's winner.

S: Danny.

E: From alllll the people who guessed correctly, and there were a lot of you, thank you all for playing, but Danny from the message board.

S: Danny. I've got a Prescott(?).

(laughter)

E: Oh my gosh. Wonderful. Well done. Well played.

S: All right, so what have you got for this week?

E: This week, here we go. We have a puzzle this week because we know how much people love puzzles and there's never any controversy.

S: They're so puzzling.

E: Alright, here we go, this week's puzzle. "There are three switches downstairs."

S: These are light switches?

E: Light switches, thank you.

S: OK.

E: "There are three light switches downstairs."

J: (shouting) There are four lights!

(laughter)

R: I knew it was coming, I knew it was coming.

B: Oh, I didn't.

E: Wow. "There are three light switches downstairs. Each corresponds to one of three incandescent light bulbs up in the attic. You cannot see the lights in the attic from where the switches are located. You can turn the switches on and off and leave them in any position. How would you identify which switch corresponds to which light bulb, if you are only allowed one trip upstairs? You got that?

S: Very tricky.

B: Yep, it's a good one.

E: Go ahead and give us your answer to that. wtn at theskepticsguide.org is the official email address for your answers, or post them on our forums, [http://sguforums.com sguforums.com] and as I like to say every week, good luck everyone.

S: Thank you Evan.

E: Thank you.

== Name That Logical Fallacy <small>(41:57)</small> ==

S: We're going to do a Name That Logical Fallacy this week this email comes from Paul.

(baby sounds)

S: From Lynwood, Washington.

E: You OK, Jay?

S: (laughs) And he writes:

<blockquote>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiohalo Radiohalos] proves young earth. By the way, where is the missing link? Still missing? Have a blessed day, and know that GOD still holds you in his heart. Enjoy your show very much, always amused when man tries to disprove the glory of GODS [sic] creation. Take care.</blockquote>

S: Well thank you Paul, we appreciate your kind words.

E: And for listening.

R: Argument from ridiculous nonsense.

S: (laughs)

B: Yep, that's about it.

S: There might be some problems with the arguments. So there are, can we get the factual problems out of the way first? We actually did a segment, Bob I think you did this on the radio halos<ref>Episode 201: [[SGU_Episode_201#Questions_and_E-mails|Polonium Halos]]</ref>, these are the polonium halos, just refer you to that previous segment on the Sketpics' Guide, we went into that in detail. But no, it doesn't prove a young Earth, that has completely scientifically been demolished. The polonium halos are perfectly consistent with a 4 billion year old Earth, thank you. And we've talked about the missing link more than once on the show. There's no such thing as ''the'' missing link. There are of course gaps in the fossil record, but you'll never fill in all the gaps to an arbitrary level of detail. We have found connections between many major groups including, I don't know if he's specifically referring to a human-ape missing link, but you know we have– we find and keep finding more examples of hominids filling out the space between humans and our closest ape ancestors, so this is not– this is evidence for evolution, this is not a problem for evolution. But what do you think about his other sentiments here?

E: Well having a blessed day, I've got a big problem with that.

''(laughter)''

R: He's offered no evidence that the day is blessed.

J: You have no joy in your life Evan.

R: We've already established&ndash,

E: Apparently not, because I don't know that clip that you played earlier, but–

S: But he is amused when man tries to disprove the glory of God's creation.

J: Everything is the glory of God in his paradigm, so there's no way to prove or disprove anything.

S: Well I mean I think the main thing, to me, is that he's assuming his conclusion, he's making a circular argument here. He's assuming that God created the Earth and we're trying to disprove something that he knows to be true, the glory of God's creation. The question is, did God create the Earth, is the Earth the product of creation or of Evolution? That is a question we can address scientifically. He's stating his amusement in such a fashion where he's assuming his conclusion. Now I don't know if Paul is sincere in saying that he enjoys our show, and he may be listening to our show, if for no other reason than to hear what the quote-unquote "other side" has to say and we been emailed by other people who said that they started listening to our show to hear what the skeptics had to say, and that over time we slowly won them over, and in fact there's a couple who were creationists who listed to our show to mock us, and then now they're staunch skeptics who reject creationism.

B: Yeah, that was awesome.

E: Yeah, that was very satisfying.

S: We should not give up hope that Paul will eventually come around if he is listening to our show and absorbing much of it. So Paul, this is my challenge to you: you brought up two challenges to evolutionary theory, the missing link and radio halos. Investigate them, ''honestly''. Take a look at those, we talked about it, you can do the same research that we did, and then come back to us. Email us back if you're listening to this, and tell us what you think about those arguments after doing some actual research and looking into what the scientists have to say about these two points, because what we're saying is that you're just ''completely'' factually wrong on these two points about radio halos and the missing link. You got it wrong, in my opinion, because you're listening to propaganda, to secondary hostile sources, you are not listening to what scientists are actually saying. If you do, you'll see that we are completely right on those two points, and you're completely wrong. And if you think that that's incorrect, please explain to me in detail, without gratuitous reference to your conclusions, explain to me ''why'' those arguments debunk evolution. We'd be happy to go around with you on that. That was the real reason why I wanted to talk about this news item.

R: So you could throw down the gauntlet.

S: Yes.

E: Yeah.

J: (laughs) Steve. The poor guy.

E: Throw down with Steven Novella.

S: Alright, guys

R: You're just trash talking him.

== Interview with Brian Wecht ==
=== Propellantless Space Drive "EmDrive" Made in China <small>(46:56)</small> ===

DailyTech.com: [http://www.dailytech.com/Propellantless+Space+Drive+Called+EmDrive+Made+in+China/article29862.htm Propellantless Space Drive Called "EmDrive" Made in China]

S: Alright guys, let's go on to our interview. Joining us now is [http://necss.org/speakers/brian-wecht/ Brian Wecht]. Brian, welcome back to the Skeptics' Guide.

BW: Hey, thanks so much for having me.

B: Hey, Brian.

S: Brian is a theoretical physicist, a musician and a comedian.

BW: Mm-hmm.

S: Your physics work is on string theory. so basically you're Sheldon Cooper.

BW: I am Sheldon Cooper.

''(laughter)''

S: So Brian, we're bringing you on tonight ''mainly'' to talk about this one news item that has been making the rounds. Now I found this really fascinating. So tell us about this, this is a Chinese researcher claims he's actually produced a propellantless drive, or a so-called EM or electromagnetic drive. This is based upon some work that a British researcher has done. So get us up to speed, what is this all about.

BW: So based on, and I should say this is, it's a bit outside of my field, but based on what I've been reading, the idea is they create a cavity, so they have some metal plates that are arranged in a particular shape which is a cone here, and they put some electromagnetic radiation in, in this case it's microwaves. And the claim is that by doing that, and by having the cavity be shaped a particular way, effectively the waves can exert a pressure on one side of the cavity more than they can on the other, and make the thing move.

S: So there's a net force in one direction.

BW: That's the claim.

S: But that's supposed to be impossible.

BW: It is supposed to be impossible and I have to say that in reading this, everything in my gut as a physicist said that this should not be allowed to happen.

B: Primarily wouldn't that be for a couple of things, like {{w|Newton's_laws_of_motion#Newton.27s_third_law|Newton's third law}}, and the {{w|Momentum|conservation of momentum}}, those are the two that I keep seeing and it kind of makes sense. The idea with Newton's Third Law is that every action has an equal an opposite reaction clearly isn't really happening here. And then there's conservation of momentum, you've got this closed system, momentum has got to be constant, and this kind of ties back into Newton's third law, so if a rocket moves in one direction without something moving in the opposite direction, how is it going to, it can't really go.

BW: The big one is especially the conservation of momentum. So unless you're exerting a net force on something from the outside, then momentum should be conserved, and here it's a closed system, momentum should be conserved. I mean it's not like anyone is pushing it from the outside, so it appears to violate conservation of momentum. Now if you read the papers, what they claim, and I don't really buy this claim, the claim is that because the electromagnetic field has some momentum in it, so this is something that I think may or may not be widely appreciated, but an electromagnetic wave actually carries momentum.

B: Right.

BW: I don't know if you guys, do you guys know what {{w|optical tweezers}} are?

B: Oh yeah, they're cool.

BW: They're the best things ever, basically you use little lasers to push beads or random objects around. You can finely tune these lasers to actually move objects. So electromagnetic radiation certainly can exert a force on things, so I think from what I've been reading, the scientists' claim is that ok, so you're taking momentum out of the radiation inside the cavity but still momentum should be conserved, so I don't understand how the thing can actually move.

S: Yeah so here [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EmDrive Roger Sawyer] is the British researcher who has been pushing this for a while and/ he wrote a reply to a New Scientist article about this and this is what he says. He says:
<blockquote>As the engine accelerates, momentum is lost by the electromagnetic wave, and gained by the spacecraft, thus satisfying the conservation of momentum. In this process energy is lost within the resonator, thus satisfying the conservation of energy.<ref>New Scientist blog: [http://www.newscientist.com/blog/fromthepublisher/2006_10_01_archive.html Em drive on trial] (Oct 3 2006)</ref></blockquote>

S: So that seems to be the crux of the claim, that they're ''transferring'' momentum from the electromagnetic wave to the spacecraft itself. To me, as a non-theoretical physicist, it kind of seems reasonable. To me, so here's the analogy that came to my mind, you tell me if this is apt. There's a conservation of energy, energy can't be created or destroyed, but it can change forms, you could essentially do E=mc<sup>2</sup>, matter could be converted into energy, and that could superficially ''seem'' as if you're creating energy until you account for the fact that mass, matter, is energy, just another form of it. So does the same apply to conservation of momentum where momentum is conserved, but you're converting from one form, in this case electromagnetic wave, to another form, the spacecraft. Could that hold? Could that make sense?

BW: I mean you can, you can use an electromagnetic wave to push things, like the optical tweezers, but at the end of the day, if it's a closed system, the net momentum of the thing– you know what the momentum is because you can measure the center of mass and there's no radiation outside that thing either, it's all contained inside. So I don't understand how you can actually get a net momentum of the thing if it really is an honestly closed system. Because you can actually set– the average momentum is the mass times the velocity of the thing, very roughly speaking. So OK, maybe there's some momentum, there certainly is momentum in the electromagnetic wave, but at the end of the day the thing either has a momentum or it doesn't, and if there's no external force there shouldn't be any change in the momentum, momentum must be conserved.

B: Yeah Steve, I think the fact that it's a closed system is one of the things that is most against this. The only thing that I've come across that even makes remote sense to me is that you could have some sort of asymmetric thermal glow around the box but that would be so tiny and that kind of reminds me of the... what was it?

S: The Pioneer?

B: The Pioneer probes, but that would be negligible and ridiculous, as low as even what they're claiming, it would be smaller than that I think. But it's the closed system I think that really is the nasty part of this that won't go away. And I mean if he's got this, great, send it to us, have somebody look at it. Send it to some university or some government agency and have them check this and just ''prove'' it, it shouldn't be hard to prove that you can do this, it's like a perpetual motion machine.

BW: The thing I love is, like you said I'm a string theorist, so when I see something with data, I'm like "Oh my god, that's real science." So yeah, that's exactly my reaction too is that if this really happens, it shouldn't be– you know it may be very sensitive, but it should not be impossible to duplicate.

B: Guys real quick, don't forget, {{w|Boeing_Phantom_Works|Boeing's Phantom Works}} actually looked at one of this guy's prototypes and they didn't pursue it. So to me, I mean, that's not evidence that this is baloney, but to me this is just another little thing that you've got to consider.

S: But that's where we are now, so the Chinese say that they've built one, it's producing this tiny amount of acceleration, and this is like the perpetual motion machines where they say 'OK I've built one and it's producing this tiny amount of energy, but we can scale it up'. But of course, it never scales up–

B: (laughs)

S: –because the tiny amount of energy, or in this case the tiny amount of momentum, is probably a round-off error that they're then multiplying by 50,000 and producing an apparent effect. Or they're just– their measurements are off by a teeny tiny, itsy bitsy amount, right?

BW: That's the big question, right. Is the effect they're claiming, how does that compare to their error? Their ability to detect. And that's something I certainly don't know the answer to, but if they can't convincingly say that the effect they're measuring is much larger than their precision it doesn't matter, that's not a result.

S: Yeah now some people are saying, 'yeah start pushing satellites around, and then we'll believe you'. That's like, you know, run your house off your perpetual motion machine and then I'll pay attention. You know, your free energy device or whatever it is. But it never scales up to anything practical because they're all living in the world below the threshold of noise, where it's just all in the errors whether it's mathematical or tiny measurement errors or whatever, and it never does scale up. But, we'll see, I mean this one is interesting, it seems that the consensus is that this is the equivalent of perpetual motion, you can't violate conservation of momentum. His hand-waving explanation of transferring electromagnetic momentum from the electromagnetic wave to the spacecraft superficially sounds OK, but I guess it doesn't really solve the problem of the conservation of momentum. It's also called the ''reactionless'' dive because it's not reacting with the outside world in any way, so if you were sending electromagnetic waves off in one direction then sure, that would produce thrust, but that's not a reactionless drive.

B: Yeah, the other aspect of that is some people kind of confuse it and they say, oh it's a rocket engine with no fuel, and that's really not true, it's without reaction mass.

S: Without propellant.

B: Right, or propellant. The fuel is whatever you would use to power the reactor that generates the electricity.

BW: Do you guys know the article about this, this has appeared in a journal or not? I don't remember offhand.

S: Well the Chinese are not disclosing their information because they're saying oh we have to make sure we have all the patents and we don't get scooped, so they're saying it's going to take them a year before they're actually going to have transparency with their data. So that's fishy, right?

BW: Yeah. Super fishy.

B: Alright. See you in a year.

S: That's super fishy. Shawyer, he wrote the theoretical papers and they're online, you can get them on the New Scientist website that I'll link to, or at [http://www.emdrive.com emdrive.com].

BW: Yeah, he has a website with a FAQ and all these, you know the answers to every objection that you could possibly raise to his device, right.

S: Right. And reading the comments is funny because the cold fusion people have jumped on board with this.

B: Oh boy. Yeah, yeah.

BW: Yeah.

S: And all the conspiracy theories about you know, the scientific priesthood says it's impossible so they don't want to research it.

E: Scientific priesthood, yep.

S: Well what we need to do is hook up a cold fusion reactor to an EM drive, then we basically have anti-gravity, man.

BW: Unlimited power.

E: Mwa-ha-ha.

S: It would be super cool if this worked.

BW: If this somehow works, it's cool from ''any number'' of perspectives, right? It's cool from any number of perspectives, it's cool from a practical perspective, like we might actually be able to use this thing for thrust. But then it also says that clearly a lot of people maybe don't really understand physics as well as they thought.

S: Yeah

BW: So anytime you have to go back and reevaluate your assumptions, that's great.

S: Yeah I mean it's worth saying, we would ''love'' for this to work.

B: Oh my god. Some people were predicting that if you had a superconducting cavity, something like an EM drive, you could eventually lift 3 tons with just 1 kW of input power, I mean, can you imagine? Three tons.

S: That sounds crazy.

B: Yeah, it would be amazing.

S: Even if what they're claiming now is the limit of it, which is a tiny amount of propulsion, that is a very effective way of moving ships around the solar system because you won't have to carry propellant with you and you won't have to accelerate the propellant, and therefore the rocket equation is off the table and this would be ''massively'' efficient, even with its tiny acceleration.

B: It's actually even more efficient than an {{w|ion thruster}}, it's like four times as much thrust, half as much power, with no propellant needed to be carried on.

BW: Certainly the effects that they're describing right now are really, really tiny.

B: Yeah, 72 grams of thrust with 2,500 watts of electricity

S: Right, well you just need a lot of them. So it would be cool, but don't hold your breath is the bottom line.

BW: Yes, that's right. I'm... doubtful.

S: You're skeptical, right.

BW: Actually I was going to say skeptical, then stopped.

''(laughter)''

J: Hey but there's something cool that you don't have to hold your breath for that's coming up.

BW: Amazing segue.

R: Yeah, we're really good at those.

BW: Yeah, I know.

S: We've been getting better, we've been practising.

R: Yeah, you should have heard us seven years ago.

S: So what are you talking about, Jay?

R: Get to the point, Jay.

=== Stimulus, Response - NECSS of science and improvisation <small>(59:15)</small>===

J: Brian and George Hrab were tasked with coming up with a new event for [http://necss.org NECSS] that's unique to NECSS that's going to be a unique event. Brian, why don't you tell us what you guys came up with?

BW: So the idea, what George and I came up with, we're both super psyched about it. It's called ''Stimulus, Response - NECSS of science and improvisation'' and the idea is that we wanted to create an event which was really particularly unique, and also unique to NECSS so the idea is that we're going to have two improvised performances, so the evening is going to start out with George and his cousin, is that right? Roman?

J: That's right, yep.

BW: Yep. So George of course is an incredible musician, and his cousin Roman is an artist and they're going to spontaneously create a simultaneous work of music and art at the same time and draw inspiration off of each other. So that'll be the first act. After that we're going to get a panel together of George and Roman, we're going to have Steve, and Steve will talk about the neuroscience of improvisation, we'll get to hear his scientific input on how exactly you're able to create these events, how you're able to spontaneously come up with the kind of stuff that people have seen. Also {{w|H. A. Berlin|Heather Berlin}}, who is a phenomenal scientist, will be on the panel as well. I'll be moderating. And then we're also going to get some improv comedians, the second act is this panel discussion of the nature of improvisation and in part, the sort of like'what the hell were you thinking when you did this?', and then go to the scientists, Steve and Heather, for their scientific input. Then also talk to some people who improvise comedy on a regular basis, and then they're going to take over in act three and then do a whole improvised set, basically a comedy set based on an interview with some prominent NECSS attendee, which we're not announcing yet because we have yet to confirm, but some really awesome person who will talk about their life or talk about some particularly interesting thing that they've done. The comedians are then going to draw inspiration from him or her and then create a 20-25 minute set based on that.

B: Awesome.

J: I can't wait to see this thing, man.

S: All right Brian, thanks for coming on the show with us and helping us debunk this latest bit of pseudoscience.

E: Yep

BW: (laughs) Well great, thanks.

S: And I'll really look forward to NECSS, and seeing you there and to what you guys put together on Friday night.

BW: Yeah thanks so much for having me and I can't wait to see you guys in April.

S: Alright take care.

BW: You too.

B: Thanks, Brian.

R: Thanks, Brian.

E: See ya, Brian.

== Science or Fiction <small>(1:01:44)</small> ==

S: Each week, I come up with three science news items or facts, two real and one fake. I challenge my panel of skeptics to tell me which one is the fake.

E: You must yell the work fake at us.

R: Yeah. There's a lot of anger there.

S: Fake stuff gets me mad, what can I tell you? Are you guys ready for this week.

J: Sure.

R: Mmhmm.

B: Then why are you making it up?

S: I know, I hate myself when I do it. Here we go. [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD000980.pub4/abstract;jsessionid=DE22CBF8899F8609FE829A25BCF257A5.d03t04 Item #1]: A new review concludes that Vitamin C supplementation halves the incidence of the common cold. [http://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2013/february/feb13_unconsciousthought.html Item #2]: New research finds that decision making continues subconsciously even when we have turned our attention to a new task. And[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130212075117.htm item #3]: A recent study finds that African American women require twice the supplemental doses of vitamin D as do Caucasian women. Jay, go first.

J: The one about the vitamin C, I would be shocked if that's true, right out of the gate, just because I've read so many times that vitabmin C does not have an effect on that. I'm assuming here, by the way it's written down, you say vitamin C supplementation, that it's not just that they take it when you have a cold, that over a long period of time. Because we know that if you take it when you get a cold that it does absolutely nothing, or so I think. But OK, alright that one's on the back burner. The second one about decision making continuing even after you've turned your attention to a new task, I think that's true, of course it's true, your brain isn't just thinking or working on what's in the front of your mind, what's in the front of your mind, what's in your conscious mind, it's constantly pulling apart things and analysing things, so that one to me 100% fact, without a question of a doubt. And the third one about African American women requiring twice the supplemental doses of vitamin D as Caucasian women, that's interesting. It's interesting, you know maybe in a low-sun situation under normal living conditions, people are indoors more than outdoors and maybe because of the colour of their skin they don't absorb as much vitamin D somehow, meaning they need longer exposure to sunlight to absorb the same amount of vitamin D for their skin to produce as much vitamin D as a Caucasian person. Huh. That's OK so I could make an argument either way for that. So now it's the vitamin C one which we already know for years and years we've all heard that vitamin C does not help with the common cold mow this is a reverse on that. Interesting. Or the third one. I'm going against my gut and I'm going to select the third one, the vitamin D one as the fake. And the die roll is... number 1.

S: OK, Rebecca.

R: Alright, this is tough because I had an immediate reaction to these in that vitamin C, the vitamin C one immediately sounded wrong and the other two immediately sounded right to me, and in fact African American women requiring twice as much vitamin D, in my head that's obvious and solved and done. I was already under the impression that African Americans required more vitamin D and that vitamin D deficiency led to a higher incidence of certain diseases and maybe even cancers in African Americans compared to in Caucasians. But I don't know, so that one immediately sounded right, and the idea that your decision making continues subconsciously, that immediately sounds right not because I've seen any studies on it but just because I've always felt like that's what works for me, like I input things in my brain before I go to bed and then I wake up with the answer, things like that, or if I'm working on something creative and I'm hitting a roadblock I just go play video games or I do something else or I work out or something and then when I come back I've got it, you know. So that seems obvious to me too and like Jay said, everything I thought I knew about vitamin C is that it was ineffective. But I'm always suspicious when things seem that obvious that means that something's screwy.

B: Or maybe that's what he wants you to think!

R: I know! Maybe it's the old double cross! I'm going to go with the vitamin C one being wrong, because I fell for it I guess, I don't know. That one.

S: OK. Evan.

E: Vitamin C supplementation halves the incidence of the common cold. I think we've talked about vitamin C before in this regard, Jay some of the things you were talking about ring bells. If you were to build it up in your body ahead of time and maintain a higher than average level of vitamin C then perhaps that could work. Decision making continues subconsciously even when we've turned our attention to a new task. Sure, I don't see why that couldn't be the case, which makes me suspicious. Continues subconsciously, boy we do so many things subconsciously, I'm probably doing a whole bunch of things subconsciously right now and I couldn't describe them because they are what? Subconscious. And I'm already on to a new task because I'm on to the third one. African American women require twice the supplemental doses of vitamin D as do Caucasian women. Would that be because the African American women have a harder time absorbing the vitamin D from the sun, from sunlight? That would seem to make sense on some level, but I've not heard vitamin D being part of the need for women as opposed to men, so I don't know about this one, I'm kind of thinking that this one's wrong because twice the supplemental doses of vitamin D, yeah I don't think that's right at all actually, I don't think that Caucasian women need supplements of vitamin D at all and therefore African American women would not require twice the supplemental dose so I'll say that one's the fiction.

S: And Bob.

B: I had a similar reaction to Rebecca. Seemed pretty straightforward. I'll start with three. African Americans requiring more vitamin D, yeah it made total sense, you've got more melanin, you absorb less sun, therefore you make less vitamin D. Twice as much may sound like a lot but you don't necessarily need a lot anyway, so twice a little is still not that big. The subconscious decision making yeah, I mean my go-to example for that is I'm trying to think of a word, can't think of it, and then almost invariably, 10, 15 minutes, an hour later, bam! It just totally pops right into my head, clearly something was looking for it without my conscious control. And then the vitamin C, yeah I mean how long have we heard that it's not dramatic, you don't really need to go crazy with vitamin C, it's not going to have that much of an effect on the common cold. So what the hell, I know it's... I'm just going to go with the common cold and say that one is fiction.

R: You and me, Bob. You and me.

S: OK, interesting. So you all agree on the middle one that new research finds that decision making continues subconsciously even when we have turned our attention to a new task, you all think that one is science, and that one is... science. Yep, that was the easy one this week. But what researchers found is they did actual brain studies where they imaged the different parts of the brain functioning and they had subjects, they gave them a task, then they had them move on to a different task and they found that the decision making parts of the brain were still active even when they had moved on to a distracting task.

B: That's cool.

S: Something that didn't involve decision making, that was something like doing math, you know just something specific but not involved in the decision-making process. They also said this is consistent with research that shows that decision making is improved when, well this is actually a follow-up to that research, so prior research showed that if you take a break from a decision making task, that it may actually improve the quality of the decisions that you make. Now the question was, is that because your brain is still working on the problem or is it because you take a break from the problem and then you come back with a fresh look, fresh outlook? You know does it sort of recharge your batteries? So this study gave the subjects the task, then gave them a distracting task and it showed that the brain is still working in the background, subconsciously, same parts of the brain are active, the decision-making, you know the parts that were active during the active decision-making. So that, pretty strong evidence that that is the case. Not surprising, I agree with Bob, I think most people probably have a similar experience of trying to think of something and then you move on and then boom! The information pops into your head. What's going on there? Obviously it seems like it was, the solution was derived subconsciously and then presented to your conscious self and that does seem to be what the neuroscience shows. Well let's go back to number one, a new review concludes that vitamin C supplementation halves the incidence of the common cold. Bob and Rebecca think this one is the fiction. Jay and Evan think this one is science. And this one is... science.

J: Aha.

E: Oooh.

R: Aaargh.

B: Shit.

R: Damn you, Novella!

S: A little surprising. This is a Cochrane Library review. Now there's some details in here that are worth pointing out.

B: I'm sure there are.

S: The improvement, the reduction I should say, the reduction in the incidence of contracting the common cold was only in those studies that showed, that involved people that were under some kind of physical activity, like engaging in a sport or in the military or essentially they were under some physical stress. If you weren't under physical stress that 50% figure does not hold.

B: Under physical stress or do you mean generally fit?

S: No no, under physical stress, yeah not just in good shape, but you had to be at the time you were supplementing were subjected to some kind of physical stress. So the thinking there is that the vitamin C is helping you somehow compensate for that physical stress. The review identified 5 double blind placebo controlled trials which showed that. Jay, you pointed out something that was very important though. These were supplementation trials meaning that you're taking it all the time. Treatment trials where you give vitamin C once you contract the cold generally show no effect. The review did note that in adults, the duration of the cold is reduced by about 8% with vitamin C supplementation and in children by about 14%. These have generally been considered to be clinically insignificant, what are you going to have your cold lessened by a few hours, you know? This is 1 to 2 grams a day. The effects of vitamin C are pretty modest outside of this one parameter. I have to say personally I'm not 100% convinced of this, I have to like really dissect the quality of the trials that they're citing.

R: Then maybe it shouldn't have been in Science or Fiction, I'm just saying, Steve. Just saying.

S: Well that's why I said "a study concludes".

R: Just saying. I don't like your weasel language.

S: A review concludes that. I'm not concluding that.

R: Yeah, weasel.

S: I didn't say "demonstrates", I just said that a review concludes.

R: We can amuse ourselves with self-lies.

S: The whistlepig? I picked that wording very deliberately. But it is what it is. I mean it's a Cochrane Review, it seems pretty up and up, but I'm just a little suspicious of it. The conclusion, I don't agree with the authors' recommendations based upon this because they say that regular supplementation is inexpensive and low risk so why not do it even if you're not sure if it's worthwhile or not and they eventually said, as an individual you could try it out and see if it works for you which I think is kind of a worthless recommendation. You're not going to be able to tell if it works for you, its all going to be placebo effect and anecdote. But the other thing is given the number of colds that the average person has a year, it's really not worth, in my opinion, taking a gram or two of vitamin C all year round just to prevent one cold, even if this data is consistent, or shorten the duration by a tiny amount.

R: Maybe spend that money on hand soap, or one of those face masks.

S: Yeah right. It's probably, yeah probably better off just having good hand hygiene. And I'm not so convinced that high doses of vitamin C are benign. It could be associated with a higher risk of heart disease for example. So I would not give the same bottom line recommendation as this study. Think that the only thing that this really adds that you could really make a case for is if you are going to be under extreme physical stress, then supplementing with vitamin C may help your body deal with that stress. I general recommendation for supplementation I think is not warranted by this data. All of this means that a recent study finds that African American women require twice the supplemental doses of vitamin D as do Caucasian women is the fiction and Bob and Rebecca, you engaged in exactly the reasoning I was hoping that you would because that certainly was my thought.

B: Screw you.

S: And it's plausible, this is why it was studied, because people with dark skin absorb less vitamin D from the sun and so you might think they need more supplementation. But what they found, what the study found was that African American women and Caucasian women required the exact same amount of vitamin D supplementation, that their base levels that they're getting from the sun didn't really have an effect on how much oral supplementation they needed, that the same recommendations would suffice for both groups.

B: I disagree with that conclusion.

S: (laughs)

E: So women do need additional vitamin D?

S: Well it depends, I think that the best recommendation right now is just to get your vitamin D levels checked with your primary care doctor, and then if it's on the low side then it's reasonable to supplement. If you're not under the regular care of a physician, then it's a little hard to say because there's so many variables, where do you live, how much sun exposure do you get, how dark is your skin. Combine all those, and also the time of year. You know your needs in January are going to be different than your needs in July, but if you really want to know just get your levels checked.

R: What about men?

S: The study only involved women so I don't know, I'm assuming it's the same.

R: What about men?

S: I don't know, this study...

R: I'm not assuming does(?).

S: Yeah I know. I would suspect that it would not be dramatically different but this study only involved women for whatever reason.So good work, Jay and Evan.

J: Thank you.

E: Yeah.

S: And the die went with Bob and Rebecca this time and failed.

J: The die died.

== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:17:24)</small> ==

S: Well Jay, do you have a quote for us this week?

J: I sure do. This is a quote sent in by my friend Craig Good over at Pixar. Craig wanted to congratulate me about my son and also sent a pretty cool quote. The quote is:

<blockquote>Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known.</blockquote>

J: That quote was penned by Michel de Montaigne. Montiag-ne. Montiai. Taig.

S: Montaigne.

J: Montaigne (laughing). Michael de Montaigne yeah!

S: Alright, thanks Jay. And thanks for joining me this week everyone.

B: You're welcome, Steve.

R: Thank you, Steve.

E: It was good to be joined to you.

J: Thanks Stevie!

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

{{Outro1}}

== References ==
<references/>

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 396

2013-09-22T21:15:15Z

Teleuteskitty: proof-read to Sci or Fi

{{Proof reading all
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|date = 2013-09-07}}
{{Editing required
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|links = y
|Today I Learned list = y
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|}}
{{InfoBox
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|episodeDate = 16<sup>th</sup> February 2013
|episodeIcon = File:Eosinopteryx_S.jpg
|rebecca = y
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|guest1 = BW: [http://necss.org/speakers/brian-wecht/ Brian Wecht]
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2013-02-16.mp3
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php?topic=45058.0
|qowText = Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known.
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== Introduction ==
''You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday February 13<sup>th</sup> 2013 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: Hot Damn!

S: And Evan Bernstein.

E: By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground for out of it you were taken, for you are dust. Into dust you shall return.

R: That was weird and depressing. OK!

J: What's up with that?

E: Ash Wednesday.

S: Yeah it is Ash Wednesday.

R: Oooh.

B: Oh, it is?

E: Yeah.

S: Yeah, I was seeing a patient today and I thought they had some kind of dark and suspicious looking mole under their hair.

(laughter)

S: So even though I'm a neurologist I still examine the whole patient, and so I brushed their hair aside to see what it was, and it was... you know... they were Catholic.

E: You brushed their hair aside, you didn't just ask them?

R: You didn't lick your finger and rub it on their face did you?

S: No, I didn't wipe it off.

J: Guys! Guys!

E: Huh? Yeah? What? Oh hey, Jay.

J: I have a son. I have a baby boy. (laughs)

R: Yeah! Well done.

S: Is that where you were last week?

B: Why didn't you tell us?

R: Well done to Courtney I guess, you didn't really do much.

J: Uh, come on it was very hard to watch.

R: I bet.

J: That is serious stuff, man.

E: I know, you almost spilled your popcorn, I know.

J: It was epic. It was incredible, the whole experience was absolutely incredible. I don't recommend it, it's not for everybody.

R: You don't recommend it?

J: It's not for everyone I mean, it's not for everyone. It's absolutely fantastic if you want it and you're ready for it and I absolutely was ready for it.

S: Was that for the benefit of our younger listeners, Jay? The...

J: Absolutely, yeah I wasn't talking to Rebecca here, she already knows all of that.

R: Yeah, I know the birds and the bees.

J: You know, it's all the clichés, you know I wish I had a different profound thought to share other than when it happens and it's right it's the best thing in the world, it's fantastic.

S: The clichés are all true is what you're saying.

J: They are, and it's inexplicable, you have to experience this for yourself.

S: Well congratulations, brother.

J: Thanks, sorry I wasn't here for two weeks, guys. I didn't want it to be that way but you know.

R: Eh, what are you going to do?

S: Life intrudes on our little project here unfortunately.

J: You know, just so you know, babies make incredibly cute noises.

S: Yes, they do. The cooing noises?

R: Uh yeah, when it's yours. Before it starts that horrible screaming sound.

S: Well it gets cuter though Jay, when they start to form those noises into words, proto-language. It gets really cute.

J: I just want to share something.

R: Alright.

(cooing noises)

R: I'm pretty sure that was a seal.

J: (laughs) Come on that's adorable.

R: Yeah, it's alright, it's pretty cute.

== This Day in Skepticism <small>(3:02)</small> ==
February 16, 1997 Physicist {{w|Chien-Shiung Wu}} died.

R: Hey, it's time for this day in whatever, are you ready?

S: Yeah.

B: Whatever.

R: It's exciting. I usually try to avoid "this is the day somebody died" events because you know, it's depressing. But in this case the person was so awesome that I wanted to talk about her. Today, February 16<sup>th</sup> in 1997, Chien-Shiung Wu died. So Chien-Shiung Wu was born in China in 1912 to a father who believed in the equality of the sexes, so much so that he started a vocational school for women. When she was 11, Wu left her home town to pursue her education which continued up through university where she studied physics, and upon graduation she became a researcher at the institute of physics at a Chinese academy. At the age of 24 she decided that she'd gone as far as she could possibly go in China, so she hopped a steam ship to the US and she landed in San Francisco and she enrolled at UC Berkley in grad school and she eventually finished here PhD there in 1940. Then she moved East. She became a faculty member at Smith, then Princeton, then finally at Columbia, where she did research for the {{w|Manhattan Project}} doing amazing things like helping to figure out how to separate uranium metal using gaseous diffusion. Also at Columbia, she hooked up with these two theoretical physicists who came up with an idea that the hypothetical law of {{w|Parity (physics)|conservation of parity}} was wrong when it came to the weak nuclear force. Wu was able to develop the experiment that proved them right. The theoretical physicists won the Nobel Prize for it and Wu won the first ever {{w|Wolf prize}} in physics for it in 1978. So she was a really amazing woman, she did tons of awesome stuff and I was very excited to note that we have something in common. She also has an asteroid named after her.

B: (laughs)

S: Cool.

R: So yeah. Chien-Shiung Wu. Awesome lady.

S: The Chinese Marie Curie, apparently.

R: Yeah.

E: Nice.

R: Although I like to think that Marie Curie is the European Chien-Shiung Wu.

E: Ah. Touché

S: Well that's what they say in China.

R: Right.

J: That is cool.

== News Items ==
=== AI Doctor <small>(5:23)</small>===
Gigaom.com: [http://gigaom.com/2013/02/11/researchers-say-ai-prescribes-better-treatment-than-doctors/ Researchers Say AI Prescribes Better Treatment than Doctors]

S: So Jay, you're going to start off the News Segment by telling us about computers practising medicine.

J: Right. But first.

<blockquote>Old Gray!</blockquote>

B: (laughs) Old Gray!

R: Why?

J: I'm just celebrating.

E: Should I know what that is?

Everyone: Old Gray.

B: Oh my god, Evan.

J: We need to talk after the show.

E: Now I remember you referencing that a long time ago, I never bothered to latch on.

J: You never bothered to watch like internet absolutely incredible?

B: You never bothered to laugh?

E: I was busy then.

R: Do you not have joy in your life, Evan?

E: Apparently not, apparently I am sorely lacking.

R: Why do you hate happiness?

J: OK so, two Indiana University researchers Casey Bennett and Kris Hauser have developed something called an expert machine. This is something we've talked about on the show before,{{Link needed}} it's like {{w|Watson (computer)|IBM's Watson}}, remember that program they were using to play Jeopardy.

R: No relation.

B: Yep.

S: Oh yeah.

E: And it kicked ass.

J: This is something called, like I said, an expert machine, but this one is specialized in determining patient illness and treatments. Which I've been waiting for this, I've actually talked to Steve about this many times, I'm like 'Steve, why don't they have a computer to do all the heavy lifting and have the doctor do the fine tuning?' Well that's exactly what these guys did. The technology uses machine learning and is the same computer science discipline that in part supported some of these cool things that we all are getting to see now like voice recognition, we all have that on our cell phones, the self-driving cars, like the stuff, the work, that Google is doing with their cars, and credit card fraud detection systems which, I don't know if many people know about but that's a pretty significant system that they use, a very robust system that is in place to help prevent fraud and to capture people who are committing fraud. So at its core the new system uses a pair of predictive modelling techniques, one of them called the {{w|Markov Decision Process}} and the second one is {{w|Dynamic decision-making|Dynamic Decision Networks}}. These are two cool things that you should read about, each of them distinct; in conjunction, they are making something that was not too long ago impossible. The idea behind the research and eventual development is pretty straight forward. If doctors can stop relying in their intuition and instead focus on the known facts, they would be able to make better decisions. I know it sounds very simple, but in essence, that's what they set out to do. It uses sequential decision making where each decision opens up new pathways and those simulate alternative treatments and as new data becomes available it plans and re-plans its path and they say that, quote-unquote, "it can think like a doctor." So I know that that might sound like a contradiction, because I just said before that it could work better than doctors or doctors are using intuition to come to their decision. It's going to use the process that a doctor would use but on an amazingly huge scale, right? And this is where you need the huge processing power of computers to do it. The idea being that if they took say all of the medical records of the entire country, the entire United States, which as many of you know are rapidly becoming– our healthcare system is becoming electronic, and that all of our data is going online. Many of the people who have gone to the doctor over the past couple of years have noticed that they're using software now, they're asking you to restate all these questions so you can give them your information, they're plugging it into the system. Well that system's data very soon will become global and accessible, especially for research purposes, it would be an incredible win for everybody. Instead of a doctor seeing say a couple of thousand patients a year that have a similar illness, the software will look at hundreds of thousands of patients, take all that data, use it in a way, with their algorithms, use it so that it can determine what statistically is the best course of action, not just in the single doctor's experience or in a small practice's experience.

R: Would that open up privacy concerns?

S: Well if you're going to use data, healthcare data, there are rules for that. It has to be scrubbed of any patient identifying information.

R: Mmm. OK.

J: Sure. Do you care if you're a number in some spreadsheet or some electronic process that says–

S: Well apparently people ''do'' care, because you've got to get permission from people to use it.

R: Yeah I mean I would care just because of the amount of times things go wrong.

J: Yeah but it's not like some person's going to be at the doctor in California, Rebecca, and your picture's not going to come up on their screen saying this person has this phenomenally awful disease. It's just data, it's just statistical data they're going to be using.

S: Yeah, you can ask systems like this, how many people who have this diagnosis are on this drug? Or how many people who are on this drug are also on this other one, and how many times did they get admitted to the hospital over the last three years. So it won't give you any specific information about any specific individuals, but you can ask statistical questions about the database.

R: Right.

S: Yep.

J: So Casey Bennett, one of the researchers, said:
<blockquote>"The Markov Decision Process and Dynamic Decision Networks enable the system to deliberate about the future, considering all the different possible sequences of actions and effects in advance even in cases where we are unsure of the effects."<ref name=Indiana>Indiana University press release - [http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/23795.html Can computers save health care? IU research shows lower costs, better outcomes]</ref></blockquote>

J: Their research tries to answer three issues concerning US healthcare. Steve, I'd like to know what you have about these three things. The rising cost, expected to reach 30% of the gross domestic product by 2050. A quality of care where patients receive correct diagnoses and treatment less than half the time on a first visit. And a lag time of 13 to 17 years between research and practice in clinical care.

B: Whoa.

S: Yeah, those are all correct.

B: 13 to 17 years?

J: Well sure, Bob, if you think about–

B: What kind of bullshit is that?

J: Well, no that's not bullshit.

S: Well it depends what kind of penetration you're talking about. I mean the younger doctors actually are a little bit better on that score, on incorporating the latest information. Academic physicians are better. But if you want to penetrate to the old guys out in the community, those are the hold outs, those are the people who are not necessarily getting all the critical updates that they should be in a timely fashion, and it takes a while to percolate through the culture of medicine. That is a significant problem. I think that the system of continuing medical education tries to address that, but it does so in my opinion in a very haphazard way, not in a systematic way. So there's still, I think, a lot of room for improvement there.

J: Well here are the facts guys. Bennett also said, that researcher also said later on that "the framework here easily outperforms the current treatment as usual, case rate fee-for-service models of healthcare." So listen to these statistics. With 500 real random patients, their software cost-per-patient difference was $495 down to $189, an improvement of 58.5% and the patient outcomes can be improved by, guys, a dramatic 41.9% at the peak performance of their system. That is huge, huge.

S: That's all a little theoretical though. It's not unreasonable, but it's also the system using its own criteria to assess itself, you know? So it would be nice to see how it works in the real world. Put it at the point of care in doctors' offices and then measure what effect it has, that would be more, I think, more of a meaningful measurement. But it shows that the potential is there, there's the potential for cost savings and improved outcomes. Essentially this is an expert system, these are nothing new, meaning that it's a system designed to be used by experts to give them– to augment their information, to give them the information they need when they need it. And I think that we ''have'' to go this way, it's just overwhelming, the amount of information, and ''new'' information that's being published. There's thousands and thousands of papers, even in a narrow area of expertise, that's being published every year. Plus, as Jay was saying, the number of permutations that physicians get presented with is staggering, every patient is unique in a way, in that they have their own medical history, they have a combination of medical problems, they're on a certain combination of medications, and then you're going to introduce a new element, a treatment or whatever, into that mix, and you could make only statistical statements about what's likely to happen but physicians are, by necessity, are using a simplified version of the data analysis. Even if we are trying to look it up at the time, how could I really know, for example what the interaction is going to be between a new medication and the five other medications that a patient is on? I know what the ''individual'' interactions are, but what are all the combinations? Where expert systems work well is in doing what humans don't do well, right? So they could do the heavy lifting, the number crunching, taking into consideration vast amounts of information that no human brain can hold, and then the physician can take that information, that recommendation: don't forget to do this, consider that, watch out for this interaction, this is the best evidence-based treatment right now, or here are the three options prioritized by the ones that are most likely to have the best outcome, and then the physician can individualize it for the patient a little bit more, taking into consideration some variables that maybe the system wasn't designed to take into consideration, not the least of which is patient preference, you know? There are some things where it's just patients care more about certain things than other things and you have to ask patients, what's more important, treating the symptom or avoiding the side effect? And you get different answers from different patients and that determines what treatment they might want. I think a good analogy is chess masters, right? If you think of physicians like chess-masters? They're very good at pattern recognition, they're very good at remembering the classic moves that really work, whereas a computer chess player can crunch hundreds of possible moves.

E: It'll play thousands of games in moments.

B: Brute force.

S: Yeah, you could brute force it in a way that a person can't. And for a while the human pattern recognition was better than computers, but now computers are better than the human. But imagine the two together. Imagine a chess master where the computer says I suggest you do this move, these are the things you've got to worry about and then he could use that ''in addition'' to his intuition and pattern recognition and then you get the best of both worlds.

R: Sounds like a great new buddy comedy.

(laughter)

E: Yeah

R: I got ya.

S: The odd couple?

E: You need to come up with a funny name for the computer of course, you know.

S: Hit it.

E: Felix?

(laughter)

S: Would the computer be Felix or Oscar? I guess Felix. One thing, a limiting factor here is that it takes a lot of time to create these algorithms and to feed it all the information. Keep in mind that this is just looking at treating one disease. All of the development is just coming up with: alright here's an algorithm to treat this one little thing, now we've got to build a ''thousand'' of these in order to really address the full breadth, and then keep them all of them updated as new information comes in. This is a massive project. That's really why these things aren't already in every doctor's office is because it's a massive project to create these things.

E: That's why I'm not so sure about the savings, the cost savings, maybe in the very long run you'll eventually see some cost savings, but I think there's still a lot of money that still needs to go into getting these things up to speed before you see the return on investment.

S: Yeah there are huge investments upfront, absolutely, but as the infrastructure becomes ubiquitous within medicine, the cost of adding some expert systems onto it will go down.

=== Ball and Cup Magic <small>(17:16)</small> ===
Scientific American: [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=magic-revealed-cups-trick-found-to-be-more-effective-than-thought Magic Revealed: Cups Trick Found to Be More Effective Than Thought]

S: Alright let's move on. Evan, you're going to tell us about the science of magic tricks.

E: Yes, I have some magic tricks, and specifically the cups-and-balls trick. Now 'cups and balls' is a culturally ubiquitous illusion by which the stage magician takes three cups and three balls, or what at least appears to the audience to be three balls, and with the magicians' sleight of hand, they're able to make the balls appear and disappear seemingly at will. I say it's culturally ubiquitous because stage magicians have been performing this illusion all over the world for reportedly thousands of years. Now, there are many variations to the trick but the general premise is the same, now you see the balls and with the help of the cups, now you don't. Youtube it, there are tons of examples to be seen. But scientists, they're analysing how magicians such as Penn and Teller, are performing this illusion, and they're now revealing that some aspects of the magic trick are even more effective at manipulating audiences than the magicians perceive or they predicted. Neuroscientists have increasingly been analyzing magicians' performances to gain insight into the human mind and if you remember back in Skeptics' Guide to the Universe [[SGU Episode 326|episode 326]], we presented an interview with Neuroscientists [http://www.sleightsofmind.com/about-the-authors/ Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde] which was a really great interview, they talked with us about some of their work that they've done with {{w|Penn & Teller|Penn and Teller}}, among other professional tricksters, and how they studied their techniques for tricking the brain, and it was all put down in their book called ''[http://www.sleightsofmind.com/ Sleights of Mind - What the neuroscience of magic reveals about our everyday deceptions]''. I don't know if you read that book, Steve?

S: Oh yeah.

E: A really good book and it was a great interview, now magic tricks work because humans have a hard-wired process of attention and awareness that is, well, for lack of a better term, hackable. And a good magician uses your mind's own intrinsic properties against you. By understanding how magicians can effectively hack our brain we can better understand how the sort of same cognitive tricks are at work in other ways, for example in business negotiations or how people are influenced by advertising strategies or other sorts of interpersonal relations. But while Macknik and Conde-Martinez were specifically studying the cups and balls trick as performed by Teller of Penn and Teller, they realized something rather astounding.<ref>Rieiro, H, Martinez-Conde, S & Macknik, S.L (2013), [https://peerj.com/articles/19/ Perceptual elements in Penn & Teller’s “Cups and Balls” magic trick], PeerJ</ref> What they did is they had seven volunteers and they watched 10-12 second long video clips of Teller performing the cup and balls illusion. In the experiments, the volunteers reported when they saw balls get removed from or placed under cups by pressing buttons. The researchers at the same time used cameras pointed at the eyes of the volunteers to track their gazes. Now during the course of the illusion, the balls, one by one, are being placed atop the cups and then the cups at one point get tilted, they kind of tilt forward, and the ball rolls off the top of the cup and into the magician's hand. Now this action of the ball rolling off the cup is designed to focus the audience's attention on that ball rolling off the cup so that you're not watching the magician's other hand as he's palming another ball and placing it in the proper position for the next part of the trick. However, what the researchers found is that while the audience is watching the falling ball, and it definitely drew their attention, other aspects of the trick were actually stronger at making the illusion work, which were not the results that the performer was expecting to get, the magician was not expecting that, they expect people were looking at the ball rolling off, therefore they're free to do their other manipulations and stuff, but this research reveals it's really not working that way. It's not a knock against the performer right, it's just a more accurate understanding as to what's going on in the mind of the audience member.

R: There are two concepts here that the researchers claimed to have debunked in a way, that are standard things that magicians learn. One is the idea of social misdirection, the idea that the audience will look where the magician looks, so you always look at the hand that's, for instance, supposed to contain the coin. You know, if the coin is actually in your other hand, it doesn't matter, you look at your left hand, and the audience will look there as well. And the other thing being that the audience will follow motion. If you consider there's a very basic, like the first move that most magicians learn is the {{w|French Drop}}.

S: Yeah

R: and that's a method of making a coin disappear. And one of the first things you have to learn about that is that you don't move the hand that's doing the tricky stuff because the audience is going to look at the motion. You move the hand that is supposed to contain the coin that's not there because that's where the audience is going to look. So those are two really basic concepts that the researchers have claimed to show don't necessarily hold up. But that said, I read the study and I found it, I mean it's interesting, but at the same time it was a sample size of seven people, and I don't really feel like they did a very good job of proving this, even to the point where– like, I think it gets headlines because it's interesting, it's about magic, it's fun, it's got Penn and Teller, but I don't think that it's really worthy of much else. If anything it would be something that should encourage people to explore on a larger basis. But the thing is, this sort of stuff has been tested before, the researchers themselves cite a paper from 2011 that also showed that social misdirection doesn't work very well, this time using, I think, a coin trick instead of cups and balls.<ref>Cui et al.(2011), [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22046155 Social misdirection fails to enhance a magic illusion, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience [Note: Macknik & Martinez-Conde are also authors of this paper]</ref> But again, that study contained three different experiments that had nine people in the first, six people in the second, eight people in the third. So it's like these are such tiny studies, it would be really interesting to do this stuff on a larger scale. But as it is, I just don't find it terribly impressive, mostly because of the small sample size.

E: You know something else they talked a little bit about as sort of a tangent to this, is they're working on, Conde-Martinez and Macknik are working on a hypothesis that magic tricks which rely on social cues are less effective in people with autism.

S: Huh

E: They believe that autistics have a hard time paying attention to what other people are paying attention to and they give some examples of some people who were diagnosed with autism when they were young and they relayed their stories about how they would watch magic tricks, and like Rebecca you were describing how the magician looks this way and most everyone else in the audience looked that way but these people who had the autism were not influenced by the direction that the magician was looking in, instead they were looking at whatever little cups, ball and whatever other props were going on, much to the magicians' dismay, because... you know–

S: Yeah, they were harder to fool because they were harder to predict how they'd respond.

R: Another thing I'd be curious about with social misdirection would be both of these studies that claim to show that it doesn't work very well were done using video of the magicians, and so I'd be interested in seeing if there's a difference with in-person magicians because I feel like if a magician is standing right in front of you you're going to have a stronger reaction to those social cues, but I don't know.

=== Gorilla in the Bronchi <small>(24:48)</small> ===
Neurologica: [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/gorilla-in-the-bronchi/ Gorilla in the Bronchi]

S: Rebecca, in I guess a somewhat related item, there was an interesting article that you found very intriguing, this actually combines the first two news items we were talking about, physician performance and misdirection.

R: Indeed. yeah this was a story that I laughed out loud when I first saw it and then got slightly scared. So you've all heard, I'm sure, of the [http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/gorilla_experiment.html invisible gorilla test] by now. For those who haven't heard of it, I will ruin it for you now. You should pause the podcast now and look it up on YouTube first if you don't want it to be ruined. But the video is– basically the experiment is subjects watched a video of basketball players who were passing a basketball back and forth, and the subjects were told that they had to count the number of passes just between certain players. And throughout the video a gorilla walks into the frame, stands there, beats his chest and then slowly walks off to the other side, and it's really painfully obvious but half of the people, half of the subjects in the study missed him entirely, and this is sort of held up generally to find that you've got a 50:50 chance if you're showing somebody who's never seen it before, a 50:50 chance that they will miss him entirely. This is something called {{w| inattentional blindness}}, the idea is that when a person is consumed with one task, they become blind to looking at other things around them. So that study is pretty much always done on what we will call, and what the researchers of the upcoming study call, naïve: people who have no special training in spotting things. And certainly no special training in spotting gorillas that walk through basketball games. So psychology students at {{w|Brigham and Women's Hospital}} in Boston were curious to see whether or not professional anomaly hunters, basically, could perform any better.<ref>Drew, T., Võ, M. L. H., Wolfe, J. M. (2013). [http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/07/17/0956797613479386.abstract The invisible gorilla strikes again: Sustained inattentional blindness in expert observers], Psychological Science.</ref> So they showed 24 experienced radiologists the CT scans for 5 different patients, and each of those cases included hundreds of images of lung tissue. They asked the radiologists to sort through the images and find 10 nodules which were signs of lung cancer hidden throughout the scans. So the difference here is that these are trained professionals who are doing what they trained to do. So to test whether or not they would be subject to inattentional blindness, the researchers on the very last case they gave the radiologists, inserted a small, poorly photoshopped picture of a gorilla into the lung image. The gorilla was about the size of a matchbox or about 48 times the size of the nodules that the radiologists were looking for, so it was quite substantial, relatively speaking. The gorilla started out translucent in early images but then became more and more opaque until by the time the radiologists got to the final images, it was incredibly obviously staring out from the lung. So at the end of the trial, the researchers asked each radiologist if the last trial seemed any different, if the last case seemed different, and if they noticed anything unusual about it, and finally they just straight up asked, did you notice the gorilla? Of the 24 radiologists, only 4 of them noticed the gorilla. When the others who didn't see the gorilla were shown those last slides again, they all immediately saw it, and also eye tracking data suggested that they all ''had'' looked directly at it during their first pass.

B: Ha! They tracked their eyes, awesome.

R: Yeah, but they didn't even process it. So it's funny and it's especially funny if you see the image of this ridiculous gorilla in a CT scan of a lung, but also it's a little scary because radiologists aren't just looking for a specific thing when they view these CT scans, they're looking for a specific thing while also supposedly keeping a general eye out for anything else unusual like that gorilla could have just as easily have been a tumor, a gorilla tumor.

E: But they were told specifically to look for the nodules, right? I mean if they'd just been told, here's some images, tell me what you see.

R: Well that's, in a way, and maybe Steve can expand upon this in a second, but I think that the purpose of this was to mimic what they would actually do in their work. They would be looking for a very specific thing, like they know they have to look out for these nodules, but they are also going to be looking out for anything that might be wrong in these scans. I don't think they're generally just given scans and just told, find something. They're told what they're supposed to be looking for, is that right Steve?

S: Yeah, basically. So radiologists are often given a history, like this is a patient with this history and I'm ordering this CT scan because I'm concerned about X. So they are going to pay particular attention to whatever it is the ordering physician is interested in. But they're also trained to read the whole scan, not just focus on the one thing that they're interested in. I did wonder myself though, whether or not there was an artefact in the study in that they knew they were being challenged, they knew they were being studied and they were specifically told, find the cancer nodules. And essentially that was meant, that was a test of inattentional blindness. They were given a task, and looking for something different than the gorilla and so they were processing information, filtering it in a way to look for the nodules, and they didn't process the gorilla, that's the whole point of inattentional blindness. I looked at– so when I first came across the study, I looked at the scan, I didn't see the gorilla either.

R: Yeah.

S: Because I was looking for pathology, not that I'm a radiologist, and I've read scans, so I was looking for stuff I was familiar with, but it was completely unfamiliar. It's also black on black, I mean let's point that out.

R: With a white border around it.

S: Yeah, but it's a black gorilla on the black lung, and it was just easy for me to completely filter it out.

J: Ah, here come the excuses. Come on, you missed it.

S: I missed it. It was inattentional blindness.

B: Steve, I just looked at the image that's on your blog right now, I mean a few minutes ago. And it took, I didn't see it immediately, I saw an alien head in this image, but I did not see the gorilla until I really started looking around.

S: Yeah.

R: Well it's worth noting again though, after they were told there is a gorilla in this picture, they all ''immediately'' saw it. ''Immediately''.

S: Yes. And now I ''can't not'' see it, looking at the scan. It's blaring out at me. But first time I looked at it, I didn't see it.

R: There's a bit of reassurance here because in addition to showing the radiologists these CT scans, the researchers had a control group of the average naïve observer, so somebody who was not trained to look for any of this. And in the control group, not a single one of them saw the gorilla, so it's possible that the radiologists are so good at looking for things like these nodules that they have a bit more ability to look for general problems and so they are actually better than the average person at inattentional blindness, at least when it comes to CT scans. The headlines on this, I've noticed, have been really grim, like ‘83% of radiologists miss a gorilla in a CT scan’. But I think it's actually reassuring that they’re doing–

S: It misses the point, yeah.

R: Yeah, they're doing quite a bit better than the average person, which to me suggests that this could be something that radiologists and others in similar positions can learn from and they can actually work to develop their skills at spotting these things.

S: Well let me tie this into the news item that Jay talked about, about the artificial intelligence. There are software programs that analyse images and highlight anything unusual. And again, it's a perfect combination of the pattern recognition of a radiologist with the ''lack'' of inattentional blindness, lack of all the cognitive biases that we have, information processing that a computer has, the combination of those two is much better than either one alone, and this is just an example of that, you know a computer wouldn't be fooled by that because it doesn't suffer inattentional blindness. Let me give one other aside. I wrote about this, when I was doing some further background research on it I came across a very interesting bit. Do you know when the first study was published that demonstrated the phenomenon of inattentional blindness was?

E: Uh, 1959?

S: (laughs) Cheater. Yes, 1959.<ref name=cornell>Cornell, A. D. (1959). An experiment in apparitional observation and findings Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 40 (701), 120-124<br>See Simons (2011), [http://theinvisiblegorilla.com/blog/2011/10/31/ghost-busters-parapsychology-and-the-first-study-of-inattentional-blindness/ Ghost busters, parapsychology, and the first study of inattentional blindness] on [http://theinvisiblegorilla.com/ theInvisibleGorilla.com]</ref> But this is fascinating, this was a researcher, was a ''ghost'' researcher publishing in the journal of the society for psychical research and they were, they did an interesting study where the guy draped himself in a white sheet and strolled down the middle of a campus, and nobody reported noticing anything unusual.

J: What, that is so– did they see him and fear to do the report? Or did they not see the guy?

S: Well hang on. So then he did a follow-up study where, during a movie trailer, he walked out onto the stage, you know all theaters have, like they had a screen on a stage, you know what I mean? So you could walk on the stage. So he walked across the stage in the ghost costume, in the sheet, and only 50% of the audience noticed anything unusual. So he inadvertently did the first experiment demonstrating inattentional blindness, even came up with the 50% figure, the same thing as the invisible gorilla. Although ''he'' interpreted it differently, he said, ‘ah, there must be something psychic and different about genuine ghost encounters’.

B: Ugh.

S: Because people notice them.

R: I don't think he had any figures on what percentage of people noticed an actual ghost.

S: No, still that was his conclusion. He also, in discussing it, was perplexed by the peoples' inability to notice the ghost and couldn't understand it. But of course now we know it's inattentional blindness. Isn't that interesting?

B: Yeah, it's cool.

E: Very.

=== Feathered Dino Follow Up <small>(35:34)</small> ===
Neurologica: [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/transition-denial-and-feathered-dinosaurs/ Transition Denial and Feathered Dinosaurs]

S: Alright well let's move on. I'm going to do a quick follow-up to the feathered dinosaur piece that I talked about [[SGU_Episode_395#Feathered_Dinosaurs_.2840:40.29|last week]]. If you recall, scientists have discovered yet another feathered dinosaur in China, {{w| Eosinopteryx|Eosinopteryx brevipenna}}. It's a small feathered {{w|Theropoda|Theropod dinosaur}}, stubby wings, couldn't fly, with teeth, a bony tail, fingers and toes, lack of a lot of bird features, but it does have a lot of other features that are similar to birds so it puts it in that middle-zone between theropod dinosaurs and full birds. A beautiful transitional fossil, I wrote about the fact that Ken Ham and the ''Answers in Genesis'' creationists were denying that this is a transitional fossil, they said it was just a bird. So this is on the Answers in Genesis website, this is now their response to criticism, including from some of their own people, that how could you call this just a bird? This is by Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell, and let me just read you the money quote. She goes on and on quoting nonsense, then she says, "apart from those evolutionary pre-suppositions though, extinct birds that happen to have feathers, teeth, wings, claws and no bony keel remain just another kind of bird."<ref>Mitchell (2013), [http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2013/02/09/news-to-note-02092013 How can we say it’s a bird?], AnswersInGenesis.org</ref>

B: Oh god.

S: So she's like, she's saying that, ok so in the past there are extinct species of birds that happened to have teeth and bony tails and winged claws and couldn't fly because they had stubby wings, but they're just another kind of bird. Allrighty.

J: That's like saying. 'That's not a dinosaur, that's just a ''huge'' gecko with big sharp teeth that likes to eat flesh'. Please.

''(laughter)''

S: Right. So it's just defining out of existence transitional species, just calling it "just a bird". Calling it "just a bird" doesn't mean that ''in the past'' there were birds that looked awfully a lot like theropod dinosaurs and it's just a massive coincidence. Right. Pure, mindless denialism, I don't know what else to say about that. But I just thought that that follow up was interesting.

== Who's That Noisy? <small>(37:54)</small>==

S: Evan

E: Doctor?

S: Tell us about Who's That Noisy.

E: I'll play for you last week's Who's that Noisy.

B: You do that.

E: Here we go.

<blockquote>I love oxygen because it plays such an important role in keeping alive the terrestrial animals on this planet.</blockquote>

E: So, who was that?

R: She makes a lot of sense.

E: (laughs) Yes, a lot of sense.

R: I'll say that much. I agree with her.

E: A lot of correct answers. A lot of people are very familiar with the one and only {{w|Jane Goodall|Dr. Jane Goodall].

S: Jane Goodall.

R: Ah.

E: Talking about the importance of oxygen. From a segment from something called the RI channel called ''[http://richannel.org/collections/2012/my-favourite-element#/jane-goodall--oxygen My Favourite Element]'' in which they– this particular segment of this show goes around, and they talk to scientists and other famous personalities about, well, their favorite element and they give a little brief explanation as to why. So that was Jane Goodall's take on that. For those of you who don't know, Jane Goodall is a British primatologist, ethologist, anthropologist and a UN messenger of peace. She said in an interview once with Ira Flatow that she believes Bigfoot exists, I don't know if she retracted that since, this was many years ago, but you know...

R: Didn't she just say that she was hopeful or something? I don't think she came out and said he exists, did she?

E: Uh, here's what she said:
<blockquote>"I've talked to so many native Americans who all describe the same sounds, who have seen them, I've probably got about oh 30 books that have come from different parts of the world, from China, all over the place, and there's a little tiny snippet in the newspaper just last week which says that the British scientists have found what they believe to be Yeti hair, and the scientists in the Natural History Museum in London couldn't identify it as any known animal."<ref>Jane Goodall, Friday, September 27, 2002, during National Public Radio's (NPR) [http://www.sciencefriday.com/ Talk of the Nation: Science Friday] with Ira Flatow ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NmCmfdFAhQ YouTube clip])</ref></blockquote>

R: It's the worst.

E: "You'll be amazed when I tell you that I'm sure they exist." That's her quote.

R: Ah.

S: Although she does also say, "it's strange that there's never been a single authentic hide or hair of the bigfoot." So still she's...

E: So she's...

R: It's like she ''has'' the facts. Not using them the way they're meant to be used.

E: She just has to implement them. Come on doctor, just take the next step, you know what to do. But otherwise, you know, very famous.

S: Let's not focus on that, she's an awesome primatologist.

E: Yes, I agree.

S: An incredible legacy, great scientist.

E: And she loves oxygen, like so many others.

S: Yes, very fond of oxygen.

E: No doubt. Danny H is this week's winner.

S: Danny.

E: From alllll the people who guessed correctly, and there were a lot of you, thank you all for playing, but Danny from the message board.

S: Danny. I've got a Prescott(?).

(laughter)

E: Oh my gosh. Wonderful. Well done. Well played.

S: All right, so what have you got for this week?

E: This week, here we go. We have a puzzle this week because we know how much people love puzzles and there's never any controversy.

S: They're so puzzling.

E: Alright, here we go, this week's puzzle. "There are three switches downstairs."

S: These are light switches?

E: Light switches, thank you.

S: OK.

E: "There are three light switches downstairs."

J: (shouting) There are four lights!

(laughter)

R: I knew it was coming, I knew it was coming.

B: Oh, I didn't.

E: Wow. "There are three light switches downstairs. Each corresponds to one of three incandescent light bulbs up in the attic. You cannot see the lights in the attic from where the switches are located. You can turn the switches on and off and leave them in any position. How would you identify which switch corresponds to which light bulb, if you are only allowed one trip upstairs? You got that?

S: Very tricky.

B: Yep, it's a good one.

E: Go ahead and give us your answer to that. wtn at theskepticsguide.org is the official email address for your answers, or post them on our forums, [http://sguforums.com sguforums.com] and as I like to say every week, good luck everyone.

S: Thank you Evan.

E: Thank you.

== Name That Logical Fallacy <small>(41:57)</small> ==

S: We're going to do a Name That Logical Fallacy this week this email comes from Paul.

(baby sounds)

S: From Lynwood, Washington.

E: You OK, Jay?

S: (laughs) And he writes:

<blockquote>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiohalo Radiohalos] proves young earth. By the way, where is the missing link? Still missing? Have a blessed day, and know that GOD still holds you in his heart. Enjoy your show very much, always amused when man tries to disprove the glory of GODS [sic] creation. Take care.</blockquote>

S: Well thank you Paul, we appreciate your kind words.

E: And for listening.

R: Argument from ridiculous nonsense.

S: (laughs)

B: Yep, that's about it.

S: There might be some problems with the arguments. So there are, can we get the factual problems out of the way first? We actually did a segment, Bob I think you did this on the radio halos<ref>Episode 201: [[SGU_Episode_201#Questions_and_E-mails|Polonium Halos]]</ref>, these are the polonium halos, just refer you to that previous segment on the Sketpics' Guide, we went into that in detail. But no, it doesn't prove a young Earth, that has completely scientifically been demolished. The polonium halos are perfectly consistent with a 4 billion year old Earth, thank you. And we've talked about the missing link more than once on the show. There's no such thing as ''the'' missing link. There are of course gaps in the fossil record, but you'll never fill in all the gaps to an arbitrary level of detail. We have found connections between many major groups including, I don't know if he's specifically referring to a human-ape missing link, but you know we have– we find and keep finding more examples of hominids filling out the space between humans and our closest ape ancestors, so this is not– this is evidence for evolution, this is not a problem for evolution. But what do you think about his other sentiments here?

E: Well having a blessed day, I've got a big problem with that.

''(laughter)''

R: He's offered no evidence that the day is blessed.

J: You have no joy in your life Evan.

R: We've already established&ndash,

E: Apparently not, because I don't know that clip that you played earlier, but–

S: But he is amused when man tries to disprove the glory of God's creation.

J: Everything is the glory of God in his paradigm, so there's no way to prove or disprove anything.

S: Well I mean I think the main thing, to me, is that he's assuming his conclusion, he's making a circular argument here. He's assuming that God created the Earth and we're trying to disprove something that he knows to be true, the glory of God's creation. The question is, did God create the Earth, is the Earth the product of creation or of Evolution? That is a question we can address scientifically. He's stating his amusement in such a fashion where he's assuming his conclusion. Now I don't know if Paul is sincere in saying that he enjoys our show, and he may be listening to our show, if for no other reason than to hear what the quote-unquote "other side" has to say and we been emailed by other people who said that they started listening to our show to hear what the skeptics had to say, and that over time we slowly won them over, and in fact there's a couple who were creationists who listed to our show to mock us, and then now they're staunch skeptics who reject creationism.

B: Yeah, that was awesome.

E: Yeah, that was very satisfying.

S: We should not give up hope that Paul will eventually come around if he is listening to our show and absorbing much of it. So Paul, this is my challenge to you: you brought up two challenges to evolutionary theory, the missing link and radio halos. Investigate them, ''honestly''. Take a look at those, we talked about it, you can do the same research that we did, and then come back to us. Email us back if you're listening to this, and tell us what you think about those arguments after doing some actual research and looking into what the scientists have to say about these two points, because what we're saying is that you're just ''completely'' factually wrong on these two points about radio halos and the missing link. You got it wrong, in my opinion, because you're listening to propaganda, to secondary hostile sources, you are not listening to what scientists are actually saying. If you do, you'll see that we are completely right on those two points, and you're completely wrong. And if you think that that's incorrect, please explain to me in detail, without gratuitous reference to your conclusions, explain to me ''why'' those arguments debunk evolution. We'd be happy to go around with you on that. That was the real reason why I wanted to talk about this news item.

R: So you could throw down the gauntlet.

S: Yes.

E: Yeah.

J: (laughs) Steve. The poor guy.

E: Throw down with Steven Novella.

S: Alright, guys

R: You're just trash talking him.

== Interview with Brian Wecht ==
=== Propellantless Space Drive "EmDrive" Made in China <small>(46:56)</small> ===

DailyTech.com: [http://www.dailytech.com/Propellantless+Space+Drive+Called+EmDrive+Made+in+China/article29862.htm Propellantless Space Drive Called "EmDrive" Made in China]

S: Alright guys, let's go on to our interview. Joining us now is [http://necss.org/speakers/brian-wecht/ Brian Wecht]. Brian, welcome back to the Skeptics' Guide.

BW: Hey, thanks so much for having me.

B: Hey, Brian.

S: Brian is a theoretical physicist, a musician and a comedian.

BW: Mm-hmm.

S: Your physics work is on string theory. so basically you're Sheldon Cooper.

BW: I am Sheldon Cooper.

''(laughter)''

S: So Brian, we're bringing you on tonight ''mainly'' to talk about this one news item that has been making the rounds. Now I found this really fascinating. So tell us about this, this is a Chinese researcher claims he's actually produced a propellantless drive, or a so-called EM or electromagnetic drive. This is based upon some work that a British researcher has done. So get us up to speed, what is this all about.

BW: So based on, and I should say this is, it's a bit outside of my field, but based on what I've been reading, the idea is they create a cavity, so they have some metal plates that are arranged in a particular shape which is a cone here, and they put some electromagnetic radiation in, in this case it's microwaves. And the claim is that by doing that, and by having the cavity be shaped a particular way, effectively the waves can exert a pressure on one side of the cavity more than they can on the other, and make the thing move.

S: So there's a net force in one direction.

BW: That's the claim.

S: But that's supposed to be impossible.

BW: It is supposed to be impossible and I have to say that in reading this, everything in my gut as a physicist said that this should not be allowed to happen.

B: Primarily wouldn't that be for a couple of things, like {{w|Newton's_laws_of_motion#Newton.27s_third_law|Newton's third law}}, and the {{w|Momentum|conservation of momentum}}, those are the two that I keep seeing and it kind of makes sense. The idea with Newton's Third Law is that every action has an equal an opposite reaction clearly isn't really happening here. And then there's conservation of momentum, you've got this closed system, momentum has got to be constant, and this kind of ties back into Newton's third law, so if a rocket moves in one direction without something moving in the opposite direction, how is it going to, it can't really go.

BW: The big one is especially the conservation of momentum. So unless you're exerting a net force on something from the outside, then momentum should be conserved, and here it's a closed system, momentum should be conserved. I mean it's not like anyone is pushing it from the outside, so it appears to violate conservation of momentum. Now if you read the papers, what they claim, and I don't really buy this claim, the claim is that because the electromagnetic field has some momentum in it, so this is something that I think may or may not be widely appreciated, but an electromagnetic wave actually carries momentum.

B: Right.

BW: I don't know if you guys, do you guys know what {{w|optical tweezers}} are?

B: Oh yeah, they're cool.

BW: They're the best things ever, basically you use little lasers to push beads or random objects around. You can finely tune these lasers to actually move objects. So electromagnetic radiation certainly can exert a force on things, so I think from what I've been reading, the scientists' claim is that ok, so you're taking momentum out of the radiation inside the cavity but still momentum should be conserved, so I don't understand how the thing can actually move.

S: Yeah so here [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EmDrive Roger Sawyer] is the British researcher who has been pushing this for a while and he wrote a reply to a New Scientist article about this and this is what he says. He says, "as the engine accelerates, momentum is lost by the electromagnetic wave, and gained by the spacecraft, thus satisfying the conservation of momentum. In this process energy is lost within the resonator, thus satisfying the conservation of energy."<ref>New Scientist blog: [http://www.newscientist.com/blog/fromthepublisher/2006_10_01_archive.html Em drive on trial] (Oct 3 2006)</ref></blockquote>

S: So that seems to be the crux of the claim, that they're ''transferring'' momentum from the electromagnetic wave to the spacecraft itself. To me, as a non-theoretical physicist, it kind of seems reasonable. To me, so here's the analogy that came to my mind, you tell me if this is apt. There's a conservation of energy, energy can't be created or destroyed, but it can change forms, you could essentially do E=mc<sup>2</sup>, matter could be converted into energy, and that could superficially ''seem'' as if you're creating energy until you account for the fact that mass, matter, is energy, just another form of it. So does the same apply to conservation of momentum where momentum is conserved, but you're converting from one form, in this case electromagnetic wave, to another form, the spacecraft. Could that hold? Could that make sense?

BW: I mean you can, you can use an electromagnetic wave to push things, like the optical tweezers, but at the end of the day, if it's a closed system, the net momentum of the thing– you know what the momentum is because you can measure the center of mass and there's no radiation outside that thing either, it's all contained inside. So I don't understand how you can actually get a net momentum of the thing if it really is an honestly closed system. Because you can actually set– the average momentum is the mass times the velocity of the thing, very roughly speaking. So OK, maybe there's some momentum, there certainly is momentum in the electromagnetic wave, but at the end of the day the thing either has a momentum or it doesn't, and if there's no external force there shouldn't be any change in the momentum, momentum must be conserved.

B: Yeah Steve, I think the fact that it's a closed system is one of the things that is most against this. The only thing that I've come across that even makes remote sense to me is that you could have some sort of asymmetric thermal glow around the box but that would be so tiny and that kind of reminds me of the... what was it?

S: The Pioneer?

B: The Pioneer probes, but that would be negligible and ridiculous, as low as even what they're claiming, it would be smaller than that I think. But it's the closed system I think that really is the nasty part of this that won't go away. And I mean if he's got this, great, send it to us, have somebody look at it. Send it to some university or some government agency and have them check this and just ''prove'' it, it shouldn't be hard to prove that you can do this, it's like a perpetual motion machine.

BW: The thing I love is, like you said I'm a string theorist, so when I see something with data, I'm like "Oh my god, that's real science." So yeah, that's exactly my reaction too is that if this really happens, it shouldn't be– you know it may be very sensitive, but it should not be impossible to duplicate.

B: Guys real quick, don't forget, {{w|Boeing_Phantom_Works|Boeing's Phantom Works]] actually looked at one of this guy's prototypes and they didn't pursue it. So to me, I mean, that's not evidence that this is baloney, but to me this is just another little thing that you've got to consider.

S: But that's where we are now, so the Chinese say that they've built one, it's producing this tiny amount of acceleration, and this is like the perpetual motion machines where they say 'OK I've built one and it's producing this tiny amount of energy, but we can scale it up'. But of course, it never scales up–

B: (laughs)

S: –because the tiny amount of energy, or in this case the tiny amount of momentum, is probably a round-off error that they're then multiplying by 50,000 and producing an apparent effect. Or they're just– their measurements are off by a teeny tiny, itsy bitsy amount, right?

BW: That's the big question, right. Is the effect they're claiming, how does that compare to their error? Their ability to detect. And that's something I certainly don't know the answer to, but if they can't convincingly say that the effect they're measuring is much larger than their precision it doesn't matter, that's not a result.

S: Yeah now some people are saying, 'yeah start pushing satellites around, and then we'll believe you'. That's like, you know, run your house off your perpetual motion machine and then I'll pay attention. You know, your free energy device or whatever it is. But it never scales up to anything practical because they're all living in the world below the threshold of noise, where it's just all in the errors whether it's mathematical or tiny measurement errors or whatever, and it never does scale up. But, we'll see, I mean this one is interesting, it seems that the consensus is that this is the equivalent of perpetual motion, you can't violate conservation of momentum. His hand-waving explanation of transferring electromagnetic momentum from the electromagnetic wave to the spacecraft superficially sounds OK, but I guess it doesn't really solve the problem of the conservation of momentum. It's also called the ''reactionless'' dive because it's not reacting with the outside world in any way, so if you were sending electromagnetic waves off in one direction then sure, that would produce thrust, but that's not a reactionless drive.

B: Yeah, the other aspect of that is some people kind of confuse it and they say, oh it's a rocket engine with no fuel, and that's really not true, it's without reaction mass.

S: Without propellant.

B: Right, or propellant. The fuel is whatever you would use to power the reactor that generates the electricity.

BW: Do you guys know the article about this, this has appeared in a journal or not? I don't remember offhand.

S: Well the Chinese are not disclosing their information because they're saying oh we have to make sure we have all the patents and we don't get scooped, so they're saying it's going to take them a year before they're actually going to have transparency with their data. So that's fishy, right?

BW: Yeah. Super fishy.

B: Alright. See you in a year.

S: That's super fishy. Shawyer, he wrote the theoretical papers and they're online, you can get them on the New Scientist website that I'll link to, or at [http://www.emdrive.com emdrive.com].

BW: Yeah, he has a website with a FAQ and all these, you know the answers to every objection that you could possibly raise to his device, right.

S: Right. And reading the comments is funny because the cold fusion people have jumped on board with this.

B: Oh boy. Yeah, yeah.

BW: Yeah.

S: And all the conspiracy theories about you know, the scientific priesthood says it's impossible so they don't want to research it.

E: Scientific priesthood, yep.

S: Well what we need to do is hook up a cold fusion reactor to an EM drive, then we basically have anti-gravity, man.

BW: Unlimited power.

E: Mwa-ha-ha.

S: It would be super cool if this worked.

BW: If this somehow works, it's cool from ''any number'' of perspectives, right? It's cool from any number of perspectives, it's cool from a practical perspective, like we might actually be able to use this thing for thrust. But then it also says that clearly a lot of people maybe don't really understand physics as well as they thought.

S: Yeah

BW: So anytime you have to go back and reevaluate your assumptions, that's great.

S: Yeah I mean it's worth saying, we would ''love'' for this to work.

B: Oh my god. Some people were predicting that if you had a superconducting cavity, something like an EM drive, you could eventually lift 3 tons with just 1 kW of input power, I mean, can you imagine? Three tons.

S: That sounds crazy.

B: Yeah, it would be amazing.

S: Even if what they're claiming now is the limit of it, which is a tiny amount of propulsion, that is a very effective way of moving ships around the solar system because you won't have to carry propellant with you and you won't have to accelerate the propellant, and therefore the rocket equation is off the table and this would be ''massively'' efficient, even with its tiny acceleration.

B: It's actually even more efficient than an {{w|ion thruster}}, it's like four times as much thrust, half as much power, with no propellant needed to be carried on.

BW: Certainly the effects that they're describing right now are really, really tiny.

B: Yeah, 72 grams of thrust with 2,500 watts of electricity

S: Right, well you just need a lot of them. So it would be cool, but don't hold your breath is the bottom line.

BW: Yes, that's right. I'm... doubtful.

S: You're skeptical, right.

BW: Actually I was going to say skeptical, then stopped.

''(laughter)''

J: Hey but there's something cool that you don't have to hold your breath for that's coming up.

BW: Amazing segue.

R: Yeah, we're really good at those.

BW: Yeah, I know.

S: We've been getting better, we've been practising.

R: Yeah, you should have heard us seven years ago.

S: So what are you talking about, Jay?

R: Get to the point, Jay.

=== Stimulus, Response - NECSS of science and improvisation <small>(59:15)</small>===

J: Brian and George Hrab were tasked with coming up with a new event for [http://necss.org NECSS] that's unique to NECSS that's going to be a unique event. Brian, why don't you tell us what you guys came up with?

BW: So the idea, what George and I came up with, we're both super psyched about it. It's called ''Stimulus, Response - NECSS of science and improvisation'' and the idea is that we wanted to create an event which was really particularly unique, and also unique to NECSS so the idea is that we're going to have two improvised performances, so the evening is going to start out with George and his cousin, is that right? Roman?

J: That's right, yep.

BW: Yep. So George of course is an incredible musician, and his cousin Roman is an artist and they're going to spontaneously create a simultaneous work of music and art at the same time and draw inspiration off of each other. So that'll be the first act. After that we're going to get a panel together of George and Roman, we're going to have Steve, and Steve will talk about the neuroscience of improvisation, we'll get to hear his scientific input on how exactly you're able to create these events, how you're able to spontaneously come up with the kind of stuff that people have seen. Also {{w|H. A. Berlin|Heather Berlin}}, who is a phenomenal scientist, will be on the panel as well. I'll be moderating. And then we're also going to get some improv comedians, the second act is this panel discussion of the nature of improvisation and in part, the sort of like'what the hell were you thinking when you did this?', and then go to the scientists, Steve and Heather, for their scientific input. Then also talk to some people who improvise comedy on a regular basis, and then they're going to take over in act three and then do a whole improvised set, basically a comedy set based on an interview with some prominent NECSS attendee, which we're not announcing yet because we have yet to confirm, but some really awesome person who will talk about their life or talk about some particularly interesting thing that they've done. The comedians are then going to draw inspiration from him or her and then create a 20-25 minute set based on that.

B: Awesome.

J: I can't wait to see this thing, man.

S: All right Brian, thanks for coming on the show with us and helping us debunk this latest bit of pseudoscience.

E: Yep

BW: (laughs) Well great, thanks.

S: And I'll really look forward to NECSS, and seeing you there and to what you guys put together on Friday night.

BW: Yeah thanks so much for having me and I can't wait to see you guys in April.

S: Alright take care.

BW: You too.

B: Thanks, Brian.

R: Thanks, Brian.

E: See ya, Brian.

== Science or Fiction <small>(1:01:44)</small> ==

S: Each week, I come up with three science news items or facts, two real and one fake. I challenge my panel of skeptics to tell me which one is the fake.

E: You must yell the work fake at us.

R: Yeah. There's a lot of anger there.

S: Fake stuff gets me mad, what can I tell you? Are you guys ready for this week.

J: Sure.

R: Mmhmm.

B: Then why are you making it up?

S: I know, I hate myself when I do it. Here we go. [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD000980.pub4/abstract;jsessionid=DE22CBF8899F8609FE829A25BCF257A5.d03t04 Item #1]: A new review concludes that Vitamin C supplementation halves the incidence of the common cold. [http://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2013/february/feb13_unconsciousthought.html Item #2]: New research finds that decision making continues subconsciously even when we have turned our attention to a new task. And[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130212075117.htm item #3]: A recent study finds that African American women require twice the supplemental doses of vitamin D as do Caucasian women. Jay, go first.

J: The one about the vitamin C, I would be shocked if that's true, right out of the gate, just because I've read so many times that vitabmin C does not have an effect on that. I'm assuming here, by the way it's written down, you say vitamin C supplementation, that it's not just that they take it when you have a cold, that over a long period of time. Because we know that if you take it when you get a cold that it does absolutely nothing, or so I think. But OK, alright that one's on the back burner. The second one about decision making continuing even after you've turned your attention to a new task, I think that's true, of course it's true, your brain isn't just thinking or working on what's in the front of your mind, what's in the front of your mind, what's in your conscious mind, it's constantly pulling apart things and analysing things, so that one to me 100% fact, without a question of a doubt. And the third one about African American women requiring twice the supplemental doses of vitamin D as Caucasian women, that's interesting. It's interesting, you know maybe in a low-sun situation under normal living conditions, people are indoors more than outdoors and maybe because of the colour of their skin they don't absorb as much vitamin D somehow, meaning they need longer exposure to sunlight to absorb the same amount of vitamin D for their skin to produce as much vitamin D as a Caucasian person. Huh. That's OK so I could make an argument either way for that. So now it's the vitamin C one which we already know for years and years we've all heard that vitamin C does not help with the common cold mow this is a reverse on that. Interesting. Or the third one. I'm going against my gut and I'm going to select the third one, the vitamin D one as the fake. And the die roll is... number 1.

S: OK, Rebecca.

R: Alright, this is tough because I had an immediate reaction to these in that vitamin C, the vitamin C one immediately sounded wrong and the other two immediately sounded right to me, and in fact African American women requiring twice as much vitamin D, in my head that's obvious and solved and done. I was already under the impression that African Americans required more vitamin D and that vitamin D deficiency led to a higher incidence of certain diseases and maybe even cancers in African Americans compared to in Caucasians. But I don't know, so that one immediately sounded right, and the idea that your decision making continues subconsciously, that immediately sounds right not because I've seen any studies on it but just because I've always felt like that's what works for me, like I input things in my brain before I go to bed and then I wake up with the answer, things like that, or if I'm working on something creative and I'm hitting a roadblock I just go play video games or I do something else or I work out or something and then when I come back I've got it, you know. So that seems obvious to me too and like Jay said, everything I thought I knew about vitamin C is that it was ineffective. But I'm always suspicious when things seem that obvious that means that something's screwy.

B: Or maybe that's what he wants you to think!

R: I know! Maybe it's the old double cross! I'm going to go with the vitamin C one being wrong, because I fell for it I guess, I don't know. That one.

S: OK. Evan.

E: Vitamin C supplementation halves the incidence of the common cold. I think we've talked about vitamin C before in this regard, Jay some of the things you were talking about ring bells. If you were to build it up in your body ahead of time and maintain a higher than average level of vitamin C then perhaps that could work. Decision making continues subconsciously even when we've turned our attention to a new task. Sure, I don't see why that couldn't be the case, which makes me suspicious. Continues subconsciously, boy we do so many things subconsciously, I'm probably doing a whole bunch of things subconsciously right now and I couldn't describe them because they are what? Subconscious. And I'm already on to a new task because I'm on to the third one. African American women require twice the supplemental doses of vitamin D as do Caucasian women. Would that be because the African American women have a harder time absorbing the vitamin D from the sun, from sunlight? That would seem to make sense on some level, but I've not heard vitamin D being part of the need for women as opposed to men, so I don't know about this one, I'm kind of thinking that this one's wrong because twice the supplemental doses of vitamin D, yeah I don't think that's right at all actually, I don't think that Caucasian women need supplements of vitamin D at all and therefore African American women would not require twice the supplemental dose so I'll say that one's the fiction.

S: And Bob.

B: I had a similar reaction to Rebecca. Seemed pretty straightforward. I'll start with three. African Americans requiring more vitamin D, yeah it made total sense, you've got more melanin, you absorb less sun, therefore you make less vitamin D. Twice as much may sound like a lot but you don't necessarily need a lot anyway, so twice a little is still not that big. The subconscious decision making yeah, I mean my go-to example for that is I'm trying to think of a word, can't think of it, and then almost invariably, 10, 15 minutes, an hour later, bam! It just totally pops right into my head, clearly something was looking for it without my conscious control. And then the vitamin C, yeah I mean how long have we heard that it's not dramatic, you don't really need to go crazy with vitamin C, it's not going to have that much of an effect on the common cold. So what the hell, I know it's... I'm just going to go with the common cold and say that one is fiction.

R: You and me, Bob. You and me.

S: OK, interesting. So you all agree on the middle one that new research finds that decision making continues subconsciously even when we have turned our attention to a new task, you all think that one is science, and that one is... science. Yep, that was the easy one this week. But what researchers found is they did actual brain studies where they imaged the different parts of the brain functioning and they had subjects, they gave them a task, then they had them move on to a different task and they found that the decision making parts of the brain were still active even when they had moved on to a distracting task.

B: That's cool.

S: Something that didn't involve decision making, that was something like doing math, you know just something specific but not involved in the decision-making process. They also said this is consistent with research that shows that decision making is improved when, well this is actually a follow-up to that research, so prior research showed that if you take a break from a decision making task, that it may actually improve the quality of the decisions that you make. Now the question was, is that because your brain is still working on the problem or is it because you take a break from the problem and then you come back with a fresh look, fresh outlook? You know does it sort of recharge your batteries? So this study gave the subjects the task, then gave them a distracting task and it showed that the brain is still working in the background, subconsciously, same parts of the brain are active, the decision-making, you know the parts that were active during the active decision-making. So that, pretty strong evidence that that is the case. Not surprising, I agree with Bob, I think most people probably have a similar experience of trying to think of something and then you move on and then boom! The information pops into your head. What's going on there? Obviously it seems like it was, the solution was derived subconsciously and then presented to your conscious self and that does seem to be what the neuroscience shows. Well let's go back to number one, a new review concludes that vitamin C supplementation halves the incidence of the common cold. Bob and Rebecca think this one is the fiction. Jay and Evan think this one is science. And this one is... science.

J: Aha.

E: Oooh.

R: Aaargh.

B: Shit.

R: Damn you, Novella!

S: A little surprising. This is a Cochrane Library review. Now there's some details in here that are worth pointing out.

B: I'm sure there are.

S: The improvement, the reduction I should say, the reduction in the incidence of contracting the common cold was only in those studies that showed, that involved people that were under some kind of physical activity, like engaging in a sport or in the military or essentially they were under some physical stress. If you weren't under physical stress that 50% figure does not hold.

B: Under physical stress or do you mean generally fit?

S: No no, under physical stress, yeah not just in good shape, but you had to be at the time you were supplementing were subjected to some kind of physical stress. So the thinking there is that the vitamin C is helping you somehow compensate for that physical stress. The review identified 5 double blind placebo controlled trials which showed that. Jay, you pointed out something that was very important though. These were supplementation trials meaning that you're taking it all the time. Treatment trials where you give vitamin C once you contract the cold generally show no effect. The review did note that in adults, the duration of the cold is reduced by about 8% with vitamin C supplementation and in children by about 14%. These have generally been considered to be clinically insignificant, what are you going to have your cold lessened by a few hours, you know? This is 1 to 2 grams a day. The effects of vitamin C are pretty modest outside of this one parameter. I have to say personally I'm not 100% convinced of this, I have to like really dissect the quality of the trials that they're citing.

R: Then maybe it shouldn't have been in Science or Fiction, I'm just saying, Steve. Just saying.

S: Well that's why I said "a study concludes".

R: Just saying. I don't like your weasel language.

S: A review concludes that. I'm not concluding that.

R: Yeah, weasel.

S: I didn't say "demonstrates", I just said that a review concludes.

R: We can amuse ourselves with self-lies.

S: The whistlepig? I picked that wording very deliberately. But it is what it is. I mean it's a Cochrane Review, it seems pretty up and up, but I'm just a little suspicious of it. The conclusion, I don't agree with the authors' recommendations based upon this because they say that regular supplementation is inexpensive and low risk so why not do it even if you're not sure if it's worthwhile or not and they eventually said, as an individual you could try it out and see if it works for you which I think is kind of a worthless recommendation. You're not going to be able to tell if it works for you, its all going to be placebo effect and anecdote. But the other thing is given the number of colds that the average person has a year, it's really not worth, in my opinion, taking a gram or two of vitamin C all year round just to prevent one cold, even if this data is consistent, or shorten the duration by a tiny amount.

R: Maybe spend that money on hand soap, or one of those face masks.

S: Yeah right. It's probably, yeah probably better off just having good hand hygiene. And I'm not so convinced that high doses of vitamin C are benign. It could be associated with a higher risk of heart disease for example. So I would not give the same bottom line recommendation as this study. Think that the only thing that this really adds that you could really make a case for is if you are going to be under extreme physical stress, then supplementing with vitamin C may help your body deal with that stress. I general recommendation for supplementation I think is not warranted by this data. All of this means that a recent study finds that African American women require twice the supplemental doses of vitamin D as do Caucasian women is the fiction and Bob and Rebecca, you engaged in exactly the reasoning I was hoping that you would because that certainly was my thought.

B: Screw you.

S: And it's plausible, this is why it was studied, because people with dark skin absorb less vitamin D from the sun and so you might think they need more supplementation. But what they found, what the study found was that African American women and Caucasian women required the exact same amount of vitamin D supplementation, that their base levels that they're getting from the sun didn't really have an effect on how much oral supplementation they needed, that the same recommendations would suffice for both groups.

B: I disagree with that conclusion.

S: (laughs)

E: So women do need additional vitamin D?

S: Well it depends, I think that the best recommendation right now is just to get your vitamin D levels checked with your primary care doctor, and then if it's on the low side then it's reasonable to supplement. If you're not under the regular care of a physician, then it's a little hard to say because there's so many variables, where do you live, how much sun exposure do you get, how dark is your skin. Combine all those, and also the time of year. You know your needs in January are going to be different than your needs in July, but if you really want to know just get your levels checked.

R: What about men?

S: The study only involved women so I don't know, I'm assuming it's the same.

R: What about men?

S: I don't know, this study...

R: I'm not assuming does(?).

S: Yeah I know. I would suspect that it would not be dramatically different but this study only involved women for whatever reason.So good work, Jay and Evan.

J: Thank you.

E: Yeah.

S: And the die went with Bob and Rebecca this time and failed.

J: The die died.

== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:17:24)</small> ==

S: Well Jay, do you have a quote for us this week?

J: I sure do. This is a quote sent in by my friend Craig Good over at Pixar. Craig wanted to congratulate me about my son and also sent a pretty cool quote. The quote is:

<blockquote>Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known.</blockquote>

J: That quote was penned by Michel de Montaigne. Montiag-ne. Montiai. Taig.

S: Montaigne.

J: Montaigne (laughing). Michael de Montaigne yeah!

S: Alright, thanks Jay. And thanks for joining me this week everyone.

B: You're welcome, Steve.

R: Thank you, Steve.

E: It was good to be joined to you.

J: Thanks Stevie!

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

{{Outro1}}

== References ==
<references/>

{{Navigation}}

Template:Draft SoF entry

2013-09-22T17:07:21Z

Teleuteskitty: align text to top

|colspan ="4" style="background:#CCD9EA;"|[[SGU Episode {{{episode}}}|SGU {{{episode}}}]]
|-
|style="width:1%;vertical-align:top"|1
|style="width:80%;vertical-align:top"|{{{SoF1}}}
|style="width:1%;text-align: center"| {{#if: {{{SoF1 link|}}}| [{{{SoF1 link}}} link] | - }}
|{{#if: {{{SoF1 Rogue|}}}|<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Rogue" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF1 Rogue}}}</div></div>}} <br>
<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Answer" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF1 answer}}}</div></div>
|-
|style="vertical-align:top"|2
|style="vertical-align:top"|{{{SoF2}}}
|style="text-align: center"|{{#if: {{{SoF2 link|}}}| [{{{SoF2 link}}} link] | - }}
|{{#if: {{{SoF2 Rogue|}}}|<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Rogue" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF2 Rogue}}}</div></div>}} <br>
<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Answer" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF2 answer}}}</div></div>
|-
|style="vertical-align:top"|3
|style="vertical-align:top"|{{{SoF3}}}
|style="text-align: center"|{{#if: {{{SoF3 link|}}}| [{{{SoF3 link}}} link] | - }}
|{{#if: {{{SoF3 Rogue|}}}|<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Rogue" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF3 Rogue}}}</div></div>}} <br>
<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Answer" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF3 answer}}}</div></div>
{{#if:{{{SoF4|}}}|{{!}}-
{{!}}style="vertical-align:top"{{!}}4
{{!}}style="vertical-align:top"{{!}}{{{SoF4}}}
{{!}}style="text-align: center"{{!}}{{#if: {{{SoF4 link|}}}| [{{{SoF4 link}}} link] | - }}
{{!}}{{#if: {{{SoF4 Rogue|}}}|<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Rogue" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF4 Rogue}}}</div></div>}} <br>
<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Answer" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF4 answer}}}</div></div> }}<noinclude>

=== Description ===
Formatted entries to SoF table

=== Usage ===

* <code>episode</code> – episode number
* <code>SoF1</code> – Item number one
* <code>SoF1 link</code> – Link associated with item number one
* <code>SoF1 Rogue</code> – Rogue(s) that picked this item, if no-one picked it, enter "not picked"
* <code>SoF1 answer</code> – Answer: Science/Fiction
* <code>SoF2</code> – Item number two
* <code>SoF2 link</code> – Link associated with item number two
* <code>SoF2 Rogue</code> – Rogue(s) that picked this item, if no-one picked it, enter "not picked"
* <code>SoF2 answer</code> – Answer: Science/Fiction
* <code>SoF3</code> – Item number three
* <code>SoF3 link</code> – Link associated with item number three
* <code>SoF3 Rogue</code> – Rogue(s) that picked this item, if no-one picked it, enter "not picked"
* <code>SoF3 answer</code> – Answer: Science/Fiction

Example:
<pre>{{Draft SoF entry
|episode =382
|SoF1 = Curiosity's atmospheric analyzer has confirmed the presence of methane in the Martian atmosphere, keeping hope of Martian life alive.
|SoF1 link = http://www.southernencounter.co.nz/seanews_whatsnew.htm
|SoF1 Rogue = Rebecca, Evan & Bob
|SoF1 answer = Fiction
|SoF2 = A new computer model supports the grandmother hypothesis - that grandmothers provide a fertility advantage to their daughters, thereby driving the evolution of longevity.
|SoF2 link = http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v491/n7423/full/491162b.html
|SoF2 Rogue = Not picked
|SoF2 answer = Science
|SoF3 = Physicists have created a device with a refractive index of zero, meaning that the phase velocity of light within the device is effectively infinite.
|SoF3 link = http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/11/infintely-fast-light.html?ref=hp
|SoF3 Rogue = Jay
|SoF3 answer = Science
}}</pre>

=== Copy ===
<pre>{{Draft SoF entry
|episode =
|SoF1 =
|SoF1 link =
|SoF1 Rogue =
|SoF1 answer = Science/Fiction
|SoF2 =
|SoF2 link =
|SoF2 Rogue =
|SoF2 answer = Science/Fiction
|SoF3 =
|SoF3 link =
|SoF3 Rogue =
|SoF3 answer = Science/Fiction
}}</pre>

</noinclude>

Template:Draft SoF entry

2013-09-22T17:05:31Z

Teleuteskitty: formatted numbers

|colspan ="4" style="background:#CCD9EA;"|[[SGU Episode {{{episode}}}|SGU {{{episode}}}]]
|-
|style="width:1%;vertical-align:top"|1
|style="width:80%"|{{{SoF1}}}
|style="width:1%;text-align: center"| {{#if: {{{SoF1 link|}}}| [{{{SoF1 link}}} link] | - }}
|{{#if: {{{SoF1 Rogue|}}}|<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Rogue" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF1 Rogue}}}</div></div>}} <br>
<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Answer" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF1 answer}}}</div></div>
|-
|style="vertical-align:top"|2
|{{{SoF2}}}
|style="text-align: center"|{{#if: {{{SoF2 link|}}}| [{{{SoF2 link}}} link] | - }}
|{{#if: {{{SoF2 Rogue|}}}|<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Rogue" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF2 Rogue}}}</div></div>}} <br>
<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Answer" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF2 answer}}}</div></div>
|-
|style="vertical-align:top"|3
|{{{SoF3}}}
|style="text-align: center"|{{#if: {{{SoF3 link|}}}| [{{{SoF3 link}}} link] | - }}
|{{#if: {{{SoF3 Rogue|}}}|<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Rogue" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF3 Rogue}}}</div></div>}} <br>
<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Answer" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF3 answer}}}</div></div>
{{#if:{{{SoF4|}}}|{{!}}-
{{!}}style="width:1%;vertical-align:top"{{!}}4
{{!}}{{{SoF4}}}
{{!}}style="text-align: center"{{!}}{{#if: {{{SoF4 link|}}}| [{{{SoF4 link}}} link] | - }}
{{!}}{{#if: {{{SoF4 Rogue|}}}|<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Rogue" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF4 Rogue}}}</div></div>}} <br>
<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Answer" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF4 answer}}}</div></div> }}<noinclude>

=== Description ===
Formatted entries to SoF table

=== Usage ===

* <code>episode</code> – episode number
* <code>SoF1</code> – Item number one
* <code>SoF1 link</code> – Link associated with item number one
* <code>SoF1 Rogue</code> – Rogue(s) that picked this item, if no-one picked it, enter "not picked"
* <code>SoF1 answer</code> – Answer: Science/Fiction
* <code>SoF2</code> – Item number two
* <code>SoF2 link</code> – Link associated with item number two
* <code>SoF2 Rogue</code> – Rogue(s) that picked this item, if no-one picked it, enter "not picked"
* <code>SoF2 answer</code> – Answer: Science/Fiction
* <code>SoF3</code> – Item number three
* <code>SoF3 link</code> – Link associated with item number three
* <code>SoF3 Rogue</code> – Rogue(s) that picked this item, if no-one picked it, enter "not picked"
* <code>SoF3 answer</code> – Answer: Science/Fiction

Example:
<pre>{{Draft SoF entry
|episode =382
|SoF1 = Curiosity's atmospheric analyzer has confirmed the presence of methane in the Martian atmosphere, keeping hope of Martian life alive.
|SoF1 link = http://www.southernencounter.co.nz/seanews_whatsnew.htm
|SoF1 Rogue = Rebecca, Evan & Bob
|SoF1 answer = Fiction
|SoF2 = A new computer model supports the grandmother hypothesis - that grandmothers provide a fertility advantage to their daughters, thereby driving the evolution of longevity.
|SoF2 link = http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v491/n7423/full/491162b.html
|SoF2 Rogue = Not picked
|SoF2 answer = Science
|SoF3 = Physicists have created a device with a refractive index of zero, meaning that the phase velocity of light within the device is effectively infinite.
|SoF3 link = http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/11/infintely-fast-light.html?ref=hp
|SoF3 Rogue = Jay
|SoF3 answer = Science
}}</pre>

=== Copy ===
<pre>{{Draft SoF entry
|episode =
|SoF1 =
|SoF1 link =
|SoF1 Rogue =
|SoF1 answer = Science/Fiction
|SoF2 =
|SoF2 link =
|SoF2 Rogue =
|SoF2 answer = Science/Fiction
|SoF3 =
|SoF3 link =
|SoF3 Rogue =
|SoF3 answer = Science/Fiction
}}</pre>

</noinclude>

User:Teleuteskitty/Draft SoF

2013-09-22T17:03:19Z

Teleuteskitty: updated

{| class="wikitable"
{{Draft SoF entry
|episode =382
|SoF1 = Curiosity's atmospheric analyzer has confirmed the presence of methane in the Martian atmosphere, keeping hope of Martian life alive.
|SoF1 link = http://www.southernencounter.co.nz/seanews_whatsnew.htm
|SoF1 Rogue = Rebecca, Evan & Bob
|SoF1 answer = Fiction
|SoF2 = A new computer model supports the grandmother hypothesis - that grandmothers provide a fertility advantage to their daughters, thereby driving the evolution of longevity.
|SoF2 link = http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v491/n7423/full/491162b.html
|SoF2 Rogue = Not picked
|SoF2 answer = Science
|SoF3 = Physicists have created a device with a refractive index of zero, meaning that the phase velocity of light within the device is effectively infinite.
|SoF3 link = http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/11/infintely-fast-light.html?ref=hp
|SoF3 Rogue = Jay
|SoF3 answer = Science
}}
|-
{{Draft SoF entry
|episode =381
|SoF1 = A new study finds that astronauts who spent more than one month in microgravity have a 35% increased risk of heart attacks and strokes.
|SoF1 link =
|SoF1 Rogue = Jay & Bob
|SoF1 answer = Fiction
|SoF2 = Scientists have discovered the first feathered dinosaur in the western hemisphere, and also adds another dinosaur group known to have feathers.
|SoF2 link =
|SoF2 Rogue = Not picked
|SoF2 answer = Science
|SoF3 = Researchers find that, at the molecular level, evolutionary changes can be highly predictable.
|SoF3 link =
|SoF3 Rogue = Rebecca & Evan
|SoF3 answer = Science
|SoF4 = Researchers find that, at the molecular level, evolutionary changes can be highly predictable.
|SoF4 link =
|SoF4 Rogue = Rebecca & Evan
|SoF4 answer = Science
}}
|}

Template:Draft SoF entry

2013-09-22T17:02:27Z

Teleuteskitty: changed 'no link' to '-'

|colspan ="4" style="background:#CCD9EA;"|[[SGU Episode {{{episode}}}|SGU {{{episode}}}]]
|-
|style="width:1%"|1
|style="width:80%"|{{{SoF1}}}
|style="width:1%;text-align: center"| {{#if: {{{SoF1 link|}}}| [{{{SoF1 link}}} link] | - }}
|{{#if: {{{SoF1 Rogue|}}}|<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Rogue" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF1 Rogue}}}</div></div>}} <br>
<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Answer" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF1 answer}}}</div></div>
|-
|2
|{{{SoF2}}}
|style="text-align: center"|{{#if: {{{SoF2 link|}}}| [{{{SoF2 link}}} link] | - }}
|{{#if: {{{SoF2 Rogue|}}}|<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Rogue" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF2 Rogue}}}</div></div>}} <br>
<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Answer" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF2 answer}}}</div></div>
|-
|3
|{{{SoF3}}}
|style="text-align: center"|{{#if: {{{SoF3 link|}}}| [{{{SoF3 link}}} link] | - }}
|{{#if: {{{SoF3 Rogue|}}}|<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Rogue" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF3 Rogue}}}</div></div>}} <br>
<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Answer" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF3 answer}}}</div></div>
{{#if:{{{SoF4|}}}|{{!}}-
{{!}}4
{{!}}{{{SoF4}}}
{{!}}style="text-align: center"{{!}}{{#if: {{{SoF4 link|}}}| [{{{SoF4 link}}} link] | - }}
{{!}}{{#if: {{{SoF4 Rogue|}}}|<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Rogue" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF4 Rogue}}}</div></div>}} <br>
<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Answer" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF4 answer}}}</div></div> }}<noinclude>

=== Description ===
Formatted entries to SoF table

=== Usage ===

* <code>episode</code> – episode number
* <code>SoF1</code> – Item number one
* <code>SoF1 link</code> – Link associated with item number one
* <code>SoF1 Rogue</code> – Rogue(s) that picked this item, if no-one picked it, enter "not picked"
* <code>SoF1 answer</code> – Answer: Science/Fiction
* <code>SoF2</code> – Item number two
* <code>SoF2 link</code> – Link associated with item number two
* <code>SoF2 Rogue</code> – Rogue(s) that picked this item, if no-one picked it, enter "not picked"
* <code>SoF2 answer</code> – Answer: Science/Fiction
* <code>SoF3</code> – Item number three
* <code>SoF3 link</code> – Link associated with item number three
* <code>SoF3 Rogue</code> – Rogue(s) that picked this item, if no-one picked it, enter "not picked"
* <code>SoF3 answer</code> – Answer: Science/Fiction

Example:
<pre>{{Draft SoF entry
|episode =382
|SoF1 = Curiosity's atmospheric analyzer has confirmed the presence of methane in the Martian atmosphere, keeping hope of Martian life alive.
|SoF1 link = http://www.southernencounter.co.nz/seanews_whatsnew.htm
|SoF1 Rogue = Rebecca, Evan & Bob
|SoF1 answer = Fiction
|SoF2 = A new computer model supports the grandmother hypothesis - that grandmothers provide a fertility advantage to their daughters, thereby driving the evolution of longevity.
|SoF2 link = http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v491/n7423/full/491162b.html
|SoF2 Rogue = Not picked
|SoF2 answer = Science
|SoF3 = Physicists have created a device with a refractive index of zero, meaning that the phase velocity of light within the device is effectively infinite.
|SoF3 link = http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/11/infintely-fast-light.html?ref=hp
|SoF3 Rogue = Jay
|SoF3 answer = Science
}}</pre>

=== Copy ===
<pre>{{Draft SoF entry
|episode =
|SoF1 =
|SoF1 link =
|SoF1 Rogue =
|SoF1 answer = Science/Fiction
|SoF2 =
|SoF2 link =
|SoF2 Rogue =
|SoF2 answer = Science/Fiction
|SoF3 =
|SoF3 link =
|SoF3 Rogue =
|SoF3 answer = Science/Fiction
}}</pre>

</noinclude>

Template:Draft SoF entry

2013-09-22T16:59:57Z

Teleuteskitty: formatted links

|colspan ="4" style="background:#CCD9EA;"|[[SGU Episode {{{episode}}}|SGU {{{episode}}}]]
|-
|style="width:1%"|1
|style="width:80%"|{{{SoF1}}}
|style="width:1%;text-align: center"| {{#if: {{{SoF1 link|}}}| [{{{SoF1 link}}} link] | No link }}
|{{#if: {{{SoF1 Rogue|}}}|<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Rogue" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF1 Rogue}}}</div></div>}} <br>
<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Answer" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF1 answer}}}</div></div>
|-
|2
|{{{SoF2}}}
|style="text-align: center"|{{#if: {{{SoF2 link|}}}| [{{{SoF2 link}}} link] | No link }}
|{{#if: {{{SoF2 Rogue|}}}|<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Rogue" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF2 Rogue}}}</div></div>}} <br>
<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Answer" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF2 answer}}}</div></div>
|-
|3
|{{{SoF3}}}
|style="text-align: center"|{{#if: {{{SoF3 link|}}}| [{{{SoF3 link}}} link] | No link }}
|{{#if: {{{SoF3 Rogue|}}}|<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Rogue" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF3 Rogue}}}</div></div>}} <br>
<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Answer" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF3 answer}}}</div></div>
{{#if:{{{SoF4|}}}|{{!}}-
{{!}}4
{{!}}{{{SoF4}}}
{{!}}style="text-align: center"{{!}}{{#if: {{{SoF4 link|}}}| [{{{SoF4 link}}} link] | No link }}
{{!}}{{#if: {{{SoF4 Rogue|}}}|<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Rogue" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF4 Rogue}}}</div></div>}} <br>
<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Answer" data-collapsetext="Hide">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">{{{SoF4 answer}}}</div></div> }}<noinclude>

=== Description ===
Formatted entries to SoF table

=== Usage ===

* <code>episode</code> – episode number
* <code>SoF1</code> – Item number one
* <code>SoF1 link</code> – Link associated with item number one
* <code>SoF1 Rogue</code> – Rogue(s) that picked this item, if no-one picked it, enter "not picked"
* <code>SoF1 answer</code> – Answer: Science/Fiction
* <code>SoF2</code> – Item number two
* <code>SoF2 link</code> – Link associated with item number two
* <code>SoF2 Rogue</code> – Rogue(s) that picked this item, if no-one picked it, enter "not picked"
* <code>SoF2 answer</code> – Answer: Science/Fiction
* <code>SoF3</code> – Item number three
* <code>SoF3 link</code> – Link associated with item number three
* <code>SoF3 Rogue</code> – Rogue(s) that picked this item, if no-one picked it, enter "not picked"
* <code>SoF3 answer</code> – Answer: Science/Fiction

Example:
<pre>{{Draft SoF entry
|episode =382
|SoF1 = Curiosity's atmospheric analyzer has confirmed the presence of methane in the Martian atmosphere, keeping hope of Martian life alive.
|SoF1 link = http://www.southernencounter.co.nz/seanews_whatsnew.htm
|SoF1 Rogue = Rebecca, Evan & Bob
|SoF1 answer = Fiction
|SoF2 = A new computer model supports the grandmother hypothesis - that grandmothers provide a fertility advantage to their daughters, thereby driving the evolution of longevity.
|SoF2 link = http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v491/n7423/full/491162b.html
|SoF2 Rogue = Not picked
|SoF2 answer = Science
|SoF3 = Physicists have created a device with a refractive index of zero, meaning that the phase velocity of light within the device is effectively infinite.
|SoF3 link = http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/11/infintely-fast-light.html?ref=hp
|SoF3 Rogue = Jay
|SoF3 answer = Science
}}</pre>

=== Copy ===
<pre>{{Draft SoF entry
|episode =
|SoF1 =
|SoF1 link =
|SoF1 Rogue =
|SoF1 answer = Science/Fiction
|SoF2 =
|SoF2 link =
|SoF2 Rogue =
|SoF2 answer = Science/Fiction
|SoF3 =
|SoF3 link =
|SoF3 Rogue =
|SoF3 answer = Science/Fiction
}}</pre>

</noinclude>

User:Teleuteskitty/Draft SGU list

2013-09-22T16:37:26Z

Teleuteskitty: added segment links for 338 & 364

{| class="mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2013
|range = (episodes 390-...)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 426
|date = Sep 14
|desc = 9/11, Motivated Numeracy, Arctic Ice, Robot Traders, Teenage Exorcists, Homeopathic Vaccines, Mission to Mars, Bdellovibrio
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 425
|date = Sep 7
|desc = Last Thylacine, NASA Spiders, Chicken Wings and Penis Size, TCM for Flu, New Element 115, Pox Parties, Aromatherapy
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 424
|date = Aug 31
|desc = Cara Santa Maria, Paul Ehrlich, Energized Water, Probiotics for Mental Health, Death by Iridology, Immortality, Authority
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 423
|date = Aug 24
|desc = Sanal Edamaruku, Vesuvius, No Proof of Creation, Area 51, Hydrating Beer, Indian Rationalist Shot Dead, Free Roaming Planets, Sugar and Hyperactivity
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 422
|date = Aug 17
|desc = Hazel Bishop, NDE Explained, TV Watching, Labor and Autism, Magenta Planet, Spontaneous Baby Combustion, Special Report: Onionated
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 421
|date = Aug 10
|desc = Michael Mann, Smithsonian, Dead Monk Alive, Lab Grown Burger, Dolphin Memory, Cattle Mutilations, Gluten Follow Up, HPV Vaccine
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 420
|date = Aug 3
|desc = Robert House, Hunt for Alien Spaceships, 3-D Printing, Lunar Calendar, Full Moon and Sleep, Man-Chimp-Pig
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 419
|date = Jul 27
|desc = Insulin, Giant Virus, Gluten, Death Wave, The Pitch Drops, Revenge of the Conspiracy Theorists. Cassini Picture of Earth
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 418
|date = Jul 20
|desc = Live at TAM 2013, Guest Rogue: John Rennie, Viking 1, Special Report: Grand Canyon, The End of the World, Sailing Stones, Scrotal Evolution, Moons of Pluto, James Randi and Jamy Ian Swiss, Questions: Cynicism, Monsanto
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 417
|date = Jul 13
|desc = Paul Offit, Carl Zimmer and Erno Rubik, Seeing Through Walls, First in Flight, Tylenol and Fear, Spinning Pharoah, Head Transplant
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 416
|date = Jul 6
|desc = Guest Rogue: Randall Snyder, Pasteur, Special Report: Leaving Mormonism, Crop Circles in History, Constructing Morality, Movie Review: World War Z, Patent Troll Follow Up
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 415
|date = Jun 29
|desc = Roy Wolford, Podcasting Patent, Class System in Mice, Anti-GMO Pseudoscience, Skunk Ape, Special Report: GyroStim and Science Journalism, Staticman
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 414
|date = Jun 22
|desc = Daniel Loxton, Osteoarthritis, Patenting DNA, Foot Fungus, Chinese Fake Alien, New Type of Star, Can We Know Everything
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 413
|date = Jun 15
|desc = First Blood Transfusion, Vaccine Refusal, Seeing Ultraviolet, Ape Feet, Elizabeth I a Man?, Special Report: Don McLeroy Follow Up, Living on Sunshine
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 412
|date = Jun 8
|desc = Joshie Berger, Missile Mail, Star Trek Review, Kepler Broken, Small Hadron Collider, Carnivorous Sponge, Pollen
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 411
|date = Jun 1
|desc = [[Scott Thurman & Vijay Dewan interview: The Revisionaries (411)|Vijay Dewan & Scott Thurman interiew]], [[SGU_Episode_411#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.283:41.29|Cosmic Background Radiation]], [[Mermaids: Animal Planet's docudrama (411)|Mermaids]], [[Angelina Jolie's double mastectomy (411)|Angelina Jolie]], [[Prosopagnosia sufferers: Brad Pitt & Rebecca Watson (411)|Prosopagnosia]], [[Flying car technology (411)|Flying Car]], [[Raw honey (411)|Raw Honey]]
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 410
|date = May 25
|desc = Guest Rogue: Richard Saunders, [[SGU_Episode_410#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.2804:35.29|Geek Pride Day]], [[James McCormick Sentenced (410)|McCormick Sentenced]], [[Meteroid Hits Moon (410)|Meteroid Hits Moon]], [[DSM-5 Changes (410)|DSM-5]], [[Placenta Madness (410)|Placenta Madness]], [[Water Heaters and Legionella (410)|Water Heater Follow-up]], [[Don McLeroy Follow-Up (410)|McLeroy Interview Follow-up]]
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 409
|date = May 18
|desc = Heather Berlin, Nicholas II, Your Senses in Space, Talking Plants, Flowing Glass, Book Review: Ender's Game, Water Heaters, Atacama Specimen
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 408
|date = May 11
|desc = Don McLeroy, Sylvia Browne Wrong Again, Cosmic Rays and Lightening, Cicada Return
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 407
|date = May 4
|desc = Mystery Guest, SGU 8 year Anniversary, Funding Science, Curse Scam, Fusion Reactor, Einstein Still Correct, Oblivion Review, Is SETI Science
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 406
|date = Apr 27
|desc = Samuel Morse, Mars One, Bomb Detector Fraud, TED and Chopra, Creationism and Dinosaurs, Bitcoin Follow Up
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 405
|date = Apr 20
|desc = Guest Rogues: Jon Ronson and Simon Singh, Sundogs, Simon Singh's New Book, Bitcoins, Internet Criminals, BRAIN Project, Evidence of Dark Matter, Hallucinating Music
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 404
|date = Apr 13
|desc = Live at NECSS 2013, Guest Rogue: Cathleen Carr, Apollo 13, Remembering Perry, Conspiracy Survey, Misused Scientific Terms, New Type of Supernova, Vaccines Make You Gay, Anti-Vaccine Propaganda on Twitter, Live Q&A: Effects of Alcohol, Online Health Inform
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 403
|date = Apr 6
|desc = Ian O'Neill, Isaac Asimov, Fairy Circle Update, Zombie Parasites, Retraction Watch, Genetic Transistors, Prescribing Placebos
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 402
|date = Mar 30
|desc = Guest Rogue: Karl Withakay, [[Homeopathy Debate at UConn (402)|Homeopathy Debate]], [[Nine-year-old Finds Dinosaur Fossil (402)|Small Pterosaur]], [[Fracking Causing Earthquakes (402)|Fracking Earthquakes]], [[Man Who Never Has to Eat Again (402)|Never Eat Again]], [[Voyager at the Edge (402)|Voyager at the Edge]], [[More Than Gravity Theory (402)|More Than Gravity]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 401
|date = Mar 23
|desc = Pons and Fleischmann, Marshmallow Test, Bacteria Everywhere, Acupuncture HIV, Dr. Oz Sued, New Pope, Special Report: Why Worry?
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 400
|date = Mar 16
|desc = Lawrence Oates, Meteorite Fossils, Duane Gish Dies, Acupuncture Meta-Analysis, Live to 150, Close Star Discovered
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 399
|date = Mar 9
|desc = Guest Rogue: George Hrab, Hans Christian
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 398
|date = Mar 2
|desc = Jon Ronson, Compact Disk, Life Around Dying Stars, Ancient Lost Continent, Electronic Tattoos, Google Glass, Ouch
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 397
|date = Feb 23
|desc = Heisenberg, Russian Meteor, Spontaneous Human Combustion, Cosmos Unstable, Bigfoot DNA Published, Intellectually Lazy, Special Report: Retro Futurism
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 396
|date = Feb 16
|desc = Brian Wecht, Chien-Shiung Wu, AI Doctor, Ball and Cup Magic, Gorilla in the Bronchi, Feathered Dino Follow Up
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 395
|date = Feb 9
|desc = [[George Hrab interview: Plans for NECSS (395)|George Hrab interview]], [[SGU_Episode_395#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.281:07.29|Space Medicine]], [[Russian lake monster (395)|Russian Lake Monster]], [[Richard III: Bones found (395)|Bones of Richard III]], [[Is the age of the scientific genius over? (395)|Scientific Genius]], [[Fear: Carbon dioxide and the amygdala (395)|Without Fear]], [[Feathered dinosaurs: Creationists deny transitional fossils (395)|Feathered Dinosaurs]], [[Skeptical puzzle: Tuesday Boy answer (395)|Puzzle]]
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 394
|date = Feb 2
|desc = John Rennie, Groundhog Day, Up Goer Five, China Smog, Vaccine Court, Deer Antler Spray, Perpetual Motion
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 393
|date = Jan 26
|desc = Guest Rogue: Brian Dunning, [[Zack Kopplin interview: Creationism and school boards (393)|Zack Kopplin interview]], [[SGU_Episode_393#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.280:51.29|Brachistochrone curve]], [[Manti Te'o hoax (393)|Manti Te'o Hoax]], [[River on Mars (393)|River on Mars]], [[Neanderthal baby (393)|Neanderthal Baby]], [[Nikola Tesla: Report by Brian Dunning (393)|Special Report: Nikola Tesla]], [[Vomitorium correction (393)|Vomitorium]], [[Brian Dunning & Lizzie Li Taylor interview: Skeptoid in China (393)|Skeptoid Chinese]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 392
|date = Jan 19
|desc = [[Massimo Polidoro interview: Italian skepticism (392)|Massimo Polidoro]], [[Neon lights (392)|Neon Signs]], [[Predicting murders (392)|Predicting Murders]], [[Lead and crime (392)|Lead and Crime]], [[Biggest thing in the Universe (392)|Biggest Thing in the Universe]], [[Million dollar challenge: Steve Volk objects (392)|Defending the $1m Challenge]], [[Turkey's disappearing evolution books (392)|Turkey Bans Evolution Books]], [[Quickie with Bob: Apophis update (392)|Apophis Update]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 391
|date = Jan 12
|desc = Dr. James Bedford, Below Absolute Zero, Burzynski Challenge, Genome Editing, Celebrity Pseudoscience, Oz Pseudoscience
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 390
|date = Jan 5
|desc = Massimo Pigliucci, FM Radio, Psychic Predictions 2012, Cosmic Rays and Dementia
|status = complete
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2012
|range = (episodes 338-389)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 389
|date = Dec 29
|desc = SGU 2012 Year in Review, Thomas Fuller, Best and Worst of 2012, In Memoriam
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 388
|date = Dec 22
|desc = Coelacanth, Sandy Hook Massacre, China Stabbing, AVN to Change Name, Megalapteryx Foot, Invisibility Cloak, Special Report: The Hobbit and High Frame Rate
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 387
|date = Dec 15
|desc = Joshie Berger, homosexuality and the DSM, Creationist Tactics, Truth in Education, Dawn of Life, History of Cheese, Vampire Warning, Ocean Robots
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 386
|date = Dec 8
|desc = Guest Rogue: Phil Plait, Atoms for Peace, End of the World, Bug UFO Follow Up, Inattentional Amnesia, Curiosity Kurfuffle, Grand Canyon Age, Moon Formation
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 385
|date = Dec 1
|desc = Banachek, Taman Shud Mystery, Not-So-Terror Bird, Bloop Solved, Hijacking DNA, Bigfoot DNA, Makemake, Theory
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 384
|date = Nov 24
|desc = Guest Rogue: Richard Wiseman, Origin of Species, Special Report: Richard's Dream Research, Aspartame Study, Being a Psychopath, Type Ia Supernova, Fecal Transplants
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 383
|date = Nov 17
|desc = Bruce Hood, Jonestown Massacre, Denver UFO, Math Hurts, Communicating with the Vegetative, Nearby Rogue Planet, Twisted Light, Bicycle Physics
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 382
|date = Nov 10
|desc = Goddess of Reason, Life in the Universe, UFOlogy Dying, Chelation Therapy, Psychic Fail, Universe Rotating, In Memorium: Mike LaCelle
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 381
|date = Nov 3
|desc = Live at CSICon 2012, Sputnik 2, In Memorium: Paul Kurtz and Leon Jaroff, Big Bang Conference, Italian Earthquake Scientists Convicted, Whale Makes Human Sounds, PANDAS Controversy, Reporting Ghost Stories, Live Q&A
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 380
|date = Oct 27
|desc = Genetic Logic Circuit, Efficient Language, Closest Exoplanet, Alien Hacker, Zombie Bite
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 379
|date = Oct 20
|desc = Jamy Ian Swiss, Norman Borlaug, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, DNA Half Life, The Simulated Universe, Supersonic Jump, Geoglyph
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 378
|date = Oct 13
|desc = [[Robert Hutton interview: SGUTranscripts.org (378)|Robert Hutton:SGU Transcripts]], [[SGU_Episode_378#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.280:35.29|Lady of Fatima]], [[Nobel prizes 2012: Medicine & physics (378)|2012 Nobel Prizes]], [[Dyson spheres (378)|Dyson Spheres]], [[Simon Singh: Pseudoscience magazine libel (378)|Simon Singh and Libel]], [[Presidential lie detector (378)|Presidential Lie Detector]], [[Neurosurgeon's 'proof of heaven' (378)|Proof of Heaven]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 377
|date = Oct 6
|desc = The Billygoat Curse, The Physics of Roulette, Vitamin D and the Common Cold, Harpooning Satellites, Bee Brains, WTC7 Collapse
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 376
|date = Sep 29
|desc = Pamela Gay, CERN, Ig Nobels 2012, GM Corn Rat Study, HIV and Faith Healing, Emoticons turn 30
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 375
|date = Sep 22
|desc = Golden Tablets and Hobbit Day, Warp Drive, Bad Science Reporting, Dark Energy Camera, Crowdsourcing Science, Spheres on Mars, CSICon 2012, Blue Moon and Frances
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 374
|date = Sep 15
|desc = Murray Gell-Mann and Alexander Flemming, Sun Myung Moon Dies, Company Apologies for Thalidomide, Super WiFi, Calorie Restriction and Longevity, Special Report: A Skeptical 12 Step Program, Skeptical Quote of the Week
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 373
|date = Sep 8
|desc = Live at DragonCon 2012, Billy West, First Trek, Blue Moon Lunacy, Bigfoot News, Negative Replication of Psi, Baldness Cure, Little Mass from Higgs, UFO Over Illuminati Castle, SGU FAQ, Homeopath Pharmacist, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 372
|date = Sep 1
|desc = Passenger Pigeon, Neil Armstrong Dies, Naked Darth Vader, Homeopathic Candy, Hearing Voices, Special Report: Conspiracy Conference
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 371
|date = Aug 25
|desc = Pixar's Chris Ford, The Great Moon Hoax, The Sun is Round, DNA Storage, FDA and Homeopathy, Pregnancy from Rape, E-bay and Magic
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 370
|date = Aug 18
|desc = Eggs and Atherosclerosis, Hacking the Rover, The Sneeze, Google Pyramids, Occ Update, Asymmetrical Screw
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 369
|date = Aug 11
|desc = Dino Mating, Blowing Up Asteroids, Punching for God, Occ the Skeptical Caveman, Kinesio Tape
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 368
|date = Aug 4
|desc = Brian Wecht, First Fax, Superstition Fund, Curiosity's Sky Crane, Anti-Fluoridation News Fail, Bat-Winged Monkey Bird
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 367
|date = Jul 28
|desc = Kennewick Man, Skeptical Conferences, Sally Ride Dies, Mood Photography, Computer Modeling Life, Artificial Jellyfish, Firewalking Mishap, Multivitamins
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 366
|date = Jul 21
|desc = Live at TAM 2012, Guests: Richard Saunders and George Hrab, Planet Nibiru, Jean Picard born, Fake Bomb Detector Maker Charged, Debating an Antivaccinationist. Feathered Dinosaurs, New Moon for Pluto, Higgs Discovery Announced, Sex Myths, Sapphire Hard Dri
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 365
|date = Jul 14
|desc = Guest Rogue: Daniel Beauley, Jane Goodall, UFOs in National Geo, Seeing Inside Tissue, GOP on Critical Thinking, Alternative Chocolate, Who Owns Space
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 364
|date = Jul 7
|desc = [[Jann Bellamy interview: Portland Wi-Fi case (364)|Jann Bellamy interview]], [[SGU_Episode_364#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.280:29.29|Newcomen Engine]], [[Water on the Moon and Mars (364)|Water on the Moon and Mars]], [[Swiss report on homeopathy (364)|Swiss Report on Homeopathy]], [[Twisted Light (364)|Twisted Light]], [[Embodied Cognition (364)|Embodied Cognition]], [[Causeway cannibal: Toxicology update (364)|Causeway Cannibal update]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 363
|date = Jun 30
|desc = [[SGU_Episode_363#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.280:40.29|Tunguska Event]], [[The Science of Prometheus (363)|The Science of Prometheus]], [[Time Slowing Down (363)|Time Slowing Down]], [[Quickie with Bob: Higgs Update (363)|Higgs Update]], [[Nessie Disproves Evolution (363)|Nessie Disproves Evolution]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 362
|date = Jun 23
|desc = Professor Zhong Lin Wang, Mystery Carbon Spike, Younger Dryas Impact, Liberation Procedure Study, Testing Female Athletes, Fetal Pill Update
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 361
|date = Jun 16
|desc = This Day in Skepticism - Captain Picard Day, LiDar, Extremophiles, Moral Behavior, Cervical Manipulation, Ghost Train, Pharmacist Homeopaths
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 360
|date = Jun 9
|desc = [[SGU_Episode_360#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.2800:47.29|Ray Bradbury Dies]], [[Show 360: SGU Comes Full Circle|Episode #360]], [[Transit of Venus (360)|Transit of Venus]], [[North Carolina Legislature Proposing Sea Level Prediction Methods (360)|Legislating Science]], [[North Carolina Legislature Proposing Sea Level Prediction Methods (360)|Science Education in California]] & [[Evolution removed from South Korean textbooks (360)|South Korea]], [[Quickie with Bob: Vapor movies (360)|Vapor Storage]], [[Magnetic skeptical phrases (360)|Magnetic Skeptical Phrases]], [[Peer review email (360)|Peer Review]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 359
|date = Jun 2
|desc = [[Debbie Feldman interview: Leaving her Hasidic Roots (359)|Debbie Feldman interview]], [[SGU_Episode_359#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.281:22.29|Bridget Bishop]], [[Medical Zombies (359)|Medical Zombies]], [[Science of Reruns (359)|Science of Reruns]], [[Leakey on Evolution (359)|Leakey on Evolution]], [[Local Dark Matter Follow-up (359)|Local Darkmatter Followup]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 358
|date = May 26
|desc = Guest Rogue: Joshie Berger, [[SGU_Episode_358#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.281:05.29|Animalcules]], [[Joshie's TAM Poker Tournament Idea (358)|TAM Poker Tournament]], [[SpaceX launch, May 2012 (358)|SpaceX Launch]], [[Information About the Early Universe May Be Lost (358)|Studying the Universe]], [[Consciousness: Materialism vs Dualism vs Idealism (358)|What is Consciousness?]], [[Speaking to Mediums in Languages (358)|Speaking to Mediums]], [[Swindler's list: Hearing aids (358)|Swindler's List: Hearing Aids]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 357
|date = May 19
|desc = Guest Rogue: Phil Plait, [[Chris Lewicki interview: Planetary Resources and asteroid mining (357)|Chris Lewicki interview]], [[SGU_Episode_357#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.280:51.29|Head Cabinet]], [[Ghost Box: an audio pareidolia generator (357)|Ghost Box]], [[New Mayan calendars found (357)|Mayan Calendar]], [[Electricity generation with viruses (357)|Electricity from Viruses]], [[Libel Reform in UK (357)|UK Libel Law Update]], [[Supermoon and the moon illusion (357)|Supermoon]], [[Corrections: Rosalind Franklin and Jocelyn Bell Burnell (357)|Corrections]]
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 356
|date = May 12
|desc = Dinosaur Farts, Aura Reading, 48 Frames per Second, Baby Powder, Killing Bigfoot, TAM2012
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 355
|date = May 5
|desc = Guest Rogues: Seth Shostak and James Randi, [[Stars can capture rogue planets (355)|Rogue Planets]], [[Monkey brain-machine interface (355)|Machine-Monkey Interface]], [[Using self-replicating robots to explore space (355)|Finding ET with Robots]], [[Looking for the God spot in the brain (355)|God Spot in the Brain]], [[Update on SETI funding (355)|SETI Update]], [[Hastening the coming Singularity (355)|Live Q&A: The Coming Singularity]]
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 354
|date = Apr 28
|desc = Live at NECSS 2012 with Guest James Randi, [[Pedantic Words (354)|Pedantic Words]], [[Sports pseudoscience and superstition (354)|Sports Pseudoscience ]], [[Nuking Asteroids (354)|Nuking Asteroids]], [[Splotch Ness Monster (354)|Loch Ness Monster Spotted]], [[IceCube Neutrino Detector (354)|Cosmic Rays]], [[Quickie with Bob: Space Shuttle Enterprise (354)|Space Shuttle Enterprise]], [[SGU_Episode_354#SGU_Video_.2851:27.29|SGU Video]], [[SGU_Episode_354#Remembering_Perry_.281:01:47.29|Remembering Perry]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 353
|date = Apr 21
|desc = The Surgeons Photo, Life on Mars, Indian Skeptic Charged with Blasphemy, Multitasking, Monkeys Recognize Words, Cosmic Superwinds, Titanic Correction, Advanced Dinosaurs
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 352
|date = Apr 14
|desc = Titanic Disaster, Blow Up Space Junk, Aristolochia Nephropathy, Homophobia, Toilet Water, Monkey Bill Update, Grover's Algorithm, Gulf of Cambay Ruins
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 351
|date = Apr 7
|desc = Gripp (Marshall Gillson), World Health Day, Smart Sand, Enclothed Cognition, Death by Homeopathy, Small Scale, Rhino Horn
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 350
|date = Mar 31
|desc = [[James Randi interview: Pigasus awards, NECSS & TAM (350)|James Randi interview]], [[Patenting life: Pseudomenas putida (350)|Patenting Life]], [[Tennessee anti-evolution bill: Teach the controversy (350)|Tennessee Anti-Evolution Bill]], [[Origin of the moon (350)|Origin of the Moon]], [[Mars: Mystery cloud (350)|Mystery Cloud on Mars]], [[Newage Mountain: Pic de Bugarach (350)|Newage Mountain]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 349
|date = Mar 24
|desc = Exxon Valdez, Superhero Pseudoscience, High Altitude Skydiving, Nuclear Clock, New Hampshire Abortion Bill, NDE and Lucid Dreaming, Designer Electrons, Here Comes the Metric System
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 348
|date = Mar 17
|desc = Guest Rogue: Richard Saunders, [[SGU_Episode_348#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.282:03.29|Vanguard I]], [[Oldest skeleton discovered in Australia (348)|Oldest Skeleton]], [[Red Deer Cave People: Distinct species? (348)|Red Deer Cave People]], [[Neutrino communication through 780 feet of rock (348)|Neutrino Communication]], [[Alternative medicine in Australia: Universities and the FSM (348)|Defending Science in Australia]], [[Bem's psi research: Failure to replicate (348)|Failure to Replicate Bem's Psi Research]], [[Vaccines: Effective regardless of age (348)|Catching up on Vaccines]]
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 347
|date = Mar 10
|desc = [[Scott Sigler interview: Hard science fiction (347)|Scott Sigler interview]], [[Thomas Jefferson: Megalonyx (347)|Megalonyx]], [[Robot Cheetah: DARPA and Boston Dynamics (347)|Robot Cheetah]], [[Kony 2012 (347)|Kony 2012]], [[Neuroprosthetics: Rats and neuroplasticity (347)|Neuroprosthetics]], [[Iceman tattoos: Skepticism over acupuncture points (347)|Therapeutic Tattoos]], [[QWERTY effect (347)|QWERTY effect]]
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 346
|date = Mar 3
|desc = [[Gordon Maupin interview: Fracking (346)|Gordon Maupin interview]], [[Leap years and international day of rare diseases (346)|Leap Year]], [[Iceman genome: Oetzi's origins (346)|Iceman Genome]], [[Faster than light neutrinos: Faulty timing signals (346)|FTL Neutrino Follow Up]], [[Global warming: Heartland Institute scandal follow-up (346)|More on Anti-Climategate]], [[Baseball doping: Braun off on technicality (346)|Drug Testing]], [[SGU_Episode_346#Your_Deceptive_Mind_.2836:02.29|Your Deceptive Mind]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 345
|date = Feb 25
|desc = Fraser Cain and Pamela Gaye, Tiny Lizards, Missing Dark Matter, Anti-Climate Gate, Nanoparticle Safety
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 344
|date = Feb 18
|desc = The Science of Pony Tails, Online Surveys, Structural Batteries, QWB:Alien Matter,s: Evolution Falsifiable, Headgear
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 343
|date = Feb 11
|desc = 3D Printing, Morgellons Update, State Science Standards, Lake Vostok, Hard Drive Breakthrough, Special Report: Ouija Boards
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 342
|date = Feb 4
|desc = Derek Bartholomaus, Speed Limit for Birds, Reading Brain Waves, Conspiracy Contradictions, Scorpion Inspired Armor
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 341
|date = Jan 28
|desc = Sean Carroll, Stem Cells for Blindness, Chiropractic Neurology, Mass Psychogenic Illness, Sounds in the Sky
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 340
|date = Jan 21
|desc = Eugenie Scott, NECSS 2012, Photographic Black Holes, SOPA-PIPA, Homeopathic Burn Treatment, Ice Forms
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 339
|date = Jan 14
|desc = Tricorder X-prize, Sheldrake on Presentiment, Physics Cranks, Witchhunter Comes to US
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 338
|date = Jan 7
|desc = [[Martin Rundkvist interview: Electromagnetic hypersensitivity (338)|Martin Rundkvist interview]], [[Psychic predictions 2011/2012 (338)|Psychic Predictions 2011]], [[Hacker satellite system (338)|Hacker Satellite]], [[Perception when blindfolded: Testing violins (338)|Testing Violins]], [[Quickie with Bob: Lost world discovered around Antarctic vents (338)|Lost World of Antarctica]]
|status = verified
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2011
|range = (episodes 286-337)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 337
|date = Dec 31
|desc = SGU 2011 Year in Review, Guest Mike Lacelle, Best and Worst of 2011
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 336
|date = Dec 24
|desc = Guests: George Hrab and Jamy Ian Swiss, Christopher Hitchens In Memoriam, Mammoth Bone Homes, Trillion Frames per Second, Neti Pot Dangers, Special Report: Randomness
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 335
|date = Dec 17
|desc = Pro-Measles Children's Book, Higgs Update, Mercury UFO, Hallucinating Color, Menstrual Syncing, Swindler's List: Online Dating
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 334
|date = Dec 10
|desc = Lawrence Krauss, Trudeau Fine Upheld, Planetary Probes, Cloning a Mammoth, Kepler 22b, Corrections
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 333
|date = Dec 3
|desc = James Randi, Detecting Digital Manipulation, Curiosity Heads to Mars, Creationist Bill Defeated in NH, Scorpios Need Not Apply, Jetpack Flies with Jets, Special Report: Burzynski Clinic Intimidates Bloggers - Rhys Morgan, Tomato Juice Color
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 332
|date = Nov 26
|desc = JFK Assassination, Power Balance Bankruptcy, FTL Neutrino Follow Up, Does Water Prevent Dehydration, Food Color and Taste, SILLY Bias in Scientific Reviews
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 331
|date = Nov 19
|desc = Neil deGrasse Tyson, Moon's Magnetic Field, Europa's Ice Surface, False Confessions, BMJ Poe, Catholic Pox Parties
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 330
|date = Nov 12
|desc = Stroke Turns Man Gay, Asteroid YU55, Pox Parties, US Government Denies UFOs, Man Confuses Moon for UFO, NASA's Orion Program, Intercessory Prayer
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 329
|date = Nov 5
|desc = Climate Change Confirmation, Steve Job's Cancer, New GPS, Pre-Clovis Find, Brush Before or After
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 328
|date = Oct 29
|desc = [[Banachek interview: $1m challenge & Nightline (328)|Banachek interview]], [[MIT radar "sees" through walls (328)|Seeing Through Walls]], [[Malaria vaccine: 'Mosquirex' (RSS,S) (328)|Malaria Vaccine]], [[Luckiest cities - Men's Health magazine (328)|Luckiest Cities]], [[Very Large Array telescope: Call for new name (328)|New Name for VLA]], [[Harold Camping: Another failed prophecy (328)|Another Failed Prediction]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 327
|date = Oct 22
|desc = Richard Wiseman, Jay Report from Italy, Faster Than Light Neutrinos, Reiki Doesn't Work, Ending Genital Cutting, Camping Prophesy Update
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 326
|date = Oct 15
|desc = Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde, Vitamins and Mortality, Megavirus, NDEs, More UFOs, Electrosense, Airborne Petition
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 325
|date = Oct 8
|desc = Steve Jobs Dies, Nobel Prizes 2011 for Physics, Medicine, and Chemistry, IgNobels for 2011
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 324
|date = Oct 1
|desc = Highlights from the SGU 24 Live Streaming event, Australian Skeptics: Richard Saunders, Dr. Rachie Dunlop, Jo Benhamu, Grail Craft Launch, A. sediba, Adaptation and Orgasm, Special Report: Siphonomores, Top 10 Future Technologies
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 323
|date = Sep 24
|desc = Guests: George Hrab and Brian Brushwood, Single Molecule Electric Motor, Registering Atheists, Special Report: Nature vs Nurture
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 322
|date = Sep 17
|desc = Sara Mayhew, New Items: Chinese Scientists Plan to Capture Asteroid, Acupuncture and Acoustic Waves
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 321
|date = Sep 10
|desc = Live at DragonCon 2011, 9-11 Comic, Diamond Planet, Homeopathic Water, Woolly Rhino, Editor Resigns of Global Warming Paper, Live Q&A
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 320
|date = Aug 29
|desc = Jad Abumrad, Hurricane Irene, ISS Threatened, LHC and Super Symmetry, Alien Signals, Tin Foil, Skeptical Shout-Out
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 319
|date = Aug 24
|desc = Virginia Earthquake, Brand Loyalty, Tin Foil and RFID, Swindler's List: Functional Medicine
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 318
|date = Aug 17
|desc = Paul Provenza, Non-Growing Earth, Boiron Threatens Blogger, Woman Romance and Science, Space X Going to the Space Station, More on Helium
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 317
|date = Aug 10
|desc = Anti-Matter in Space, 3D Brain Mapping, Time Shift, 4-Time Lottery Winner, Robert Johnson
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 316
|date = Aug 3
|desc = Elizabeth Loftus, This Day in Skepticism - Life on Mars, The 27 Club, Blood-Red Lake, Earth Trojan Asteroid, Radioactive Heat, If It Can't Be Measured
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 315
|date = Jul 27
|desc = Bill Nye, Skeptical Conferences, Victory for Evolution in Texas, New Moon for Pluto, Life in the Universe, Connecticut Chupacabra
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 314
|date = Jul 20
|desc = Live at TAM9, Comet Elenin, Forces of Darkness, Science Proves the Bible (Not), Last Shuttle Launch, Pastafarian Headgear, Organic Water, Graphene Water Battery, Youngest Dinosaur Fossil, Live Q&A: Skeptical Wins, 24 Hr Live SGU Show, Reconciling Faith an
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 313
|date = Jul 13
|desc = Matthew Chapman, Hypnotized to Death, Color of Extinct Birds, Magnetic Microprocessors, Twintuition, Creationist Arguments
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 312
|date = Jul 5
|desc = Classifying Galaxies, More Pareidolia, Easter Island Elixir, Driverless Cars, Elevatorgate
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 311
|date = Jun 29
|desc = Eugenie Scott, Tau Day, Body Temperature of Dinosaurs Measured, Magnets and Blood Flow, Guru in Sweat Lodge Death Convicted, Close Call for the Space Station
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 310
|date = Jun 22
|desc = Guest Rogue: Michael Waterhouse, We Are All Mutants, Human Gecko, Creationists Infiltrate Geology Meeting, Battery Man
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 309
|date = Jun 13
|desc = Two New Elements, The Decline Effect, Zicam Inventor Arrested, Lasers from Human Cells, Mood Ears, The Enemy Within
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 308
|date = Jun 8
|desc = Guest: Phil Plait, SGU-24, Psychic Tip, Explosion on Sun, Moon Origin, UFO Nazis
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 307
|date = May 31
|desc = Jamie Bernstein, Predicting Earthquakes, Mapping the Brain, Implanting Memories
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 306
|date = May 25
|desc = Rapture Rationalizations, Fake Moon Rock, Dark Energy Confirmed, Religious Right vs Women's Rights, Preparing for a Zombie Apocalypse, Banning Marmite
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 305
|date = May 18
|desc = James Randi, Rapture, Another Cancer Cure, Gut Bacteria and Behavior, Habitable Exoplanet, Higgs False Alarm, Swindlers List: Bidsell
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 304
|date = May 9
|desc = Jon Ronson, Einstein Right Again, Mark Geier's License Suspended, Moon Microbe Mystery, Steytlerville Monster, Yap Money
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 303
|date = May 4
|desc = This Day in Science and Skepticism, Six years of SGU, Easter Island Controversy,Bin Laden Conspiracies
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 302
|date = Apr 27
|desc = Seth Shostak, A Skeptic in Oz, More Creationism in Texas, Higgs Rumor
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 301
|date = Apr 20
|desc = Guest Rogue: Iszi Lawrence, Hottel UFO Document, New Method to find Exoplanets, Plans for NASA Shuttles, Power Balance Lawsuit, Nails of Christ
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 300
|date = Apr 9
|desc = Live at NECSS 2011, Guest Rogue: John Rennie, Gayveman, Cosmic Engineering, Homeopathy for Radiation and Vertigo, Evidence and Radiation Risk, You Know You're a Skeptic If, Live Q&A: Time Travel, Fecal Transplants, Skeptical Obligation
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 299
|date = Apr 4
|desc = The Mercury 7, Pioneer Anomaly Solved, Pigasus Awards, Wakefield and Somalis, Boy Genius, Thorium Reactors
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 298
|date = Mar 30
|desc = Kenny Feder, Colorado UFO, Breaking Heisenberg, Dinosaur Petroglyph, Dinosaur Taxonomy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 297
|date = Mar 24
|desc = Hale Bop Cult, Meier Earthquake Non-prediction, Swarm Robots, Sexual Preference, Pre-biotic Chemistry, Science fact vs fiction, Radiation Hormesis, Overunity, Fecal Transplants
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 296
|date = Mar 16
|desc = Mark Mervine, Japan Earthquake, Time Traveling Particle, Finding Atlantis, TAM9 From Outer Space, Corrections - Magellan and DNA Computing, Ambit Energy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 295
|date = Mar 9
|desc = Ben Radford, Meteorite Bacteria, Biological Computers, Super Full Moon, Imam Retracts Support for Evolution, Definition of Skeptic
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 294
|date = Mar 2
|desc = Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, Limelight, Predicting Earthquakes, Growing Fuel, Neutron Star Superflluidity, Heidi Follow up, Information Follow up, 10,000 Years in the Future
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 293
|date = Feb 23
|desc = Guest Rogue: Joshie Berger, Galileo Censored, Internet Kill Switch, Japan to Trawl for Space Junk, Watson on Jeopardy!, Lie to Me, Lost Information
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 292
|date = Feb 16
|desc = Kevin Folta, Jovian in the Outer Solar System, Haunted Theme Park Ride, Heidi the Cross-eyed Psychic Opossum, Product Reviews
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 291
|date = Feb 9
|desc = Jeff Ainslee, Processed Food and IQ, Bacterial Intelligence, Skin Cell Spray Gun, Treating Trauma with Herbs, Jerusalem UFO
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 290
|date = Jan 31
|desc = Guest Rogue: Dr. Ray Greek - The Science of Animal Models, Homeopathy Pseudoscience, Teachers Cautious about Evolution, Countering Fallacies
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 289
|date = Jan 26
|desc = Jack LaLanne dies at 96, Cold Fusion Again, The Cochrane Review of Statins, Astrologists Angered, More on Education, Alien DNA
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 288
|date = Jan 19
|desc = No Ghosts in my Backyard, Simulating Earth, Reaction to Bem's Psi Research, Engineered Chickens, Cloning Mammoths, Sun as Battery, Land Sharks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 287
|date = Jan 12
|desc = Guest Rogue: Phil Plait, Molten Exoplanet, BMJ Slams Wakefield, Creationist Teacher Fired, Galactic Black Holes, Nassim Haramein
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 286
|date = Jan 5
|desc = Predictions 2010 and 2011, Mysterious Bird Deaths, Predictions from 1931, Mars News in 2010, Apocalypse 2011, Printing Solar Cells, Thomas Kuhn
|status = skeleton
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2010
|range = (episodes 232-285)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 285
|date = Dec 29
|desc = 2010 Year in Review, Best and Worst of 2010, In Memoriam, SGU Stats
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 284
|date = Dec 22
|desc = Arsenic-Based Life, Buttology, V-Steam, Singing Mice, The Real daVinci Code, Special Report: Power Bands with James Randi and the SkepticBros
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 283
|date = Dec 15
|desc = Dan Gardner, Piltdown Anniversary, Hydrogen Production, Voyager Leaves Solar System, Slushball Earth, Alien Plants vs Animals
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 282
|date = Dec 8
|desc = Live in Sydney Australia, New Crystal Skull, Roger Penrose Before the Big Bang, Chimps Outwit Human Traps, Anti-Antivax Activism, Special Report: Masonic Conspiracy Theories, Live Q&A: Scientists Baffled, Size of Quantum Effects, Sympathectomy, Future of
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 281
|date = Dec 1
|desc = Live in Vancouver with Guest: George Hrab, SETI 50th Anniversary, Antimatter Breakthrough, Nanoparticles and Glowing Trees, Oprah Promotes Psychic Surgeon, Latest PSI Research, Bending Time and Space, Live Q&A: Neurology of Belief, Coincidence, Multi-Leve
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 280
|date = Nov 24
|desc = Guest: Richard Saunders, Eken Power Bands, Frozen Stiff, Cockroach Brains, Deal or No Deal, : Argument from Silence, Special Topic: Religious Skeptics
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 279
|date = Nov 15
|desc = D.J. Grothe, NASA Discovers Mysterious Bubbles, Exploiting "Psychic" Kids, More Homeopathy Spin, Lunar Weather Predicting, Caffeine and Sperm Count
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 278
|date = Nov 10
|desc = Carl Sagan Day, Mystery Missile, LHC Big Bang, The Twinkie Diet, Hamburger Experiments Redux, Spinning Spaceship, Ear Light
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 277
|date = Nov 3
|desc = Jamy Ian Swiss, Psychic Cat, 100 Year Starship Project, Cure for Common Cold, Life on the Moon, Alien Ballot Defeated, Banana Ripening
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 276
|date = Oct 27
|desc = Ghosts Calling Cellphones, Hawking Radiation, More On Radioactive Decay Rates, The Science of Medicine, NECSS 2011, Physics.org Award Nomination, Time Traveling Cell Phone User, SGU Forums Moderators
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 275
|date = Oct 19
|desc = Guest Rogue: Brian Trent, Benoit Mandlebrot 1924-2010, Stem Cell Funding, Do Mummies Get Cancer, Asteroids Buzz Earth, Whale Poop Correction, T-Rex Blood Cells, Help - My Friend is a Pseudoscientist
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 274
|date = Oct 13
|desc = Ben Goldacre, Dark Matter Strangeness, Vaccine Case in Supreme Court, Gliese 581g Follow Up, Magic Burgers
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 273
|date = Oct 6
|desc = 2010 Nobel Prizes in Medicine, Chemistry and Physics, 2010 IgNobels, Diesel from a Stone, Mass and Gravity, Science Education, Laughing Hyenas
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 272
|date = Sep 30
|desc = Bug Girl, New Moonlanding Footage, UN Alien Ambassador, Poor Science Education, New Force of Nature?, Goldilocks Planet
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 271
|date = Sep 22
|desc = [[Simon Singh interview: Libel in the UK (271)|Simon Singh interview]], [[Losing your religion: Health effects? (271)|Losing Your Religion]], [[The man who fell to Earth (271)|The Man Who Fell to Earth]], [[Dirty electricity: CFLs & Magda Havas (271)|Dirty Electricity]], [[Moon origins (271)|Origins of Moons]], [[Halfalogues: Overheard phone conversations (271)|Halfalogue]]
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 270
|date = Sep 15
|desc = Ben Radford, Joe Nickell, and Karen Stollznow, Modern Geocentrism, Irish Minister of Science Scandal, Robot Skin, No Link between Thimerosal and Autism, Canadian Government Muzzles Scientists, Crop Circle Sting
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 269
|date = Sep 8
|desc = Carol Tavris, Stephen Hawking on God, Magnetic Mom, Organic Strawberries, Burning the Quran, Pyschic Incites Mob
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 268
|date = Sep 1
|desc = Donald Prothero, Thorium Power, Impacts and Extinction, Spontaneous Combustion, Enfield Poltergeist, Ghost Train, Mitochondrial Eve Follow Up
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 267
|date = Aug 25
|desc = Guest Rogue: Phil Plait, Phil Plait's Bad Universe, Solar Flares and Radioactive Decay, Competition in Evolution, The Science of Zombies, Kurzweil Responds to Myers, Kaku on UFOs
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 266
|date = Aug 19
|desc = Bruce Hood, Banning Wi-Fi, Psychic Finds Wrong Body, Kurzweil on Brain Complexity, Magnetars and Black Holes
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 265
|date = Aug 11
|desc = Aubrey de Grey, Evolving Simulated Intelligence, Proximal Intercessory Prayer, Bermuda Triangle Solved, Booty Enhancement Spell, Censoring Skepticism featuring Rhys Morgan
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 264
|date = Aug 4
|desc = DIY Genetic Testing, Coronal Mass Ejection, More Evidence for Warming, Analyzing the Future, Misfortune Teller, More on Dieting
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 263
|date = Jul 29
|desc = Jim Underdown, Homeopathy in the UK, Cosmology with no Big Bang, Ghost Ship, Meat and Weight Control, Biodynamic Farming, Orgel's Laws
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 262
|date = Jul 21
|desc = Randi & Banachek, Report from TAM8, Monster Star, Anti-Vax in Oz, Kabbalah Bracelet, Monkey Fossil, Monkeys in the Pants, Libel Tourism Bill
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 261
|date = Jul 10
|desc = Live at TAM8, Roswell Remembered, Nuclear Explosion in Space, Pepsigate, Energy Vampires, Gravitons and Black Holes, Obesity and Inactivity, Climategate Update, Planck Image of the Universe, Live Q&A: NESS Activities, Do Skeptics Ever Win?, Positive Attit
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 260
|date = Jun 30
|desc = Guest Rogue: George Hrab, Fin to Limb Evolution, Pat Boone on Laws of Physics, Ice Patch Archaeology, Stephen Barrett Sued, Flag Worship
|status = incomplete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 259
|date = Jun 28
|desc = Whooping Cough Epidemic, Whaling Film Questioned, Superconductor Roadblock, Call to Ban Homeopathy, Orbital Periods, Sunscreen
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 258
|date = Jun 16
|desc = Sanal Edamaruku, Growing Livers, Immortal Jelly, Gay Clinic, Space Storm Warning
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 257
|date = Jun 14
|desc = Hayabusa Returns, Einstein's Brain, Largest Radio Telescope Array, Amityville Horror House for Sale, Cursed Cell Phone Number, Soy, Magic Bee Juice
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 256
|date = Jun 9
|desc = Steve Matheson, Life on Titan, Vulture Threatened by Pseudoscience, WHO and H1N1, Orbit of Phobos
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 255
|date = Jun 2
|desc = Guests: Fraser Cain and Pamela Gay, X-37b Space Plane, Synthetic Bacteria, Hollow Phobos, Acupuncture Mechanism?, Guatemala Sinkhole, Salt Substitute
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 254
|date = May 26
|desc = James Randi about Martin Gardner, Energy of Early Life, End for Mars Phoenix Lander and Atlantis, Vaccine Safety, Accepting Science, Exonerated by Acupuncture
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 253
|date = May 19
|desc = Cell Phone Cancer Update, Why Does Matter Exist, Applied Kinesiology, BMA Trashes Homeopathy, Early Bird Feathers, Ball Lightening, Pesticides and ADHD
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 252
|date = May 12
|desc = Guest: Massimo Pigliucci, [[Nonsense on stilts: Massimo on philosophy of science (252)|Nonsense on Stilts]], [[Dictionary definition of siphon incorrect (252)|Definition of Siphon]], [[Neanderthal-Human interbreeding (252)|Neanderthal Interbreeding]], [[Alabama politics: Denying evolution (252)|Evolution in Alabama Politics]], [[The science of morality: Sam Harris & the trolley problem (252)|Science of Morality]]
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 251
|date = May 5
|desc = 5 Years of SGU, Zettabytes, Prayer and Critical Thinking, Oil Spill Conspiracy, Life on Mars - Not, How to Build a Time Machine, Man Claims 70 Years Without Food or Water, Corrections, Croatian Girl Follow up
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 250
|date = Apr 28
|desc = Dr. Dean Edell, 20 Years of Hubble, Nanodots, Boobquake, Stephen Hawking on Aliens, Noah's Ark, Intelligence and Science
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 249
|date = Apr 17
|desc = Live at NECSS 2010, Guest: James Randi, Items: Volcano in Iceland, Near Death Experiences, Sound Bullets, Injured by Price Scanner, Singh Libel Suit dropped, Two Moms and a Dad, Girl Speaks German After Coma, Live Q&A
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 248
|date = Apr 13
|desc = Seth Shostak, Apollo 13, Water on Mars, Bioprinting, Scientific Literacy in the US, Dawkins vs The Pope, Colour Therapy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 247
|date = Apr 7
|desc = Area 51 Declassified, Ununseptium, SBM visits NCCAM, Copper Magnetic Jesus Bracelet, Human Population, Dutch Psychic Follow up, : The Genetic Fallacy
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 246
|date = Mar 31
|desc = Guest: Eugenie Scott, Update from the NCSE, Fighting Cancer with Nanoparticles, Prison Psychics, Changing Morality with Magnets, Skeptics and Atheists
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 245
|date = Mar 25
|desc = George Hrab, Rise of the Dinosaurs, Woman X, Starchild Update, Evangelical Listeners
|status = incomplete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 244
|date = Mar 18
|desc = Greg Grunberg, When Homeopaths Attack, Texas Textbook Hubbub, Bacterial Fingerprint, Chief Exorcist, Biggest Quantum State, Power Balance
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 243
|date = Mar 11
|desc = Jenny on Huffpo, Autistic Pets, See-through Pain, Homeschooling and Evolution, Here's Your Jetpack, Spirits in a Bottle, Richter Scale, Raining Fish Follow Up, Inner Space
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 242
|date = Mar 3
|desc = Guest: James Randi, Chile Earthquake, Darwinius Revisited, Raining Fish, Acupuncture for Depression, Haunted Hotels, Contrarion vs Skeptic, Personality Tests
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 241
|date = Feb 24
|desc = Daniel Wilson, Homeopathy Smackdown in UK, What Darwin Got Wrong, The Bloom Box, Geller Aids Cops
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 240
|date = Feb 17
|desc = Rom Houben Update, Solar Energy Breakthrough, Psychic Killed, Gas from Carbon, Thomas Paine, Knocked Out
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 239
|date = Feb 10
|desc = Guest: Brian Dunning, Enceladus Update, Synthetic Organisms, Spray On Glass, Gasoline from Carbon, Oral Conception, : False Analogy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 238
|date = Feb 3
|desc = Simon Conway Morris, Fusion Breakthrough, Andrew Wakefield Rebuked, Return of Death Cat, Lady Gaga Illuminati
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 237
|date = Jan 27
|desc = Guest: Daniel Loxton, Book Release: Evolution, Dowsing for Bombs, Alien Life on Earth, Ginger Dinosaurs, I have Lizards in my Pants, Addiction
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 236
|date = Jan 20
|desc = Jon Rosenberg, Dead Bodies, Blond Warrior Princesses, Trees on Mars, Correactology, Ayn Rand
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 235
|date = Jan 13
|desc = Guest: Richard Saunders, TAM Australia, Tetrapod Footprints, Airport Security - with Bruce Schneier, Nearby Supernova, Cancer Miracle, Evil Skeptics
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 234
|date = Nov 15
|desc = Special Report: H1N1 Flu Pandemic Update - With Steven Novella, David Gorski, Mark Crislip and Joe Albietz
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 233
|date = Jan 6
|desc = D. J. Grothe, Predictions for 2009 and 2010, The G-Spot Controversy, New Stellar Companion, Brain Capacity
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 232
|date = Jan 1
|desc = 2009 Year in Review - with Guests Phil Plait and Mike Lacelle, SGU and Science News of 2009, Science and Skepticism in the Last Decade,Stats, SGU in 2010
|status = complete
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2009
|range = (episodes 181-231)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 231
|date = Dec 21
|desc = Michael Specter, Dark Matter WIMPS, Synaesthesia, The Future of Skepticism, LHC Risk with Brian Cox
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 230
|date = Dec 16
|desc = Steorn Still At It, Computer-Brain Interface, Ancient Ruins in the Caribbean, Octopus Coconuts, Homeopathic Suicide, Holodeck Food, Special Report: Coalition for Libel Reform
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 229
|date = Dec 9
|desc = Guest Phil Plait: Denver Aliens, Bird Speciation, Blinded by Faith, Spiral over Norway, Uranus Tilt, Methane on Mars, Homeopathy Ads
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 228
|date = Dec 2
|desc = Steven Thoms, Age of Autism Scandal, Porkenstein, Fat Murder Hoax, ClimateGate Feedback
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 227
|date = Nov 25
|desc = LHC Online, Coma and Facilitated Communication, ClimateGate, CrocoDuck, Speaking in Tongues
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 226
|date = Nov 18
|desc = Kenny Feder, New Mammography Guidelines, Water on the Moon, Dark Flow, Lee Harvey Oswald Photo, Movie Reviews
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 225
|date = Nov 11
|desc = Psychic Finds Skeleton, Dystonia Flu Shot Follow Up, More LRO Images, Paying for Prayer, Wave Particle Duality, JREF Announcements, TAM London with Simon Singh, Jon Ronson, and Adam Savage
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 224
|date = Nov 4
|desc = Carl Sagan Day, Nutt Job, Dystonia after Flu Shot, Spontaneous Human Combustion Case, Michael Goldstein: starting local skeptical groups, Rebecca at TAM London with Phil Plait, Chris French, and Christina Martin
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 223
|date = Oct 28
|desc = Swine Flu Scams, Hulda Clark Died of Cancer, The Physics of Homeopathy, Scientology Trouble, Suzanne Somers Cancer Quackery, Size of the Universe (With Guest - Pamela Gay), Mad Scientists, Suspended Animation
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 222
|date = Oct 21
|desc = James Randi, LHC Future Attack, Magnetic and Copper Bracelets, Balloon Boy, Lunar Plume Update, Giant Spider, Special Report: Rebecca from Bangkok
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 221
|date = Oct 14
|desc = Jack Horner, NASA Shoots the Moon, Saturn's Rings, Hypno Cat, Simon Singh Update, Plasma Rocket, This Man
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 220
|date = Oct 7
|desc = Daniel Hooper, Premanand In Memoriam, Nobel Prizes 2009, Ardipithecus Ramidis, Autism Prevalence, Brian Cox
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 219
|date = Sep 28
|desc = Mark Edward, Premanand Statement, Dinosaur News, Nanotube Springs, Cameron and Comfort on Darwin, Couple Jailed over Homeopathy Death, Spiritual Advice, Life Signs, Speed of Light
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 218
|date = Sep 23
|desc = Michael Vassar, Raptor Rex, Bill Maher Antiscience, Panama Monster
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 217
|date = Sep 12
|desc = Live at NECSS with Guest Richard Wiseman, Charlie Sheen 911 Truther, Quantum Amnesia, Hulda Clark Dead, Gonzalez Therapy Fail, What's in Your Wallet, Exomoons, Great Tits Eat Bats, Special Report: The Yale Study, Live QA
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 216
|date = Sep 9
|desc = Live at DragonCon 2009, Google UFO, Mongolian Death Worm, Chupacabra in Texas, Magnetic Monopole, Live Q&A
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 215
|date = Sep 1
|desc = Adam Savage, Multitasking, Methane Fog on Titan, Google Nessie, Evolving Mice, Appendix, iPhone Crap App
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 214
|date = Aug 25
|desc = Jamy Ian Swiss, Surviving a Cataclysm, Zombie Apocalypse, WHO Says No to Homeopathy,Itako Fading, Dinochicken
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 213
|date = Aug 18
|desc = Battery Update, Super Planetary Nebulae, Adopt a Star, UFO Spikes, Aquatic Ape, Caffeine Tolerance
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 212
|date = Aug 12
|desc = Michael Goudeau, Kepler Goes Online, Methane on Mars, MS Breakthrough, Placebo Medicine, Birthers, : Homeopathy Nonsense
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 211
|date = Aug 4
|desc = Skepchick Carrie Iwan, Teeth from Stem Cells, Stem Cell Clinic Raid, Laser Propulsion, Update on Simon Singh, Origin of Matter, 4-minute Interval Training
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 210
|date = Jul 29
|desc = Jennifer Ouellette, Oldest Animal Fossils, New State of Matter, FDA Say Mercury Amalgam Safe, Past Life Hypnotism, Stressful Sweat
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 209
|date = Jul 22
|desc = DJ Grothe, 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11, Copernicium, Thomas Jefferson and Evolution, Dowsing
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 208
|date = Jul 11
|desc = Live at TAM 7, Microbot Plumbers, Archeological Dig, Sunspots Return, Blogs vs Journalists, Genie Sued, Live Q&A, Rebecca's Wedding
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 207
|date = Jul 1
|desc = Phil Plait, Steorn Fail, BCA Responds to Singh, Salt Water in Enceladus, Uranium on the Moon, Apollo 11 Video, Impact Bad Astronomy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 206
|date = Jun 18
|desc = Richard Prum, Ancient Lakes on Mars, Smoke Ring UFO, FDA Zicam Warning, Missing Sun Spots
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 205
|date = Jun 16
|desc = Brian Brushwood, Junior Supernova, Boy Hit By Meteor, A New Heuristic, Planetary Life
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 204
|date = Jun 11
|desc = Richard Wiseman, Negative CAM Research, Chiropractors In Retreat, Quantum Mechanics, Flu Pandemic Update, Youngest Skeptic, Prescient Genes
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 203
|date = Jun 9
|desc = Bruce Hood, Crop Circles 2009, Chronic Lyme Disease, Casino Feng Shui, UFO follow up, Liver Flush for Gallstones
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 202
|date = Jun 3
|desc = Simon Singh, Newsweek vs Oprah, Volcanic Extinction, UFO News, Texas Update, Evangelical Skeptics, Begging the Question
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 201
|date = May 27
|desc = Phil Plait, Whooping Cough Increase, Scientology on Trial, RNA World, Rook Tool Use, Northeast Skeptical Conference, Polonium Halos
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 200
|date = May 20
|desc = SGU 200th Episode, Missing Link Ida, GPS Failure, Stem Cell Quackery in China, Candiru, If I Had a Million Dollars
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 199
|date = May 13
|desc = Rusty Schweickart, Simon Singh's Lawsuit, Ultradense Deuterium, Acupuncture Science, Last Fix for Hubble
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 198
|date = May 7
|desc = Rachael Dunlop, Four Years of SGU, Oprah Signs Jenny McCarthy, Dark Matter, Six Degrees of Separation, Homeopathy Death, I Have Birds in my Pants
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 197
|date = Apr 30
|desc = Mark Crislip, Hidden Photons, Walking Seal, NASA and the Moon, Baby Chupacabras, Hoagland on Iapetus
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 196
|date = Apr 22
|desc = Seth Shostak, Cassini Pictures, Smallest Exoplanet, Huffington Post Pseudoscience, Personal Attacks from Age of Autism, Kelloggs Settles FTC Suit
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 195
|date = Apr 15
|desc = John Maddox Dies, The Hand of God, Flying Microbots, Darwin Awards, Homeopathy Nonsense, Belief in Ghosts,s: Corrections, Induction in Science, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 194
|date = Apr 8
|desc = Daniel Loxton, Dennis Lee Strikes Again, Computers That Do Science, Home Energy Scam
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 193
|date = Apr 1
|desc = Paul Murray, Mind Controlled Robot, Giant Protozoan, More Jenny McCarthy Nonsense
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 192
|date = Mar 25
|desc = Cold Fusion Again, Evolution Education in Texas, Synthetic Blood,s: Richard Saunders Open Letter to Pharmacists, Quantum Jumping, Super Chimney, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 191
|date = Mar 18
|desc = Phil Plait, Pope on HIV and Condoms, 20th Anniversary of the World Wide Web, Canada Science Minister and Evolution
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 190
|date = Mar 12
|desc = Kenneth Miller, Stem Cell Ban Lifted, When Chimps Attack, Mellow Yellow, Prince Charles Snake Oil
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 189
|date = Mar 4
|desc = Kenny Feder - Clovis Find, Vaccine Decision, Designer Babies, Riversnake Update, TAM7 Info
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 188
|date = Feb 26
|desc = Virtual Snowflakes, Evolution of Sex, Revenge of Titanoboa, Google Atlantis, Catboy, Missing Moon, Moon and Sun, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 187
|date = Feb 11
|desc = Angie McQuaig, The Pose and Darwin, Ben Goldacre vs the Media, Healing Laser, Starseeds, the eHolster, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 186
|date = Feb 9
|desc = Jon Ronson, Wakefield Fraud, Wearable Computer, Amish Fireplace, LHC Delay, Blood Type Follow Up, China Spacewalk Hoax
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 185
|date = Feb 4
|desc = Massimo Pigliucci, New Items: Singularity University, Mammoth Extinction, Smallest Exoplanet,Blood Type Pseudoscience, Scientific Predictions
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 184
|date = Jan 28
|desc = [[Tim Minchin interview: Comedy & Skepticism (184)|Tim Minchin interview]], [[Mercury in corn syrup (184)|Mercury In Our Food]], [[Vaccine safety and disease outbreaks (184)|Vaccine Controversy Updates]], [[Evolution before our eyes: Fence lizards and fire ants (184)|Evolution - Lizards and Fire Ants]], [[Obama inauguration UFOs (184)|Obama UFO]]
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 183
|date = Jan 21
|desc = Alice Tuff, The Holographic Universe, Science Education in Texas and Louisiana, Pheromones, Dyslexia, Randi: Not in a Name
|status = incomplete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 182
|date = Jan 15
|desc = Michio Kaku, Methane on Mars, Solar Storms, Mega MRI, Young Skeptics
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 181
|date = Jan 7
|desc = Psychic Predictions 2008, True Love, Jett Travolta, Christine Maggiorie, Detox Fail, Weblog Awards 2008, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2008
|range = (episodes 128-180)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 180
|date = Dec 30
|desc = 2008 SGU Year in Review: Best Skeptics, Worst Promoters of Woo, Coolest Science News, Funniest Moments, Favorite E-mails, and SGU Stats
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 179
|date = Dec 23
|desc = Jeremy Pivens Mercury Toxicity, Death by CAM, da Vinci Sketches Discovered, Medium Experiments Follow up, ET Life, Winter Myths
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 178
|date = Dec 16
|desc = Richard Wiseman, Reading Minds, Burglar Trapped by Ghost The Bloop, Evolution Questions
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 177
|date = Dec 10
|desc = Age of the Sphinx with Dr. James P Allen, Supernova Reflections and Milky Way's Black Hole with Phil Plait, Searching for Dyson Spheres, Skeptical Authority, Randi: Cold Reading
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 176
|date = Dec 3
|desc = Early Earth, Turtle Missing Link, Search for the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, Power from Sound, DNA from Hair, Magic Water, Starting a Skeptics Group, Carbon Footprint
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 175
|date = Nov 20
|desc = Steven Schafersman, Kevin Trudeau Smackdown, Placebo Acupuncture, NASA Recycles Urine, Reflexology in UK Schools, Flu Vaccine, NESS in Video Game
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 174
|date = Nov 18
|desc = Exoplanet Pictures, Neuroscience of Telepathy, Jonestown Massacre, Science Attitudes, More Info on Sperm Donation, Sleepwalking, Global Warming
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 173
|date = Nov 12
|desc = Paul Offit, Junk DNA, Mini Nuclear Reactor, Chandrayaan-1 Update, Phoenix Ends, Child Witches
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 172
|date = Nov 5
|desc = Greydon Square, Michael Crichton In Memoriam, Portable Space Shield, Oil from Fungus, Due Diligence, Randi: Wrong!
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 171
|date = Oct 29
|desc = Diana Blaney Vampire Moth, New Type of Planet, Artificial Heart, Polygraph for Debates, Science Debate 2008 Update
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 170
|date = Oct 22
|desc = Phil Plait Psychology of Superstition, Another Solar Breakthrough, UK UFO, Announcing SkepticBlog Blacklight Free Energy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 169
|date = Oct 11
|desc = Perry DeAngelis Memorial Live Podcast Guests: Steve Mirsky and Terrence Hines
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 168
|date = Oct 8
|desc = PZ Myers, 2008 Nobel Awards, Turing Test Darwin Quote, Cosmology
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 167
|date = Oct 1
|desc = Matthew Chapman Dust and Snow on Mars, PETA Nonsense, Calorie Restriction Diet LHC Update, Correlation and Causation, Emergent Intelligence, Neanderthal DNA
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 166
|date = Sep 24
|desc = Sharon Begley LHC Problems, Worthless Acupuncture Studies, Japan Space Elevator, Belief and Credulity Real versus Scientific
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 165
|date = Sep 17
|desc = [[Ben Goldacre interview: Epidemiology and the media (165)|Ben Goldacre interview]], [[Ben Goldacre wins HIV libel case (165)|Goldacre Libel Victory]], [[Hubble finds mystery object (165)|Stellar Mystery]], [[Royal Society controversy: Creationism in UK schools (165)|Creationism in the UK]], [[Big pharma: Fibromyalgia & RLS (165)|Pharma Conspiracy]], [[Randi speaks: The Media (165)|Randi: The Media]]
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 164
|date = Sep 10
|desc = Ben Radford LHC Turned On, Elephant Math Bird Correction,Irradiated Food, Pseudoscience
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 163
|date = Sep 3
|desc = Live at DragonCon 2008 with Guests James Randi, Pamela Gay, and Derek Colanduno, The Milky Ways, Supermassive Blackhole, Live Q&A
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 162
|date = Aug 26
|desc = Richard Saunders WTC-7 Collapse, Neanderthal Tool Making, Rainbow Lady Follow Up Teleportation
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 161
|date = Aug 20
|desc = Adam Savage from Mythbusters,Remembering Perry, Monkey Eludes Dragnet, Bigfoot Body Hoax Revealed, Robot with Biological Brain, The Future of Doping,Special Report: JREF Psychic Challenge Report
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 160
|date = Aug 13
|desc = Captain Disillusion,Bigfoot Body Claim, Invisibility Cloak, Prince Charles on GM Food, Sprinkler Rainbow Lady
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 159
|date = Aug 6
|desc = Phil Plait and James Randi, James Doohan Ashes Lost, Solar Power Breakthrough, China Weather Control, The Montauk Monster, Where Does Matter Come From
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 158
|date = Jul 30
|desc = Banachek, Edgar Mitchell UFO Claims, UFOs and Terrorism, Gas from Garbage, House and the Therapeutic Diagnosis
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 157
|date = Jul 23
|desc = George Hrab, New Plutoid, Detox Danger, Amanda Peet Defends Vaccines, Barbara Walters Disses James Van Praagh, Allah Meat, Chaos Theory
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 156
|date = Jul 16
|desc = [[Neil deGrasse Tyson interview: Spaghettification and education (156)|Neil deGrasse Tyson interview]], [[Black hole hubbub in Dallas county (156)|Black hole hubbub]], [[PZ Myers: Stolen cracker death threats (156)|Its Just a Cracker]], [[Discovery Institute blog foiled by vocabulary (156)|Tiktalik Nonsense]], [[Cancer cells zapped individually (156)|Micro Laser Surgery]], [[Convincing evidence: Changing minds (156)|Convincing Evidence]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 155
|date = Jul 9
|desc = James Randi, Einstein Right Again, Conservapedia Denies Evolution, Controversial Chelation Autism Study, Special Report: Roswell 61 Years Later
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 154
|date = Jul 2
|desc = Dr Dean Edell, Darwin-Wallace Anniversary, Tunguska Remembered, Creationst Bill Passes in Louisana, Nanowire Battery, SGU on Youtube, Collective Skeptics, Body Fruit, Randi: Speaker Cables
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 153
|date = Jun 21
|desc = Live at TAM6, Ice on Mars, Crop Circle Pi, Japanese Water Car, Psychic Alleges Sexual Abuse, FDA Crackdown, Spa Reflexology, Special Report-Brian Dunning Present Here Be Dragons Video, Live Q&A
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 152
|date = Jun 11
|desc = Bacteria Evolve, The 100mpg Car, Unicorn Deer, Fishing Monkeys, Plutoids, Albinos in Africa, Special Report-Crystal Skulls, Coincidence, Green Nanoparticles
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 151
|date = Jun 9
|desc = Jon Blumenfeld, NPR Psychics, Mars Lander Update, Petaflop Supercomputers, Optical Illusions, Casey Predictions
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 150
|date = Jun 4
|desc = Walter Isaacson, New Hoax Alien Video, Solar Power from Sapce, Anti-Vaccine Mar on Washington, CAM in New Zealand Follow Up, Cold Fusion
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 149
|date = May 28
|desc = JPL Scientist Diana Blaney, Wi Fi Ban, New Zealand Considering CAM, Scientology Free Speech Follow Up, Medical Science Reporting, Tasmanian Tiger Corrections, Least Skeptical
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 148
|date = May 21
|desc = Carl Zimmer, Tasmanian Tiger Gene Resurrected, Mobile Phones and Pregnancy, Is Scientology a Cult, Supernova Caught in the Act, Michael Shull about Discovering Missing Matter, Radiometric Dating of Mt St Helens, Update on TAM6
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 147
|date = May 14
|desc = Martin Rundkvist, Einstein and God, The Vatican The UK and UFO's, China Quake Superstitions, NASA Announces Supernova Discovery, Creationism in Maine, Wizardry Followup
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 146
|date = May 7
|desc = SGU 3rd Anniversary, Florida Anti-Evolution Law Fails, Florida Teacher Fired for Wizardry, Special Report: Bobs Haunted Tour, T-Rex Proteins, Water Experiment, Misconceptions about Evolution, Consumer Reports and Homeopathy
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 145
|date = Apr 30
|desc = Kirsten Sanford, Mystery Lights in Maryland, Evolution Freedom Law in Florida, Gary Null-HIV Denier, Special Report: The Real Iron Man
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 144
|date = Apr 23
|desc = [[Simon Singh interview: Alternative medicine (144)|Simon Singh interview]], [[Man "raised from dead" (144)|Man Raised from Dead]], [[Politics of vaccines (144)|Politics of Vaccines]], [[Penis theft panic (144)|Penis Theft Panic]], [[Oldest plant (144)|Oldest Plant]], [[SGU drinking game (144)|The SGU Drinking Game]], [[Space junk: Dangerous debris (144)|Space Junk]], [[Brain Gym: Pseudoscience in the classroom (144)|Brain Gym]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 143
|date = Apr 16
|desc = Eric Avery, Scientology Defection, Are Vitamins Harmful, Replicator Replicates Itself, ET Not Likely, Age of the Earth, Magnetic Water
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 142
|date = Apr 9
|desc = Yau-Man Chan, Skeptologists Shoot Complete, UK Psychic crackdown, LHC and the God Particle, Monty Hall Problem in Research, Cursing in Sanskrit
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 141
|date = Apr 2
|desc = The Skeptologists, Expelled Again, Human-Cow Hybrid, Tantric Killing Fails, Debunking Skeptics, Dinosaur Fossils on the Moon
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 140
|date = Mar 26
|desc = Eugenie Scott, Rebecca's Asteroid, Airborne Lawsuit, Pregnant Man, Hypnotist Robber, Robin Migration, More on Soap
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 139
|date = Mar 19
|desc = Stephen Barrett, Arthur C. Clarke Dies at 90, Saudi Scholar Denies Holocaust, Michael Egnor on ID Podcast, Believers Stare at the Sun, Boy Scout Follow Up, Cosmetic Pseudoscience
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 138
|date = Mar 12
|desc = Ola Fincke about Science Education in Oklahoma, Ghosts in the Mind, US Government Settles Autism-Vaccine Case, Real Death Star, Drugs in the Water, The Skeptologists, Randi Speaks-about Gary Schwartz
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 137
|date = Mar 5
|desc = Special Report: Timeshare Scams, Spaceprobe Anomalies, Aromatherapy Study, McCain on Autism and Vaccines, CECTIC Skeptical Cartoon, Global Warming on Mars, Magneto Boy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 136
|date = Feb 27
|desc = McFeng Sui, Anti-Scientific Medicine in South Africa, Type IV Civilization, Killer Robots, Favorite Science and Skeptical Books
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 135
|date = Feb 20
|desc = Robert FitzPatrick, Lunar Eclipse, Censoring Skeptics, Scientific Challenges of 21st Century, Dualism, Naadi Palm Leaf Reading
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 134
|date = Feb 13
|desc = PZ Myers, Bat Evolution, UK Officials Evict Ghost, Acupuncture and IVF, Alien Mind Control, Darwin Day, Fasting
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 133
|date = Feb 6
|desc = Richard Hayes, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Dies,More Perpetual Motion, Voting in Invisible Ink, Canadian Snake Oil, Organic Milk, Apocalypse 2012, SETI
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 132
|date = Jan 30
|desc = UK Homeopathy In Crisis, Creationist Research Journal, Facilitated Communication in the Courtroom, ABC Drama on Vaccines and Autism, Arabian Brain Drain, Got Milk, Psychic Cheat, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 131
|date = Jan 23
|desc = Guests Fraser Cain and Pamela Gay from Astronomy Cast, Texas UFO follow up, Mars Bigfoot, Homer on Mercury, Asteroid 2007 TU24, Bionic Eyes, Coast to Coast Gets Punked, Restless Leg Syndrome, Time Travel, Relativity
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 130
|date = Jan 16
|desc = Brian Dunning from Skeptoid, Scientists Make Beating Heart, Divining Intervention, UFO over Texas, Reaction to More Evidence Against Vaccines and Autism, Cruise Scientology Recruiting Video, The K-T Extinction
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 129
|date = Jan 9
|desc = John Rennie, SGU 5x5, The Reason Driven Podcast, Insects may have Killed the Dinosaurs, Biofuels, Neti Pots, Healing Magnets, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 128
|date = Jan 2
|desc = New Science Based Medicine Blog, Psychic Predictions 2007, Edward to Channel Irwin, Masters Degree in Creation Science, Magic Amulets, SGU for teachers, Magic Foot Pads, Quantum Entanglement and Warp Drive
|status = skeleton
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2007
|range = (episodes 76-127)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 127
|date = Dec 26
|desc = SGU 2007 Year In Review
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 126
|date = Dec 19
|desc = Richard Wiseman, Rebecca's Pilot, Magic Leg, Creationists New Strategy, Scientific Criticism, Cattle Mutilation, Eidetic memory, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 125
|date = Dec 12
|desc = Alex Tsakiris from Skeptiko about Paranormal Research and Skepticism, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 124
|date = Dec 5
|desc = Lawrence Krauss, Hucka-Bee, Moonbeams in Arizona, Chimp Memory, Anti-vaccine misinformation on Youtube, Stem Cell Con, Information Theory, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 123
|date = Nov 28
|desc = Science and Faith, Computer Brain, Psychic Ripoff, Wifi and Autism, Skeptiko on Skeptics, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 122
|date = Nov 20
|desc = Judgment Day Censored, Blue Ghost Followup, Death by Energy Medicine, Photo Memory Manipulation, Special Feature: Our Day at the Psychic Fair, Bird Sex Correction, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 121
|date = Nov 14
|desc = Paul Kurtz, Judgment Day for ID, UFO Investigation, Universe loses weight, FDA Petition, Gas Station Ghost, BMI, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 120
|date = Nov 7
|desc = Greydon Square, Phenomenon, Robot cars, Jehovahs Witness death, Fat is Healthy, Judgment Day, Follow up on Mange, Special Request, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 119
|date = Oct 30
|desc = Ghosthunting Season, Report from the Homeopathy Conference, Rude 9-11 Truthers, Dinosaur Extinction, Mangy Bigfoot, Supplements, Spine tingling, Randi: Jaque Benveniste, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 118
|date = Oct 24
|desc = Joe Nickell, Autism and Vaccines, Ben Stein on OReilly, James Watson Followup, The Dangers of Pseudoscience, Honey, Flu Vaccine Myths, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 117
|date = Oct 17
|desc = Mark Crislip of QuackCast, Robot Marriage, Overeating Gene, New Dinosaur, Female Cult, Watson on Race, Randi: Best Mentalist Trick, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 116
|date = Oct 10
|desc = Marc Abrahams of the IgNobels, Geller on NBC, More Acupuncture, Cell Phones and Cancer, World with Time, Energy Follow up, Slain by Woo, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 115
|date = Oct 3
|desc = Jon Blumenfeld, Tom Cruise Bunker, The View of a Flat Earth, Fly Boy Follow up, Martial Arts Woo, Vaccine follow up, 30 Year Battery, Orthomolecular Medicine, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 114
|date = Sep 27
|desc = Richard Saunders, Rebecca Wins, New Acupuncture Study, Academic Free Speech, Boy Survives Jet Ride, Smart Sex, Colloidal Silver, Randi: Faith Healers, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 113
|date = Sep 19
|desc = Monkey Bird Love, Trouble for Trudeau, Free Energy, Medical Science, Judge believes in Elves, HPV Vaccine, Autism Nonsense on Oprah, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 112
|date = Sep 12
|desc = David Colquhoun, How the WTC Towers Fell, Burning Water, Extant Dodos, SGU Affiliations, Peanuts, King Tut Follow up, Billy Meier, Randi: Mentalism, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 111
|date = Sep 5
|desc = Bill Nye the Science Guy, Airline Sacrifices Goats, King Tut, Is Race Real, The Persistence of Myth, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 110
|date = Aug 28
|desc = The Fans and Rogues remember Perry DeAngelis, - Jerry Andrus: Another Skeptic Passes, HIV Denial, Jesus Appears in Fence, Ben Stein Expelled, Puzzle
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 109
|date = Aug 24
|desc = Perry DeAngelis 1963-2007, The Psychology of Belief - a lecture by Perry DeAngelis, The fans favorite clips of Perry
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 108
|date = Aug 11
|desc = Opening Remarks by Steven Novella and Steve Mirsky, MC Todd Robbins, Live Q&A: Autism Groups, Girls and Science, Nice Skepticism, Science Education
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 107
|date = Aug 8
|desc = Largest Planet Discovered, New Da Vinci Conspiracy, Korean Stem Cell Controversy, UK UFO Followup, Unproven Therapies, CO2 from Walking, AI Sense of Humor, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 106
|date = Aug 1
|desc = Barry Glassner, Death Cat, FDA Shuts Down DCA, Exorcisms Gone Bad, Ward Churchill Correction, The Man with No Brain, The Overview Effect, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 105
|date = Jul 25
|desc = Jimmy Carter, Ward Churchill Fired, Homeopathic Surgeon, UK UFO, Asian Parasite Killing Bees, Electric Car, Brain Evolution, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 104
|date = Jul 18
|desc = Brian Trent, Author of Never Grow Old
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 103
|date = Jul 11
|desc = Scott Lilienfield, Most Distant Galaxy, Orbo Perpetual Motion Machine, Salt Water Fuel, Scientology and Homocide, Puzzle
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 102
|date = Jul 3
|desc = Barry Beyerstein In Memoriam, Black Cohosh and Liver Failure, Echinacea Meta-analysis, Jury Accuracy, Bishops and Floods, HIV and Condoms, Chiropractic and Colic, Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy, Sickesz Follow Up, Puzzle
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 101
|date = Jun 20
|desc = Orac - The author of Respectful Insolence Science Blog, Do black holes exist, President Bush vetoes new stem cell bill, Legends for profit, Belgium skeptic sued, The Galileo gambit, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 100
|date = Jun 19
|desc = SGU 100th Episode, 60 Years of Flying Saucers, Nano Drugs, Dino Big Bird, Home Buying Pseudoscience, Magneto and Son, Acupuncture Brain Surgery, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 99
|date = Jun 13
|desc = Phil Plait - The Bad Astronomer, Creationism Poll, Academic Freedom, Mercury-Autism Controversy in Court, Mr. Wizard Dies at 89, Rods, Zero Point Energy, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 98
|date = Jun 6
|desc = Creation Museum in Canada, NASA on Global Warming, Chiropractic in VA Hospitals, Death by Pseudoscience, UFO Drone CGI, New Loch Ness Video, Lunar Effect, Herxheimer Reaction, Chemtrails, Puzzle
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 97
|date = May 30
|desc = Creation Museum Opens, Licensing Psychics, Homeopaths Lame Response, China Follow Up, Kevin Trudeau, UFO Drone, Puzzle
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 96
|date = May 23
|desc = China Consultant Gareth Hayes, UK Scientists Reject Homeopathy, Boy Whose Parents Rejected Chemotherapy Dies, Scientology in Public Schools, Is Science Made Up, Legislating Thought, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 95
|date = May 16
|desc = Fraser Cain and Pamela Gay from Astronomy Cast, :Scientology vs the BBC, Rosie and 9-11, Star Kids, Multivitamins and Cancer, Moo UFO, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 94
|date = May 9
|desc = Barry Beyerstein, The Encyclopedia of Life, Nanotech Spidy Suit, Bigfoot Endangered, Corrections and Clarifications, Evolution Challenge, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 93
|date = May 3
|desc = Bug Girl - The Beetastrophy, Philly Shuts Down Psychics, Fire Melts Steel, Woman Hanged as Vampire, Drake Equation, EM Sensitivity, Hitler Fallacy Revisited, Genetic Drug Therapy, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 92
|date = Apr 25
|desc = Is Mental Illness Real, Earth-like Planet Discovered, Criminalizing Holocaust Denial follow up, Pill for Genetic Diseases, Bacterial Flagella Follow Up, Vitrification, - 9/11 Conspiracy, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 91
|date = Apr 18
|desc = Susan Blackmore, More ID Nonsense from Dr. Michael Egnor, Criminalizing Holocaust Denial, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 90
|date = Apr 10
|desc = Quantum Computer?, Fermilab Flub, Dieting News, Time Travel, Meta Analysis, Chiropractic Confusion, Death Star Conspiracy, Hugh Ross and Testable Creationism, Near Death Experiences, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 89
|date = Apr 4
|desc = 9/11 Conspiracy Celebrities, Holy Water for AIDS, Astrology Fails Again, Fairy Hoax, Avoiding the Holocaust, Neal Adams on Fox, Peanut Butter and Evolution, Peloop, When Birds Attack, Groupthink,Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 88
|date = Mar 28
|desc = David Seaman, DC, UFO news, Houdini exhumed, Buhhda boy returns, PETA, GM foods, Satanic Barcode, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 87
|date = Mar 21
|desc = Robert Lancaster, Vernal Equinox, Prayer Meta-analysis, Creationist Teacher Fired, Polar Bear Euthanasia, Pluto Corrections, Herbal Remedies, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 86
|date = Mar 14
|desc = Update on the Tomb of Jesus, The Revenge of Pluto, Robot Rights, More ID Nonsense, ADHD, Nerves Conduct by Sound?, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 85
|date = Mar 7
|desc = Battle of the Diets, True Believers take on SGU, Modern Day Witch Trial, Billy Meier Apologst, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 84
|date = Feb 28
|desc = Kenny Feder: The Tomb of Jesus and More, Update on Scientific Literacy, Human-Chimp Split, Mary on Pizza Pan, Segment #2. Negativity, Vitamins, more on Angel Voices, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 83
|date = Feb 21
|desc = TAM5 Interviews Part V: with Julia Sweeney, Richard Wiseman and The Onion Editor Scott Dickers, Angels Voices, New JFK Footage, Bigfoot Foot, Psychics on Oprah, Zodiac Insurance, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 82
|date = Feb 15
|desc = TAM 5 Interviews Part IV with Christopher Hitchens and South Parks Matt Stone, Psychic Healer, Score 1 for Evolution in Kansas, Paranormal Research Center Closes, Monkey Feng Shui, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 81
|date = Feb 7
|desc = TAM5 Interviews Part III: Phil Plait the Bad Astronomer, and Mythbusters Adam Savage and Tory Belleci, Enviga Suit, Iran AIDS Cure, Creationists in Kenya, Follow up on Global Warming, Youngest Skeptic, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 80
|date = Jan 31
|desc = TAM5 Interviews Part II: John Rennie, Teller, Jim Underdown, Randi takes on Sylvia, The Hobbit Returns, The God Question, Cults and Religion, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 79
|date = Jan 24
|desc = TAM5 interviews with [[James Randi interview with Todd Robbins at TAM5 (79)|James Randi, Todd Robbins]], [[Hal Bidlack interview: MC at TAM5 (79)|Hal Bidlack]] & [[Eugenie Scott interview: Science in the media and the Dover trial (79)|Eugenie Scott]], [[TAM5: The Rogues report (79)|Report from TAM5]], [[Sylvia Browne: Dead wrong again (79)|Sylvia Browne]], [[Tom Cruise: Christ of Scientology (79)|Tom Cruise the Christ]], [[If Rebecca ate meat (79)|Meat-eating Rebecca]], [[Free-fall and terminal velocity emails (79)|Terminal Velocity]], [[Skeptical Puzzle: Power loss (79)|Puzzle]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 78
|date = Jan 15
|desc = Stem Cell Debate, Randi Psychic Challenge (Jeff Wagg), Government Conspiracies, Herbal Remedies, Skeptical Movement, Scientology, Randi: Whats That Line, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 77
|date = Jan 10
|desc = Spencer Weart, author of The Discovery of Global Warming, Stem Cell Updates, Enviga, Hawking in Space, Weight loss pill firms fined, Corrections, The Moon, True belief skeletons, Randi: Coincidence, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 76
|date = Jan 3
|desc = NeuroLogica Blog, Evolution in Cobb County, 2006 Predictions, Homeopathy in Scotland, Salt Lamps, UFOs, Intelligent Forces, Chelation Therapy, Randi: Optical Illusions, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2006
|range = (episodes 24-75)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 75
|date = Dec 27
|desc = 2006 Year in Review: Join the Skeptics' Guide host and the rogues as they look back at the year in science, skepticism, and podcasting
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 74
|date = Dec 20
|desc = Carl Sagan, Sylvia Browne Update, IQ and Vegetarians, Santa Claus, Facilitated Communication, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 73
|date = Dec 13
|desc = B. Alan Wallace Tree Octopus, Irans Holocaust Denial, Science and the Supernatural, Randi: Communication, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 72
|date = Dec 6
|desc = Paleontologist Ken Macleod - New Evidence for the Single Impact Theory, Holiday shopping scams, NASA plans moon base, Flowing water on Mars?, Molecular manufacturing, Hi from Down Under, Chiropractic HIV denial, Testing ID, High Tech Dowsing, Randi: End o
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 71
|date = Nov 29
|desc = Mark Crislip, Paranormal Computer Storage, ID in the UK, Corrections, Einstein, Ghost Photos, Neurolink, Randi: Mentalism, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 70
|date = Nov 21
|desc = Orgasm Day, Science of Deception, MoD warns of Aliens, Wonders of the World, top 10 Scientific Discoveries, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 69
|date = Nov 15
|desc = Seth Shostak, Qi-Gong on You Tube, Cryotherapy,Chicken-Tac-Toe, Hallucinations, Chiropractic, Religion and Mental Illness, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 68
|date = Nov 8
|desc = Kent Hovind Convicted, UFO Mocumentary, Bigfoot in Academia, Learn while you Sleep, Dolphin Legs, Edgar Cayce, Quantum Love, Distribution of Pseudoscience, Workplace Skepticism, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 67
|date = Nov 1
|desc = Richard Wiseman, Pseudohistory of Exorcism, Glossolalia, Elephant Mirrors, Holiday Weight, Anti-skeptics, Fox Parkinsons and Stem Cells, Face on Earth, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 66
|date = Oct 25
|desc = Michael Stebbins, Scientists and Engineers for America, The Physics of Ghosts and Vampires, What killed the dinosaurs?, Hallucinations, UFO cults, Randi: People in Space, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 65
|date = Oct 18
|desc = Geller's Heir, Human speciation, New Element 118, The 7th Fleet, Moon Robots, Vegetarians, Vitamin Supplements, Randi: Homeopathy, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 64
|date = Oct 11
|desc = Stuart Vyse, Author of The Psychology of Supersition, Friday 13th, Teaching Evolution in Michigan, Science in the UK, Comet to hit Earth, Water Cycle, Selling the Moon, Randi: Aromatherapy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 63
|date = Oct 4
|desc = Michael Shermer - Author of Why Darwin Matters, Skepchick-dude Calendars, Sexual arousal, Harry Potter, Autism, Skepticism and sensitivity, Randi: Business Astrology, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 62
|date = Sep 27
|desc = [[Joe Nickell interview: Paranormal investigations (62)|Joe Nickell interview]], [[Global warming follow up and solar activity (62)|Global Warming update]], [[Face on Mars: 3D reconstruction (62)|Face on Mars]], [[Lightning rods (62)|Lightning Rods]], [[Psychic astrology email (62)|Psychic Astrology]], [[Randi Speaks: Left behind (62)|Randi: Left Behind]], [[I have monkeys in my pants (62)|I have monkeys in my pants]], [[Skeptical Puzzle: Marine locks (62)|Puzzle]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 61
|date = Sep 20
|desc = James Randi Joins the Skeptics Guide, Male-Female Intelligence, Exorcism rape, Phil Plait, The Bad Astronomer, about Eris, Pluto, NASA and more, OBE's, More on 9/11, Denial, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 60
|date = Sep 13
|desc = 9/11 news, Report from Mexico, No Gulf War Syndrome,Persistant Vegetative State, Math vs Science, Thinking about the dead, Moon Hoax, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 59
|date = Sep 5
|desc = Ed Warren Dies, New ESP claims, Evolution of Superstition, Korean fan deaths, New UK Homeopathy law, Science beliefs, Recycling, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 58
|date = Aug 30
|desc = Kimball Atwood, MD, Pope and ID, Hitler and Stalin Possessed, Pluto not a planet, Kabbalah,Archaeological conspiracies, Skeptical Soldier, Abiogenesis Pseudoscience, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 57
|date = Aug 23
|desc = Larry Sarner, Water Tree Solved, Mystery Creature in Maine, Creationism update, Planet definition, Acupuncture followup, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 56
|date = Aug 15
|desc = Ken Feder, Evolution Survey, water tree, Abiogenic Origin of Oil,Dinosaur Petroglyphs, Acupuncture, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 55
|date = Aug 9
|desc = Steve Salerno, Happy Birthday James Randi, Archimedes Palimpsest, Science and Falsifiability, Skeptics track record, FDA, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 54
|date = Aug 2
|desc = Creationism Museum, Kansas votes out Creationists, Coulter throws down the gauntlet, Exorcism, PC, Chiropractic, Singularity, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 53
|date = Jul 26
|desc = Possible increase for NASA budget, Indigo children, Monkey eating eagle, Bird flight, Teachers respond to textbook criticism, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 52
|date = Jul 19
|desc = Bill Bennetta, The Textbook League, Rebecca Returns, Precious Bodily Fluids, World Jump Day,Follow up on Neal Adams, Women in Science, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 51
|date = Jul 12
|desc = Neal Adams, Space Shuttle Mission, Asteroid near miss, Psychedelic mushrooms, Kevin Barrett and 9/11 conspiracies,More on supplements, Peak Oil?, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 50
|date = Jul 5
|desc = Gerald Posner, author of Case Closed, Second hand smoke,Binaural Beats, Aubrey de Grey, Puzzle (answer plus new puzzle)
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 49
|date = Jun 28
|desc = Theory of Evolution, Agnosticism, Magnet therapy, Regulating supplements, Neuroethics, Puzzle
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 48
|date = Jun 21
|desc = Steve Mirsky, Scientific American, Herbs for menopause, Anne Coulter and evolution,Penta Water, Alcoholism a disease?, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 47
|date = Jun 14
|desc = Zachary Moore: Evolution 101, Feng-shui, Hawking on space travel,Consensus on Global Warming, God and the Big Bang
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 46
|date = Jun 7
|desc = Phil Plait: The Bad Astronomer,Satans day, Skepchick infiltrates Christian Scientists, Altruism genes, Follow up on 9/11 Hoax
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 45
|date = May 31
|desc = SGU Forum, 9-11 footage, UK Doctors fight against Alternative Med,Cancer Cures, Dream Interpretation, Science vs God, Suns temperature
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 44
|date = May 24
|desc = James Randi News: Human/chimp hybrid, China mirage
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 43
|date = May 17
|desc = Ray Hyman, News: Bosnian Pyramid update, Mormon cult leader hits FBI list, Paranormal mysteries, Science education, Scientology super powers
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 42
|date = May 10
|desc = Eugenie Scott, News: UFO's in the UK, Scientology Superheroes,Tracking Satellites, Drinking water
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 41
|date = May 3
|desc = Bosnian pyramids, Toxic Cruise,Bubble Universes, Iridology, Black holes, and the Origin of life, Discussion: The Scope of Skepticism
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 40
|date = Apr 26
|desc = Brian Trent, author of Remembering Hypatia, Sonoma Bigfoot revealed, Channeling John Lennon,More on Hurricanes and Birthdays, Bananas and logical fallacies
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 39
|date = Apr 19
|desc = Marilyn Schlitz, ESP researcher, More on the polar ice caps, Sad Monkeys, spinal stem cells and mercury amalgam,gene multiplication, Skeptical Tools
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 38
|date = Apr 12
|desc = Bill Nye, Tom Cruise, Time Travel, Global Warming, Happy Face on Mars,Evolution, more on the flood, the psychosomatic effect and
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 37
|date = Apr 6
|desc = Fish evolution, prayer in medicine, Noah's ark,EVP, more on the solar eclipse
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 36
|date = Mar 29
|desc = Rick Ross, Solar Eclipse,The Woman who Never Forgets, Panspermia, Hydrino power, Bigfoot, Microwaves
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 35
|date = Mar 22
|desc = More on Scientology and South Park, Noah's Ark, Bigfoot or Bison, Cancer quacks, creationism in UK, DNA vs the Mormons
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 34
|date = Mar 15
|desc = Buddha Boy, El Chupacabra, Scientology and South Park, What the Bleep: Down the Rabbit Hole, Water on enceladus
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 33
|date = Mar 9
|desc = Rebecca Watson - founder of the Skepchicks, Magnet Therapy, Tax scams, Plastic Scare
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 32
|date = Mar 1
|desc = More on ID, Holy hardware, G-spot, Oil crisis, The 12th planet
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 31
|date = Feb 22
|desc = Terrence Hines - author of Pseudoscience and the Paranormal
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 30
|date = Feb 15
|desc = New UFO Coverup, Randi, ID, Jesus in court, Cholesterol and colon cleansing
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 29
|date = Feb 8
|desc = Featured Website: Two sites on Science Myths, Feynman on Education and Textbooks, , Going Beyond Science?
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 28
|date = Feb 1
|desc = Tara Smith of Iowans for Science, , More on HIV Denial
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 27
|date = Jan 25
|desc = Ask the Skeptic, Two Views of American Education, Government and wacky science
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 26
|date = Jan 17
|desc = Eric Altman from the Penn Bigfoot Society, Psychic Predictions for 2005, Darwin Day
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 25
|date = Jan 11
|desc = Did Castro Kill JFK, Discussion Items: Iran Denies the Holocaust, Cell Research Fraud in South Korea, Political Correctness vs Freedom of Speech
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 24
|date = Jan 6
|desc = James Randi
|status = skeleton
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2005
|range = (episodes 1-23)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 23
|date = Dec 21
|desc = Jan Helen McGee - Psychic Detective, Victory for Science and Reason in Dover
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 22
|date = Dec 14
|desc = Holiday Scams, Discussion Topics: Eye Evolution, Venus the UFO, Video Games and Seizures, Psychic Detectives
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 21
|date = Dec 7
|desc = Wallace Sampson, MD - Editor of the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine, ID and Weeping Icons
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 20
|date = Nov 23
|desc = Tom W. Clark - founder of Naturalism.org, ID Update
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 19
|date = Nov 16
|desc = ID and Idiocy, Putting the Psi into Science, The Starchild Project
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 18
|date = Nov 2
|desc = Halloween Ghost Stories, Astrology vs Astronomy
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 17
|date = Oct 26
|desc = Joe Nickell - paranormal investigator
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 16
|date = Oct 12
|desc = Glen G. Sparks
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 15
|date = Oct 6
|desc = Chris Mooney: Author of The Republican War on Science
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 14
|date = Sep 28
|desc = UFO Landing Strip, ID Update, Bigfoot Convention, Katrina Myths and Conspiracies
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 13
|date = Sep 14
|desc = [[9/11 Conspiracy Theories (13)|9/11 Conspiracies]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 12
|date = Sep 7
|desc = Steve Milloy
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 11
|date = Aug 31
|desc = Bob Park: author of Voodoo Science
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 10
|date = Aug 23
|desc = In Memoriam: Phil Klass and Robert Baker, Childrens Books
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 9
|date = Aug 10
|desc = Bush-The Pope-and evolution -again, Atlantis, Modern Witch Hunts, Science and Hollywood
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 8
|date = Aug 2
|desc = Steven Salerno: author of SHAM
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 7
|date = Jul 20
|desc = The Pope on Potter and evolution, Ghostbusting with Penn & Teller, Ask the Skeptic, Quackwatch
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 6
|date = Jul 7
|desc = Science Magazine's 125 things we do not know, Tom Cruise, Scientology and Psychiatry, CT Warning on e-scams, Ramada Inn in Stratford Haunted
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 5
|date = Jun 29
|desc = Michael Shermer
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 4
|date = Jun 15
|desc = Update on Kansas Evolution Debate, Alternative Theories of Matter
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 3
|date = Jun 7
|desc = [[Massimo Pigliucci Interview: Intelligent Design, Science, Religion (3)|Massimo Pigliucci interview]], [[Smithsonian ID Fiasco Follow-up (3)|Update on ID film in the Smithsonian Institution]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 2
|date = Jun 1
|desc = [[Kansas school board: Redefining science (2)|Kansas Evolution Update]], [[Discovery Institute preview at Smithsonian Institute (2)|Discovery Institute preview at Smithsonian Institute]], [[Stem cell bill 2005: Embryonic vs. adult-derived (2)|Stem Cell Research]], [[Crop circles: Cereology, blueprints and perfect circles (2)|Crop Circle Season]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 1
|date = May 4
|desc = ID, Reverse Engineering UFOs, Magicians, and Exploding Toads
|status = verified
}}
|}
|}

SGU Episode 396

2013-09-21T16:41:45Z

Teleuteskitty: Proof-read up to 51:33

{{Proof reading all
|proofer = Teleuteskitty
|date = 2013-09-07}}
{{Editing required
|proof-reading = y
|links = y
|Today I Learned list = y
|categories = y
|segment redirects = y 
|}}
{{InfoBox
|episodeNum = 396
|episodeDate = 16<sup>th</sup> February 2013
|episodeIcon = File:Eosinopteryx_S.jpg
|rebecca = y
|bob = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
|guest1 = BW: [http://necss.org/speakers/brian-wecht/ Brian Wecht]
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2013-02-16.mp3
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php?topic=45058.0
|qowText = Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known.
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_de_Montaigne Michel de Montaigne]
|}}

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

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday February 13<sup>th</sup> 2013 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: Hot Damn!

S: And Evan Bernstein.

E: By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground for out of it you were taken, for you are dust. Into dust you shall return.

R: That was weird and depressing. OK!

J: What's up with that?

E: Ash Wednesday.

S: Yeah it is Ash Wednesday.

R: Oooh.

B: Oh, it is?

E: Yeah.

S: Yeah, I was seeing a patient today and I thought they had some kind of dark and suspicious looking mole under their hair.

(laughter)

S: So even though I'm a neurologist I still examine the whole patient, and so I brushed their hair aside to see what it was, and it was... you know... they were Catholic.

E: You brushed their hair aside, you didn't just ask them?

R: You didn't lick your finger and rub it on their face did you?

S: No, I didn't wipe it off.

J: Guys! Guys!

E: Huh? Yeah? What? Oh hey, Jay.

J: I have a son. I have a baby boy. (laughs)

R: Yeah! Well done.

S: Is that where you were last week?

B: Why didn't you tell us?

R: Well done to Courtney I guess, you didn't really do much.

J: Uh, come on it was very hard to watch.

R: I bet.

J: That is serious stuff, man.

E: I know, you almost spilled your popcorn, I know.

J: It was epic. It was incredible, the whole experience was absolutely incredible. I don't recommend it, it's not for everybody.

R: You don't recommend it?

J: It's not for everyone I mean, it's not for everyone. It's absolutely fantastic if you want it and you're ready for it and I absolutely was ready for it.

S: Was that for the benefit of our younger listeners, Jay? The...

J: Absolutely, yeah I wasn't talking to Rebecca here, she already knows all of that.

R: Yeah, I know the birds and the bees.

J: You know, it's all the clichés, you know I wish I had a different profound thought to share other than when it happens and it's right it's the best thing in the world, it's fantastic.

S: The clichés are all true is what you're saying.

J: They are, and it's inexplicable, you have to experience this for yourself.

S: Well congratulations, brother.

J: Thanks, sorry I wasn't here for two weeks, guys. I didn't want it to be that way but you know.

R: Eh, what are you going to do?

S: Life intrudes on our little project here unfortunately.

J: You know, just so you know, babies make incredibly cute noises.

S: Yes, they do. The cooing noises?

R: Uh yeah, when it's yours. Before it starts that horrible screaming sound.

S: Well it gets cuter though Jay, when they start to form those noises into words, proto-language. It gets really cute.

J: I just want to share something.

R: Alright.

(cooing noises)

R: I'm pretty sure that was a seal.

J: (laughs) Come on that's adorable.

R: Yeah, it's alright, it's pretty cute.

== This Day in Skepticism <small>(3:02)</small> ==
February 16, 1997 Physicist {{w|Chien-Shiung Wu}} died.

R: Hey, it's time for this day in whatever, are you ready?

S: Yeah.

B: Whatever.

R: It's exciting. I usually try to avoid "this is the day somebody died" events because you know, it's depressing. But in this case the person was so awesome that I wanted to talk about her. Today, February 16<sup>th</sup> in 1997, Chien-Shiung Wu died. So Chien-Shiung Wu was born in China in 1912 to a father who believed in the equality of the sexes, so much so that he started a vocational school for women. When she was 11, Wu left her home town to pursue her education which continued up through university where she studied physics, and upon graduation she became a researcher at the institute of physics at a Chinese academy. At the age of 24 she decided that she'd gone as far as she could possibly go in China, so she hopped a steam ship to the US and she landed in San Francisco and she enrolled at UC Berkley in grad school and she eventually finished here PhD there in 1940. Then she moved East. She became a faculty member at Smith, then Princeton, then finally at Columbia, where she did research for the {{w|Manhattan Project}} doing amazing things like helping to figure out how to separate uranium metal using gaseous diffusion. Also at Columbia, she hooked up with these two theoretical physicists who came up with an idea that the hypothetical law of {{w|Parity (physics)|conservation of parity}} was wrong when it came to the weak nuclear force. Wu was able to develop the experiment that proved them right. The theoretical physicists won the Nobel Prize for it and Wu won the first ever {{w|Wolf prize}} in physics for it in 1978. So she was a really amazing woman, she did tons of awesome stuff and I was very excited to note that we have something in common. She also has an asteroid named after her.

B: (laughs)

S: Cool.

R: So yeah. Chien-Shiung Wu. Awesome lady.

S: The Chinese Marie Curie, apparently.

R: Yeah.

E: Nice.

R: Although I like to think that Marie Curie is the European Chien-Shiung Wu.

E: Ah. Touché

S: Well that's what they say in China.

R: Right.

J: That is cool.

== News Items ==
=== AI Doctor <small>(5:23)</small>===
Gigaom.com: [http://gigaom.com/2013/02/11/researchers-say-ai-prescribes-better-treatment-than-doctors/ Researchers Say AI Prescribes Better Treatment than Doctors]

S: So Jay, you're going to start off the News Segment by telling us about computers practising medicine.

J: Right. But first.

<blockquote>Old Gray!</blockquote>

B: (laughs) Old Gray!

R: Why?

J: I'm just celebrating.

E: Should I know what that is?

Everyone: Old Gray.

B: Oh my god, Evan.

J: We need to talk after the show.

E: Now I remember you referencing that a long time ago, I never bothered to latch on.

J: You never bothered to watch like internet absolutely incredible?

B: You never bothered to laugh?

E: I was busy then.

R: Do you not have joy in your life, Evan?

E: Apparently not, apparently I am sorely lacking.

R: Why do you hate happiness?

J: OK so, two Indiana University researchers Casey Bennett and Kris Hauser have developed something called an expert machine. This is something we've talked about on the show before,{{Link needed}} it's like {{w|Watson (computer)|IBM's Watson}}, remember that program they were using to play Jeopardy.

R: No relation.

B: Yep.

S: Oh yeah.

E: And it kicked ass.

J: This is something called, like I said, an expert machine, but this one is specialized in determining patient illness and treatments. Which I've been waiting for this, I've actually talked to Steve about this many times, I'm like 'Steve, why don't they have a computer to do all the heavy lifting and have the doctor do the fine tuning?' Well that's exactly what these guys did. The technology uses machine learning and is the same computer science discipline that in part supported some of these cool things that we all are getting to see now like voice recognition, we all have that on our cell phones, the self-driving cars, like the stuff, the work, that Google is doing with their cars, and credit card fraud detection systems which, I don't know if many people know about but that's a pretty significant system that they use, a very robust system that is in place to help prevent fraud and to capture people who are committing fraud. So at its core the new system uses a pair of predictive modelling techniques, one of them called the {{w|Markov Decision Process}} and the second one is {{w|Dynamic decision-making|Dynamic Decision Networks}}. These are two cool things that you should read about, each of them distinct; in conjunction, they are making something that was not too long ago impossible. The idea behind the research and eventual development is pretty straight forward. If doctors can stop relying in their intuition and instead focus on the known facts, they would be able to make better decisions. I know it sounds very simple, but in essence, that's what they set out to do. It uses sequential decision making where each decision opens up new pathways and those simulate alternative treatments and as new data becomes available it plans and re-plans its path and they say that, quote-unquote, "it can think like a doctor." So I know that that might sound like a contradiction, because I just said before that it could work better than doctors or doctors are using intuition to come to their decision. It's going to use the process that a doctor would use but on an amazingly huge scale, right? And this is where you need the huge processing power of computers to do it. The idea being that if they took say all of the medical records of the entire country, the entire United States, which as many of you know are rapidly becoming– our healthcare system is becoming electronic, and that all of our data is going online. Many of the people who have gone to the doctor over the past couple of years have noticed that they're using software now, they're asking you to restate all these questions so you can give them your information, they're plugging it into the system. Well that system's data very soon will become global and accessible, especially for research purposes, it would be an incredible win for everybody. Instead of a doctor seeing say a couple of thousand patients a year that have a similar illness, the software will look at hundreds of thousands of patients, take all that data, use it in a way, with their algorithms, use it so that it can determine what statistically is the best course of action, not just in the single doctor's experience or in a small practice's experience.

R: Would that open up privacy concerns?

S: Well if you're going to use data, healthcare data, there are rules for that. It has to be scrubbed of any patient identifying information.

R: Mmm. OK.

J: Sure. Do you care if you're a number in some spreadsheet or some electronic process that says–

S: Well apparently people ''do'' care, because you've got to get permission from people to use it.

R: Yeah I mean I would care just because of the amount of times things go wrong.

J: Yeah but it's not like some person's going to be at the doctor in California, Rebecca, and your picture's not going to come up on their screen saying this person has this phenomenally awful disease. It's just data, it's just statistical data they're going to be using.

S: Yeah, you can ask systems like this, how many people who have this diagnosis are on this drug? Or how many people who are on this drug are also on this other one, and how many times did they get admitted to the hospital over the last three years. So it won't give you any specific information about any specific individuals, but you can ask statistical questions about the database.

R: Right.

S: Yep.

J: So Casey Bennett, one of the researchers, said:
<blockquote>"The Markov Decision Process and Dynamic Decision Networks enable the system to deliberate about the future, considering all the different possible sequences of actions and effects in advance even in cases where we are unsure of the effects."<ref name=Indiana>Indiana University press release - [http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/23795.html Can computers save health care? IU research shows lower costs, better outcomes]</ref></blockquote>

J: Their research tries to answer three issues concerning US healthcare. Steve, I'd like to know what you have about these three things. The rising cost, expected to reach 30% of the gross domestic product by 2050. A quality of care where patients receive correct diagnoses and treatment less than half the time on a first visit. And a lag time of 13 to 17 years between research and practice in clinical care.

B: Whoa.

S: Yeah, those are all correct.

B: 13 to 17 years?

J: Well sure, Bob, if you think about–

B: What kind of bullshit is that?

J: Well, no that's not bullshit.

S: Well it depends what kind of penetration you're talking about. I mean the younger doctors actually are a little bit better on that score, on incorporating the latest information. Academic physicians are better. But if you want to penetrate to the old guys out in the community, those are the hold outs, those are the people who are not necessarily getting all the critical updates that they should be in a timely fashion, and it takes a while to percolate through the culture of medicine. That is a significant problem. I think that the system of continuing medical education tries to address that, but it does so in my opinion in a very haphazard way, not in a systematic way. So there's still, I think, a lot of room for improvement there.

J: Well here are the facts guys. Bennett also said, that researcher also said later on that "the framework here easily outperforms the current treatment as usual, case rate fee-for-service models of healthcare." So listen to these statistics. With 500 real random patients, their software cost-per-patient difference was $495 down to $189, an improvement of 58.5% and the patient outcomes can be improved by, guys, a dramatic 41.9% at the peak performance of their system. That is huge, huge.

S: That's all a little theoretical though. It's not unreasonable, but it's also the system using its own criteria to assess itself, you know? So it would be nice to see how it works in the real world. Put it at the point of care in doctors' offices and then measure what effect it has, that would be more, I think, more of a meaningful measurement. But it shows that the potential is there, there's the potential for cost savings and improved outcomes. Essentially this is an expert system, these are nothing new, meaning that it's a system designed to be used by experts to give them– to augment their information, to give them the information they need when they need it. And I think that we ''have'' to go this way, it's just overwhelming, the amount of information, and ''new'' information that's being published. There's thousands and thousands of papers, even in a narrow area of expertise, that's being published every year. Plus, as Jay was saying, the number of permutations that physicians get presented with is staggering, every patient is unique in a way, in that they have their own medical history, they have a combination of medical problems, they're on a certain combination of medications, and then you're going to introduce a new element, a treatment or whatever, into that mix, and you could make only statistical statements about what's likely to happen but physicians are, by necessity, are using a simplified version of the data analysis. Even if we are trying to look it up at the time, how could I really know, for example what the interaction is going to be between a new medication and the five other medications that a patient is on? I know what the ''individual'' interactions are, but what are all the combinations? Where expert systems work well is in doing what humans don't do well, right? So they could do the heavy lifting, the number crunching, taking into consideration vast amounts of information that no human brain can hold, and then the physician can take that information, that recommendation: don't forget to do this, consider that, watch out for this interaction, this is the best evidence-based treatment right now, or here are the three options prioritized by the ones that are most likely to have the best outcome, and then the physician can individualize it for the patient a little bit more, taking into consideration some variables that maybe the system wasn't designed to take into consideration, not the least of which is patient preference, you know? There are some things where it's just patients care more about certain things than other things and you have to ask patients, what's more important, treating the symptom or avoiding the side effect? And you get different answers from different patients and that determines what treatment they might want. I think a good analogy is chess masters, right? If you think of physicians like chess-masters? They're very good at pattern recognition, they're very good at remembering the classic moves that really work, whereas a computer chess player can crunch hundreds of possible moves.

E: It'll play thousands of games in moments.

B: Brute force.

S: Yeah, you could brute force it in a way that a person can't. And for a while the human pattern recognition was better than computers, but now computers are better than the human. But imagine the two together. Imagine a chess master where the computer says I suggest you do this move, these are the things you've got to worry about and then he could use that ''in addition'' to his intuition and pattern recognition and then you get the best of both worlds.

R: Sounds like a great new buddy comedy.

(laughter)

E: Yeah

R: I got ya.

S: The odd couple?

E: You need to come up with a funny name for the computer of course, you know.

S: Hit it.

E: Felix?

(laughter)

S: Would the computer be Felix or Oscar? I guess Felix. One thing, a limiting factor here is that it takes a lot of time to create these algorithms and to feed it all the information. Keep in mind that this is just looking at treating one disease. All of the development is just coming up with: alright here's an algorithm to treat this one little thing, now we've got to build a ''thousand'' of these in order to really address the full breadth, and then keep them all of them updated as new information comes in. This is a massive project. That's really why these things aren't already in every doctor's office is because it's a massive project to create these things.

E: That's why I'm not so sure about the savings, the cost savings, maybe in the very long run you'll eventually see some cost savings, but I think there's still a lot of money that still needs to go into getting these things up to speed before you see the return on investment.

S: Yeah there are huge investments upfront, absolutely, but as the infrastructure becomes ubiquitous within medicine, the cost of adding some expert systems onto it will go down.

=== Ball and Cup Magic <small>(17:16)</small> ===
Scientific American: [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=magic-revealed-cups-trick-found-to-be-more-effective-than-thought Magic Revealed: Cups Trick Found to Be More Effective Than Thought]

S: Alright let's move on. Evan, you're going to tell us about the science of magic tricks.

E: Yes, I have some magic tricks, and specifically the cups-and-balls trick. Now 'cups and balls' is a culturally ubiquitous illusion by which the stage magician takes three cups and three balls, or what at least appears to the audience to be three balls, and with the magicians' sleight of hand, they're able to make the balls appear and disappear seemingly at will. I say it's culturally ubiquitous because stage magicians have been performing this illusion all over the world for reportedly thousands of years. Now, there are many variations to the trick but the general premise is the same, now you see the balls and with the help of the cups, now you don't. Youtube it, there are tons of examples to be seen. But scientists, they're analysing how magicians such as Penn and Teller, are performing this illusion, and they're now revealing that some aspects of the magic trick are even more effective at manipulating audiences than the magicians perceive or they predicted. Neuroscientists have increasingly been analyzing magicians' performances to gain insight into the human mind and if you remember back in Skeptics' Guide to the Universe [[SGU Episode 326|episode 326]], we presented an interview with Neuroscientists [http://www.sleightsofmind.com/about-the-authors/ Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde] which was a really great interview, they talked with us about some of their work that they've done with {{w|Penn & Teller|Penn and Teller}}, among other professional tricksters, and how they studied their techniques for tricking the brain, and it was all put down in their book called ''[http://www.sleightsofmind.com/ Sleights of Mind - What the neuroscience of magic reveals about our everyday deceptions]''. I don't know if you read that book, Steve?

S: Oh yeah.

E: A really good book and it was a great interview, now magic tricks work because humans have a hard-wired process of attention and awareness that is, well, for lack of a better term, hackable. And a good magician uses your mind's own intrinsic properties against you. By understanding how magicians can effectively hack our brain we can better understand how the sort of same cognitive tricks are at work in other ways, for example in business negotiations or how people are influenced by advertising strategies or other sorts of interpersonal relations. But while Macknik and Conde-Martinez were specifically studying the cups and balls trick as performed by Teller of Penn and Teller, they realized something rather astounding.<ref>Rieiro, H, Martinez-Conde, S & Macknik, S.L (2013), [https://peerj.com/articles/19/ Perceptual elements in Penn & Teller’s “Cups and Balls” magic trick], PeerJ</ref> What they did is they had seven volunteers and they watched 10-12 second long video clips of Teller performing the cup and balls illusion. In the experiments, the volunteers reported when they saw balls get removed from or placed under cups by pressing buttons. The researchers at the same time used cameras pointed at the eyes of the volunteers to track their gazes. Now during the course of the illusion, the balls, one by one, are being placed atop the cups and then the cups at one point get tilted, they kind of tilt forward, and the ball rolls off the top of the cup and into the magician's hand. Now this action of the ball rolling off the cup is designed to focus the audience's attention on that ball rolling off the cup so that you're not watching the magician's other hand as he's palming another ball and placing it in the proper position for the next part of the trick. However, what the researchers found is that while the audience is watching the falling ball, and it definitely drew their attention, other aspects of the trick were actually stronger at making the illusion work, which were not the results that the performer was expecting to get, the magician was not expecting that, they expect people were looking at the ball rolling off, therefore they're free to do their other manipulations and stuff, but this research reveals it's really not working that way. It's not a knock against the performer right, it's just a more accurate understanding as to what's going on in the mind of the audience member.

R: There are two concepts here that the researchers claimed to have debunked in a way, that are standard things that magicians learn. One is the idea of social misdirection, the idea that the audience will look where the magician looks, so you always look at the hand that's, for instance, supposed to contain the coin. You know, if the coin is actually in your other hand, it doesn't matter, you look at your left hand, and the audience will look there as well. And the other thing being that the audience will follow motion. If you consider there's a very basic, like the first move that most magicians learn is the {{w|French Drop}}.

S: Yeah

R: and that's a method of making a coin disappear. And one of the first things you have to learn about that is that you don't move the hand that's doing the tricky stuff because the audience is going to look at the motion. You move the hand that is supposed to contain the coin that's not there because that's where the audience is going to look. So those are two really basic concepts that the researchers have claimed to show don't necessarily hold up. But that said, I read the study and I found it, I mean it's interesting, but at the same time it was a sample size of seven people, and I don't really feel like they did a very good job of proving this, even to the point where– like, I think it gets headlines because it's interesting, it's about magic, it's fun, it's got Penn and Teller, but I don't think that it's really worthy of much else. If anything it would be something that should encourage people to explore on a larger basis. But the thing is, this sort of stuff has been tested before, the researchers themselves cite a paper from 2011 that also showed that social misdirection doesn't work very well, this time using, I think, a coin trick instead of cups and balls.<ref>Cui et al.(2011), [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22046155 Social misdirection fails to enhance a magic illusion, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience [Note: Macknik & Martinez-Conde are also authors of this paper]</ref> But again, that study contained three different experiments that had nine people in the first, six people in the second, eight people in the third. So it's like these are such tiny studies, it would be really interesting to do this stuff on a larger scale. But as it is, I just don't find it terribly impressive, mostly because of the small sample size.

E: You know something else they talked a little bit about as sort of a tangent to this, is they're working on, Conde-Martinez and Macknik are working on a hypothesis that magic tricks which rely on social cues are less effective in people with autism.

S: Huh

E: They believe that autistics have a hard time paying attention to what other people are paying attention to and they give some examples of some people who were diagnosed with autism when they were young and they relayed their stories about how they would watch magic tricks, and like Rebecca you were describing how the magician looks this way and most everyone else in the audience looked that way but these people who had the autism were not influenced by the direction that the magician was looking in, instead they were looking at whatever little cups, ball and whatever other props were going on, much to the magicians' dismay, because... you know–

S: Yeah, they were harder to fool because they were harder to predict how they'd respond.

R: Another thing I'd be curious about with social misdirection would be both of these studies that claim to show that it doesn't work very well were done using video of the magicians, and so I'd be interested in seeing if there's a difference with in-person magicians because I feel like if a magician is standing right in front of you you're going to have a stronger reaction to those social cues, but I don't know.

=== Gorilla in the Bronchi <small>(24:48)</small> ===
Neurologica: [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/gorilla-in-the-bronchi/ Gorilla in the Bronchi]

S: Rebecca, in I guess a somewhat related item, there was an interesting article that you found very intriguing, this actually combines the first two news items we were talking about, physician performance and misdirection.

R: Indeed. yeah this was a story that I laughed out loud when I first saw it and then got slightly scared. So you've all heard, I'm sure, of the [http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/gorilla_experiment.html invisible gorilla test] by now. For those who haven't heard of it, I will ruin it for you now. You should pause the podcast now and look it up on YouTube first if you don't want it to be ruined. But the video is– basically the experiment is subjects watched a video of basketball players who were passing a basketball back and forth, and the subjects were told that they had to count the number of passes just between certain players. And throughout the video a gorilla walks into the frame, stands there, beats his chest and then slowly walks off to the other side, and it's really painfully obvious but half of the people, half of the subjects in the study missed him entirely, and this is sort of held up generally to find that you've got a 50:50 chance if you're showing somebody who's never seen it before, a 50:50 chance that they will miss him entirely. This is something called {{w| inattentional blindness}}, the idea is that when a person is consumed with one task, they become blind to looking at other things around them. So that study is pretty much always done on what we will call, and what the researchers of the upcoming study call, naïve: people who have no special training in spotting things. And certainly no special training in spotting gorillas that walk through basketball games. So psychology students at {{w|Brigham and Women's Hospital}} in Boston were curious to see whether or not professional anomaly hunters, basically, could perform any better.<ref>Drew, T., Võ, M. L. H., Wolfe, J. M. (2013). [http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/07/17/0956797613479386.abstract The invisible gorilla strikes again: Sustained inattentional blindness in expert observers], Psychological Science.</ref> So they showed 24 experienced radiologists the CT scans for 5 different patients, and each of those cases included hundreds of images of lung tissue. They asked the radiologists to sort through the images and find 10 nodules which were signs of lung cancer hidden throughout the scans. So the difference here is that these are trained professionals who are doing what they trained to do. So to test whether or not they would be subject to inattentional blindness, the researchers on the very last case they gave the radiologists, inserted a small, poorly photoshopped picture of a gorilla into the lung image. The gorilla was about the size of a matchbox or about 48 times the size of the nodules that the radiologists were looking for, so it was quite substantial, relatively speaking. The gorilla started out translucent in early images but then became more and more opaque until by the time the radiologists got to the final images, it was incredibly obviously staring out from the lung. So at the end of the trial, the researchers asked each radiologist if the last trial seemed any different, if the last case seemed different, and if they noticed anything unusual about it, and finally they just straight up asked, did you notice the gorilla? Of the 24 radiologists, only 4 of them noticed the gorilla. When the others who didn't see the gorilla were shown those last slides again, they all immediately saw it, and also eye tracking data suggested that they all ''had'' looked directly at it during their first pass.

B: Ha! They tracked their eyes, awesome.

R: Yeah, but they didn't even process it. So it's funny and it's especially funny if you see the image of this ridiculous gorilla in a CT scan of a lung, but also it's a little scary because radiologists aren't just looking for a specific thing when they view these CT scans, they're looking for a specific thing while also supposedly keeping a general eye out for anything else unusual like that gorilla could have just as easily have been a tumor, a gorilla tumor.

E: But they were told specifically to look for the nodules, right? I mean if they'd just been told, here's some images, tell me what you see.

R: Well that's, in a way, and maybe Steve can expand upon this in a second, but I think that the purpose of this was to mimic what they would actually do in their work. They would be looking for a very specific thing, like they know they have to look out for these nodules, but they are also going to be looking out for anything that might be wrong in these scans. I don't think they're generally just given scans and just told, find something. They're told what they're supposed to be looking for, is that right Steve?

S: Yeah, basically. So radiologists are often given a history, like this is a patient with this history and I'm ordering this CT scan because I'm concerned about X. So they are going to pay particular attention to whatever it is the ordering physician is interested in. But they're also trained to read the whole scan, not just focus on the one thing that they're interested in. I did wonder myself though, whether or not there was an artefact in the study in that they knew they were being challenged, they knew they were being studied and they were specifically told, find the cancer nodules. And essentially that was meant, that was a test of inattentional blindness. They were given a task, and looking for something different than the gorilla and so they were processing information, filtering it in a way to look for the nodules, and they didn't process the gorilla, that's the whole point of inattentional blindness. I looked at– so when I first came across the study, I looked at the scan, I didn't see the gorilla either.

R: Yeah.

S: Because I was looking for pathology, not that I'm a radiologist, and I've read scans, so I was looking for stuff I was familiar with, but it was completely unfamiliar. It's also black on black, I mean let's point that out.

R: With a white border around it.

S: Yeah, but it's a black gorilla on the black lung, and it was just easy for me to completely filter it out.

J: Ah, here come the excuses. Come on, you missed it.

S: I missed it. It was inattentional blindness.

B: Steve, I just looked at the image that's on your blog right now, I mean a few minutes ago. And it took, I didn't see it immediately, I saw an alien head in this image, but I did not see the gorilla until I really started looking around.

S: Yeah.

R: Well it's worth noting again though, after they were told there is a gorilla in this picture, they all ''immediately'' saw it. ''Immediately''.

S: Yes. And now I ''can't not'' see it, looking at the scan. It's blaring out at me. But first time I looked at it, I didn't see it.

R: There's a bit of reassurance here because in addition to showing the radiologists these CT scans, the researchers had a control group of the average naïve observer, so somebody who was not trained to look for any of this. And in the control group, not a single one of them saw the gorilla, so it's possible that the radiologists are so good at looking for things like these nodules that they have a bit more ability to look for general problems and so they are actually better than the average person at inattentional blindness, at least when it comes to CT scans. The headlines on this, I've noticed, have been really grim, like ‘83% of radiologists miss a gorilla in a CT scan’. But I think it's actually reassuring that they’re doing–

S: It misses the point, yeah.

R: Yeah, they're doing quite a bit better than the average person, which to me suggests that this could be something that radiologists and others in similar positions can learn from and they can actually work to develop their skills at spotting these things.

S: Well let me tie this into the news item that Jay talked about, about the artificial intelligence. There are software programs that analyse images and highlight anything unusual. And again, it's a perfect combination of the pattern recognition of a radiologist with the ''lack'' of inattentional blindness, lack of all the cognitive biases that we have, information processing that a computer has, the combination of those two is much better than either one alone, and this is just an example of that, you know a computer wouldn't be fooled by that because it doesn't suffer inattentional blindness. Let me give one other aside. I wrote about this, when I was doing some further background research on it I came across a very interesting bit. Do you know when the first study was published that demonstrated the phenomenon of inattentional blindness was?

E: Uh, 1959?

S: (laughs) Cheater. Yes, 1959.<ref name=cornell>Cornell, A. D. (1959). An experiment in apparitional observation and findings Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 40 (701), 120-124<br>See Simons (2011), [http://theinvisiblegorilla.com/blog/2011/10/31/ghost-busters-parapsychology-and-the-first-study-of-inattentional-blindness/ Ghost busters, parapsychology, and the first study of inattentional blindness] on [http://theinvisiblegorilla.com/ theInvisibleGorilla.com]</ref> But this is fascinating, this was a researcher, was a ''ghost'' researcher publishing in the journal of the society for psychical research and they were, they did an interesting study where the guy draped himself in a white sheet and strolled down the middle of a campus, and nobody reported noticing anything unusual.

J: What, that is so– did they see him and fear to do the report? Or did they not see the guy?

S: Well hang on. So then he did a follow-up study where, during a movie trailer, he walked out onto the stage, you know all theaters have, like they had a screen on a stage, you know what I mean? So you could walk on the stage. So he walked across the stage in the ghost costume, in the sheet, and only 50% of the audience noticed anything unusual. So he inadvertently did the first experiment demonstrating inattentional blindness, even came up with the 50% figure, the same thing as the invisible gorilla. Although ''he'' interpreted it differently, he said, ‘ah, there must be something psychic and different about genuine ghost encounters’.

B: Ugh.

S: Because people notice them.

R: I don't think he had any figures on what percentage of people noticed an actual ghost.

S: No, still that was his conclusion. He also, in discussing it, was perplexed by the peoples' inability to notice the ghost and couldn't understand it. But of course now we know it's inattentional blindness. Isn't that interesting?

B: Yeah, it's cool.

E: Very.

=== Feathered Dino Follow Up <small>(35:34)</small> ===
Neurologica: [http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/transition-denial-and-feathered-dinosaurs/ Transition Denial and Feathered Dinosaurs]

S: Alright well let's move on. I'm going to do a quick follow-up to the feathered dinosaur piece that I talked about [[SGU_Episode_395#Feathered_Dinosaurs_.2840:40.29|last week]]. If you recall, scientists have discovered yet another feathered dinosaur in China, {{w| Eosinopteryx|Eosinopteryx brevipenna}}. It's a small feathered {{w|Theropoda|Theropod dinosaur}}, stubby wings, couldn't fly, with teeth, a bony tail, fingers and toes, lack of a lot of bird features, but it does have a lot of other features that are similar to birds so it puts it in that middle-zone between theropod dinosaurs and full birds. A beautiful transitional fossil, I wrote about the fact that Ken Ham and the ''Answers in Genesis'' creationists were denying that this is a transitional fossil, they said it was just a bird. So this is on the Answers in Genesis website, this is now their response to criticism, including from some of their own people, that how could you call this just a bird? This is by Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell, and let me just read you the money quote. She goes on and on quoting nonsense, then she says, "apart from those evolutionary pre-suppositions though, extinct birds that happen to have feathers, teeth, wings, claws and no bony keel remain just another kind of bird."<ref>Mitchell (2013), [http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2013/02/09/news-to-note-02092013 How can we say it’s a bird?], AnswersInGenesis.org</ref>

B: Oh god.

S: So she's like, she's saying that, ok so in the past there are extinct species of birds that happened to have teeth and bony tails and winged claws and couldn't fly because they had stubby wings, but they're just another kind of bird. Allrighty.

J: That's like saying. 'That's not a dinosaur, that's just a ''huge'' gecko with big sharp teeth that likes to eat flesh'. Please.

''(laughter)''

S: Right. So it's just defining out of existence transitional species, just calling it "just a bird". Calling it "just a bird" doesn't mean that ''in the past'' there were birds that looked awfully a lot like theropod dinosaurs and it's just a massive coincidence. Right. Pure, mindless denialism, I don't know what else to say about that. But I just thought that that follow up was interesting.

== Who's That Noisy? <small>(37:54)</small>==

S: Evan

E: Doctor?

S: Tell us about Who's That Noisy.

E: I'll play for you last week's Who's that Noisy.

B: You do that.

E: Here we go.

<blockquote>I love oxygen because it plays such an important role in keeping alive the terrestrial animals on this planet.</blockquote>

E: So, who was that?

R: She makes a lot of sense.

E: (laughs) Yes, a lot of sense.

R: I'll say that much. I agree with her.

E: A lot of correct answers. A lot of people are very familiar with the one and only {{w|Jane Goodall|Dr. Jane Goodall].

S: Jane Goodall.

R: Ah.

E: Talking about the importance of oxygen. From a segment from something called the RI channel called ''[http://richannel.org/collections/2012/my-favourite-element#/jane-goodall--oxygen My Favourite Element]'' in which they– this particular segment of this show goes around, and they talk to scientists and other famous personalities about, well, their favorite element and they give a little brief explanation as to why. So that was Jane Goodall's take on that. For those of you who don't know, Jane Goodall is a British primatologist, ethologist, anthropologist and a UN messenger of peace. She said in an interview once with Ira Flatow that she believes Bigfoot exists, I don't know if she retracted that since, this was many years ago, but you know...

R: Didn't she just say that she was hopeful or something? I don't think she came out and said he exists, did she?

E: Uh, here's what she said:
<blockquote>"I've talked to so many native Americans who all describe the same sounds, who have seen them, I've probably got about oh 30 books that have come from different parts of the world, from China, all over the place, and there's a little tiny snippet in the newspaper just last week which says that the British scientists have found what they believe to be Yeti hair, and the scientists in the Natural History Museum in London couldn't identify it as any known animal."<ref>Jane Goodall, Friday, September 27, 2002, during National Public Radio's (NPR) [http://www.sciencefriday.com/ Talk of the Nation: Science Friday] with Ira Flatow ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NmCmfdFAhQ YouTube clip])</ref></blockquote>

R: It's the worst.

E: "You'll be amazed when I tell you that I'm sure they exist." That's her quote.

R: Ah.

S: Although she does also say, "it's strange that there's never been a single authentic hide or hair of the bigfoot." So still she's...

E: So she's...

R: It's like she ''has'' the facts. Not using them the way they're meant to be used.

E: She just has to implement them. Come on doctor, just take the next step, you know what to do. But otherwise, you know, very famous.

S: Let's not focus on that, she's an awesome primatologist.

E: Yes, I agree.

S: An incredible legacy, great scientist.

E: And she loves oxygen, like so many others.

S: Yes, very fond of oxygen.

E: No doubt. Danny H is this week's winner.

S: Danny.

E: From alllll the people who guessed correctly, and there were a lot of you, thank you all for playing, but Danny from the message board.

S: Danny. I've got a Prescott(?).

(laughter)

E: Oh my gosh. Wonderful. Well done. Well played.

S: All right, so what have you got for this week?

E: This week, here we go. We have a puzzle this week because we know how much people love puzzles and there's never any controversy.

S: They're so puzzling.

E: Alright, here we go, this week's puzzle. "There are three switches downstairs."

S: These are light switches?

E: Light switches, thank you.

S: OK.

E: "There are three light switches downstairs."

J: (shouting) There are four lights!

(laughter)

R: I knew it was coming, I knew it was coming.

B: Oh, I didn't.

E: Wow. "There are three light switches downstairs. Each corresponds to one of three incandescent light bulbs up in the attic. You cannot see the lights in the attic from where the switches are located. You can turn the switches on and off and leave them in any position. How would you identify which switch corresponds to which light bulb, if you are only allowed one trip upstairs? You got that?

S: Very tricky.

B: Yep, it's a good one.

E: Go ahead and give us your answer to that. wtn at theskepticsguide.org is the official email address for your answers, or post them on our forums, [http://sguforums.com sguforums.com] and as I like to say every week, good luck everyone.

S: Thank you Evan.

E: Thank you.

== Name That Logical Fallacy <small>(41:57)</small> ==

S: We're going to do a Name That Logical Fallacy this week this email comes from Paul.

(baby sounds)

S: From Lynwood, Washington.

E: You OK, Jay?

S: (laughs) And he writes:

<blockquote>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiohalo Radiohalos] proves young earth. By the way, where is the missing link? Still missing? Have a blessed day, and know that GOD still holds you in his heart. Enjoy your show very much, always amused when man tries to disprove the glory of GODS [sic] creation. Take care.</blockquote>

S: Well thank you Paul, we appreciate your kind words.

E: And for listening.

R: Argument from ridiculous nonsense.

S: (laughs)

B: Yep, that's about it.

S: There might be some problems with the arguments. So there are, can we get the factual problems out of the way first? We actually did a segment, Bob I think you did this on the radio halos<ref>Episode 201: [[SGU_Episode_201#Questions_and_E-mails|Polonium Halos]]</ref>, these are the polonium halos, just refer you to that previous segment on the Sketpics' Guide, we went into that in detail. But no, it doesn't prove a young Earth, that has completely scientifically been demolished. The polonium halos are perfectly consistent with a 4 billion year old Earth, thank you. And we've talked about the missing link more than once on the show. There's no such thing as ''the'' missing link. There are of course gaps in the fossil record, but you'll never fill in all the gaps to an arbitrary level of detail. We have found connections between many major groups including, I don't know if he's specifically referring to a human-ape missing link, but you know we have– we find and keep finding more examples of hominids filling out the space between humans and our closest ape ancestors, so this is not– this is evidence for evolution, this is not a problem for evolution. But what do you think about his other sentiments here?

E: Well having a blessed day, I've got a big problem with that.

''(laughter)''

R: He's offered no evidence that the day is blessed.

J: You have no joy in your life Evan.

R: We've already established&ndash,

E: Apparently not, because I don't know that clip that you played earlier, but–

S: But he is amused when man tries to disprove the glory of God's creation.

J: Everything is the glory of God in his paradigm, so there's no way to prove or disprove anything.

S: Well I mean I think the main thing, to me, is that he's assuming his conclusion, he's making a circular argument here. He's assuming that God created the Earth and we're trying to disprove something that he knows to be true, the glory of God's creation. The question is, did God create the Earth, is the Earth the product of creation or of Evolution? That is a question we can address scientifically. He's stating his amusement in such a fashion where he's assuming his conclusion. Now I don't know if Paul is sincere in saying that he enjoys our show, and he may be listening to our show, if for no other reason than to hear what the quote-unquote "other side" has to say and we been emailed by other people who said that they started listening to our show to hear what the skeptics had to say, and that over time we slowly won them over, and in fact there's a couple who were creationists who listed to our show to mock us, and then now they're staunch skeptics who reject creationism.

B: Yeah, that was awesome.

E: Yeah, that was very satisfying.

S: We should not give up hope that Paul will eventually come around if he is listening to our show and absorbing much of it. So Paul, this is my challenge to you: you brought up two challenges to evolutionary theory, the missing link and radio halos. Investigate them, ''honestly''. Take a look at those, we talked about it, you can do the same research that we did, and then come back to us. Email us back if you're listening to this, and tell us what you think about those arguments after doing some actual research and looking into what the scientists have to say about these two points, because what we're saying is that you're just ''completely'' factually wrong on these two points about radio halos and the missing link. You got it wrong, in my opinion, because you're listening to propaganda, to secondary hostile sources, you are not listening to what scientists are actually saying. If you do, you'll see that we are completely right on those two points, and you're completely wrong. And if you think that that's incorrect, please explain to me in detail, without gratuitous reference to your conclusions, explain to me ''why'' those arguments debunk evolution. We'd be happy to go around with you on that. That was the real reason why I wanted to talk about this news item.

R: So you could throw down the gauntlet.

S: Yes.

E: Yeah.

J: (laughs) Steve. The poor guy.

E: Throw down with Steven Novella.

S: Alright, guys

R: You're just trash talking him.

== Interview with Brian Wecht <small>(46:56)</small> ==
DailyTech.com: [http://www.dailytech.com/Propellantless+Space+Drive+Called+EmDrive+Made+in+China/article29862.htm Propellantless Space Drive Called "EmDrive" Made in China]

S: Alright guys, let's go on to our interview. Joining us now is [http://necss.org/speakers/brian-wecht/ Brian Wecht]. Brian, welcome back to the Skeptics' Guide.

BW: Hey, thanks so much for having me.

B: Hey, Brian.

S: Brian is a theoretical physicist, a musician and a comedian.

BW: Mm-hmm.

S: Your physics work is on string theory. so basically you're Sheldon Cooper.

BW: I am Sheldon Cooper.

''(laughter)''

S: So Brian, we're bringing you on tonight ''mainly'' to talk about this one news item that has been making the rounds. Now I found this really fascinating. So tell us about this, this is a Chinese researcher claims he's actually produced a propellantless drive, or a so-called EM or electromagnetic drive. This is based upon some work that a British researcher has done. So get us up to speed, what is this all about.

BW: So based on, and I should say this is, it's a bit outside of my field, but based on what I've been reading, the idea is they create a cavity, so they have some metal plates that are arranged in a particular shape which is a cone here, and they put some electromagnetic radiation in, in this case it's microwaves. And the claim is that by doing that, and by having the cavity be shaped a particular way, effectively the waves can exert a pressure on one side of the cavity more than they can on the other, and make the thing move.

S: So there's a net force in one direction.

BW: That's the claim.

S: But that's supposed to be impossible.

BW: It is supposed to be impossible and I have to say that in reading this, everything in my gut as a physicist said that this should not be allowed to happen.

B: Primarily wouldn't that be for a couple of things, like {{w|Newton's_laws_of_motion#Newton.27s_third_law|Newton's third law}}, and the {{w|Momentum|conservation of momentum}}, those are the two that I keep seeing and it kind of makes sense. The idea with Newton's Third Law is that every action has an equal an opposite reaction clearly isn't really happening here. And then there's conservation of momentum, you've got this closed system, momentum has got to be constant, and this kind of ties back into Newton's third law, so if a rocket moves in one direction without something moving in the opposite direction, how is it going to, it can't really go.

BW: The big one is especially the conservation of momentum. So unless you're exerting a net force on something from the outside, then momentum should be conserved, and here it's a closed system, momentum should be conserved. I mean it's not like anyone is pushing it from the outside, so it appears to violate conservation of momentum. Now if you read the papers, what they claim, and I don't really buy this claim, the claim is that because the electromagnetic field has some momentum in it, so this is something that I think may or may not be widely appreciated, but an electromagnetic wave actually carries momentum.

B: Right.

BW: I don't know if you guys, do you guys know what {{w|optical tweezers}} are?

B: Oh yeah, they're cool.

BW: They're the best things ever, basically you use little lasers to push beads or random objects around. You can finely tune these lasers to actually move objects. So electromagnetic radiation certainly can exert a force on things, so I think from what I've been reading, the scientists' claim is that ok, so you're taking momentum out of the radiation inside the cavity but still momentum should be conserved, so I don't understand how the thing can actually move.

S: Yeah so here [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EmDrive Roger Sawyer] is the British researcher who has been pushing this for a while and he wrote a reply to a New Scientist article about this and this is what he says. He says, "as the engine accelerates, momentum is lost by the electromagnetic wave, and gained by the spacecraft, thus satisfying the conservation of momentum. In this process energy is lost within the resonator, thus satisfying the conservation of energy."<ref>New Scientist blog: [http://www.newscientist.com/blog/fromthepublisher/2006_10_01_archive.html Em drive on trial] (Oct 3 2006)</ref></blockquote>

S: So that seems to be the crux of the claim, that they're ''transferring'' momentum from the electromagnetic wave to the spacecraft itself. To me, as a non-theoretical physicist, it kind of seems reasonable. To me, so here's the analogy that came to my mind, you tell me if this is apt. There's a conservation of energy, energy can't be created or destroyed, but it can change forms, you could essentially do E=mc<sup>2</sup>, matter could be converted into energy, and that could superficially ''seem'' as if you're creating energy until you account for the fact that mass, matter, is energy, just another form of it. So does the same apply to conservation of momentum where momentum is conserved, but you're converting from one form, in this case electromagnetic wave, to another form, the spacecraft. Could that hold? Could that make sense?

BW: I mean you can, you can use an electromagnetic wave to push things like the optical tweezers, but at the end of the day, if it's a closed system, the net momentum of the thing, you know what the momentum is because you can measure the centre of mass and there's no radiation outside that thing either, it's all contained inside, so I don't understand how you can actually get a net momentum of the thing if it really is an honestly closed system. Because you can actually set the average momentum is the, it's the mass times the velocity of the thing very roughly speaking. So OK, maybe there's some momentum, there certainly is momentum in the electromagnetic wave but at the end of the day the thing either has a momentum or it doesn't and if there's no external force there shouldn't be any change in the momentum and momentum must be conserved.

B: Yeah Steve, I think the fact that it's a closed system is one of the things that is most against this. The only thing that I've come across that even makes remote sense to me is that you could have some sort of asymmetric thermal glow around the box but that would be so tiny and that kind of reminds me of the...

S: Pioneer?

B: The Pioneer probes, but that would be negligible and ridiculous, as low as even what they're claiming, it would be smaller than that I think. But it's the closed system I think that really is the nasty part of this that won't go away and I mean if he's got this, great. Send it to us, have somebody look at it, send it to some university or some government agency and have them check this and just prove it, it shouldn't be hard to prove that you can do this, it's like a perpetual motion machine.

BW: The thing I love is, like you said I'm a string theorist, so when I see something with data, I'm like "Oh my god, that's real science." So yeah that's exactly my reaction too is that if this really happens, it shouldn't be, you know it may be very sensitive, but it should not be impossible to duplicate.

B: Guys real quick, don't forget, Bowing's Phantom Works{{Link needed}} actually looked at one of these guy's looked at one of this guy's prototypes and they didn't pursue it, so to me, I mean that's not evidence that this is baloney but to me this is just another little thing that you've got to consider.

S: But that's where we are now, so the Chinese say that they've built one, it's producing this tiny amount of acceleration, and this is like the perpetual motion machines where they say OK I've built one and it's producing this tiny amount of energy, but we can scale it up. But of course it never scales up because the tiny amount of energy or in this case the tiny amount of momentum is probably a round-off error that they're then multiplying by 50,000 and producing an apparent effect or they're just, their measurements are off by a teeny tiny, itsy bitsy amount, right?

BW: That's the big question, right. Is the effect they're claiming, how does that compare to their error? Their ability to detect. And that's something I certainly don't know the answer to, but if they can't convincingly say that the effect that they're measuring is much larger than their precision it doesn't matter, that's not a result.

S: Yeah now some people are saying, yeah start pushing satellites around, and then we'll believe you. That's like you know, run your house off your perpetual motion machine and then I'll pay attention. You know, your free energy device or whatever it is. But it never scales up to anything practical because they're all living in the world below the threshold of noise where it's just all in the errors whether it's mathematical or tiny measurement errors or whatever, and it never does scale up. We'll see, I mean this one is interesting, it seems that the consensus is that this is the equivalent of perpetual motion, you can't violate conservation of momentum, his hand-waving explanation of transferring electromagnetic momentum from the electromagnetic wave to the spacecraft superficially sounds OK but I guess it doesn't really solve the problem of the conservation of momentum. It's also called the reactionless dive because it's not reacting with the outside world in any way, so if you were sending electromagnetic waves off in one direction then sure, that would produce thrust but that's not a reactionless drive.

B: Yeah, the other aspect to that is some people kind of confuse it and they say, oh it's a rocket engine with no fuel, and that's really not true, it's without reaction mass.

S: Without propellant.

B: Right, or propellant. The fuel is whatever you would use to power the reactor that generates the electricity.

BW: Do you guys know the article about this, this has appeared in a journal or not? I don't remember offhand.

S: Well the Chinese are not disclosing their information because they're saying oh we have to make sure we have all the patents and we don't get scooped, so they're saying it's going to take them a year before they're actually going to have transparency with their data. So that's fishy, right?

BW: Yeah. Super fishy.

B: Alright. See you in a year.

S: That's super fishy. Sawyer, he wrote the theoretical papers and they're online, you can get them on the New Scientist website that I'll link to, or at [http://www.emdrive.com/ emdrive.com].

BW: Yeah, he has a website with a FAQ and all these, you know the answers to every objection that you could possibly raise to his device, right.

S: And reading the comments is funny because the cold fusion people have jumped on board with this.

B: Oh boy. Yeah, yeah.

BW: Yeah.

S: And all the conspiracy theories about you know, the scientific priesthood says it's impossible so they don't want to research it.

E: Scientific priesthood, yep.

S: Well what we need to do is hook up a cold fusion reactor to an EM drive, then we basically have anti-gravity, man.

BW: Unlimited power.

E: Mowhaha.

S: It would be super cool if this worked.

BW: If this somehow works, it's cool from any number of perspectives, right? It's cool from any number of perspectives, it's cool from a practical perspective, like we might actually be able to use this thing for thrust but then it also says that clearly a lot of people maybe don't really understand physics as well as they thought. So anytime you have to go back and reevaluate your assumptions, that's great.

S: Yeah I mean it's worth saying, we would love for this to work.

B: Oh my god. Some people were predicting that if you had a superconducting cavity, something like an EM drive, you could eventually lift 3 tons with just 1 kW of input power, I mean can you imagine, three tons.

S: That sounds crazy.

B: Yeah, it would be amazing.

S: Even if what they're claiming now is the limit of it, which is a tiny amount of propulsion, that is a very effective way of moving ships around the solar system because you won't have to carry propellant with you and you won't have to accelerate the propellant and therefore the rocket equation is off the table and this would be massively efficient, even with its tiny acceleration.

B: It's actually even more efficient than an ion thruster, it's like four times as much thrust, half as much power, with no propellant needed to be carried on.

BW: Certainly the effects that they're describing now are really, really tiny.

B: Yeah, 72 grams of thrust with 2,500 watts.

S: Right, well you just need a lot of them. So it would be cool, but don't hold your breath is the bottom line.

BW: Yes, that's right. I'm doubtful.

S: You're skeptical, right.

BW: Actually I was going to say skeptical, then stopped.

(laughter)

J: Hey but there's something cool that you don't have to hold your breath for that's coming up.

BW: Amazing segue.

R: Yeah, we're really good at those.

BW: Yeah, I know.

S: We've been getting better, we've been practising.

R: Yeah, you should have heard us seven years ago.

S: So what are you talking about, Jay?

R: Get to the point, Jay.

J: Brian and George Hrab were tasked with coming up with a new event for NECSS that's unique to NECSS that's going to be a unique event. Brian, why don't you tell us what you guys came up with?

BW: So the idea, what George and I came up with, we're both super psyched about it. It's called ''Stimulus, Response - NECSS of science and improvisation'' and the idea is that we wanted to create an event which was really particularly unique and also unique to NECSS so the idea is that we're going to have two improvised performances, so the evening is going to start out with George and his cousin, is that right? Roman?

J: That's right, yep.

BW: Yep. So George of course is an incredible musician and his cousin Roman is an artist and they're going to spontaneously create a simultaneous work of music and art at the same time and draw inspiration off of each other. So that'll be the first tack. After that we're going to get a panel together of George and Roman, we're going to have Steve, and Steve will talk about the neuroscience of improvisation, we'll get to hear his scientific input on how exactly you're able to create these events, how you're able to come up with the kind of stuff that people have seen. Also Heather Berlin who is a phenomenal scientist will be on the panel as well. I'll be moderating. And then we're also going to get some improv comedians, the second act is this panel discussion of the nature of improvisation and in part, it's sort of like what the hell were you thinking when you did this, and then go to the scientists, Steve and Heather, for their scientific input. Then also talk to some people who improvise comedy on a regular basis, and then they're going to take over on act three and then do a whole improvised set, basically a comedy set based on an interview with some prominent NECSS attendee which we're not announcing yet because we have to confirm, but some really awesome person who will talk about their life or talk about some particularly interesting thing that they've done. The comedians are then going to draw inspiration from him or her and then create a 20-25 minute set based on that.

B: Awesome.

J: I can't wait to see this thing, man.

S: All right Brian, thanks for coming on the show with us and helping us debunk this latest bit of pseudoscience.

BW: (laughs) Well great, thanks.

S: And I'll really look forward to NECSS and seeing you there and to what you guys put together on Friday night.

BW: Yeah thanks so much for having me and I can't wait to see you guys in April.

S: Alright take care.

BW: You too.

B: Thanks, Brian.

R: Thanks, Brian.

E: See ya, Brian.

== Science or Fiction <small>(1:01:44)</small> ==

S: Each week, I come up with three science news items or facts, two real and one fake. I challenge my panel of skeptics to tell me which one is the fake.

E: You must yell the work fake at us.

R: Yeah. There's a lot of anger there.

S: Fake stuff gets me mad, what can I tell you? Are you guys ready for this week.

J: Sure.

R: Mmhmm.

B: Then why are you making it up?

S: I know, I hate myself when I do it. Here we go. [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD000980.pub4/abstract;jsessionid=DE22CBF8899F8609FE829A25BCF257A5.d03t04 Item #1]: A new review concludes that Vitamin C supplementation halves the incidence of the common cold. [http://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2013/february/feb13_unconsciousthought.html Item #2]: New research finds that decision making continues subconsciously even when we have turned our attention to a new task. And[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130212075117.htm item #3]: A recent study finds that African American women require twice the supplemental doses of vitamin D as do Caucasian women. Jay, go first.

J: The one about the vitamin C, I would be shocked if that's true, right out of the gate, just because I've read so many times that vitabmin C does not have an effect on that. I'm assuming here, by the way it's written down, you say vitamin C supplementation, that it's not just that they take it when you have a cold, that over a long period of time. Because we know that if you take it when you get a cold that it does absolutely nothing, or so I think. But OK, alright that one's on the back burner. The second one about decision making continuing even after you've turned your attention to a new task, I think that's true, of course it's true, your brain isn't just thinking or working on what's in the front of your mind, what's in the front of your mind, what's in your conscious mind, it's constantly pulling apart things and analysing things, so that one to me 100% fact, without a question of a doubt. And the third one about African American women requiring twice the supplemental doses of vitamin D as Caucasian women, that's interesting. It's interesting, you know maybe in a low-sun situation under normal living conditions, people are indoors more than outdoors and maybe because of the colour of their skin they don't absorb as much vitamin D somehow, meaning they need longer exposure to sunlight to absorb the same amount of vitamin D for their skin to produce as much vitamin D as a Caucasian person. Huh. That's OK so I could make an argument either way for that. So now it's the vitamin C one which we already know for years and years we've all heard that vitamin C does not help with the common cold mow this is a reverse on that. Interesting. Or the third one. I'm going against my gut and I'm going to select the third one, the vitamin D one as the fake. And the die roll is... number 1.

S: OK, Rebecca.

R: Alright, this is tough because I had an immediate reaction to these in that vitamin C, the vitamin C one immediately sounded wrong and the other two immediately sounded right to me, and in fact African American women requiring twice as much vitamin D, in my head that's obvious and solved and done. I was already under the impression that African Americans required more vitamin D and that vitamin D deficiency led to a higher incidence of certain diseases and maybe even cancers in African Americans compared to in Caucasians. But I don't know, so that one immediately sounded right, and the idea that your decision making continues subconsciously, that immediately sounds right not because I've seen any studies on it but just because I've always felt like that's what works for me, like I input things in my brain before I go to bed and then I wake up with the answer, things like that, or if I'm working on something creative and I'm hitting a roadblock I just go play video games or I do something else or I work out or something and then when I come back I've got it, you know. So that seems obvious to me too and like Jay said, everything I thought I knew about vitamin C is that it was ineffective. But I'm always suspicious when things seem that obvious that means that something's screwy.

B: Or maybe that's what he wants you to think!

R: I know! Maybe it's the old double cross! I'm going to go with the vitamin C one being wrong, because I fell for it I guess, I don't know. That one.

S: OK. Evan.

E: Vitamin C supplementation halves the incidence of the common cold. I think we've talked about vitamin C before in this regard, Jay some of the things you were talking about ring bells. If you were to build it up in your body ahead of time and maintain a higher than average level of vitamin C then perhaps that could work. Decision making continues subconsciously even when we've turned our attention to a new task. Sure, I don't see why that couldn't be the case, which makes me suspicious. Continues subconsciously, boy we do so many things subconsciously, I'm probably doing a whole bunch of things subconsciously right now and I couldn't describe them because they are what? Subconscious. And I'm already on to a new task because I'm on to the third one. African American women require twice the supplemental doses of vitamin D as do Caucasian women. Would that be because the African American women have a harder time absorbing the vitamin D from the sun, from sunlight? That would seem to make sense on some level, but I've not heard vitamin D being part of the need for women as opposed to men, so I don't know about this one, I'm kind of thinking that this one's wrong because twice the supplemental doses of vitamin D, yeah I don't think that's right at all actually, I don't think that Caucasian women need supplements of vitamin D at all and therefore African American women would not require twice the supplemental dose so I'll say that one's the fiction.

S: And Bob.

B: I had a similar reaction to Rebecca. Seemed pretty straightforward. I'll start with three. African Americans requiring more vitamin D, yeah it made total sense, you've got more melanin, you absorb less sun, therefore you make less vitamin D. Twice as much may sound like a lot but you don't necessarily need a lot anyway, so twice a little is still not that big. The subconscious decision making yeah, I mean my go-to example for that is I'm trying to think of a word, can't think of it, and then almost invariably, 10, 15 minutes, an hour later, bam! It just totally pops right into my head, clearly something was looking for it without my conscious control. And then the vitamin C, yeah I mean how long have we heard that it's not dramatic, you don't really need to go crazy with vitamin C, it's not going to have that much of an effect on the common cold. So what the hell, I know it's... I'm just going to go with the common cold and say that one is fiction.

R: You and me, Bob. You and me.

S: OK, interesting. So you all agree on the middle one that new research finds that decision making continues subconsciously even when we have turned our attention to a new task, you all think that one is science, and that one is... science. Yep, that was the easy one this week. But what researchers found is they did actual brain studies where they imaged the different parts of the brain functioning and they had subjects, they gave them a task, then they had them move on to a different task and they found that the decision making parts of the brain were still active even when they had moved on to a distracting task.

B: That's cool.

S: Something that didn't involve decision making, that was something like doing math, you know just something specific but not involved in the decision-making process. They also said this is consistent with research that shows that decision making is improved when, well this is actually a follow-up to that research, so prior research showed that if you take a break from a decision making task, that it may actually improve the quality of the decisions that you make. Now the question was, is that because your brain is still working on the problem or is it because you take a break from the problem and then you come back with a fresh look, fresh outlook? You know does it sort of recharge your batteries? So this study gave the subjects the task, then gave them a distracting task and it showed that the brain is still working in the background, subconsciously, same parts of the brain are active, the decision-making, you know the parts that were active during the active decision-making. So that, pretty strong evidence that that is the case. Not surprising, I agree with Bob, I think most people probably have a similar experience of trying to think of something and then you move on and then boom! The information pops into your head. What's going on there? Obviously it seems like it was, the solution was derived subconsciously and then presented to your conscious self and that does seem to be what the neuroscience shows. Well let's go back to number one, a new review concludes that vitamin C supplementation halves the incidence of the common cold. Bob and Rebecca think this one is the fiction. Jay and Evan think this one is science. And this one is... science.

J: Aha.

E: Oooh.

R: Aaargh.

B: Shit.

R: Damn you, Novella!

S: A little surprising. This is a Cochrane Library review. Now there's some details in here that are worth pointing out.

B: I'm sure there are.

S: The improvement, the reduction I should say, the reduction in the incidence of contracting the common cold was only in those studies that showed, that involved people that were under some kind of physical activity, like engaging in a sport or in the military or essentially they were under some physical stress. If you weren't under physical stress that 50% figure does not hold.

B: Under physical stress or do you mean generally fit?

S: No no, under physical stress, yeah not just in good shape, but you had to be at the time you were supplementing were subjected to some kind of physical stress. So the thinking there is that the vitamin C is helping you somehow compensate for that physical stress. The review identified 5 double blind placebo controlled trials which showed that. Jay, you pointed out something that was very important though. These were supplementation trials meaning that you're taking it all the time. Treatment trials where you give vitamin C once you contract the cold generally show no effect. The review did note that in adults, the duration of the cold is reduced by about 8% with vitamin C supplementation and in children by about 14%. These have generally been considered to be clinically insignificant, what are you going to have your cold lessened by a few hours, you know? This is 1 to 2 grams a day. The effects of vitamin C are pretty modest outside of this one parameter. I have to say personally I'm not 100% convinced of this, I have to like really dissect the quality of the trials that they're citing.

R: Then maybe it shouldn't have been in Science or Fiction, I'm just saying, Steve. Just saying.

S: Well that's why I said "a study concludes".

R: Just saying. I don't like your weasel language.

S: A review concludes that. I'm not concluding that.

R: Yeah, weasel.

S: I didn't say "demonstrates", I just said that a review concludes.

R: We can amuse ourselves with self-lies.

S: The whistlepig? I picked that wording very deliberately. But it is what it is. I mean it's a Cochrane Review, it seems pretty up and up, but I'm just a little suspicious of it. The conclusion, I don't agree with the authors' recommendations based upon this because they say that regular supplementation is inexpensive and low risk so why not do it even if you're not sure if it's worthwhile or not and they eventually said, as an individual you could try it out and see if it works for you which I think is kind of a worthless recommendation. You're not going to be able to tell if it works for you, its all going to be placebo effect and anecdote. But the other thing is given the number of colds that the average person has a year, it's really not worth, in my opinion, taking a gram or two of vitamin C all year round just to prevent one cold, even if this data is consistent, or shorten the duration by a tiny amount.

R: Maybe spend that money on hand soap, or one of those face masks.

S: Yeah right. It's probably, yeah probably better off just having good hand hygiene. And I'm not so convinced that high doses of vitamin C are benign. It could be associated with a higher risk of heart disease for example. So I would not give the same bottom line recommendation as this study. Think that the only thing that this really adds that you could really make a case for is if you are going to be under extreme physical stress, then supplementing with vitamin C may help your body deal with that stress. I general recommendation for supplementation I think is not warranted by this data. All of this means that a recent study finds that African American women require twice the supplemental doses of vitamin D as do Caucasian women is the fiction and Bob and Rebecca, you engaged in exactly the reasoning I was hoping that you would because that certainly was my thought.

B: Screw you.

S: And it's plausible, this is why it was studied, because people with dark skin absorb less vitamin D from the sun and so you might think they need more supplementation. But what they found, what the study found was that African American women and Caucasian women required the exact same amount of vitamin D supplementation, that their base levels that they're getting from the sun didn't really have an effect on how much oral supplementation they needed, that the same recommendations would suffice for both groups.

B: I disagree with that conclusion.

S: (laughs)

E: So women do need additional vitamin D?

S: Well it depends, I think that the best recommendation right now is just to get your vitamin D levels checked with your primary care doctor, and then if it's on the low side then it's reasonable to supplement. If you're not under the regular care of a physician, then it's a little hard to say because there's so many variables, where do you live, how much sun exposure do you get, how dark is your skin. Combine all those, and also the time of year. You know your needs in January are going to be different than your needs in July, but if you really want to know just get your levels checked.

R: What about men?

S: The study only involved women so I don't know, I'm assuming it's the same.

R: What about men?

S: I don't know, this study...

R: I'm not assuming does(?).

S: Yeah I know. I would suspect that it would not be dramatically different but this study only involved women for whatever reason.So good work, Jay and Evan.

J: Thank you.

E: Yeah.

S: And the die went with Bob and Rebecca this time and failed.

J: The die died.

== Skeptical Quote of the Week <small>(1:17:24)</small> ==

S: Well Jay, do you have a quote for us this week?

J: I sure do. This is a quote sent in by my friend Craig Good over at Pixar. Craig wanted to congratulate me about my son and also sent a pretty cool quote. The quote is:

<blockquote>Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known.</blockquote>

J: That quote was penned by Michel de Montaigne. Montiag-ne. Montiai. Taig.

S: Montaigne.

J: Montaigne (laughing). Michael de Montaigne yeah!

S: Alright, thanks Jay. And thanks for joining me this week everyone.

B: You're welcome, Steve.

R: Thank you, Steve.

E: It was good to be joined to you.

J: Thanks Stevie!

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

{{Outro1}}

== References ==
<references/>

{{Navigation}}

User:Teleuteskitty/Draft SGU list

2013-09-20T22:39:49Z

Teleuteskitty: added segment links for 348, 357, 395, 410, 411

{| class="mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2013
|range = (episodes 390-...)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 426
|date = Sep 14
|desc = 9/11, Motivated Numeracy, Arctic Ice, Robot Traders, Teenage Exorcists, Homeopathic Vaccines, Mission to Mars, Bdellovibrio
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 425
|date = Sep 7
|desc = Last Thylacine, NASA Spiders, Chicken Wings and Penis Size, TCM for Flu, New Element 115, Pox Parties, Aromatherapy
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 424
|date = Aug 31
|desc = Cara Santa Maria, Paul Ehrlich, Energized Water, Probiotics for Mental Health, Death by Iridology, Immortality, Authority
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 423
|date = Aug 24
|desc = Sanal Edamaruku, Vesuvius, No Proof of Creation, Area 51, Hydrating Beer, Indian Rationalist Shot Dead, Free Roaming Planets, Sugar and Hyperactivity
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 422
|date = Aug 17
|desc = Hazel Bishop, NDE Explained, TV Watching, Labor and Autism, Magenta Planet, Spontaneous Baby Combustion, Special Report: Onionated
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 421
|date = Aug 10
|desc = Michael Mann, Smithsonian, Dead Monk Alive, Lab Grown Burger, Dolphin Memory, Cattle Mutilations, Gluten Follow Up, HPV Vaccine
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 420
|date = Aug 3
|desc = Robert House, Hunt for Alien Spaceships, 3-D Printing, Lunar Calendar, Full Moon and Sleep, Man-Chimp-Pig
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 419
|date = Jul 27
|desc = Insulin, Giant Virus, Gluten, Death Wave, The Pitch Drops, Revenge of the Conspiracy Theorists. Cassini Picture of Earth
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 418
|date = Jul 20
|desc = Live at TAM 2013, Guest Rogue: John Rennie, Viking 1, Special Report: Grand Canyon, The End of the World, Sailing Stones, Scrotal Evolution, Moons of Pluto, James Randi and Jamy Ian Swiss, Questions: Cynicism, Monsanto
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 417
|date = Jul 13
|desc = Paul Offit, Carl Zimmer and Erno Rubik, Seeing Through Walls, First in Flight, Tylenol and Fear, Spinning Pharoah, Head Transplant
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 416
|date = Jul 6
|desc = Guest Rogue: Randall Snyder, Pasteur, Special Report: Leaving Mormonism, Crop Circles in History, Constructing Morality, Movie Review: World War Z, Patent Troll Follow Up
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 415
|date = Jun 29
|desc = Roy Wolford, Podcasting Patent, Class System in Mice, Anti-GMO Pseudoscience, Skunk Ape, Special Report: GyroStim and Science Journalism, Staticman
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 414
|date = Jun 22
|desc = Daniel Loxton, Osteoarthritis, Patenting DNA, Foot Fungus, Chinese Fake Alien, New Type of Star, Can We Know Everything
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 413
|date = Jun 15
|desc = First Blood Transfusion, Vaccine Refusal, Seeing Ultraviolet, Ape Feet, Elizabeth I a Man?, Special Report: Don McLeroy Follow Up, Living on Sunshine
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 412
|date = Jun 8
|desc = Joshie Berger, Missile Mail, Star Trek Review, Kepler Broken, Small Hadron Collider, Carnivorous Sponge, Pollen
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 411
|date = Jun 1
|desc = [[Scott Thurman & Vijay Dewan interview: The Revisionaries (411)|Vijay Dewan & Scott Thurman interiew]], [[SGU_Episode_411#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.283:41.29|Cosmic Background Radiation]], [[Mermaids: Animal Planet's docudrama (411)|Mermaids]], [[Angelina Jolie's double mastectomy (411)|Angelina Jolie]], [[Prosopagnosia sufferers: Brad Pitt & Rebecca Watson (411)|Prosopagnosia]], [[Flying car technology (411)|Flying Car]], [[Raw honey (411)|Raw Honey]]
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 410
|date = May 25
|desc = Guest Rogue: Richard Saunders, [[SGU_Episode_410#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.2804:35.29|Geek Pride Day]], [[James McCormick Sentenced (410)|McCormick Sentenced]], [[Meteroid Hits Moon (410)|Meteroid Hits Moon]], [[DSM-5 Changes (410)|DSM-5]], [[Placenta Madness (410)|Placenta Madness]], [[Water Heaters and Legionella (410)|Water Heater Follow-up]], [[Don McLeroy Follow-Up (410)|McLeroy Interview Follow-up]]
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 409
|date = May 18
|desc = Heather Berlin, Nicholas II, Your Senses in Space, Talking Plants, Flowing Glass, Book Review: Ender's Game, Water Heaters, Atacama Specimen
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 408
|date = May 11
|desc = Don McLeroy, Sylvia Browne Wrong Again, Cosmic Rays and Lightening, Cicada Return
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 407
|date = May 4
|desc = Mystery Guest, SGU 8 year Anniversary, Funding Science, Curse Scam, Fusion Reactor, Einstein Still Correct, Oblivion Review, Is SETI Science
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 406
|date = Apr 27
|desc = Samuel Morse, Mars One, Bomb Detector Fraud, TED and Chopra, Creationism and Dinosaurs, Bitcoin Follow Up
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 405
|date = Apr 20
|desc = Guest Rogues: Jon Ronson and Simon Singh, Sundogs, Simon Singh's New Book, Bitcoins, Internet Criminals, BRAIN Project, Evidence of Dark Matter, Hallucinating Music
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 404
|date = Apr 13
|desc = Live at NECSS 2013, Guest Rogue: Cathleen Carr, Apollo 13, Remembering Perry, Conspiracy Survey, Misused Scientific Terms, New Type of Supernova, Vaccines Make You Gay, Anti-Vaccine Propaganda on Twitter, Live Q&A: Effects of Alcohol, Online Health Inform
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 403
|date = Apr 6
|desc = Ian O'Neill, Isaac Asimov, Fairy Circle Update, Zombie Parasites, Retraction Watch, Genetic Transistors, Prescribing Placebos
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 402
|date = Mar 30
|desc = Guest Rogue: Karl Withakay, [[Homeopathy Debate at UConn (402)|Homeopathy Debate]], [[Nine-year-old Finds Dinosaur Fossil (402)|Small Pterosaur]], [[Fracking Causing Earthquakes (402)|Fracking Earthquakes]], [[Man Who Never Has to Eat Again (402)|Never Eat Again]], [[Voyager at the Edge (402)|Voyager at the Edge]], [[More Than Gravity Theory (402)|More Than Gravity]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 401
|date = Mar 23
|desc = Pons and Fleischmann, Marshmallow Test, Bacteria Everywhere, Acupuncture HIV, Dr. Oz Sued, New Pope, Special Report: Why Worry?
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 400
|date = Mar 16
|desc = Lawrence Oates, Meteorite Fossils, Duane Gish Dies, Acupuncture Meta-Analysis, Live to 150, Close Star Discovered
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 399
|date = Mar 9
|desc = Guest Rogue: George Hrab, Hans Christian
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 398
|date = Mar 2
|desc = Jon Ronson, Compact Disk, Life Around Dying Stars, Ancient Lost Continent, Electronic Tattoos, Google Glass, Ouch
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 397
|date = Feb 23
|desc = Heisenberg, Russian Meteor, Spontaneous Human Combustion, Cosmos Unstable, Bigfoot DNA Published, Intellectually Lazy, Special Report: Retro Futurism
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 396
|date = Feb 16
|desc = Brian Wecht, Chien-Shiung Wu, AI Doctor, Ball and Cup Magic, Gorilla in the Bronchi, Feathered Dino Follow Up
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 395
|date = Feb 9
|desc = [[George Hrab interview: Plans for NECSS (395)|George Hrab interview]], [[SGU_Episode_395#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.281:07.29|Space Medicine]], [[Russian lake monster (395)|Russian Lake Monster]], [[Richard III: Bones found (395)|Bones of Richard III]], [[Is the age of the scientific genius over? (395)|Scientific Genius]], [[Fear: Carbon dioxide and the amygdala (395)|Without Fear]], [[Feathered dinosaurs: Creationists deny transitional fossils (395)|Feathered Dinosaurs]], [[Skeptical puzzle: Tuesday Boy answer (395)|Puzzle]]
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 394
|date = Feb 2
|desc = John Rennie, Groundhog Day, Up Goer Five, China Smog, Vaccine Court, Deer Antler Spray, Perpetual Motion
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 393
|date = Jan 26
|desc = Guest Rogue: Brian Dunning, [[Zack Kopplin interview: Creationism and school boards (393)|Zack Kopplin interview]], [[SGU_Episode_393#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.280:51.29|Brachistochrone curve]], [[Manti Te'o hoax (393)|Manti Te'o Hoax]], [[River on Mars (393)|River on Mars]], [[Neanderthal baby (393)|Neanderthal Baby]], [[Nikola Tesla: Report by Brian Dunning (393)|Special Report: Nikola Tesla]], [[Vomitorium correction (393)|Vomitorium]], [[Brian Dunning & Lizzie Li Taylor interview: Skeptoid in China (393)|Skeptoid Chinese]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 392
|date = Jan 19
|desc = [[Massimo Polidoro interview: Italian skepticism (392)|Massimo Polidoro]], [[Neon lights (392)|Neon Signs]], [[Predicting murders (392)|Predicting Murders]], [[Lead and crime (392)|Lead and Crime]], [[Biggest thing in the Universe (392)|Biggest Thing in the Universe]], [[Million dollar challenge: Steve Volk objects (392)|Defending the $1m Challenge]], [[Turkey's disappearing evolution books (392)|Turkey Bans Evolution Books]], [[Quickie with Bob: Apophis update (392)|Apophis Update]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 391
|date = Jan 12
|desc = Dr. James Bedford, Below Absolute Zero, Burzynski Challenge, Genome Editing, Celebrity Pseudoscience, Oz Pseudoscience
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 390
|date = Jan 5
|desc = Massimo Pigliucci, FM Radio, Psychic Predictions 2012, Cosmic Rays and Dementia
|status = complete
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2012
|range = (episodes 338-389)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 389
|date = Dec 29
|desc = SGU 2012 Year in Review, Thomas Fuller, Best and Worst of 2012, In Memoriam
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 388
|date = Dec 22
|desc = Coelacanth, Sandy Hook Massacre, China Stabbing, AVN to Change Name, Megalapteryx Foot, Invisibility Cloak, Special Report: The Hobbit and High Frame Rate
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 387
|date = Dec 15
|desc = Joshie Berger, homosexuality and the DSM, Creationist Tactics, Truth in Education, Dawn of Life, History of Cheese, Vampire Warning, Ocean Robots
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 386
|date = Dec 8
|desc = Guest Rogue: Phil Plait, Atoms for Peace, End of the World, Bug UFO Follow Up, Inattentional Amnesia, Curiosity Kurfuffle, Grand Canyon Age, Moon Formation
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 385
|date = Dec 1
|desc = Banachek, Taman Shud Mystery, Not-So-Terror Bird, Bloop Solved, Hijacking DNA, Bigfoot DNA, Makemake, Theory
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 384
|date = Nov 24
|desc = Guest Rogue: Richard Wiseman, Origin of Species, Special Report: Richard's Dream Research, Aspartame Study, Being a Psychopath, Type Ia Supernova, Fecal Transplants
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 383
|date = Nov 17
|desc = Bruce Hood, Jonestown Massacre, Denver UFO, Math Hurts, Communicating with the Vegetative, Nearby Rogue Planet, Twisted Light, Bicycle Physics
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 382
|date = Nov 10
|desc = Goddess of Reason, Life in the Universe, UFOlogy Dying, Chelation Therapy, Psychic Fail, Universe Rotating, In Memorium: Mike LaCelle
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 381
|date = Nov 3
|desc = Live at CSICon 2012, Sputnik 2, In Memorium: Paul Kurtz and Leon Jaroff, Big Bang Conference, Italian Earthquake Scientists Convicted, Whale Makes Human Sounds, PANDAS Controversy, Reporting Ghost Stories, Live Q&A
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 380
|date = Oct 27
|desc = Genetic Logic Circuit, Efficient Language, Closest Exoplanet, Alien Hacker, Zombie Bite
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 379
|date = Oct 20
|desc = Jamy Ian Swiss, Norman Borlaug, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, DNA Half Life, The Simulated Universe, Supersonic Jump, Geoglyph
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 378
|date = Oct 13
|desc = [[Robert Hutton interview: SGUTranscripts.org (378)|Robert Hutton:SGU Transcripts]], [[SGU_Episode_378#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.280:35.29|Lady of Fatima]], [[Nobel prizes 2012: Medicine & physics (378)|2012 Nobel Prizes]], [[Dyson spheres (378)|Dyson Spheres]], [[Simon Singh: Pseudoscience magazine libel (378)|Simon Singh and Libel]], [[Presidential lie detector (378)|Presidential Lie Detector]], [[Neurosurgeon's 'proof of heaven' (378)|Proof of Heaven]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 377
|date = Oct 6
|desc = The Billygoat Curse, The Physics of Roulette, Vitamin D and the Common Cold, Harpooning Satellites, Bee Brains, WTC7 Collapse
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 376
|date = Sep 29
|desc = Pamela Gay, CERN, Ig Nobels 2012, GM Corn Rat Study, HIV and Faith Healing, Emoticons turn 30
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 375
|date = Sep 22
|desc = Golden Tablets and Hobbit Day, Warp Drive, Bad Science Reporting, Dark Energy Camera, Crowdsourcing Science, Spheres on Mars, CSICon 2012, Blue Moon and Frances
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 374
|date = Sep 15
|desc = Murray Gell-Mann and Alexander Flemming, Sun Myung Moon Dies, Company Apologies for Thalidomide, Super WiFi, Calorie Restriction and Longevity, Special Report: A Skeptical 12 Step Program, Skeptical Quote of the Week
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 373
|date = Sep 8
|desc = Live at DragonCon 2012, Billy West, First Trek, Blue Moon Lunacy, Bigfoot News, Negative Replication of Psi, Baldness Cure, Little Mass from Higgs, UFO Over Illuminati Castle, SGU FAQ, Homeopath Pharmacist, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 372
|date = Sep 1
|desc = Passenger Pigeon, Neil Armstrong Dies, Naked Darth Vader, Homeopathic Candy, Hearing Voices, Special Report: Conspiracy Conference
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 371
|date = Aug 25
|desc = Pixar's Chris Ford, The Great Moon Hoax, The Sun is Round, DNA Storage, FDA and Homeopathy, Pregnancy from Rape, E-bay and Magic
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 370
|date = Aug 18
|desc = Eggs and Atherosclerosis, Hacking the Rover, The Sneeze, Google Pyramids, Occ Update, Asymmetrical Screw
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 369
|date = Aug 11
|desc = Dino Mating, Blowing Up Asteroids, Punching for God, Occ the Skeptical Caveman, Kinesio Tape
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 368
|date = Aug 4
|desc = Brian Wecht, First Fax, Superstition Fund, Curiosity's Sky Crane, Anti-Fluoridation News Fail, Bat-Winged Monkey Bird
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 367
|date = Jul 28
|desc = Kennewick Man, Skeptical Conferences, Sally Ride Dies, Mood Photography, Computer Modeling Life, Artificial Jellyfish, Firewalking Mishap, Multivitamins
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 366
|date = Jul 21
|desc = Live at TAM 2012, Guests: Richard Saunders and George Hrab, Planet Nibiru, Jean Picard born, Fake Bomb Detector Maker Charged, Debating an Antivaccinationist. Feathered Dinosaurs, New Moon for Pluto, Higgs Discovery Announced, Sex Myths, Sapphire Hard Dri
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 365
|date = Jul 14
|desc = Guest Rogue: Daniel Beauley, Jane Goodall, UFOs in National Geo, Seeing Inside Tissue, GOP on Critical Thinking, Alternative Chocolate, Who Owns Space
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 364
|date = Jul 7
|desc = Jann Bellamy, Newcomen Engine, Water on The Moon and Mars, Swiss Report on Homeopathy, Twisted Light, Embodied Cognition, News Update: Causeway Cannibal
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 363
|date = Jun 30
|desc = [[SGU_Episode_363#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.280:40.29|Tunguska Event]], [[The Science of Prometheus (363)|The Science of Prometheus]], [[Time Slowing Down (363)|Time Slowing Down]], [[Quickie with Bob: Higgs Update (363)|Higgs Update]], [[Nessie Disproves Evolution (363)|Nessie Disproves Evolution]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 362
|date = Jun 23
|desc = Professor Zhong Lin Wang, Mystery Carbon Spike, Younger Dryas Impact, Liberation Procedure Study, Testing Female Athletes, Fetal Pill Update
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 361
|date = Jun 16
|desc = This Day in Skepticism - Captain Picard Day, LiDar, Extremophiles, Moral Behavior, Cervical Manipulation, Ghost Train, Pharmacist Homeopaths
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 360
|date = Jun 9
|desc = [[SGU_Episode_360#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.2800:47.29|Ray Bradbury Dies]], [[Show 360: SGU Comes Full Circle|Episode #360]], [[Transit of Venus (360)|Transit of Venus]], [[North Carolina Legislature Proposing Sea Level Prediction Methods (360)|Legislating Science]], [[North Carolina Legislature Proposing Sea Level Prediction Methods (360)|Science Education in California]] & [[Evolution removed from South Korean textbooks (360)|South Korea]], [[Quickie with Bob: Vapor movies (360)|Vapor Storage]], [[Magnetic skeptical phrases (360)|Magnetic Skeptical Phrases]], [[Peer review email (360)|Peer Review]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 359
|date = Jun 2
|desc = [[Debbie Feldman interview: Leaving her Hasidic Roots (359)|Debbie Feldman interview]], [[SGU_Episode_359#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.281:22.29|Bridget Bishop]], [[Medical Zombies (359)|Medical Zombies]], [[Science of Reruns (359)|Science of Reruns]], [[Leakey on Evolution (359)|Leakey on Evolution]], [[Local Dark Matter Follow-up (359)|Local Darkmatter Followup]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 358
|date = May 26
|desc = Guest Rogue: Joshie Berger, [[SGU_Episode_358#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.281:05.29|Animalcules]], [[Joshie's TAM Poker Tournament Idea (358)|TAM Poker Tournament]], [[SpaceX launch, May 2012 (358)|SpaceX Launch]], [[Information About the Early Universe May Be Lost (358)|Studying the Universe]], [[Consciousness: Materialism vs Dualism vs Idealism (358)|What is Consciousness?]], [[Speaking to Mediums in Languages (358)|Speaking to Mediums]], [[Swindler's list: Hearing aids (358)|Swindler's List: Hearing Aids]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 357
|date = May 19
|desc = Guest Rogue: Phil Plait, [[Chris Lewicki interview: Planetary Resources and asteroid mining (357)|Chris Lewicki interview]], [[SGU_Episode_357#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.280:51.29|Head Cabinet]], [[Ghost Box: an audio pareidolia generator (357)|Ghost Box]], [[New Mayan calendars found (357)|Mayan Calendar]], [[Electricity generation with viruses (357)|Electricity from Viruses]], [[Libel Reform in UK (357)|UK Libel Law Update]], [[Supermoon and the moon illusion (357)|Supermoon]], [[Corrections: Rosalind Franklin and Jocelyn Bell Burnell (357)|Corrections]]
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 356
|date = May 12
|desc = Dinosaur Farts, Aura Reading, 48 Frames per Second, Baby Powder, Killing Bigfoot, TAM2012
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 355
|date = May 5
|desc = Guest Rogues: Seth Shostak and James Randi, [[Stars can capture rogue planets (355)|Rogue Planets]], [[Monkey brain-machine interface (355)|Machine-Monkey Interface]], [[Using self-replicating robots to explore space (355)|Finding ET with Robots]], [[Looking for the God spot in the brain (355)|God Spot in the Brain]], [[Update on SETI funding (355)|SETI Update]], [[Hastening the coming Singularity (355)|Live Q&A: The Coming Singularity]]
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 354
|date = Apr 28
|desc = Live at NECSS 2012 with Guest James Randi, [[Pedantic Words (354)|Pedantic Words]], [[Sports pseudoscience and superstition (354)|Sports Pseudoscience ]], [[Nuking Asteroids (354)|Nuking Asteroids]], [[Splotch Ness Monster (354)|Loch Ness Monster Spotted]], [[IceCube Neutrino Detector (354)|Cosmic Rays]], [[Quickie with Bob: Space Shuttle Enterprise (354)|Space Shuttle Enterprise]], [[SGU_Episode_354#SGU_Video_.2851:27.29|SGU Video]], [[SGU_Episode_354#Remembering_Perry_.281:01:47.29|Remembering Perry]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 353
|date = Apr 21
|desc = The Surgeons Photo, Life on Mars, Indian Skeptic Charged with Blasphemy, Multitasking, Monkeys Recognize Words, Cosmic Superwinds, Titanic Correction, Advanced Dinosaurs
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 352
|date = Apr 14
|desc = Titanic Disaster, Blow Up Space Junk, Aristolochia Nephropathy, Homophobia, Toilet Water, Monkey Bill Update, Grover's Algorithm, Gulf of Cambay Ruins
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 351
|date = Apr 7
|desc = Gripp (Marshall Gillson), World Health Day, Smart Sand, Enclothed Cognition, Death by Homeopathy, Small Scale, Rhino Horn
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 350
|date = Mar 31
|desc = [[James Randi interview: Pigasus awards, NECSS & TAM (350)|James Randi interview]], [[Patenting life: Pseudomenas putida (350)|Patenting Life]], [[Tennessee anti-evolution bill: Teach the controversy (350)|Tennessee Anti-Evolution Bill]], [[Origin of the moon (350)|Origin of the Moon]], [[Mars: Mystery cloud (350)|Mystery Cloud on Mars]], [[Newage Mountain: Pic de Bugarach (350)|Newage Mountain]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 349
|date = Mar 24
|desc = Exxon Valdez, Superhero Pseudoscience, High Altitude Skydiving, Nuclear Clock, New Hampshire Abortion Bill, NDE and Lucid Dreaming, Designer Electrons, Here Comes the Metric System
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 348
|date = Mar 17
|desc = Guest Rogue: Richard Saunders, [[SGU_Episode_348#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.282:03.29|Vanguard I]], [[Oldest skeleton discovered in Australia (348)|Oldest Skeleton]], [[Red Deer Cave People: Distinct species? (348)|Red Deer Cave People]], [[Neutrino communication through 780 feet of rock (348)|Neutrino Communication]], [[Alternative medicine in Australia: Universities and the FSM (348)|Defending Science in Australia]], [[Bem's psi research: Failure to replicate (348)|Failure to Replicate Bem's Psi Research]], [[Vaccines: Effective regardless of age (348)|Catching up on Vaccines]]
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 347
|date = Mar 10
|desc = [[Scott Sigler interview: Hard science fiction (347)|Scott Sigler interview]], [[Thomas Jefferson: Megalonyx (347)|Megalonyx]], [[Robot Cheetah: DARPA and Boston Dynamics (347)|Robot Cheetah]], [[Kony 2012 (347)|Kony 2012]], [[Neuroprosthetics: Rats and neuroplasticity (347)|Neuroprosthetics]], [[Iceman tattoos: Skepticism over acupuncture points (347)|Therapeutic Tattoos]], [[QWERTY effect (347)|QWERTY effect]]
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 346
|date = Mar 3
|desc = [[Gordon Maupin interview: Fracking (346)|Gordon Maupin interview]], [[Leap years and international day of rare diseases (346)|Leap Year]], [[Iceman genome: Oetzi's origins (346)|Iceman Genome]], [[Faster than light neutrinos: Faulty timing signals (346)|FTL Neutrino Follow Up]], [[Global warming: Heartland Institute scandal follow-up (346)|More on Anti-Climategate]], [[Baseball doping: Braun off on technicality (346)|Drug Testing]], [[SGU_Episode_346#Your_Deceptive_Mind_.2836:02.29|Your Deceptive Mind]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 345
|date = Feb 25
|desc = Fraser Cain and Pamela Gaye, Tiny Lizards, Missing Dark Matter, Anti-Climate Gate, Nanoparticle Safety
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 344
|date = Feb 18
|desc = The Science of Pony Tails, Online Surveys, Structural Batteries, QWB:Alien Matter,s: Evolution Falsifiable, Headgear
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 343
|date = Feb 11
|desc = 3D Printing, Morgellons Update, State Science Standards, Lake Vostok, Hard Drive Breakthrough, Special Report: Ouija Boards
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 342
|date = Feb 4
|desc = Derek Bartholomaus, Speed Limit for Birds, Reading Brain Waves, Conspiracy Contradictions, Scorpion Inspired Armor
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 341
|date = Jan 28
|desc = Sean Carroll, Stem Cells for Blindness, Chiropractic Neurology, Mass Psychogenic Illness, Sounds in the Sky
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 340
|date = Jan 21
|desc = Eugenie Scott, NECSS 2012, Photographic Black Holes, SOPA-PIPA, Homeopathic Burn Treatment, Ice Forms
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 339
|date = Jan 14
|desc = Tricorder X-prize, Sheldrake on Presentiment, Physics Cranks, Witchhunter Comes to US
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 338
|date = Jan 7
|desc = Martin Rundkvist, Psychic Predictions 2011, Hacker Satellite, Testing Violins, QWB:Lost World of Antarctica
|status = verified
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2011
|range = (episodes 286-337)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 337
|date = Dec 31
|desc = SGU 2011 Year in Review, Guest Mike Lacelle, Best and Worst of 2011
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 336
|date = Dec 24
|desc = Guests: George Hrab and Jamy Ian Swiss, Christopher Hitchens In Memoriam, Mammoth Bone Homes, Trillion Frames per Second, Neti Pot Dangers, Special Report: Randomness
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 335
|date = Dec 17
|desc = Pro-Measles Children's Book, Higgs Update, Mercury UFO, Hallucinating Color, Menstrual Syncing, Swindler's List: Online Dating
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 334
|date = Dec 10
|desc = Lawrence Krauss, Trudeau Fine Upheld, Planetary Probes, Cloning a Mammoth, Kepler 22b, Corrections
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 333
|date = Dec 3
|desc = James Randi, Detecting Digital Manipulation, Curiosity Heads to Mars, Creationist Bill Defeated in NH, Scorpios Need Not Apply, Jetpack Flies with Jets, Special Report: Burzynski Clinic Intimidates Bloggers - Rhys Morgan, Tomato Juice Color
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 332
|date = Nov 26
|desc = JFK Assassination, Power Balance Bankruptcy, FTL Neutrino Follow Up, Does Water Prevent Dehydration, Food Color and Taste, SILLY Bias in Scientific Reviews
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 331
|date = Nov 19
|desc = Neil deGrasse Tyson, Moon's Magnetic Field, Europa's Ice Surface, False Confessions, BMJ Poe, Catholic Pox Parties
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 330
|date = Nov 12
|desc = Stroke Turns Man Gay, Asteroid YU55, Pox Parties, US Government Denies UFOs, Man Confuses Moon for UFO, NASA's Orion Program, Intercessory Prayer
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 329
|date = Nov 5
|desc = Climate Change Confirmation, Steve Job's Cancer, New GPS, Pre-Clovis Find, Brush Before or After
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 328
|date = Oct 29
|desc = [[Banachek interview: $1m challenge & Nightline (328)|Banachek interview]], [[MIT radar "sees" through walls (328)|Seeing Through Walls]], [[Malaria vaccine: 'Mosquirex' (RSS,S) (328)|Malaria Vaccine]], [[Luckiest cities - Men's Health magazine (328)|Luckiest Cities]], [[Very Large Array telescope: Call for new name (328)|New Name for VLA]], [[Harold Camping: Another failed prophecy (328)|Another Failed Prediction]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 327
|date = Oct 22
|desc = Richard Wiseman, Jay Report from Italy, Faster Than Light Neutrinos, Reiki Doesn't Work, Ending Genital Cutting, Camping Prophesy Update
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 326
|date = Oct 15
|desc = Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde, Vitamins and Mortality, Megavirus, NDEs, More UFOs, Electrosense, Airborne Petition
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 325
|date = Oct 8
|desc = Steve Jobs Dies, Nobel Prizes 2011 for Physics, Medicine, and Chemistry, IgNobels for 2011
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 324
|date = Oct 1
|desc = Highlights from the SGU 24 Live Streaming event, Australian Skeptics: Richard Saunders, Dr. Rachie Dunlop, Jo Benhamu, Grail Craft Launch, A. sediba, Adaptation and Orgasm, Special Report: Siphonomores, Top 10 Future Technologies
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 323
|date = Sep 24
|desc = Guests: George Hrab and Brian Brushwood, Single Molecule Electric Motor, Registering Atheists, Special Report: Nature vs Nurture
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 322
|date = Sep 17
|desc = Sara Mayhew, New Items: Chinese Scientists Plan to Capture Asteroid, Acupuncture and Acoustic Waves
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 321
|date = Sep 10
|desc = Live at DragonCon 2011, 9-11 Comic, Diamond Planet, Homeopathic Water, Woolly Rhino, Editor Resigns of Global Warming Paper, Live Q&A
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 320
|date = Aug 29
|desc = Jad Abumrad, Hurricane Irene, ISS Threatened, LHC and Super Symmetry, Alien Signals, Tin Foil, Skeptical Shout-Out
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 319
|date = Aug 24
|desc = Virginia Earthquake, Brand Loyalty, Tin Foil and RFID, Swindler's List: Functional Medicine
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 318
|date = Aug 17
|desc = Paul Provenza, Non-Growing Earth, Boiron Threatens Blogger, Woman Romance and Science, Space X Going to the Space Station, More on Helium
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 317
|date = Aug 10
|desc = Anti-Matter in Space, 3D Brain Mapping, Time Shift, 4-Time Lottery Winner, Robert Johnson
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 316
|date = Aug 3
|desc = Elizabeth Loftus, This Day in Skepticism - Life on Mars, The 27 Club, Blood-Red Lake, Earth Trojan Asteroid, Radioactive Heat, If It Can't Be Measured
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 315
|date = Jul 27
|desc = Bill Nye, Skeptical Conferences, Victory for Evolution in Texas, New Moon for Pluto, Life in the Universe, Connecticut Chupacabra
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 314
|date = Jul 20
|desc = Live at TAM9, Comet Elenin, Forces of Darkness, Science Proves the Bible (Not), Last Shuttle Launch, Pastafarian Headgear, Organic Water, Graphene Water Battery, Youngest Dinosaur Fossil, Live Q&A: Skeptical Wins, 24 Hr Live SGU Show, Reconciling Faith an
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 313
|date = Jul 13
|desc = Matthew Chapman, Hypnotized to Death, Color of Extinct Birds, Magnetic Microprocessors, Twintuition, Creationist Arguments
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 312
|date = Jul 5
|desc = Classifying Galaxies, More Pareidolia, Easter Island Elixir, Driverless Cars, Elevatorgate
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 311
|date = Jun 29
|desc = Eugenie Scott, Tau Day, Body Temperature of Dinosaurs Measured, Magnets and Blood Flow, Guru in Sweat Lodge Death Convicted, Close Call for the Space Station
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 310
|date = Jun 22
|desc = Guest Rogue: Michael Waterhouse, We Are All Mutants, Human Gecko, Creationists Infiltrate Geology Meeting, Battery Man
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 309
|date = Jun 13
|desc = Two New Elements, The Decline Effect, Zicam Inventor Arrested, Lasers from Human Cells, Mood Ears, The Enemy Within
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 308
|date = Jun 8
|desc = Guest: Phil Plait, SGU-24, Psychic Tip, Explosion on Sun, Moon Origin, UFO Nazis
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 307
|date = May 31
|desc = Jamie Bernstein, Predicting Earthquakes, Mapping the Brain, Implanting Memories
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 306
|date = May 25
|desc = Rapture Rationalizations, Fake Moon Rock, Dark Energy Confirmed, Religious Right vs Women's Rights, Preparing for a Zombie Apocalypse, Banning Marmite
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 305
|date = May 18
|desc = James Randi, Rapture, Another Cancer Cure, Gut Bacteria and Behavior, Habitable Exoplanet, Higgs False Alarm, Swindlers List: Bidsell
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 304
|date = May 9
|desc = Jon Ronson, Einstein Right Again, Mark Geier's License Suspended, Moon Microbe Mystery, Steytlerville Monster, Yap Money
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 303
|date = May 4
|desc = This Day in Science and Skepticism, Six years of SGU, Easter Island Controversy,Bin Laden Conspiracies
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 302
|date = Apr 27
|desc = Seth Shostak, A Skeptic in Oz, More Creationism in Texas, Higgs Rumor
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 301
|date = Apr 20
|desc = Guest Rogue: Iszi Lawrence, Hottel UFO Document, New Method to find Exoplanets, Plans for NASA Shuttles, Power Balance Lawsuit, Nails of Christ
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 300
|date = Apr 9
|desc = Live at NECSS 2011, Guest Rogue: John Rennie, Gayveman, Cosmic Engineering, Homeopathy for Radiation and Vertigo, Evidence and Radiation Risk, You Know You're a Skeptic If, Live Q&A: Time Travel, Fecal Transplants, Skeptical Obligation
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 299
|date = Apr 4
|desc = The Mercury 7, Pioneer Anomaly Solved, Pigasus Awards, Wakefield and Somalis, Boy Genius, Thorium Reactors
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 298
|date = Mar 30
|desc = Kenny Feder, Colorado UFO, Breaking Heisenberg, Dinosaur Petroglyph, Dinosaur Taxonomy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 297
|date = Mar 24
|desc = Hale Bop Cult, Meier Earthquake Non-prediction, Swarm Robots, Sexual Preference, Pre-biotic Chemistry, Science fact vs fiction, Radiation Hormesis, Overunity, Fecal Transplants
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 296
|date = Mar 16
|desc = Mark Mervine, Japan Earthquake, Time Traveling Particle, Finding Atlantis, TAM9 From Outer Space, Corrections - Magellan and DNA Computing, Ambit Energy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 295
|date = Mar 9
|desc = Ben Radford, Meteorite Bacteria, Biological Computers, Super Full Moon, Imam Retracts Support for Evolution, Definition of Skeptic
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 294
|date = Mar 2
|desc = Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, Limelight, Predicting Earthquakes, Growing Fuel, Neutron Star Superflluidity, Heidi Follow up, Information Follow up, 10,000 Years in the Future
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 293
|date = Feb 23
|desc = Guest Rogue: Joshie Berger, Galileo Censored, Internet Kill Switch, Japan to Trawl for Space Junk, Watson on Jeopardy!, Lie to Me, Lost Information
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 292
|date = Feb 16
|desc = Kevin Folta, Jovian in the Outer Solar System, Haunted Theme Park Ride, Heidi the Cross-eyed Psychic Opossum, Product Reviews
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 291
|date = Feb 9
|desc = Jeff Ainslee, Processed Food and IQ, Bacterial Intelligence, Skin Cell Spray Gun, Treating Trauma with Herbs, Jerusalem UFO
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 290
|date = Jan 31
|desc = Guest Rogue: Dr. Ray Greek - The Science of Animal Models, Homeopathy Pseudoscience, Teachers Cautious about Evolution, Countering Fallacies
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 289
|date = Jan 26
|desc = Jack LaLanne dies at 96, Cold Fusion Again, The Cochrane Review of Statins, Astrologists Angered, More on Education, Alien DNA
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 288
|date = Jan 19
|desc = No Ghosts in my Backyard, Simulating Earth, Reaction to Bem's Psi Research, Engineered Chickens, Cloning Mammoths, Sun as Battery, Land Sharks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 287
|date = Jan 12
|desc = Guest Rogue: Phil Plait, Molten Exoplanet, BMJ Slams Wakefield, Creationist Teacher Fired, Galactic Black Holes, Nassim Haramein
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 286
|date = Jan 5
|desc = Predictions 2010 and 2011, Mysterious Bird Deaths, Predictions from 1931, Mars News in 2010, Apocalypse 2011, Printing Solar Cells, Thomas Kuhn
|status = skeleton
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2010
|range = (episodes 232-285)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 285
|date = Dec 29
|desc = 2010 Year in Review, Best and Worst of 2010, In Memoriam, SGU Stats
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 284
|date = Dec 22
|desc = Arsenic-Based Life, Buttology, V-Steam, Singing Mice, The Real daVinci Code, Special Report: Power Bands with James Randi and the SkepticBros
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 283
|date = Dec 15
|desc = Dan Gardner, Piltdown Anniversary, Hydrogen Production, Voyager Leaves Solar System, Slushball Earth, Alien Plants vs Animals
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 282
|date = Dec 8
|desc = Live in Sydney Australia, New Crystal Skull, Roger Penrose Before the Big Bang, Chimps Outwit Human Traps, Anti-Antivax Activism, Special Report: Masonic Conspiracy Theories, Live Q&A: Scientists Baffled, Size of Quantum Effects, Sympathectomy, Future of
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 281
|date = Dec 1
|desc = Live in Vancouver with Guest: George Hrab, SETI 50th Anniversary, Antimatter Breakthrough, Nanoparticles and Glowing Trees, Oprah Promotes Psychic Surgeon, Latest PSI Research, Bending Time and Space, Live Q&A: Neurology of Belief, Coincidence, Multi-Leve
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 280
|date = Nov 24
|desc = Guest: Richard Saunders, Eken Power Bands, Frozen Stiff, Cockroach Brains, Deal or No Deal, : Argument from Silence, Special Topic: Religious Skeptics
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 279
|date = Nov 15
|desc = D.J. Grothe, NASA Discovers Mysterious Bubbles, Exploiting "Psychic" Kids, More Homeopathy Spin, Lunar Weather Predicting, Caffeine and Sperm Count
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 278
|date = Nov 10
|desc = Carl Sagan Day, Mystery Missile, LHC Big Bang, The Twinkie Diet, Hamburger Experiments Redux, Spinning Spaceship, Ear Light
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 277
|date = Nov 3
|desc = Jamy Ian Swiss, Psychic Cat, 100 Year Starship Project, Cure for Common Cold, Life on the Moon, Alien Ballot Defeated, Banana Ripening
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 276
|date = Oct 27
|desc = Ghosts Calling Cellphones, Hawking Radiation, More On Radioactive Decay Rates, The Science of Medicine, NECSS 2011, Physics.org Award Nomination, Time Traveling Cell Phone User, SGU Forums Moderators
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 275
|date = Oct 19
|desc = Guest Rogue: Brian Trent, Benoit Mandlebrot 1924-2010, Stem Cell Funding, Do Mummies Get Cancer, Asteroids Buzz Earth, Whale Poop Correction, T-Rex Blood Cells, Help - My Friend is a Pseudoscientist
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 274
|date = Oct 13
|desc = Ben Goldacre, Dark Matter Strangeness, Vaccine Case in Supreme Court, Gliese 581g Follow Up, Magic Burgers
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 273
|date = Oct 6
|desc = 2010 Nobel Prizes in Medicine, Chemistry and Physics, 2010 IgNobels, Diesel from a Stone, Mass and Gravity, Science Education, Laughing Hyenas
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 272
|date = Sep 30
|desc = Bug Girl, New Moonlanding Footage, UN Alien Ambassador, Poor Science Education, New Force of Nature?, Goldilocks Planet
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 271
|date = Sep 22
|desc = [[Simon Singh interview: Libel in the UK (271)|Simon Singh interview]], [[Losing your religion: Health effects? (271)|Losing Your Religion]], [[The man who fell to Earth (271)|The Man Who Fell to Earth]], [[Dirty electricity: CFLs & Magda Havas (271)|Dirty Electricity]], [[Moon origins (271)|Origins of Moons]], [[Halfalogues: Overheard phone conversations (271)|Halfalogue]]
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 270
|date = Sep 15
|desc = Ben Radford, Joe Nickell, and Karen Stollznow, Modern Geocentrism, Irish Minister of Science Scandal, Robot Skin, No Link between Thimerosal and Autism, Canadian Government Muzzles Scientists, Crop Circle Sting
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 269
|date = Sep 8
|desc = Carol Tavris, Stephen Hawking on God, Magnetic Mom, Organic Strawberries, Burning the Quran, Pyschic Incites Mob
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 268
|date = Sep 1
|desc = Donald Prothero, Thorium Power, Impacts and Extinction, Spontaneous Combustion, Enfield Poltergeist, Ghost Train, Mitochondrial Eve Follow Up
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 267
|date = Aug 25
|desc = Guest Rogue: Phil Plait, Phil Plait's Bad Universe, Solar Flares and Radioactive Decay, Competition in Evolution, The Science of Zombies, Kurzweil Responds to Myers, Kaku on UFOs
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 266
|date = Aug 19
|desc = Bruce Hood, Banning Wi-Fi, Psychic Finds Wrong Body, Kurzweil on Brain Complexity, Magnetars and Black Holes
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 265
|date = Aug 11
|desc = Aubrey de Grey, Evolving Simulated Intelligence, Proximal Intercessory Prayer, Bermuda Triangle Solved, Booty Enhancement Spell, Censoring Skepticism featuring Rhys Morgan
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 264
|date = Aug 4
|desc = DIY Genetic Testing, Coronal Mass Ejection, More Evidence for Warming, Analyzing the Future, Misfortune Teller, More on Dieting
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 263
|date = Jul 29
|desc = Jim Underdown, Homeopathy in the UK, Cosmology with no Big Bang, Ghost Ship, Meat and Weight Control, Biodynamic Farming, Orgel's Laws
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 262
|date = Jul 21
|desc = Randi & Banachek, Report from TAM8, Monster Star, Anti-Vax in Oz, Kabbalah Bracelet, Monkey Fossil, Monkeys in the Pants, Libel Tourism Bill
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 261
|date = Jul 10
|desc = Live at TAM8, Roswell Remembered, Nuclear Explosion in Space, Pepsigate, Energy Vampires, Gravitons and Black Holes, Obesity and Inactivity, Climategate Update, Planck Image of the Universe, Live Q&A: NESS Activities, Do Skeptics Ever Win?, Positive Attit
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 260
|date = Jun 30
|desc = Guest Rogue: George Hrab, Fin to Limb Evolution, Pat Boone on Laws of Physics, Ice Patch Archaeology, Stephen Barrett Sued, Flag Worship
|status = incomplete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 259
|date = Jun 28
|desc = Whooping Cough Epidemic, Whaling Film Questioned, Superconductor Roadblock, Call to Ban Homeopathy, Orbital Periods, Sunscreen
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 258
|date = Jun 16
|desc = Sanal Edamaruku, Growing Livers, Immortal Jelly, Gay Clinic, Space Storm Warning
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 257
|date = Jun 14
|desc = Hayabusa Returns, Einstein's Brain, Largest Radio Telescope Array, Amityville Horror House for Sale, Cursed Cell Phone Number, Soy, Magic Bee Juice
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 256
|date = Jun 9
|desc = Steve Matheson, Life on Titan, Vulture Threatened by Pseudoscience, WHO and H1N1, Orbit of Phobos
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 255
|date = Jun 2
|desc = Guests: Fraser Cain and Pamela Gay, X-37b Space Plane, Synthetic Bacteria, Hollow Phobos, Acupuncture Mechanism?, Guatemala Sinkhole, Salt Substitute
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 254
|date = May 26
|desc = James Randi about Martin Gardner, Energy of Early Life, End for Mars Phoenix Lander and Atlantis, Vaccine Safety, Accepting Science, Exonerated by Acupuncture
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 253
|date = May 19
|desc = Cell Phone Cancer Update, Why Does Matter Exist, Applied Kinesiology, BMA Trashes Homeopathy, Early Bird Feathers, Ball Lightening, Pesticides and ADHD
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 252
|date = May 12
|desc = Guest: Massimo Pigliucci, [[Nonsense on stilts: Massimo on philosophy of science (252)|Nonsense on Stilts]], [[Dictionary definition of siphon incorrect (252)|Definition of Siphon]], [[Neanderthal-Human interbreeding (252)|Neanderthal Interbreeding]], [[Alabama politics: Denying evolution (252)|Evolution in Alabama Politics]], [[The science of morality: Sam Harris & the trolley problem (252)|Science of Morality]]
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 251
|date = May 5
|desc = 5 Years of SGU, Zettabytes, Prayer and Critical Thinking, Oil Spill Conspiracy, Life on Mars - Not, How to Build a Time Machine, Man Claims 70 Years Without Food or Water, Corrections, Croatian Girl Follow up
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 250
|date = Apr 28
|desc = Dr. Dean Edell, 20 Years of Hubble, Nanodots, Boobquake, Stephen Hawking on Aliens, Noah's Ark, Intelligence and Science
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 249
|date = Apr 17
|desc = Live at NECSS 2010, Guest: James Randi, Items: Volcano in Iceland, Near Death Experiences, Sound Bullets, Injured by Price Scanner, Singh Libel Suit dropped, Two Moms and a Dad, Girl Speaks German After Coma, Live Q&A
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 248
|date = Apr 13
|desc = Seth Shostak, Apollo 13, Water on Mars, Bioprinting, Scientific Literacy in the US, Dawkins vs The Pope, Colour Therapy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 247
|date = Apr 7
|desc = Area 51 Declassified, Ununseptium, SBM visits NCCAM, Copper Magnetic Jesus Bracelet, Human Population, Dutch Psychic Follow up, : The Genetic Fallacy
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 246
|date = Mar 31
|desc = Guest: Eugenie Scott, Update from the NCSE, Fighting Cancer with Nanoparticles, Prison Psychics, Changing Morality with Magnets, Skeptics and Atheists
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 245
|date = Mar 25
|desc = George Hrab, Rise of the Dinosaurs, Woman X, Starchild Update, Evangelical Listeners
|status = incomplete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 244
|date = Mar 18
|desc = Greg Grunberg, When Homeopaths Attack, Texas Textbook Hubbub, Bacterial Fingerprint, Chief Exorcist, Biggest Quantum State, Power Balance
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 243
|date = Mar 11
|desc = Jenny on Huffpo, Autistic Pets, See-through Pain, Homeschooling and Evolution, Here's Your Jetpack, Spirits in a Bottle, Richter Scale, Raining Fish Follow Up, Inner Space
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 242
|date = Mar 3
|desc = Guest: James Randi, Chile Earthquake, Darwinius Revisited, Raining Fish, Acupuncture for Depression, Haunted Hotels, Contrarion vs Skeptic, Personality Tests
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 241
|date = Feb 24
|desc = Daniel Wilson, Homeopathy Smackdown in UK, What Darwin Got Wrong, The Bloom Box, Geller Aids Cops
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 240
|date = Feb 17
|desc = Rom Houben Update, Solar Energy Breakthrough, Psychic Killed, Gas from Carbon, Thomas Paine, Knocked Out
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 239
|date = Feb 10
|desc = Guest: Brian Dunning, Enceladus Update, Synthetic Organisms, Spray On Glass, Gasoline from Carbon, Oral Conception, : False Analogy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 238
|date = Feb 3
|desc = Simon Conway Morris, Fusion Breakthrough, Andrew Wakefield Rebuked, Return of Death Cat, Lady Gaga Illuminati
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 237
|date = Jan 27
|desc = Guest: Daniel Loxton, Book Release: Evolution, Dowsing for Bombs, Alien Life on Earth, Ginger Dinosaurs, I have Lizards in my Pants, Addiction
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 236
|date = Jan 20
|desc = Jon Rosenberg, Dead Bodies, Blond Warrior Princesses, Trees on Mars, Correactology, Ayn Rand
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 235
|date = Jan 13
|desc = Guest: Richard Saunders, TAM Australia, Tetrapod Footprints, Airport Security - with Bruce Schneier, Nearby Supernova, Cancer Miracle, Evil Skeptics
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 234
|date = Nov 15
|desc = Special Report: H1N1 Flu Pandemic Update - With Steven Novella, David Gorski, Mark Crislip and Joe Albietz
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 233
|date = Jan 6
|desc = D. J. Grothe, Predictions for 2009 and 2010, The G-Spot Controversy, New Stellar Companion, Brain Capacity
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 232
|date = Jan 1
|desc = 2009 Year in Review - with Guests Phil Plait and Mike Lacelle, SGU and Science News of 2009, Science and Skepticism in the Last Decade,Stats, SGU in 2010
|status = complete
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2009
|range = (episodes 181-231)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 231
|date = Dec 21
|desc = Michael Specter, Dark Matter WIMPS, Synaesthesia, The Future of Skepticism, LHC Risk with Brian Cox
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 230
|date = Dec 16
|desc = Steorn Still At It, Computer-Brain Interface, Ancient Ruins in the Caribbean, Octopus Coconuts, Homeopathic Suicide, Holodeck Food, Special Report: Coalition for Libel Reform
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 229
|date = Dec 9
|desc = Guest Phil Plait: Denver Aliens, Bird Speciation, Blinded by Faith, Spiral over Norway, Uranus Tilt, Methane on Mars, Homeopathy Ads
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 228
|date = Dec 2
|desc = Steven Thoms, Age of Autism Scandal, Porkenstein, Fat Murder Hoax, ClimateGate Feedback
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 227
|date = Nov 25
|desc = LHC Online, Coma and Facilitated Communication, ClimateGate, CrocoDuck, Speaking in Tongues
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 226
|date = Nov 18
|desc = Kenny Feder, New Mammography Guidelines, Water on the Moon, Dark Flow, Lee Harvey Oswald Photo, Movie Reviews
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 225
|date = Nov 11
|desc = Psychic Finds Skeleton, Dystonia Flu Shot Follow Up, More LRO Images, Paying for Prayer, Wave Particle Duality, JREF Announcements, TAM London with Simon Singh, Jon Ronson, and Adam Savage
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 224
|date = Nov 4
|desc = Carl Sagan Day, Nutt Job, Dystonia after Flu Shot, Spontaneous Human Combustion Case, Michael Goldstein: starting local skeptical groups, Rebecca at TAM London with Phil Plait, Chris French, and Christina Martin
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 223
|date = Oct 28
|desc = Swine Flu Scams, Hulda Clark Died of Cancer, The Physics of Homeopathy, Scientology Trouble, Suzanne Somers Cancer Quackery, Size of the Universe (With Guest - Pamela Gay), Mad Scientists, Suspended Animation
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 222
|date = Oct 21
|desc = James Randi, LHC Future Attack, Magnetic and Copper Bracelets, Balloon Boy, Lunar Plume Update, Giant Spider, Special Report: Rebecca from Bangkok
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 221
|date = Oct 14
|desc = Jack Horner, NASA Shoots the Moon, Saturn's Rings, Hypno Cat, Simon Singh Update, Plasma Rocket, This Man
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 220
|date = Oct 7
|desc = Daniel Hooper, Premanand In Memoriam, Nobel Prizes 2009, Ardipithecus Ramidis, Autism Prevalence, Brian Cox
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 219
|date = Sep 28
|desc = Mark Edward, Premanand Statement, Dinosaur News, Nanotube Springs, Cameron and Comfort on Darwin, Couple Jailed over Homeopathy Death, Spiritual Advice, Life Signs, Speed of Light
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 218
|date = Sep 23
|desc = Michael Vassar, Raptor Rex, Bill Maher Antiscience, Panama Monster
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 217
|date = Sep 12
|desc = Live at NECSS with Guest Richard Wiseman, Charlie Sheen 911 Truther, Quantum Amnesia, Hulda Clark Dead, Gonzalez Therapy Fail, What's in Your Wallet, Exomoons, Great Tits Eat Bats, Special Report: The Yale Study, Live QA
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 216
|date = Sep 9
|desc = Live at DragonCon 2009, Google UFO, Mongolian Death Worm, Chupacabra in Texas, Magnetic Monopole, Live Q&A
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 215
|date = Sep 1
|desc = Adam Savage, Multitasking, Methane Fog on Titan, Google Nessie, Evolving Mice, Appendix, iPhone Crap App
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 214
|date = Aug 25
|desc = Jamy Ian Swiss, Surviving a Cataclysm, Zombie Apocalypse, WHO Says No to Homeopathy,Itako Fading, Dinochicken
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 213
|date = Aug 18
|desc = Battery Update, Super Planetary Nebulae, Adopt a Star, UFO Spikes, Aquatic Ape, Caffeine Tolerance
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 212
|date = Aug 12
|desc = Michael Goudeau, Kepler Goes Online, Methane on Mars, MS Breakthrough, Placebo Medicine, Birthers, : Homeopathy Nonsense
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 211
|date = Aug 4
|desc = Skepchick Carrie Iwan, Teeth from Stem Cells, Stem Cell Clinic Raid, Laser Propulsion, Update on Simon Singh, Origin of Matter, 4-minute Interval Training
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 210
|date = Jul 29
|desc = Jennifer Ouellette, Oldest Animal Fossils, New State of Matter, FDA Say Mercury Amalgam Safe, Past Life Hypnotism, Stressful Sweat
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 209
|date = Jul 22
|desc = DJ Grothe, 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11, Copernicium, Thomas Jefferson and Evolution, Dowsing
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 208
|date = Jul 11
|desc = Live at TAM 7, Microbot Plumbers, Archeological Dig, Sunspots Return, Blogs vs Journalists, Genie Sued, Live Q&A, Rebecca's Wedding
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 207
|date = Jul 1
|desc = Phil Plait, Steorn Fail, BCA Responds to Singh, Salt Water in Enceladus, Uranium on the Moon, Apollo 11 Video, Impact Bad Astronomy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 206
|date = Jun 18
|desc = Richard Prum, Ancient Lakes on Mars, Smoke Ring UFO, FDA Zicam Warning, Missing Sun Spots
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 205
|date = Jun 16
|desc = Brian Brushwood, Junior Supernova, Boy Hit By Meteor, A New Heuristic, Planetary Life
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 204
|date = Jun 11
|desc = Richard Wiseman, Negative CAM Research, Chiropractors In Retreat, Quantum Mechanics, Flu Pandemic Update, Youngest Skeptic, Prescient Genes
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 203
|date = Jun 9
|desc = Bruce Hood, Crop Circles 2009, Chronic Lyme Disease, Casino Feng Shui, UFO follow up, Liver Flush for Gallstones
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 202
|date = Jun 3
|desc = Simon Singh, Newsweek vs Oprah, Volcanic Extinction, UFO News, Texas Update, Evangelical Skeptics, Begging the Question
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 201
|date = May 27
|desc = Phil Plait, Whooping Cough Increase, Scientology on Trial, RNA World, Rook Tool Use, Northeast Skeptical Conference, Polonium Halos
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 200
|date = May 20
|desc = SGU 200th Episode, Missing Link Ida, GPS Failure, Stem Cell Quackery in China, Candiru, If I Had a Million Dollars
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 199
|date = May 13
|desc = Rusty Schweickart, Simon Singh's Lawsuit, Ultradense Deuterium, Acupuncture Science, Last Fix for Hubble
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 198
|date = May 7
|desc = Rachael Dunlop, Four Years of SGU, Oprah Signs Jenny McCarthy, Dark Matter, Six Degrees of Separation, Homeopathy Death, I Have Birds in my Pants
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 197
|date = Apr 30
|desc = Mark Crislip, Hidden Photons, Walking Seal, NASA and the Moon, Baby Chupacabras, Hoagland on Iapetus
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 196
|date = Apr 22
|desc = Seth Shostak, Cassini Pictures, Smallest Exoplanet, Huffington Post Pseudoscience, Personal Attacks from Age of Autism, Kelloggs Settles FTC Suit
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 195
|date = Apr 15
|desc = John Maddox Dies, The Hand of God, Flying Microbots, Darwin Awards, Homeopathy Nonsense, Belief in Ghosts,s: Corrections, Induction in Science, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 194
|date = Apr 8
|desc = Daniel Loxton, Dennis Lee Strikes Again, Computers That Do Science, Home Energy Scam
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 193
|date = Apr 1
|desc = Paul Murray, Mind Controlled Robot, Giant Protozoan, More Jenny McCarthy Nonsense
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 192
|date = Mar 25
|desc = Cold Fusion Again, Evolution Education in Texas, Synthetic Blood,s: Richard Saunders Open Letter to Pharmacists, Quantum Jumping, Super Chimney, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 191
|date = Mar 18
|desc = Phil Plait, Pope on HIV and Condoms, 20th Anniversary of the World Wide Web, Canada Science Minister and Evolution
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 190
|date = Mar 12
|desc = Kenneth Miller, Stem Cell Ban Lifted, When Chimps Attack, Mellow Yellow, Prince Charles Snake Oil
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 189
|date = Mar 4
|desc = Kenny Feder - Clovis Find, Vaccine Decision, Designer Babies, Riversnake Update, TAM7 Info
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 188
|date = Feb 26
|desc = Virtual Snowflakes, Evolution of Sex, Revenge of Titanoboa, Google Atlantis, Catboy, Missing Moon, Moon and Sun, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 187
|date = Feb 11
|desc = Angie McQuaig, The Pose and Darwin, Ben Goldacre vs the Media, Healing Laser, Starseeds, the eHolster, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 186
|date = Feb 9
|desc = Jon Ronson, Wakefield Fraud, Wearable Computer, Amish Fireplace, LHC Delay, Blood Type Follow Up, China Spacewalk Hoax
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 185
|date = Feb 4
|desc = Massimo Pigliucci, New Items: Singularity University, Mammoth Extinction, Smallest Exoplanet,Blood Type Pseudoscience, Scientific Predictions
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 184
|date = Jan 28
|desc = [[Tim Minchin interview: Comedy & Skepticism (184)|Tim Minchin interview]], [[Mercury in corn syrup (184)|Mercury In Our Food]], [[Vaccine safety and disease outbreaks (184)|Vaccine Controversy Updates]], [[Evolution before our eyes: Fence lizards and fire ants (184)|Evolution - Lizards and Fire Ants]], [[Obama inauguration UFOs (184)|Obama UFO]]
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 183
|date = Jan 21
|desc = Alice Tuff, The Holographic Universe, Science Education in Texas and Louisiana, Pheromones, Dyslexia, Randi: Not in a Name
|status = incomplete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 182
|date = Jan 15
|desc = Michio Kaku, Methane on Mars, Solar Storms, Mega MRI, Young Skeptics
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 181
|date = Jan 7
|desc = Psychic Predictions 2008, True Love, Jett Travolta, Christine Maggiorie, Detox Fail, Weblog Awards 2008, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2008
|range = (episodes 128-180)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 180
|date = Dec 30
|desc = 2008 SGU Year in Review: Best Skeptics, Worst Promoters of Woo, Coolest Science News, Funniest Moments, Favorite E-mails, and SGU Stats
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 179
|date = Dec 23
|desc = Jeremy Pivens Mercury Toxicity, Death by CAM, da Vinci Sketches Discovered, Medium Experiments Follow up, ET Life, Winter Myths
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 178
|date = Dec 16
|desc = Richard Wiseman, Reading Minds, Burglar Trapped by Ghost The Bloop, Evolution Questions
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 177
|date = Dec 10
|desc = Age of the Sphinx with Dr. James P Allen, Supernova Reflections and Milky Way's Black Hole with Phil Plait, Searching for Dyson Spheres, Skeptical Authority, Randi: Cold Reading
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 176
|date = Dec 3
|desc = Early Earth, Turtle Missing Link, Search for the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, Power from Sound, DNA from Hair, Magic Water, Starting a Skeptics Group, Carbon Footprint
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 175
|date = Nov 20
|desc = Steven Schafersman, Kevin Trudeau Smackdown, Placebo Acupuncture, NASA Recycles Urine, Reflexology in UK Schools, Flu Vaccine, NESS in Video Game
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 174
|date = Nov 18
|desc = Exoplanet Pictures, Neuroscience of Telepathy, Jonestown Massacre, Science Attitudes, More Info on Sperm Donation, Sleepwalking, Global Warming
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 173
|date = Nov 12
|desc = Paul Offit, Junk DNA, Mini Nuclear Reactor, Chandrayaan-1 Update, Phoenix Ends, Child Witches
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 172
|date = Nov 5
|desc = Greydon Square, Michael Crichton In Memoriam, Portable Space Shield, Oil from Fungus, Due Diligence, Randi: Wrong!
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 171
|date = Oct 29
|desc = Diana Blaney Vampire Moth, New Type of Planet, Artificial Heart, Polygraph for Debates, Science Debate 2008 Update
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 170
|date = Oct 22
|desc = Phil Plait Psychology of Superstition, Another Solar Breakthrough, UK UFO, Announcing SkepticBlog Blacklight Free Energy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 169
|date = Oct 11
|desc = Perry DeAngelis Memorial Live Podcast Guests: Steve Mirsky and Terrence Hines
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 168
|date = Oct 8
|desc = PZ Myers, 2008 Nobel Awards, Turing Test Darwin Quote, Cosmology
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 167
|date = Oct 1
|desc = Matthew Chapman Dust and Snow on Mars, PETA Nonsense, Calorie Restriction Diet LHC Update, Correlation and Causation, Emergent Intelligence, Neanderthal DNA
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 166
|date = Sep 24
|desc = Sharon Begley LHC Problems, Worthless Acupuncture Studies, Japan Space Elevator, Belief and Credulity Real versus Scientific
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 165
|date = Sep 17
|desc = [[Ben Goldacre interview: Epidemiology and the media (165)|Ben Goldacre interview]], [[Ben Goldacre wins HIV libel case (165)|Goldacre Libel Victory]], [[Hubble finds mystery object (165)|Stellar Mystery]], [[Royal Society controversy: Creationism in UK schools (165)|Creationism in the UK]], [[Big pharma: Fibromyalgia & RLS (165)|Pharma Conspiracy]], [[Randi speaks: The Media (165)|Randi: The Media]]
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 164
|date = Sep 10
|desc = Ben Radford LHC Turned On, Elephant Math Bird Correction,Irradiated Food, Pseudoscience
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 163
|date = Sep 3
|desc = Live at DragonCon 2008 with Guests James Randi, Pamela Gay, and Derek Colanduno, The Milky Ways, Supermassive Blackhole, Live Q&A
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 162
|date = Aug 26
|desc = Richard Saunders WTC-7 Collapse, Neanderthal Tool Making, Rainbow Lady Follow Up Teleportation
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 161
|date = Aug 20
|desc = Adam Savage from Mythbusters,Remembering Perry, Monkey Eludes Dragnet, Bigfoot Body Hoax Revealed, Robot with Biological Brain, The Future of Doping,Special Report: JREF Psychic Challenge Report
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 160
|date = Aug 13
|desc = Captain Disillusion,Bigfoot Body Claim, Invisibility Cloak, Prince Charles on GM Food, Sprinkler Rainbow Lady
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 159
|date = Aug 6
|desc = Phil Plait and James Randi, James Doohan Ashes Lost, Solar Power Breakthrough, China Weather Control, The Montauk Monster, Where Does Matter Come From
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 158
|date = Jul 30
|desc = Banachek, Edgar Mitchell UFO Claims, UFOs and Terrorism, Gas from Garbage, House and the Therapeutic Diagnosis
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 157
|date = Jul 23
|desc = George Hrab, New Plutoid, Detox Danger, Amanda Peet Defends Vaccines, Barbara Walters Disses James Van Praagh, Allah Meat, Chaos Theory
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 156
|date = Jul 16
|desc = [[Neil deGrasse Tyson interview: Spaghettification and education (156)|Neil deGrasse Tyson interview]], [[Black hole hubbub in Dallas county (156)|Black hole hubbub]], [[PZ Myers: Stolen cracker death threats (156)|Its Just a Cracker]], [[Discovery Institute blog foiled by vocabulary (156)|Tiktalik Nonsense]], [[Cancer cells zapped individually (156)|Micro Laser Surgery]], [[Convincing evidence: Changing minds (156)|Convincing Evidence]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 155
|date = Jul 9
|desc = James Randi, Einstein Right Again, Conservapedia Denies Evolution, Controversial Chelation Autism Study, Special Report: Roswell 61 Years Later
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 154
|date = Jul 2
|desc = Dr Dean Edell, Darwin-Wallace Anniversary, Tunguska Remembered, Creationst Bill Passes in Louisana, Nanowire Battery, SGU on Youtube, Collective Skeptics, Body Fruit, Randi: Speaker Cables
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 153
|date = Jun 21
|desc = Live at TAM6, Ice on Mars, Crop Circle Pi, Japanese Water Car, Psychic Alleges Sexual Abuse, FDA Crackdown, Spa Reflexology, Special Report-Brian Dunning Present Here Be Dragons Video, Live Q&A
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 152
|date = Jun 11
|desc = Bacteria Evolve, The 100mpg Car, Unicorn Deer, Fishing Monkeys, Plutoids, Albinos in Africa, Special Report-Crystal Skulls, Coincidence, Green Nanoparticles
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 151
|date = Jun 9
|desc = Jon Blumenfeld, NPR Psychics, Mars Lander Update, Petaflop Supercomputers, Optical Illusions, Casey Predictions
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 150
|date = Jun 4
|desc = Walter Isaacson, New Hoax Alien Video, Solar Power from Sapce, Anti-Vaccine Mar on Washington, CAM in New Zealand Follow Up, Cold Fusion
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 149
|date = May 28
|desc = JPL Scientist Diana Blaney, Wi Fi Ban, New Zealand Considering CAM, Scientology Free Speech Follow Up, Medical Science Reporting, Tasmanian Tiger Corrections, Least Skeptical
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 148
|date = May 21
|desc = Carl Zimmer, Tasmanian Tiger Gene Resurrected, Mobile Phones and Pregnancy, Is Scientology a Cult, Supernova Caught in the Act, Michael Shull about Discovering Missing Matter, Radiometric Dating of Mt St Helens, Update on TAM6
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 147
|date = May 14
|desc = Martin Rundkvist, Einstein and God, The Vatican The UK and UFO's, China Quake Superstitions, NASA Announces Supernova Discovery, Creationism in Maine, Wizardry Followup
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 146
|date = May 7
|desc = SGU 3rd Anniversary, Florida Anti-Evolution Law Fails, Florida Teacher Fired for Wizardry, Special Report: Bobs Haunted Tour, T-Rex Proteins, Water Experiment, Misconceptions about Evolution, Consumer Reports and Homeopathy
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 145
|date = Apr 30
|desc = Kirsten Sanford, Mystery Lights in Maryland, Evolution Freedom Law in Florida, Gary Null-HIV Denier, Special Report: The Real Iron Man
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 144
|date = Apr 23
|desc = [[Simon Singh interview: Alternative medicine (144)|Simon Singh interview]], [[Man "raised from dead" (144)|Man Raised from Dead]], [[Politics of vaccines (144)|Politics of Vaccines]], [[Penis theft panic (144)|Penis Theft Panic]], [[Oldest plant (144)|Oldest Plant]], [[SGU drinking game (144)|The SGU Drinking Game]], [[Space junk: Dangerous debris (144)|Space Junk]], [[Brain Gym: Pseudoscience in the classroom (144)|Brain Gym]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 143
|date = Apr 16
|desc = Eric Avery, Scientology Defection, Are Vitamins Harmful, Replicator Replicates Itself, ET Not Likely, Age of the Earth, Magnetic Water
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 142
|date = Apr 9
|desc = Yau-Man Chan, Skeptologists Shoot Complete, UK Psychic crackdown, LHC and the God Particle, Monty Hall Problem in Research, Cursing in Sanskrit
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 141
|date = Apr 2
|desc = The Skeptologists, Expelled Again, Human-Cow Hybrid, Tantric Killing Fails, Debunking Skeptics, Dinosaur Fossils on the Moon
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 140
|date = Mar 26
|desc = Eugenie Scott, Rebecca's Asteroid, Airborne Lawsuit, Pregnant Man, Hypnotist Robber, Robin Migration, More on Soap
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 139
|date = Mar 19
|desc = Stephen Barrett, Arthur C. Clarke Dies at 90, Saudi Scholar Denies Holocaust, Michael Egnor on ID Podcast, Believers Stare at the Sun, Boy Scout Follow Up, Cosmetic Pseudoscience
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 138
|date = Mar 12
|desc = Ola Fincke about Science Education in Oklahoma, Ghosts in the Mind, US Government Settles Autism-Vaccine Case, Real Death Star, Drugs in the Water, The Skeptologists, Randi Speaks-about Gary Schwartz
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 137
|date = Mar 5
|desc = Special Report: Timeshare Scams, Spaceprobe Anomalies, Aromatherapy Study, McCain on Autism and Vaccines, CECTIC Skeptical Cartoon, Global Warming on Mars, Magneto Boy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 136
|date = Feb 27
|desc = McFeng Sui, Anti-Scientific Medicine in South Africa, Type IV Civilization, Killer Robots, Favorite Science and Skeptical Books
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 135
|date = Feb 20
|desc = Robert FitzPatrick, Lunar Eclipse, Censoring Skeptics, Scientific Challenges of 21st Century, Dualism, Naadi Palm Leaf Reading
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 134
|date = Feb 13
|desc = PZ Myers, Bat Evolution, UK Officials Evict Ghost, Acupuncture and IVF, Alien Mind Control, Darwin Day, Fasting
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 133
|date = Feb 6
|desc = Richard Hayes, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Dies,More Perpetual Motion, Voting in Invisible Ink, Canadian Snake Oil, Organic Milk, Apocalypse 2012, SETI
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 132
|date = Jan 30
|desc = UK Homeopathy In Crisis, Creationist Research Journal, Facilitated Communication in the Courtroom, ABC Drama on Vaccines and Autism, Arabian Brain Drain, Got Milk, Psychic Cheat, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 131
|date = Jan 23
|desc = Guests Fraser Cain and Pamela Gay from Astronomy Cast, Texas UFO follow up, Mars Bigfoot, Homer on Mercury, Asteroid 2007 TU24, Bionic Eyes, Coast to Coast Gets Punked, Restless Leg Syndrome, Time Travel, Relativity
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 130
|date = Jan 16
|desc = Brian Dunning from Skeptoid, Scientists Make Beating Heart, Divining Intervention, UFO over Texas, Reaction to More Evidence Against Vaccines and Autism, Cruise Scientology Recruiting Video, The K-T Extinction
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 129
|date = Jan 9
|desc = John Rennie, SGU 5x5, The Reason Driven Podcast, Insects may have Killed the Dinosaurs, Biofuels, Neti Pots, Healing Magnets, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 128
|date = Jan 2
|desc = New Science Based Medicine Blog, Psychic Predictions 2007, Edward to Channel Irwin, Masters Degree in Creation Science, Magic Amulets, SGU for teachers, Magic Foot Pads, Quantum Entanglement and Warp Drive
|status = skeleton
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2007
|range = (episodes 76-127)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 127
|date = Dec 26
|desc = SGU 2007 Year In Review
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 126
|date = Dec 19
|desc = Richard Wiseman, Rebecca's Pilot, Magic Leg, Creationists New Strategy, Scientific Criticism, Cattle Mutilation, Eidetic memory, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 125
|date = Dec 12
|desc = Alex Tsakiris from Skeptiko about Paranormal Research and Skepticism, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 124
|date = Dec 5
|desc = Lawrence Krauss, Hucka-Bee, Moonbeams in Arizona, Chimp Memory, Anti-vaccine misinformation on Youtube, Stem Cell Con, Information Theory, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 123
|date = Nov 28
|desc = Science and Faith, Computer Brain, Psychic Ripoff, Wifi and Autism, Skeptiko on Skeptics, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 122
|date = Nov 20
|desc = Judgment Day Censored, Blue Ghost Followup, Death by Energy Medicine, Photo Memory Manipulation, Special Feature: Our Day at the Psychic Fair, Bird Sex Correction, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 121
|date = Nov 14
|desc = Paul Kurtz, Judgment Day for ID, UFO Investigation, Universe loses weight, FDA Petition, Gas Station Ghost, BMI, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 120
|date = Nov 7
|desc = Greydon Square, Phenomenon, Robot cars, Jehovahs Witness death, Fat is Healthy, Judgment Day, Follow up on Mange, Special Request, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 119
|date = Oct 30
|desc = Ghosthunting Season, Report from the Homeopathy Conference, Rude 9-11 Truthers, Dinosaur Extinction, Mangy Bigfoot, Supplements, Spine tingling, Randi: Jaque Benveniste, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 118
|date = Oct 24
|desc = Joe Nickell, Autism and Vaccines, Ben Stein on OReilly, James Watson Followup, The Dangers of Pseudoscience, Honey, Flu Vaccine Myths, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 117
|date = Oct 17
|desc = Mark Crislip of QuackCast, Robot Marriage, Overeating Gene, New Dinosaur, Female Cult, Watson on Race, Randi: Best Mentalist Trick, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 116
|date = Oct 10
|desc = Marc Abrahams of the IgNobels, Geller on NBC, More Acupuncture, Cell Phones and Cancer, World with Time, Energy Follow up, Slain by Woo, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 115
|date = Oct 3
|desc = Jon Blumenfeld, Tom Cruise Bunker, The View of a Flat Earth, Fly Boy Follow up, Martial Arts Woo, Vaccine follow up, 30 Year Battery, Orthomolecular Medicine, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 114
|date = Sep 27
|desc = Richard Saunders, Rebecca Wins, New Acupuncture Study, Academic Free Speech, Boy Survives Jet Ride, Smart Sex, Colloidal Silver, Randi: Faith Healers, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 113
|date = Sep 19
|desc = Monkey Bird Love, Trouble for Trudeau, Free Energy, Medical Science, Judge believes in Elves, HPV Vaccine, Autism Nonsense on Oprah, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 112
|date = Sep 12
|desc = David Colquhoun, How the WTC Towers Fell, Burning Water, Extant Dodos, SGU Affiliations, Peanuts, King Tut Follow up, Billy Meier, Randi: Mentalism, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 111
|date = Sep 5
|desc = Bill Nye the Science Guy, Airline Sacrifices Goats, King Tut, Is Race Real, The Persistence of Myth, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 110
|date = Aug 28
|desc = The Fans and Rogues remember Perry DeAngelis, - Jerry Andrus: Another Skeptic Passes, HIV Denial, Jesus Appears in Fence, Ben Stein Expelled, Puzzle
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 109
|date = Aug 24
|desc = Perry DeAngelis 1963-2007, The Psychology of Belief - a lecture by Perry DeAngelis, The fans favorite clips of Perry
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 108
|date = Aug 11
|desc = Opening Remarks by Steven Novella and Steve Mirsky, MC Todd Robbins, Live Q&A: Autism Groups, Girls and Science, Nice Skepticism, Science Education
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 107
|date = Aug 8
|desc = Largest Planet Discovered, New Da Vinci Conspiracy, Korean Stem Cell Controversy, UK UFO Followup, Unproven Therapies, CO2 from Walking, AI Sense of Humor, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 106
|date = Aug 1
|desc = Barry Glassner, Death Cat, FDA Shuts Down DCA, Exorcisms Gone Bad, Ward Churchill Correction, The Man with No Brain, The Overview Effect, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 105
|date = Jul 25
|desc = Jimmy Carter, Ward Churchill Fired, Homeopathic Surgeon, UK UFO, Asian Parasite Killing Bees, Electric Car, Brain Evolution, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 104
|date = Jul 18
|desc = Brian Trent, Author of Never Grow Old
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 103
|date = Jul 11
|desc = Scott Lilienfield, Most Distant Galaxy, Orbo Perpetual Motion Machine, Salt Water Fuel, Scientology and Homocide, Puzzle
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 102
|date = Jul 3
|desc = Barry Beyerstein In Memoriam, Black Cohosh and Liver Failure, Echinacea Meta-analysis, Jury Accuracy, Bishops and Floods, HIV and Condoms, Chiropractic and Colic, Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy, Sickesz Follow Up, Puzzle
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 101
|date = Jun 20
|desc = Orac - The author of Respectful Insolence Science Blog, Do black holes exist, President Bush vetoes new stem cell bill, Legends for profit, Belgium skeptic sued, The Galileo gambit, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 100
|date = Jun 19
|desc = SGU 100th Episode, 60 Years of Flying Saucers, Nano Drugs, Dino Big Bird, Home Buying Pseudoscience, Magneto and Son, Acupuncture Brain Surgery, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 99
|date = Jun 13
|desc = Phil Plait - The Bad Astronomer, Creationism Poll, Academic Freedom, Mercury-Autism Controversy in Court, Mr. Wizard Dies at 89, Rods, Zero Point Energy, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 98
|date = Jun 6
|desc = Creation Museum in Canada, NASA on Global Warming, Chiropractic in VA Hospitals, Death by Pseudoscience, UFO Drone CGI, New Loch Ness Video, Lunar Effect, Herxheimer Reaction, Chemtrails, Puzzle
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 97
|date = May 30
|desc = Creation Museum Opens, Licensing Psychics, Homeopaths Lame Response, China Follow Up, Kevin Trudeau, UFO Drone, Puzzle
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 96
|date = May 23
|desc = China Consultant Gareth Hayes, UK Scientists Reject Homeopathy, Boy Whose Parents Rejected Chemotherapy Dies, Scientology in Public Schools, Is Science Made Up, Legislating Thought, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 95
|date = May 16
|desc = Fraser Cain and Pamela Gay from Astronomy Cast, :Scientology vs the BBC, Rosie and 9-11, Star Kids, Multivitamins and Cancer, Moo UFO, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 94
|date = May 9
|desc = Barry Beyerstein, The Encyclopedia of Life, Nanotech Spidy Suit, Bigfoot Endangered, Corrections and Clarifications, Evolution Challenge, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 93
|date = May 3
|desc = Bug Girl - The Beetastrophy, Philly Shuts Down Psychics, Fire Melts Steel, Woman Hanged as Vampire, Drake Equation, EM Sensitivity, Hitler Fallacy Revisited, Genetic Drug Therapy, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 92
|date = Apr 25
|desc = Is Mental Illness Real, Earth-like Planet Discovered, Criminalizing Holocaust Denial follow up, Pill for Genetic Diseases, Bacterial Flagella Follow Up, Vitrification, - 9/11 Conspiracy, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 91
|date = Apr 18
|desc = Susan Blackmore, More ID Nonsense from Dr. Michael Egnor, Criminalizing Holocaust Denial, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 90
|date = Apr 10
|desc = Quantum Computer?, Fermilab Flub, Dieting News, Time Travel, Meta Analysis, Chiropractic Confusion, Death Star Conspiracy, Hugh Ross and Testable Creationism, Near Death Experiences, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 89
|date = Apr 4
|desc = 9/11 Conspiracy Celebrities, Holy Water for AIDS, Astrology Fails Again, Fairy Hoax, Avoiding the Holocaust, Neal Adams on Fox, Peanut Butter and Evolution, Peloop, When Birds Attack, Groupthink,Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 88
|date = Mar 28
|desc = David Seaman, DC, UFO news, Houdini exhumed, Buhhda boy returns, PETA, GM foods, Satanic Barcode, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 87
|date = Mar 21
|desc = Robert Lancaster, Vernal Equinox, Prayer Meta-analysis, Creationist Teacher Fired, Polar Bear Euthanasia, Pluto Corrections, Herbal Remedies, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 86
|date = Mar 14
|desc = Update on the Tomb of Jesus, The Revenge of Pluto, Robot Rights, More ID Nonsense, ADHD, Nerves Conduct by Sound?, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 85
|date = Mar 7
|desc = Battle of the Diets, True Believers take on SGU, Modern Day Witch Trial, Billy Meier Apologst, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 84
|date = Feb 28
|desc = Kenny Feder: The Tomb of Jesus and More, Update on Scientific Literacy, Human-Chimp Split, Mary on Pizza Pan, Segment #2. Negativity, Vitamins, more on Angel Voices, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 83
|date = Feb 21
|desc = TAM5 Interviews Part V: with Julia Sweeney, Richard Wiseman and The Onion Editor Scott Dickers, Angels Voices, New JFK Footage, Bigfoot Foot, Psychics on Oprah, Zodiac Insurance, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 82
|date = Feb 15
|desc = TAM 5 Interviews Part IV with Christopher Hitchens and South Parks Matt Stone, Psychic Healer, Score 1 for Evolution in Kansas, Paranormal Research Center Closes, Monkey Feng Shui, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 81
|date = Feb 7
|desc = TAM5 Interviews Part III: Phil Plait the Bad Astronomer, and Mythbusters Adam Savage and Tory Belleci, Enviga Suit, Iran AIDS Cure, Creationists in Kenya, Follow up on Global Warming, Youngest Skeptic, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 80
|date = Jan 31
|desc = TAM5 Interviews Part II: John Rennie, Teller, Jim Underdown, Randi takes on Sylvia, The Hobbit Returns, The God Question, Cults and Religion, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 79
|date = Jan 24
|desc = TAM5 interviews with [[James Randi interview with Todd Robbins at TAM5 (79)|James Randi, Todd Robbins]], [[Hal Bidlack interview: MC at TAM5 (79)|Hal Bidlack]] & [[Eugenie Scott interview: Science in the media and the Dover trial (79)|Eugenie Scott]], [[TAM5: The Rogues report (79)|Report from TAM5]], [[Sylvia Browne: Dead wrong again (79)|Sylvia Browne]], [[Tom Cruise: Christ of Scientology (79)|Tom Cruise the Christ]], [[If Rebecca ate meat (79)|Meat-eating Rebecca]], [[Free-fall and terminal velocity emails (79)|Terminal Velocity]], [[Skeptical Puzzle: Power loss (79)|Puzzle]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 78
|date = Jan 15
|desc = Stem Cell Debate, Randi Psychic Challenge (Jeff Wagg), Government Conspiracies, Herbal Remedies, Skeptical Movement, Scientology, Randi: Whats That Line, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 77
|date = Jan 10
|desc = Spencer Weart, author of The Discovery of Global Warming, Stem Cell Updates, Enviga, Hawking in Space, Weight loss pill firms fined, Corrections, The Moon, True belief skeletons, Randi: Coincidence, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 76
|date = Jan 3
|desc = NeuroLogica Blog, Evolution in Cobb County, 2006 Predictions, Homeopathy in Scotland, Salt Lamps, UFOs, Intelligent Forces, Chelation Therapy, Randi: Optical Illusions, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2006
|range = (episodes 24-75)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 75
|date = Dec 27
|desc = 2006 Year in Review: Join the Skeptics' Guide host and the rogues as they look back at the year in science, skepticism, and podcasting
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 74
|date = Dec 20
|desc = Carl Sagan, Sylvia Browne Update, IQ and Vegetarians, Santa Claus, Facilitated Communication, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 73
|date = Dec 13
|desc = B. Alan Wallace Tree Octopus, Irans Holocaust Denial, Science and the Supernatural, Randi: Communication, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 72
|date = Dec 6
|desc = Paleontologist Ken Macleod - New Evidence for the Single Impact Theory, Holiday shopping scams, NASA plans moon base, Flowing water on Mars?, Molecular manufacturing, Hi from Down Under, Chiropractic HIV denial, Testing ID, High Tech Dowsing, Randi: End o
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 71
|date = Nov 29
|desc = Mark Crislip, Paranormal Computer Storage, ID in the UK, Corrections, Einstein, Ghost Photos, Neurolink, Randi: Mentalism, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 70
|date = Nov 21
|desc = Orgasm Day, Science of Deception, MoD warns of Aliens, Wonders of the World, top 10 Scientific Discoveries, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 69
|date = Nov 15
|desc = Seth Shostak, Qi-Gong on You Tube, Cryotherapy,Chicken-Tac-Toe, Hallucinations, Chiropractic, Religion and Mental Illness, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 68
|date = Nov 8
|desc = Kent Hovind Convicted, UFO Mocumentary, Bigfoot in Academia, Learn while you Sleep, Dolphin Legs, Edgar Cayce, Quantum Love, Distribution of Pseudoscience, Workplace Skepticism, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 67
|date = Nov 1
|desc = Richard Wiseman, Pseudohistory of Exorcism, Glossolalia, Elephant Mirrors, Holiday Weight, Anti-skeptics, Fox Parkinsons and Stem Cells, Face on Earth, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 66
|date = Oct 25
|desc = Michael Stebbins, Scientists and Engineers for America, The Physics of Ghosts and Vampires, What killed the dinosaurs?, Hallucinations, UFO cults, Randi: People in Space, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 65
|date = Oct 18
|desc = Geller's Heir, Human speciation, New Element 118, The 7th Fleet, Moon Robots, Vegetarians, Vitamin Supplements, Randi: Homeopathy, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 64
|date = Oct 11
|desc = Stuart Vyse, Author of The Psychology of Supersition, Friday 13th, Teaching Evolution in Michigan, Science in the UK, Comet to hit Earth, Water Cycle, Selling the Moon, Randi: Aromatherapy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 63
|date = Oct 4
|desc = Michael Shermer - Author of Why Darwin Matters, Skepchick-dude Calendars, Sexual arousal, Harry Potter, Autism, Skepticism and sensitivity, Randi: Business Astrology, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 62
|date = Sep 27
|desc = [[Joe Nickell interview: Paranormal investigations (62)|Joe Nickell interview]], [[Global warming follow up and solar activity (62)|Global Warming update]], [[Face on Mars: 3D reconstruction (62)|Face on Mars]], [[Lightning rods (62)|Lightning Rods]], [[Psychic astrology email (62)|Psychic Astrology]], [[Randi Speaks: Left behind (62)|Randi: Left Behind]], [[I have monkeys in my pants (62)|I have monkeys in my pants]], [[Skeptical Puzzle: Marine locks (62)|Puzzle]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 61
|date = Sep 20
|desc = James Randi Joins the Skeptics Guide, Male-Female Intelligence, Exorcism rape, Phil Plait, The Bad Astronomer, about Eris, Pluto, NASA and more, OBE's, More on 9/11, Denial, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 60
|date = Sep 13
|desc = 9/11 news, Report from Mexico, No Gulf War Syndrome,Persistant Vegetative State, Math vs Science, Thinking about the dead, Moon Hoax, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 59
|date = Sep 5
|desc = Ed Warren Dies, New ESP claims, Evolution of Superstition, Korean fan deaths, New UK Homeopathy law, Science beliefs, Recycling, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 58
|date = Aug 30
|desc = Kimball Atwood, MD, Pope and ID, Hitler and Stalin Possessed, Pluto not a planet, Kabbalah,Archaeological conspiracies, Skeptical Soldier, Abiogenesis Pseudoscience, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 57
|date = Aug 23
|desc = Larry Sarner, Water Tree Solved, Mystery Creature in Maine, Creationism update, Planet definition, Acupuncture followup, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 56
|date = Aug 15
|desc = Ken Feder, Evolution Survey, water tree, Abiogenic Origin of Oil,Dinosaur Petroglyphs, Acupuncture, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 55
|date = Aug 9
|desc = Steve Salerno, Happy Birthday James Randi, Archimedes Palimpsest, Science and Falsifiability, Skeptics track record, FDA, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 54
|date = Aug 2
|desc = Creationism Museum, Kansas votes out Creationists, Coulter throws down the gauntlet, Exorcism, PC, Chiropractic, Singularity, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 53
|date = Jul 26
|desc = Possible increase for NASA budget, Indigo children, Monkey eating eagle, Bird flight, Teachers respond to textbook criticism, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 52
|date = Jul 19
|desc = Bill Bennetta, The Textbook League, Rebecca Returns, Precious Bodily Fluids, World Jump Day,Follow up on Neal Adams, Women in Science, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 51
|date = Jul 12
|desc = Neal Adams, Space Shuttle Mission, Asteroid near miss, Psychedelic mushrooms, Kevin Barrett and 9/11 conspiracies,More on supplements, Peak Oil?, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 50
|date = Jul 5
|desc = Gerald Posner, author of Case Closed, Second hand smoke,Binaural Beats, Aubrey de Grey, Puzzle (answer plus new puzzle)
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 49
|date = Jun 28
|desc = Theory of Evolution, Agnosticism, Magnet therapy, Regulating supplements, Neuroethics, Puzzle
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 48
|date = Jun 21
|desc = Steve Mirsky, Scientific American, Herbs for menopause, Anne Coulter and evolution,Penta Water, Alcoholism a disease?, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 47
|date = Jun 14
|desc = Zachary Moore: Evolution 101, Feng-shui, Hawking on space travel,Consensus on Global Warming, God and the Big Bang
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 46
|date = Jun 7
|desc = Phil Plait: The Bad Astronomer,Satans day, Skepchick infiltrates Christian Scientists, Altruism genes, Follow up on 9/11 Hoax
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 45
|date = May 31
|desc = SGU Forum, 9-11 footage, UK Doctors fight against Alternative Med,Cancer Cures, Dream Interpretation, Science vs God, Suns temperature
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 44
|date = May 24
|desc = James Randi News: Human/chimp hybrid, China mirage
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 43
|date = May 17
|desc = Ray Hyman, News: Bosnian Pyramid update, Mormon cult leader hits FBI list, Paranormal mysteries, Science education, Scientology super powers
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 42
|date = May 10
|desc = Eugenie Scott, News: UFO's in the UK, Scientology Superheroes,Tracking Satellites, Drinking water
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 41
|date = May 3
|desc = Bosnian pyramids, Toxic Cruise,Bubble Universes, Iridology, Black holes, and the Origin of life, Discussion: The Scope of Skepticism
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 40
|date = Apr 26
|desc = Brian Trent, author of Remembering Hypatia, Sonoma Bigfoot revealed, Channeling John Lennon,More on Hurricanes and Birthdays, Bananas and logical fallacies
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 39
|date = Apr 19
|desc = Marilyn Schlitz, ESP researcher, More on the polar ice caps, Sad Monkeys, spinal stem cells and mercury amalgam,gene multiplication, Skeptical Tools
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 38
|date = Apr 12
|desc = Bill Nye, Tom Cruise, Time Travel, Global Warming, Happy Face on Mars,Evolution, more on the flood, the psychosomatic effect and
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 37
|date = Apr 6
|desc = Fish evolution, prayer in medicine, Noah's ark,EVP, more on the solar eclipse
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 36
|date = Mar 29
|desc = Rick Ross, Solar Eclipse,The Woman who Never Forgets, Panspermia, Hydrino power, Bigfoot, Microwaves
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 35
|date = Mar 22
|desc = More on Scientology and South Park, Noah's Ark, Bigfoot or Bison, Cancer quacks, creationism in UK, DNA vs the Mormons
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 34
|date = Mar 15
|desc = Buddha Boy, El Chupacabra, Scientology and South Park, What the Bleep: Down the Rabbit Hole, Water on enceladus
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 33
|date = Mar 9
|desc = Rebecca Watson - founder of the Skepchicks, Magnet Therapy, Tax scams, Plastic Scare
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 32
|date = Mar 1
|desc = More on ID, Holy hardware, G-spot, Oil crisis, The 12th planet
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 31
|date = Feb 22
|desc = Terrence Hines - author of Pseudoscience and the Paranormal
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 30
|date = Feb 15
|desc = New UFO Coverup, Randi, ID, Jesus in court, Cholesterol and colon cleansing
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 29
|date = Feb 8
|desc = Featured Website: Two sites on Science Myths, Feynman on Education and Textbooks, , Going Beyond Science?
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 28
|date = Feb 1
|desc = Tara Smith of Iowans for Science, , More on HIV Denial
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 27
|date = Jan 25
|desc = Ask the Skeptic, Two Views of American Education, Government and wacky science
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 26
|date = Jan 17
|desc = Eric Altman from the Penn Bigfoot Society, Psychic Predictions for 2005, Darwin Day
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 25
|date = Jan 11
|desc = Did Castro Kill JFK, Discussion Items: Iran Denies the Holocaust, Cell Research Fraud in South Korea, Political Correctness vs Freedom of Speech
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 24
|date = Jan 6
|desc = James Randi
|status = skeleton
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2005
|range = (episodes 1-23)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 23
|date = Dec 21
|desc = Jan Helen McGee - Psychic Detective, Victory for Science and Reason in Dover
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 22
|date = Dec 14
|desc = Holiday Scams, Discussion Topics: Eye Evolution, Venus the UFO, Video Games and Seizures, Psychic Detectives
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 21
|date = Dec 7
|desc = Wallace Sampson, MD - Editor of the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine, ID and Weeping Icons
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 20
|date = Nov 23
|desc = Tom W. Clark - founder of Naturalism.org, ID Update
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 19
|date = Nov 16
|desc = ID and Idiocy, Putting the Psi into Science, The Starchild Project
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 18
|date = Nov 2
|desc = Halloween Ghost Stories, Astrology vs Astronomy
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 17
|date = Oct 26
|desc = Joe Nickell - paranormal investigator
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 16
|date = Oct 12
|desc = Glen G. Sparks
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 15
|date = Oct 6
|desc = Chris Mooney: Author of The Republican War on Science
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 14
|date = Sep 28
|desc = UFO Landing Strip, ID Update, Bigfoot Convention, Katrina Myths and Conspiracies
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 13
|date = Sep 14
|desc = [[9/11 Conspiracy Theories (13)|9/11 Conspiracies]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 12
|date = Sep 7
|desc = Steve Milloy
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 11
|date = Aug 31
|desc = Bob Park: author of Voodoo Science
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 10
|date = Aug 23
|desc = In Memoriam: Phil Klass and Robert Baker, Childrens Books
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 9
|date = Aug 10
|desc = Bush-The Pope-and evolution -again, Atlantis, Modern Witch Hunts, Science and Hollywood
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 8
|date = Aug 2
|desc = Steven Salerno: author of SHAM
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 7
|date = Jul 20
|desc = The Pope on Potter and evolution, Ghostbusting with Penn & Teller, Ask the Skeptic, Quackwatch
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 6
|date = Jul 7
|desc = Science Magazine's 125 things we do not know, Tom Cruise, Scientology and Psychiatry, CT Warning on e-scams, Ramada Inn in Stratford Haunted
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 5
|date = Jun 29
|desc = Michael Shermer
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 4
|date = Jun 15
|desc = Update on Kansas Evolution Debate, Alternative Theories of Matter
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 3
|date = Jun 7
|desc = [[Massimo Pigliucci Interview: Intelligent Design, Science, Religion (3)|Massimo Pigliucci interview]], [[Smithsonian ID Fiasco Follow-up (3)|Update on ID film in the Smithsonian Institution]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 2
|date = Jun 1
|desc = [[Kansas school board: Redefining science (2)|Kansas Evolution Update]], [[Discovery Institute preview at Smithsonian Institute (2)|Discovery Institute preview at Smithsonian Institute]], [[Stem cell bill 2005: Embryonic vs. adult-derived (2)|Stem Cell Research]], [[Crop circles: Cereology, blueprints and perfect circles (2)|Crop Circle Season]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 1
|date = May 4
|desc = ID, Reverse Engineering UFOs, Magicians, and Exploding Toads
|status = verified
}}
|}
|}

User:Teleuteskitty/Draft SGU list

2013-09-20T22:18:39Z

Teleuteskitty: added segment links for 165, 184, 252, 271, 347

{| class="mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2013
|range = (episodes 390-...)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 426
|date = Sep 14
|desc = 9/11, Motivated Numeracy, Arctic Ice, Robot Traders, Teenage Exorcists, Homeopathic Vaccines, Mission to Mars, Bdellovibrio
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 425
|date = Sep 7
|desc = Last Thylacine, NASA Spiders, Chicken Wings and Penis Size, TCM for Flu, New Element 115, Pox Parties, Aromatherapy
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 424
|date = Aug 31
|desc = Cara Santa Maria, Paul Ehrlich, Energized Water, Probiotics for Mental Health, Death by Iridology, Immortality, Authority
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 423
|date = Aug 24
|desc = Sanal Edamaruku, Vesuvius, No Proof of Creation, Area 51, Hydrating Beer, Indian Rationalist Shot Dead, Free Roaming Planets, Sugar and Hyperactivity
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 422
|date = Aug 17
|desc = Hazel Bishop, NDE Explained, TV Watching, Labor and Autism, Magenta Planet, Spontaneous Baby Combustion, Special Report: Onionated
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 421
|date = Aug 10
|desc = Michael Mann, Smithsonian, Dead Monk Alive, Lab Grown Burger, Dolphin Memory, Cattle Mutilations, Gluten Follow Up, HPV Vaccine
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 420
|date = Aug 3
|desc = Robert House, Hunt for Alien Spaceships, 3-D Printing, Lunar Calendar, Full Moon and Sleep, Man-Chimp-Pig
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 419
|date = Jul 27
|desc = Insulin, Giant Virus, Gluten, Death Wave, The Pitch Drops, Revenge of the Conspiracy Theorists. Cassini Picture of Earth
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 418
|date = Jul 20
|desc = Live at TAM 2013, Guest Rogue: John Rennie, Viking 1, Special Report: Grand Canyon, The End of the World, Sailing Stones, Scrotal Evolution, Moons of Pluto, James Randi and Jamy Ian Swiss, Questions: Cynicism, Monsanto
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 417
|date = Jul 13
|desc = Paul Offit, Carl Zimmer and Erno Rubik, Seeing Through Walls, First in Flight, Tylenol and Fear, Spinning Pharoah, Head Transplant
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 416
|date = Jul 6
|desc = Guest Rogue: Randall Snyder, Pasteur, Special Report: Leaving Mormonism, Crop Circles in History, Constructing Morality, Movie Review: World War Z, Patent Troll Follow Up
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 415
|date = Jun 29
|desc = Roy Wolford, Podcasting Patent, Class System in Mice, Anti-GMO Pseudoscience, Skunk Ape, Special Report: GyroStim and Science Journalism, Staticman
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 414
|date = Jun 22
|desc = Daniel Loxton, Osteoarthritis, Patenting DNA, Foot Fungus, Chinese Fake Alien, New Type of Star, Can We Know Everything
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 413
|date = Jun 15
|desc = First Blood Transfusion, Vaccine Refusal, Seeing Ultraviolet, Ape Feet, Elizabeth I a Man?, Special Report: Don McLeroy Follow Up, Living on Sunshine
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 412
|date = Jun 8
|desc = Joshie Berger, Missile Mail, Star Trek Review, Kepler Broken, Small Hadron Collider, Carnivorous Sponge, Pollen
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 411
|date = Jun 1
|desc = Vijay Dewan and Scott Thurman, Cosmic Background Radiation, Mermaids, Angelina Jolie, Prosopagnosia, Flying Car, Raw Honey
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 410
|date = May 25
|desc = Guest Rogue: Richard Saunders, Geek Pride Day, McCormick Sentenced, Meteroid Hits Moon, DSM-5, Placenta Madness, Water Heater Followup, McLeroy Interview
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 409
|date = May 18
|desc = Heather Berlin, Nicholas II, Your Senses in Space, Talking Plants, Flowing Glass, Book Review: Ender's Game, Water Heaters, Atacama Specimen
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 408
|date = May 11
|desc = Don McLeroy, Sylvia Browne Wrong Again, Cosmic Rays and Lightening, Cicada Return
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 407
|date = May 4
|desc = Mystery Guest, SGU 8 year Anniversary, Funding Science, Curse Scam, Fusion Reactor, Einstein Still Correct, Oblivion Review, Is SETI Science
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 406
|date = Apr 27
|desc = Samuel Morse, Mars One, Bomb Detector Fraud, TED and Chopra, Creationism and Dinosaurs, Bitcoin Follow Up
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 405
|date = Apr 20
|desc = Guest Rogues: Jon Ronson and Simon Singh, Sundogs, Simon Singh's New Book, Bitcoins, Internet Criminals, BRAIN Project, Evidence of Dark Matter, Hallucinating Music
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 404
|date = Apr 13
|desc = Live at NECSS 2013, Guest Rogue: Cathleen Carr, Apollo 13, Remembering Perry, Conspiracy Survey, Misused Scientific Terms, New Type of Supernova, Vaccines Make You Gay, Anti-Vaccine Propaganda on Twitter, Live Q&A: Effects of Alcohol, Online Health Inform
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 403
|date = Apr 6
|desc = Ian O'Neill, Isaac Asimov, Fairy Circle Update, Zombie Parasites, Retraction Watch, Genetic Transistors, Prescribing Placebos
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 402
|date = Mar 30
|desc = Guest Rogue: Karl Withakay, [[Homeopathy Debate at UConn (402)|Homeopathy Debate]], [[Nine-year-old Finds Dinosaur Fossil (402)|Small Pterosaur]], [[Fracking Causing Earthquakes (402)|Fracking Earthquakes]], [[Man Who Never Has to Eat Again (402)|Never Eat Again]], [[Voyager at the Edge (402)|Voyager at the Edge]], [[More Than Gravity Theory (402)|More Than Gravity]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 401
|date = Mar 23
|desc = Pons and Fleischmann, Marshmallow Test, Bacteria Everywhere, Acupuncture HIV, Dr. Oz Sued, New Pope, Special Report: Why Worry?
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 400
|date = Mar 16
|desc = Lawrence Oates, Meteorite Fossils, Duane Gish Dies, Acupuncture Meta-Analysis, Live to 150, Close Star Discovered
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 399
|date = Mar 9
|desc = Guest Rogue: George Hrab, Hans Christian
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 398
|date = Mar 2
|desc = Jon Ronson, Compact Disk, Life Around Dying Stars, Ancient Lost Continent, Electronic Tattoos, Google Glass, Ouch
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 397
|date = Feb 23
|desc = Heisenberg, Russian Meteor, Spontaneous Human Combustion, Cosmos Unstable, Bigfoot DNA Published, Intellectually Lazy, Special Report: Retro Futurism
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 396
|date = Feb 16
|desc = Brian Wecht, Chien-Shiung Wu, AI Doctor, Ball and Cup Magic, Gorilla in the Bronchi, Feathered Dino Follow Up
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 395
|date = Feb 9
|desc = Space Medicine, Russian Lake Monster, Bones of Richard III, Scientific Genius, Without Fear, Feathered Dinosaurs, Tuesday Boy, George Hrab
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 394
|date = Feb 2
|desc = John Rennie, Groundhog Day, Up Goer Five, China Smog, Vaccine Court, Deer Antler Spray, Perpetual Motion
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 393
|date = Jan 26
|desc = Guest Rogue: Brian Dunning, [[Zack Kopplin interview: Creationism and school boards (393)|Zack Kopplin interview]], [[SGU_Episode_393#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.280:51.29|Brachistochrone curve]], [[Manti Te'o hoax (393)|Manti Te'o Hoax]], [[River on Mars (393)|River on Mars]], [[Neanderthal baby (393)|Neanderthal Baby]], [[Nikola Tesla: Report by Brian Dunning (393)|Special Report: Nikola Tesla]], [[Vomitorium correction (393)|Vomitorium]], [[Brian Dunning & Lizzie Li Taylor interview: Skeptoid in China (393)|Skeptoid Chinese]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 392
|date = Jan 19
|desc = [[Massimo Polidoro interview: Italian skepticism (392)|Massimo Polidoro]], [[Neon lights (392)|Neon Signs]], [[Predicting murders (392)|Predicting Murders]], [[Lead and crime (392)|Lead and Crime]], [[Biggest thing in the Universe (392)|Biggest Thing in the Universe]], [[Million dollar challenge: Steve Volk objects (392)|Defending the $1m Challenge]], [[Turkey's disappearing evolution books (392)|Turkey Bans Evolution Books]], [[Quickie with Bob: Apophis update (392)|Apophis Update]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 391
|date = Jan 12
|desc = Dr. James Bedford, Below Absolute Zero, Burzynski Challenge, Genome Editing, Celebrity Pseudoscience, Oz Pseudoscience
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 390
|date = Jan 5
|desc = Massimo Pigliucci, FM Radio, Psychic Predictions 2012, Cosmic Rays and Dementia
|status = complete
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2012
|range = (episodes 338-389)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 389
|date = Dec 29
|desc = SGU 2012 Year in Review, Thomas Fuller, Best and Worst of 2012, In Memoriam
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 388
|date = Dec 22
|desc = Coelacanth, Sandy Hook Massacre, China Stabbing, AVN to Change Name, Megalapteryx Foot, Invisibility Cloak, Special Report: The Hobbit and High Frame Rate
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 387
|date = Dec 15
|desc = Joshie Berger, homosexuality and the DSM, Creationist Tactics, Truth in Education, Dawn of Life, History of Cheese, Vampire Warning, Ocean Robots
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 386
|date = Dec 8
|desc = Guest Rogue: Phil Plait, Atoms for Peace, End of the World, Bug UFO Follow Up, Inattentional Amnesia, Curiosity Kurfuffle, Grand Canyon Age, Moon Formation
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 385
|date = Dec 1
|desc = Banachek, Taman Shud Mystery, Not-So-Terror Bird, Bloop Solved, Hijacking DNA, Bigfoot DNA, Makemake, Theory
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 384
|date = Nov 24
|desc = Guest Rogue: Richard Wiseman, Origin of Species, Special Report: Richard's Dream Research, Aspartame Study, Being a Psychopath, Type Ia Supernova, Fecal Transplants
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 383
|date = Nov 17
|desc = Bruce Hood, Jonestown Massacre, Denver UFO, Math Hurts, Communicating with the Vegetative, Nearby Rogue Planet, Twisted Light, Bicycle Physics
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 382
|date = Nov 10
|desc = Goddess of Reason, Life in the Universe, UFOlogy Dying, Chelation Therapy, Psychic Fail, Universe Rotating, In Memorium: Mike LaCelle
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 381
|date = Nov 3
|desc = Live at CSICon 2012, Sputnik 2, In Memorium: Paul Kurtz and Leon Jaroff, Big Bang Conference, Italian Earthquake Scientists Convicted, Whale Makes Human Sounds, PANDAS Controversy, Reporting Ghost Stories, Live Q&A
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 380
|date = Oct 27
|desc = Genetic Logic Circuit, Efficient Language, Closest Exoplanet, Alien Hacker, Zombie Bite
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 379
|date = Oct 20
|desc = Jamy Ian Swiss, Norman Borlaug, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, DNA Half Life, The Simulated Universe, Supersonic Jump, Geoglyph
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 378
|date = Oct 13
|desc = [[Robert Hutton interview: SGUTranscripts.org (378)|Robert Hutton:SGU Transcripts]], [[SGU_Episode_378#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.280:35.29|Lady of Fatima]], [[Nobel prizes 2012: Medicine & physics (378)|2012 Nobel Prizes]], [[Dyson spheres (378)|Dyson Spheres]], [[Simon Singh: Pseudoscience magazine libel (378)|Simon Singh and Libel]], [[Presidential lie detector (378)|Presidential Lie Detector]], [[Neurosurgeon's 'proof of heaven' (378)|Proof of Heaven]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 377
|date = Oct 6
|desc = The Billygoat Curse, The Physics of Roulette, Vitamin D and the Common Cold, Harpooning Satellites, Bee Brains, WTC7 Collapse
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 376
|date = Sep 29
|desc = Pamela Gay, CERN, Ig Nobels 2012, GM Corn Rat Study, HIV and Faith Healing, Emoticons turn 30
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 375
|date = Sep 22
|desc = Golden Tablets and Hobbit Day, Warp Drive, Bad Science Reporting, Dark Energy Camera, Crowdsourcing Science, Spheres on Mars, CSICon 2012, Blue Moon and Frances
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 374
|date = Sep 15
|desc = Murray Gell-Mann and Alexander Flemming, Sun Myung Moon Dies, Company Apologies for Thalidomide, Super WiFi, Calorie Restriction and Longevity, Special Report: A Skeptical 12 Step Program, Skeptical Quote of the Week
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 373
|date = Sep 8
|desc = Live at DragonCon 2012, Billy West, First Trek, Blue Moon Lunacy, Bigfoot News, Negative Replication of Psi, Baldness Cure, Little Mass from Higgs, UFO Over Illuminati Castle, SGU FAQ, Homeopath Pharmacist, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 372
|date = Sep 1
|desc = Passenger Pigeon, Neil Armstrong Dies, Naked Darth Vader, Homeopathic Candy, Hearing Voices, Special Report: Conspiracy Conference
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 371
|date = Aug 25
|desc = Pixar's Chris Ford, The Great Moon Hoax, The Sun is Round, DNA Storage, FDA and Homeopathy, Pregnancy from Rape, E-bay and Magic
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 370
|date = Aug 18
|desc = Eggs and Atherosclerosis, Hacking the Rover, The Sneeze, Google Pyramids, Occ Update, Asymmetrical Screw
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 369
|date = Aug 11
|desc = Dino Mating, Blowing Up Asteroids, Punching for God, Occ the Skeptical Caveman, Kinesio Tape
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 368
|date = Aug 4
|desc = Brian Wecht, First Fax, Superstition Fund, Curiosity's Sky Crane, Anti-Fluoridation News Fail, Bat-Winged Monkey Bird
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 367
|date = Jul 28
|desc = Kennewick Man, Skeptical Conferences, Sally Ride Dies, Mood Photography, Computer Modeling Life, Artificial Jellyfish, Firewalking Mishap, Multivitamins
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 366
|date = Jul 21
|desc = Live at TAM 2012, Guests: Richard Saunders and George Hrab, Planet Nibiru, Jean Picard born, Fake Bomb Detector Maker Charged, Debating an Antivaccinationist. Feathered Dinosaurs, New Moon for Pluto, Higgs Discovery Announced, Sex Myths, Sapphire Hard Dri
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 365
|date = Jul 14
|desc = Guest Rogue: Daniel Beauley, Jane Goodall, UFOs in National Geo, Seeing Inside Tissue, GOP on Critical Thinking, Alternative Chocolate, Who Owns Space
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 364
|date = Jul 7
|desc = Jann Bellamy, Newcomen Engine, Water on The Moon and Mars, Swiss Report on Homeopathy, Twisted Light, Embodied Cognition, News Update: Causeway Cannibal
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 363
|date = Jun 30
|desc = [[SGU_Episode_363#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.280:40.29|Tunguska Event]], [[The Science of Prometheus (363)|The Science of Prometheus]], [[Time Slowing Down (363)|Time Slowing Down]], [[Quickie with Bob: Higgs Update (363)|Higgs Update]], [[Nessie Disproves Evolution (363)|Nessie Disproves Evolution]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 362
|date = Jun 23
|desc = Professor Zhong Lin Wang, Mystery Carbon Spike, Younger Dryas Impact, Liberation Procedure Study, Testing Female Athletes, Fetal Pill Update
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 361
|date = Jun 16
|desc = This Day in Skepticism - Captain Picard Day, LiDar, Extremophiles, Moral Behavior, Cervical Manipulation, Ghost Train, Pharmacist Homeopaths
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 360
|date = Jun 9
|desc = [[SGU_Episode_360#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.2800:47.29|Ray Bradbury Dies]], [[Show 360: SGU Comes Full Circle|Episode #360]], [[Transit of Venus (360)|Transit of Venus]], [[North Carolina Legislature Proposing Sea Level Prediction Methods (360)|Legislating Science]], [[North Carolina Legislature Proposing Sea Level Prediction Methods (360)|Science Education in California]] & [[Evolution removed from South Korean textbooks (360)|South Korea]], [[Quickie with Bob: Vapor movies (360)|Vapor Storage]], [[Magnetic skeptical phrases (360)|Magnetic Skeptical Phrases]], [[Peer review email (360)|Peer Review]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 359
|date = Jun 2
|desc = [[Debbie Feldman interview: Leaving her Hasidic Roots (359)|Debbie Feldman interview]], [[SGU_Episode_359#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.281:22.29|Bridget Bishop]], [[Medical Zombies (359)|Medical Zombies]], [[Science of Reruns (359)|Science of Reruns]], [[Leakey on Evolution (359)|Leakey on Evolution]], [[Local Dark Matter Follow-up (359)|Local Darkmatter Followup]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 358
|date = May 26
|desc = Guest Rogue: Joshie Berger, [[SGU_Episode_358#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.281:05.29|Animalcules]], [[Joshie's TAM Poker Tournament Idea (358)|TAM Poker Tournament]], [[SpaceX launch, May 2012 (358)|SpaceX Launch]], [[Information About the Early Universe May Be Lost (358)|Studying the Universe]], [[Consciousness: Materialism vs Dualism vs Idealism (358)|What is Consciousness?]], [[Speaking to Mediums in Languages (358)|Speaking to Mediums]], [[Swindler's list: Hearing aids (358)|Swindler's List: Hearing Aids]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 357
|date = May 19
|desc = Chris Lewicki, Guest Rogue: Phil Plait, Head Cabinet, Ghost Box, Mayan Calendar, Electricity from Viruses, UK LIbel Law Update, Corrections, Supermoon
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 356
|date = May 12
|desc = Dinosaur Farts, Aura Reading, 48 Frames per Second, Baby Powder, Killing Bigfoot, TAM2012
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 355
|date = May 5
|desc = Guest Rogues: Seth Shostak and James Randi, [[Stars can capture rogue planets (355)|Rogue Planets]], [[Monkey brain-machine interface (355)|Machine-Monkey Interface]], [[Using self-replicating robots to explore space (355)|Finding ET with Robots]], [[Looking for the God spot in the brain (355)|God Spot in the Brain]], [[Update on SETI funding (355)|SETI Update]], [[Hastening the coming Singularity (355)|Live Q&A: The Coming Singularity]]
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 354
|date = Apr 28
|desc = Live at NECSS 2012 with Guest James Randi, [[Pedantic Words (354)|Pedantic Words]], [[Sports pseudoscience and superstition (354)|Sports Pseudoscience ]], [[Nuking Asteroids (354)|Nuking Asteroids]], [[Splotch Ness Monster (354)|Loch Ness Monster Spotted]], [[IceCube Neutrino Detector (354)|Cosmic Rays]], [[Quickie with Bob: Space Shuttle Enterprise (354)|Space Shuttle Enterprise]], [[SGU_Episode_354#SGU_Video_.2851:27.29|SGU Video]], [[SGU_Episode_354#Remembering_Perry_.281:01:47.29|Remembering Perry]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 353
|date = Apr 21
|desc = The Surgeons Photo, Life on Mars, Indian Skeptic Charged with Blasphemy, Multitasking, Monkeys Recognize Words, Cosmic Superwinds, Titanic Correction, Advanced Dinosaurs
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 352
|date = Apr 14
|desc = Titanic Disaster, Blow Up Space Junk, Aristolochia Nephropathy, Homophobia, Toilet Water, Monkey Bill Update, Grover's Algorithm, Gulf of Cambay Ruins
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 351
|date = Apr 7
|desc = Gripp (Marshall Gillson), World Health Day, Smart Sand, Enclothed Cognition, Death by Homeopathy, Small Scale, Rhino Horn
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 350
|date = Mar 31
|desc = [[James Randi interview: Pigasus awards, NECSS & TAM (350)|James Randi interview]], [[Patenting life: Pseudomenas putida (350)|Patenting Life]], [[Tennessee anti-evolution bill: Teach the controversy (350)|Tennessee Anti-Evolution Bill]], [[Origin of the moon (350)|Origin of the Moon]], [[Mars: Mystery cloud (350)|Mystery Cloud on Mars]], [[Newage Mountain: Pic de Bugarach (350)|Newage Mountain]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 349
|date = Mar 24
|desc = Exxon Valdez, Superhero Pseudoscience, High Altitude Skydiving, Nuclear Clock, New Hampshire Abortion Bill, NDE and Lucid Dreaming, Designer Electrons, Here Comes the Metric System
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 348
|date = Mar 17
|desc = Guest Rogue: Richard Saunders, Vanguard I, Oldest Skeleton, Red Deer Cave People, Neutrino Communication, Defending Science in Australia, Failure to Replicate Bem's Psi Research, Catching up on Vaccines
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 347
|date = Mar 10
|desc = [[Scott Sigler interview: Hard science fiction (347)|Scott Sigler interview]], [[Thomas Jefferson: Megalonyx (347)|Megalonyx]], [[Robot Cheetah: DARPA and Boston Dynamics (347)|Robot Cheetah]], [[Kony 2012 (347)|Kony 2012]], [[Neuroprosthetics: Rats and neuroplasticity (347)|Neuroprosthetics]], [[Iceman tattoos: Skepticism over acupuncture points (347)|Therapeutic Tattoos]], [[QWERTY effect (347)|QWERTY effect]]
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 346
|date = Mar 3
|desc = [[Gordon Maupin interview: Fracking (346)|Gordon Maupin interview]], [[Leap years and international day of rare diseases (346)|Leap Year]], [[Iceman genome: Oetzi's origins (346)|Iceman Genome]], [[Faster than light neutrinos: Faulty timing signals (346)|FTL Neutrino Follow Up]], [[Global warming: Heartland Institute scandal follow-up (346)|More on Anti-Climategate]], [[Baseball doping: Braun off on technicality (346)|Drug Testing]], [[SGU_Episode_346#Your_Deceptive_Mind_.2836:02.29|Your Deceptive Mind]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 345
|date = Feb 25
|desc = Fraser Cain and Pamela Gaye, Tiny Lizards, Missing Dark Matter, Anti-Climate Gate, Nanoparticle Safety
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 344
|date = Feb 18
|desc = The Science of Pony Tails, Online Surveys, Structural Batteries, QWB:Alien Matter,s: Evolution Falsifiable, Headgear
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 343
|date = Feb 11
|desc = 3D Printing, Morgellons Update, State Science Standards, Lake Vostok, Hard Drive Breakthrough, Special Report: Ouija Boards
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 342
|date = Feb 4
|desc = Derek Bartholomaus, Speed Limit for Birds, Reading Brain Waves, Conspiracy Contradictions, Scorpion Inspired Armor
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 341
|date = Jan 28
|desc = Sean Carroll, Stem Cells for Blindness, Chiropractic Neurology, Mass Psychogenic Illness, Sounds in the Sky
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 340
|date = Jan 21
|desc = Eugenie Scott, NECSS 2012, Photographic Black Holes, SOPA-PIPA, Homeopathic Burn Treatment, Ice Forms
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 339
|date = Jan 14
|desc = Tricorder X-prize, Sheldrake on Presentiment, Physics Cranks, Witchhunter Comes to US
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 338
|date = Jan 7
|desc = Martin Rundkvist, Psychic Predictions 2011, Hacker Satellite, Testing Violins, QWB:Lost World of Antarctica
|status = verified
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2011
|range = (episodes 286-337)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 337
|date = Dec 31
|desc = SGU 2011 Year in Review, Guest Mike Lacelle, Best and Worst of 2011
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 336
|date = Dec 24
|desc = Guests: George Hrab and Jamy Ian Swiss, Christopher Hitchens In Memoriam, Mammoth Bone Homes, Trillion Frames per Second, Neti Pot Dangers, Special Report: Randomness
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 335
|date = Dec 17
|desc = Pro-Measles Children's Book, Higgs Update, Mercury UFO, Hallucinating Color, Menstrual Syncing, Swindler's List: Online Dating
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 334
|date = Dec 10
|desc = Lawrence Krauss, Trudeau Fine Upheld, Planetary Probes, Cloning a Mammoth, Kepler 22b, Corrections
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 333
|date = Dec 3
|desc = James Randi, Detecting Digital Manipulation, Curiosity Heads to Mars, Creationist Bill Defeated in NH, Scorpios Need Not Apply, Jetpack Flies with Jets, Special Report: Burzynski Clinic Intimidates Bloggers - Rhys Morgan, Tomato Juice Color
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 332
|date = Nov 26
|desc = JFK Assassination, Power Balance Bankruptcy, FTL Neutrino Follow Up, Does Water Prevent Dehydration, Food Color and Taste, SILLY Bias in Scientific Reviews
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 331
|date = Nov 19
|desc = Neil deGrasse Tyson, Moon's Magnetic Field, Europa's Ice Surface, False Confessions, BMJ Poe, Catholic Pox Parties
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 330
|date = Nov 12
|desc = Stroke Turns Man Gay, Asteroid YU55, Pox Parties, US Government Denies UFOs, Man Confuses Moon for UFO, NASA's Orion Program, Intercessory Prayer
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 329
|date = Nov 5
|desc = Climate Change Confirmation, Steve Job's Cancer, New GPS, Pre-Clovis Find, Brush Before or After
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 328
|date = Oct 29
|desc = [[Banachek interview: $1m challenge & Nightline (328)|Banachek interview]], [[MIT radar "sees" through walls (328)|Seeing Through Walls]], [[Malaria vaccine: 'Mosquirex' (RSS,S) (328)|Malaria Vaccine]], [[Luckiest cities - Men's Health magazine (328)|Luckiest Cities]], [[Very Large Array telescope: Call for new name (328)|New Name for VLA]], [[Harold Camping: Another failed prophecy (328)|Another Failed Prediction]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 327
|date = Oct 22
|desc = Richard Wiseman, Jay Report from Italy, Faster Than Light Neutrinos, Reiki Doesn't Work, Ending Genital Cutting, Camping Prophesy Update
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 326
|date = Oct 15
|desc = Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde, Vitamins and Mortality, Megavirus, NDEs, More UFOs, Electrosense, Airborne Petition
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 325
|date = Oct 8
|desc = Steve Jobs Dies, Nobel Prizes 2011 for Physics, Medicine, and Chemistry, IgNobels for 2011
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 324
|date = Oct 1
|desc = Highlights from the SGU 24 Live Streaming event, Australian Skeptics: Richard Saunders, Dr. Rachie Dunlop, Jo Benhamu, Grail Craft Launch, A. sediba, Adaptation and Orgasm, Special Report: Siphonomores, Top 10 Future Technologies
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 323
|date = Sep 24
|desc = Guests: George Hrab and Brian Brushwood, Single Molecule Electric Motor, Registering Atheists, Special Report: Nature vs Nurture
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 322
|date = Sep 17
|desc = Sara Mayhew, New Items: Chinese Scientists Plan to Capture Asteroid, Acupuncture and Acoustic Waves
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 321
|date = Sep 10
|desc = Live at DragonCon 2011, 9-11 Comic, Diamond Planet, Homeopathic Water, Woolly Rhino, Editor Resigns of Global Warming Paper, Live Q&A
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 320
|date = Aug 29
|desc = Jad Abumrad, Hurricane Irene, ISS Threatened, LHC and Super Symmetry, Alien Signals, Tin Foil, Skeptical Shout-Out
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 319
|date = Aug 24
|desc = Virginia Earthquake, Brand Loyalty, Tin Foil and RFID, Swindler's List: Functional Medicine
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 318
|date = Aug 17
|desc = Paul Provenza, Non-Growing Earth, Boiron Threatens Blogger, Woman Romance and Science, Space X Going to the Space Station, More on Helium
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 317
|date = Aug 10
|desc = Anti-Matter in Space, 3D Brain Mapping, Time Shift, 4-Time Lottery Winner, Robert Johnson
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 316
|date = Aug 3
|desc = Elizabeth Loftus, This Day in Skepticism - Life on Mars, The 27 Club, Blood-Red Lake, Earth Trojan Asteroid, Radioactive Heat, If It Can't Be Measured
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 315
|date = Jul 27
|desc = Bill Nye, Skeptical Conferences, Victory for Evolution in Texas, New Moon for Pluto, Life in the Universe, Connecticut Chupacabra
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 314
|date = Jul 20
|desc = Live at TAM9, Comet Elenin, Forces of Darkness, Science Proves the Bible (Not), Last Shuttle Launch, Pastafarian Headgear, Organic Water, Graphene Water Battery, Youngest Dinosaur Fossil, Live Q&A: Skeptical Wins, 24 Hr Live SGU Show, Reconciling Faith an
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 313
|date = Jul 13
|desc = Matthew Chapman, Hypnotized to Death, Color of Extinct Birds, Magnetic Microprocessors, Twintuition, Creationist Arguments
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 312
|date = Jul 5
|desc = Classifying Galaxies, More Pareidolia, Easter Island Elixir, Driverless Cars, Elevatorgate
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 311
|date = Jun 29
|desc = Eugenie Scott, Tau Day, Body Temperature of Dinosaurs Measured, Magnets and Blood Flow, Guru in Sweat Lodge Death Convicted, Close Call for the Space Station
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 310
|date = Jun 22
|desc = Guest Rogue: Michael Waterhouse, We Are All Mutants, Human Gecko, Creationists Infiltrate Geology Meeting, Battery Man
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 309
|date = Jun 13
|desc = Two New Elements, The Decline Effect, Zicam Inventor Arrested, Lasers from Human Cells, Mood Ears, The Enemy Within
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 308
|date = Jun 8
|desc = Guest: Phil Plait, SGU-24, Psychic Tip, Explosion on Sun, Moon Origin, UFO Nazis
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 307
|date = May 31
|desc = Jamie Bernstein, Predicting Earthquakes, Mapping the Brain, Implanting Memories
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 306
|date = May 25
|desc = Rapture Rationalizations, Fake Moon Rock, Dark Energy Confirmed, Religious Right vs Women's Rights, Preparing for a Zombie Apocalypse, Banning Marmite
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 305
|date = May 18
|desc = James Randi, Rapture, Another Cancer Cure, Gut Bacteria and Behavior, Habitable Exoplanet, Higgs False Alarm, Swindlers List: Bidsell
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 304
|date = May 9
|desc = Jon Ronson, Einstein Right Again, Mark Geier's License Suspended, Moon Microbe Mystery, Steytlerville Monster, Yap Money
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 303
|date = May 4
|desc = This Day in Science and Skepticism, Six years of SGU, Easter Island Controversy,Bin Laden Conspiracies
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 302
|date = Apr 27
|desc = Seth Shostak, A Skeptic in Oz, More Creationism in Texas, Higgs Rumor
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 301
|date = Apr 20
|desc = Guest Rogue: Iszi Lawrence, Hottel UFO Document, New Method to find Exoplanets, Plans for NASA Shuttles, Power Balance Lawsuit, Nails of Christ
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 300
|date = Apr 9
|desc = Live at NECSS 2011, Guest Rogue: John Rennie, Gayveman, Cosmic Engineering, Homeopathy for Radiation and Vertigo, Evidence and Radiation Risk, You Know You're a Skeptic If, Live Q&A: Time Travel, Fecal Transplants, Skeptical Obligation
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 299
|date = Apr 4
|desc = The Mercury 7, Pioneer Anomaly Solved, Pigasus Awards, Wakefield and Somalis, Boy Genius, Thorium Reactors
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 298
|date = Mar 30
|desc = Kenny Feder, Colorado UFO, Breaking Heisenberg, Dinosaur Petroglyph, Dinosaur Taxonomy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 297
|date = Mar 24
|desc = Hale Bop Cult, Meier Earthquake Non-prediction, Swarm Robots, Sexual Preference, Pre-biotic Chemistry, Science fact vs fiction, Radiation Hormesis, Overunity, Fecal Transplants
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 296
|date = Mar 16
|desc = Mark Mervine, Japan Earthquake, Time Traveling Particle, Finding Atlantis, TAM9 From Outer Space, Corrections - Magellan and DNA Computing, Ambit Energy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 295
|date = Mar 9
|desc = Ben Radford, Meteorite Bacteria, Biological Computers, Super Full Moon, Imam Retracts Support for Evolution, Definition of Skeptic
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 294
|date = Mar 2
|desc = Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, Limelight, Predicting Earthquakes, Growing Fuel, Neutron Star Superflluidity, Heidi Follow up, Information Follow up, 10,000 Years in the Future
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 293
|date = Feb 23
|desc = Guest Rogue: Joshie Berger, Galileo Censored, Internet Kill Switch, Japan to Trawl for Space Junk, Watson on Jeopardy!, Lie to Me, Lost Information
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 292
|date = Feb 16
|desc = Kevin Folta, Jovian in the Outer Solar System, Haunted Theme Park Ride, Heidi the Cross-eyed Psychic Opossum, Product Reviews
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 291
|date = Feb 9
|desc = Jeff Ainslee, Processed Food and IQ, Bacterial Intelligence, Skin Cell Spray Gun, Treating Trauma with Herbs, Jerusalem UFO
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 290
|date = Jan 31
|desc = Guest Rogue: Dr. Ray Greek - The Science of Animal Models, Homeopathy Pseudoscience, Teachers Cautious about Evolution, Countering Fallacies
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 289
|date = Jan 26
|desc = Jack LaLanne dies at 96, Cold Fusion Again, The Cochrane Review of Statins, Astrologists Angered, More on Education, Alien DNA
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 288
|date = Jan 19
|desc = No Ghosts in my Backyard, Simulating Earth, Reaction to Bem's Psi Research, Engineered Chickens, Cloning Mammoths, Sun as Battery, Land Sharks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 287
|date = Jan 12
|desc = Guest Rogue: Phil Plait, Molten Exoplanet, BMJ Slams Wakefield, Creationist Teacher Fired, Galactic Black Holes, Nassim Haramein
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 286
|date = Jan 5
|desc = Predictions 2010 and 2011, Mysterious Bird Deaths, Predictions from 1931, Mars News in 2010, Apocalypse 2011, Printing Solar Cells, Thomas Kuhn
|status = skeleton
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2010
|range = (episodes 232-285)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 285
|date = Dec 29
|desc = 2010 Year in Review, Best and Worst of 2010, In Memoriam, SGU Stats
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 284
|date = Dec 22
|desc = Arsenic-Based Life, Buttology, V-Steam, Singing Mice, The Real daVinci Code, Special Report: Power Bands with James Randi and the SkepticBros
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 283
|date = Dec 15
|desc = Dan Gardner, Piltdown Anniversary, Hydrogen Production, Voyager Leaves Solar System, Slushball Earth, Alien Plants vs Animals
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 282
|date = Dec 8
|desc = Live in Sydney Australia, New Crystal Skull, Roger Penrose Before the Big Bang, Chimps Outwit Human Traps, Anti-Antivax Activism, Special Report: Masonic Conspiracy Theories, Live Q&A: Scientists Baffled, Size of Quantum Effects, Sympathectomy, Future of
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 281
|date = Dec 1
|desc = Live in Vancouver with Guest: George Hrab, SETI 50th Anniversary, Antimatter Breakthrough, Nanoparticles and Glowing Trees, Oprah Promotes Psychic Surgeon, Latest PSI Research, Bending Time and Space, Live Q&A: Neurology of Belief, Coincidence, Multi-Leve
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 280
|date = Nov 24
|desc = Guest: Richard Saunders, Eken Power Bands, Frozen Stiff, Cockroach Brains, Deal or No Deal, : Argument from Silence, Special Topic: Religious Skeptics
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 279
|date = Nov 15
|desc = D.J. Grothe, NASA Discovers Mysterious Bubbles, Exploiting "Psychic" Kids, More Homeopathy Spin, Lunar Weather Predicting, Caffeine and Sperm Count
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 278
|date = Nov 10
|desc = Carl Sagan Day, Mystery Missile, LHC Big Bang, The Twinkie Diet, Hamburger Experiments Redux, Spinning Spaceship, Ear Light
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 277
|date = Nov 3
|desc = Jamy Ian Swiss, Psychic Cat, 100 Year Starship Project, Cure for Common Cold, Life on the Moon, Alien Ballot Defeated, Banana Ripening
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 276
|date = Oct 27
|desc = Ghosts Calling Cellphones, Hawking Radiation, More On Radioactive Decay Rates, The Science of Medicine, NECSS 2011, Physics.org Award Nomination, Time Traveling Cell Phone User, SGU Forums Moderators
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 275
|date = Oct 19
|desc = Guest Rogue: Brian Trent, Benoit Mandlebrot 1924-2010, Stem Cell Funding, Do Mummies Get Cancer, Asteroids Buzz Earth, Whale Poop Correction, T-Rex Blood Cells, Help - My Friend is a Pseudoscientist
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 274
|date = Oct 13
|desc = Ben Goldacre, Dark Matter Strangeness, Vaccine Case in Supreme Court, Gliese 581g Follow Up, Magic Burgers
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 273
|date = Oct 6
|desc = 2010 Nobel Prizes in Medicine, Chemistry and Physics, 2010 IgNobels, Diesel from a Stone, Mass and Gravity, Science Education, Laughing Hyenas
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 272
|date = Sep 30
|desc = Bug Girl, New Moonlanding Footage, UN Alien Ambassador, Poor Science Education, New Force of Nature?, Goldilocks Planet
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 271
|date = Sep 22
|desc = [[Simon Singh interview: Libel in the UK (271)|Simon Singh interview]], [[Losing your religion: Health effects? (271)|Losing Your Religion]], [[The man who fell to Earth (271)|The Man Who Fell to Earth]], [[Dirty electricity: CFLs & Magda Havas (271)|Dirty Electricity]], [[Moon origins (271)|Origins of Moons]], [[Halfalogues: Overheard phone conversations (271)|Halfalogue]]
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 270
|date = Sep 15
|desc = Ben Radford, Joe Nickell, and Karen Stollznow, Modern Geocentrism, Irish Minister of Science Scandal, Robot Skin, No Link between Thimerosal and Autism, Canadian Government Muzzles Scientists, Crop Circle Sting
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 269
|date = Sep 8
|desc = Carol Tavris, Stephen Hawking on God, Magnetic Mom, Organic Strawberries, Burning the Quran, Pyschic Incites Mob
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 268
|date = Sep 1
|desc = Donald Prothero, Thorium Power, Impacts and Extinction, Spontaneous Combustion, Enfield Poltergeist, Ghost Train, Mitochondrial Eve Follow Up
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 267
|date = Aug 25
|desc = Guest Rogue: Phil Plait, Phil Plait's Bad Universe, Solar Flares and Radioactive Decay, Competition in Evolution, The Science of Zombies, Kurzweil Responds to Myers, Kaku on UFOs
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 266
|date = Aug 19
|desc = Bruce Hood, Banning Wi-Fi, Psychic Finds Wrong Body, Kurzweil on Brain Complexity, Magnetars and Black Holes
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 265
|date = Aug 11
|desc = Aubrey de Grey, Evolving Simulated Intelligence, Proximal Intercessory Prayer, Bermuda Triangle Solved, Booty Enhancement Spell, Censoring Skepticism featuring Rhys Morgan
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 264
|date = Aug 4
|desc = DIY Genetic Testing, Coronal Mass Ejection, More Evidence for Warming, Analyzing the Future, Misfortune Teller, More on Dieting
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 263
|date = Jul 29
|desc = Jim Underdown, Homeopathy in the UK, Cosmology with no Big Bang, Ghost Ship, Meat and Weight Control, Biodynamic Farming, Orgel's Laws
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 262
|date = Jul 21
|desc = Randi & Banachek, Report from TAM8, Monster Star, Anti-Vax in Oz, Kabbalah Bracelet, Monkey Fossil, Monkeys in the Pants, Libel Tourism Bill
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 261
|date = Jul 10
|desc = Live at TAM8, Roswell Remembered, Nuclear Explosion in Space, Pepsigate, Energy Vampires, Gravitons and Black Holes, Obesity and Inactivity, Climategate Update, Planck Image of the Universe, Live Q&A: NESS Activities, Do Skeptics Ever Win?, Positive Attit
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 260
|date = Jun 30
|desc = Guest Rogue: George Hrab, Fin to Limb Evolution, Pat Boone on Laws of Physics, Ice Patch Archaeology, Stephen Barrett Sued, Flag Worship
|status = incomplete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 259
|date = Jun 28
|desc = Whooping Cough Epidemic, Whaling Film Questioned, Superconductor Roadblock, Call to Ban Homeopathy, Orbital Periods, Sunscreen
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 258
|date = Jun 16
|desc = Sanal Edamaruku, Growing Livers, Immortal Jelly, Gay Clinic, Space Storm Warning
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 257
|date = Jun 14
|desc = Hayabusa Returns, Einstein's Brain, Largest Radio Telescope Array, Amityville Horror House for Sale, Cursed Cell Phone Number, Soy, Magic Bee Juice
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 256
|date = Jun 9
|desc = Steve Matheson, Life on Titan, Vulture Threatened by Pseudoscience, WHO and H1N1, Orbit of Phobos
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 255
|date = Jun 2
|desc = Guests: Fraser Cain and Pamela Gay, X-37b Space Plane, Synthetic Bacteria, Hollow Phobos, Acupuncture Mechanism?, Guatemala Sinkhole, Salt Substitute
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 254
|date = May 26
|desc = James Randi about Martin Gardner, Energy of Early Life, End for Mars Phoenix Lander and Atlantis, Vaccine Safety, Accepting Science, Exonerated by Acupuncture
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 253
|date = May 19
|desc = Cell Phone Cancer Update, Why Does Matter Exist, Applied Kinesiology, BMA Trashes Homeopathy, Early Bird Feathers, Ball Lightening, Pesticides and ADHD
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 252
|date = May 12
|desc = Guest: Massimo Pigliucci, [[Nonsense on stilts: Massimo on philosophy of science (252)|Nonsense on Stilts]], [[Dictionary definition of siphon incorrect (252)|Definition of Siphon]], [[Neanderthal-Human interbreeding (252)|Neanderthal Interbreeding]], [[Alabama politics: Denying evolution (252)|Evolution in Alabama Politics]], [[The science of morality: Sam Harris & the trolley problem (252)|Science of Morality]]
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 251
|date = May 5
|desc = 5 Years of SGU, Zettabytes, Prayer and Critical Thinking, Oil Spill Conspiracy, Life on Mars - Not, How to Build a Time Machine, Man Claims 70 Years Without Food or Water, Corrections, Croatian Girl Follow up
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 250
|date = Apr 28
|desc = Dr. Dean Edell, 20 Years of Hubble, Nanodots, Boobquake, Stephen Hawking on Aliens, Noah's Ark, Intelligence and Science
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 249
|date = Apr 17
|desc = Live at NECSS 2010, Guest: James Randi, Items: Volcano in Iceland, Near Death Experiences, Sound Bullets, Injured by Price Scanner, Singh Libel Suit dropped, Two Moms and a Dad, Girl Speaks German After Coma, Live Q&A
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 248
|date = Apr 13
|desc = Seth Shostak, Apollo 13, Water on Mars, Bioprinting, Scientific Literacy in the US, Dawkins vs The Pope, Colour Therapy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 247
|date = Apr 7
|desc = Area 51 Declassified, Ununseptium, SBM visits NCCAM, Copper Magnetic Jesus Bracelet, Human Population, Dutch Psychic Follow up, : The Genetic Fallacy
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 246
|date = Mar 31
|desc = Guest: Eugenie Scott, Update from the NCSE, Fighting Cancer with Nanoparticles, Prison Psychics, Changing Morality with Magnets, Skeptics and Atheists
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 245
|date = Mar 25
|desc = George Hrab, Rise of the Dinosaurs, Woman X, Starchild Update, Evangelical Listeners
|status = incomplete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 244
|date = Mar 18
|desc = Greg Grunberg, When Homeopaths Attack, Texas Textbook Hubbub, Bacterial Fingerprint, Chief Exorcist, Biggest Quantum State, Power Balance
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 243
|date = Mar 11
|desc = Jenny on Huffpo, Autistic Pets, See-through Pain, Homeschooling and Evolution, Here's Your Jetpack, Spirits in a Bottle, Richter Scale, Raining Fish Follow Up, Inner Space
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 242
|date = Mar 3
|desc = Guest: James Randi, Chile Earthquake, Darwinius Revisited, Raining Fish, Acupuncture for Depression, Haunted Hotels, Contrarion vs Skeptic, Personality Tests
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 241
|date = Feb 24
|desc = Daniel Wilson, Homeopathy Smackdown in UK, What Darwin Got Wrong, The Bloom Box, Geller Aids Cops
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 240
|date = Feb 17
|desc = Rom Houben Update, Solar Energy Breakthrough, Psychic Killed, Gas from Carbon, Thomas Paine, Knocked Out
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 239
|date = Feb 10
|desc = Guest: Brian Dunning, Enceladus Update, Synthetic Organisms, Spray On Glass, Gasoline from Carbon, Oral Conception, : False Analogy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 238
|date = Feb 3
|desc = Simon Conway Morris, Fusion Breakthrough, Andrew Wakefield Rebuked, Return of Death Cat, Lady Gaga Illuminati
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 237
|date = Jan 27
|desc = Guest: Daniel Loxton, Book Release: Evolution, Dowsing for Bombs, Alien Life on Earth, Ginger Dinosaurs, I have Lizards in my Pants, Addiction
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 236
|date = Jan 20
|desc = Jon Rosenberg, Dead Bodies, Blond Warrior Princesses, Trees on Mars, Correactology, Ayn Rand
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 235
|date = Jan 13
|desc = Guest: Richard Saunders, TAM Australia, Tetrapod Footprints, Airport Security - with Bruce Schneier, Nearby Supernova, Cancer Miracle, Evil Skeptics
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 234
|date = Nov 15
|desc = Special Report: H1N1 Flu Pandemic Update - With Steven Novella, David Gorski, Mark Crislip and Joe Albietz
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 233
|date = Jan 6
|desc = D. J. Grothe, Predictions for 2009 and 2010, The G-Spot Controversy, New Stellar Companion, Brain Capacity
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 232
|date = Jan 1
|desc = 2009 Year in Review - with Guests Phil Plait and Mike Lacelle, SGU and Science News of 2009, Science and Skepticism in the Last Decade,Stats, SGU in 2010
|status = complete
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2009
|range = (episodes 181-231)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 231
|date = Dec 21
|desc = Michael Specter, Dark Matter WIMPS, Synaesthesia, The Future of Skepticism, LHC Risk with Brian Cox
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 230
|date = Dec 16
|desc = Steorn Still At It, Computer-Brain Interface, Ancient Ruins in the Caribbean, Octopus Coconuts, Homeopathic Suicide, Holodeck Food, Special Report: Coalition for Libel Reform
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 229
|date = Dec 9
|desc = Guest Phil Plait: Denver Aliens, Bird Speciation, Blinded by Faith, Spiral over Norway, Uranus Tilt, Methane on Mars, Homeopathy Ads
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 228
|date = Dec 2
|desc = Steven Thoms, Age of Autism Scandal, Porkenstein, Fat Murder Hoax, ClimateGate Feedback
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 227
|date = Nov 25
|desc = LHC Online, Coma and Facilitated Communication, ClimateGate, CrocoDuck, Speaking in Tongues
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 226
|date = Nov 18
|desc = Kenny Feder, New Mammography Guidelines, Water on the Moon, Dark Flow, Lee Harvey Oswald Photo, Movie Reviews
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 225
|date = Nov 11
|desc = Psychic Finds Skeleton, Dystonia Flu Shot Follow Up, More LRO Images, Paying for Prayer, Wave Particle Duality, JREF Announcements, TAM London with Simon Singh, Jon Ronson, and Adam Savage
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 224
|date = Nov 4
|desc = Carl Sagan Day, Nutt Job, Dystonia after Flu Shot, Spontaneous Human Combustion Case, Michael Goldstein: starting local skeptical groups, Rebecca at TAM London with Phil Plait, Chris French, and Christina Martin
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 223
|date = Oct 28
|desc = Swine Flu Scams, Hulda Clark Died of Cancer, The Physics of Homeopathy, Scientology Trouble, Suzanne Somers Cancer Quackery, Size of the Universe (With Guest - Pamela Gay), Mad Scientists, Suspended Animation
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 222
|date = Oct 21
|desc = James Randi, LHC Future Attack, Magnetic and Copper Bracelets, Balloon Boy, Lunar Plume Update, Giant Spider, Special Report: Rebecca from Bangkok
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 221
|date = Oct 14
|desc = Jack Horner, NASA Shoots the Moon, Saturn's Rings, Hypno Cat, Simon Singh Update, Plasma Rocket, This Man
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 220
|date = Oct 7
|desc = Daniel Hooper, Premanand In Memoriam, Nobel Prizes 2009, Ardipithecus Ramidis, Autism Prevalence, Brian Cox
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 219
|date = Sep 28
|desc = Mark Edward, Premanand Statement, Dinosaur News, Nanotube Springs, Cameron and Comfort on Darwin, Couple Jailed over Homeopathy Death, Spiritual Advice, Life Signs, Speed of Light
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 218
|date = Sep 23
|desc = Michael Vassar, Raptor Rex, Bill Maher Antiscience, Panama Monster
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 217
|date = Sep 12
|desc = Live at NECSS with Guest Richard Wiseman, Charlie Sheen 911 Truther, Quantum Amnesia, Hulda Clark Dead, Gonzalez Therapy Fail, What's in Your Wallet, Exomoons, Great Tits Eat Bats, Special Report: The Yale Study, Live QA
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 216
|date = Sep 9
|desc = Live at DragonCon 2009, Google UFO, Mongolian Death Worm, Chupacabra in Texas, Magnetic Monopole, Live Q&A
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 215
|date = Sep 1
|desc = Adam Savage, Multitasking, Methane Fog on Titan, Google Nessie, Evolving Mice, Appendix, iPhone Crap App
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 214
|date = Aug 25
|desc = Jamy Ian Swiss, Surviving a Cataclysm, Zombie Apocalypse, WHO Says No to Homeopathy,Itako Fading, Dinochicken
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 213
|date = Aug 18
|desc = Battery Update, Super Planetary Nebulae, Adopt a Star, UFO Spikes, Aquatic Ape, Caffeine Tolerance
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 212
|date = Aug 12
|desc = Michael Goudeau, Kepler Goes Online, Methane on Mars, MS Breakthrough, Placebo Medicine, Birthers, : Homeopathy Nonsense
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 211
|date = Aug 4
|desc = Skepchick Carrie Iwan, Teeth from Stem Cells, Stem Cell Clinic Raid, Laser Propulsion, Update on Simon Singh, Origin of Matter, 4-minute Interval Training
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 210
|date = Jul 29
|desc = Jennifer Ouellette, Oldest Animal Fossils, New State of Matter, FDA Say Mercury Amalgam Safe, Past Life Hypnotism, Stressful Sweat
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 209
|date = Jul 22
|desc = DJ Grothe, 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11, Copernicium, Thomas Jefferson and Evolution, Dowsing
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 208
|date = Jul 11
|desc = Live at TAM 7, Microbot Plumbers, Archeological Dig, Sunspots Return, Blogs vs Journalists, Genie Sued, Live Q&A, Rebecca's Wedding
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 207
|date = Jul 1
|desc = Phil Plait, Steorn Fail, BCA Responds to Singh, Salt Water in Enceladus, Uranium on the Moon, Apollo 11 Video, Impact Bad Astronomy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 206
|date = Jun 18
|desc = Richard Prum, Ancient Lakes on Mars, Smoke Ring UFO, FDA Zicam Warning, Missing Sun Spots
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 205
|date = Jun 16
|desc = Brian Brushwood, Junior Supernova, Boy Hit By Meteor, A New Heuristic, Planetary Life
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 204
|date = Jun 11
|desc = Richard Wiseman, Negative CAM Research, Chiropractors In Retreat, Quantum Mechanics, Flu Pandemic Update, Youngest Skeptic, Prescient Genes
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 203
|date = Jun 9
|desc = Bruce Hood, Crop Circles 2009, Chronic Lyme Disease, Casino Feng Shui, UFO follow up, Liver Flush for Gallstones
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 202
|date = Jun 3
|desc = Simon Singh, Newsweek vs Oprah, Volcanic Extinction, UFO News, Texas Update, Evangelical Skeptics, Begging the Question
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 201
|date = May 27
|desc = Phil Plait, Whooping Cough Increase, Scientology on Trial, RNA World, Rook Tool Use, Northeast Skeptical Conference, Polonium Halos
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 200
|date = May 20
|desc = SGU 200th Episode, Missing Link Ida, GPS Failure, Stem Cell Quackery in China, Candiru, If I Had a Million Dollars
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 199
|date = May 13
|desc = Rusty Schweickart, Simon Singh's Lawsuit, Ultradense Deuterium, Acupuncture Science, Last Fix for Hubble
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 198
|date = May 7
|desc = Rachael Dunlop, Four Years of SGU, Oprah Signs Jenny McCarthy, Dark Matter, Six Degrees of Separation, Homeopathy Death, I Have Birds in my Pants
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 197
|date = Apr 30
|desc = Mark Crislip, Hidden Photons, Walking Seal, NASA and the Moon, Baby Chupacabras, Hoagland on Iapetus
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 196
|date = Apr 22
|desc = Seth Shostak, Cassini Pictures, Smallest Exoplanet, Huffington Post Pseudoscience, Personal Attacks from Age of Autism, Kelloggs Settles FTC Suit
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 195
|date = Apr 15
|desc = John Maddox Dies, The Hand of God, Flying Microbots, Darwin Awards, Homeopathy Nonsense, Belief in Ghosts,s: Corrections, Induction in Science, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 194
|date = Apr 8
|desc = Daniel Loxton, Dennis Lee Strikes Again, Computers That Do Science, Home Energy Scam
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 193
|date = Apr 1
|desc = Paul Murray, Mind Controlled Robot, Giant Protozoan, More Jenny McCarthy Nonsense
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 192
|date = Mar 25
|desc = Cold Fusion Again, Evolution Education in Texas, Synthetic Blood,s: Richard Saunders Open Letter to Pharmacists, Quantum Jumping, Super Chimney, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 191
|date = Mar 18
|desc = Phil Plait, Pope on HIV and Condoms, 20th Anniversary of the World Wide Web, Canada Science Minister and Evolution
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 190
|date = Mar 12
|desc = Kenneth Miller, Stem Cell Ban Lifted, When Chimps Attack, Mellow Yellow, Prince Charles Snake Oil
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 189
|date = Mar 4
|desc = Kenny Feder - Clovis Find, Vaccine Decision, Designer Babies, Riversnake Update, TAM7 Info
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 188
|date = Feb 26
|desc = Virtual Snowflakes, Evolution of Sex, Revenge of Titanoboa, Google Atlantis, Catboy, Missing Moon, Moon and Sun, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 187
|date = Feb 11
|desc = Angie McQuaig, The Pose and Darwin, Ben Goldacre vs the Media, Healing Laser, Starseeds, the eHolster, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 186
|date = Feb 9
|desc = Jon Ronson, Wakefield Fraud, Wearable Computer, Amish Fireplace, LHC Delay, Blood Type Follow Up, China Spacewalk Hoax
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 185
|date = Feb 4
|desc = Massimo Pigliucci, New Items: Singularity University, Mammoth Extinction, Smallest Exoplanet,Blood Type Pseudoscience, Scientific Predictions
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 184
|date = Jan 28
|desc = [[Tim Minchin interview: Comedy & Skepticism (184)|Tim Minchin interview]], [[Mercury in corn syrup (184)|Mercury In Our Food]], [[Vaccine safety and disease outbreaks (184)|Vaccine Controversy Updates]], [[Evolution before our eyes: Fence lizards and fire ants (184)|Evolution - Lizards and Fire Ants]], [[Obama inauguration UFOs (184)|Obama UFO]]
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 183
|date = Jan 21
|desc = Alice Tuff, The Holographic Universe, Science Education in Texas and Louisiana, Pheromones, Dyslexia, Randi: Not in a Name
|status = incomplete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 182
|date = Jan 15
|desc = Michio Kaku, Methane on Mars, Solar Storms, Mega MRI, Young Skeptics
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 181
|date = Jan 7
|desc = Psychic Predictions 2008, True Love, Jett Travolta, Christine Maggiorie, Detox Fail, Weblog Awards 2008, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2008
|range = (episodes 128-180)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 180
|date = Dec 30
|desc = 2008 SGU Year in Review: Best Skeptics, Worst Promoters of Woo, Coolest Science News, Funniest Moments, Favorite E-mails, and SGU Stats
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 179
|date = Dec 23
|desc = Jeremy Pivens Mercury Toxicity, Death by CAM, da Vinci Sketches Discovered, Medium Experiments Follow up, ET Life, Winter Myths
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 178
|date = Dec 16
|desc = Richard Wiseman, Reading Minds, Burglar Trapped by Ghost The Bloop, Evolution Questions
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 177
|date = Dec 10
|desc = Age of the Sphinx with Dr. James P Allen, Supernova Reflections and Milky Way's Black Hole with Phil Plait, Searching for Dyson Spheres, Skeptical Authority, Randi: Cold Reading
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 176
|date = Dec 3
|desc = Early Earth, Turtle Missing Link, Search for the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, Power from Sound, DNA from Hair, Magic Water, Starting a Skeptics Group, Carbon Footprint
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 175
|date = Nov 20
|desc = Steven Schafersman, Kevin Trudeau Smackdown, Placebo Acupuncture, NASA Recycles Urine, Reflexology in UK Schools, Flu Vaccine, NESS in Video Game
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 174
|date = Nov 18
|desc = Exoplanet Pictures, Neuroscience of Telepathy, Jonestown Massacre, Science Attitudes, More Info on Sperm Donation, Sleepwalking, Global Warming
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 173
|date = Nov 12
|desc = Paul Offit, Junk DNA, Mini Nuclear Reactor, Chandrayaan-1 Update, Phoenix Ends, Child Witches
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 172
|date = Nov 5
|desc = Greydon Square, Michael Crichton In Memoriam, Portable Space Shield, Oil from Fungus, Due Diligence, Randi: Wrong!
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 171
|date = Oct 29
|desc = Diana Blaney Vampire Moth, New Type of Planet, Artificial Heart, Polygraph for Debates, Science Debate 2008 Update
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 170
|date = Oct 22
|desc = Phil Plait Psychology of Superstition, Another Solar Breakthrough, UK UFO, Announcing SkepticBlog Blacklight Free Energy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 169
|date = Oct 11
|desc = Perry DeAngelis Memorial Live Podcast Guests: Steve Mirsky and Terrence Hines
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 168
|date = Oct 8
|desc = PZ Myers, 2008 Nobel Awards, Turing Test Darwin Quote, Cosmology
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 167
|date = Oct 1
|desc = Matthew Chapman Dust and Snow on Mars, PETA Nonsense, Calorie Restriction Diet LHC Update, Correlation and Causation, Emergent Intelligence, Neanderthal DNA
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 166
|date = Sep 24
|desc = Sharon Begley LHC Problems, Worthless Acupuncture Studies, Japan Space Elevator, Belief and Credulity Real versus Scientific
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 165
|date = Sep 17
|desc = [[Ben Goldacre interview: Epidemiology and the media (165)|Ben Goldacre interview]], [[Ben Goldacre wins HIV libel case (165)|Goldacre Libel Victory]], [[Hubble finds mystery object (165)|Stellar Mystery]], [[Royal Society controversy: Creationism in UK schools (165)|Creationism in the UK]], [[Big pharma: Fibromyalgia & RLS (165)|Pharma Conspiracy]], [[Randi speaks: The Media (165)|Randi: The Media]]
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 164
|date = Sep 10
|desc = Ben Radford LHC Turned On, Elephant Math Bird Correction,Irradiated Food, Pseudoscience
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 163
|date = Sep 3
|desc = Live at DragonCon 2008 with Guests James Randi, Pamela Gay, and Derek Colanduno, The Milky Ways, Supermassive Blackhole, Live Q&A
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 162
|date = Aug 26
|desc = Richard Saunders WTC-7 Collapse, Neanderthal Tool Making, Rainbow Lady Follow Up Teleportation
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 161
|date = Aug 20
|desc = Adam Savage from Mythbusters,Remembering Perry, Monkey Eludes Dragnet, Bigfoot Body Hoax Revealed, Robot with Biological Brain, The Future of Doping,Special Report: JREF Psychic Challenge Report
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 160
|date = Aug 13
|desc = Captain Disillusion,Bigfoot Body Claim, Invisibility Cloak, Prince Charles on GM Food, Sprinkler Rainbow Lady
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 159
|date = Aug 6
|desc = Phil Plait and James Randi, James Doohan Ashes Lost, Solar Power Breakthrough, China Weather Control, The Montauk Monster, Where Does Matter Come From
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 158
|date = Jul 30
|desc = Banachek, Edgar Mitchell UFO Claims, UFOs and Terrorism, Gas from Garbage, House and the Therapeutic Diagnosis
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 157
|date = Jul 23
|desc = George Hrab, New Plutoid, Detox Danger, Amanda Peet Defends Vaccines, Barbara Walters Disses James Van Praagh, Allah Meat, Chaos Theory
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 156
|date = Jul 16
|desc = [[Neil deGrasse Tyson interview: Spaghettification and education (156)|Neil deGrasse Tyson interview]], [[Black hole hubbub in Dallas county (156)|Black hole hubbub]], [[PZ Myers: Stolen cracker death threats (156)|Its Just a Cracker]], [[Discovery Institute blog foiled by vocabulary (156)|Tiktalik Nonsense]], [[Cancer cells zapped individually (156)|Micro Laser Surgery]], [[Convincing evidence: Changing minds (156)|Convincing Evidence]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 155
|date = Jul 9
|desc = James Randi, Einstein Right Again, Conservapedia Denies Evolution, Controversial Chelation Autism Study, Special Report: Roswell 61 Years Later
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 154
|date = Jul 2
|desc = Dr Dean Edell, Darwin-Wallace Anniversary, Tunguska Remembered, Creationst Bill Passes in Louisana, Nanowire Battery, SGU on Youtube, Collective Skeptics, Body Fruit, Randi: Speaker Cables
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 153
|date = Jun 21
|desc = Live at TAM6, Ice on Mars, Crop Circle Pi, Japanese Water Car, Psychic Alleges Sexual Abuse, FDA Crackdown, Spa Reflexology, Special Report-Brian Dunning Present Here Be Dragons Video, Live Q&A
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 152
|date = Jun 11
|desc = Bacteria Evolve, The 100mpg Car, Unicorn Deer, Fishing Monkeys, Plutoids, Albinos in Africa, Special Report-Crystal Skulls, Coincidence, Green Nanoparticles
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 151
|date = Jun 9
|desc = Jon Blumenfeld, NPR Psychics, Mars Lander Update, Petaflop Supercomputers, Optical Illusions, Casey Predictions
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 150
|date = Jun 4
|desc = Walter Isaacson, New Hoax Alien Video, Solar Power from Sapce, Anti-Vaccine Mar on Washington, CAM in New Zealand Follow Up, Cold Fusion
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 149
|date = May 28
|desc = JPL Scientist Diana Blaney, Wi Fi Ban, New Zealand Considering CAM, Scientology Free Speech Follow Up, Medical Science Reporting, Tasmanian Tiger Corrections, Least Skeptical
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 148
|date = May 21
|desc = Carl Zimmer, Tasmanian Tiger Gene Resurrected, Mobile Phones and Pregnancy, Is Scientology a Cult, Supernova Caught in the Act, Michael Shull about Discovering Missing Matter, Radiometric Dating of Mt St Helens, Update on TAM6
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 147
|date = May 14
|desc = Martin Rundkvist, Einstein and God, The Vatican The UK and UFO's, China Quake Superstitions, NASA Announces Supernova Discovery, Creationism in Maine, Wizardry Followup
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 146
|date = May 7
|desc = SGU 3rd Anniversary, Florida Anti-Evolution Law Fails, Florida Teacher Fired for Wizardry, Special Report: Bobs Haunted Tour, T-Rex Proteins, Water Experiment, Misconceptions about Evolution, Consumer Reports and Homeopathy
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 145
|date = Apr 30
|desc = Kirsten Sanford, Mystery Lights in Maryland, Evolution Freedom Law in Florida, Gary Null-HIV Denier, Special Report: The Real Iron Man
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 144
|date = Apr 23
|desc = [[Simon Singh interview: Alternative medicine (144)|Simon Singh interview]], [[Man "raised from dead" (144)|Man Raised from Dead]], [[Politics of vaccines (144)|Politics of Vaccines]], [[Penis theft panic (144)|Penis Theft Panic]], [[Oldest plant (144)|Oldest Plant]], [[SGU drinking game (144)|The SGU Drinking Game]], [[Space junk: Dangerous debris (144)|Space Junk]], [[Brain Gym: Pseudoscience in the classroom (144)|Brain Gym]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 143
|date = Apr 16
|desc = Eric Avery, Scientology Defection, Are Vitamins Harmful, Replicator Replicates Itself, ET Not Likely, Age of the Earth, Magnetic Water
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 142
|date = Apr 9
|desc = Yau-Man Chan, Skeptologists Shoot Complete, UK Psychic crackdown, LHC and the God Particle, Monty Hall Problem in Research, Cursing in Sanskrit
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 141
|date = Apr 2
|desc = The Skeptologists, Expelled Again, Human-Cow Hybrid, Tantric Killing Fails, Debunking Skeptics, Dinosaur Fossils on the Moon
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 140
|date = Mar 26
|desc = Eugenie Scott, Rebecca's Asteroid, Airborne Lawsuit, Pregnant Man, Hypnotist Robber, Robin Migration, More on Soap
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 139
|date = Mar 19
|desc = Stephen Barrett, Arthur C. Clarke Dies at 90, Saudi Scholar Denies Holocaust, Michael Egnor on ID Podcast, Believers Stare at the Sun, Boy Scout Follow Up, Cosmetic Pseudoscience
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 138
|date = Mar 12
|desc = Ola Fincke about Science Education in Oklahoma, Ghosts in the Mind, US Government Settles Autism-Vaccine Case, Real Death Star, Drugs in the Water, The Skeptologists, Randi Speaks-about Gary Schwartz
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 137
|date = Mar 5
|desc = Special Report: Timeshare Scams, Spaceprobe Anomalies, Aromatherapy Study, McCain on Autism and Vaccines, CECTIC Skeptical Cartoon, Global Warming on Mars, Magneto Boy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 136
|date = Feb 27
|desc = McFeng Sui, Anti-Scientific Medicine in South Africa, Type IV Civilization, Killer Robots, Favorite Science and Skeptical Books
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 135
|date = Feb 20
|desc = Robert FitzPatrick, Lunar Eclipse, Censoring Skeptics, Scientific Challenges of 21st Century, Dualism, Naadi Palm Leaf Reading
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 134
|date = Feb 13
|desc = PZ Myers, Bat Evolution, UK Officials Evict Ghost, Acupuncture and IVF, Alien Mind Control, Darwin Day, Fasting
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 133
|date = Feb 6
|desc = Richard Hayes, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Dies,More Perpetual Motion, Voting in Invisible Ink, Canadian Snake Oil, Organic Milk, Apocalypse 2012, SETI
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 132
|date = Jan 30
|desc = UK Homeopathy In Crisis, Creationist Research Journal, Facilitated Communication in the Courtroom, ABC Drama on Vaccines and Autism, Arabian Brain Drain, Got Milk, Psychic Cheat, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 131
|date = Jan 23
|desc = Guests Fraser Cain and Pamela Gay from Astronomy Cast, Texas UFO follow up, Mars Bigfoot, Homer on Mercury, Asteroid 2007 TU24, Bionic Eyes, Coast to Coast Gets Punked, Restless Leg Syndrome, Time Travel, Relativity
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 130
|date = Jan 16
|desc = Brian Dunning from Skeptoid, Scientists Make Beating Heart, Divining Intervention, UFO over Texas, Reaction to More Evidence Against Vaccines and Autism, Cruise Scientology Recruiting Video, The K-T Extinction
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 129
|date = Jan 9
|desc = John Rennie, SGU 5x5, The Reason Driven Podcast, Insects may have Killed the Dinosaurs, Biofuels, Neti Pots, Healing Magnets, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 128
|date = Jan 2
|desc = New Science Based Medicine Blog, Psychic Predictions 2007, Edward to Channel Irwin, Masters Degree in Creation Science, Magic Amulets, SGU for teachers, Magic Foot Pads, Quantum Entanglement and Warp Drive
|status = skeleton
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2007
|range = (episodes 76-127)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 127
|date = Dec 26
|desc = SGU 2007 Year In Review
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 126
|date = Dec 19
|desc = Richard Wiseman, Rebecca's Pilot, Magic Leg, Creationists New Strategy, Scientific Criticism, Cattle Mutilation, Eidetic memory, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 125
|date = Dec 12
|desc = Alex Tsakiris from Skeptiko about Paranormal Research and Skepticism, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 124
|date = Dec 5
|desc = Lawrence Krauss, Hucka-Bee, Moonbeams in Arizona, Chimp Memory, Anti-vaccine misinformation on Youtube, Stem Cell Con, Information Theory, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 123
|date = Nov 28
|desc = Science and Faith, Computer Brain, Psychic Ripoff, Wifi and Autism, Skeptiko on Skeptics, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 122
|date = Nov 20
|desc = Judgment Day Censored, Blue Ghost Followup, Death by Energy Medicine, Photo Memory Manipulation, Special Feature: Our Day at the Psychic Fair, Bird Sex Correction, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 121
|date = Nov 14
|desc = Paul Kurtz, Judgment Day for ID, UFO Investigation, Universe loses weight, FDA Petition, Gas Station Ghost, BMI, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 120
|date = Nov 7
|desc = Greydon Square, Phenomenon, Robot cars, Jehovahs Witness death, Fat is Healthy, Judgment Day, Follow up on Mange, Special Request, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 119
|date = Oct 30
|desc = Ghosthunting Season, Report from the Homeopathy Conference, Rude 9-11 Truthers, Dinosaur Extinction, Mangy Bigfoot, Supplements, Spine tingling, Randi: Jaque Benveniste, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 118
|date = Oct 24
|desc = Joe Nickell, Autism and Vaccines, Ben Stein on OReilly, James Watson Followup, The Dangers of Pseudoscience, Honey, Flu Vaccine Myths, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 117
|date = Oct 17
|desc = Mark Crislip of QuackCast, Robot Marriage, Overeating Gene, New Dinosaur, Female Cult, Watson on Race, Randi: Best Mentalist Trick, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 116
|date = Oct 10
|desc = Marc Abrahams of the IgNobels, Geller on NBC, More Acupuncture, Cell Phones and Cancer, World with Time, Energy Follow up, Slain by Woo, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 115
|date = Oct 3
|desc = Jon Blumenfeld, Tom Cruise Bunker, The View of a Flat Earth, Fly Boy Follow up, Martial Arts Woo, Vaccine follow up, 30 Year Battery, Orthomolecular Medicine, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 114
|date = Sep 27
|desc = Richard Saunders, Rebecca Wins, New Acupuncture Study, Academic Free Speech, Boy Survives Jet Ride, Smart Sex, Colloidal Silver, Randi: Faith Healers, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 113
|date = Sep 19
|desc = Monkey Bird Love, Trouble for Trudeau, Free Energy, Medical Science, Judge believes in Elves, HPV Vaccine, Autism Nonsense on Oprah, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 112
|date = Sep 12
|desc = David Colquhoun, How the WTC Towers Fell, Burning Water, Extant Dodos, SGU Affiliations, Peanuts, King Tut Follow up, Billy Meier, Randi: Mentalism, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 111
|date = Sep 5
|desc = Bill Nye the Science Guy, Airline Sacrifices Goats, King Tut, Is Race Real, The Persistence of Myth, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 110
|date = Aug 28
|desc = The Fans and Rogues remember Perry DeAngelis, - Jerry Andrus: Another Skeptic Passes, HIV Denial, Jesus Appears in Fence, Ben Stein Expelled, Puzzle
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 109
|date = Aug 24
|desc = Perry DeAngelis 1963-2007, The Psychology of Belief - a lecture by Perry DeAngelis, The fans favorite clips of Perry
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 108
|date = Aug 11
|desc = Opening Remarks by Steven Novella and Steve Mirsky, MC Todd Robbins, Live Q&A: Autism Groups, Girls and Science, Nice Skepticism, Science Education
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 107
|date = Aug 8
|desc = Largest Planet Discovered, New Da Vinci Conspiracy, Korean Stem Cell Controversy, UK UFO Followup, Unproven Therapies, CO2 from Walking, AI Sense of Humor, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 106
|date = Aug 1
|desc = Barry Glassner, Death Cat, FDA Shuts Down DCA, Exorcisms Gone Bad, Ward Churchill Correction, The Man with No Brain, The Overview Effect, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 105
|date = Jul 25
|desc = Jimmy Carter, Ward Churchill Fired, Homeopathic Surgeon, UK UFO, Asian Parasite Killing Bees, Electric Car, Brain Evolution, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 104
|date = Jul 18
|desc = Brian Trent, Author of Never Grow Old
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 103
|date = Jul 11
|desc = Scott Lilienfield, Most Distant Galaxy, Orbo Perpetual Motion Machine, Salt Water Fuel, Scientology and Homocide, Puzzle
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 102
|date = Jul 3
|desc = Barry Beyerstein In Memoriam, Black Cohosh and Liver Failure, Echinacea Meta-analysis, Jury Accuracy, Bishops and Floods, HIV and Condoms, Chiropractic and Colic, Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy, Sickesz Follow Up, Puzzle
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 101
|date = Jun 20
|desc = Orac - The author of Respectful Insolence Science Blog, Do black holes exist, President Bush vetoes new stem cell bill, Legends for profit, Belgium skeptic sued, The Galileo gambit, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 100
|date = Jun 19
|desc = SGU 100th Episode, 60 Years of Flying Saucers, Nano Drugs, Dino Big Bird, Home Buying Pseudoscience, Magneto and Son, Acupuncture Brain Surgery, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 99
|date = Jun 13
|desc = Phil Plait - The Bad Astronomer, Creationism Poll, Academic Freedom, Mercury-Autism Controversy in Court, Mr. Wizard Dies at 89, Rods, Zero Point Energy, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 98
|date = Jun 6
|desc = Creation Museum in Canada, NASA on Global Warming, Chiropractic in VA Hospitals, Death by Pseudoscience, UFO Drone CGI, New Loch Ness Video, Lunar Effect, Herxheimer Reaction, Chemtrails, Puzzle
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 97
|date = May 30
|desc = Creation Museum Opens, Licensing Psychics, Homeopaths Lame Response, China Follow Up, Kevin Trudeau, UFO Drone, Puzzle
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 96
|date = May 23
|desc = China Consultant Gareth Hayes, UK Scientists Reject Homeopathy, Boy Whose Parents Rejected Chemotherapy Dies, Scientology in Public Schools, Is Science Made Up, Legislating Thought, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 95
|date = May 16
|desc = Fraser Cain and Pamela Gay from Astronomy Cast, :Scientology vs the BBC, Rosie and 9-11, Star Kids, Multivitamins and Cancer, Moo UFO, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 94
|date = May 9
|desc = Barry Beyerstein, The Encyclopedia of Life, Nanotech Spidy Suit, Bigfoot Endangered, Corrections and Clarifications, Evolution Challenge, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 93
|date = May 3
|desc = Bug Girl - The Beetastrophy, Philly Shuts Down Psychics, Fire Melts Steel, Woman Hanged as Vampire, Drake Equation, EM Sensitivity, Hitler Fallacy Revisited, Genetic Drug Therapy, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 92
|date = Apr 25
|desc = Is Mental Illness Real, Earth-like Planet Discovered, Criminalizing Holocaust Denial follow up, Pill for Genetic Diseases, Bacterial Flagella Follow Up, Vitrification, - 9/11 Conspiracy, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 91
|date = Apr 18
|desc = Susan Blackmore, More ID Nonsense from Dr. Michael Egnor, Criminalizing Holocaust Denial, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 90
|date = Apr 10
|desc = Quantum Computer?, Fermilab Flub, Dieting News, Time Travel, Meta Analysis, Chiropractic Confusion, Death Star Conspiracy, Hugh Ross and Testable Creationism, Near Death Experiences, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 89
|date = Apr 4
|desc = 9/11 Conspiracy Celebrities, Holy Water for AIDS, Astrology Fails Again, Fairy Hoax, Avoiding the Holocaust, Neal Adams on Fox, Peanut Butter and Evolution, Peloop, When Birds Attack, Groupthink,Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 88
|date = Mar 28
|desc = David Seaman, DC, UFO news, Houdini exhumed, Buhhda boy returns, PETA, GM foods, Satanic Barcode, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 87
|date = Mar 21
|desc = Robert Lancaster, Vernal Equinox, Prayer Meta-analysis, Creationist Teacher Fired, Polar Bear Euthanasia, Pluto Corrections, Herbal Remedies, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 86
|date = Mar 14
|desc = Update on the Tomb of Jesus, The Revenge of Pluto, Robot Rights, More ID Nonsense, ADHD, Nerves Conduct by Sound?, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 85
|date = Mar 7
|desc = Battle of the Diets, True Believers take on SGU, Modern Day Witch Trial, Billy Meier Apologst, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 84
|date = Feb 28
|desc = Kenny Feder: The Tomb of Jesus and More, Update on Scientific Literacy, Human-Chimp Split, Mary on Pizza Pan, Segment #2. Negativity, Vitamins, more on Angel Voices, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 83
|date = Feb 21
|desc = TAM5 Interviews Part V: with Julia Sweeney, Richard Wiseman and The Onion Editor Scott Dickers, Angels Voices, New JFK Footage, Bigfoot Foot, Psychics on Oprah, Zodiac Insurance, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 82
|date = Feb 15
|desc = TAM 5 Interviews Part IV with Christopher Hitchens and South Parks Matt Stone, Psychic Healer, Score 1 for Evolution in Kansas, Paranormal Research Center Closes, Monkey Feng Shui, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 81
|date = Feb 7
|desc = TAM5 Interviews Part III: Phil Plait the Bad Astronomer, and Mythbusters Adam Savage and Tory Belleci, Enviga Suit, Iran AIDS Cure, Creationists in Kenya, Follow up on Global Warming, Youngest Skeptic, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 80
|date = Jan 31
|desc = TAM5 Interviews Part II: John Rennie, Teller, Jim Underdown, Randi takes on Sylvia, The Hobbit Returns, The God Question, Cults and Religion, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 79
|date = Jan 24
|desc = TAM5 interviews with [[James Randi interview with Todd Robbins at TAM5 (79)|James Randi, Todd Robbins]], [[Hal Bidlack interview: MC at TAM5 (79)|Hal Bidlack]] & [[Eugenie Scott interview: Science in the media and the Dover trial (79)|Eugenie Scott]], [[TAM5: The Rogues report (79)|Report from TAM5]], [[Sylvia Browne: Dead wrong again (79)|Sylvia Browne]], [[Tom Cruise: Christ of Scientology (79)|Tom Cruise the Christ]], [[If Rebecca ate meat (79)|Meat-eating Rebecca]], [[Free-fall and terminal velocity emails (79)|Terminal Velocity]], [[Skeptical Puzzle: Power loss (79)|Puzzle]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 78
|date = Jan 15
|desc = Stem Cell Debate, Randi Psychic Challenge (Jeff Wagg), Government Conspiracies, Herbal Remedies, Skeptical Movement, Scientology, Randi: Whats That Line, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 77
|date = Jan 10
|desc = Spencer Weart, author of The Discovery of Global Warming, Stem Cell Updates, Enviga, Hawking in Space, Weight loss pill firms fined, Corrections, The Moon, True belief skeletons, Randi: Coincidence, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 76
|date = Jan 3
|desc = NeuroLogica Blog, Evolution in Cobb County, 2006 Predictions, Homeopathy in Scotland, Salt Lamps, UFOs, Intelligent Forces, Chelation Therapy, Randi: Optical Illusions, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2006
|range = (episodes 24-75)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 75
|date = Dec 27
|desc = 2006 Year in Review: Join the Skeptics' Guide host and the rogues as they look back at the year in science, skepticism, and podcasting
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 74
|date = Dec 20
|desc = Carl Sagan, Sylvia Browne Update, IQ and Vegetarians, Santa Claus, Facilitated Communication, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 73
|date = Dec 13
|desc = B. Alan Wallace Tree Octopus, Irans Holocaust Denial, Science and the Supernatural, Randi: Communication, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 72
|date = Dec 6
|desc = Paleontologist Ken Macleod - New Evidence for the Single Impact Theory, Holiday shopping scams, NASA plans moon base, Flowing water on Mars?, Molecular manufacturing, Hi from Down Under, Chiropractic HIV denial, Testing ID, High Tech Dowsing, Randi: End o
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 71
|date = Nov 29
|desc = Mark Crislip, Paranormal Computer Storage, ID in the UK, Corrections, Einstein, Ghost Photos, Neurolink, Randi: Mentalism, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 70
|date = Nov 21
|desc = Orgasm Day, Science of Deception, MoD warns of Aliens, Wonders of the World, top 10 Scientific Discoveries, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 69
|date = Nov 15
|desc = Seth Shostak, Qi-Gong on You Tube, Cryotherapy,Chicken-Tac-Toe, Hallucinations, Chiropractic, Religion and Mental Illness, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 68
|date = Nov 8
|desc = Kent Hovind Convicted, UFO Mocumentary, Bigfoot in Academia, Learn while you Sleep, Dolphin Legs, Edgar Cayce, Quantum Love, Distribution of Pseudoscience, Workplace Skepticism, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 67
|date = Nov 1
|desc = Richard Wiseman, Pseudohistory of Exorcism, Glossolalia, Elephant Mirrors, Holiday Weight, Anti-skeptics, Fox Parkinsons and Stem Cells, Face on Earth, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 66
|date = Oct 25
|desc = Michael Stebbins, Scientists and Engineers for America, The Physics of Ghosts and Vampires, What killed the dinosaurs?, Hallucinations, UFO cults, Randi: People in Space, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 65
|date = Oct 18
|desc = Geller's Heir, Human speciation, New Element 118, The 7th Fleet, Moon Robots, Vegetarians, Vitamin Supplements, Randi: Homeopathy, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 64
|date = Oct 11
|desc = Stuart Vyse, Author of The Psychology of Supersition, Friday 13th, Teaching Evolution in Michigan, Science in the UK, Comet to hit Earth, Water Cycle, Selling the Moon, Randi: Aromatherapy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 63
|date = Oct 4
|desc = Michael Shermer - Author of Why Darwin Matters, Skepchick-dude Calendars, Sexual arousal, Harry Potter, Autism, Skepticism and sensitivity, Randi: Business Astrology, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 62
|date = Sep 27
|desc = [[Joe Nickell interview: Paranormal investigations (62)|Joe Nickell interview]], [[Global warming follow up and solar activity (62)|Global Warming update]], [[Face on Mars: 3D reconstruction (62)|Face on Mars]], [[Lightning rods (62)|Lightning Rods]], [[Psychic astrology email (62)|Psychic Astrology]], [[Randi Speaks: Left behind (62)|Randi: Left Behind]], [[I have monkeys in my pants (62)|I have monkeys in my pants]], [[Skeptical Puzzle: Marine locks (62)|Puzzle]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 61
|date = Sep 20
|desc = James Randi Joins the Skeptics Guide, Male-Female Intelligence, Exorcism rape, Phil Plait, The Bad Astronomer, about Eris, Pluto, NASA and more, OBE's, More on 9/11, Denial, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 60
|date = Sep 13
|desc = 9/11 news, Report from Mexico, No Gulf War Syndrome,Persistant Vegetative State, Math vs Science, Thinking about the dead, Moon Hoax, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 59
|date = Sep 5
|desc = Ed Warren Dies, New ESP claims, Evolution of Superstition, Korean fan deaths, New UK Homeopathy law, Science beliefs, Recycling, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 58
|date = Aug 30
|desc = Kimball Atwood, MD, Pope and ID, Hitler and Stalin Possessed, Pluto not a planet, Kabbalah,Archaeological conspiracies, Skeptical Soldier, Abiogenesis Pseudoscience, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 57
|date = Aug 23
|desc = Larry Sarner, Water Tree Solved, Mystery Creature in Maine, Creationism update, Planet definition, Acupuncture followup, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 56
|date = Aug 15
|desc = Ken Feder, Evolution Survey, water tree, Abiogenic Origin of Oil,Dinosaur Petroglyphs, Acupuncture, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 55
|date = Aug 9
|desc = Steve Salerno, Happy Birthday James Randi, Archimedes Palimpsest, Science and Falsifiability, Skeptics track record, FDA, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 54
|date = Aug 2
|desc = Creationism Museum, Kansas votes out Creationists, Coulter throws down the gauntlet, Exorcism, PC, Chiropractic, Singularity, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 53
|date = Jul 26
|desc = Possible increase for NASA budget, Indigo children, Monkey eating eagle, Bird flight, Teachers respond to textbook criticism, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 52
|date = Jul 19
|desc = Bill Bennetta, The Textbook League, Rebecca Returns, Precious Bodily Fluids, World Jump Day,Follow up on Neal Adams, Women in Science, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 51
|date = Jul 12
|desc = Neal Adams, Space Shuttle Mission, Asteroid near miss, Psychedelic mushrooms, Kevin Barrett and 9/11 conspiracies,More on supplements, Peak Oil?, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 50
|date = Jul 5
|desc = Gerald Posner, author of Case Closed, Second hand smoke,Binaural Beats, Aubrey de Grey, Puzzle (answer plus new puzzle)
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 49
|date = Jun 28
|desc = Theory of Evolution, Agnosticism, Magnet therapy, Regulating supplements, Neuroethics, Puzzle
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 48
|date = Jun 21
|desc = Steve Mirsky, Scientific American, Herbs for menopause, Anne Coulter and evolution,Penta Water, Alcoholism a disease?, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 47
|date = Jun 14
|desc = Zachary Moore: Evolution 101, Feng-shui, Hawking on space travel,Consensus on Global Warming, God and the Big Bang
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 46
|date = Jun 7
|desc = Phil Plait: The Bad Astronomer,Satans day, Skepchick infiltrates Christian Scientists, Altruism genes, Follow up on 9/11 Hoax
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 45
|date = May 31
|desc = SGU Forum, 9-11 footage, UK Doctors fight against Alternative Med,Cancer Cures, Dream Interpretation, Science vs God, Suns temperature
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 44
|date = May 24
|desc = James Randi News: Human/chimp hybrid, China mirage
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 43
|date = May 17
|desc = Ray Hyman, News: Bosnian Pyramid update, Mormon cult leader hits FBI list, Paranormal mysteries, Science education, Scientology super powers
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 42
|date = May 10
|desc = Eugenie Scott, News: UFO's in the UK, Scientology Superheroes,Tracking Satellites, Drinking water
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 41
|date = May 3
|desc = Bosnian pyramids, Toxic Cruise,Bubble Universes, Iridology, Black holes, and the Origin of life, Discussion: The Scope of Skepticism
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 40
|date = Apr 26
|desc = Brian Trent, author of Remembering Hypatia, Sonoma Bigfoot revealed, Channeling John Lennon,More on Hurricanes and Birthdays, Bananas and logical fallacies
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 39
|date = Apr 19
|desc = Marilyn Schlitz, ESP researcher, More on the polar ice caps, Sad Monkeys, spinal stem cells and mercury amalgam,gene multiplication, Skeptical Tools
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 38
|date = Apr 12
|desc = Bill Nye, Tom Cruise, Time Travel, Global Warming, Happy Face on Mars,Evolution, more on the flood, the psychosomatic effect and
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 37
|date = Apr 6
|desc = Fish evolution, prayer in medicine, Noah's ark,EVP, more on the solar eclipse
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 36
|date = Mar 29
|desc = Rick Ross, Solar Eclipse,The Woman who Never Forgets, Panspermia, Hydrino power, Bigfoot, Microwaves
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 35
|date = Mar 22
|desc = More on Scientology and South Park, Noah's Ark, Bigfoot or Bison, Cancer quacks, creationism in UK, DNA vs the Mormons
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 34
|date = Mar 15
|desc = Buddha Boy, El Chupacabra, Scientology and South Park, What the Bleep: Down the Rabbit Hole, Water on enceladus
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 33
|date = Mar 9
|desc = Rebecca Watson - founder of the Skepchicks, Magnet Therapy, Tax scams, Plastic Scare
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 32
|date = Mar 1
|desc = More on ID, Holy hardware, G-spot, Oil crisis, The 12th planet
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 31
|date = Feb 22
|desc = Terrence Hines - author of Pseudoscience and the Paranormal
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 30
|date = Feb 15
|desc = New UFO Coverup, Randi, ID, Jesus in court, Cholesterol and colon cleansing
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 29
|date = Feb 8
|desc = Featured Website: Two sites on Science Myths, Feynman on Education and Textbooks, , Going Beyond Science?
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 28
|date = Feb 1
|desc = Tara Smith of Iowans for Science, , More on HIV Denial
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 27
|date = Jan 25
|desc = Ask the Skeptic, Two Views of American Education, Government and wacky science
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 26
|date = Jan 17
|desc = Eric Altman from the Penn Bigfoot Society, Psychic Predictions for 2005, Darwin Day
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 25
|date = Jan 11
|desc = Did Castro Kill JFK, Discussion Items: Iran Denies the Holocaust, Cell Research Fraud in South Korea, Political Correctness vs Freedom of Speech
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 24
|date = Jan 6
|desc = James Randi
|status = skeleton
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2005
|range = (episodes 1-23)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 23
|date = Dec 21
|desc = Jan Helen McGee - Psychic Detective, Victory for Science and Reason in Dover
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 22
|date = Dec 14
|desc = Holiday Scams, Discussion Topics: Eye Evolution, Venus the UFO, Video Games and Seizures, Psychic Detectives
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 21
|date = Dec 7
|desc = Wallace Sampson, MD - Editor of the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine, ID and Weeping Icons
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 20
|date = Nov 23
|desc = Tom W. Clark - founder of Naturalism.org, ID Update
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 19
|date = Nov 16
|desc = ID and Idiocy, Putting the Psi into Science, The Starchild Project
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 18
|date = Nov 2
|desc = Halloween Ghost Stories, Astrology vs Astronomy
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 17
|date = Oct 26
|desc = Joe Nickell - paranormal investigator
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 16
|date = Oct 12
|desc = Glen G. Sparks
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 15
|date = Oct 6
|desc = Chris Mooney: Author of The Republican War on Science
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 14
|date = Sep 28
|desc = UFO Landing Strip, ID Update, Bigfoot Convention, Katrina Myths and Conspiracies
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 13
|date = Sep 14
|desc = [[9/11 Conspiracy Theories (13)|9/11 Conspiracies]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 12
|date = Sep 7
|desc = Steve Milloy
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 11
|date = Aug 31
|desc = Bob Park: author of Voodoo Science
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 10
|date = Aug 23
|desc = In Memoriam: Phil Klass and Robert Baker, Childrens Books
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 9
|date = Aug 10
|desc = Bush-The Pope-and evolution -again, Atlantis, Modern Witch Hunts, Science and Hollywood
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 8
|date = Aug 2
|desc = Steven Salerno: author of SHAM
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 7
|date = Jul 20
|desc = The Pope on Potter and evolution, Ghostbusting with Penn & Teller, Ask the Skeptic, Quackwatch
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 6
|date = Jul 7
|desc = Science Magazine's 125 things we do not know, Tom Cruise, Scientology and Psychiatry, CT Warning on e-scams, Ramada Inn in Stratford Haunted
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 5
|date = Jun 29
|desc = Michael Shermer
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 4
|date = Jun 15
|desc = Update on Kansas Evolution Debate, Alternative Theories of Matter
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 3
|date = Jun 7
|desc = [[Massimo Pigliucci Interview: Intelligent Design, Science, Religion (3)|Massimo Pigliucci interview]], [[Smithsonian ID Fiasco Follow-up (3)|Update on ID film in the Smithsonian Institution]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 2
|date = Jun 1
|desc = [[Kansas school board: Redefining science (2)|Kansas Evolution Update]], [[Discovery Institute preview at Smithsonian Institute (2)|Discovery Institute preview at Smithsonian Institute]], [[Stem cell bill 2005: Embryonic vs. adult-derived (2)|Stem Cell Research]], [[Crop circles: Cereology, blueprints and perfect circles (2)|Crop Circle Season]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 1
|date = May 4
|desc = ID, Reverse Engineering UFOs, Magicians, and Exploding Toads
|status = verified
}}
|}
|}

User:Teleuteskitty/Draft SGU list

2013-09-20T21:37:27Z

Teleuteskitty: added segment links for 359, 360, 363 & 378

{| class="mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2013
|range = (episodes 390-...)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 426
|date = Sep 14
|desc = 9/11, Motivated Numeracy, Arctic Ice, Robot Traders, Teenage Exorcists, Homeopathic Vaccines, Mission to Mars, Bdellovibrio
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 425
|date = Sep 7
|desc = Last Thylacine, NASA Spiders, Chicken Wings and Penis Size, TCM for Flu, New Element 115, Pox Parties, Aromatherapy
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 424
|date = Aug 31
|desc = Cara Santa Maria, Paul Ehrlich, Energized Water, Probiotics for Mental Health, Death by Iridology, Immortality, Authority
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 423
|date = Aug 24
|desc = Sanal Edamaruku, Vesuvius, No Proof of Creation, Area 51, Hydrating Beer, Indian Rationalist Shot Dead, Free Roaming Planets, Sugar and Hyperactivity
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 422
|date = Aug 17
|desc = Hazel Bishop, NDE Explained, TV Watching, Labor and Autism, Magenta Planet, Spontaneous Baby Combustion, Special Report: Onionated
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 421
|date = Aug 10
|desc = Michael Mann, Smithsonian, Dead Monk Alive, Lab Grown Burger, Dolphin Memory, Cattle Mutilations, Gluten Follow Up, HPV Vaccine
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 420
|date = Aug 3
|desc = Robert House, Hunt for Alien Spaceships, 3-D Printing, Lunar Calendar, Full Moon and Sleep, Man-Chimp-Pig
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 419
|date = Jul 27
|desc = Insulin, Giant Virus, Gluten, Death Wave, The Pitch Drops, Revenge of the Conspiracy Theorists. Cassini Picture of Earth
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 418
|date = Jul 20
|desc = Live at TAM 2013, Guest Rogue: John Rennie, Viking 1, Special Report: Grand Canyon, The End of the World, Sailing Stones, Scrotal Evolution, Moons of Pluto, James Randi and Jamy Ian Swiss, Questions: Cynicism, Monsanto
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 417
|date = Jul 13
|desc = Paul Offit, Carl Zimmer and Erno Rubik, Seeing Through Walls, First in Flight, Tylenol and Fear, Spinning Pharoah, Head Transplant
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 416
|date = Jul 6
|desc = Guest Rogue: Randall Snyder, Pasteur, Special Report: Leaving Mormonism, Crop Circles in History, Constructing Morality, Movie Review: World War Z, Patent Troll Follow Up
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 415
|date = Jun 29
|desc = Roy Wolford, Podcasting Patent, Class System in Mice, Anti-GMO Pseudoscience, Skunk Ape, Special Report: GyroStim and Science Journalism, Staticman
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 414
|date = Jun 22
|desc = Daniel Loxton, Osteoarthritis, Patenting DNA, Foot Fungus, Chinese Fake Alien, New Type of Star, Can We Know Everything
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 413
|date = Jun 15
|desc = First Blood Transfusion, Vaccine Refusal, Seeing Ultraviolet, Ape Feet, Elizabeth I a Man?, Special Report: Don McLeroy Follow Up, Living on Sunshine
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 412
|date = Jun 8
|desc = Joshie Berger, Missile Mail, Star Trek Review, Kepler Broken, Small Hadron Collider, Carnivorous Sponge, Pollen
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 411
|date = Jun 1
|desc = Vijay Dewan and Scott Thurman, Cosmic Background Radiation, Mermaids, Angelina Jolie, Prosopagnosia, Flying Car, Raw Honey
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 410
|date = May 25
|desc = Guest Rogue: Richard Saunders, Geek Pride Day, McCormick Sentenced, Meteroid Hits Moon, DSM-5, Placenta Madness, Water Heater Followup, McLeroy Interview
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 409
|date = May 18
|desc = Heather Berlin, Nicholas II, Your Senses in Space, Talking Plants, Flowing Glass, Book Review: Ender's Game, Water Heaters, Atacama Specimen
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 408
|date = May 11
|desc = Don McLeroy, Sylvia Browne Wrong Again, Cosmic Rays and Lightening, Cicada Return
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 407
|date = May 4
|desc = Mystery Guest, SGU 8 year Anniversary, Funding Science, Curse Scam, Fusion Reactor, Einstein Still Correct, Oblivion Review, Is SETI Science
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 406
|date = Apr 27
|desc = Samuel Morse, Mars One, Bomb Detector Fraud, TED and Chopra, Creationism and Dinosaurs, Bitcoin Follow Up
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 405
|date = Apr 20
|desc = Guest Rogues: Jon Ronson and Simon Singh, Sundogs, Simon Singh's New Book, Bitcoins, Internet Criminals, BRAIN Project, Evidence of Dark Matter, Hallucinating Music
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 404
|date = Apr 13
|desc = Live at NECSS 2013, Guest Rogue: Cathleen Carr, Apollo 13, Remembering Perry, Conspiracy Survey, Misused Scientific Terms, New Type of Supernova, Vaccines Make You Gay, Anti-Vaccine Propaganda on Twitter, Live Q&A: Effects of Alcohol, Online Health Inform
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 403
|date = Apr 6
|desc = Ian O'Neill, Isaac Asimov, Fairy Circle Update, Zombie Parasites, Retraction Watch, Genetic Transistors, Prescribing Placebos
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 402
|date = Mar 30
|desc = Guest Rogue: Karl Withakay, [[Homeopathy Debate at UConn (402)|Homeopathy Debate]], [[Nine-year-old Finds Dinosaur Fossil (402)|Small Pterosaur]], [[Fracking Causing Earthquakes (402)|Fracking Earthquakes]], [[Man Who Never Has to Eat Again (402)|Never Eat Again]], [[Voyager at the Edge (402)|Voyager at the Edge]], [[More Than Gravity Theory (402)|More Than Gravity]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 401
|date = Mar 23
|desc = Pons and Fleischmann, Marshmallow Test, Bacteria Everywhere, Acupuncture HIV, Dr. Oz Sued, New Pope, Special Report: Why Worry?
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 400
|date = Mar 16
|desc = Lawrence Oates, Meteorite Fossils, Duane Gish Dies, Acupuncture Meta-Analysis, Live to 150, Close Star Discovered
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 399
|date = Mar 9
|desc = Guest Rogue: George Hrab, Hans Christian
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 398
|date = Mar 2
|desc = Jon Ronson, Compact Disk, Life Around Dying Stars, Ancient Lost Continent, Electronic Tattoos, Google Glass, Ouch
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 397
|date = Feb 23
|desc = Heisenberg, Russian Meteor, Spontaneous Human Combustion, Cosmos Unstable, Bigfoot DNA Published, Intellectually Lazy, Special Report: Retro Futurism
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 396
|date = Feb 16
|desc = Brian Wecht, Chien-Shiung Wu, AI Doctor, Ball and Cup Magic, Gorilla in the Bronchi, Feathered Dino Follow Up
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 395
|date = Feb 9
|desc = Space Medicine, Russian Lake Monster, Bones of Richard III, Scientific Genius, Without Fear, Feathered Dinosaurs, Tuesday Boy, George Hrab
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 394
|date = Feb 2
|desc = John Rennie, Groundhog Day, Up Goer Five, China Smog, Vaccine Court, Deer Antler Spray, Perpetual Motion
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 393
|date = Jan 26
|desc = Guest Rogue: Brian Dunning, [[Zack Kopplin interview: Creationism and school boards (393)|Zack Kopplin interview]], [[SGU_Episode_393#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.280:51.29|Brachistochrone curve]], [[Manti Te'o hoax (393)|Manti Te'o Hoax]], [[River on Mars (393)|River on Mars]], [[Neanderthal baby (393)|Neanderthal Baby]], [[Nikola Tesla: Report by Brian Dunning (393)|Special Report: Nikola Tesla]], [[Vomitorium correction (393)|Vomitorium]], [[Brian Dunning & Lizzie Li Taylor interview: Skeptoid in China (393)|Skeptoid Chinese]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 392
|date = Jan 19
|desc = [[Massimo Polidoro interview: Italian skepticism (392)|Massimo Polidoro]], [[Neon lights (392)|Neon Signs]], [[Predicting murders (392)|Predicting Murders]], [[Lead and crime (392)|Lead and Crime]], [[Biggest thing in the Universe (392)|Biggest Thing in the Universe]], [[Million dollar challenge: Steve Volk objects (392)|Defending the $1m Challenge]], [[Turkey's disappearing evolution books (392)|Turkey Bans Evolution Books]], [[Quickie with Bob: Apophis update (392)|Apophis Update]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 391
|date = Jan 12
|desc = Dr. James Bedford, Below Absolute Zero, Burzynski Challenge, Genome Editing, Celebrity Pseudoscience, Oz Pseudoscience
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 390
|date = Jan 5
|desc = Massimo Pigliucci, FM Radio, Psychic Predictions 2012, Cosmic Rays and Dementia
|status = complete
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2012
|range = (episodes 338-389)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 389
|date = Dec 29
|desc = SGU 2012 Year in Review, Thomas Fuller, Best and Worst of 2012, In Memoriam
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 388
|date = Dec 22
|desc = Coelacanth, Sandy Hook Massacre, China Stabbing, AVN to Change Name, Megalapteryx Foot, Invisibility Cloak, Special Report: The Hobbit and High Frame Rate
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 387
|date = Dec 15
|desc = Joshie Berger, homosexuality and the DSM, Creationist Tactics, Truth in Education, Dawn of Life, History of Cheese, Vampire Warning, Ocean Robots
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 386
|date = Dec 8
|desc = Guest Rogue: Phil Plait, Atoms for Peace, End of the World, Bug UFO Follow Up, Inattentional Amnesia, Curiosity Kurfuffle, Grand Canyon Age, Moon Formation
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 385
|date = Dec 1
|desc = Banachek, Taman Shud Mystery, Not-So-Terror Bird, Bloop Solved, Hijacking DNA, Bigfoot DNA, Makemake, Theory
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 384
|date = Nov 24
|desc = Guest Rogue: Richard Wiseman, Origin of Species, Special Report: Richard's Dream Research, Aspartame Study, Being a Psychopath, Type Ia Supernova, Fecal Transplants
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 383
|date = Nov 17
|desc = Bruce Hood, Jonestown Massacre, Denver UFO, Math Hurts, Communicating with the Vegetative, Nearby Rogue Planet, Twisted Light, Bicycle Physics
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 382
|date = Nov 10
|desc = Goddess of Reason, Life in the Universe, UFOlogy Dying, Chelation Therapy, Psychic Fail, Universe Rotating, In Memorium: Mike LaCelle
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 381
|date = Nov 3
|desc = Live at CSICon 2012, Sputnik 2, In Memorium: Paul Kurtz and Leon Jaroff, Big Bang Conference, Italian Earthquake Scientists Convicted, Whale Makes Human Sounds, PANDAS Controversy, Reporting Ghost Stories, Live Q&A
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 380
|date = Oct 27
|desc = Genetic Logic Circuit, Efficient Language, Closest Exoplanet, Alien Hacker, Zombie Bite
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 379
|date = Oct 20
|desc = Jamy Ian Swiss, Norman Borlaug, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, DNA Half Life, The Simulated Universe, Supersonic Jump, Geoglyph
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 378
|date = Oct 13
|desc = [[Robert Hutton interview: SGUTranscripts.org (378)|Robert Hutton:SGU Transcripts]], [[SGU_Episode_378#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.280:35.29|Lady of Fatima]], [[Nobel prizes 2012: Medicine & physics (378)|2012 Nobel Prizes]], [[Dyson spheres (378)|Dyson Spheres]], [[Simon Singh: Pseudoscience magazine libel (378)|Simon Singh and Libel]], [[Presidential lie detector (378)|Presidential Lie Detector]], [[Neurosurgeon's 'proof of heaven' (378)|Proof of Heaven]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 377
|date = Oct 6
|desc = The Billygoat Curse, The Physics of Roulette, Vitamin D and the Common Cold, Harpooning Satellites, Bee Brains, WTC7 Collapse
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 376
|date = Sep 29
|desc = Pamela Gay, CERN, Ig Nobels 2012, GM Corn Rat Study, HIV and Faith Healing, Emoticons turn 30
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 375
|date = Sep 22
|desc = Golden Tablets and Hobbit Day, Warp Drive, Bad Science Reporting, Dark Energy Camera, Crowdsourcing Science, Spheres on Mars, CSICon 2012, Blue Moon and Frances
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 374
|date = Sep 15
|desc = Murray Gell-Mann and Alexander Flemming, Sun Myung Moon Dies, Company Apologies for Thalidomide, Super WiFi, Calorie Restriction and Longevity, Special Report: A Skeptical 12 Step Program, Skeptical Quote of the Week
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 373
|date = Sep 8
|desc = Live at DragonCon 2012, Billy West, First Trek, Blue Moon Lunacy, Bigfoot News, Negative Replication of Psi, Baldness Cure, Little Mass from Higgs, UFO Over Illuminati Castle, SGU FAQ, Homeopath Pharmacist, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 372
|date = Sep 1
|desc = Passenger Pigeon, Neil Armstrong Dies, Naked Darth Vader, Homeopathic Candy, Hearing Voices, Special Report: Conspiracy Conference
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 371
|date = Aug 25
|desc = Pixar's Chris Ford, The Great Moon Hoax, The Sun is Round, DNA Storage, FDA and Homeopathy, Pregnancy from Rape, E-bay and Magic
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 370
|date = Aug 18
|desc = Eggs and Atherosclerosis, Hacking the Rover, The Sneeze, Google Pyramids, Occ Update, Asymmetrical Screw
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 369
|date = Aug 11
|desc = Dino Mating, Blowing Up Asteroids, Punching for God, Occ the Skeptical Caveman, Kinesio Tape
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 368
|date = Aug 4
|desc = Brian Wecht, First Fax, Superstition Fund, Curiosity's Sky Crane, Anti-Fluoridation News Fail, Bat-Winged Monkey Bird
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 367
|date = Jul 28
|desc = Kennewick Man, Skeptical Conferences, Sally Ride Dies, Mood Photography, Computer Modeling Life, Artificial Jellyfish, Firewalking Mishap, Multivitamins
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 366
|date = Jul 21
|desc = Live at TAM 2012, Guests: Richard Saunders and George Hrab, Planet Nibiru, Jean Picard born, Fake Bomb Detector Maker Charged, Debating an Antivaccinationist. Feathered Dinosaurs, New Moon for Pluto, Higgs Discovery Announced, Sex Myths, Sapphire Hard Dri
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 365
|date = Jul 14
|desc = Guest Rogue: Daniel Beauley, Jane Goodall, UFOs in National Geo, Seeing Inside Tissue, GOP on Critical Thinking, Alternative Chocolate, Who Owns Space
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 364
|date = Jul 7
|desc = Jann Bellamy, Newcomen Engine, Water on The Moon and Mars, Swiss Report on Homeopathy, Twisted Light, Embodied Cognition, News Update: Causeway Cannibal
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 363
|date = Jun 30
|desc = [[SGU_Episode_363#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.280:40.29|Tunguska Event]], [[The Science of Prometheus (363)|The Science of Prometheus]], [[Time Slowing Down (363)|Time Slowing Down]], [[Quickie with Bob: Higgs Update (363)|Higgs Update]], [[Nessie Disproves Evolution (363)|Nessie Disproves Evolution]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 362
|date = Jun 23
|desc = Professor Zhong Lin Wang, Mystery Carbon Spike, Younger Dryas Impact, Liberation Procedure Study, Testing Female Athletes, Fetal Pill Update
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 361
|date = Jun 16
|desc = This Day in Skepticism - Captain Picard Day, LiDar, Extremophiles, Moral Behavior, Cervical Manipulation, Ghost Train, Pharmacist Homeopaths
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 360
|date = Jun 9
|desc = [[SGU_Episode_360#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.2800:47.29|Ray Bradbury Dies]], [[Show 360: SGU Comes Full Circle|Episode #360]], [[Transit of Venus (360)|Transit of Venus]], [[North Carolina Legislature Proposing Sea Level Prediction Methods (360)|Legislating Science]], [[North Carolina Legislature Proposing Sea Level Prediction Methods (360)|Science Education in California]] & [[Evolution removed from South Korean textbooks (360)|South Korea]], [[Quickie with Bob: Vapor movies (360)|Vapor Storage]], [[Magnetic skeptical phrases (360)|Magnetic Skeptical Phrases]], [[Peer review email (360)|Peer Review]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 359
|date = Jun 2
|desc = [[Debbie Feldman interview: Leaving her Hasidic Roots (359)|Debbie Feldman interview]], [[SGU_Episode_359#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.281:22.29|Bridget Bishop]], [[Medical Zombies (359)|Medical Zombies]], [[Science of Reruns (359)|Science of Reruns]], [[Leakey on Evolution (359)|Leakey on Evolution]], [[Local Dark Matter Follow-up (359)|Local Darkmatter Followup]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 358
|date = May 26
|desc = Guest Rogue: Joshie Berger, [[SGU_Episode_358#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.281:05.29|Animalcules]], [[Joshie's TAM Poker Tournament Idea (358)|TAM Poker Tournament]], [[SpaceX launch, May 2012 (358)|SpaceX Launch]], [[Information About the Early Universe May Be Lost (358)|Studying the Universe]], [[Consciousness: Materialism vs Dualism vs Idealism (358)|What is Consciousness?]], [[Speaking to Mediums in Languages (358)|Speaking to Mediums]], [[Swindler's list: Hearing aids (358)|Swindler's List: Hearing Aids]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 357
|date = May 19
|desc = Chris Lewicki, Guest Rogue: Phil Plait, Head Cabinet, Ghost Box, Mayan Calendar, Electricity from Viruses, UK LIbel Law Update, Corrections, Supermoon
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 356
|date = May 12
|desc = Dinosaur Farts, Aura Reading, 48 Frames per Second, Baby Powder, Killing Bigfoot, TAM2012
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 355
|date = May 5
|desc = Guest Rogues: Seth Shostak and James Randi, [[Stars can capture rogue planets (355)|Rogue Planets]], [[Monkey brain-machine interface (355)|Machine-Monkey Interface]], [[Using self-replicating robots to explore space (355)|Finding ET with Robots]], [[Looking for the God spot in the brain (355)|God Spot in the Brain]], [[Update on SETI funding (355)|SETI Update]], [[Hastening the coming Singularity (355)|Live Q&A: The Coming Singularity]]
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 354
|date = Apr 28
|desc = Live at NECSS 2012 with Guest James Randi, [[Pedantic Words (354)|Pedantic Words]], [[Sports pseudoscience and superstition (354)|Sports Pseudoscience ]], [[Nuking Asteroids (354)|Nuking Asteroids]], [[Splotch Ness Monster (354)|Loch Ness Monster Spotted]], [[IceCube Neutrino Detector (354)|Cosmic Rays]], [[Quickie with Bob: Space Shuttle Enterprise (354)|Space Shuttle Enterprise]], [[SGU_Episode_354#SGU_Video_.2851:27.29|SGU Video]], [[SGU_Episode_354#Remembering_Perry_.281:01:47.29|Remembering Perry]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 353
|date = Apr 21
|desc = The Surgeons Photo, Life on Mars, Indian Skeptic Charged with Blasphemy, Multitasking, Monkeys Recognize Words, Cosmic Superwinds, Titanic Correction, Advanced Dinosaurs
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 352
|date = Apr 14
|desc = Titanic Disaster, Blow Up Space Junk, Aristolochia Nephropathy, Homophobia, Toilet Water, Monkey Bill Update, Grover's Algorithm, Gulf of Cambay Ruins
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 351
|date = Apr 7
|desc = Gripp (Marshall Gillson), World Health Day, Smart Sand, Enclothed Cognition, Death by Homeopathy, Small Scale, Rhino Horn
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 350
|date = Mar 31
|desc = [[James Randi interview: Pigasus awards, NECSS & TAM (350)|James Randi interview]], [[Patenting life: Pseudomenas putida (350)|Patenting Life]], [[Tennessee anti-evolution bill: Teach the controversy (350)|Tennessee Anti-Evolution Bill]], [[Origin of the moon (350)|Origin of the Moon]], [[Mars: Mystery cloud (350)|Mystery Cloud on Mars]], [[Newage Mountain: Pic de Bugarach (350)|Newage Mountain]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 349
|date = Mar 24
|desc = Exxon Valdez, Superhero Pseudoscience, High Altitude Skydiving, Nuclear Clock, New Hampshire Abortion Bill, NDE and Lucid Dreaming, Designer Electrons, Here Comes the Metric System
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 348
|date = Mar 17
|desc = Guest Rogue: Richard Saunders, Vanguard I, Oldest Skeleton, Red Deer Cave People, Neutrino Communication, Defending Science in Australia, Failure to Replicate Bem's Psi Research, Catching up on Vaccines
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 347
|date = Mar 10
|desc = Scott Sigler, Megalonyx, Robot Cheetah, Kony 2012, Neuroprosthetics, Therapeutic Tattoos
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 346
|date = Mar 3
|desc = [[Gordon Maupin interview: Fracking (346)|Gordon Maupin interview]], [[Leap years and international day of rare diseases (346)|Leap Year]], [[Iceman genome: Oetzi's origins (346)|Iceman Genome]], [[Faster than light neutrinos: Faulty timing signals (346)|FTL Neutrino Follow Up]], [[Global warming: Heartland Institute scandal follow-up (346)|More on Anti-Climategate]], [[Baseball doping: Braun off on technicality (346)|Drug Testing]], [[SGU_Episode_346#Your_Deceptive_Mind_.2836:02.29|Your Deceptive Mind]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 345
|date = Feb 25
|desc = Fraser Cain and Pamela Gaye, Tiny Lizards, Missing Dark Matter, Anti-Climate Gate, Nanoparticle Safety
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 344
|date = Feb 18
|desc = The Science of Pony Tails, Online Surveys, Structural Batteries, QWB:Alien Matter,s: Evolution Falsifiable, Headgear
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 343
|date = Feb 11
|desc = 3D Printing, Morgellons Update, State Science Standards, Lake Vostok, Hard Drive Breakthrough, Special Report: Ouija Boards
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 342
|date = Feb 4
|desc = Derek Bartholomaus, Speed Limit for Birds, Reading Brain Waves, Conspiracy Contradictions, Scorpion Inspired Armor
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 341
|date = Jan 28
|desc = Sean Carroll, Stem Cells for Blindness, Chiropractic Neurology, Mass Psychogenic Illness, Sounds in the Sky
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 340
|date = Jan 21
|desc = Eugenie Scott, NECSS 2012, Photographic Black Holes, SOPA-PIPA, Homeopathic Burn Treatment, Ice Forms
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 339
|date = Jan 14
|desc = Tricorder X-prize, Sheldrake on Presentiment, Physics Cranks, Witchhunter Comes to US
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 338
|date = Jan 7
|desc = Martin Rundkvist, Psychic Predictions 2011, Hacker Satellite, Testing Violins, QWB:Lost World of Antarctica
|status = verified
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2011
|range = (episodes 286-337)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 337
|date = Dec 31
|desc = SGU 2011 Year in Review, Guest Mike Lacelle, Best and Worst of 2011
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 336
|date = Dec 24
|desc = Guests: George Hrab and Jamy Ian Swiss, Christopher Hitchens In Memoriam, Mammoth Bone Homes, Trillion Frames per Second, Neti Pot Dangers, Special Report: Randomness
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 335
|date = Dec 17
|desc = Pro-Measles Children's Book, Higgs Update, Mercury UFO, Hallucinating Color, Menstrual Syncing, Swindler's List: Online Dating
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 334
|date = Dec 10
|desc = Lawrence Krauss, Trudeau Fine Upheld, Planetary Probes, Cloning a Mammoth, Kepler 22b, Corrections
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 333
|date = Dec 3
|desc = James Randi, Detecting Digital Manipulation, Curiosity Heads to Mars, Creationist Bill Defeated in NH, Scorpios Need Not Apply, Jetpack Flies with Jets, Special Report: Burzynski Clinic Intimidates Bloggers - Rhys Morgan, Tomato Juice Color
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 332
|date = Nov 26
|desc = JFK Assassination, Power Balance Bankruptcy, FTL Neutrino Follow Up, Does Water Prevent Dehydration, Food Color and Taste, SILLY Bias in Scientific Reviews
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 331
|date = Nov 19
|desc = Neil deGrasse Tyson, Moon's Magnetic Field, Europa's Ice Surface, False Confessions, BMJ Poe, Catholic Pox Parties
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 330
|date = Nov 12
|desc = Stroke Turns Man Gay, Asteroid YU55, Pox Parties, US Government Denies UFOs, Man Confuses Moon for UFO, NASA's Orion Program, Intercessory Prayer
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 329
|date = Nov 5
|desc = Climate Change Confirmation, Steve Job's Cancer, New GPS, Pre-Clovis Find, Brush Before or After
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 328
|date = Oct 29
|desc = [[Banachek interview: $1m challenge & Nightline (328)|Banachek interview]], [[MIT radar "sees" through walls (328)|Seeing Through Walls]], [[Malaria vaccine: 'Mosquirex' (RSS,S) (328)|Malaria Vaccine]], [[Luckiest cities - Men's Health magazine (328)|Luckiest Cities]], [[Very Large Array telescope: Call for new name (328)|New Name for VLA]], [[Harold Camping: Another failed prophecy (328)|Another Failed Prediction]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 327
|date = Oct 22
|desc = Richard Wiseman, Jay Report from Italy, Faster Than Light Neutrinos, Reiki Doesn't Work, Ending Genital Cutting, Camping Prophesy Update
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 326
|date = Oct 15
|desc = Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde, Vitamins and Mortality, Megavirus, NDEs, More UFOs, Electrosense, Airborne Petition
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 325
|date = Oct 8
|desc = Steve Jobs Dies, Nobel Prizes 2011 for Physics, Medicine, and Chemistry, IgNobels for 2011
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 324
|date = Oct 1
|desc = Highlights from the SGU 24 Live Streaming event, Australian Skeptics: Richard Saunders, Dr. Rachie Dunlop, Jo Benhamu, Grail Craft Launch, A. sediba, Adaptation and Orgasm, Special Report: Siphonomores, Top 10 Future Technologies
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 323
|date = Sep 24
|desc = Guests: George Hrab and Brian Brushwood, Single Molecule Electric Motor, Registering Atheists, Special Report: Nature vs Nurture
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 322
|date = Sep 17
|desc = Sara Mayhew, New Items: Chinese Scientists Plan to Capture Asteroid, Acupuncture and Acoustic Waves
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 321
|date = Sep 10
|desc = Live at DragonCon 2011, 9-11 Comic, Diamond Planet, Homeopathic Water, Woolly Rhino, Editor Resigns of Global Warming Paper, Live Q&A
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 320
|date = Aug 29
|desc = Jad Abumrad, Hurricane Irene, ISS Threatened, LHC and Super Symmetry, Alien Signals, Tin Foil, Skeptical Shout-Out
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 319
|date = Aug 24
|desc = Virginia Earthquake, Brand Loyalty, Tin Foil and RFID, Swindler's List: Functional Medicine
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 318
|date = Aug 17
|desc = Paul Provenza, Non-Growing Earth, Boiron Threatens Blogger, Woman Romance and Science, Space X Going to the Space Station, More on Helium
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 317
|date = Aug 10
|desc = Anti-Matter in Space, 3D Brain Mapping, Time Shift, 4-Time Lottery Winner, Robert Johnson
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 316
|date = Aug 3
|desc = Elizabeth Loftus, This Day in Skepticism - Life on Mars, The 27 Club, Blood-Red Lake, Earth Trojan Asteroid, Radioactive Heat, If It Can't Be Measured
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 315
|date = Jul 27
|desc = Bill Nye, Skeptical Conferences, Victory for Evolution in Texas, New Moon for Pluto, Life in the Universe, Connecticut Chupacabra
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 314
|date = Jul 20
|desc = Live at TAM9, Comet Elenin, Forces of Darkness, Science Proves the Bible (Not), Last Shuttle Launch, Pastafarian Headgear, Organic Water, Graphene Water Battery, Youngest Dinosaur Fossil, Live Q&A: Skeptical Wins, 24 Hr Live SGU Show, Reconciling Faith an
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 313
|date = Jul 13
|desc = Matthew Chapman, Hypnotized to Death, Color of Extinct Birds, Magnetic Microprocessors, Twintuition, Creationist Arguments
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 312
|date = Jul 5
|desc = Classifying Galaxies, More Pareidolia, Easter Island Elixir, Driverless Cars, Elevatorgate
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 311
|date = Jun 29
|desc = Eugenie Scott, Tau Day, Body Temperature of Dinosaurs Measured, Magnets and Blood Flow, Guru in Sweat Lodge Death Convicted, Close Call for the Space Station
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 310
|date = Jun 22
|desc = Guest Rogue: Michael Waterhouse, We Are All Mutants, Human Gecko, Creationists Infiltrate Geology Meeting, Battery Man
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 309
|date = Jun 13
|desc = Two New Elements, The Decline Effect, Zicam Inventor Arrested, Lasers from Human Cells, Mood Ears, The Enemy Within
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 308
|date = Jun 8
|desc = Guest: Phil Plait, SGU-24, Psychic Tip, Explosion on Sun, Moon Origin, UFO Nazis
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 307
|date = May 31
|desc = Jamie Bernstein, Predicting Earthquakes, Mapping the Brain, Implanting Memories
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 306
|date = May 25
|desc = Rapture Rationalizations, Fake Moon Rock, Dark Energy Confirmed, Religious Right vs Women's Rights, Preparing for a Zombie Apocalypse, Banning Marmite
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 305
|date = May 18
|desc = James Randi, Rapture, Another Cancer Cure, Gut Bacteria and Behavior, Habitable Exoplanet, Higgs False Alarm, Swindlers List: Bidsell
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 304
|date = May 9
|desc = Jon Ronson, Einstein Right Again, Mark Geier's License Suspended, Moon Microbe Mystery, Steytlerville Monster, Yap Money
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 303
|date = May 4
|desc = This Day in Science and Skepticism, Six years of SGU, Easter Island Controversy,Bin Laden Conspiracies
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 302
|date = Apr 27
|desc = Seth Shostak, A Skeptic in Oz, More Creationism in Texas, Higgs Rumor
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 301
|date = Apr 20
|desc = Guest Rogue: Iszi Lawrence, Hottel UFO Document, New Method to find Exoplanets, Plans for NASA Shuttles, Power Balance Lawsuit, Nails of Christ
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 300
|date = Apr 9
|desc = Live at NECSS 2011, Guest Rogue: John Rennie, Gayveman, Cosmic Engineering, Homeopathy for Radiation and Vertigo, Evidence and Radiation Risk, You Know You're a Skeptic If, Live Q&A: Time Travel, Fecal Transplants, Skeptical Obligation
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 299
|date = Apr 4
|desc = The Mercury 7, Pioneer Anomaly Solved, Pigasus Awards, Wakefield and Somalis, Boy Genius, Thorium Reactors
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 298
|date = Mar 30
|desc = Kenny Feder, Colorado UFO, Breaking Heisenberg, Dinosaur Petroglyph, Dinosaur Taxonomy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 297
|date = Mar 24
|desc = Hale Bop Cult, Meier Earthquake Non-prediction, Swarm Robots, Sexual Preference, Pre-biotic Chemistry, Science fact vs fiction, Radiation Hormesis, Overunity, Fecal Transplants
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 296
|date = Mar 16
|desc = Mark Mervine, Japan Earthquake, Time Traveling Particle, Finding Atlantis, TAM9 From Outer Space, Corrections - Magellan and DNA Computing, Ambit Energy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 295
|date = Mar 9
|desc = Ben Radford, Meteorite Bacteria, Biological Computers, Super Full Moon, Imam Retracts Support for Evolution, Definition of Skeptic
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 294
|date = Mar 2
|desc = Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, Limelight, Predicting Earthquakes, Growing Fuel, Neutron Star Superflluidity, Heidi Follow up, Information Follow up, 10,000 Years in the Future
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 293
|date = Feb 23
|desc = Guest Rogue: Joshie Berger, Galileo Censored, Internet Kill Switch, Japan to Trawl for Space Junk, Watson on Jeopardy!, Lie to Me, Lost Information
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 292
|date = Feb 16
|desc = Kevin Folta, Jovian in the Outer Solar System, Haunted Theme Park Ride, Heidi the Cross-eyed Psychic Opossum, Product Reviews
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 291
|date = Feb 9
|desc = Jeff Ainslee, Processed Food and IQ, Bacterial Intelligence, Skin Cell Spray Gun, Treating Trauma with Herbs, Jerusalem UFO
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 290
|date = Jan 31
|desc = Guest Rogue: Dr. Ray Greek - The Science of Animal Models, Homeopathy Pseudoscience, Teachers Cautious about Evolution, Countering Fallacies
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 289
|date = Jan 26
|desc = Jack LaLanne dies at 96, Cold Fusion Again, The Cochrane Review of Statins, Astrologists Angered, More on Education, Alien DNA
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 288
|date = Jan 19
|desc = No Ghosts in my Backyard, Simulating Earth, Reaction to Bem's Psi Research, Engineered Chickens, Cloning Mammoths, Sun as Battery, Land Sharks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 287
|date = Jan 12
|desc = Guest Rogue: Phil Plait, Molten Exoplanet, BMJ Slams Wakefield, Creationist Teacher Fired, Galactic Black Holes, Nassim Haramein
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 286
|date = Jan 5
|desc = Predictions 2010 and 2011, Mysterious Bird Deaths, Predictions from 1931, Mars News in 2010, Apocalypse 2011, Printing Solar Cells, Thomas Kuhn
|status = skeleton
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2010
|range = (episodes 232-285)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 285
|date = Dec 29
|desc = 2010 Year in Review, Best and Worst of 2010, In Memoriam, SGU Stats
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 284
|date = Dec 22
|desc = Arsenic-Based Life, Buttology, V-Steam, Singing Mice, The Real daVinci Code, Special Report: Power Bands with James Randi and the SkepticBros
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 283
|date = Dec 15
|desc = Dan Gardner, Piltdown Anniversary, Hydrogen Production, Voyager Leaves Solar System, Slushball Earth, Alien Plants vs Animals
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 282
|date = Dec 8
|desc = Live in Sydney Australia, New Crystal Skull, Roger Penrose Before the Big Bang, Chimps Outwit Human Traps, Anti-Antivax Activism, Special Report: Masonic Conspiracy Theories, Live Q&A: Scientists Baffled, Size of Quantum Effects, Sympathectomy, Future of
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 281
|date = Dec 1
|desc = Live in Vancouver with Guest: George Hrab, SETI 50th Anniversary, Antimatter Breakthrough, Nanoparticles and Glowing Trees, Oprah Promotes Psychic Surgeon, Latest PSI Research, Bending Time and Space, Live Q&A: Neurology of Belief, Coincidence, Multi-Leve
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 280
|date = Nov 24
|desc = Guest: Richard Saunders, Eken Power Bands, Frozen Stiff, Cockroach Brains, Deal or No Deal, : Argument from Silence, Special Topic: Religious Skeptics
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 279
|date = Nov 15
|desc = D.J. Grothe, NASA Discovers Mysterious Bubbles, Exploiting "Psychic" Kids, More Homeopathy Spin, Lunar Weather Predicting, Caffeine and Sperm Count
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 278
|date = Nov 10
|desc = Carl Sagan Day, Mystery Missile, LHC Big Bang, The Twinkie Diet, Hamburger Experiments Redux, Spinning Spaceship, Ear Light
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 277
|date = Nov 3
|desc = Jamy Ian Swiss, Psychic Cat, 100 Year Starship Project, Cure for Common Cold, Life on the Moon, Alien Ballot Defeated, Banana Ripening
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 276
|date = Oct 27
|desc = Ghosts Calling Cellphones, Hawking Radiation, More On Radioactive Decay Rates, The Science of Medicine, NECSS 2011, Physics.org Award Nomination, Time Traveling Cell Phone User, SGU Forums Moderators
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 275
|date = Oct 19
|desc = Guest Rogue: Brian Trent, Benoit Mandlebrot 1924-2010, Stem Cell Funding, Do Mummies Get Cancer, Asteroids Buzz Earth, Whale Poop Correction, T-Rex Blood Cells, Help - My Friend is a Pseudoscientist
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 274
|date = Oct 13
|desc = Ben Goldacre, Dark Matter Strangeness, Vaccine Case in Supreme Court, Gliese 581g Follow Up, Magic Burgers
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 273
|date = Oct 6
|desc = 2010 Nobel Prizes in Medicine, Chemistry and Physics, 2010 IgNobels, Diesel from a Stone, Mass and Gravity, Science Education, Laughing Hyenas
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 272
|date = Sep 30
|desc = Bug Girl, New Moonlanding Footage, UN Alien Ambassador, Poor Science Education, New Force of Nature?, Goldilocks Planet
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 271
|date = Sep 22
|desc = Simon Singh, Losing Your Religion, The Man Who Fell to Earth, Dirty Electricity, Origins of Moons, Halfalogue
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 270
|date = Sep 15
|desc = Ben Radford, Joe Nickell, and Karen Stollznow, Modern Geocentrism, Irish Minister of Science Scandal, Robot Skin, No Link between Thimerosal and Autism, Canadian Government Muzzles Scientists, Crop Circle Sting
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 269
|date = Sep 8
|desc = Carol Tavris, Stephen Hawking on God, Magnetic Mom, Organic Strawberries, Burning the Quran, Pyschic Incites Mob
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 268
|date = Sep 1
|desc = Donald Prothero, Thorium Power, Impacts and Extinction, Spontaneous Combustion, Enfield Poltergeist, Ghost Train, Mitochondrial Eve Follow Up
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 267
|date = Aug 25
|desc = Guest Rogue: Phil Plait, Phil Plait's Bad Universe, Solar Flares and Radioactive Decay, Competition in Evolution, The Science of Zombies, Kurzweil Responds to Myers, Kaku on UFOs
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 266
|date = Aug 19
|desc = Bruce Hood, Banning Wi-Fi, Psychic Finds Wrong Body, Kurzweil on Brain Complexity, Magnetars and Black Holes
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 265
|date = Aug 11
|desc = Aubrey de Grey, Evolving Simulated Intelligence, Proximal Intercessory Prayer, Bermuda Triangle Solved, Booty Enhancement Spell, Censoring Skepticism featuring Rhys Morgan
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 264
|date = Aug 4
|desc = DIY Genetic Testing, Coronal Mass Ejection, More Evidence for Warming, Analyzing the Future, Misfortune Teller, More on Dieting
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 263
|date = Jul 29
|desc = Jim Underdown, Homeopathy in the UK, Cosmology with no Big Bang, Ghost Ship, Meat and Weight Control, Biodynamic Farming, Orgel's Laws
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 262
|date = Jul 21
|desc = Randi & Banachek, Report from TAM8, Monster Star, Anti-Vax in Oz, Kabbalah Bracelet, Monkey Fossil, Monkeys in the Pants, Libel Tourism Bill
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 261
|date = Jul 10
|desc = Live at TAM8, Roswell Remembered, Nuclear Explosion in Space, Pepsigate, Energy Vampires, Gravitons and Black Holes, Obesity and Inactivity, Climategate Update, Planck Image of the Universe, Live Q&A: NESS Activities, Do Skeptics Ever Win?, Positive Attit
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 260
|date = Jun 30
|desc = Guest Rogue: George Hrab, Fin to Limb Evolution, Pat Boone on Laws of Physics, Ice Patch Archaeology, Stephen Barrett Sued, Flag Worship
|status = incomplete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 259
|date = Jun 28
|desc = Whooping Cough Epidemic, Whaling Film Questioned, Superconductor Roadblock, Call to Ban Homeopathy, Orbital Periods, Sunscreen
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 258
|date = Jun 16
|desc = Sanal Edamaruku, Growing Livers, Immortal Jelly, Gay Clinic, Space Storm Warning
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 257
|date = Jun 14
|desc = Hayabusa Returns, Einstein's Brain, Largest Radio Telescope Array, Amityville Horror House for Sale, Cursed Cell Phone Number, Soy, Magic Bee Juice
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 256
|date = Jun 9
|desc = Steve Matheson, Life on Titan, Vulture Threatened by Pseudoscience, WHO and H1N1, Orbit of Phobos
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 255
|date = Jun 2
|desc = Guests: Fraser Cain and Pamela Gay, X-37b Space Plane, Synthetic Bacteria, Hollow Phobos, Acupuncture Mechanism?, Guatemala Sinkhole, Salt Substitute
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 254
|date = May 26
|desc = James Randi about Martin Gardner, Energy of Early Life, End for Mars Phoenix Lander and Atlantis, Vaccine Safety, Accepting Science, Exonerated by Acupuncture
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 253
|date = May 19
|desc = Cell Phone Cancer Update, Why Does Matter Exist, Applied Kinesiology, BMA Trashes Homeopathy, Early Bird Feathers, Ball Lightening, Pesticides and ADHD
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 252
|date = May 12
|desc = Guest: Massimo Pigliucci, Nonsense on Stilts, Definition of Siphon, Neanderthal Interbreeding, Evolution in Alabama Politics, Science of Morality
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 251
|date = May 5
|desc = 5 Years of SGU, Zettabytes, Prayer and Critical Thinking, Oil Spill Conspiracy, Life on Mars - Not, How to Build a Time Machine, Man Claims 70 Years Without Food or Water, Corrections, Croatian Girl Follow up
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 250
|date = Apr 28
|desc = Dr. Dean Edell, 20 Years of Hubble, Nanodots, Boobquake, Stephen Hawking on Aliens, Noah's Ark, Intelligence and Science
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 249
|date = Apr 17
|desc = Live at NECSS 2010, Guest: James Randi, Items: Volcano in Iceland, Near Death Experiences, Sound Bullets, Injured by Price Scanner, Singh Libel Suit dropped, Two Moms and a Dad, Girl Speaks German After Coma, Live Q&A
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 248
|date = Apr 13
|desc = Seth Shostak, Apollo 13, Water on Mars, Bioprinting, Scientific Literacy in the US, Dawkins vs The Pope, Colour Therapy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 247
|date = Apr 7
|desc = Area 51 Declassified, Ununseptium, SBM visits NCCAM, Copper Magnetic Jesus Bracelet, Human Population, Dutch Psychic Follow up, : The Genetic Fallacy
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 246
|date = Mar 31
|desc = Guest: Eugenie Scott, Update from the NCSE, Fighting Cancer with Nanoparticles, Prison Psychics, Changing Morality with Magnets, Skeptics and Atheists
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 245
|date = Mar 25
|desc = George Hrab, Rise of the Dinosaurs, Woman X, Starchild Update, Evangelical Listeners
|status = incomplete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 244
|date = Mar 18
|desc = Greg Grunberg, When Homeopaths Attack, Texas Textbook Hubbub, Bacterial Fingerprint, Chief Exorcist, Biggest Quantum State, Power Balance
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 243
|date = Mar 11
|desc = Jenny on Huffpo, Autistic Pets, See-through Pain, Homeschooling and Evolution, Here's Your Jetpack, Spirits in a Bottle, Richter Scale, Raining Fish Follow Up, Inner Space
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 242
|date = Mar 3
|desc = Guest: James Randi, Chile Earthquake, Darwinius Revisited, Raining Fish, Acupuncture for Depression, Haunted Hotels, Contrarion vs Skeptic, Personality Tests
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 241
|date = Feb 24
|desc = Daniel Wilson, Homeopathy Smackdown in UK, What Darwin Got Wrong, The Bloom Box, Geller Aids Cops
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 240
|date = Feb 17
|desc = Rom Houben Update, Solar Energy Breakthrough, Psychic Killed, Gas from Carbon, Thomas Paine, Knocked Out
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 239
|date = Feb 10
|desc = Guest: Brian Dunning, Enceladus Update, Synthetic Organisms, Spray On Glass, Gasoline from Carbon, Oral Conception, : False Analogy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 238
|date = Feb 3
|desc = Simon Conway Morris, Fusion Breakthrough, Andrew Wakefield Rebuked, Return of Death Cat, Lady Gaga Illuminati
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 237
|date = Jan 27
|desc = Guest: Daniel Loxton, Book Release: Evolution, Dowsing for Bombs, Alien Life on Earth, Ginger Dinosaurs, I have Lizards in my Pants, Addiction
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 236
|date = Jan 20
|desc = Jon Rosenberg, Dead Bodies, Blond Warrior Princesses, Trees on Mars, Correactology, Ayn Rand
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 235
|date = Jan 13
|desc = Guest: Richard Saunders, TAM Australia, Tetrapod Footprints, Airport Security - with Bruce Schneier, Nearby Supernova, Cancer Miracle, Evil Skeptics
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 234
|date = Nov 15
|desc = Special Report: H1N1 Flu Pandemic Update - With Steven Novella, David Gorski, Mark Crislip and Joe Albietz
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 233
|date = Jan 6
|desc = D. J. Grothe, Predictions for 2009 and 2010, The G-Spot Controversy, New Stellar Companion, Brain Capacity
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 232
|date = Jan 1
|desc = 2009 Year in Review - with Guests Phil Plait and Mike Lacelle, SGU and Science News of 2009, Science and Skepticism in the Last Decade,Stats, SGU in 2010
|status = complete
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2009
|range = (episodes 181-231)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 231
|date = Dec 21
|desc = Michael Specter, Dark Matter WIMPS, Synaesthesia, The Future of Skepticism, LHC Risk with Brian Cox
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 230
|date = Dec 16
|desc = Steorn Still At It, Computer-Brain Interface, Ancient Ruins in the Caribbean, Octopus Coconuts, Homeopathic Suicide, Holodeck Food, Special Report: Coalition for Libel Reform
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 229
|date = Dec 9
|desc = Guest Phil Plait: Denver Aliens, Bird Speciation, Blinded by Faith, Spiral over Norway, Uranus Tilt, Methane on Mars, Homeopathy Ads
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 228
|date = Dec 2
|desc = Steven Thoms, Age of Autism Scandal, Porkenstein, Fat Murder Hoax, ClimateGate Feedback
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 227
|date = Nov 25
|desc = LHC Online, Coma and Facilitated Communication, ClimateGate, CrocoDuck, Speaking in Tongues
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 226
|date = Nov 18
|desc = Kenny Feder, New Mammography Guidelines, Water on the Moon, Dark Flow, Lee Harvey Oswald Photo, Movie Reviews
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 225
|date = Nov 11
|desc = Psychic Finds Skeleton, Dystonia Flu Shot Follow Up, More LRO Images, Paying for Prayer, Wave Particle Duality, JREF Announcements, TAM London with Simon Singh, Jon Ronson, and Adam Savage
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 224
|date = Nov 4
|desc = Carl Sagan Day, Nutt Job, Dystonia after Flu Shot, Spontaneous Human Combustion Case, Michael Goldstein: starting local skeptical groups, Rebecca at TAM London with Phil Plait, Chris French, and Christina Martin
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 223
|date = Oct 28
|desc = Swine Flu Scams, Hulda Clark Died of Cancer, The Physics of Homeopathy, Scientology Trouble, Suzanne Somers Cancer Quackery, Size of the Universe (With Guest - Pamela Gay), Mad Scientists, Suspended Animation
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 222
|date = Oct 21
|desc = James Randi, LHC Future Attack, Magnetic and Copper Bracelets, Balloon Boy, Lunar Plume Update, Giant Spider, Special Report: Rebecca from Bangkok
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 221
|date = Oct 14
|desc = Jack Horner, NASA Shoots the Moon, Saturn's Rings, Hypno Cat, Simon Singh Update, Plasma Rocket, This Man
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 220
|date = Oct 7
|desc = Daniel Hooper, Premanand In Memoriam, Nobel Prizes 2009, Ardipithecus Ramidis, Autism Prevalence, Brian Cox
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 219
|date = Sep 28
|desc = Mark Edward, Premanand Statement, Dinosaur News, Nanotube Springs, Cameron and Comfort on Darwin, Couple Jailed over Homeopathy Death, Spiritual Advice, Life Signs, Speed of Light
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 218
|date = Sep 23
|desc = Michael Vassar, Raptor Rex, Bill Maher Antiscience, Panama Monster
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 217
|date = Sep 12
|desc = Live at NECSS with Guest Richard Wiseman, Charlie Sheen 911 Truther, Quantum Amnesia, Hulda Clark Dead, Gonzalez Therapy Fail, What's in Your Wallet, Exomoons, Great Tits Eat Bats, Special Report: The Yale Study, Live QA
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 216
|date = Sep 9
|desc = Live at DragonCon 2009, Google UFO, Mongolian Death Worm, Chupacabra in Texas, Magnetic Monopole, Live Q&A
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 215
|date = Sep 1
|desc = Adam Savage, Multitasking, Methane Fog on Titan, Google Nessie, Evolving Mice, Appendix, iPhone Crap App
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 214
|date = Aug 25
|desc = Jamy Ian Swiss, Surviving a Cataclysm, Zombie Apocalypse, WHO Says No to Homeopathy,Itako Fading, Dinochicken
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 213
|date = Aug 18
|desc = Battery Update, Super Planetary Nebulae, Adopt a Star, UFO Spikes, Aquatic Ape, Caffeine Tolerance
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 212
|date = Aug 12
|desc = Michael Goudeau, Kepler Goes Online, Methane on Mars, MS Breakthrough, Placebo Medicine, Birthers, : Homeopathy Nonsense
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 211
|date = Aug 4
|desc = Skepchick Carrie Iwan, Teeth from Stem Cells, Stem Cell Clinic Raid, Laser Propulsion, Update on Simon Singh, Origin of Matter, 4-minute Interval Training
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 210
|date = Jul 29
|desc = Jennifer Ouellette, Oldest Animal Fossils, New State of Matter, FDA Say Mercury Amalgam Safe, Past Life Hypnotism, Stressful Sweat
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 209
|date = Jul 22
|desc = DJ Grothe, 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11, Copernicium, Thomas Jefferson and Evolution, Dowsing
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 208
|date = Jul 11
|desc = Live at TAM 7, Microbot Plumbers, Archeological Dig, Sunspots Return, Blogs vs Journalists, Genie Sued, Live Q&A, Rebecca's Wedding
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 207
|date = Jul 1
|desc = Phil Plait, Steorn Fail, BCA Responds to Singh, Salt Water in Enceladus, Uranium on the Moon, Apollo 11 Video, Impact Bad Astronomy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 206
|date = Jun 18
|desc = Richard Prum, Ancient Lakes on Mars, Smoke Ring UFO, FDA Zicam Warning, Missing Sun Spots
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 205
|date = Jun 16
|desc = Brian Brushwood, Junior Supernova, Boy Hit By Meteor, A New Heuristic, Planetary Life
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 204
|date = Jun 11
|desc = Richard Wiseman, Negative CAM Research, Chiropractors In Retreat, Quantum Mechanics, Flu Pandemic Update, Youngest Skeptic, Prescient Genes
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 203
|date = Jun 9
|desc = Bruce Hood, Crop Circles 2009, Chronic Lyme Disease, Casino Feng Shui, UFO follow up, Liver Flush for Gallstones
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 202
|date = Jun 3
|desc = Simon Singh, Newsweek vs Oprah, Volcanic Extinction, UFO News, Texas Update, Evangelical Skeptics, Begging the Question
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 201
|date = May 27
|desc = Phil Plait, Whooping Cough Increase, Scientology on Trial, RNA World, Rook Tool Use, Northeast Skeptical Conference, Polonium Halos
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 200
|date = May 20
|desc = SGU 200th Episode, Missing Link Ida, GPS Failure, Stem Cell Quackery in China, Candiru, If I Had a Million Dollars
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 199
|date = May 13
|desc = Rusty Schweickart, Simon Singh's Lawsuit, Ultradense Deuterium, Acupuncture Science, Last Fix for Hubble
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 198
|date = May 7
|desc = Rachael Dunlop, Four Years of SGU, Oprah Signs Jenny McCarthy, Dark Matter, Six Degrees of Separation, Homeopathy Death, I Have Birds in my Pants
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 197
|date = Apr 30
|desc = Mark Crislip, Hidden Photons, Walking Seal, NASA and the Moon, Baby Chupacabras, Hoagland on Iapetus
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 196
|date = Apr 22
|desc = Seth Shostak, Cassini Pictures, Smallest Exoplanet, Huffington Post Pseudoscience, Personal Attacks from Age of Autism, Kelloggs Settles FTC Suit
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 195
|date = Apr 15
|desc = John Maddox Dies, The Hand of God, Flying Microbots, Darwin Awards, Homeopathy Nonsense, Belief in Ghosts,s: Corrections, Induction in Science, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 194
|date = Apr 8
|desc = Daniel Loxton, Dennis Lee Strikes Again, Computers That Do Science, Home Energy Scam
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 193
|date = Apr 1
|desc = Paul Murray, Mind Controlled Robot, Giant Protozoan, More Jenny McCarthy Nonsense
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 192
|date = Mar 25
|desc = Cold Fusion Again, Evolution Education in Texas, Synthetic Blood,s: Richard Saunders Open Letter to Pharmacists, Quantum Jumping, Super Chimney, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 191
|date = Mar 18
|desc = Phil Plait, Pope on HIV and Condoms, 20th Anniversary of the World Wide Web, Canada Science Minister and Evolution
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 190
|date = Mar 12
|desc = Kenneth Miller, Stem Cell Ban Lifted, When Chimps Attack, Mellow Yellow, Prince Charles Snake Oil
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 189
|date = Mar 4
|desc = Kenny Feder - Clovis Find, Vaccine Decision, Designer Babies, Riversnake Update, TAM7 Info
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 188
|date = Feb 26
|desc = Virtual Snowflakes, Evolution of Sex, Revenge of Titanoboa, Google Atlantis, Catboy, Missing Moon, Moon and Sun, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 187
|date = Feb 11
|desc = Angie McQuaig, The Pose and Darwin, Ben Goldacre vs the Media, Healing Laser, Starseeds, the eHolster, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 186
|date = Feb 9
|desc = Jon Ronson, Wakefield Fraud, Wearable Computer, Amish Fireplace, LHC Delay, Blood Type Follow Up, China Spacewalk Hoax
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 185
|date = Feb 4
|desc = Massimo Pigliucci, New Items: Singularity University, Mammoth Extinction, Smallest Exoplanet,Blood Type Pseudoscience, Scientific Predictions
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 184
|date = Jan 28
|desc = Tim Minchin, Mercury In Our Food, Vaccine Controversy Updates, Evolution - Lizards and Fire Ants, Obama UFO
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 183
|date = Jan 21
|desc = Alice Tuff, The Holographic Universe, Science Education in Texas and Louisiana, Pheromones, Dyslexia, Randi: Not in a Name
|status = incomplete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 182
|date = Jan 15
|desc = Michio Kaku, Methane on Mars, Solar Storms, Mega MRI, Young Skeptics
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 181
|date = Jan 7
|desc = Psychic Predictions 2008, True Love, Jett Travolta, Christine Maggiorie, Detox Fail, Weblog Awards 2008, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2008
|range = (episodes 128-180)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 180
|date = Dec 30
|desc = 2008 SGU Year in Review: Best Skeptics, Worst Promoters of Woo, Coolest Science News, Funniest Moments, Favorite E-mails, and SGU Stats
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 179
|date = Dec 23
|desc = Jeremy Pivens Mercury Toxicity, Death by CAM, da Vinci Sketches Discovered, Medium Experiments Follow up, ET Life, Winter Myths
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 178
|date = Dec 16
|desc = Richard Wiseman, Reading Minds, Burglar Trapped by Ghost The Bloop, Evolution Questions
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 177
|date = Dec 10
|desc = Age of the Sphinx with Dr. James P Allen, Supernova Reflections and Milky Way's Black Hole with Phil Plait, Searching for Dyson Spheres, Skeptical Authority, Randi: Cold Reading
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 176
|date = Dec 3
|desc = Early Earth, Turtle Missing Link, Search for the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, Power from Sound, DNA from Hair, Magic Water, Starting a Skeptics Group, Carbon Footprint
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 175
|date = Nov 20
|desc = Steven Schafersman, Kevin Trudeau Smackdown, Placebo Acupuncture, NASA Recycles Urine, Reflexology in UK Schools, Flu Vaccine, NESS in Video Game
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 174
|date = Nov 18
|desc = Exoplanet Pictures, Neuroscience of Telepathy, Jonestown Massacre, Science Attitudes, More Info on Sperm Donation, Sleepwalking, Global Warming
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 173
|date = Nov 12
|desc = Paul Offit, Junk DNA, Mini Nuclear Reactor, Chandrayaan-1 Update, Phoenix Ends, Child Witches
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 172
|date = Nov 5
|desc = Greydon Square, Michael Crichton In Memoriam, Portable Space Shield, Oil from Fungus, Due Diligence, Randi: Wrong!
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 171
|date = Oct 29
|desc = Diana Blaney Vampire Moth, New Type of Planet, Artificial Heart, Polygraph for Debates, Science Debate 2008 Update
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 170
|date = Oct 22
|desc = Phil Plait Psychology of Superstition, Another Solar Breakthrough, UK UFO, Announcing SkepticBlog Blacklight Free Energy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 169
|date = Oct 11
|desc = Perry DeAngelis Memorial Live Podcast Guests: Steve Mirsky and Terrence Hines
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 168
|date = Oct 8
|desc = PZ Myers, 2008 Nobel Awards, Turing Test Darwin Quote, Cosmology
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 167
|date = Oct 1
|desc = Matthew Chapman Dust and Snow on Mars, PETA Nonsense, Calorie Restriction Diet LHC Update, Correlation and Causation, Emergent Intelligence, Neanderthal DNA
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 166
|date = Sep 24
|desc = Sharon Begley LHC Problems, Worthless Acupuncture Studies, Japan Space Elevator, Belief and Credulity Real versus Scientific
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 165
|date = Sep 17
|desc = Ben Goldacre Goldacre LIbel Victory, Stellar Mystery, Creationism in the UK Pharma Conspiracy Randi: The Media
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 164
|date = Sep 10
|desc = Ben Radford LHC Turned On, Elephant Math Bird Correction,Irradiated Food, Pseudoscience
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 163
|date = Sep 3
|desc = Live at DragonCon 2008 with Guests James Randi, Pamela Gay, and Derek Colanduno, The Milky Ways, Supermassive Blackhole, Live Q&A
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 162
|date = Aug 26
|desc = Richard Saunders WTC-7 Collapse, Neanderthal Tool Making, Rainbow Lady Follow Up Teleportation
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 161
|date = Aug 20
|desc = Adam Savage from Mythbusters,Remembering Perry, Monkey Eludes Dragnet, Bigfoot Body Hoax Revealed, Robot with Biological Brain, The Future of Doping,Special Report: JREF Psychic Challenge Report
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 160
|date = Aug 13
|desc = Captain Disillusion,Bigfoot Body Claim, Invisibility Cloak, Prince Charles on GM Food, Sprinkler Rainbow Lady
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 159
|date = Aug 6
|desc = Phil Plait and James Randi, James Doohan Ashes Lost, Solar Power Breakthrough, China Weather Control, The Montauk Monster, Where Does Matter Come From
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 158
|date = Jul 30
|desc = Banachek, Edgar Mitchell UFO Claims, UFOs and Terrorism, Gas from Garbage, House and the Therapeutic Diagnosis
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 157
|date = Jul 23
|desc = George Hrab, New Plutoid, Detox Danger, Amanda Peet Defends Vaccines, Barbara Walters Disses James Van Praagh, Allah Meat, Chaos Theory
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 156
|date = Jul 16
|desc = [[Neil deGrasse Tyson interview: Spaghettification and education (156)|Neil deGrasse Tyson interview]], [[Black hole hubbub in Dallas county (156)|Black hole hubbub]], [[PZ Myers: Stolen cracker death threats (156)|Its Just a Cracker]], [[Discovery Institute blog foiled by vocabulary (156)|Tiktalik Nonsense]], [[Cancer cells zapped individually (156)|Micro Laser Surgery]], [[Convincing evidence: Changing minds (156)|Convincing Evidence]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 155
|date = Jul 9
|desc = James Randi, Einstein Right Again, Conservapedia Denies Evolution, Controversial Chelation Autism Study, Special Report: Roswell 61 Years Later
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 154
|date = Jul 2
|desc = Dr Dean Edell, Darwin-Wallace Anniversary, Tunguska Remembered, Creationst Bill Passes in Louisana, Nanowire Battery, SGU on Youtube, Collective Skeptics, Body Fruit, Randi: Speaker Cables
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 153
|date = Jun 21
|desc = Live at TAM6, Ice on Mars, Crop Circle Pi, Japanese Water Car, Psychic Alleges Sexual Abuse, FDA Crackdown, Spa Reflexology, Special Report-Brian Dunning Present Here Be Dragons Video, Live Q&A
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 152
|date = Jun 11
|desc = Bacteria Evolve, The 100mpg Car, Unicorn Deer, Fishing Monkeys, Plutoids, Albinos in Africa, Special Report-Crystal Skulls, Coincidence, Green Nanoparticles
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 151
|date = Jun 9
|desc = Jon Blumenfeld, NPR Psychics, Mars Lander Update, Petaflop Supercomputers, Optical Illusions, Casey Predictions
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 150
|date = Jun 4
|desc = Walter Isaacson, New Hoax Alien Video, Solar Power from Sapce, Anti-Vaccine Mar on Washington, CAM in New Zealand Follow Up, Cold Fusion
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 149
|date = May 28
|desc = JPL Scientist Diana Blaney, Wi Fi Ban, New Zealand Considering CAM, Scientology Free Speech Follow Up, Medical Science Reporting, Tasmanian Tiger Corrections, Least Skeptical
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 148
|date = May 21
|desc = Carl Zimmer, Tasmanian Tiger Gene Resurrected, Mobile Phones and Pregnancy, Is Scientology a Cult, Supernova Caught in the Act, Michael Shull about Discovering Missing Matter, Radiometric Dating of Mt St Helens, Update on TAM6
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 147
|date = May 14
|desc = Martin Rundkvist, Einstein and God, The Vatican The UK and UFO's, China Quake Superstitions, NASA Announces Supernova Discovery, Creationism in Maine, Wizardry Followup
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 146
|date = May 7
|desc = SGU 3rd Anniversary, Florida Anti-Evolution Law Fails, Florida Teacher Fired for Wizardry, Special Report: Bobs Haunted Tour, T-Rex Proteins, Water Experiment, Misconceptions about Evolution, Consumer Reports and Homeopathy
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 145
|date = Apr 30
|desc = Kirsten Sanford, Mystery Lights in Maryland, Evolution Freedom Law in Florida, Gary Null-HIV Denier, Special Report: The Real Iron Man
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 144
|date = Apr 23
|desc = [[Simon Singh interview: Alternative medicine (144)|Simon Singh interview]], [[Man "raised from dead" (144)|Man Raised from Dead]], [[Politics of vaccines (144)|Politics of Vaccines]], [[Penis theft panic (144)|Penis Theft Panic]], [[Oldest plant (144)|Oldest Plant]], [[SGU drinking game (144)|The SGU Drinking Game]], [[Space junk: Dangerous debris (144)|Space Junk]], [[Brain Gym: Pseudoscience in the classroom (144)|Brain Gym]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 143
|date = Apr 16
|desc = Eric Avery, Scientology Defection, Are Vitamins Harmful, Replicator Replicates Itself, ET Not Likely, Age of the Earth, Magnetic Water
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 142
|date = Apr 9
|desc = Yau-Man Chan, Skeptologists Shoot Complete, UK Psychic crackdown, LHC and the God Particle, Monty Hall Problem in Research, Cursing in Sanskrit
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 141
|date = Apr 2
|desc = The Skeptologists, Expelled Again, Human-Cow Hybrid, Tantric Killing Fails, Debunking Skeptics, Dinosaur Fossils on the Moon
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 140
|date = Mar 26
|desc = Eugenie Scott, Rebecca's Asteroid, Airborne Lawsuit, Pregnant Man, Hypnotist Robber, Robin Migration, More on Soap
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 139
|date = Mar 19
|desc = Stephen Barrett, Arthur C. Clarke Dies at 90, Saudi Scholar Denies Holocaust, Michael Egnor on ID Podcast, Believers Stare at the Sun, Boy Scout Follow Up, Cosmetic Pseudoscience
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 138
|date = Mar 12
|desc = Ola Fincke about Science Education in Oklahoma, Ghosts in the Mind, US Government Settles Autism-Vaccine Case, Real Death Star, Drugs in the Water, The Skeptologists, Randi Speaks-about Gary Schwartz
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 137
|date = Mar 5
|desc = Special Report: Timeshare Scams, Spaceprobe Anomalies, Aromatherapy Study, McCain on Autism and Vaccines, CECTIC Skeptical Cartoon, Global Warming on Mars, Magneto Boy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 136
|date = Feb 27
|desc = McFeng Sui, Anti-Scientific Medicine in South Africa, Type IV Civilization, Killer Robots, Favorite Science and Skeptical Books
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 135
|date = Feb 20
|desc = Robert FitzPatrick, Lunar Eclipse, Censoring Skeptics, Scientific Challenges of 21st Century, Dualism, Naadi Palm Leaf Reading
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 134
|date = Feb 13
|desc = PZ Myers, Bat Evolution, UK Officials Evict Ghost, Acupuncture and IVF, Alien Mind Control, Darwin Day, Fasting
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 133
|date = Feb 6
|desc = Richard Hayes, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Dies,More Perpetual Motion, Voting in Invisible Ink, Canadian Snake Oil, Organic Milk, Apocalypse 2012, SETI
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 132
|date = Jan 30
|desc = UK Homeopathy In Crisis, Creationist Research Journal, Facilitated Communication in the Courtroom, ABC Drama on Vaccines and Autism, Arabian Brain Drain, Got Milk, Psychic Cheat, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 131
|date = Jan 23
|desc = Guests Fraser Cain and Pamela Gay from Astronomy Cast, Texas UFO follow up, Mars Bigfoot, Homer on Mercury, Asteroid 2007 TU24, Bionic Eyes, Coast to Coast Gets Punked, Restless Leg Syndrome, Time Travel, Relativity
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 130
|date = Jan 16
|desc = Brian Dunning from Skeptoid, Scientists Make Beating Heart, Divining Intervention, UFO over Texas, Reaction to More Evidence Against Vaccines and Autism, Cruise Scientology Recruiting Video, The K-T Extinction
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 129
|date = Jan 9
|desc = John Rennie, SGU 5x5, The Reason Driven Podcast, Insects may have Killed the Dinosaurs, Biofuels, Neti Pots, Healing Magnets, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 128
|date = Jan 2
|desc = New Science Based Medicine Blog, Psychic Predictions 2007, Edward to Channel Irwin, Masters Degree in Creation Science, Magic Amulets, SGU for teachers, Magic Foot Pads, Quantum Entanglement and Warp Drive
|status = skeleton
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2007
|range = (episodes 76-127)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 127
|date = Dec 26
|desc = SGU 2007 Year In Review
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 126
|date = Dec 19
|desc = Richard Wiseman, Rebecca's Pilot, Magic Leg, Creationists New Strategy, Scientific Criticism, Cattle Mutilation, Eidetic memory, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 125
|date = Dec 12
|desc = Alex Tsakiris from Skeptiko about Paranormal Research and Skepticism, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 124
|date = Dec 5
|desc = Lawrence Krauss, Hucka-Bee, Moonbeams in Arizona, Chimp Memory, Anti-vaccine misinformation on Youtube, Stem Cell Con, Information Theory, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 123
|date = Nov 28
|desc = Science and Faith, Computer Brain, Psychic Ripoff, Wifi and Autism, Skeptiko on Skeptics, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 122
|date = Nov 20
|desc = Judgment Day Censored, Blue Ghost Followup, Death by Energy Medicine, Photo Memory Manipulation, Special Feature: Our Day at the Psychic Fair, Bird Sex Correction, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 121
|date = Nov 14
|desc = Paul Kurtz, Judgment Day for ID, UFO Investigation, Universe loses weight, FDA Petition, Gas Station Ghost, BMI, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 120
|date = Nov 7
|desc = Greydon Square, Phenomenon, Robot cars, Jehovahs Witness death, Fat is Healthy, Judgment Day, Follow up on Mange, Special Request, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 119
|date = Oct 30
|desc = Ghosthunting Season, Report from the Homeopathy Conference, Rude 9-11 Truthers, Dinosaur Extinction, Mangy Bigfoot, Supplements, Spine tingling, Randi: Jaque Benveniste, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 118
|date = Oct 24
|desc = Joe Nickell, Autism and Vaccines, Ben Stein on OReilly, James Watson Followup, The Dangers of Pseudoscience, Honey, Flu Vaccine Myths, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 117
|date = Oct 17
|desc = Mark Crislip of QuackCast, Robot Marriage, Overeating Gene, New Dinosaur, Female Cult, Watson on Race, Randi: Best Mentalist Trick, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 116
|date = Oct 10
|desc = Marc Abrahams of the IgNobels, Geller on NBC, More Acupuncture, Cell Phones and Cancer, World with Time, Energy Follow up, Slain by Woo, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 115
|date = Oct 3
|desc = Jon Blumenfeld, Tom Cruise Bunker, The View of a Flat Earth, Fly Boy Follow up, Martial Arts Woo, Vaccine follow up, 30 Year Battery, Orthomolecular Medicine, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 114
|date = Sep 27
|desc = Richard Saunders, Rebecca Wins, New Acupuncture Study, Academic Free Speech, Boy Survives Jet Ride, Smart Sex, Colloidal Silver, Randi: Faith Healers, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 113
|date = Sep 19
|desc = Monkey Bird Love, Trouble for Trudeau, Free Energy, Medical Science, Judge believes in Elves, HPV Vaccine, Autism Nonsense on Oprah, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 112
|date = Sep 12
|desc = David Colquhoun, How the WTC Towers Fell, Burning Water, Extant Dodos, SGU Affiliations, Peanuts, King Tut Follow up, Billy Meier, Randi: Mentalism, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 111
|date = Sep 5
|desc = Bill Nye the Science Guy, Airline Sacrifices Goats, King Tut, Is Race Real, The Persistence of Myth, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 110
|date = Aug 28
|desc = The Fans and Rogues remember Perry DeAngelis, - Jerry Andrus: Another Skeptic Passes, HIV Denial, Jesus Appears in Fence, Ben Stein Expelled, Puzzle
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 109
|date = Aug 24
|desc = Perry DeAngelis 1963-2007, The Psychology of Belief - a lecture by Perry DeAngelis, The fans favorite clips of Perry
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 108
|date = Aug 11
|desc = Opening Remarks by Steven Novella and Steve Mirsky, MC Todd Robbins, Live Q&A: Autism Groups, Girls and Science, Nice Skepticism, Science Education
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 107
|date = Aug 8
|desc = Largest Planet Discovered, New Da Vinci Conspiracy, Korean Stem Cell Controversy, UK UFO Followup, Unproven Therapies, CO2 from Walking, AI Sense of Humor, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 106
|date = Aug 1
|desc = Barry Glassner, Death Cat, FDA Shuts Down DCA, Exorcisms Gone Bad, Ward Churchill Correction, The Man with No Brain, The Overview Effect, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 105
|date = Jul 25
|desc = Jimmy Carter, Ward Churchill Fired, Homeopathic Surgeon, UK UFO, Asian Parasite Killing Bees, Electric Car, Brain Evolution, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 104
|date = Jul 18
|desc = Brian Trent, Author of Never Grow Old
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 103
|date = Jul 11
|desc = Scott Lilienfield, Most Distant Galaxy, Orbo Perpetual Motion Machine, Salt Water Fuel, Scientology and Homocide, Puzzle
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 102
|date = Jul 3
|desc = Barry Beyerstein In Memoriam, Black Cohosh and Liver Failure, Echinacea Meta-analysis, Jury Accuracy, Bishops and Floods, HIV and Condoms, Chiropractic and Colic, Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy, Sickesz Follow Up, Puzzle
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 101
|date = Jun 20
|desc = Orac - The author of Respectful Insolence Science Blog, Do black holes exist, President Bush vetoes new stem cell bill, Legends for profit, Belgium skeptic sued, The Galileo gambit, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 100
|date = Jun 19
|desc = SGU 100th Episode, 60 Years of Flying Saucers, Nano Drugs, Dino Big Bird, Home Buying Pseudoscience, Magneto and Son, Acupuncture Brain Surgery, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 99
|date = Jun 13
|desc = Phil Plait - The Bad Astronomer, Creationism Poll, Academic Freedom, Mercury-Autism Controversy in Court, Mr. Wizard Dies at 89, Rods, Zero Point Energy, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 98
|date = Jun 6
|desc = Creation Museum in Canada, NASA on Global Warming, Chiropractic in VA Hospitals, Death by Pseudoscience, UFO Drone CGI, New Loch Ness Video, Lunar Effect, Herxheimer Reaction, Chemtrails, Puzzle
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 97
|date = May 30
|desc = Creation Museum Opens, Licensing Psychics, Homeopaths Lame Response, China Follow Up, Kevin Trudeau, UFO Drone, Puzzle
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 96
|date = May 23
|desc = China Consultant Gareth Hayes, UK Scientists Reject Homeopathy, Boy Whose Parents Rejected Chemotherapy Dies, Scientology in Public Schools, Is Science Made Up, Legislating Thought, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 95
|date = May 16
|desc = Fraser Cain and Pamela Gay from Astronomy Cast, :Scientology vs the BBC, Rosie and 9-11, Star Kids, Multivitamins and Cancer, Moo UFO, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 94
|date = May 9
|desc = Barry Beyerstein, The Encyclopedia of Life, Nanotech Spidy Suit, Bigfoot Endangered, Corrections and Clarifications, Evolution Challenge, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 93
|date = May 3
|desc = Bug Girl - The Beetastrophy, Philly Shuts Down Psychics, Fire Melts Steel, Woman Hanged as Vampire, Drake Equation, EM Sensitivity, Hitler Fallacy Revisited, Genetic Drug Therapy, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 92
|date = Apr 25
|desc = Is Mental Illness Real, Earth-like Planet Discovered, Criminalizing Holocaust Denial follow up, Pill for Genetic Diseases, Bacterial Flagella Follow Up, Vitrification, - 9/11 Conspiracy, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 91
|date = Apr 18
|desc = Susan Blackmore, More ID Nonsense from Dr. Michael Egnor, Criminalizing Holocaust Denial, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 90
|date = Apr 10
|desc = Quantum Computer?, Fermilab Flub, Dieting News, Time Travel, Meta Analysis, Chiropractic Confusion, Death Star Conspiracy, Hugh Ross and Testable Creationism, Near Death Experiences, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 89
|date = Apr 4
|desc = 9/11 Conspiracy Celebrities, Holy Water for AIDS, Astrology Fails Again, Fairy Hoax, Avoiding the Holocaust, Neal Adams on Fox, Peanut Butter and Evolution, Peloop, When Birds Attack, Groupthink,Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 88
|date = Mar 28
|desc = David Seaman, DC, UFO news, Houdini exhumed, Buhhda boy returns, PETA, GM foods, Satanic Barcode, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 87
|date = Mar 21
|desc = Robert Lancaster, Vernal Equinox, Prayer Meta-analysis, Creationist Teacher Fired, Polar Bear Euthanasia, Pluto Corrections, Herbal Remedies, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 86
|date = Mar 14
|desc = Update on the Tomb of Jesus, The Revenge of Pluto, Robot Rights, More ID Nonsense, ADHD, Nerves Conduct by Sound?, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 85
|date = Mar 7
|desc = Battle of the Diets, True Believers take on SGU, Modern Day Witch Trial, Billy Meier Apologst, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 84
|date = Feb 28
|desc = Kenny Feder: The Tomb of Jesus and More, Update on Scientific Literacy, Human-Chimp Split, Mary on Pizza Pan, Segment #2. Negativity, Vitamins, more on Angel Voices, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 83
|date = Feb 21
|desc = TAM5 Interviews Part V: with Julia Sweeney, Richard Wiseman and The Onion Editor Scott Dickers, Angels Voices, New JFK Footage, Bigfoot Foot, Psychics on Oprah, Zodiac Insurance, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 82
|date = Feb 15
|desc = TAM 5 Interviews Part IV with Christopher Hitchens and South Parks Matt Stone, Psychic Healer, Score 1 for Evolution in Kansas, Paranormal Research Center Closes, Monkey Feng Shui, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 81
|date = Feb 7
|desc = TAM5 Interviews Part III: Phil Plait the Bad Astronomer, and Mythbusters Adam Savage and Tory Belleci, Enviga Suit, Iran AIDS Cure, Creationists in Kenya, Follow up on Global Warming, Youngest Skeptic, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 80
|date = Jan 31
|desc = TAM5 Interviews Part II: John Rennie, Teller, Jim Underdown, Randi takes on Sylvia, The Hobbit Returns, The God Question, Cults and Religion, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 79
|date = Jan 24
|desc = TAM5 interviews with [[James Randi interview with Todd Robbins at TAM5 (79)|James Randi, Todd Robbins]], [[Hal Bidlack interview: MC at TAM5 (79)|Hal Bidlack]] & [[Eugenie Scott interview: Science in the media and the Dover trial (79)|Eugenie Scott]], [[TAM5: The Rogues report (79)|Report from TAM5]], [[Sylvia Browne: Dead wrong again (79)|Sylvia Browne]], [[Tom Cruise: Christ of Scientology (79)|Tom Cruise the Christ]], [[If Rebecca ate meat (79)|Meat-eating Rebecca]], [[Free-fall and terminal velocity emails (79)|Terminal Velocity]], [[Skeptical Puzzle: Power loss (79)|Puzzle]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 78
|date = Jan 15
|desc = Stem Cell Debate, Randi Psychic Challenge (Jeff Wagg), Government Conspiracies, Herbal Remedies, Skeptical Movement, Scientology, Randi: Whats That Line, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 77
|date = Jan 10
|desc = Spencer Weart, author of The Discovery of Global Warming, Stem Cell Updates, Enviga, Hawking in Space, Weight loss pill firms fined, Corrections, The Moon, True belief skeletons, Randi: Coincidence, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 76
|date = Jan 3
|desc = NeuroLogica Blog, Evolution in Cobb County, 2006 Predictions, Homeopathy in Scotland, Salt Lamps, UFOs, Intelligent Forces, Chelation Therapy, Randi: Optical Illusions, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2006
|range = (episodes 24-75)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 75
|date = Dec 27
|desc = 2006 Year in Review: Join the Skeptics' Guide host and the rogues as they look back at the year in science, skepticism, and podcasting
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 74
|date = Dec 20
|desc = Carl Sagan, Sylvia Browne Update, IQ and Vegetarians, Santa Claus, Facilitated Communication, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 73
|date = Dec 13
|desc = B. Alan Wallace Tree Octopus, Irans Holocaust Denial, Science and the Supernatural, Randi: Communication, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 72
|date = Dec 6
|desc = Paleontologist Ken Macleod - New Evidence for the Single Impact Theory, Holiday shopping scams, NASA plans moon base, Flowing water on Mars?, Molecular manufacturing, Hi from Down Under, Chiropractic HIV denial, Testing ID, High Tech Dowsing, Randi: End o
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 71
|date = Nov 29
|desc = Mark Crislip, Paranormal Computer Storage, ID in the UK, Corrections, Einstein, Ghost Photos, Neurolink, Randi: Mentalism, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 70
|date = Nov 21
|desc = Orgasm Day, Science of Deception, MoD warns of Aliens, Wonders of the World, top 10 Scientific Discoveries, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 69
|date = Nov 15
|desc = Seth Shostak, Qi-Gong on You Tube, Cryotherapy,Chicken-Tac-Toe, Hallucinations, Chiropractic, Religion and Mental Illness, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 68
|date = Nov 8
|desc = Kent Hovind Convicted, UFO Mocumentary, Bigfoot in Academia, Learn while you Sleep, Dolphin Legs, Edgar Cayce, Quantum Love, Distribution of Pseudoscience, Workplace Skepticism, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 67
|date = Nov 1
|desc = Richard Wiseman, Pseudohistory of Exorcism, Glossolalia, Elephant Mirrors, Holiday Weight, Anti-skeptics, Fox Parkinsons and Stem Cells, Face on Earth, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 66
|date = Oct 25
|desc = Michael Stebbins, Scientists and Engineers for America, The Physics of Ghosts and Vampires, What killed the dinosaurs?, Hallucinations, UFO cults, Randi: People in Space, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 65
|date = Oct 18
|desc = Geller's Heir, Human speciation, New Element 118, The 7th Fleet, Moon Robots, Vegetarians, Vitamin Supplements, Randi: Homeopathy, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 64
|date = Oct 11
|desc = Stuart Vyse, Author of The Psychology of Supersition, Friday 13th, Teaching Evolution in Michigan, Science in the UK, Comet to hit Earth, Water Cycle, Selling the Moon, Randi: Aromatherapy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 63
|date = Oct 4
|desc = Michael Shermer - Author of Why Darwin Matters, Skepchick-dude Calendars, Sexual arousal, Harry Potter, Autism, Skepticism and sensitivity, Randi: Business Astrology, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 62
|date = Sep 27
|desc = [[Joe Nickell interview: Paranormal investigations (62)|Joe Nickell interview]], [[Global warming follow up and solar activity (62)|Global Warming update]], [[Face on Mars: 3D reconstruction (62)|Face on Mars]], [[Lightning rods (62)|Lightning Rods]], [[Psychic astrology email (62)|Psychic Astrology]], [[Randi Speaks: Left behind (62)|Randi: Left Behind]], [[I have monkeys in my pants (62)|I have monkeys in my pants]], [[Skeptical Puzzle: Marine locks (62)|Puzzle]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 61
|date = Sep 20
|desc = James Randi Joins the Skeptics Guide, Male-Female Intelligence, Exorcism rape, Phil Plait, The Bad Astronomer, about Eris, Pluto, NASA and more, OBE's, More on 9/11, Denial, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 60
|date = Sep 13
|desc = 9/11 news, Report from Mexico, No Gulf War Syndrome,Persistant Vegetative State, Math vs Science, Thinking about the dead, Moon Hoax, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 59
|date = Sep 5
|desc = Ed Warren Dies, New ESP claims, Evolution of Superstition, Korean fan deaths, New UK Homeopathy law, Science beliefs, Recycling, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 58
|date = Aug 30
|desc = Kimball Atwood, MD, Pope and ID, Hitler and Stalin Possessed, Pluto not a planet, Kabbalah,Archaeological conspiracies, Skeptical Soldier, Abiogenesis Pseudoscience, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 57
|date = Aug 23
|desc = Larry Sarner, Water Tree Solved, Mystery Creature in Maine, Creationism update, Planet definition, Acupuncture followup, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 56
|date = Aug 15
|desc = Ken Feder, Evolution Survey, water tree, Abiogenic Origin of Oil,Dinosaur Petroglyphs, Acupuncture, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 55
|date = Aug 9
|desc = Steve Salerno, Happy Birthday James Randi, Archimedes Palimpsest, Science and Falsifiability, Skeptics track record, FDA, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 54
|date = Aug 2
|desc = Creationism Museum, Kansas votes out Creationists, Coulter throws down the gauntlet, Exorcism, PC, Chiropractic, Singularity, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 53
|date = Jul 26
|desc = Possible increase for NASA budget, Indigo children, Monkey eating eagle, Bird flight, Teachers respond to textbook criticism, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 52
|date = Jul 19
|desc = Bill Bennetta, The Textbook League, Rebecca Returns, Precious Bodily Fluids, World Jump Day,Follow up on Neal Adams, Women in Science, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 51
|date = Jul 12
|desc = Neal Adams, Space Shuttle Mission, Asteroid near miss, Psychedelic mushrooms, Kevin Barrett and 9/11 conspiracies,More on supplements, Peak Oil?, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 50
|date = Jul 5
|desc = Gerald Posner, author of Case Closed, Second hand smoke,Binaural Beats, Aubrey de Grey, Puzzle (answer plus new puzzle)
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 49
|date = Jun 28
|desc = Theory of Evolution, Agnosticism, Magnet therapy, Regulating supplements, Neuroethics, Puzzle
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 48
|date = Jun 21
|desc = Steve Mirsky, Scientific American, Herbs for menopause, Anne Coulter and evolution,Penta Water, Alcoholism a disease?, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 47
|date = Jun 14
|desc = Zachary Moore: Evolution 101, Feng-shui, Hawking on space travel,Consensus on Global Warming, God and the Big Bang
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 46
|date = Jun 7
|desc = Phil Plait: The Bad Astronomer,Satans day, Skepchick infiltrates Christian Scientists, Altruism genes, Follow up on 9/11 Hoax
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 45
|date = May 31
|desc = SGU Forum, 9-11 footage, UK Doctors fight against Alternative Med,Cancer Cures, Dream Interpretation, Science vs God, Suns temperature
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 44
|date = May 24
|desc = James Randi News: Human/chimp hybrid, China mirage
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 43
|date = May 17
|desc = Ray Hyman, News: Bosnian Pyramid update, Mormon cult leader hits FBI list, Paranormal mysteries, Science education, Scientology super powers
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 42
|date = May 10
|desc = Eugenie Scott, News: UFO's in the UK, Scientology Superheroes,Tracking Satellites, Drinking water
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 41
|date = May 3
|desc = Bosnian pyramids, Toxic Cruise,Bubble Universes, Iridology, Black holes, and the Origin of life, Discussion: The Scope of Skepticism
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 40
|date = Apr 26
|desc = Brian Trent, author of Remembering Hypatia, Sonoma Bigfoot revealed, Channeling John Lennon,More on Hurricanes and Birthdays, Bananas and logical fallacies
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 39
|date = Apr 19
|desc = Marilyn Schlitz, ESP researcher, More on the polar ice caps, Sad Monkeys, spinal stem cells and mercury amalgam,gene multiplication, Skeptical Tools
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 38
|date = Apr 12
|desc = Bill Nye, Tom Cruise, Time Travel, Global Warming, Happy Face on Mars,Evolution, more on the flood, the psychosomatic effect and
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 37
|date = Apr 6
|desc = Fish evolution, prayer in medicine, Noah's ark,EVP, more on the solar eclipse
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 36
|date = Mar 29
|desc = Rick Ross, Solar Eclipse,The Woman who Never Forgets, Panspermia, Hydrino power, Bigfoot, Microwaves
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 35
|date = Mar 22
|desc = More on Scientology and South Park, Noah's Ark, Bigfoot or Bison, Cancer quacks, creationism in UK, DNA vs the Mormons
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 34
|date = Mar 15
|desc = Buddha Boy, El Chupacabra, Scientology and South Park, What the Bleep: Down the Rabbit Hole, Water on enceladus
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 33
|date = Mar 9
|desc = Rebecca Watson - founder of the Skepchicks, Magnet Therapy, Tax scams, Plastic Scare
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 32
|date = Mar 1
|desc = More on ID, Holy hardware, G-spot, Oil crisis, The 12th planet
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 31
|date = Feb 22
|desc = Terrence Hines - author of Pseudoscience and the Paranormal
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 30
|date = Feb 15
|desc = New UFO Coverup, Randi, ID, Jesus in court, Cholesterol and colon cleansing
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 29
|date = Feb 8
|desc = Featured Website: Two sites on Science Myths, Feynman on Education and Textbooks, , Going Beyond Science?
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 28
|date = Feb 1
|desc = Tara Smith of Iowans for Science, , More on HIV Denial
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 27
|date = Jan 25
|desc = Ask the Skeptic, Two Views of American Education, Government and wacky science
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 26
|date = Jan 17
|desc = Eric Altman from the Penn Bigfoot Society, Psychic Predictions for 2005, Darwin Day
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 25
|date = Jan 11
|desc = Did Castro Kill JFK, Discussion Items: Iran Denies the Holocaust, Cell Research Fraud in South Korea, Political Correctness vs Freedom of Speech
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 24
|date = Jan 6
|desc = James Randi
|status = skeleton
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2005
|range = (episodes 1-23)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 23
|date = Dec 21
|desc = Jan Helen McGee - Psychic Detective, Victory for Science and Reason in Dover
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 22
|date = Dec 14
|desc = Holiday Scams, Discussion Topics: Eye Evolution, Venus the UFO, Video Games and Seizures, Psychic Detectives
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 21
|date = Dec 7
|desc = Wallace Sampson, MD - Editor of the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine, ID and Weeping Icons
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 20
|date = Nov 23
|desc = Tom W. Clark - founder of Naturalism.org, ID Update
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 19
|date = Nov 16
|desc = ID and Idiocy, Putting the Psi into Science, The Starchild Project
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 18
|date = Nov 2
|desc = Halloween Ghost Stories, Astrology vs Astronomy
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 17
|date = Oct 26
|desc = Joe Nickell - paranormal investigator
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 16
|date = Oct 12
|desc = Glen G. Sparks
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 15
|date = Oct 6
|desc = Chris Mooney: Author of The Republican War on Science
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 14
|date = Sep 28
|desc = UFO Landing Strip, ID Update, Bigfoot Convention, Katrina Myths and Conspiracies
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 13
|date = Sep 14
|desc = [[9/11 Conspiracy Theories (13)|9/11 Conspiracies]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 12
|date = Sep 7
|desc = Steve Milloy
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 11
|date = Aug 31
|desc = Bob Park: author of Voodoo Science
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 10
|date = Aug 23
|desc = In Memoriam: Phil Klass and Robert Baker, Childrens Books
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 9
|date = Aug 10
|desc = Bush-The Pope-and evolution -again, Atlantis, Modern Witch Hunts, Science and Hollywood
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 8
|date = Aug 2
|desc = Steven Salerno: author of SHAM
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 7
|date = Jul 20
|desc = The Pope on Potter and evolution, Ghostbusting with Penn & Teller, Ask the Skeptic, Quackwatch
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 6
|date = Jul 7
|desc = Science Magazine's 125 things we do not know, Tom Cruise, Scientology and Psychiatry, CT Warning on e-scams, Ramada Inn in Stratford Haunted
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 5
|date = Jun 29
|desc = Michael Shermer
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 4
|date = Jun 15
|desc = Update on Kansas Evolution Debate, Alternative Theories of Matter
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 3
|date = Jun 7
|desc = [[Massimo Pigliucci Interview: Intelligent Design, Science, Religion (3)|Massimo Pigliucci interview]], [[Smithsonian ID Fiasco Follow-up (3)|Update on ID film in the Smithsonian Institution]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 2
|date = Jun 1
|desc = [[Kansas school board: Redefining science (2)|Kansas Evolution Update]], [[Discovery Institute preview at Smithsonian Institute (2)|Discovery Institute preview at Smithsonian Institute]], [[Stem cell bill 2005: Embryonic vs. adult-derived (2)|Stem Cell Research]], [[Crop circles: Cereology, blueprints and perfect circles (2)|Crop Circle Season]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 1
|date = May 4
|desc = ID, Reverse Engineering UFOs, Magicians, and Exploding Toads
|status = verified
}}
|}
|}

User:Teleuteskitty/Draft SGU list

2013-09-20T21:04:32Z

Teleuteskitty: added segment links for 156, 346, 350 & 355

{| class="mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2013
|range = (episodes 390-...)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 426
|date = Sep 14
|desc = 9/11, Motivated Numeracy, Arctic Ice, Robot Traders, Teenage Exorcists, Homeopathic Vaccines, Mission to Mars, Bdellovibrio
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 425
|date = Sep 7
|desc = Last Thylacine, NASA Spiders, Chicken Wings and Penis Size, TCM for Flu, New Element 115, Pox Parties, Aromatherapy
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 424
|date = Aug 31
|desc = Cara Santa Maria, Paul Ehrlich, Energized Water, Probiotics for Mental Health, Death by Iridology, Immortality, Authority
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 423
|date = Aug 24
|desc = Sanal Edamaruku, Vesuvius, No Proof of Creation, Area 51, Hydrating Beer, Indian Rationalist Shot Dead, Free Roaming Planets, Sugar and Hyperactivity
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 422
|date = Aug 17
|desc = Hazel Bishop, NDE Explained, TV Watching, Labor and Autism, Magenta Planet, Spontaneous Baby Combustion, Special Report: Onionated
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 421
|date = Aug 10
|desc = Michael Mann, Smithsonian, Dead Monk Alive, Lab Grown Burger, Dolphin Memory, Cattle Mutilations, Gluten Follow Up, HPV Vaccine
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 420
|date = Aug 3
|desc = Robert House, Hunt for Alien Spaceships, 3-D Printing, Lunar Calendar, Full Moon and Sleep, Man-Chimp-Pig
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 419
|date = Jul 27
|desc = Insulin, Giant Virus, Gluten, Death Wave, The Pitch Drops, Revenge of the Conspiracy Theorists. Cassini Picture of Earth
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 418
|date = Jul 20
|desc = Live at TAM 2013, Guest Rogue: John Rennie, Viking 1, Special Report: Grand Canyon, The End of the World, Sailing Stones, Scrotal Evolution, Moons of Pluto, James Randi and Jamy Ian Swiss, Questions: Cynicism, Monsanto
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 417
|date = Jul 13
|desc = Paul Offit, Carl Zimmer and Erno Rubik, Seeing Through Walls, First in Flight, Tylenol and Fear, Spinning Pharoah, Head Transplant
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 416
|date = Jul 6
|desc = Guest Rogue: Randall Snyder, Pasteur, Special Report: Leaving Mormonism, Crop Circles in History, Constructing Morality, Movie Review: World War Z, Patent Troll Follow Up
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 415
|date = Jun 29
|desc = Roy Wolford, Podcasting Patent, Class System in Mice, Anti-GMO Pseudoscience, Skunk Ape, Special Report: GyroStim and Science Journalism, Staticman
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 414
|date = Jun 22
|desc = Daniel Loxton, Osteoarthritis, Patenting DNA, Foot Fungus, Chinese Fake Alien, New Type of Star, Can We Know Everything
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 413
|date = Jun 15
|desc = First Blood Transfusion, Vaccine Refusal, Seeing Ultraviolet, Ape Feet, Elizabeth I a Man?, Special Report: Don McLeroy Follow Up, Living on Sunshine
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 412
|date = Jun 8
|desc = Joshie Berger, Missile Mail, Star Trek Review, Kepler Broken, Small Hadron Collider, Carnivorous Sponge, Pollen
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 411
|date = Jun 1
|desc = Vijay Dewan and Scott Thurman, Cosmic Background Radiation, Mermaids, Angelina Jolie, Prosopagnosia, Flying Car, Raw Honey
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 410
|date = May 25
|desc = Guest Rogue: Richard Saunders, Geek Pride Day, McCormick Sentenced, Meteroid Hits Moon, DSM-5, Placenta Madness, Water Heater Followup, McLeroy Interview
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 409
|date = May 18
|desc = Heather Berlin, Nicholas II, Your Senses in Space, Talking Plants, Flowing Glass, Book Review: Ender's Game, Water Heaters, Atacama Specimen
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 408
|date = May 11
|desc = Don McLeroy, Sylvia Browne Wrong Again, Cosmic Rays and Lightening, Cicada Return
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 407
|date = May 4
|desc = Mystery Guest, SGU 8 year Anniversary, Funding Science, Curse Scam, Fusion Reactor, Einstein Still Correct, Oblivion Review, Is SETI Science
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 406
|date = Apr 27
|desc = Samuel Morse, Mars One, Bomb Detector Fraud, TED and Chopra, Creationism and Dinosaurs, Bitcoin Follow Up
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 405
|date = Apr 20
|desc = Guest Rogues: Jon Ronson and Simon Singh, Sundogs, Simon Singh's New Book, Bitcoins, Internet Criminals, BRAIN Project, Evidence of Dark Matter, Hallucinating Music
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 404
|date = Apr 13
|desc = Live at NECSS 2013, Guest Rogue: Cathleen Carr, Apollo 13, Remembering Perry, Conspiracy Survey, Misused Scientific Terms, New Type of Supernova, Vaccines Make You Gay, Anti-Vaccine Propaganda on Twitter, Live Q&A: Effects of Alcohol, Online Health Inform
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 403
|date = Apr 6
|desc = Ian O'Neill, Isaac Asimov, Fairy Circle Update, Zombie Parasites, Retraction Watch, Genetic Transistors, Prescribing Placebos
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 402
|date = Mar 30
|desc = Guest Rogue: Karl Withakay, [[Homeopathy Debate at UConn (402)|Homeopathy Debate]], [[Nine-year-old Finds Dinosaur Fossil (402)|Small Pterosaur]], [[Fracking Causing Earthquakes (402)|Fracking Earthquakes]], [[Man Who Never Has to Eat Again (402)|Never Eat Again]], [[Voyager at the Edge (402)|Voyager at the Edge]], [[More Than Gravity Theory (402)|More Than Gravity]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 401
|date = Mar 23
|desc = Pons and Fleischmann, Marshmallow Test, Bacteria Everywhere, Acupuncture HIV, Dr. Oz Sued, New Pope, Special Report: Why Worry?
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 400
|date = Mar 16
|desc = Lawrence Oates, Meteorite Fossils, Duane Gish Dies, Acupuncture Meta-Analysis, Live to 150, Close Star Discovered
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 399
|date = Mar 9
|desc = Guest Rogue: George Hrab, Hans Christian
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 398
|date = Mar 2
|desc = Jon Ronson, Compact Disk, Life Around Dying Stars, Ancient Lost Continent, Electronic Tattoos, Google Glass, Ouch
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 397
|date = Feb 23
|desc = Heisenberg, Russian Meteor, Spontaneous Human Combustion, Cosmos Unstable, Bigfoot DNA Published, Intellectually Lazy, Special Report: Retro Futurism
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 396
|date = Feb 16
|desc = Brian Wecht, Chien-Shiung Wu, AI Doctor, Ball and Cup Magic, Gorilla in the Bronchi, Feathered Dino Follow Up
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 395
|date = Feb 9
|desc = Space Medicine, Russian Lake Monster, Bones of Richard III, Scientific Genius, Without Fear, Feathered Dinosaurs, Tuesday Boy, George Hrab
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 394
|date = Feb 2
|desc = John Rennie, Groundhog Day, Up Goer Five, China Smog, Vaccine Court, Deer Antler Spray, Perpetual Motion
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 393
|date = Jan 26
|desc = Guest Rogue: Brian Dunning, [[Zack Kopplin interview: Creationism and school boards (393)|Zack Kopplin interview]], [[SGU_Episode_393#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.280:51.29|Brachistochrone curve]], [[Manti Te'o hoax (393)|Manti Te'o Hoax]], [[River on Mars (393)|River on Mars]], [[Neanderthal baby (393)|Neanderthal Baby]], [[Nikola Tesla: Report by Brian Dunning (393)|Special Report: Nikola Tesla]], [[Vomitorium correction (393)|Vomitorium]], [[Brian Dunning & Lizzie Li Taylor interview: Skeptoid in China (393)|Skeptoid Chinese]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 392
|date = Jan 19
|desc = [[Massimo Polidoro interview: Italian skepticism (392)|Massimo Polidoro]], [[Neon lights (392)|Neon Signs]], [[Predicting murders (392)|Predicting Murders]], [[Lead and crime (392)|Lead and Crime]], [[Biggest thing in the Universe (392)|Biggest Thing in the Universe]], [[Million dollar challenge: Steve Volk objects (392)|Defending the $1m Challenge]], [[Turkey's disappearing evolution books (392)|Turkey Bans Evolution Books]], [[Quickie with Bob: Apophis update (392)|Apophis Update]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 391
|date = Jan 12
|desc = Dr. James Bedford, Below Absolute Zero, Burzynski Challenge, Genome Editing, Celebrity Pseudoscience, Oz Pseudoscience
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 390
|date = Jan 5
|desc = Massimo Pigliucci, FM Radio, Psychic Predictions 2012, Cosmic Rays and Dementia
|status = complete
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2012
|range = (episodes 338-389)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 389
|date = Dec 29
|desc = SGU 2012 Year in Review, Thomas Fuller, Best and Worst of 2012, In Memoriam
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 388
|date = Dec 22
|desc = Coelacanth, Sandy Hook Massacre, China Stabbing, AVN to Change Name, Megalapteryx Foot, Invisibility Cloak, Special Report: The Hobbit and High Frame Rate
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 387
|date = Dec 15
|desc = Joshie Berger, homosexuality and the DSM, Creationist Tactics, Truth in Education, Dawn of Life, History of Cheese, Vampire Warning, Ocean Robots
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 386
|date = Dec 8
|desc = Guest Rogue: Phil Plait, Atoms for Peace, End of the World, Bug UFO Follow Up, Inattentional Amnesia, Curiosity Kurfuffle, Grand Canyon Age, Moon Formation
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 385
|date = Dec 1
|desc = Banachek, Taman Shud Mystery, Not-So-Terror Bird, Bloop Solved, Hijacking DNA, Bigfoot DNA, Makemake, Theory
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 384
|date = Nov 24
|desc = Guest Rogue: Richard Wiseman, Origin of Species, Special Report: Richard's Dream Research, Aspartame Study, Being a Psychopath, Type Ia Supernova, Fecal Transplants
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 383
|date = Nov 17
|desc = Bruce Hood, Jonestown Massacre, Denver UFO, Math Hurts, Communicating with the Vegetative, Nearby Rogue Planet, Twisted Light, Bicycle Physics
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 382
|date = Nov 10
|desc = Goddess of Reason, Life in the Universe, UFOlogy Dying, Chelation Therapy, Psychic Fail, Universe Rotating, In Memorium: Mike LaCelle
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 381
|date = Nov 3
|desc = Live at CSICon 2012, Sputnik 2, In Memorium: Paul Kurtz and Leon Jaroff, Big Bang Conference, Italian Earthquake Scientists Convicted, Whale Makes Human Sounds, PANDAS Controversy, Reporting Ghost Stories, Live Q&A
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 380
|date = Oct 27
|desc = Genetic Logic Circuit, Efficient Language, Closest Exoplanet, Alien Hacker, Zombie Bite
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 379
|date = Oct 20
|desc = Jamy Ian Swiss, Norman Borlaug, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, DNA Half Life, The Simulated Universe, Supersonic Jump, Geoglyph
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 378
|date = Oct 13
|desc = Robert Hutton:SGU Transcripts, Lady of Fatima, 2012 Nobel Prizes, Looking for Dyson Spheres, Simon Singh and Libel, Presidential Lie Detector, Proof of Heaven
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 377
|date = Oct 6
|desc = The Billygoat Curse, The Physics of Roulette, Vitamin D and the Common Cold, Harpooning Satellites, Bee Brains, WTC7 Collapse
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 376
|date = Sep 29
|desc = Pamela Gay, CERN, Ig Nobels 2012, GM Corn Rat Study, HIV and Faith Healing, Emoticons turn 30
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 375
|date = Sep 22
|desc = Golden Tablets and Hobbit Day, Warp Drive, Bad Science Reporting, Dark Energy Camera, Crowdsourcing Science, Spheres on Mars, CSICon 2012, Blue Moon and Frances
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 374
|date = Sep 15
|desc = Murray Gell-Mann and Alexander Flemming, Sun Myung Moon Dies, Company Apologies for Thalidomide, Super WiFi, Calorie Restriction and Longevity, Special Report: A Skeptical 12 Step Program, Skeptical Quote of the Week
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 373
|date = Sep 8
|desc = Live at DragonCon 2012, Billy West, First Trek, Blue Moon Lunacy, Bigfoot News, Negative Replication of Psi, Baldness Cure, Little Mass from Higgs, UFO Over Illuminati Castle, SGU FAQ, Homeopath Pharmacist, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 372
|date = Sep 1
|desc = Passenger Pigeon, Neil Armstrong Dies, Naked Darth Vader, Homeopathic Candy, Hearing Voices, Special Report: Conspiracy Conference
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 371
|date = Aug 25
|desc = Pixar's Chris Ford, The Great Moon Hoax, The Sun is Round, DNA Storage, FDA and Homeopathy, Pregnancy from Rape, E-bay and Magic
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 370
|date = Aug 18
|desc = Eggs and Atherosclerosis, Hacking the Rover, The Sneeze, Google Pyramids, Occ Update, Asymmetrical Screw
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 369
|date = Aug 11
|desc = Dino Mating, Blowing Up Asteroids, Punching for God, Occ the Skeptical Caveman, Kinesio Tape
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 368
|date = Aug 4
|desc = Brian Wecht, First Fax, Superstition Fund, Curiosity's Sky Crane, Anti-Fluoridation News Fail, Bat-Winged Monkey Bird
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 367
|date = Jul 28
|desc = Kennewick Man, Skeptical Conferences, Sally Ride Dies, Mood Photography, Computer Modeling Life, Artificial Jellyfish, Firewalking Mishap, Multivitamins
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 366
|date = Jul 21
|desc = Live at TAM 2012, Guests: Richard Saunders and George Hrab, Planet Nibiru, Jean Picard born, Fake Bomb Detector Maker Charged, Debating an Antivaccinationist. Feathered Dinosaurs, New Moon for Pluto, Higgs Discovery Announced, Sex Myths, Sapphire Hard Dri
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 365
|date = Jul 14
|desc = Guest Rogue: Daniel Beauley, Jane Goodall, UFOs in National Geo, Seeing Inside Tissue, GOP on Critical Thinking, Alternative Chocolate, Who Owns Space
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 364
|date = Jul 7
|desc = Jann Bellamy, Newcomen Engine, Water on The Moon and Mars, Swiss Report on Homeopathy, Twisted Light, Embodied Cognition, News Update: Causeway Cannibal
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 363
|date = Jun 30
|desc = Tunguska Event, The Science of Prometheus, Time Slowing Down, Higgs Update, Nessie Disproves Evolution
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 362
|date = Jun 23
|desc = Professor Zhong Lin Wang, Mystery Carbon Spike, Younger Dryas Impact, Liberation Procedure Study, Testing Female Athletes, Fetal Pill Update
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 361
|date = Jun 16
|desc = This Day in Skepticism - Captain Picard Day, LiDar, Extremophiles, Moral Behavior, Cervical Manipulation, Ghost Train, Pharmacist Homeopaths
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 360
|date = Jun 9
|desc = This Day in Skepticism - Ray Bradbury Dies, Episode #360, Transit of Venus, Legislating Science, Science Education in California and South Korea, Vapor Storage, Magnetic Skeptical Phrases, Peer Review
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 359
|date = Jun 2
|desc = Debbie Feldman, Bridget Bishop, Medical Zombies, Science of Reruns, Leakey on Evolution, Local Darkmatter Followup
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 358
|date = May 26
|desc = Guest Rogue: Joshie Berger, [[SGU_Episode_358#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.281:05.29|Animalcules]], [[Joshie's TAM Poker Tournament Idea (358)|TAM Poker Tournament]], [[SpaceX launch, May 2012 (358)|SpaceX Launch]], [[Information About the Early Universe May Be Lost (358)|Studying the Universe]], [[Consciousness: Materialism vs Dualism vs Idealism (358)|What is Consciousness?]], [[Speaking to Mediums in Languages (358)|Speaking to Mediums]], [[Swindler's list: Hearing aids (358)|Swindler's List: Hearing Aids]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 357
|date = May 19
|desc = Chris Lewicki, Guest Rogue: Phil Plait, Head Cabinet, Ghost Box, Mayan Calendar, Electricity from Viruses, UK LIbel Law Update, Corrections, Supermoon
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 356
|date = May 12
|desc = Dinosaur Farts, Aura Reading, 48 Frames per Second, Baby Powder, Killing Bigfoot, TAM2012
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 355
|date = May 5
|desc = Guest Rogues: Seth Shostak and James Randi, [[Stars can capture rogue planets (355)|Rogue Planets]], [[Monkey brain-machine interface (355)|Machine-Monkey Interface]], [[Using self-replicating robots to explore space (355)|Finding ET with Robots]], [[Looking for the God spot in the brain (355)|God Spot in the Brain]], [[Update on SETI funding (355)|SETI Update]], [[Hastening the coming Singularity (355)|Live Q&A: The Coming Singularity]]
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 354
|date = Apr 28
|desc = Live at NECSS 2012 with Guest James Randi, [[Pedantic Words (354)|Pedantic Words]], [[Sports pseudoscience and superstition (354)|Sports Pseudoscience ]], [[Nuking Asteroids (354)|Nuking Asteroids]], [[Splotch Ness Monster (354)|Loch Ness Monster Spotted]], [[IceCube Neutrino Detector (354)|Cosmic Rays]], [[Quickie with Bob: Space Shuttle Enterprise (354)|Space Shuttle Enterprise]], [[SGU_Episode_354#SGU_Video_.2851:27.29|SGU Video]], [[SGU_Episode_354#Remembering_Perry_.281:01:47.29|Remembering Perry]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 353
|date = Apr 21
|desc = The Surgeons Photo, Life on Mars, Indian Skeptic Charged with Blasphemy, Multitasking, Monkeys Recognize Words, Cosmic Superwinds, Titanic Correction, Advanced Dinosaurs
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 352
|date = Apr 14
|desc = Titanic Disaster, Blow Up Space Junk, Aristolochia Nephropathy, Homophobia, Toilet Water, Monkey Bill Update, Grover's Algorithm, Gulf of Cambay Ruins
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 351
|date = Apr 7
|desc = Gripp (Marshall Gillson), World Health Day, Smart Sand, Enclothed Cognition, Death by Homeopathy, Small Scale, Rhino Horn
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 350
|date = Mar 31
|desc = [[James Randi interview: Pigasus awards, NECSS & TAM (350)|James Randi interview]], [[Patenting life: Pseudomenas putida (350)|Patenting Life]], [[Tennessee anti-evolution bill: Teach the controversy (350)|Tennessee Anti-Evolution Bill]], [[Origin of the moon (350)|Origin of the Moon]], [[Mars: Mystery cloud (350)|Mystery Cloud on Mars]], [[Newage Mountain: Pic de Bugarach (350)|Newage Mountain]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 349
|date = Mar 24
|desc = Exxon Valdez, Superhero Pseudoscience, High Altitude Skydiving, Nuclear Clock, New Hampshire Abortion Bill, NDE and Lucid Dreaming, Designer Electrons, Here Comes the Metric System
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 348
|date = Mar 17
|desc = Guest Rogue: Richard Saunders, Vanguard I, Oldest Skeleton, Red Deer Cave People, Neutrino Communication, Defending Science in Australia, Failure to Replicate Bem's Psi Research, Catching up on Vaccines
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 347
|date = Mar 10
|desc = Scott Sigler, Megalonyx, Robot Cheetah, Kony 2012, Neuroprosthetics, Therapeutic Tattoos
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 346
|date = Mar 3
|desc = [[Gordon Maupin interview: Fracking (346)|Gordon Maupin interview]], [[Leap years and international day of rare diseases (346)|Leap Year]], [[Iceman genome: Oetzi's origins (346)|Iceman Genome]], [[Faster than light neutrinos: Faulty timing signals (346)|FTL Neutrino Follow Up]], [[Global warming: Heartland Institute scandal follow-up (346)|More on Anti-Climategate]], [[Baseball doping: Braun off on technicality (346)|Drug Testing]], [[SGU_Episode_346#Your_Deceptive_Mind_.2836:02.29|Your Deceptive Mind]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 345
|date = Feb 25
|desc = Fraser Cain and Pamela Gaye, Tiny Lizards, Missing Dark Matter, Anti-Climate Gate, Nanoparticle Safety
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 344
|date = Feb 18
|desc = The Science of Pony Tails, Online Surveys, Structural Batteries, QWB:Alien Matter,s: Evolution Falsifiable, Headgear
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 343
|date = Feb 11
|desc = 3D Printing, Morgellons Update, State Science Standards, Lake Vostok, Hard Drive Breakthrough, Special Report: Ouija Boards
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 342
|date = Feb 4
|desc = Derek Bartholomaus, Speed Limit for Birds, Reading Brain Waves, Conspiracy Contradictions, Scorpion Inspired Armor
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 341
|date = Jan 28
|desc = Sean Carroll, Stem Cells for Blindness, Chiropractic Neurology, Mass Psychogenic Illness, Sounds in the Sky
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 340
|date = Jan 21
|desc = Eugenie Scott, NECSS 2012, Photographic Black Holes, SOPA-PIPA, Homeopathic Burn Treatment, Ice Forms
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 339
|date = Jan 14
|desc = Tricorder X-prize, Sheldrake on Presentiment, Physics Cranks, Witchhunter Comes to US
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 338
|date = Jan 7
|desc = Martin Rundkvist, Psychic Predictions 2011, Hacker Satellite, Testing Violins, QWB:Lost World of Antarctica
|status = verified
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2011
|range = (episodes 286-337)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 337
|date = Dec 31
|desc = SGU 2011 Year in Review, Guest Mike Lacelle, Best and Worst of 2011
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 336
|date = Dec 24
|desc = Guests: George Hrab and Jamy Ian Swiss, Christopher Hitchens In Memoriam, Mammoth Bone Homes, Trillion Frames per Second, Neti Pot Dangers, Special Report: Randomness
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 335
|date = Dec 17
|desc = Pro-Measles Children's Book, Higgs Update, Mercury UFO, Hallucinating Color, Menstrual Syncing, Swindler's List: Online Dating
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 334
|date = Dec 10
|desc = Lawrence Krauss, Trudeau Fine Upheld, Planetary Probes, Cloning a Mammoth, Kepler 22b, Corrections
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 333
|date = Dec 3
|desc = James Randi, Detecting Digital Manipulation, Curiosity Heads to Mars, Creationist Bill Defeated in NH, Scorpios Need Not Apply, Jetpack Flies with Jets, Special Report: Burzynski Clinic Intimidates Bloggers - Rhys Morgan, Tomato Juice Color
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 332
|date = Nov 26
|desc = JFK Assassination, Power Balance Bankruptcy, FTL Neutrino Follow Up, Does Water Prevent Dehydration, Food Color and Taste, SILLY Bias in Scientific Reviews
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 331
|date = Nov 19
|desc = Neil deGrasse Tyson, Moon's Magnetic Field, Europa's Ice Surface, False Confessions, BMJ Poe, Catholic Pox Parties
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 330
|date = Nov 12
|desc = Stroke Turns Man Gay, Asteroid YU55, Pox Parties, US Government Denies UFOs, Man Confuses Moon for UFO, NASA's Orion Program, Intercessory Prayer
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 329
|date = Nov 5
|desc = Climate Change Confirmation, Steve Job's Cancer, New GPS, Pre-Clovis Find, Brush Before or After
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 328
|date = Oct 29
|desc = [[Banachek interview: $1m challenge & Nightline (328)|Banachek interview]], [[MIT radar "sees" through walls (328)|Seeing Through Walls]], [[Malaria vaccine: 'Mosquirex' (RSS,S) (328)|Malaria Vaccine]], [[Luckiest cities - Men's Health magazine (328)|Luckiest Cities]], [[Very Large Array telescope: Call for new name (328)|New Name for VLA]], [[Harold Camping: Another failed prophecy (328)|Another Failed Prediction]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 327
|date = Oct 22
|desc = Richard Wiseman, Jay Report from Italy, Faster Than Light Neutrinos, Reiki Doesn't Work, Ending Genital Cutting, Camping Prophesy Update
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 326
|date = Oct 15
|desc = Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde, Vitamins and Mortality, Megavirus, NDEs, More UFOs, Electrosense, Airborne Petition
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 325
|date = Oct 8
|desc = Steve Jobs Dies, Nobel Prizes 2011 for Physics, Medicine, and Chemistry, IgNobels for 2011
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 324
|date = Oct 1
|desc = Highlights from the SGU 24 Live Streaming event, Australian Skeptics: Richard Saunders, Dr. Rachie Dunlop, Jo Benhamu, Grail Craft Launch, A. sediba, Adaptation and Orgasm, Special Report: Siphonomores, Top 10 Future Technologies
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 323
|date = Sep 24
|desc = Guests: George Hrab and Brian Brushwood, Single Molecule Electric Motor, Registering Atheists, Special Report: Nature vs Nurture
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 322
|date = Sep 17
|desc = Sara Mayhew, New Items: Chinese Scientists Plan to Capture Asteroid, Acupuncture and Acoustic Waves
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 321
|date = Sep 10
|desc = Live at DragonCon 2011, 9-11 Comic, Diamond Planet, Homeopathic Water, Woolly Rhino, Editor Resigns of Global Warming Paper, Live Q&A
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 320
|date = Aug 29
|desc = Jad Abumrad, Hurricane Irene, ISS Threatened, LHC and Super Symmetry, Alien Signals, Tin Foil, Skeptical Shout-Out
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 319
|date = Aug 24
|desc = Virginia Earthquake, Brand Loyalty, Tin Foil and RFID, Swindler's List: Functional Medicine
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 318
|date = Aug 17
|desc = Paul Provenza, Non-Growing Earth, Boiron Threatens Blogger, Woman Romance and Science, Space X Going to the Space Station, More on Helium
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 317
|date = Aug 10
|desc = Anti-Matter in Space, 3D Brain Mapping, Time Shift, 4-Time Lottery Winner, Robert Johnson
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 316
|date = Aug 3
|desc = Elizabeth Loftus, This Day in Skepticism - Life on Mars, The 27 Club, Blood-Red Lake, Earth Trojan Asteroid, Radioactive Heat, If It Can't Be Measured
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 315
|date = Jul 27
|desc = Bill Nye, Skeptical Conferences, Victory for Evolution in Texas, New Moon for Pluto, Life in the Universe, Connecticut Chupacabra
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 314
|date = Jul 20
|desc = Live at TAM9, Comet Elenin, Forces of Darkness, Science Proves the Bible (Not), Last Shuttle Launch, Pastafarian Headgear, Organic Water, Graphene Water Battery, Youngest Dinosaur Fossil, Live Q&A: Skeptical Wins, 24 Hr Live SGU Show, Reconciling Faith an
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 313
|date = Jul 13
|desc = Matthew Chapman, Hypnotized to Death, Color of Extinct Birds, Magnetic Microprocessors, Twintuition, Creationist Arguments
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 312
|date = Jul 5
|desc = Classifying Galaxies, More Pareidolia, Easter Island Elixir, Driverless Cars, Elevatorgate
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 311
|date = Jun 29
|desc = Eugenie Scott, Tau Day, Body Temperature of Dinosaurs Measured, Magnets and Blood Flow, Guru in Sweat Lodge Death Convicted, Close Call for the Space Station
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 310
|date = Jun 22
|desc = Guest Rogue: Michael Waterhouse, We Are All Mutants, Human Gecko, Creationists Infiltrate Geology Meeting, Battery Man
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 309
|date = Jun 13
|desc = Two New Elements, The Decline Effect, Zicam Inventor Arrested, Lasers from Human Cells, Mood Ears, The Enemy Within
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 308
|date = Jun 8
|desc = Guest: Phil Plait, SGU-24, Psychic Tip, Explosion on Sun, Moon Origin, UFO Nazis
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 307
|date = May 31
|desc = Jamie Bernstein, Predicting Earthquakes, Mapping the Brain, Implanting Memories
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 306
|date = May 25
|desc = Rapture Rationalizations, Fake Moon Rock, Dark Energy Confirmed, Religious Right vs Women's Rights, Preparing for a Zombie Apocalypse, Banning Marmite
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 305
|date = May 18
|desc = James Randi, Rapture, Another Cancer Cure, Gut Bacteria and Behavior, Habitable Exoplanet, Higgs False Alarm, Swindlers List: Bidsell
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 304
|date = May 9
|desc = Jon Ronson, Einstein Right Again, Mark Geier's License Suspended, Moon Microbe Mystery, Steytlerville Monster, Yap Money
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 303
|date = May 4
|desc = This Day in Science and Skepticism, Six years of SGU, Easter Island Controversy,Bin Laden Conspiracies
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 302
|date = Apr 27
|desc = Seth Shostak, A Skeptic in Oz, More Creationism in Texas, Higgs Rumor
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 301
|date = Apr 20
|desc = Guest Rogue: Iszi Lawrence, Hottel UFO Document, New Method to find Exoplanets, Plans for NASA Shuttles, Power Balance Lawsuit, Nails of Christ
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 300
|date = Apr 9
|desc = Live at NECSS 2011, Guest Rogue: John Rennie, Gayveman, Cosmic Engineering, Homeopathy for Radiation and Vertigo, Evidence and Radiation Risk, You Know You're a Skeptic If, Live Q&A: Time Travel, Fecal Transplants, Skeptical Obligation
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 299
|date = Apr 4
|desc = The Mercury 7, Pioneer Anomaly Solved, Pigasus Awards, Wakefield and Somalis, Boy Genius, Thorium Reactors
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 298
|date = Mar 30
|desc = Kenny Feder, Colorado UFO, Breaking Heisenberg, Dinosaur Petroglyph, Dinosaur Taxonomy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 297
|date = Mar 24
|desc = Hale Bop Cult, Meier Earthquake Non-prediction, Swarm Robots, Sexual Preference, Pre-biotic Chemistry, Science fact vs fiction, Radiation Hormesis, Overunity, Fecal Transplants
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 296
|date = Mar 16
|desc = Mark Mervine, Japan Earthquake, Time Traveling Particle, Finding Atlantis, TAM9 From Outer Space, Corrections - Magellan and DNA Computing, Ambit Energy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 295
|date = Mar 9
|desc = Ben Radford, Meteorite Bacteria, Biological Computers, Super Full Moon, Imam Retracts Support for Evolution, Definition of Skeptic
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 294
|date = Mar 2
|desc = Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, Limelight, Predicting Earthquakes, Growing Fuel, Neutron Star Superflluidity, Heidi Follow up, Information Follow up, 10,000 Years in the Future
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 293
|date = Feb 23
|desc = Guest Rogue: Joshie Berger, Galileo Censored, Internet Kill Switch, Japan to Trawl for Space Junk, Watson on Jeopardy!, Lie to Me, Lost Information
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 292
|date = Feb 16
|desc = Kevin Folta, Jovian in the Outer Solar System, Haunted Theme Park Ride, Heidi the Cross-eyed Psychic Opossum, Product Reviews
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 291
|date = Feb 9
|desc = Jeff Ainslee, Processed Food and IQ, Bacterial Intelligence, Skin Cell Spray Gun, Treating Trauma with Herbs, Jerusalem UFO
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 290
|date = Jan 31
|desc = Guest Rogue: Dr. Ray Greek - The Science of Animal Models, Homeopathy Pseudoscience, Teachers Cautious about Evolution, Countering Fallacies
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 289
|date = Jan 26
|desc = Jack LaLanne dies at 96, Cold Fusion Again, The Cochrane Review of Statins, Astrologists Angered, More on Education, Alien DNA
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 288
|date = Jan 19
|desc = No Ghosts in my Backyard, Simulating Earth, Reaction to Bem's Psi Research, Engineered Chickens, Cloning Mammoths, Sun as Battery, Land Sharks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 287
|date = Jan 12
|desc = Guest Rogue: Phil Plait, Molten Exoplanet, BMJ Slams Wakefield, Creationist Teacher Fired, Galactic Black Holes, Nassim Haramein
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 286
|date = Jan 5
|desc = Predictions 2010 and 2011, Mysterious Bird Deaths, Predictions from 1931, Mars News in 2010, Apocalypse 2011, Printing Solar Cells, Thomas Kuhn
|status = skeleton
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2010
|range = (episodes 232-285)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 285
|date = Dec 29
|desc = 2010 Year in Review, Best and Worst of 2010, In Memoriam, SGU Stats
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 284
|date = Dec 22
|desc = Arsenic-Based Life, Buttology, V-Steam, Singing Mice, The Real daVinci Code, Special Report: Power Bands with James Randi and the SkepticBros
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 283
|date = Dec 15
|desc = Dan Gardner, Piltdown Anniversary, Hydrogen Production, Voyager Leaves Solar System, Slushball Earth, Alien Plants vs Animals
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 282
|date = Dec 8
|desc = Live in Sydney Australia, New Crystal Skull, Roger Penrose Before the Big Bang, Chimps Outwit Human Traps, Anti-Antivax Activism, Special Report: Masonic Conspiracy Theories, Live Q&A: Scientists Baffled, Size of Quantum Effects, Sympathectomy, Future of
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 281
|date = Dec 1
|desc = Live in Vancouver with Guest: George Hrab, SETI 50th Anniversary, Antimatter Breakthrough, Nanoparticles and Glowing Trees, Oprah Promotes Psychic Surgeon, Latest PSI Research, Bending Time and Space, Live Q&A: Neurology of Belief, Coincidence, Multi-Leve
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 280
|date = Nov 24
|desc = Guest: Richard Saunders, Eken Power Bands, Frozen Stiff, Cockroach Brains, Deal or No Deal, : Argument from Silence, Special Topic: Religious Skeptics
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 279
|date = Nov 15
|desc = D.J. Grothe, NASA Discovers Mysterious Bubbles, Exploiting "Psychic" Kids, More Homeopathy Spin, Lunar Weather Predicting, Caffeine and Sperm Count
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 278
|date = Nov 10
|desc = Carl Sagan Day, Mystery Missile, LHC Big Bang, The Twinkie Diet, Hamburger Experiments Redux, Spinning Spaceship, Ear Light
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 277
|date = Nov 3
|desc = Jamy Ian Swiss, Psychic Cat, 100 Year Starship Project, Cure for Common Cold, Life on the Moon, Alien Ballot Defeated, Banana Ripening
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 276
|date = Oct 27
|desc = Ghosts Calling Cellphones, Hawking Radiation, More On Radioactive Decay Rates, The Science of Medicine, NECSS 2011, Physics.org Award Nomination, Time Traveling Cell Phone User, SGU Forums Moderators
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 275
|date = Oct 19
|desc = Guest Rogue: Brian Trent, Benoit Mandlebrot 1924-2010, Stem Cell Funding, Do Mummies Get Cancer, Asteroids Buzz Earth, Whale Poop Correction, T-Rex Blood Cells, Help - My Friend is a Pseudoscientist
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 274
|date = Oct 13
|desc = Ben Goldacre, Dark Matter Strangeness, Vaccine Case in Supreme Court, Gliese 581g Follow Up, Magic Burgers
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 273
|date = Oct 6
|desc = 2010 Nobel Prizes in Medicine, Chemistry and Physics, 2010 IgNobels, Diesel from a Stone, Mass and Gravity, Science Education, Laughing Hyenas
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 272
|date = Sep 30
|desc = Bug Girl, New Moonlanding Footage, UN Alien Ambassador, Poor Science Education, New Force of Nature?, Goldilocks Planet
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 271
|date = Sep 22
|desc = Simon Singh, Losing Your Religion, The Man Who Fell to Earth, Dirty Electricity, Origins of Moons, Halfalogue
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 270
|date = Sep 15
|desc = Ben Radford, Joe Nickell, and Karen Stollznow, Modern Geocentrism, Irish Minister of Science Scandal, Robot Skin, No Link between Thimerosal and Autism, Canadian Government Muzzles Scientists, Crop Circle Sting
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 269
|date = Sep 8
|desc = Carol Tavris, Stephen Hawking on God, Magnetic Mom, Organic Strawberries, Burning the Quran, Pyschic Incites Mob
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 268
|date = Sep 1
|desc = Donald Prothero, Thorium Power, Impacts and Extinction, Spontaneous Combustion, Enfield Poltergeist, Ghost Train, Mitochondrial Eve Follow Up
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 267
|date = Aug 25
|desc = Guest Rogue: Phil Plait, Phil Plait's Bad Universe, Solar Flares and Radioactive Decay, Competition in Evolution, The Science of Zombies, Kurzweil Responds to Myers, Kaku on UFOs
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 266
|date = Aug 19
|desc = Bruce Hood, Banning Wi-Fi, Psychic Finds Wrong Body, Kurzweil on Brain Complexity, Magnetars and Black Holes
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 265
|date = Aug 11
|desc = Aubrey de Grey, Evolving Simulated Intelligence, Proximal Intercessory Prayer, Bermuda Triangle Solved, Booty Enhancement Spell, Censoring Skepticism featuring Rhys Morgan
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 264
|date = Aug 4
|desc = DIY Genetic Testing, Coronal Mass Ejection, More Evidence for Warming, Analyzing the Future, Misfortune Teller, More on Dieting
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 263
|date = Jul 29
|desc = Jim Underdown, Homeopathy in the UK, Cosmology with no Big Bang, Ghost Ship, Meat and Weight Control, Biodynamic Farming, Orgel's Laws
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 262
|date = Jul 21
|desc = Randi & Banachek, Report from TAM8, Monster Star, Anti-Vax in Oz, Kabbalah Bracelet, Monkey Fossil, Monkeys in the Pants, Libel Tourism Bill
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 261
|date = Jul 10
|desc = Live at TAM8, Roswell Remembered, Nuclear Explosion in Space, Pepsigate, Energy Vampires, Gravitons and Black Holes, Obesity and Inactivity, Climategate Update, Planck Image of the Universe, Live Q&A: NESS Activities, Do Skeptics Ever Win?, Positive Attit
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 260
|date = Jun 30
|desc = Guest Rogue: George Hrab, Fin to Limb Evolution, Pat Boone on Laws of Physics, Ice Patch Archaeology, Stephen Barrett Sued, Flag Worship
|status = incomplete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 259
|date = Jun 28
|desc = Whooping Cough Epidemic, Whaling Film Questioned, Superconductor Roadblock, Call to Ban Homeopathy, Orbital Periods, Sunscreen
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 258
|date = Jun 16
|desc = Sanal Edamaruku, Growing Livers, Immortal Jelly, Gay Clinic, Space Storm Warning
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 257
|date = Jun 14
|desc = Hayabusa Returns, Einstein's Brain, Largest Radio Telescope Array, Amityville Horror House for Sale, Cursed Cell Phone Number, Soy, Magic Bee Juice
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 256
|date = Jun 9
|desc = Steve Matheson, Life on Titan, Vulture Threatened by Pseudoscience, WHO and H1N1, Orbit of Phobos
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 255
|date = Jun 2
|desc = Guests: Fraser Cain and Pamela Gay, X-37b Space Plane, Synthetic Bacteria, Hollow Phobos, Acupuncture Mechanism?, Guatemala Sinkhole, Salt Substitute
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 254
|date = May 26
|desc = James Randi about Martin Gardner, Energy of Early Life, End for Mars Phoenix Lander and Atlantis, Vaccine Safety, Accepting Science, Exonerated by Acupuncture
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 253
|date = May 19
|desc = Cell Phone Cancer Update, Why Does Matter Exist, Applied Kinesiology, BMA Trashes Homeopathy, Early Bird Feathers, Ball Lightening, Pesticides and ADHD
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 252
|date = May 12
|desc = Guest: Massimo Pigliucci, Nonsense on Stilts, Definition of Siphon, Neanderthal Interbreeding, Evolution in Alabama Politics, Science of Morality
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 251
|date = May 5
|desc = 5 Years of SGU, Zettabytes, Prayer and Critical Thinking, Oil Spill Conspiracy, Life on Mars - Not, How to Build a Time Machine, Man Claims 70 Years Without Food or Water, Corrections, Croatian Girl Follow up
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 250
|date = Apr 28
|desc = Dr. Dean Edell, 20 Years of Hubble, Nanodots, Boobquake, Stephen Hawking on Aliens, Noah's Ark, Intelligence and Science
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 249
|date = Apr 17
|desc = Live at NECSS 2010, Guest: James Randi, Items: Volcano in Iceland, Near Death Experiences, Sound Bullets, Injured by Price Scanner, Singh Libel Suit dropped, Two Moms and a Dad, Girl Speaks German After Coma, Live Q&A
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 248
|date = Apr 13
|desc = Seth Shostak, Apollo 13, Water on Mars, Bioprinting, Scientific Literacy in the US, Dawkins vs The Pope, Colour Therapy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 247
|date = Apr 7
|desc = Area 51 Declassified, Ununseptium, SBM visits NCCAM, Copper Magnetic Jesus Bracelet, Human Population, Dutch Psychic Follow up, : The Genetic Fallacy
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 246
|date = Mar 31
|desc = Guest: Eugenie Scott, Update from the NCSE, Fighting Cancer with Nanoparticles, Prison Psychics, Changing Morality with Magnets, Skeptics and Atheists
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 245
|date = Mar 25
|desc = George Hrab, Rise of the Dinosaurs, Woman X, Starchild Update, Evangelical Listeners
|status = incomplete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 244
|date = Mar 18
|desc = Greg Grunberg, When Homeopaths Attack, Texas Textbook Hubbub, Bacterial Fingerprint, Chief Exorcist, Biggest Quantum State, Power Balance
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 243
|date = Mar 11
|desc = Jenny on Huffpo, Autistic Pets, See-through Pain, Homeschooling and Evolution, Here's Your Jetpack, Spirits in a Bottle, Richter Scale, Raining Fish Follow Up, Inner Space
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 242
|date = Mar 3
|desc = Guest: James Randi, Chile Earthquake, Darwinius Revisited, Raining Fish, Acupuncture for Depression, Haunted Hotels, Contrarion vs Skeptic, Personality Tests
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 241
|date = Feb 24
|desc = Daniel Wilson, Homeopathy Smackdown in UK, What Darwin Got Wrong, The Bloom Box, Geller Aids Cops
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 240
|date = Feb 17
|desc = Rom Houben Update, Solar Energy Breakthrough, Psychic Killed, Gas from Carbon, Thomas Paine, Knocked Out
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 239
|date = Feb 10
|desc = Guest: Brian Dunning, Enceladus Update, Synthetic Organisms, Spray On Glass, Gasoline from Carbon, Oral Conception, : False Analogy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 238
|date = Feb 3
|desc = Simon Conway Morris, Fusion Breakthrough, Andrew Wakefield Rebuked, Return of Death Cat, Lady Gaga Illuminati
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 237
|date = Jan 27
|desc = Guest: Daniel Loxton, Book Release: Evolution, Dowsing for Bombs, Alien Life on Earth, Ginger Dinosaurs, I have Lizards in my Pants, Addiction
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 236
|date = Jan 20
|desc = Jon Rosenberg, Dead Bodies, Blond Warrior Princesses, Trees on Mars, Correactology, Ayn Rand
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 235
|date = Jan 13
|desc = Guest: Richard Saunders, TAM Australia, Tetrapod Footprints, Airport Security - with Bruce Schneier, Nearby Supernova, Cancer Miracle, Evil Skeptics
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 234
|date = Nov 15
|desc = Special Report: H1N1 Flu Pandemic Update - With Steven Novella, David Gorski, Mark Crislip and Joe Albietz
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 233
|date = Jan 6
|desc = D. J. Grothe, Predictions for 2009 and 2010, The G-Spot Controversy, New Stellar Companion, Brain Capacity
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 232
|date = Jan 1
|desc = 2009 Year in Review - with Guests Phil Plait and Mike Lacelle, SGU and Science News of 2009, Science and Skepticism in the Last Decade,Stats, SGU in 2010
|status = complete
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2009
|range = (episodes 181-231)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 231
|date = Dec 21
|desc = Michael Specter, Dark Matter WIMPS, Synaesthesia, The Future of Skepticism, LHC Risk with Brian Cox
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 230
|date = Dec 16
|desc = Steorn Still At It, Computer-Brain Interface, Ancient Ruins in the Caribbean, Octopus Coconuts, Homeopathic Suicide, Holodeck Food, Special Report: Coalition for Libel Reform
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 229
|date = Dec 9
|desc = Guest Phil Plait: Denver Aliens, Bird Speciation, Blinded by Faith, Spiral over Norway, Uranus Tilt, Methane on Mars, Homeopathy Ads
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 228
|date = Dec 2
|desc = Steven Thoms, Age of Autism Scandal, Porkenstein, Fat Murder Hoax, ClimateGate Feedback
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 227
|date = Nov 25
|desc = LHC Online, Coma and Facilitated Communication, ClimateGate, CrocoDuck, Speaking in Tongues
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 226
|date = Nov 18
|desc = Kenny Feder, New Mammography Guidelines, Water on the Moon, Dark Flow, Lee Harvey Oswald Photo, Movie Reviews
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 225
|date = Nov 11
|desc = Psychic Finds Skeleton, Dystonia Flu Shot Follow Up, More LRO Images, Paying for Prayer, Wave Particle Duality, JREF Announcements, TAM London with Simon Singh, Jon Ronson, and Adam Savage
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 224
|date = Nov 4
|desc = Carl Sagan Day, Nutt Job, Dystonia after Flu Shot, Spontaneous Human Combustion Case, Michael Goldstein: starting local skeptical groups, Rebecca at TAM London with Phil Plait, Chris French, and Christina Martin
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 223
|date = Oct 28
|desc = Swine Flu Scams, Hulda Clark Died of Cancer, The Physics of Homeopathy, Scientology Trouble, Suzanne Somers Cancer Quackery, Size of the Universe (With Guest - Pamela Gay), Mad Scientists, Suspended Animation
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 222
|date = Oct 21
|desc = James Randi, LHC Future Attack, Magnetic and Copper Bracelets, Balloon Boy, Lunar Plume Update, Giant Spider, Special Report: Rebecca from Bangkok
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 221
|date = Oct 14
|desc = Jack Horner, NASA Shoots the Moon, Saturn's Rings, Hypno Cat, Simon Singh Update, Plasma Rocket, This Man
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 220
|date = Oct 7
|desc = Daniel Hooper, Premanand In Memoriam, Nobel Prizes 2009, Ardipithecus Ramidis, Autism Prevalence, Brian Cox
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 219
|date = Sep 28
|desc = Mark Edward, Premanand Statement, Dinosaur News, Nanotube Springs, Cameron and Comfort on Darwin, Couple Jailed over Homeopathy Death, Spiritual Advice, Life Signs, Speed of Light
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 218
|date = Sep 23
|desc = Michael Vassar, Raptor Rex, Bill Maher Antiscience, Panama Monster
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 217
|date = Sep 12
|desc = Live at NECSS with Guest Richard Wiseman, Charlie Sheen 911 Truther, Quantum Amnesia, Hulda Clark Dead, Gonzalez Therapy Fail, What's in Your Wallet, Exomoons, Great Tits Eat Bats, Special Report: The Yale Study, Live QA
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 216
|date = Sep 9
|desc = Live at DragonCon 2009, Google UFO, Mongolian Death Worm, Chupacabra in Texas, Magnetic Monopole, Live Q&A
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 215
|date = Sep 1
|desc = Adam Savage, Multitasking, Methane Fog on Titan, Google Nessie, Evolving Mice, Appendix, iPhone Crap App
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 214
|date = Aug 25
|desc = Jamy Ian Swiss, Surviving a Cataclysm, Zombie Apocalypse, WHO Says No to Homeopathy,Itako Fading, Dinochicken
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 213
|date = Aug 18
|desc = Battery Update, Super Planetary Nebulae, Adopt a Star, UFO Spikes, Aquatic Ape, Caffeine Tolerance
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 212
|date = Aug 12
|desc = Michael Goudeau, Kepler Goes Online, Methane on Mars, MS Breakthrough, Placebo Medicine, Birthers, : Homeopathy Nonsense
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 211
|date = Aug 4
|desc = Skepchick Carrie Iwan, Teeth from Stem Cells, Stem Cell Clinic Raid, Laser Propulsion, Update on Simon Singh, Origin of Matter, 4-minute Interval Training
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 210
|date = Jul 29
|desc = Jennifer Ouellette, Oldest Animal Fossils, New State of Matter, FDA Say Mercury Amalgam Safe, Past Life Hypnotism, Stressful Sweat
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 209
|date = Jul 22
|desc = DJ Grothe, 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11, Copernicium, Thomas Jefferson and Evolution, Dowsing
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 208
|date = Jul 11
|desc = Live at TAM 7, Microbot Plumbers, Archeological Dig, Sunspots Return, Blogs vs Journalists, Genie Sued, Live Q&A, Rebecca's Wedding
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 207
|date = Jul 1
|desc = Phil Plait, Steorn Fail, BCA Responds to Singh, Salt Water in Enceladus, Uranium on the Moon, Apollo 11 Video, Impact Bad Astronomy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 206
|date = Jun 18
|desc = Richard Prum, Ancient Lakes on Mars, Smoke Ring UFO, FDA Zicam Warning, Missing Sun Spots
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 205
|date = Jun 16
|desc = Brian Brushwood, Junior Supernova, Boy Hit By Meteor, A New Heuristic, Planetary Life
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 204
|date = Jun 11
|desc = Richard Wiseman, Negative CAM Research, Chiropractors In Retreat, Quantum Mechanics, Flu Pandemic Update, Youngest Skeptic, Prescient Genes
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 203
|date = Jun 9
|desc = Bruce Hood, Crop Circles 2009, Chronic Lyme Disease, Casino Feng Shui, UFO follow up, Liver Flush for Gallstones
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 202
|date = Jun 3
|desc = Simon Singh, Newsweek vs Oprah, Volcanic Extinction, UFO News, Texas Update, Evangelical Skeptics, Begging the Question
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 201
|date = May 27
|desc = Phil Plait, Whooping Cough Increase, Scientology on Trial, RNA World, Rook Tool Use, Northeast Skeptical Conference, Polonium Halos
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 200
|date = May 20
|desc = SGU 200th Episode, Missing Link Ida, GPS Failure, Stem Cell Quackery in China, Candiru, If I Had a Million Dollars
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 199
|date = May 13
|desc = Rusty Schweickart, Simon Singh's Lawsuit, Ultradense Deuterium, Acupuncture Science, Last Fix for Hubble
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 198
|date = May 7
|desc = Rachael Dunlop, Four Years of SGU, Oprah Signs Jenny McCarthy, Dark Matter, Six Degrees of Separation, Homeopathy Death, I Have Birds in my Pants
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 197
|date = Apr 30
|desc = Mark Crislip, Hidden Photons, Walking Seal, NASA and the Moon, Baby Chupacabras, Hoagland on Iapetus
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 196
|date = Apr 22
|desc = Seth Shostak, Cassini Pictures, Smallest Exoplanet, Huffington Post Pseudoscience, Personal Attacks from Age of Autism, Kelloggs Settles FTC Suit
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 195
|date = Apr 15
|desc = John Maddox Dies, The Hand of God, Flying Microbots, Darwin Awards, Homeopathy Nonsense, Belief in Ghosts,s: Corrections, Induction in Science, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 194
|date = Apr 8
|desc = Daniel Loxton, Dennis Lee Strikes Again, Computers That Do Science, Home Energy Scam
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 193
|date = Apr 1
|desc = Paul Murray, Mind Controlled Robot, Giant Protozoan, More Jenny McCarthy Nonsense
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 192
|date = Mar 25
|desc = Cold Fusion Again, Evolution Education in Texas, Synthetic Blood,s: Richard Saunders Open Letter to Pharmacists, Quantum Jumping, Super Chimney, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 191
|date = Mar 18
|desc = Phil Plait, Pope on HIV and Condoms, 20th Anniversary of the World Wide Web, Canada Science Minister and Evolution
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 190
|date = Mar 12
|desc = Kenneth Miller, Stem Cell Ban Lifted, When Chimps Attack, Mellow Yellow, Prince Charles Snake Oil
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 189
|date = Mar 4
|desc = Kenny Feder - Clovis Find, Vaccine Decision, Designer Babies, Riversnake Update, TAM7 Info
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 188
|date = Feb 26
|desc = Virtual Snowflakes, Evolution of Sex, Revenge of Titanoboa, Google Atlantis, Catboy, Missing Moon, Moon and Sun, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 187
|date = Feb 11
|desc = Angie McQuaig, The Pose and Darwin, Ben Goldacre vs the Media, Healing Laser, Starseeds, the eHolster, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 186
|date = Feb 9
|desc = Jon Ronson, Wakefield Fraud, Wearable Computer, Amish Fireplace, LHC Delay, Blood Type Follow Up, China Spacewalk Hoax
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 185
|date = Feb 4
|desc = Massimo Pigliucci, New Items: Singularity University, Mammoth Extinction, Smallest Exoplanet,Blood Type Pseudoscience, Scientific Predictions
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 184
|date = Jan 28
|desc = Tim Minchin, Mercury In Our Food, Vaccine Controversy Updates, Evolution - Lizards and Fire Ants, Obama UFO
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 183
|date = Jan 21
|desc = Alice Tuff, The Holographic Universe, Science Education in Texas and Louisiana, Pheromones, Dyslexia, Randi: Not in a Name
|status = incomplete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 182
|date = Jan 15
|desc = Michio Kaku, Methane on Mars, Solar Storms, Mega MRI, Young Skeptics
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 181
|date = Jan 7
|desc = Psychic Predictions 2008, True Love, Jett Travolta, Christine Maggiorie, Detox Fail, Weblog Awards 2008, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2008
|range = (episodes 128-180)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 180
|date = Dec 30
|desc = 2008 SGU Year in Review: Best Skeptics, Worst Promoters of Woo, Coolest Science News, Funniest Moments, Favorite E-mails, and SGU Stats
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 179
|date = Dec 23
|desc = Jeremy Pivens Mercury Toxicity, Death by CAM, da Vinci Sketches Discovered, Medium Experiments Follow up, ET Life, Winter Myths
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 178
|date = Dec 16
|desc = Richard Wiseman, Reading Minds, Burglar Trapped by Ghost The Bloop, Evolution Questions
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 177
|date = Dec 10
|desc = Age of the Sphinx with Dr. James P Allen, Supernova Reflections and Milky Way's Black Hole with Phil Plait, Searching for Dyson Spheres, Skeptical Authority, Randi: Cold Reading
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 176
|date = Dec 3
|desc = Early Earth, Turtle Missing Link, Search for the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, Power from Sound, DNA from Hair, Magic Water, Starting a Skeptics Group, Carbon Footprint
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 175
|date = Nov 20
|desc = Steven Schafersman, Kevin Trudeau Smackdown, Placebo Acupuncture, NASA Recycles Urine, Reflexology in UK Schools, Flu Vaccine, NESS in Video Game
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 174
|date = Nov 18
|desc = Exoplanet Pictures, Neuroscience of Telepathy, Jonestown Massacre, Science Attitudes, More Info on Sperm Donation, Sleepwalking, Global Warming
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 173
|date = Nov 12
|desc = Paul Offit, Junk DNA, Mini Nuclear Reactor, Chandrayaan-1 Update, Phoenix Ends, Child Witches
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 172
|date = Nov 5
|desc = Greydon Square, Michael Crichton In Memoriam, Portable Space Shield, Oil from Fungus, Due Diligence, Randi: Wrong!
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 171
|date = Oct 29
|desc = Diana Blaney Vampire Moth, New Type of Planet, Artificial Heart, Polygraph for Debates, Science Debate 2008 Update
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 170
|date = Oct 22
|desc = Phil Plait Psychology of Superstition, Another Solar Breakthrough, UK UFO, Announcing SkepticBlog Blacklight Free Energy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 169
|date = Oct 11
|desc = Perry DeAngelis Memorial Live Podcast Guests: Steve Mirsky and Terrence Hines
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 168
|date = Oct 8
|desc = PZ Myers, 2008 Nobel Awards, Turing Test Darwin Quote, Cosmology
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 167
|date = Oct 1
|desc = Matthew Chapman Dust and Snow on Mars, PETA Nonsense, Calorie Restriction Diet LHC Update, Correlation and Causation, Emergent Intelligence, Neanderthal DNA
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 166
|date = Sep 24
|desc = Sharon Begley LHC Problems, Worthless Acupuncture Studies, Japan Space Elevator, Belief and Credulity Real versus Scientific
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 165
|date = Sep 17
|desc = Ben Goldacre Goldacre LIbel Victory, Stellar Mystery, Creationism in the UK Pharma Conspiracy Randi: The Media
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 164
|date = Sep 10
|desc = Ben Radford LHC Turned On, Elephant Math Bird Correction,Irradiated Food, Pseudoscience
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 163
|date = Sep 3
|desc = Live at DragonCon 2008 with Guests James Randi, Pamela Gay, and Derek Colanduno, The Milky Ways, Supermassive Blackhole, Live Q&A
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 162
|date = Aug 26
|desc = Richard Saunders WTC-7 Collapse, Neanderthal Tool Making, Rainbow Lady Follow Up Teleportation
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 161
|date = Aug 20
|desc = Adam Savage from Mythbusters,Remembering Perry, Monkey Eludes Dragnet, Bigfoot Body Hoax Revealed, Robot with Biological Brain, The Future of Doping,Special Report: JREF Psychic Challenge Report
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 160
|date = Aug 13
|desc = Captain Disillusion,Bigfoot Body Claim, Invisibility Cloak, Prince Charles on GM Food, Sprinkler Rainbow Lady
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 159
|date = Aug 6
|desc = Phil Plait and James Randi, James Doohan Ashes Lost, Solar Power Breakthrough, China Weather Control, The Montauk Monster, Where Does Matter Come From
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 158
|date = Jul 30
|desc = Banachek, Edgar Mitchell UFO Claims, UFOs and Terrorism, Gas from Garbage, House and the Therapeutic Diagnosis
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 157
|date = Jul 23
|desc = George Hrab, New Plutoid, Detox Danger, Amanda Peet Defends Vaccines, Barbara Walters Disses James Van Praagh, Allah Meat, Chaos Theory
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 156
|date = Jul 16
|desc = [[Neil deGrasse Tyson interview: Spaghettification and education (156)|Neil deGrasse Tyson interview]], [[Black hole hubbub in Dallas county (156)|Black hole hubbub]], [[PZ Myers: Stolen cracker death threats (156)|Its Just a Cracker]], [[Discovery Institute blog foiled by vocabulary (156)|Tiktalik Nonsense]], [[Cancer cells zapped individually (156)|Micro Laser Surgery]], [[Convincing evidence: Changing minds (156)|Convincing Evidence]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 155
|date = Jul 9
|desc = James Randi, Einstein Right Again, Conservapedia Denies Evolution, Controversial Chelation Autism Study, Special Report: Roswell 61 Years Later
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 154
|date = Jul 2
|desc = Dr Dean Edell, Darwin-Wallace Anniversary, Tunguska Remembered, Creationst Bill Passes in Louisana, Nanowire Battery, SGU on Youtube, Collective Skeptics, Body Fruit, Randi: Speaker Cables
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 153
|date = Jun 21
|desc = Live at TAM6, Ice on Mars, Crop Circle Pi, Japanese Water Car, Psychic Alleges Sexual Abuse, FDA Crackdown, Spa Reflexology, Special Report-Brian Dunning Present Here Be Dragons Video, Live Q&A
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 152
|date = Jun 11
|desc = Bacteria Evolve, The 100mpg Car, Unicorn Deer, Fishing Monkeys, Plutoids, Albinos in Africa, Special Report-Crystal Skulls, Coincidence, Green Nanoparticles
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 151
|date = Jun 9
|desc = Jon Blumenfeld, NPR Psychics, Mars Lander Update, Petaflop Supercomputers, Optical Illusions, Casey Predictions
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 150
|date = Jun 4
|desc = Walter Isaacson, New Hoax Alien Video, Solar Power from Sapce, Anti-Vaccine Mar on Washington, CAM in New Zealand Follow Up, Cold Fusion
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 149
|date = May 28
|desc = JPL Scientist Diana Blaney, Wi Fi Ban, New Zealand Considering CAM, Scientology Free Speech Follow Up, Medical Science Reporting, Tasmanian Tiger Corrections, Least Skeptical
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 148
|date = May 21
|desc = Carl Zimmer, Tasmanian Tiger Gene Resurrected, Mobile Phones and Pregnancy, Is Scientology a Cult, Supernova Caught in the Act, Michael Shull about Discovering Missing Matter, Radiometric Dating of Mt St Helens, Update on TAM6
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 147
|date = May 14
|desc = Martin Rundkvist, Einstein and God, The Vatican The UK and UFO's, China Quake Superstitions, NASA Announces Supernova Discovery, Creationism in Maine, Wizardry Followup
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 146
|date = May 7
|desc = SGU 3rd Anniversary, Florida Anti-Evolution Law Fails, Florida Teacher Fired for Wizardry, Special Report: Bobs Haunted Tour, T-Rex Proteins, Water Experiment, Misconceptions about Evolution, Consumer Reports and Homeopathy
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 145
|date = Apr 30
|desc = Kirsten Sanford, Mystery Lights in Maryland, Evolution Freedom Law in Florida, Gary Null-HIV Denier, Special Report: The Real Iron Man
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 144
|date = Apr 23
|desc = [[Simon Singh interview: Alternative medicine (144)|Simon Singh interview]], [[Man "raised from dead" (144)|Man Raised from Dead]], [[Politics of vaccines (144)|Politics of Vaccines]], [[Penis theft panic (144)|Penis Theft Panic]], [[Oldest plant (144)|Oldest Plant]], [[SGU drinking game (144)|The SGU Drinking Game]], [[Space junk: Dangerous debris (144)|Space Junk]], [[Brain Gym: Pseudoscience in the classroom (144)|Brain Gym]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 143
|date = Apr 16
|desc = Eric Avery, Scientology Defection, Are Vitamins Harmful, Replicator Replicates Itself, ET Not Likely, Age of the Earth, Magnetic Water
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 142
|date = Apr 9
|desc = Yau-Man Chan, Skeptologists Shoot Complete, UK Psychic crackdown, LHC and the God Particle, Monty Hall Problem in Research, Cursing in Sanskrit
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 141
|date = Apr 2
|desc = The Skeptologists, Expelled Again, Human-Cow Hybrid, Tantric Killing Fails, Debunking Skeptics, Dinosaur Fossils on the Moon
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 140
|date = Mar 26
|desc = Eugenie Scott, Rebecca's Asteroid, Airborne Lawsuit, Pregnant Man, Hypnotist Robber, Robin Migration, More on Soap
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 139
|date = Mar 19
|desc = Stephen Barrett, Arthur C. Clarke Dies at 90, Saudi Scholar Denies Holocaust, Michael Egnor on ID Podcast, Believers Stare at the Sun, Boy Scout Follow Up, Cosmetic Pseudoscience
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 138
|date = Mar 12
|desc = Ola Fincke about Science Education in Oklahoma, Ghosts in the Mind, US Government Settles Autism-Vaccine Case, Real Death Star, Drugs in the Water, The Skeptologists, Randi Speaks-about Gary Schwartz
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 137
|date = Mar 5
|desc = Special Report: Timeshare Scams, Spaceprobe Anomalies, Aromatherapy Study, McCain on Autism and Vaccines, CECTIC Skeptical Cartoon, Global Warming on Mars, Magneto Boy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 136
|date = Feb 27
|desc = McFeng Sui, Anti-Scientific Medicine in South Africa, Type IV Civilization, Killer Robots, Favorite Science and Skeptical Books
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 135
|date = Feb 20
|desc = Robert FitzPatrick, Lunar Eclipse, Censoring Skeptics, Scientific Challenges of 21st Century, Dualism, Naadi Palm Leaf Reading
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 134
|date = Feb 13
|desc = PZ Myers, Bat Evolution, UK Officials Evict Ghost, Acupuncture and IVF, Alien Mind Control, Darwin Day, Fasting
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 133
|date = Feb 6
|desc = Richard Hayes, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Dies,More Perpetual Motion, Voting in Invisible Ink, Canadian Snake Oil, Organic Milk, Apocalypse 2012, SETI
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 132
|date = Jan 30
|desc = UK Homeopathy In Crisis, Creationist Research Journal, Facilitated Communication in the Courtroom, ABC Drama on Vaccines and Autism, Arabian Brain Drain, Got Milk, Psychic Cheat, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 131
|date = Jan 23
|desc = Guests Fraser Cain and Pamela Gay from Astronomy Cast, Texas UFO follow up, Mars Bigfoot, Homer on Mercury, Asteroid 2007 TU24, Bionic Eyes, Coast to Coast Gets Punked, Restless Leg Syndrome, Time Travel, Relativity
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 130
|date = Jan 16
|desc = Brian Dunning from Skeptoid, Scientists Make Beating Heart, Divining Intervention, UFO over Texas, Reaction to More Evidence Against Vaccines and Autism, Cruise Scientology Recruiting Video, The K-T Extinction
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 129
|date = Jan 9
|desc = John Rennie, SGU 5x5, The Reason Driven Podcast, Insects may have Killed the Dinosaurs, Biofuels, Neti Pots, Healing Magnets, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 128
|date = Jan 2
|desc = New Science Based Medicine Blog, Psychic Predictions 2007, Edward to Channel Irwin, Masters Degree in Creation Science, Magic Amulets, SGU for teachers, Magic Foot Pads, Quantum Entanglement and Warp Drive
|status = skeleton
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2007
|range = (episodes 76-127)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 127
|date = Dec 26
|desc = SGU 2007 Year In Review
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 126
|date = Dec 19
|desc = Richard Wiseman, Rebecca's Pilot, Magic Leg, Creationists New Strategy, Scientific Criticism, Cattle Mutilation, Eidetic memory, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 125
|date = Dec 12
|desc = Alex Tsakiris from Skeptiko about Paranormal Research and Skepticism, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 124
|date = Dec 5
|desc = Lawrence Krauss, Hucka-Bee, Moonbeams in Arizona, Chimp Memory, Anti-vaccine misinformation on Youtube, Stem Cell Con, Information Theory, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 123
|date = Nov 28
|desc = Science and Faith, Computer Brain, Psychic Ripoff, Wifi and Autism, Skeptiko on Skeptics, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 122
|date = Nov 20
|desc = Judgment Day Censored, Blue Ghost Followup, Death by Energy Medicine, Photo Memory Manipulation, Special Feature: Our Day at the Psychic Fair, Bird Sex Correction, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 121
|date = Nov 14
|desc = Paul Kurtz, Judgment Day for ID, UFO Investigation, Universe loses weight, FDA Petition, Gas Station Ghost, BMI, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 120
|date = Nov 7
|desc = Greydon Square, Phenomenon, Robot cars, Jehovahs Witness death, Fat is Healthy, Judgment Day, Follow up on Mange, Special Request, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 119
|date = Oct 30
|desc = Ghosthunting Season, Report from the Homeopathy Conference, Rude 9-11 Truthers, Dinosaur Extinction, Mangy Bigfoot, Supplements, Spine tingling, Randi: Jaque Benveniste, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 118
|date = Oct 24
|desc = Joe Nickell, Autism and Vaccines, Ben Stein on OReilly, James Watson Followup, The Dangers of Pseudoscience, Honey, Flu Vaccine Myths, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 117
|date = Oct 17
|desc = Mark Crislip of QuackCast, Robot Marriage, Overeating Gene, New Dinosaur, Female Cult, Watson on Race, Randi: Best Mentalist Trick, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 116
|date = Oct 10
|desc = Marc Abrahams of the IgNobels, Geller on NBC, More Acupuncture, Cell Phones and Cancer, World with Time, Energy Follow up, Slain by Woo, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 115
|date = Oct 3
|desc = Jon Blumenfeld, Tom Cruise Bunker, The View of a Flat Earth, Fly Boy Follow up, Martial Arts Woo, Vaccine follow up, 30 Year Battery, Orthomolecular Medicine, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 114
|date = Sep 27
|desc = Richard Saunders, Rebecca Wins, New Acupuncture Study, Academic Free Speech, Boy Survives Jet Ride, Smart Sex, Colloidal Silver, Randi: Faith Healers, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 113
|date = Sep 19
|desc = Monkey Bird Love, Trouble for Trudeau, Free Energy, Medical Science, Judge believes in Elves, HPV Vaccine, Autism Nonsense on Oprah, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 112
|date = Sep 12
|desc = David Colquhoun, How the WTC Towers Fell, Burning Water, Extant Dodos, SGU Affiliations, Peanuts, King Tut Follow up, Billy Meier, Randi: Mentalism, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 111
|date = Sep 5
|desc = Bill Nye the Science Guy, Airline Sacrifices Goats, King Tut, Is Race Real, The Persistence of Myth, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 110
|date = Aug 28
|desc = The Fans and Rogues remember Perry DeAngelis, - Jerry Andrus: Another Skeptic Passes, HIV Denial, Jesus Appears in Fence, Ben Stein Expelled, Puzzle
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 109
|date = Aug 24
|desc = Perry DeAngelis 1963-2007, The Psychology of Belief - a lecture by Perry DeAngelis, The fans favorite clips of Perry
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 108
|date = Aug 11
|desc = Opening Remarks by Steven Novella and Steve Mirsky, MC Todd Robbins, Live Q&A: Autism Groups, Girls and Science, Nice Skepticism, Science Education
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 107
|date = Aug 8
|desc = Largest Planet Discovered, New Da Vinci Conspiracy, Korean Stem Cell Controversy, UK UFO Followup, Unproven Therapies, CO2 from Walking, AI Sense of Humor, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 106
|date = Aug 1
|desc = Barry Glassner, Death Cat, FDA Shuts Down DCA, Exorcisms Gone Bad, Ward Churchill Correction, The Man with No Brain, The Overview Effect, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 105
|date = Jul 25
|desc = Jimmy Carter, Ward Churchill Fired, Homeopathic Surgeon, UK UFO, Asian Parasite Killing Bees, Electric Car, Brain Evolution, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 104
|date = Jul 18
|desc = Brian Trent, Author of Never Grow Old
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 103
|date = Jul 11
|desc = Scott Lilienfield, Most Distant Galaxy, Orbo Perpetual Motion Machine, Salt Water Fuel, Scientology and Homocide, Puzzle
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 102
|date = Jul 3
|desc = Barry Beyerstein In Memoriam, Black Cohosh and Liver Failure, Echinacea Meta-analysis, Jury Accuracy, Bishops and Floods, HIV and Condoms, Chiropractic and Colic, Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy, Sickesz Follow Up, Puzzle
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 101
|date = Jun 20
|desc = Orac - The author of Respectful Insolence Science Blog, Do black holes exist, President Bush vetoes new stem cell bill, Legends for profit, Belgium skeptic sued, The Galileo gambit, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 100
|date = Jun 19
|desc = SGU 100th Episode, 60 Years of Flying Saucers, Nano Drugs, Dino Big Bird, Home Buying Pseudoscience, Magneto and Son, Acupuncture Brain Surgery, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 99
|date = Jun 13
|desc = Phil Plait - The Bad Astronomer, Creationism Poll, Academic Freedom, Mercury-Autism Controversy in Court, Mr. Wizard Dies at 89, Rods, Zero Point Energy, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 98
|date = Jun 6
|desc = Creation Museum in Canada, NASA on Global Warming, Chiropractic in VA Hospitals, Death by Pseudoscience, UFO Drone CGI, New Loch Ness Video, Lunar Effect, Herxheimer Reaction, Chemtrails, Puzzle
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 97
|date = May 30
|desc = Creation Museum Opens, Licensing Psychics, Homeopaths Lame Response, China Follow Up, Kevin Trudeau, UFO Drone, Puzzle
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 96
|date = May 23
|desc = China Consultant Gareth Hayes, UK Scientists Reject Homeopathy, Boy Whose Parents Rejected Chemotherapy Dies, Scientology in Public Schools, Is Science Made Up, Legislating Thought, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 95
|date = May 16
|desc = Fraser Cain and Pamela Gay from Astronomy Cast, :Scientology vs the BBC, Rosie and 9-11, Star Kids, Multivitamins and Cancer, Moo UFO, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 94
|date = May 9
|desc = Barry Beyerstein, The Encyclopedia of Life, Nanotech Spidy Suit, Bigfoot Endangered, Corrections and Clarifications, Evolution Challenge, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 93
|date = May 3
|desc = Bug Girl - The Beetastrophy, Philly Shuts Down Psychics, Fire Melts Steel, Woman Hanged as Vampire, Drake Equation, EM Sensitivity, Hitler Fallacy Revisited, Genetic Drug Therapy, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 92
|date = Apr 25
|desc = Is Mental Illness Real, Earth-like Planet Discovered, Criminalizing Holocaust Denial follow up, Pill for Genetic Diseases, Bacterial Flagella Follow Up, Vitrification, - 9/11 Conspiracy, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 91
|date = Apr 18
|desc = Susan Blackmore, More ID Nonsense from Dr. Michael Egnor, Criminalizing Holocaust Denial, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 90
|date = Apr 10
|desc = Quantum Computer?, Fermilab Flub, Dieting News, Time Travel, Meta Analysis, Chiropractic Confusion, Death Star Conspiracy, Hugh Ross and Testable Creationism, Near Death Experiences, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 89
|date = Apr 4
|desc = 9/11 Conspiracy Celebrities, Holy Water for AIDS, Astrology Fails Again, Fairy Hoax, Avoiding the Holocaust, Neal Adams on Fox, Peanut Butter and Evolution, Peloop, When Birds Attack, Groupthink,Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 88
|date = Mar 28
|desc = David Seaman, DC, UFO news, Houdini exhumed, Buhhda boy returns, PETA, GM foods, Satanic Barcode, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 87
|date = Mar 21
|desc = Robert Lancaster, Vernal Equinox, Prayer Meta-analysis, Creationist Teacher Fired, Polar Bear Euthanasia, Pluto Corrections, Herbal Remedies, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 86
|date = Mar 14
|desc = Update on the Tomb of Jesus, The Revenge of Pluto, Robot Rights, More ID Nonsense, ADHD, Nerves Conduct by Sound?, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 85
|date = Mar 7
|desc = Battle of the Diets, True Believers take on SGU, Modern Day Witch Trial, Billy Meier Apologst, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 84
|date = Feb 28
|desc = Kenny Feder: The Tomb of Jesus and More, Update on Scientific Literacy, Human-Chimp Split, Mary on Pizza Pan, Segment #2. Negativity, Vitamins, more on Angel Voices, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 83
|date = Feb 21
|desc = TAM5 Interviews Part V: with Julia Sweeney, Richard Wiseman and The Onion Editor Scott Dickers, Angels Voices, New JFK Footage, Bigfoot Foot, Psychics on Oprah, Zodiac Insurance, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 82
|date = Feb 15
|desc = TAM 5 Interviews Part IV with Christopher Hitchens and South Parks Matt Stone, Psychic Healer, Score 1 for Evolution in Kansas, Paranormal Research Center Closes, Monkey Feng Shui, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 81
|date = Feb 7
|desc = TAM5 Interviews Part III: Phil Plait the Bad Astronomer, and Mythbusters Adam Savage and Tory Belleci, Enviga Suit, Iran AIDS Cure, Creationists in Kenya, Follow up on Global Warming, Youngest Skeptic, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 80
|date = Jan 31
|desc = TAM5 Interviews Part II: John Rennie, Teller, Jim Underdown, Randi takes on Sylvia, The Hobbit Returns, The God Question, Cults and Religion, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 79
|date = Jan 24
|desc = TAM5 interviews with [[James Randi interview with Todd Robbins at TAM5 (79)|James Randi, Todd Robbins]], [[Hal Bidlack interview: MC at TAM5 (79)|Hal Bidlack]] & [[Eugenie Scott interview: Science in the media and the Dover trial (79)|Eugenie Scott]], [[TAM5: The Rogues report (79)|Report from TAM5]], [[Sylvia Browne: Dead wrong again (79)|Sylvia Browne]], [[Tom Cruise: Christ of Scientology (79)|Tom Cruise the Christ]], [[If Rebecca ate meat (79)|Meat-eating Rebecca]], [[Free-fall and terminal velocity emails (79)|Terminal Velocity]], [[Skeptical Puzzle: Power loss (79)|Puzzle]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 78
|date = Jan 15
|desc = Stem Cell Debate, Randi Psychic Challenge (Jeff Wagg), Government Conspiracies, Herbal Remedies, Skeptical Movement, Scientology, Randi: Whats That Line, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 77
|date = Jan 10
|desc = Spencer Weart, author of The Discovery of Global Warming, Stem Cell Updates, Enviga, Hawking in Space, Weight loss pill firms fined, Corrections, The Moon, True belief skeletons, Randi: Coincidence, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 76
|date = Jan 3
|desc = NeuroLogica Blog, Evolution in Cobb County, 2006 Predictions, Homeopathy in Scotland, Salt Lamps, UFOs, Intelligent Forces, Chelation Therapy, Randi: Optical Illusions, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2006
|range = (episodes 24-75)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 75
|date = Dec 27
|desc = 2006 Year in Review: Join the Skeptics' Guide host and the rogues as they look back at the year in science, skepticism, and podcasting
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 74
|date = Dec 20
|desc = Carl Sagan, Sylvia Browne Update, IQ and Vegetarians, Santa Claus, Facilitated Communication, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 73
|date = Dec 13
|desc = B. Alan Wallace Tree Octopus, Irans Holocaust Denial, Science and the Supernatural, Randi: Communication, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 72
|date = Dec 6
|desc = Paleontologist Ken Macleod - New Evidence for the Single Impact Theory, Holiday shopping scams, NASA plans moon base, Flowing water on Mars?, Molecular manufacturing, Hi from Down Under, Chiropractic HIV denial, Testing ID, High Tech Dowsing, Randi: End o
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 71
|date = Nov 29
|desc = Mark Crislip, Paranormal Computer Storage, ID in the UK, Corrections, Einstein, Ghost Photos, Neurolink, Randi: Mentalism, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 70
|date = Nov 21
|desc = Orgasm Day, Science of Deception, MoD warns of Aliens, Wonders of the World, top 10 Scientific Discoveries, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 69
|date = Nov 15
|desc = Seth Shostak, Qi-Gong on You Tube, Cryotherapy,Chicken-Tac-Toe, Hallucinations, Chiropractic, Religion and Mental Illness, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 68
|date = Nov 8
|desc = Kent Hovind Convicted, UFO Mocumentary, Bigfoot in Academia, Learn while you Sleep, Dolphin Legs, Edgar Cayce, Quantum Love, Distribution of Pseudoscience, Workplace Skepticism, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 67
|date = Nov 1
|desc = Richard Wiseman, Pseudohistory of Exorcism, Glossolalia, Elephant Mirrors, Holiday Weight, Anti-skeptics, Fox Parkinsons and Stem Cells, Face on Earth, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 66
|date = Oct 25
|desc = Michael Stebbins, Scientists and Engineers for America, The Physics of Ghosts and Vampires, What killed the dinosaurs?, Hallucinations, UFO cults, Randi: People in Space, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 65
|date = Oct 18
|desc = Geller's Heir, Human speciation, New Element 118, The 7th Fleet, Moon Robots, Vegetarians, Vitamin Supplements, Randi: Homeopathy, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 64
|date = Oct 11
|desc = Stuart Vyse, Author of The Psychology of Supersition, Friday 13th, Teaching Evolution in Michigan, Science in the UK, Comet to hit Earth, Water Cycle, Selling the Moon, Randi: Aromatherapy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 63
|date = Oct 4
|desc = Michael Shermer - Author of Why Darwin Matters, Skepchick-dude Calendars, Sexual arousal, Harry Potter, Autism, Skepticism and sensitivity, Randi: Business Astrology, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 62
|date = Sep 27
|desc = [[Joe Nickell interview: Paranormal investigations (62)|Joe Nickell interview]], [[Global warming follow up and solar activity (62)|Global Warming update]], [[Face on Mars: 3D reconstruction (62)|Face on Mars]], [[Lightning rods (62)|Lightning Rods]], [[Psychic astrology email (62)|Psychic Astrology]], [[Randi Speaks: Left behind (62)|Randi: Left Behind]], [[I have monkeys in my pants (62)|I have monkeys in my pants]], [[Skeptical Puzzle: Marine locks (62)|Puzzle]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 61
|date = Sep 20
|desc = James Randi Joins the Skeptics Guide, Male-Female Intelligence, Exorcism rape, Phil Plait, The Bad Astronomer, about Eris, Pluto, NASA and more, OBE's, More on 9/11, Denial, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 60
|date = Sep 13
|desc = 9/11 news, Report from Mexico, No Gulf War Syndrome,Persistant Vegetative State, Math vs Science, Thinking about the dead, Moon Hoax, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 59
|date = Sep 5
|desc = Ed Warren Dies, New ESP claims, Evolution of Superstition, Korean fan deaths, New UK Homeopathy law, Science beliefs, Recycling, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 58
|date = Aug 30
|desc = Kimball Atwood, MD, Pope and ID, Hitler and Stalin Possessed, Pluto not a planet, Kabbalah,Archaeological conspiracies, Skeptical Soldier, Abiogenesis Pseudoscience, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 57
|date = Aug 23
|desc = Larry Sarner, Water Tree Solved, Mystery Creature in Maine, Creationism update, Planet definition, Acupuncture followup, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 56
|date = Aug 15
|desc = Ken Feder, Evolution Survey, water tree, Abiogenic Origin of Oil,Dinosaur Petroglyphs, Acupuncture, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 55
|date = Aug 9
|desc = Steve Salerno, Happy Birthday James Randi, Archimedes Palimpsest, Science and Falsifiability, Skeptics track record, FDA, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 54
|date = Aug 2
|desc = Creationism Museum, Kansas votes out Creationists, Coulter throws down the gauntlet, Exorcism, PC, Chiropractic, Singularity, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 53
|date = Jul 26
|desc = Possible increase for NASA budget, Indigo children, Monkey eating eagle, Bird flight, Teachers respond to textbook criticism, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 52
|date = Jul 19
|desc = Bill Bennetta, The Textbook League, Rebecca Returns, Precious Bodily Fluids, World Jump Day,Follow up on Neal Adams, Women in Science, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 51
|date = Jul 12
|desc = Neal Adams, Space Shuttle Mission, Asteroid near miss, Psychedelic mushrooms, Kevin Barrett and 9/11 conspiracies,More on supplements, Peak Oil?, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 50
|date = Jul 5
|desc = Gerald Posner, author of Case Closed, Second hand smoke,Binaural Beats, Aubrey de Grey, Puzzle (answer plus new puzzle)
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 49
|date = Jun 28
|desc = Theory of Evolution, Agnosticism, Magnet therapy, Regulating supplements, Neuroethics, Puzzle
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 48
|date = Jun 21
|desc = Steve Mirsky, Scientific American, Herbs for menopause, Anne Coulter and evolution,Penta Water, Alcoholism a disease?, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 47
|date = Jun 14
|desc = Zachary Moore: Evolution 101, Feng-shui, Hawking on space travel,Consensus on Global Warming, God and the Big Bang
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 46
|date = Jun 7
|desc = Phil Plait: The Bad Astronomer,Satans day, Skepchick infiltrates Christian Scientists, Altruism genes, Follow up on 9/11 Hoax
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 45
|date = May 31
|desc = SGU Forum, 9-11 footage, UK Doctors fight against Alternative Med,Cancer Cures, Dream Interpretation, Science vs God, Suns temperature
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 44
|date = May 24
|desc = James Randi News: Human/chimp hybrid, China mirage
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 43
|date = May 17
|desc = Ray Hyman, News: Bosnian Pyramid update, Mormon cult leader hits FBI list, Paranormal mysteries, Science education, Scientology super powers
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 42
|date = May 10
|desc = Eugenie Scott, News: UFO's in the UK, Scientology Superheroes,Tracking Satellites, Drinking water
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 41
|date = May 3
|desc = Bosnian pyramids, Toxic Cruise,Bubble Universes, Iridology, Black holes, and the Origin of life, Discussion: The Scope of Skepticism
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 40
|date = Apr 26
|desc = Brian Trent, author of Remembering Hypatia, Sonoma Bigfoot revealed, Channeling John Lennon,More on Hurricanes and Birthdays, Bananas and logical fallacies
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 39
|date = Apr 19
|desc = Marilyn Schlitz, ESP researcher, More on the polar ice caps, Sad Monkeys, spinal stem cells and mercury amalgam,gene multiplication, Skeptical Tools
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 38
|date = Apr 12
|desc = Bill Nye, Tom Cruise, Time Travel, Global Warming, Happy Face on Mars,Evolution, more on the flood, the psychosomatic effect and
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 37
|date = Apr 6
|desc = Fish evolution, prayer in medicine, Noah's ark,EVP, more on the solar eclipse
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 36
|date = Mar 29
|desc = Rick Ross, Solar Eclipse,The Woman who Never Forgets, Panspermia, Hydrino power, Bigfoot, Microwaves
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 35
|date = Mar 22
|desc = More on Scientology and South Park, Noah's Ark, Bigfoot or Bison, Cancer quacks, creationism in UK, DNA vs the Mormons
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 34
|date = Mar 15
|desc = Buddha Boy, El Chupacabra, Scientology and South Park, What the Bleep: Down the Rabbit Hole, Water on enceladus
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 33
|date = Mar 9
|desc = Rebecca Watson - founder of the Skepchicks, Magnet Therapy, Tax scams, Plastic Scare
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 32
|date = Mar 1
|desc = More on ID, Holy hardware, G-spot, Oil crisis, The 12th planet
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 31
|date = Feb 22
|desc = Terrence Hines - author of Pseudoscience and the Paranormal
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 30
|date = Feb 15
|desc = New UFO Coverup, Randi, ID, Jesus in court, Cholesterol and colon cleansing
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 29
|date = Feb 8
|desc = Featured Website: Two sites on Science Myths, Feynman on Education and Textbooks, , Going Beyond Science?
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 28
|date = Feb 1
|desc = Tara Smith of Iowans for Science, , More on HIV Denial
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 27
|date = Jan 25
|desc = Ask the Skeptic, Two Views of American Education, Government and wacky science
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 26
|date = Jan 17
|desc = Eric Altman from the Penn Bigfoot Society, Psychic Predictions for 2005, Darwin Day
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 25
|date = Jan 11
|desc = Did Castro Kill JFK, Discussion Items: Iran Denies the Holocaust, Cell Research Fraud in South Korea, Political Correctness vs Freedom of Speech
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 24
|date = Jan 6
|desc = James Randi
|status = skeleton
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2005
|range = (episodes 1-23)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 23
|date = Dec 21
|desc = Jan Helen McGee - Psychic Detective, Victory for Science and Reason in Dover
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 22
|date = Dec 14
|desc = Holiday Scams, Discussion Topics: Eye Evolution, Venus the UFO, Video Games and Seizures, Psychic Detectives
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 21
|date = Dec 7
|desc = Wallace Sampson, MD - Editor of the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine, ID and Weeping Icons
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 20
|date = Nov 23
|desc = Tom W. Clark - founder of Naturalism.org, ID Update
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 19
|date = Nov 16
|desc = ID and Idiocy, Putting the Psi into Science, The Starchild Project
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 18
|date = Nov 2
|desc = Halloween Ghost Stories, Astrology vs Astronomy
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 17
|date = Oct 26
|desc = Joe Nickell - paranormal investigator
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 16
|date = Oct 12
|desc = Glen G. Sparks
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 15
|date = Oct 6
|desc = Chris Mooney: Author of The Republican War on Science
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 14
|date = Sep 28
|desc = UFO Landing Strip, ID Update, Bigfoot Convention, Katrina Myths and Conspiracies
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 13
|date = Sep 14
|desc = [[9/11 Conspiracy Theories (13)|9/11 Conspiracies]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 12
|date = Sep 7
|desc = Steve Milloy
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 11
|date = Aug 31
|desc = Bob Park: author of Voodoo Science
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 10
|date = Aug 23
|desc = In Memoriam: Phil Klass and Robert Baker, Childrens Books
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 9
|date = Aug 10
|desc = Bush-The Pope-and evolution -again, Atlantis, Modern Witch Hunts, Science and Hollywood
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 8
|date = Aug 2
|desc = Steven Salerno: author of SHAM
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 7
|date = Jul 20
|desc = The Pope on Potter and evolution, Ghostbusting with Penn & Teller, Ask the Skeptic, Quackwatch
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 6
|date = Jul 7
|desc = Science Magazine's 125 things we do not know, Tom Cruise, Scientology and Psychiatry, CT Warning on e-scams, Ramada Inn in Stratford Haunted
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 5
|date = Jun 29
|desc = Michael Shermer
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 4
|date = Jun 15
|desc = Update on Kansas Evolution Debate, Alternative Theories of Matter
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 3
|date = Jun 7
|desc = [[Massimo Pigliucci Interview: Intelligent Design, Science, Religion (3)|Massimo Pigliucci interview]], [[Smithsonian ID Fiasco Follow-up (3)|Update on ID film in the Smithsonian Institution]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 2
|date = Jun 1
|desc = [[Kansas school board: Redefining science (2)|Kansas Evolution Update]], [[Discovery Institute preview at Smithsonian Institute (2)|Discovery Institute preview at Smithsonian Institute]], [[Stem cell bill 2005: Embryonic vs. adult-derived (2)|Stem Cell Research]], [[Crop circles: Cereology, blueprints and perfect circles (2)|Crop Circle Season]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 1
|date = May 4
|desc = ID, Reverse Engineering UFOs, Magicians, and Exploding Toads
|status = verified
}}
|}
|}

Convincing evidence: Changing minds (156)

2013-09-20T20:51:38Z

Teleuteskitty: categorised redirect for segment in ep 156

#REDIRECT [[SGU_Episode_156#Questions_and_Emails:_Changing_Minds_.2826:05.29]]
[[Category:Logic & Philosophy]]
[[Category:Religion & Faith]]
[[Category:Nature & Evolution]]

User:Teleuteskitty/Draft SGU list

2013-09-20T20:34:39Z

Teleuteskitty: added segment links for 3, 13, 62 & 79

{| class="mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2013
|range = (episodes 390-...)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 426
|date = Sep 14
|desc = 9/11, Motivated Numeracy, Arctic Ice, Robot Traders, Teenage Exorcists, Homeopathic Vaccines, Mission to Mars, Bdellovibrio
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 425
|date = Sep 7
|desc = Last Thylacine, NASA Spiders, Chicken Wings and Penis Size, TCM for Flu, New Element 115, Pox Parties, Aromatherapy
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 424
|date = Aug 31
|desc = Cara Santa Maria, Paul Ehrlich, Energized Water, Probiotics for Mental Health, Death by Iridology, Immortality, Authority
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 423
|date = Aug 24
|desc = Sanal Edamaruku, Vesuvius, No Proof of Creation, Area 51, Hydrating Beer, Indian Rationalist Shot Dead, Free Roaming Planets, Sugar and Hyperactivity
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 422
|date = Aug 17
|desc = Hazel Bishop, NDE Explained, TV Watching, Labor and Autism, Magenta Planet, Spontaneous Baby Combustion, Special Report: Onionated
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 421
|date = Aug 10
|desc = Michael Mann, Smithsonian, Dead Monk Alive, Lab Grown Burger, Dolphin Memory, Cattle Mutilations, Gluten Follow Up, HPV Vaccine
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 420
|date = Aug 3
|desc = Robert House, Hunt for Alien Spaceships, 3-D Printing, Lunar Calendar, Full Moon and Sleep, Man-Chimp-Pig
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 419
|date = Jul 27
|desc = Insulin, Giant Virus, Gluten, Death Wave, The Pitch Drops, Revenge of the Conspiracy Theorists. Cassini Picture of Earth
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 418
|date = Jul 20
|desc = Live at TAM 2013, Guest Rogue: John Rennie, Viking 1, Special Report: Grand Canyon, The End of the World, Sailing Stones, Scrotal Evolution, Moons of Pluto, James Randi and Jamy Ian Swiss, Questions: Cynicism, Monsanto
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 417
|date = Jul 13
|desc = Paul Offit, Carl Zimmer and Erno Rubik, Seeing Through Walls, First in Flight, Tylenol and Fear, Spinning Pharoah, Head Transplant
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 416
|date = Jul 6
|desc = Guest Rogue: Randall Snyder, Pasteur, Special Report: Leaving Mormonism, Crop Circles in History, Constructing Morality, Movie Review: World War Z, Patent Troll Follow Up
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 415
|date = Jun 29
|desc = Roy Wolford, Podcasting Patent, Class System in Mice, Anti-GMO Pseudoscience, Skunk Ape, Special Report: GyroStim and Science Journalism, Staticman
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 414
|date = Jun 22
|desc = Daniel Loxton, Osteoarthritis, Patenting DNA, Foot Fungus, Chinese Fake Alien, New Type of Star, Can We Know Everything
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 413
|date = Jun 15
|desc = First Blood Transfusion, Vaccine Refusal, Seeing Ultraviolet, Ape Feet, Elizabeth I a Man?, Special Report: Don McLeroy Follow Up, Living on Sunshine
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 412
|date = Jun 8
|desc = Joshie Berger, Missile Mail, Star Trek Review, Kepler Broken, Small Hadron Collider, Carnivorous Sponge, Pollen
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 411
|date = Jun 1
|desc = Vijay Dewan and Scott Thurman, Cosmic Background Radiation, Mermaids, Angelina Jolie, Prosopagnosia, Flying Car, Raw Honey
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 410
|date = May 25
|desc = Guest Rogue: Richard Saunders, Geek Pride Day, McCormick Sentenced, Meteroid Hits Moon, DSM-5, Placenta Madness, Water Heater Followup, McLeroy Interview
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 409
|date = May 18
|desc = Heather Berlin, Nicholas II, Your Senses in Space, Talking Plants, Flowing Glass, Book Review: Ender's Game, Water Heaters, Atacama Specimen
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 408
|date = May 11
|desc = Don McLeroy, Sylvia Browne Wrong Again, Cosmic Rays and Lightening, Cicada Return
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 407
|date = May 4
|desc = Mystery Guest, SGU 8 year Anniversary, Funding Science, Curse Scam, Fusion Reactor, Einstein Still Correct, Oblivion Review, Is SETI Science
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 406
|date = Apr 27
|desc = Samuel Morse, Mars One, Bomb Detector Fraud, TED and Chopra, Creationism and Dinosaurs, Bitcoin Follow Up
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 405
|date = Apr 20
|desc = Guest Rogues: Jon Ronson and Simon Singh, Sundogs, Simon Singh's New Book, Bitcoins, Internet Criminals, BRAIN Project, Evidence of Dark Matter, Hallucinating Music
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 404
|date = Apr 13
|desc = Live at NECSS 2013, Guest Rogue: Cathleen Carr, Apollo 13, Remembering Perry, Conspiracy Survey, Misused Scientific Terms, New Type of Supernova, Vaccines Make You Gay, Anti-Vaccine Propaganda on Twitter, Live Q&A: Effects of Alcohol, Online Health Inform
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 403
|date = Apr 6
|desc = Ian O'Neill, Isaac Asimov, Fairy Circle Update, Zombie Parasites, Retraction Watch, Genetic Transistors, Prescribing Placebos
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 402
|date = Mar 30
|desc = Guest Rogue: Karl Withakay, [[Homeopathy Debate at UConn (402)|Homeopathy Debate]], [[Nine-year-old Finds Dinosaur Fossil (402)|Small Pterosaur]], [[Fracking Causing Earthquakes (402)|Fracking Earthquakes]], [[Man Who Never Has to Eat Again (402)|Never Eat Again]], [[Voyager at the Edge (402)|Voyager at the Edge]], [[More Than Gravity Theory (402)|More Than Gravity]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 401
|date = Mar 23
|desc = Pons and Fleischmann, Marshmallow Test, Bacteria Everywhere, Acupuncture HIV, Dr. Oz Sued, New Pope, Special Report: Why Worry?
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 400
|date = Mar 16
|desc = Lawrence Oates, Meteorite Fossils, Duane Gish Dies, Acupuncture Meta-Analysis, Live to 150, Close Star Discovered
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 399
|date = Mar 9
|desc = Guest Rogue: George Hrab, Hans Christian
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 398
|date = Mar 2
|desc = Jon Ronson, Compact Disk, Life Around Dying Stars, Ancient Lost Continent, Electronic Tattoos, Google Glass, Ouch
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 397
|date = Feb 23
|desc = Heisenberg, Russian Meteor, Spontaneous Human Combustion, Cosmos Unstable, Bigfoot DNA Published, Intellectually Lazy, Special Report: Retro Futurism
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 396
|date = Feb 16
|desc = Brian Wecht, Chien-Shiung Wu, AI Doctor, Ball and Cup Magic, Gorilla in the Bronchi, Feathered Dino Follow Up
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 395
|date = Feb 9
|desc = Space Medicine, Russian Lake Monster, Bones of Richard III, Scientific Genius, Without Fear, Feathered Dinosaurs, Tuesday Boy, George Hrab
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 394
|date = Feb 2
|desc = John Rennie, Groundhog Day, Up Goer Five, China Smog, Vaccine Court, Deer Antler Spray, Perpetual Motion
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 393
|date = Jan 26
|desc = Guest Rogue: Brian Dunning, [[Zack Kopplin interview: Creationism and school boards (393)|Zack Kopplin interview]], [[SGU_Episode_393#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.280:51.29|Brachistochrone curve]], [[Manti Te'o hoax (393)|Manti Te'o Hoax]], [[River on Mars (393)|River on Mars]], [[Neanderthal baby (393)|Neanderthal Baby]], [[Nikola Tesla: Report by Brian Dunning (393)|Special Report: Nikola Tesla]], [[Vomitorium correction (393)|Vomitorium]], [[Brian Dunning & Lizzie Li Taylor interview: Skeptoid in China (393)|Skeptoid Chinese]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 392
|date = Jan 19
|desc = [[Massimo Polidoro interview: Italian skepticism (392)|Massimo Polidoro]], [[Neon lights (392)|Neon Signs]], [[Predicting murders (392)|Predicting Murders]], [[Lead and crime (392)|Lead and Crime]], [[Biggest thing in the Universe (392)|Biggest Thing in the Universe]], [[Million dollar challenge: Steve Volk objects (392)|Defending the $1m Challenge]], [[Turkey's disappearing evolution books (392)|Turkey Bans Evolution Books]], [[Quickie with Bob: Apophis update (392)|Apophis Update]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 391
|date = Jan 12
|desc = Dr. James Bedford, Below Absolute Zero, Burzynski Challenge, Genome Editing, Celebrity Pseudoscience, Oz Pseudoscience
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 390
|date = Jan 5
|desc = Massimo Pigliucci, FM Radio, Psychic Predictions 2012, Cosmic Rays and Dementia
|status = complete
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2012
|range = (episodes 338-389)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 389
|date = Dec 29
|desc = SGU 2012 Year in Review, Thomas Fuller, Best and Worst of 2012, In Memoriam
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 388
|date = Dec 22
|desc = Coelacanth, Sandy Hook Massacre, China Stabbing, AVN to Change Name, Megalapteryx Foot, Invisibility Cloak, Special Report: The Hobbit and High Frame Rate
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 387
|date = Dec 15
|desc = Joshie Berger, homosexuality and the DSM, Creationist Tactics, Truth in Education, Dawn of Life, History of Cheese, Vampire Warning, Ocean Robots
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 386
|date = Dec 8
|desc = Guest Rogue: Phil Plait, Atoms for Peace, End of the World, Bug UFO Follow Up, Inattentional Amnesia, Curiosity Kurfuffle, Grand Canyon Age, Moon Formation
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 385
|date = Dec 1
|desc = Banachek, Taman Shud Mystery, Not-So-Terror Bird, Bloop Solved, Hijacking DNA, Bigfoot DNA, Makemake, Theory
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 384
|date = Nov 24
|desc = Guest Rogue: Richard Wiseman, Origin of Species, Special Report: Richard's Dream Research, Aspartame Study, Being a Psychopath, Type Ia Supernova, Fecal Transplants
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 383
|date = Nov 17
|desc = Bruce Hood, Jonestown Massacre, Denver UFO, Math Hurts, Communicating with the Vegetative, Nearby Rogue Planet, Twisted Light, Bicycle Physics
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 382
|date = Nov 10
|desc = Goddess of Reason, Life in the Universe, UFOlogy Dying, Chelation Therapy, Psychic Fail, Universe Rotating, In Memorium: Mike LaCelle
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 381
|date = Nov 3
|desc = Live at CSICon 2012, Sputnik 2, In Memorium: Paul Kurtz and Leon Jaroff, Big Bang Conference, Italian Earthquake Scientists Convicted, Whale Makes Human Sounds, PANDAS Controversy, Reporting Ghost Stories, Live Q&A
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 380
|date = Oct 27
|desc = Genetic Logic Circuit, Efficient Language, Closest Exoplanet, Alien Hacker, Zombie Bite
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 379
|date = Oct 20
|desc = Jamy Ian Swiss, Norman Borlaug, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, DNA Half Life, The Simulated Universe, Supersonic Jump, Geoglyph
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 378
|date = Oct 13
|desc = Robert Hutton:SGU Transcripts, Lady of Fatima, 2012 Nobel Prizes, Looking for Dyson Spheres, Simon Singh and Libel, Presidential Lie Detector, Proof of Heaven
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 377
|date = Oct 6
|desc = The Billygoat Curse, The Physics of Roulette, Vitamin D and the Common Cold, Harpooning Satellites, Bee Brains, WTC7 Collapse
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 376
|date = Sep 29
|desc = Pamela Gay, CERN, Ig Nobels 2012, GM Corn Rat Study, HIV and Faith Healing, Emoticons turn 30
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 375
|date = Sep 22
|desc = Golden Tablets and Hobbit Day, Warp Drive, Bad Science Reporting, Dark Energy Camera, Crowdsourcing Science, Spheres on Mars, CSICon 2012, Blue Moon and Frances
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 374
|date = Sep 15
|desc = Murray Gell-Mann and Alexander Flemming, Sun Myung Moon Dies, Company Apologies for Thalidomide, Super WiFi, Calorie Restriction and Longevity, Special Report: A Skeptical 12 Step Program, Skeptical Quote of the Week
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 373
|date = Sep 8
|desc = Live at DragonCon 2012, Billy West, First Trek, Blue Moon Lunacy, Bigfoot News, Negative Replication of Psi, Baldness Cure, Little Mass from Higgs, UFO Over Illuminati Castle, SGU FAQ, Homeopath Pharmacist, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 372
|date = Sep 1
|desc = Passenger Pigeon, Neil Armstrong Dies, Naked Darth Vader, Homeopathic Candy, Hearing Voices, Special Report: Conspiracy Conference
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 371
|date = Aug 25
|desc = Pixar's Chris Ford, The Great Moon Hoax, The Sun is Round, DNA Storage, FDA and Homeopathy, Pregnancy from Rape, E-bay and Magic
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 370
|date = Aug 18
|desc = Eggs and Atherosclerosis, Hacking the Rover, The Sneeze, Google Pyramids, Occ Update, Asymmetrical Screw
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 369
|date = Aug 11
|desc = Dino Mating, Blowing Up Asteroids, Punching for God, Occ the Skeptical Caveman, Kinesio Tape
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 368
|date = Aug 4
|desc = Brian Wecht, First Fax, Superstition Fund, Curiosity's Sky Crane, Anti-Fluoridation News Fail, Bat-Winged Monkey Bird
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 367
|date = Jul 28
|desc = Kennewick Man, Skeptical Conferences, Sally Ride Dies, Mood Photography, Computer Modeling Life, Artificial Jellyfish, Firewalking Mishap, Multivitamins
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 366
|date = Jul 21
|desc = Live at TAM 2012, Guests: Richard Saunders and George Hrab, Planet Nibiru, Jean Picard born, Fake Bomb Detector Maker Charged, Debating an Antivaccinationist. Feathered Dinosaurs, New Moon for Pluto, Higgs Discovery Announced, Sex Myths, Sapphire Hard Dri
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 365
|date = Jul 14
|desc = Guest Rogue: Daniel Beauley, Jane Goodall, UFOs in National Geo, Seeing Inside Tissue, GOP on Critical Thinking, Alternative Chocolate, Who Owns Space
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 364
|date = Jul 7
|desc = Jann Bellamy, Newcomen Engine, Water on The Moon and Mars, Swiss Report on Homeopathy, Twisted Light, Embodied Cognition, News Update: Causeway Cannibal
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 363
|date = Jun 30
|desc = Tunguska Event, The Science of Prometheus, Time Slowing Down, Higgs Update, Nessie Disproves Evolution
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 362
|date = Jun 23
|desc = Professor Zhong Lin Wang, Mystery Carbon Spike, Younger Dryas Impact, Liberation Procedure Study, Testing Female Athletes, Fetal Pill Update
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 361
|date = Jun 16
|desc = This Day in Skepticism - Captain Picard Day, LiDar, Extremophiles, Moral Behavior, Cervical Manipulation, Ghost Train, Pharmacist Homeopaths
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 360
|date = Jun 9
|desc = This Day in Skepticism - Ray Bradbury Dies, Episode #360, Transit of Venus, Legislating Science, Science Education in California and South Korea, Vapor Storage, Magnetic Skeptical Phrases, Peer Review
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 359
|date = Jun 2
|desc = Debbie Feldman, Bridget Bishop, Medical Zombies, Science of Reruns, Leakey on Evolution, Local Darkmatter Followup
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 358
|date = May 26
|desc = Guest Rogue: Joshie Berger, [[SGU_Episode_358#This_Day_in_Skepticism_.281:05.29|Animalcules]], [[Joshie's TAM Poker Tournament Idea (358)|TAM Poker Tournament]], [[SpaceX launch, May 2012 (358)|SpaceX Launch]], [[Information About the Early Universe May Be Lost (358)|Studying the Universe]], [[Consciousness: Materialism vs Dualism vs Idealism (358)|What is Consciousness?]], [[Speaking to Mediums in Languages (358)|Speaking to Mediums]], [[Swindler's list: Hearing aids (358)|Swindler's List: Hearing Aids]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 357
|date = May 19
|desc = Chris Lewicki, Guest Rogue: Phil Plait, Head Cabinet, Ghost Box, Mayan Calendar, Electricity from Viruses, UK LIbel Law Update, Corrections, Supermoon
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 356
|date = May 12
|desc = Dinosaur Farts, Aura Reading, 48 Frames per Second, Baby Powder, Killing Bigfoot, TAM2012
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 355
|date = May 5
|desc = Guest Rogues: Seth Shostak and James Randi, First American in Space, SGU 7 Year Anniversary, Rogue Planets, Machine Monkey Interface, Finding ET with Robots, God Spot in the Brain, SETI Update, Live Q&A: The Coming Singularity
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 354
|date = Apr 28
|desc = Live at NECSS 2012 with Guest James Randi, [[Pedantic Words (354)|Pedantic Words]], [[Sports pseudoscience and superstition (354)|Sports Pseudoscience ]], [[Nuking Asteroids (354)|Nuking Asteroids]], [[Splotch Ness Monster (354)|Loch Ness Monster Spotted]], [[IceCube Neutrino Detector (354)|Cosmic Rays]], [[Quickie with Bob: Space Shuttle Enterprise (354)|Space Shuttle Enterprise]], [[SGU_Episode_354#SGU_Video_.2851:27.29|SGU Video]], [[SGU_Episode_354#Remembering_Perry_.281:01:47.29|Remembering Perry]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 353
|date = Apr 21
|desc = The Surgeons Photo, Life on Mars, Indian Skeptic Charged with Blasphemy, Multitasking, Monkeys Recognize Words, Cosmic Superwinds, Titanic Correction, Advanced Dinosaurs
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 352
|date = Apr 14
|desc = Titanic Disaster, Blow Up Space Junk, Aristolochia Nephropathy, Homophobia, Toilet Water, Monkey Bill Update, Grover's Algorithm, Gulf of Cambay Ruins
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 351
|date = Apr 7
|desc = Gripp (Marshall Gillson), World Health Day, Smart Sand, Enclothed Cognition, Death by Homeopathy, Small Scale, Rhino Horn
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 350
|date = Mar 31
|desc = James Randi, Patenting Life, Tennessee Anti-Evolution Bill, Origin of the Moon, Mystery Cloud on Mars, Newage Mountain
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 349
|date = Mar 24
|desc = Exxon Valdez, Superhero Pseudoscience, High Altitude Skydiving, Nuclear Clock, New Hampshire Abortion Bill, NDE and Lucid Dreaming, Designer Electrons, Here Comes the Metric System
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 348
|date = Mar 17
|desc = Guest Rogue: Richard Saunders, Vanguard I, Oldest Skeleton, Red Deer Cave People, Neutrino Communication, Defending Science in Australia, Failure to Replicate Bem's Psi Research, Catching up on Vaccines
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 347
|date = Mar 10
|desc = Scott Sigler, Megalonyx, Robot Cheetah, Kony 2012, Neuroprosthetics, Therapeutic Tattoos
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 346
|date = Mar 3
|desc = Gordon Maupin, Leap Year, Iceman Genome, FTL Neutrino Follow Up, More on Anti-Climategate, Drug Testing, Your Deceptive Brain
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 345
|date = Feb 25
|desc = Fraser Cain and Pamela Gaye, Tiny Lizards, Missing Dark Matter, Anti-Climate Gate, Nanoparticle Safety
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 344
|date = Feb 18
|desc = The Science of Pony Tails, Online Surveys, Structural Batteries, QWB:Alien Matter,s: Evolution Falsifiable, Headgear
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 343
|date = Feb 11
|desc = 3D Printing, Morgellons Update, State Science Standards, Lake Vostok, Hard Drive Breakthrough, Special Report: Ouija Boards
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 342
|date = Feb 4
|desc = Derek Bartholomaus, Speed Limit for Birds, Reading Brain Waves, Conspiracy Contradictions, Scorpion Inspired Armor
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 341
|date = Jan 28
|desc = Sean Carroll, Stem Cells for Blindness, Chiropractic Neurology, Mass Psychogenic Illness, Sounds in the Sky
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 340
|date = Jan 21
|desc = Eugenie Scott, NECSS 2012, Photographic Black Holes, SOPA-PIPA, Homeopathic Burn Treatment, Ice Forms
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 339
|date = Jan 14
|desc = Tricorder X-prize, Sheldrake on Presentiment, Physics Cranks, Witchhunter Comes to US
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 338
|date = Jan 7
|desc = Martin Rundkvist, Psychic Predictions 2011, Hacker Satellite, Testing Violins, QWB:Lost World of Antarctica
|status = verified
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2011
|range = (episodes 286-337)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 337
|date = Dec 31
|desc = SGU 2011 Year in Review, Guest Mike Lacelle, Best and Worst of 2011
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 336
|date = Dec 24
|desc = Guests: George Hrab and Jamy Ian Swiss, Christopher Hitchens In Memoriam, Mammoth Bone Homes, Trillion Frames per Second, Neti Pot Dangers, Special Report: Randomness
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 335
|date = Dec 17
|desc = Pro-Measles Children's Book, Higgs Update, Mercury UFO, Hallucinating Color, Menstrual Syncing, Swindler's List: Online Dating
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 334
|date = Dec 10
|desc = Lawrence Krauss, Trudeau Fine Upheld, Planetary Probes, Cloning a Mammoth, Kepler 22b, Corrections
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 333
|date = Dec 3
|desc = James Randi, Detecting Digital Manipulation, Curiosity Heads to Mars, Creationist Bill Defeated in NH, Scorpios Need Not Apply, Jetpack Flies with Jets, Special Report: Burzynski Clinic Intimidates Bloggers - Rhys Morgan, Tomato Juice Color
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 332
|date = Nov 26
|desc = JFK Assassination, Power Balance Bankruptcy, FTL Neutrino Follow Up, Does Water Prevent Dehydration, Food Color and Taste, SILLY Bias in Scientific Reviews
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 331
|date = Nov 19
|desc = Neil deGrasse Tyson, Moon's Magnetic Field, Europa's Ice Surface, False Confessions, BMJ Poe, Catholic Pox Parties
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 330
|date = Nov 12
|desc = Stroke Turns Man Gay, Asteroid YU55, Pox Parties, US Government Denies UFOs, Man Confuses Moon for UFO, NASA's Orion Program, Intercessory Prayer
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 329
|date = Nov 5
|desc = Climate Change Confirmation, Steve Job's Cancer, New GPS, Pre-Clovis Find, Brush Before or After
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 328
|date = Oct 29
|desc = [[Banachek interview: $1m challenge & Nightline (328)|Banachek interview]], [[MIT radar "sees" through walls (328)|Seeing Through Walls]], [[Malaria vaccine: 'Mosquirex' (RSS,S) (328)|Malaria Vaccine]], [[Luckiest cities - Men's Health magazine (328)|Luckiest Cities]], [[Very Large Array telescope: Call for new name (328)|New Name for VLA]], [[Harold Camping: Another failed prophecy (328)|Another Failed Prediction]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 327
|date = Oct 22
|desc = Richard Wiseman, Jay Report from Italy, Faster Than Light Neutrinos, Reiki Doesn't Work, Ending Genital Cutting, Camping Prophesy Update
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 326
|date = Oct 15
|desc = Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde, Vitamins and Mortality, Megavirus, NDEs, More UFOs, Electrosense, Airborne Petition
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 325
|date = Oct 8
|desc = Steve Jobs Dies, Nobel Prizes 2011 for Physics, Medicine, and Chemistry, IgNobels for 2011
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 324
|date = Oct 1
|desc = Highlights from the SGU 24 Live Streaming event, Australian Skeptics: Richard Saunders, Dr. Rachie Dunlop, Jo Benhamu, Grail Craft Launch, A. sediba, Adaptation and Orgasm, Special Report: Siphonomores, Top 10 Future Technologies
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 323
|date = Sep 24
|desc = Guests: George Hrab and Brian Brushwood, Single Molecule Electric Motor, Registering Atheists, Special Report: Nature vs Nurture
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 322
|date = Sep 17
|desc = Sara Mayhew, New Items: Chinese Scientists Plan to Capture Asteroid, Acupuncture and Acoustic Waves
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 321
|date = Sep 10
|desc = Live at DragonCon 2011, 9-11 Comic, Diamond Planet, Homeopathic Water, Woolly Rhino, Editor Resigns of Global Warming Paper, Live Q&A
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 320
|date = Aug 29
|desc = Jad Abumrad, Hurricane Irene, ISS Threatened, LHC and Super Symmetry, Alien Signals, Tin Foil, Skeptical Shout-Out
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 319
|date = Aug 24
|desc = Virginia Earthquake, Brand Loyalty, Tin Foil and RFID, Swindler's List: Functional Medicine
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 318
|date = Aug 17
|desc = Paul Provenza, Non-Growing Earth, Boiron Threatens Blogger, Woman Romance and Science, Space X Going to the Space Station, More on Helium
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 317
|date = Aug 10
|desc = Anti-Matter in Space, 3D Brain Mapping, Time Shift, 4-Time Lottery Winner, Robert Johnson
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 316
|date = Aug 3
|desc = Elizabeth Loftus, This Day in Skepticism - Life on Mars, The 27 Club, Blood-Red Lake, Earth Trojan Asteroid, Radioactive Heat, If It Can't Be Measured
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 315
|date = Jul 27
|desc = Bill Nye, Skeptical Conferences, Victory for Evolution in Texas, New Moon for Pluto, Life in the Universe, Connecticut Chupacabra
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 314
|date = Jul 20
|desc = Live at TAM9, Comet Elenin, Forces of Darkness, Science Proves the Bible (Not), Last Shuttle Launch, Pastafarian Headgear, Organic Water, Graphene Water Battery, Youngest Dinosaur Fossil, Live Q&A: Skeptical Wins, 24 Hr Live SGU Show, Reconciling Faith an
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 313
|date = Jul 13
|desc = Matthew Chapman, Hypnotized to Death, Color of Extinct Birds, Magnetic Microprocessors, Twintuition, Creationist Arguments
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 312
|date = Jul 5
|desc = Classifying Galaxies, More Pareidolia, Easter Island Elixir, Driverless Cars, Elevatorgate
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 311
|date = Jun 29
|desc = Eugenie Scott, Tau Day, Body Temperature of Dinosaurs Measured, Magnets and Blood Flow, Guru in Sweat Lodge Death Convicted, Close Call for the Space Station
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 310
|date = Jun 22
|desc = Guest Rogue: Michael Waterhouse, We Are All Mutants, Human Gecko, Creationists Infiltrate Geology Meeting, Battery Man
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 309
|date = Jun 13
|desc = Two New Elements, The Decline Effect, Zicam Inventor Arrested, Lasers from Human Cells, Mood Ears, The Enemy Within
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 308
|date = Jun 8
|desc = Guest: Phil Plait, SGU-24, Psychic Tip, Explosion on Sun, Moon Origin, UFO Nazis
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 307
|date = May 31
|desc = Jamie Bernstein, Predicting Earthquakes, Mapping the Brain, Implanting Memories
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 306
|date = May 25
|desc = Rapture Rationalizations, Fake Moon Rock, Dark Energy Confirmed, Religious Right vs Women's Rights, Preparing for a Zombie Apocalypse, Banning Marmite
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 305
|date = May 18
|desc = James Randi, Rapture, Another Cancer Cure, Gut Bacteria and Behavior, Habitable Exoplanet, Higgs False Alarm, Swindlers List: Bidsell
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 304
|date = May 9
|desc = Jon Ronson, Einstein Right Again, Mark Geier's License Suspended, Moon Microbe Mystery, Steytlerville Monster, Yap Money
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 303
|date = May 4
|desc = This Day in Science and Skepticism, Six years of SGU, Easter Island Controversy,Bin Laden Conspiracies
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 302
|date = Apr 27
|desc = Seth Shostak, A Skeptic in Oz, More Creationism in Texas, Higgs Rumor
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 301
|date = Apr 20
|desc = Guest Rogue: Iszi Lawrence, Hottel UFO Document, New Method to find Exoplanets, Plans for NASA Shuttles, Power Balance Lawsuit, Nails of Christ
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 300
|date = Apr 9
|desc = Live at NECSS 2011, Guest Rogue: John Rennie, Gayveman, Cosmic Engineering, Homeopathy for Radiation and Vertigo, Evidence and Radiation Risk, You Know You're a Skeptic If, Live Q&A: Time Travel, Fecal Transplants, Skeptical Obligation
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 299
|date = Apr 4
|desc = The Mercury 7, Pioneer Anomaly Solved, Pigasus Awards, Wakefield and Somalis, Boy Genius, Thorium Reactors
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 298
|date = Mar 30
|desc = Kenny Feder, Colorado UFO, Breaking Heisenberg, Dinosaur Petroglyph, Dinosaur Taxonomy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 297
|date = Mar 24
|desc = Hale Bop Cult, Meier Earthquake Non-prediction, Swarm Robots, Sexual Preference, Pre-biotic Chemistry, Science fact vs fiction, Radiation Hormesis, Overunity, Fecal Transplants
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 296
|date = Mar 16
|desc = Mark Mervine, Japan Earthquake, Time Traveling Particle, Finding Atlantis, TAM9 From Outer Space, Corrections - Magellan and DNA Computing, Ambit Energy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 295
|date = Mar 9
|desc = Ben Radford, Meteorite Bacteria, Biological Computers, Super Full Moon, Imam Retracts Support for Evolution, Definition of Skeptic
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 294
|date = Mar 2
|desc = Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, Limelight, Predicting Earthquakes, Growing Fuel, Neutron Star Superflluidity, Heidi Follow up, Information Follow up, 10,000 Years in the Future
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 293
|date = Feb 23
|desc = Guest Rogue: Joshie Berger, Galileo Censored, Internet Kill Switch, Japan to Trawl for Space Junk, Watson on Jeopardy!, Lie to Me, Lost Information
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 292
|date = Feb 16
|desc = Kevin Folta, Jovian in the Outer Solar System, Haunted Theme Park Ride, Heidi the Cross-eyed Psychic Opossum, Product Reviews
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 291
|date = Feb 9
|desc = Jeff Ainslee, Processed Food and IQ, Bacterial Intelligence, Skin Cell Spray Gun, Treating Trauma with Herbs, Jerusalem UFO
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 290
|date = Jan 31
|desc = Guest Rogue: Dr. Ray Greek - The Science of Animal Models, Homeopathy Pseudoscience, Teachers Cautious about Evolution, Countering Fallacies
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 289
|date = Jan 26
|desc = Jack LaLanne dies at 96, Cold Fusion Again, The Cochrane Review of Statins, Astrologists Angered, More on Education, Alien DNA
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 288
|date = Jan 19
|desc = No Ghosts in my Backyard, Simulating Earth, Reaction to Bem's Psi Research, Engineered Chickens, Cloning Mammoths, Sun as Battery, Land Sharks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 287
|date = Jan 12
|desc = Guest Rogue: Phil Plait, Molten Exoplanet, BMJ Slams Wakefield, Creationist Teacher Fired, Galactic Black Holes, Nassim Haramein
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 286
|date = Jan 5
|desc = Predictions 2010 and 2011, Mysterious Bird Deaths, Predictions from 1931, Mars News in 2010, Apocalypse 2011, Printing Solar Cells, Thomas Kuhn
|status = skeleton
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2010
|range = (episodes 232-285)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 285
|date = Dec 29
|desc = 2010 Year in Review, Best and Worst of 2010, In Memoriam, SGU Stats
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 284
|date = Dec 22
|desc = Arsenic-Based Life, Buttology, V-Steam, Singing Mice, The Real daVinci Code, Special Report: Power Bands with James Randi and the SkepticBros
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 283
|date = Dec 15
|desc = Dan Gardner, Piltdown Anniversary, Hydrogen Production, Voyager Leaves Solar System, Slushball Earth, Alien Plants vs Animals
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 282
|date = Dec 8
|desc = Live in Sydney Australia, New Crystal Skull, Roger Penrose Before the Big Bang, Chimps Outwit Human Traps, Anti-Antivax Activism, Special Report: Masonic Conspiracy Theories, Live Q&A: Scientists Baffled, Size of Quantum Effects, Sympathectomy, Future of
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 281
|date = Dec 1
|desc = Live in Vancouver with Guest: George Hrab, SETI 50th Anniversary, Antimatter Breakthrough, Nanoparticles and Glowing Trees, Oprah Promotes Psychic Surgeon, Latest PSI Research, Bending Time and Space, Live Q&A: Neurology of Belief, Coincidence, Multi-Leve
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 280
|date = Nov 24
|desc = Guest: Richard Saunders, Eken Power Bands, Frozen Stiff, Cockroach Brains, Deal or No Deal, : Argument from Silence, Special Topic: Religious Skeptics
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 279
|date = Nov 15
|desc = D.J. Grothe, NASA Discovers Mysterious Bubbles, Exploiting "Psychic" Kids, More Homeopathy Spin, Lunar Weather Predicting, Caffeine and Sperm Count
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 278
|date = Nov 10
|desc = Carl Sagan Day, Mystery Missile, LHC Big Bang, The Twinkie Diet, Hamburger Experiments Redux, Spinning Spaceship, Ear Light
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 277
|date = Nov 3
|desc = Jamy Ian Swiss, Psychic Cat, 100 Year Starship Project, Cure for Common Cold, Life on the Moon, Alien Ballot Defeated, Banana Ripening
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 276
|date = Oct 27
|desc = Ghosts Calling Cellphones, Hawking Radiation, More On Radioactive Decay Rates, The Science of Medicine, NECSS 2011, Physics.org Award Nomination, Time Traveling Cell Phone User, SGU Forums Moderators
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 275
|date = Oct 19
|desc = Guest Rogue: Brian Trent, Benoit Mandlebrot 1924-2010, Stem Cell Funding, Do Mummies Get Cancer, Asteroids Buzz Earth, Whale Poop Correction, T-Rex Blood Cells, Help - My Friend is a Pseudoscientist
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 274
|date = Oct 13
|desc = Ben Goldacre, Dark Matter Strangeness, Vaccine Case in Supreme Court, Gliese 581g Follow Up, Magic Burgers
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 273
|date = Oct 6
|desc = 2010 Nobel Prizes in Medicine, Chemistry and Physics, 2010 IgNobels, Diesel from a Stone, Mass and Gravity, Science Education, Laughing Hyenas
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 272
|date = Sep 30
|desc = Bug Girl, New Moonlanding Footage, UN Alien Ambassador, Poor Science Education, New Force of Nature?, Goldilocks Planet
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 271
|date = Sep 22
|desc = Simon Singh, Losing Your Religion, The Man Who Fell to Earth, Dirty Electricity, Origins of Moons, Halfalogue
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 270
|date = Sep 15
|desc = Ben Radford, Joe Nickell, and Karen Stollznow, Modern Geocentrism, Irish Minister of Science Scandal, Robot Skin, No Link between Thimerosal and Autism, Canadian Government Muzzles Scientists, Crop Circle Sting
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 269
|date = Sep 8
|desc = Carol Tavris, Stephen Hawking on God, Magnetic Mom, Organic Strawberries, Burning the Quran, Pyschic Incites Mob
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 268
|date = Sep 1
|desc = Donald Prothero, Thorium Power, Impacts and Extinction, Spontaneous Combustion, Enfield Poltergeist, Ghost Train, Mitochondrial Eve Follow Up
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 267
|date = Aug 25
|desc = Guest Rogue: Phil Plait, Phil Plait's Bad Universe, Solar Flares and Radioactive Decay, Competition in Evolution, The Science of Zombies, Kurzweil Responds to Myers, Kaku on UFOs
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 266
|date = Aug 19
|desc = Bruce Hood, Banning Wi-Fi, Psychic Finds Wrong Body, Kurzweil on Brain Complexity, Magnetars and Black Holes
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 265
|date = Aug 11
|desc = Aubrey de Grey, Evolving Simulated Intelligence, Proximal Intercessory Prayer, Bermuda Triangle Solved, Booty Enhancement Spell, Censoring Skepticism featuring Rhys Morgan
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 264
|date = Aug 4
|desc = DIY Genetic Testing, Coronal Mass Ejection, More Evidence for Warming, Analyzing the Future, Misfortune Teller, More on Dieting
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 263
|date = Jul 29
|desc = Jim Underdown, Homeopathy in the UK, Cosmology with no Big Bang, Ghost Ship, Meat and Weight Control, Biodynamic Farming, Orgel's Laws
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 262
|date = Jul 21
|desc = Randi & Banachek, Report from TAM8, Monster Star, Anti-Vax in Oz, Kabbalah Bracelet, Monkey Fossil, Monkeys in the Pants, Libel Tourism Bill
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 261
|date = Jul 10
|desc = Live at TAM8, Roswell Remembered, Nuclear Explosion in Space, Pepsigate, Energy Vampires, Gravitons and Black Holes, Obesity and Inactivity, Climategate Update, Planck Image of the Universe, Live Q&A: NESS Activities, Do Skeptics Ever Win?, Positive Attit
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 260
|date = Jun 30
|desc = Guest Rogue: George Hrab, Fin to Limb Evolution, Pat Boone on Laws of Physics, Ice Patch Archaeology, Stephen Barrett Sued, Flag Worship
|status = incomplete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 259
|date = Jun 28
|desc = Whooping Cough Epidemic, Whaling Film Questioned, Superconductor Roadblock, Call to Ban Homeopathy, Orbital Periods, Sunscreen
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 258
|date = Jun 16
|desc = Sanal Edamaruku, Growing Livers, Immortal Jelly, Gay Clinic, Space Storm Warning
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 257
|date = Jun 14
|desc = Hayabusa Returns, Einstein's Brain, Largest Radio Telescope Array, Amityville Horror House for Sale, Cursed Cell Phone Number, Soy, Magic Bee Juice
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 256
|date = Jun 9
|desc = Steve Matheson, Life on Titan, Vulture Threatened by Pseudoscience, WHO and H1N1, Orbit of Phobos
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 255
|date = Jun 2
|desc = Guests: Fraser Cain and Pamela Gay, X-37b Space Plane, Synthetic Bacteria, Hollow Phobos, Acupuncture Mechanism?, Guatemala Sinkhole, Salt Substitute
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 254
|date = May 26
|desc = James Randi about Martin Gardner, Energy of Early Life, End for Mars Phoenix Lander and Atlantis, Vaccine Safety, Accepting Science, Exonerated by Acupuncture
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 253
|date = May 19
|desc = Cell Phone Cancer Update, Why Does Matter Exist, Applied Kinesiology, BMA Trashes Homeopathy, Early Bird Feathers, Ball Lightening, Pesticides and ADHD
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 252
|date = May 12
|desc = Guest: Massimo Pigliucci, Nonsense on Stilts, Definition of Siphon, Neanderthal Interbreeding, Evolution in Alabama Politics, Science of Morality
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 251
|date = May 5
|desc = 5 Years of SGU, Zettabytes, Prayer and Critical Thinking, Oil Spill Conspiracy, Life on Mars - Not, How to Build a Time Machine, Man Claims 70 Years Without Food or Water, Corrections, Croatian Girl Follow up
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 250
|date = Apr 28
|desc = Dr. Dean Edell, 20 Years of Hubble, Nanodots, Boobquake, Stephen Hawking on Aliens, Noah's Ark, Intelligence and Science
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 249
|date = Apr 17
|desc = Live at NECSS 2010, Guest: James Randi, Items: Volcano in Iceland, Near Death Experiences, Sound Bullets, Injured by Price Scanner, Singh Libel Suit dropped, Two Moms and a Dad, Girl Speaks German After Coma, Live Q&A
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 248
|date = Apr 13
|desc = Seth Shostak, Apollo 13, Water on Mars, Bioprinting, Scientific Literacy in the US, Dawkins vs The Pope, Colour Therapy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 247
|date = Apr 7
|desc = Area 51 Declassified, Ununseptium, SBM visits NCCAM, Copper Magnetic Jesus Bracelet, Human Population, Dutch Psychic Follow up, : The Genetic Fallacy
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 246
|date = Mar 31
|desc = Guest: Eugenie Scott, Update from the NCSE, Fighting Cancer with Nanoparticles, Prison Psychics, Changing Morality with Magnets, Skeptics and Atheists
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 245
|date = Mar 25
|desc = George Hrab, Rise of the Dinosaurs, Woman X, Starchild Update, Evangelical Listeners
|status = incomplete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 244
|date = Mar 18
|desc = Greg Grunberg, When Homeopaths Attack, Texas Textbook Hubbub, Bacterial Fingerprint, Chief Exorcist, Biggest Quantum State, Power Balance
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 243
|date = Mar 11
|desc = Jenny on Huffpo, Autistic Pets, See-through Pain, Homeschooling and Evolution, Here's Your Jetpack, Spirits in a Bottle, Richter Scale, Raining Fish Follow Up, Inner Space
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 242
|date = Mar 3
|desc = Guest: James Randi, Chile Earthquake, Darwinius Revisited, Raining Fish, Acupuncture for Depression, Haunted Hotels, Contrarion vs Skeptic, Personality Tests
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 241
|date = Feb 24
|desc = Daniel Wilson, Homeopathy Smackdown in UK, What Darwin Got Wrong, The Bloom Box, Geller Aids Cops
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 240
|date = Feb 17
|desc = Rom Houben Update, Solar Energy Breakthrough, Psychic Killed, Gas from Carbon, Thomas Paine, Knocked Out
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 239
|date = Feb 10
|desc = Guest: Brian Dunning, Enceladus Update, Synthetic Organisms, Spray On Glass, Gasoline from Carbon, Oral Conception, : False Analogy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 238
|date = Feb 3
|desc = Simon Conway Morris, Fusion Breakthrough, Andrew Wakefield Rebuked, Return of Death Cat, Lady Gaga Illuminati
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 237
|date = Jan 27
|desc = Guest: Daniel Loxton, Book Release: Evolution, Dowsing for Bombs, Alien Life on Earth, Ginger Dinosaurs, I have Lizards in my Pants, Addiction
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 236
|date = Jan 20
|desc = Jon Rosenberg, Dead Bodies, Blond Warrior Princesses, Trees on Mars, Correactology, Ayn Rand
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 235
|date = Jan 13
|desc = Guest: Richard Saunders, TAM Australia, Tetrapod Footprints, Airport Security - with Bruce Schneier, Nearby Supernova, Cancer Miracle, Evil Skeptics
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 234
|date = Nov 15
|desc = Special Report: H1N1 Flu Pandemic Update - With Steven Novella, David Gorski, Mark Crislip and Joe Albietz
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 233
|date = Jan 6
|desc = D. J. Grothe, Predictions for 2009 and 2010, The G-Spot Controversy, New Stellar Companion, Brain Capacity
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 232
|date = Jan 1
|desc = 2009 Year in Review - with Guests Phil Plait and Mike Lacelle, SGU and Science News of 2009, Science and Skepticism in the Last Decade,Stats, SGU in 2010
|status = complete
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2009
|range = (episodes 181-231)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 231
|date = Dec 21
|desc = Michael Specter, Dark Matter WIMPS, Synaesthesia, The Future of Skepticism, LHC Risk with Brian Cox
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 230
|date = Dec 16
|desc = Steorn Still At It, Computer-Brain Interface, Ancient Ruins in the Caribbean, Octopus Coconuts, Homeopathic Suicide, Holodeck Food, Special Report: Coalition for Libel Reform
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 229
|date = Dec 9
|desc = Guest Phil Plait: Denver Aliens, Bird Speciation, Blinded by Faith, Spiral over Norway, Uranus Tilt, Methane on Mars, Homeopathy Ads
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 228
|date = Dec 2
|desc = Steven Thoms, Age of Autism Scandal, Porkenstein, Fat Murder Hoax, ClimateGate Feedback
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 227
|date = Nov 25
|desc = LHC Online, Coma and Facilitated Communication, ClimateGate, CrocoDuck, Speaking in Tongues
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 226
|date = Nov 18
|desc = Kenny Feder, New Mammography Guidelines, Water on the Moon, Dark Flow, Lee Harvey Oswald Photo, Movie Reviews
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 225
|date = Nov 11
|desc = Psychic Finds Skeleton, Dystonia Flu Shot Follow Up, More LRO Images, Paying for Prayer, Wave Particle Duality, JREF Announcements, TAM London with Simon Singh, Jon Ronson, and Adam Savage
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 224
|date = Nov 4
|desc = Carl Sagan Day, Nutt Job, Dystonia after Flu Shot, Spontaneous Human Combustion Case, Michael Goldstein: starting local skeptical groups, Rebecca at TAM London with Phil Plait, Chris French, and Christina Martin
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 223
|date = Oct 28
|desc = Swine Flu Scams, Hulda Clark Died of Cancer, The Physics of Homeopathy, Scientology Trouble, Suzanne Somers Cancer Quackery, Size of the Universe (With Guest - Pamela Gay), Mad Scientists, Suspended Animation
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 222
|date = Oct 21
|desc = James Randi, LHC Future Attack, Magnetic and Copper Bracelets, Balloon Boy, Lunar Plume Update, Giant Spider, Special Report: Rebecca from Bangkok
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 221
|date = Oct 14
|desc = Jack Horner, NASA Shoots the Moon, Saturn's Rings, Hypno Cat, Simon Singh Update, Plasma Rocket, This Man
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 220
|date = Oct 7
|desc = Daniel Hooper, Premanand In Memoriam, Nobel Prizes 2009, Ardipithecus Ramidis, Autism Prevalence, Brian Cox
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 219
|date = Sep 28
|desc = Mark Edward, Premanand Statement, Dinosaur News, Nanotube Springs, Cameron and Comfort on Darwin, Couple Jailed over Homeopathy Death, Spiritual Advice, Life Signs, Speed of Light
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 218
|date = Sep 23
|desc = Michael Vassar, Raptor Rex, Bill Maher Antiscience, Panama Monster
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 217
|date = Sep 12
|desc = Live at NECSS with Guest Richard Wiseman, Charlie Sheen 911 Truther, Quantum Amnesia, Hulda Clark Dead, Gonzalez Therapy Fail, What's in Your Wallet, Exomoons, Great Tits Eat Bats, Special Report: The Yale Study, Live QA
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 216
|date = Sep 9
|desc = Live at DragonCon 2009, Google UFO, Mongolian Death Worm, Chupacabra in Texas, Magnetic Monopole, Live Q&A
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 215
|date = Sep 1
|desc = Adam Savage, Multitasking, Methane Fog on Titan, Google Nessie, Evolving Mice, Appendix, iPhone Crap App
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 214
|date = Aug 25
|desc = Jamy Ian Swiss, Surviving a Cataclysm, Zombie Apocalypse, WHO Says No to Homeopathy,Itako Fading, Dinochicken
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 213
|date = Aug 18
|desc = Battery Update, Super Planetary Nebulae, Adopt a Star, UFO Spikes, Aquatic Ape, Caffeine Tolerance
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 212
|date = Aug 12
|desc = Michael Goudeau, Kepler Goes Online, Methane on Mars, MS Breakthrough, Placebo Medicine, Birthers, : Homeopathy Nonsense
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 211
|date = Aug 4
|desc = Skepchick Carrie Iwan, Teeth from Stem Cells, Stem Cell Clinic Raid, Laser Propulsion, Update on Simon Singh, Origin of Matter, 4-minute Interval Training
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 210
|date = Jul 29
|desc = Jennifer Ouellette, Oldest Animal Fossils, New State of Matter, FDA Say Mercury Amalgam Safe, Past Life Hypnotism, Stressful Sweat
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 209
|date = Jul 22
|desc = DJ Grothe, 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11, Copernicium, Thomas Jefferson and Evolution, Dowsing
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 208
|date = Jul 11
|desc = Live at TAM 7, Microbot Plumbers, Archeological Dig, Sunspots Return, Blogs vs Journalists, Genie Sued, Live Q&A, Rebecca's Wedding
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 207
|date = Jul 1
|desc = Phil Plait, Steorn Fail, BCA Responds to Singh, Salt Water in Enceladus, Uranium on the Moon, Apollo 11 Video, Impact Bad Astronomy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 206
|date = Jun 18
|desc = Richard Prum, Ancient Lakes on Mars, Smoke Ring UFO, FDA Zicam Warning, Missing Sun Spots
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 205
|date = Jun 16
|desc = Brian Brushwood, Junior Supernova, Boy Hit By Meteor, A New Heuristic, Planetary Life
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 204
|date = Jun 11
|desc = Richard Wiseman, Negative CAM Research, Chiropractors In Retreat, Quantum Mechanics, Flu Pandemic Update, Youngest Skeptic, Prescient Genes
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 203
|date = Jun 9
|desc = Bruce Hood, Crop Circles 2009, Chronic Lyme Disease, Casino Feng Shui, UFO follow up, Liver Flush for Gallstones
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 202
|date = Jun 3
|desc = Simon Singh, Newsweek vs Oprah, Volcanic Extinction, UFO News, Texas Update, Evangelical Skeptics, Begging the Question
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 201
|date = May 27
|desc = Phil Plait, Whooping Cough Increase, Scientology on Trial, RNA World, Rook Tool Use, Northeast Skeptical Conference, Polonium Halos
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 200
|date = May 20
|desc = SGU 200th Episode, Missing Link Ida, GPS Failure, Stem Cell Quackery in China, Candiru, If I Had a Million Dollars
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 199
|date = May 13
|desc = Rusty Schweickart, Simon Singh's Lawsuit, Ultradense Deuterium, Acupuncture Science, Last Fix for Hubble
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 198
|date = May 7
|desc = Rachael Dunlop, Four Years of SGU, Oprah Signs Jenny McCarthy, Dark Matter, Six Degrees of Separation, Homeopathy Death, I Have Birds in my Pants
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 197
|date = Apr 30
|desc = Mark Crislip, Hidden Photons, Walking Seal, NASA and the Moon, Baby Chupacabras, Hoagland on Iapetus
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 196
|date = Apr 22
|desc = Seth Shostak, Cassini Pictures, Smallest Exoplanet, Huffington Post Pseudoscience, Personal Attacks from Age of Autism, Kelloggs Settles FTC Suit
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 195
|date = Apr 15
|desc = John Maddox Dies, The Hand of God, Flying Microbots, Darwin Awards, Homeopathy Nonsense, Belief in Ghosts,s: Corrections, Induction in Science, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 194
|date = Apr 8
|desc = Daniel Loxton, Dennis Lee Strikes Again, Computers That Do Science, Home Energy Scam
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 193
|date = Apr 1
|desc = Paul Murray, Mind Controlled Robot, Giant Protozoan, More Jenny McCarthy Nonsense
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 192
|date = Mar 25
|desc = Cold Fusion Again, Evolution Education in Texas, Synthetic Blood,s: Richard Saunders Open Letter to Pharmacists, Quantum Jumping, Super Chimney, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 191
|date = Mar 18
|desc = Phil Plait, Pope on HIV and Condoms, 20th Anniversary of the World Wide Web, Canada Science Minister and Evolution
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 190
|date = Mar 12
|desc = Kenneth Miller, Stem Cell Ban Lifted, When Chimps Attack, Mellow Yellow, Prince Charles Snake Oil
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 189
|date = Mar 4
|desc = Kenny Feder - Clovis Find, Vaccine Decision, Designer Babies, Riversnake Update, TAM7 Info
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 188
|date = Feb 26
|desc = Virtual Snowflakes, Evolution of Sex, Revenge of Titanoboa, Google Atlantis, Catboy, Missing Moon, Moon and Sun, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 187
|date = Feb 11
|desc = Angie McQuaig, The Pose and Darwin, Ben Goldacre vs the Media, Healing Laser, Starseeds, the eHolster, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 186
|date = Feb 9
|desc = Jon Ronson, Wakefield Fraud, Wearable Computer, Amish Fireplace, LHC Delay, Blood Type Follow Up, China Spacewalk Hoax
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 185
|date = Feb 4
|desc = Massimo Pigliucci, New Items: Singularity University, Mammoth Extinction, Smallest Exoplanet,Blood Type Pseudoscience, Scientific Predictions
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 184
|date = Jan 28
|desc = Tim Minchin, Mercury In Our Food, Vaccine Controversy Updates, Evolution - Lizards and Fire Ants, Obama UFO
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 183
|date = Jan 21
|desc = Alice Tuff, The Holographic Universe, Science Education in Texas and Louisiana, Pheromones, Dyslexia, Randi: Not in a Name
|status = incomplete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 182
|date = Jan 15
|desc = Michio Kaku, Methane on Mars, Solar Storms, Mega MRI, Young Skeptics
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 181
|date = Jan 7
|desc = Psychic Predictions 2008, True Love, Jett Travolta, Christine Maggiorie, Detox Fail, Weblog Awards 2008, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2008
|range = (episodes 128-180)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 180
|date = Dec 30
|desc = 2008 SGU Year in Review: Best Skeptics, Worst Promoters of Woo, Coolest Science News, Funniest Moments, Favorite E-mails, and SGU Stats
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 179
|date = Dec 23
|desc = Jeremy Pivens Mercury Toxicity, Death by CAM, da Vinci Sketches Discovered, Medium Experiments Follow up, ET Life, Winter Myths
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 178
|date = Dec 16
|desc = Richard Wiseman, Reading Minds, Burglar Trapped by Ghost The Bloop, Evolution Questions
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 177
|date = Dec 10
|desc = Age of the Sphinx with Dr. James P Allen, Supernova Reflections and Milky Way's Black Hole with Phil Plait, Searching for Dyson Spheres, Skeptical Authority, Randi: Cold Reading
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 176
|date = Dec 3
|desc = Early Earth, Turtle Missing Link, Search for the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, Power from Sound, DNA from Hair, Magic Water, Starting a Skeptics Group, Carbon Footprint
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 175
|date = Nov 20
|desc = Steven Schafersman, Kevin Trudeau Smackdown, Placebo Acupuncture, NASA Recycles Urine, Reflexology in UK Schools, Flu Vaccine, NESS in Video Game
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 174
|date = Nov 18
|desc = Exoplanet Pictures, Neuroscience of Telepathy, Jonestown Massacre, Science Attitudes, More Info on Sperm Donation, Sleepwalking, Global Warming
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 173
|date = Nov 12
|desc = Paul Offit, Junk DNA, Mini Nuclear Reactor, Chandrayaan-1 Update, Phoenix Ends, Child Witches
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 172
|date = Nov 5
|desc = Greydon Square, Michael Crichton In Memoriam, Portable Space Shield, Oil from Fungus, Due Diligence, Randi: Wrong!
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 171
|date = Oct 29
|desc = Diana Blaney Vampire Moth, New Type of Planet, Artificial Heart, Polygraph for Debates, Science Debate 2008 Update
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 170
|date = Oct 22
|desc = Phil Plait Psychology of Superstition, Another Solar Breakthrough, UK UFO, Announcing SkepticBlog Blacklight Free Energy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 169
|date = Oct 11
|desc = Perry DeAngelis Memorial Live Podcast Guests: Steve Mirsky and Terrence Hines
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 168
|date = Oct 8
|desc = PZ Myers, 2008 Nobel Awards, Turing Test Darwin Quote, Cosmology
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 167
|date = Oct 1
|desc = Matthew Chapman Dust and Snow on Mars, PETA Nonsense, Calorie Restriction Diet LHC Update, Correlation and Causation, Emergent Intelligence, Neanderthal DNA
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 166
|date = Sep 24
|desc = Sharon Begley LHC Problems, Worthless Acupuncture Studies, Japan Space Elevator, Belief and Credulity Real versus Scientific
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 165
|date = Sep 17
|desc = Ben Goldacre Goldacre LIbel Victory, Stellar Mystery, Creationism in the UK Pharma Conspiracy Randi: The Media
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 164
|date = Sep 10
|desc = Ben Radford LHC Turned On, Elephant Math Bird Correction,Irradiated Food, Pseudoscience
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 163
|date = Sep 3
|desc = Live at DragonCon 2008 with Guests James Randi, Pamela Gay, and Derek Colanduno, The Milky Ways, Supermassive Blackhole, Live Q&A
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 162
|date = Aug 26
|desc = Richard Saunders WTC-7 Collapse, Neanderthal Tool Making, Rainbow Lady Follow Up Teleportation
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 161
|date = Aug 20
|desc = Adam Savage from Mythbusters,Remembering Perry, Monkey Eludes Dragnet, Bigfoot Body Hoax Revealed, Robot with Biological Brain, The Future of Doping,Special Report: JREF Psychic Challenge Report
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 160
|date = Aug 13
|desc = Captain Disillusion,Bigfoot Body Claim, Invisibility Cloak, Prince Charles on GM Food, Sprinkler Rainbow Lady
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 159
|date = Aug 6
|desc = Phil Plait and James Randi, James Doohan Ashes Lost, Solar Power Breakthrough, China Weather Control, The Montauk Monster, Where Does Matter Come From
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 158
|date = Jul 30
|desc = Banachek, Edgar Mitchell UFO Claims, UFOs and Terrorism, Gas from Garbage, House and the Therapeutic Diagnosis
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 157
|date = Jul 23
|desc = George Hrab, New Plutoid, Detox Danger, Amanda Peet Defends Vaccines, Barbara Walters Disses James Van Praagh, Allah Meat, Chaos Theory
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 156
|date = Jul 16
|desc = Neil deGrasse Tyson, Black Hole Hubbub, Its Just a Cracker, Tiktalik Nonsense, Micro Laser Surgery, Convincing Evidence
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 155
|date = Jul 9
|desc = James Randi, Einstein Right Again, Conservapedia Denies Evolution, Controversial Chelation Autism Study, Special Report: Roswell 61 Years Later
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 154
|date = Jul 2
|desc = Dr Dean Edell, Darwin-Wallace Anniversary, Tunguska Remembered, Creationst Bill Passes in Louisana, Nanowire Battery, SGU on Youtube, Collective Skeptics, Body Fruit, Randi: Speaker Cables
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 153
|date = Jun 21
|desc = Live at TAM6, Ice on Mars, Crop Circle Pi, Japanese Water Car, Psychic Alleges Sexual Abuse, FDA Crackdown, Spa Reflexology, Special Report-Brian Dunning Present Here Be Dragons Video, Live Q&A
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 152
|date = Jun 11
|desc = Bacteria Evolve, The 100mpg Car, Unicorn Deer, Fishing Monkeys, Plutoids, Albinos in Africa, Special Report-Crystal Skulls, Coincidence, Green Nanoparticles
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 151
|date = Jun 9
|desc = Jon Blumenfeld, NPR Psychics, Mars Lander Update, Petaflop Supercomputers, Optical Illusions, Casey Predictions
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 150
|date = Jun 4
|desc = Walter Isaacson, New Hoax Alien Video, Solar Power from Sapce, Anti-Vaccine Mar on Washington, CAM in New Zealand Follow Up, Cold Fusion
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 149
|date = May 28
|desc = JPL Scientist Diana Blaney, Wi Fi Ban, New Zealand Considering CAM, Scientology Free Speech Follow Up, Medical Science Reporting, Tasmanian Tiger Corrections, Least Skeptical
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 148
|date = May 21
|desc = Carl Zimmer, Tasmanian Tiger Gene Resurrected, Mobile Phones and Pregnancy, Is Scientology a Cult, Supernova Caught in the Act, Michael Shull about Discovering Missing Matter, Radiometric Dating of Mt St Helens, Update on TAM6
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 147
|date = May 14
|desc = Martin Rundkvist, Einstein and God, The Vatican The UK and UFO's, China Quake Superstitions, NASA Announces Supernova Discovery, Creationism in Maine, Wizardry Followup
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 146
|date = May 7
|desc = SGU 3rd Anniversary, Florida Anti-Evolution Law Fails, Florida Teacher Fired for Wizardry, Special Report: Bobs Haunted Tour, T-Rex Proteins, Water Experiment, Misconceptions about Evolution, Consumer Reports and Homeopathy
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 145
|date = Apr 30
|desc = Kirsten Sanford, Mystery Lights in Maryland, Evolution Freedom Law in Florida, Gary Null-HIV Denier, Special Report: The Real Iron Man
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 144
|date = Apr 23
|desc = [[Simon Singh interview: Alternative medicine (144)|Simon Singh interview]], [[Man "raised from dead" (144)|Man Raised from Dead]], [[Politics of vaccines (144)|Politics of Vaccines]], [[Penis theft panic (144)|Penis Theft Panic]], [[Oldest plant (144)|Oldest Plant]], [[SGU drinking game (144)|The SGU Drinking Game]], [[Space junk: Dangerous debris (144)|Space Junk]], [[Brain Gym: Pseudoscience in the classroom (144)|Brain Gym]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 143
|date = Apr 16
|desc = Eric Avery, Scientology Defection, Are Vitamins Harmful, Replicator Replicates Itself, ET Not Likely, Age of the Earth, Magnetic Water
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 142
|date = Apr 9
|desc = Yau-Man Chan, Skeptologists Shoot Complete, UK Psychic crackdown, LHC and the God Particle, Monty Hall Problem in Research, Cursing in Sanskrit
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 141
|date = Apr 2
|desc = The Skeptologists, Expelled Again, Human-Cow Hybrid, Tantric Killing Fails, Debunking Skeptics, Dinosaur Fossils on the Moon
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 140
|date = Mar 26
|desc = Eugenie Scott, Rebecca's Asteroid, Airborne Lawsuit, Pregnant Man, Hypnotist Robber, Robin Migration, More on Soap
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 139
|date = Mar 19
|desc = Stephen Barrett, Arthur C. Clarke Dies at 90, Saudi Scholar Denies Holocaust, Michael Egnor on ID Podcast, Believers Stare at the Sun, Boy Scout Follow Up, Cosmetic Pseudoscience
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 138
|date = Mar 12
|desc = Ola Fincke about Science Education in Oklahoma, Ghosts in the Mind, US Government Settles Autism-Vaccine Case, Real Death Star, Drugs in the Water, The Skeptologists, Randi Speaks-about Gary Schwartz
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 137
|date = Mar 5
|desc = Special Report: Timeshare Scams, Spaceprobe Anomalies, Aromatherapy Study, McCain on Autism and Vaccines, CECTIC Skeptical Cartoon, Global Warming on Mars, Magneto Boy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 136
|date = Feb 27
|desc = McFeng Sui, Anti-Scientific Medicine in South Africa, Type IV Civilization, Killer Robots, Favorite Science and Skeptical Books
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 135
|date = Feb 20
|desc = Robert FitzPatrick, Lunar Eclipse, Censoring Skeptics, Scientific Challenges of 21st Century, Dualism, Naadi Palm Leaf Reading
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 134
|date = Feb 13
|desc = PZ Myers, Bat Evolution, UK Officials Evict Ghost, Acupuncture and IVF, Alien Mind Control, Darwin Day, Fasting
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 133
|date = Feb 6
|desc = Richard Hayes, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Dies,More Perpetual Motion, Voting in Invisible Ink, Canadian Snake Oil, Organic Milk, Apocalypse 2012, SETI
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 132
|date = Jan 30
|desc = UK Homeopathy In Crisis, Creationist Research Journal, Facilitated Communication in the Courtroom, ABC Drama on Vaccines and Autism, Arabian Brain Drain, Got Milk, Psychic Cheat, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 131
|date = Jan 23
|desc = Guests Fraser Cain and Pamela Gay from Astronomy Cast, Texas UFO follow up, Mars Bigfoot, Homer on Mercury, Asteroid 2007 TU24, Bionic Eyes, Coast to Coast Gets Punked, Restless Leg Syndrome, Time Travel, Relativity
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 130
|date = Jan 16
|desc = Brian Dunning from Skeptoid, Scientists Make Beating Heart, Divining Intervention, UFO over Texas, Reaction to More Evidence Against Vaccines and Autism, Cruise Scientology Recruiting Video, The K-T Extinction
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 129
|date = Jan 9
|desc = John Rennie, SGU 5x5, The Reason Driven Podcast, Insects may have Killed the Dinosaurs, Biofuels, Neti Pots, Healing Magnets, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 128
|date = Jan 2
|desc = New Science Based Medicine Blog, Psychic Predictions 2007, Edward to Channel Irwin, Masters Degree in Creation Science, Magic Amulets, SGU for teachers, Magic Foot Pads, Quantum Entanglement and Warp Drive
|status = skeleton
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2007
|range = (episodes 76-127)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 127
|date = Dec 26
|desc = SGU 2007 Year In Review
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 126
|date = Dec 19
|desc = Richard Wiseman, Rebecca's Pilot, Magic Leg, Creationists New Strategy, Scientific Criticism, Cattle Mutilation, Eidetic memory, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 125
|date = Dec 12
|desc = Alex Tsakiris from Skeptiko about Paranormal Research and Skepticism, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 124
|date = Dec 5
|desc = Lawrence Krauss, Hucka-Bee, Moonbeams in Arizona, Chimp Memory, Anti-vaccine misinformation on Youtube, Stem Cell Con, Information Theory, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 123
|date = Nov 28
|desc = Science and Faith, Computer Brain, Psychic Ripoff, Wifi and Autism, Skeptiko on Skeptics, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 122
|date = Nov 20
|desc = Judgment Day Censored, Blue Ghost Followup, Death by Energy Medicine, Photo Memory Manipulation, Special Feature: Our Day at the Psychic Fair, Bird Sex Correction, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 121
|date = Nov 14
|desc = Paul Kurtz, Judgment Day for ID, UFO Investigation, Universe loses weight, FDA Petition, Gas Station Ghost, BMI, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 120
|date = Nov 7
|desc = Greydon Square, Phenomenon, Robot cars, Jehovahs Witness death, Fat is Healthy, Judgment Day, Follow up on Mange, Special Request, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 119
|date = Oct 30
|desc = Ghosthunting Season, Report from the Homeopathy Conference, Rude 9-11 Truthers, Dinosaur Extinction, Mangy Bigfoot, Supplements, Spine tingling, Randi: Jaque Benveniste, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 118
|date = Oct 24
|desc = Joe Nickell, Autism and Vaccines, Ben Stein on OReilly, James Watson Followup, The Dangers of Pseudoscience, Honey, Flu Vaccine Myths, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 117
|date = Oct 17
|desc = Mark Crislip of QuackCast, Robot Marriage, Overeating Gene, New Dinosaur, Female Cult, Watson on Race, Randi: Best Mentalist Trick, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 116
|date = Oct 10
|desc = Marc Abrahams of the IgNobels, Geller on NBC, More Acupuncture, Cell Phones and Cancer, World with Time, Energy Follow up, Slain by Woo, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 115
|date = Oct 3
|desc = Jon Blumenfeld, Tom Cruise Bunker, The View of a Flat Earth, Fly Boy Follow up, Martial Arts Woo, Vaccine follow up, 30 Year Battery, Orthomolecular Medicine, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 114
|date = Sep 27
|desc = Richard Saunders, Rebecca Wins, New Acupuncture Study, Academic Free Speech, Boy Survives Jet Ride, Smart Sex, Colloidal Silver, Randi: Faith Healers, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 113
|date = Sep 19
|desc = Monkey Bird Love, Trouble for Trudeau, Free Energy, Medical Science, Judge believes in Elves, HPV Vaccine, Autism Nonsense on Oprah, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 112
|date = Sep 12
|desc = David Colquhoun, How the WTC Towers Fell, Burning Water, Extant Dodos, SGU Affiliations, Peanuts, King Tut Follow up, Billy Meier, Randi: Mentalism, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 111
|date = Sep 5
|desc = Bill Nye the Science Guy, Airline Sacrifices Goats, King Tut, Is Race Real, The Persistence of Myth, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 110
|date = Aug 28
|desc = The Fans and Rogues remember Perry DeAngelis, - Jerry Andrus: Another Skeptic Passes, HIV Denial, Jesus Appears in Fence, Ben Stein Expelled, Puzzle
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 109
|date = Aug 24
|desc = Perry DeAngelis 1963-2007, The Psychology of Belief - a lecture by Perry DeAngelis, The fans favorite clips of Perry
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 108
|date = Aug 11
|desc = Opening Remarks by Steven Novella and Steve Mirsky, MC Todd Robbins, Live Q&A: Autism Groups, Girls and Science, Nice Skepticism, Science Education
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 107
|date = Aug 8
|desc = Largest Planet Discovered, New Da Vinci Conspiracy, Korean Stem Cell Controversy, UK UFO Followup, Unproven Therapies, CO2 from Walking, AI Sense of Humor, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 106
|date = Aug 1
|desc = Barry Glassner, Death Cat, FDA Shuts Down DCA, Exorcisms Gone Bad, Ward Churchill Correction, The Man with No Brain, The Overview Effect, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 105
|date = Jul 25
|desc = Jimmy Carter, Ward Churchill Fired, Homeopathic Surgeon, UK UFO, Asian Parasite Killing Bees, Electric Car, Brain Evolution, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 104
|date = Jul 18
|desc = Brian Trent, Author of Never Grow Old
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 103
|date = Jul 11
|desc = Scott Lilienfield, Most Distant Galaxy, Orbo Perpetual Motion Machine, Salt Water Fuel, Scientology and Homocide, Puzzle
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 102
|date = Jul 3
|desc = Barry Beyerstein In Memoriam, Black Cohosh and Liver Failure, Echinacea Meta-analysis, Jury Accuracy, Bishops and Floods, HIV and Condoms, Chiropractic and Colic, Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy, Sickesz Follow Up, Puzzle
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 101
|date = Jun 20
|desc = Orac - The author of Respectful Insolence Science Blog, Do black holes exist, President Bush vetoes new stem cell bill, Legends for profit, Belgium skeptic sued, The Galileo gambit, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 100
|date = Jun 19
|desc = SGU 100th Episode, 60 Years of Flying Saucers, Nano Drugs, Dino Big Bird, Home Buying Pseudoscience, Magneto and Son, Acupuncture Brain Surgery, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 99
|date = Jun 13
|desc = Phil Plait - The Bad Astronomer, Creationism Poll, Academic Freedom, Mercury-Autism Controversy in Court, Mr. Wizard Dies at 89, Rods, Zero Point Energy, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 98
|date = Jun 6
|desc = Creation Museum in Canada, NASA on Global Warming, Chiropractic in VA Hospitals, Death by Pseudoscience, UFO Drone CGI, New Loch Ness Video, Lunar Effect, Herxheimer Reaction, Chemtrails, Puzzle
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 97
|date = May 30
|desc = Creation Museum Opens, Licensing Psychics, Homeopaths Lame Response, China Follow Up, Kevin Trudeau, UFO Drone, Puzzle
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 96
|date = May 23
|desc = China Consultant Gareth Hayes, UK Scientists Reject Homeopathy, Boy Whose Parents Rejected Chemotherapy Dies, Scientology in Public Schools, Is Science Made Up, Legislating Thought, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 95
|date = May 16
|desc = Fraser Cain and Pamela Gay from Astronomy Cast, :Scientology vs the BBC, Rosie and 9-11, Star Kids, Multivitamins and Cancer, Moo UFO, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 94
|date = May 9
|desc = Barry Beyerstein, The Encyclopedia of Life, Nanotech Spidy Suit, Bigfoot Endangered, Corrections and Clarifications, Evolution Challenge, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 93
|date = May 3
|desc = Bug Girl - The Beetastrophy, Philly Shuts Down Psychics, Fire Melts Steel, Woman Hanged as Vampire, Drake Equation, EM Sensitivity, Hitler Fallacy Revisited, Genetic Drug Therapy, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 92
|date = Apr 25
|desc = Is Mental Illness Real, Earth-like Planet Discovered, Criminalizing Holocaust Denial follow up, Pill for Genetic Diseases, Bacterial Flagella Follow Up, Vitrification, - 9/11 Conspiracy, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 91
|date = Apr 18
|desc = Susan Blackmore, More ID Nonsense from Dr. Michael Egnor, Criminalizing Holocaust Denial, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 90
|date = Apr 10
|desc = Quantum Computer?, Fermilab Flub, Dieting News, Time Travel, Meta Analysis, Chiropractic Confusion, Death Star Conspiracy, Hugh Ross and Testable Creationism, Near Death Experiences, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 89
|date = Apr 4
|desc = 9/11 Conspiracy Celebrities, Holy Water for AIDS, Astrology Fails Again, Fairy Hoax, Avoiding the Holocaust, Neal Adams on Fox, Peanut Butter and Evolution, Peloop, When Birds Attack, Groupthink,Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 88
|date = Mar 28
|desc = David Seaman, DC, UFO news, Houdini exhumed, Buhhda boy returns, PETA, GM foods, Satanic Barcode, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 87
|date = Mar 21
|desc = Robert Lancaster, Vernal Equinox, Prayer Meta-analysis, Creationist Teacher Fired, Polar Bear Euthanasia, Pluto Corrections, Herbal Remedies, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 86
|date = Mar 14
|desc = Update on the Tomb of Jesus, The Revenge of Pluto, Robot Rights, More ID Nonsense, ADHD, Nerves Conduct by Sound?, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 85
|date = Mar 7
|desc = Battle of the Diets, True Believers take on SGU, Modern Day Witch Trial, Billy Meier Apologst, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 84
|date = Feb 28
|desc = Kenny Feder: The Tomb of Jesus and More, Update on Scientific Literacy, Human-Chimp Split, Mary on Pizza Pan, Segment #2. Negativity, Vitamins, more on Angel Voices, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 83
|date = Feb 21
|desc = TAM5 Interviews Part V: with Julia Sweeney, Richard Wiseman and The Onion Editor Scott Dickers, Angels Voices, New JFK Footage, Bigfoot Foot, Psychics on Oprah, Zodiac Insurance, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 82
|date = Feb 15
|desc = TAM 5 Interviews Part IV with Christopher Hitchens and South Parks Matt Stone, Psychic Healer, Score 1 for Evolution in Kansas, Paranormal Research Center Closes, Monkey Feng Shui, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 81
|date = Feb 7
|desc = TAM5 Interviews Part III: Phil Plait the Bad Astronomer, and Mythbusters Adam Savage and Tory Belleci, Enviga Suit, Iran AIDS Cure, Creationists in Kenya, Follow up on Global Warming, Youngest Skeptic, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 80
|date = Jan 31
|desc = TAM5 Interviews Part II: John Rennie, Teller, Jim Underdown, Randi takes on Sylvia, The Hobbit Returns, The God Question, Cults and Religion, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 79
|date = Jan 24
|desc = TAM5 interviews with [[James Randi interview with Todd Robbins at TAM5 (79)|James Randi, Todd Robbins]], [[Hal Bidlack interview: MC at TAM5 (79)|Hal Bidlack]] & [[Eugenie Scott interview: Science in the media and the Dover trial (79)|Eugenie Scott]], [[TAM5: The Rogues report (79)|Report from TAM5]], [[Sylvia Browne: Dead wrong again (79)|Sylvia Browne]], [[Tom Cruise: Christ of Scientology (79)|Tom Cruise the Christ]], [[If Rebecca ate meat (79)|Meat-eating Rebecca]], [[Free-fall and terminal velocity emails (79)|Terminal Velocity]], [[Skeptical Puzzle: Power loss (79)|Puzzle]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 78
|date = Jan 15
|desc = Stem Cell Debate, Randi Psychic Challenge (Jeff Wagg), Government Conspiracies, Herbal Remedies, Skeptical Movement, Scientology, Randi: Whats That Line, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 77
|date = Jan 10
|desc = Spencer Weart, author of The Discovery of Global Warming, Stem Cell Updates, Enviga, Hawking in Space, Weight loss pill firms fined, Corrections, The Moon, True belief skeletons, Randi: Coincidence, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 76
|date = Jan 3
|desc = NeuroLogica Blog, Evolution in Cobb County, 2006 Predictions, Homeopathy in Scotland, Salt Lamps, UFOs, Intelligent Forces, Chelation Therapy, Randi: Optical Illusions, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2006
|range = (episodes 24-75)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 75
|date = Dec 27
|desc = 2006 Year in Review: Join the Skeptics' Guide host and the rogues as they look back at the year in science, skepticism, and podcasting
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 74
|date = Dec 20
|desc = Carl Sagan, Sylvia Browne Update, IQ and Vegetarians, Santa Claus, Facilitated Communication, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 73
|date = Dec 13
|desc = B. Alan Wallace Tree Octopus, Irans Holocaust Denial, Science and the Supernatural, Randi: Communication, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 72
|date = Dec 6
|desc = Paleontologist Ken Macleod - New Evidence for the Single Impact Theory, Holiday shopping scams, NASA plans moon base, Flowing water on Mars?, Molecular manufacturing, Hi from Down Under, Chiropractic HIV denial, Testing ID, High Tech Dowsing, Randi: End o
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 71
|date = Nov 29
|desc = Mark Crislip, Paranormal Computer Storage, ID in the UK, Corrections, Einstein, Ghost Photos, Neurolink, Randi: Mentalism, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 70
|date = Nov 21
|desc = Orgasm Day, Science of Deception, MoD warns of Aliens, Wonders of the World, top 10 Scientific Discoveries, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 69
|date = Nov 15
|desc = Seth Shostak, Qi-Gong on You Tube, Cryotherapy,Chicken-Tac-Toe, Hallucinations, Chiropractic, Religion and Mental Illness, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 68
|date = Nov 8
|desc = Kent Hovind Convicted, UFO Mocumentary, Bigfoot in Academia, Learn while you Sleep, Dolphin Legs, Edgar Cayce, Quantum Love, Distribution of Pseudoscience, Workplace Skepticism, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 67
|date = Nov 1
|desc = Richard Wiseman, Pseudohistory of Exorcism, Glossolalia, Elephant Mirrors, Holiday Weight, Anti-skeptics, Fox Parkinsons and Stem Cells, Face on Earth, Randi Speaks
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 66
|date = Oct 25
|desc = Michael Stebbins, Scientists and Engineers for America, The Physics of Ghosts and Vampires, What killed the dinosaurs?, Hallucinations, UFO cults, Randi: People in Space, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 65
|date = Oct 18
|desc = Geller's Heir, Human speciation, New Element 118, The 7th Fleet, Moon Robots, Vegetarians, Vitamin Supplements, Randi: Homeopathy, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 64
|date = Oct 11
|desc = Stuart Vyse, Author of The Psychology of Supersition, Friday 13th, Teaching Evolution in Michigan, Science in the UK, Comet to hit Earth, Water Cycle, Selling the Moon, Randi: Aromatherapy
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 63
|date = Oct 4
|desc = Michael Shermer - Author of Why Darwin Matters, Skepchick-dude Calendars, Sexual arousal, Harry Potter, Autism, Skepticism and sensitivity, Randi: Business Astrology, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 62
|date = Sep 27
|desc = [[Joe Nickell interview: Paranormal investigations (62)|Joe Nickell interview]], [[Global warming follow up and solar activity (62)|Global Warming update]], [[Face on Mars: 3D reconstruction (62)|Face on Mars]], [[Lightning rods (62)|Lightning Rods]], [[Psychic astrology email (62)|Psychic Astrology]], [[Randi Speaks: Left behind (62)|Randi: Left Behind]], [[I have monkeys in my pants (62)|I have monkeys in my pants]], [[Skeptical Puzzle: Marine locks (62)|Puzzle]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 61
|date = Sep 20
|desc = James Randi Joins the Skeptics Guide, Male-Female Intelligence, Exorcism rape, Phil Plait, The Bad Astronomer, about Eris, Pluto, NASA and more, OBE's, More on 9/11, Denial, Randi Speaks, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 60
|date = Sep 13
|desc = 9/11 news, Report from Mexico, No Gulf War Syndrome,Persistant Vegetative State, Math vs Science, Thinking about the dead, Moon Hoax, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 59
|date = Sep 5
|desc = Ed Warren Dies, New ESP claims, Evolution of Superstition, Korean fan deaths, New UK Homeopathy law, Science beliefs, Recycling, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 58
|date = Aug 30
|desc = Kimball Atwood, MD, Pope and ID, Hitler and Stalin Possessed, Pluto not a planet, Kabbalah,Archaeological conspiracies, Skeptical Soldier, Abiogenesis Pseudoscience, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 57
|date = Aug 23
|desc = Larry Sarner, Water Tree Solved, Mystery Creature in Maine, Creationism update, Planet definition, Acupuncture followup, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 56
|date = Aug 15
|desc = Ken Feder, Evolution Survey, water tree, Abiogenic Origin of Oil,Dinosaur Petroglyphs, Acupuncture, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 55
|date = Aug 9
|desc = Steve Salerno, Happy Birthday James Randi, Archimedes Palimpsest, Science and Falsifiability, Skeptics track record, FDA, Puzzle
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 54
|date = Aug 2
|desc = Creationism Museum, Kansas votes out Creationists, Coulter throws down the gauntlet, Exorcism, PC, Chiropractic, Singularity, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 53
|date = Jul 26
|desc = Possible increase for NASA budget, Indigo children, Monkey eating eagle, Bird flight, Teachers respond to textbook criticism, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 52
|date = Jul 19
|desc = Bill Bennetta, The Textbook League, Rebecca Returns, Precious Bodily Fluids, World Jump Day,Follow up on Neal Adams, Women in Science, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 51
|date = Jul 12
|desc = Neal Adams, Space Shuttle Mission, Asteroid near miss, Psychedelic mushrooms, Kevin Barrett and 9/11 conspiracies,More on supplements, Peak Oil?, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 50
|date = Jul 5
|desc = Gerald Posner, author of Case Closed, Second hand smoke,Binaural Beats, Aubrey de Grey, Puzzle (answer plus new puzzle)
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 49
|date = Jun 28
|desc = Theory of Evolution, Agnosticism, Magnet therapy, Regulating supplements, Neuroethics, Puzzle
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 48
|date = Jun 21
|desc = Steve Mirsky, Scientific American, Herbs for menopause, Anne Coulter and evolution,Penta Water, Alcoholism a disease?, Puzzle
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 47
|date = Jun 14
|desc = Zachary Moore: Evolution 101, Feng-shui, Hawking on space travel,Consensus on Global Warming, God and the Big Bang
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 46
|date = Jun 7
|desc = Phil Plait: The Bad Astronomer,Satans day, Skepchick infiltrates Christian Scientists, Altruism genes, Follow up on 9/11 Hoax
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 45
|date = May 31
|desc = SGU Forum, 9-11 footage, UK Doctors fight against Alternative Med,Cancer Cures, Dream Interpretation, Science vs God, Suns temperature
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 44
|date = May 24
|desc = James Randi News: Human/chimp hybrid, China mirage
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 43
|date = May 17
|desc = Ray Hyman, News: Bosnian Pyramid update, Mormon cult leader hits FBI list, Paranormal mysteries, Science education, Scientology super powers
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 42
|date = May 10
|desc = Eugenie Scott, News: UFO's in the UK, Scientology Superheroes,Tracking Satellites, Drinking water
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 41
|date = May 3
|desc = Bosnian pyramids, Toxic Cruise,Bubble Universes, Iridology, Black holes, and the Origin of life, Discussion: The Scope of Skepticism
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 40
|date = Apr 26
|desc = Brian Trent, author of Remembering Hypatia, Sonoma Bigfoot revealed, Channeling John Lennon,More on Hurricanes and Birthdays, Bananas and logical fallacies
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 39
|date = Apr 19
|desc = Marilyn Schlitz, ESP researcher, More on the polar ice caps, Sad Monkeys, spinal stem cells and mercury amalgam,gene multiplication, Skeptical Tools
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 38
|date = Apr 12
|desc = Bill Nye, Tom Cruise, Time Travel, Global Warming, Happy Face on Mars,Evolution, more on the flood, the psychosomatic effect and
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 37
|date = Apr 6
|desc = Fish evolution, prayer in medicine, Noah's ark,EVP, more on the solar eclipse
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 36
|date = Mar 29
|desc = Rick Ross, Solar Eclipse,The Woman who Never Forgets, Panspermia, Hydrino power, Bigfoot, Microwaves
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 35
|date = Mar 22
|desc = More on Scientology and South Park, Noah's Ark, Bigfoot or Bison, Cancer quacks, creationism in UK, DNA vs the Mormons
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 34
|date = Mar 15
|desc = Buddha Boy, El Chupacabra, Scientology and South Park, What the Bleep: Down the Rabbit Hole, Water on enceladus
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 33
|date = Mar 9
|desc = Rebecca Watson - founder of the Skepchicks, Magnet Therapy, Tax scams, Plastic Scare
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 32
|date = Mar 1
|desc = More on ID, Holy hardware, G-spot, Oil crisis, The 12th planet
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 31
|date = Feb 22
|desc = Terrence Hines - author of Pseudoscience and the Paranormal
|status = open
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 30
|date = Feb 15
|desc = New UFO Coverup, Randi, ID, Jesus in court, Cholesterol and colon cleansing
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 29
|date = Feb 8
|desc = Featured Website: Two sites on Science Myths, Feynman on Education and Textbooks, , Going Beyond Science?
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 28
|date = Feb 1
|desc = Tara Smith of Iowans for Science, , More on HIV Denial
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 27
|date = Jan 25
|desc = Ask the Skeptic, Two Views of American Education, Government and wacky science
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 26
|date = Jan 17
|desc = Eric Altman from the Penn Bigfoot Society, Psychic Predictions for 2005, Darwin Day
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 25
|date = Jan 11
|desc = Did Castro Kill JFK, Discussion Items: Iran Denies the Holocaust, Cell Research Fraud in South Korea, Political Correctness vs Freedom of Speech
|status = skeleton
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 24
|date = Jan 6
|desc = James Randi
|status = skeleton
}}
|}
|}
{| class="mw-collapsed mw-collapsible" {{SGU list headers
|year = 2005
|range = (episodes 1-23)}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 23
|date = Dec 21
|desc = Jan Helen McGee - Psychic Detective, Victory for Science and Reason in Dover
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 22
|date = Dec 14
|desc = Holiday Scams, Discussion Topics: Eye Evolution, Venus the UFO, Video Games and Seizures, Psychic Detectives
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 21
|date = Dec 7
|desc = Wallace Sampson, MD - Editor of the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine, ID and Weeping Icons
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 20
|date = Nov 23
|desc = Tom W. Clark - founder of Naturalism.org, ID Update
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 19
|date = Nov 16
|desc = ID and Idiocy, Putting the Psi into Science, The Starchild Project
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 18
|date = Nov 2
|desc = Halloween Ghost Stories, Astrology vs Astronomy
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 17
|date = Oct 26
|desc = Joe Nickell - paranormal investigator
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 16
|date = Oct 12
|desc = Glen G. Sparks
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 15
|date = Oct 6
|desc = Chris Mooney: Author of The Republican War on Science
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 14
|date = Sep 28
|desc = UFO Landing Strip, ID Update, Bigfoot Convention, Katrina Myths and Conspiracies
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 13
|date = Sep 14
|desc = [[9/11 Conspiracy Theories (13)|9/11 Conspiracies]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 12
|date = Sep 7
|desc = Steve Milloy
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 11
|date = Aug 31
|desc = Bob Park: author of Voodoo Science
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 10
|date = Aug 23
|desc = In Memoriam: Phil Klass and Robert Baker, Childrens Books
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 9
|date = Aug 10
|desc = Bush-The Pope-and evolution -again, Atlantis, Modern Witch Hunts, Science and Hollywood
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 8
|date = Aug 2
|desc = Steven Salerno: author of SHAM
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 7
|date = Jul 20
|desc = The Pope on Potter and evolution, Ghostbusting with Penn & Teller, Ask the Skeptic, Quackwatch
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 6
|date = Jul 7
|desc = Science Magazine's 125 things we do not know, Tom Cruise, Scientology and Psychiatry, CT Warning on e-scams, Ramada Inn in Stratford Haunted
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 5
|date = Jun 29
|desc = Michael Shermer
|status = complete
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 4
|date = Jun 15
|desc = Update on Kansas Evolution Debate, Alternative Theories of Matter
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 3
|date = Jun 7
|desc = [[Massimo Pigliucci Interview: Intelligent Design, Science, Religion (3)|Massimo Pigliucci interview]], [[Smithsonian ID Fiasco Follow-up (3)|Update on ID film in the Smithsonian Institution]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 2
|date = Jun 1
|desc = [[Kansas school board: Redefining science (2)|Kansas Evolution Update]], [[Discovery Institute preview at Smithsonian Institute (2)|Discovery Institute preview at Smithsonian Institute]], [[Stem cell bill 2005: Embryonic vs. adult-derived (2)|Stem Cell Research]], [[Crop circles: Cereology, blueprints and perfect circles (2)|Crop Circle Season]]
|status = verified
}}
|-
{{SGU list entry alt draft
|episode = 1
|date = May 4
|desc = ID, Reverse Engineering UFOs, Magicians, and Exploding Toads
|status = verified
}}
|}
|}