SGU Episode 881

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SGU Episode 881
May 28th 2022
(brief caption for the episode icon)
SGU 880                      SGU 882
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
C: Cara Santa Maria
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
Guest
NRG: Dr. Naomi Rowe-Gurney, NASA planetary scientist
Quote of the Week
With less critical thinking comes more vaccine hesitancy.
Nedra Rhone, columnist, AJC
Links
Download Podcast
Show Notes
Forum Discussion

Introduction, WETA Doc, AQ6

Voice-over: You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, May 25^th 2022, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella...

B: Hey, everybody!

S: Cara Santa Maria...

C: Howdy.

S: Jay Novella...

J: Hey guys.

S: ...and Evan Bernstein.

E: Good evening folks!

S: So.

J: Yes.

S: Some exciting news. You know Jay, Bob and I have been doing alpha quadrant six which is our science fiction review show. And right before the pandemic we recorded a documentary at WETA in New Zealand. The special effects company that did Lord of the Rings and other movies.

E: I've heard of that.

J: District 9.

S: District 9.

J: I Am Mother.

S: Yeah that's right and King Kong. The most recent King Kong.

E: Oh yes.

S: And they did that really awesome World War I museum where the the statues were giant size.

B: Oh my god. And crazy realistic. Like crazy realistic.

S: Hyper detailed, hyper realistic and like what were they five times normal size?

B: Something like that.

S: Which is a lot bigger than it sounds. Because you think about that means you're 30 feet tall. Like the scale, that was the scale. Amazing. Anyway we did a documentary basically all about their process. And we finally published that as an AQ6 episode what two weeks ago Jay?

J: Just about.

S: So check that out. So we all do a lot of side projects every now and then we bring them up. But this is, the Alpha Quadrant 6 we've been we've done on and off. The pandemic really kind of torpedoed our schedule with this because we couldn't physically get together.

B: Photon torpedoed.

S: Yeah we tried to do some online and they were all right but you know just wasn't the same thing. Like we couldn't get in the studio together and crank out a bunch of episodes. But now we can. So so we're back on schedule putting out a video and a podcast every week.

J: Every Tuesday.

S: Every Tuesday, yep. So yeah so we want you guys to check it out. We did recently The Batman we reviewed that movie.

J: And Strange New Worlds

S: Strange New Worlds. So we try to hit that if something just comes out we'll try to hit it right away so that we could recommend it or not recommend it. Like we'll watch the first episode and give you an idea. Then we'll do wrap-up reviews or we'll do themed reviews. Like the top 10 spaceships or whatever. How many episodes total have we put since the beginning every published chance? We're getting up there.

J: You know 80 episodes.

B: Wow.

J: Oh if you want to find us you can go to youtube.com/AlphaQuadrant6. That's Alpha Quadrant and the number 6. Or you can go to alphaquadrant6.com. We have you know Facebook page. We have a Patreon so you can find us pretty much anywhere. Just look for Alpha Quadrant and then number 6.

S: Yeah doing that show's a lot of fun.

J: I love it.

B: And what are we gonna do what are we gonna do next guys? How about Love, Death & Robots review?

S: I already watched the whole season.

B: Season 3 baby. I'm partially through, no spoilers.

J: Bob Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan literally drops the day after tomorrow.

B: Yeah, we could do that.

J: Now I don't know if that's gonna be, if they're gonna drop the whole thing or if they're gonna do it episode by episode. Probably episode by episode so we'll get to review the first episode at least.

S: Then we're gonna do futurism in science fiction movies. And we've got to do Doctor Strange.

J: Yeah.

B: Yes. Hello? We got to get to the damn theater and watch it.

S: So those are the next shows that we're gonna review.

B: Let's go right now.

COVID-19 Update (3:22)

J: Can I tell you guys something else that's going on in my life?

S: Yeah.

J: So you know you covid, right?

S: Yeah I'm familiar with that, yeah.

J: So long story short my daughter did not get covid over the wave during Christmas when everybody got covid except my daughter.

S: She dodged Omicron?

J: She did. She dodged the big wave of Omicron. Well she got it last week. A week and a half ago So I have not literally seen my six-year-old daughter since Friday of last week because she stayed with her grandmother who also got covid literally the same day from the same person. Keep it in mind, you know, keep in mind man, covid is still swinging out there. There's, in Connecticut the numbers have been skyrocketing. It's happening in other states in the country probably in other places around the world as well. But just be careful. Carry masks in your car. Make sure the people that you know and love are vaccinated. Get your boosters. Like keep it in your head. You don't have to think about it every day like we did two years ago but be smart and keep up with it.

S: Speaking of which and we're actually going to talk about the monkey pox a little bit later in the show when we get to the news items. But you guys all know Mark Crislip, right?

J: Yeah.

B: Yeah.

E: Oh yes.

S: Yeah. He's awesome. So he he was writing for Science-Based Medicine for years but in 2018 he retired from Science-Based Medicine and now he's back. And he wrote his first post─

B: Awesome.

S: ─yesterday.

E: Un-retired like Tom Brady.

S: Yeah, exactly. He actually last Thursday he published it. And it was basically all about covid. It's like where are we with things right now. He's an infectious disease specialist but you should read it. He's very very funny writer just a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor but also totally on point. He basically says yeah we're never going to be done with covid. Like covid is never gonna be over. It's now permanent part of the infectious disease background. And we're definitely in the learning how to live with that face but he says things so matter-of-factly like as a specialist. It's like we know how to deal with this. We totally 100% know how to deal with this. You have to mask and get vaccinated. Those are the two things that really work right. Everything else is kind of nibbling around the edges but masking works and getting back. And then the only way to get to herd immunity is with vaccination. That's it. We're never going to get there by natural infection. That's always been a fantasy. It doesn't you know, infectious disease─

C: What about a hybrid of the both.

S: ─don't work that way. The problem is─

C: No really. I mean what about the people who do vaccinate and then the people who refuse who ultimately catch covid?

S: The problem is with the, as he explains, the problem with the relying on natural infections. Is that this virus mutates so quickly that by the time it comes around again it just reinfects you. So like omicron's really good at reinfecting people who were infected previously with covid for example. So it just doesn't work. You would need everybody to get infected at once with the same strain. Which is never going to happen.

C:' So just that is what vaccination kinda is.

S: That is what vaccination. Vaccination you can literally give everybody the same immunity all at once. That's the only way that we're ever going to really deal with pandemics like this. It's just so frustrating that's like okay here's the answer and then a bunch of people refuse to do it. And there's not really much we can do about it or are willing to do it. I mean we could.

News Items

S:

B:

C:

J:

E:

(laughs) (laughter) (applause) [inaudible]

Monkeypox (13:29)

• Should We Fear the Monkeypox?

NASA Mars Plans (30:45)

• NASA shows off early plans to send astronauts to Mars for 30 days

Linear Bias (37:47)

• The Linear Bias

Who's That Noisy? (52:46)

Answer to previous Noisy:

Water lapping up against metal gutters of pool

New Noisy (56:37)

[Michael Jackson-esque squeals, screams, and scatting]

J: ... If you think you know what this week's Noisy is, or, my God, people, if you have heard a Noisy that you think is cool--you found it on the web, it could be something from your life, at work, at home--as long as it's interesting and doesn't sound like white noise--if it sounds like this, [imitates white noise], don't send that to me.

Interview with Dr. Naomi Rowe-Gurney (1:13:08)

• Dr. Naomi Rowe-Gurney, Planetary Scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and Howard University

Science or Fiction (1:35:49)

Theme: Which one is older? Item #1: The first cities predate evidence for iron use by about 5,000 years. Item #2: The first dinosaur walked the Earth 40 million years before the emergence of the first true trees. Item #3: The first firearm was invented about 900 years after the first steam engine.

Answer	Item
Fiction	Dinosaur → true tree
Science	Cities → iron use
Science	Steam engine → firearm

Host	Result
Steve	clever

Rogue	Guess
Jay	Dinosaur → true tree
Evan	Steam engine → firearm
Bob	Cities → iron use
Cara	Dinosaur → true tree

Voice-over: It's time for Science or Fiction.

Jay's Response

J: ... "to blaaave"

Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:57:57)

With less critical thinking comes more vaccine hesitancy.
– Nedra Rhone, columnist, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Signoff/Announcements

S: —and until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

S: Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is produced by SGU Productions, dedicated to promoting science and critical thinking. For more information, visit us at theskepticsguide.org. Send your questions to info@theskepticsguide.org. And, if you would like to support the show and all the work that we do, go to patreon.com/SkepticsGuide and consider becoming a patron and becoming part of the SGU community. Our listeners and supporters are what make SGU possible.

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Today I Learned

• Fact/Description, possibly with an article reference
• Fact/Description
• Fact/Description

References

Vocabulary