SGU Episode 896

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SGU Episode 896
September 10th 2022
depiction of Chicxulub meteor
SGU 895                      SGU 897
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
C: Cara Santa Maria
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
Quote of the Week
A good ghost story may hold entertainment and even cultural value, but the popular portrayal of pseudoscientific practices as science may be detracting from efforts to cultivate a scientifically literate public.
Micheal Knees, American engineering psychologist
Links
Download Podcast
Show Notes
Forum Discussion

Introduction, another Artemis launch scrubbed

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

[00:09.840 --> 00:13.440] Hello and welcome to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday,

[00:13.440 --> 00:17.360] September 7th, 2022, and this is your host, Stephen Novella.

[00:17.360 --> 00:19.840] Joining me this week are Bob Novella. Hey, everybody.

[00:19.840 --> 00:21.760] Kara Santamaria. Howdy.

[00:21.760 --> 00:23.280] Jay Novella. Hey, guys.

[00:23.280 --> 00:26.400] And Evan Bernstein. Good evening, everyone.

[00:26.400 --> 00:32.400] So we had this scrubbing of the second launch date for the Artemis 1.

[00:32.400 --> 00:35.120] Why do they keep doing that to us? Frustrating.

[00:35.120 --> 00:39.280] Yeah, so, I mean, the first, you know, this was supposed to fly in 2017.

[00:39.280 --> 00:44.720] This is now a five-year rolling delay in terms of getting this thing off the ground.

[00:44.720 --> 00:49.200] But yeah, so on last Monday or Tuesday, I think it was Monday,

[00:49.200 --> 00:51.120] they were going to try to do a launch.

[00:51.120 --> 00:55.040] They had a temperature problem in the engines,

[00:55.040 --> 00:58.720] and then it turned out they couldn't fix it within the launch window,

[00:58.720 --> 01:01.440] so they had to scrub. Turned out it was a faulty sensor.

[01:01.440 --> 01:04.880] Everything was fine, but whatever, one faulty sensor scrubs a launch.

[01:05.760 --> 01:08.640] So they rescheduled it for Saturday, and then on Saturday,

[01:08.640 --> 01:10.400] they had actually a more serious problem.

[01:10.400 --> 01:12.640] I'm not sure why they didn't have the same problem on Monday.

[01:12.640 --> 01:16.800] They had a hydrogen leak from the liquid hydrogen gassing.

[01:16.800 --> 01:19.120] Now, this is a serious problem because...

[01:19.120 --> 01:21.600] Yeah. You don't f*** around with hydrogen, man.

[01:21.600 --> 01:26.560] If it gets too, if the percentage of hydrogen outside the tank gets too high,

[01:26.560 --> 01:29.520] there's a chance that it could explode, you know, when the ship takes off,

[01:29.520 --> 01:30.880] which would be bad, right?

[01:30.880 --> 01:33.840] You don't want the explosion to be happening outside of the tank.

[01:33.840 --> 01:35.920] Oh, what do they call that? There's a name for that.

[01:35.920 --> 01:37.120] Catastrophic failure?

[01:37.120 --> 01:37.760] No, no, no.

[01:37.760 --> 01:39.280] No, you're right, Bob. There is a name for that.

[01:40.240 --> 01:43.600] And it's hilarious. Explosive disassembly or something.

[01:43.600 --> 01:44.320] Yeah, okay.

[01:44.320 --> 01:46.560] That's so scary.

[01:46.560 --> 01:48.960] Let's disassemble it with explosives, yay.

[01:48.960 --> 01:52.640] So this is interesting. So they had to scrub that because they couldn't fix that in time.

[01:52.640 --> 01:54.160] They tried a couple of things to, like,

[01:54.160 --> 01:57.040] I'll change the temperature to get the seals to work, but it didn't work.

[01:57.040 --> 02:01.200] They could potentially fix this problem on the launch pad,

[02:01.200 --> 02:03.760] but by the time they could do that,

[02:03.760 --> 02:10.640] the batteries that are needed for the abort system to work would have to be recycled.

[02:10.640 --> 02:17.920] So they have to bring the ship back to the building just to swap out the abort batteries.

[02:17.920 --> 02:20.240] But of course, while it's there, they'll fix everything.

[02:20.240 --> 02:21.840] And they got to reset everything.

[02:21.840 --> 02:23.520] It's like outside the window.

[02:23.520 --> 02:26.880] So now it's like you're keeping all these plates spinning, you know?

[02:26.880 --> 02:29.360] And if you don't get it to fly within a certain amount of time,

[02:29.360 --> 02:32.960] you got to bring it back and reset everything, you know, and then try again.

[02:32.960 --> 02:36.800] So now the earliest, they haven't set a new launch date yet as this recording,

[02:36.800 --> 02:38.560] but the earliest would be mid-October.

[02:38.560 --> 02:39.600] It would be like six weeks.

[02:39.600 --> 02:41.360] October 2023.

[02:41.360 --> 02:42.480] Yeah, 2022.

[02:42.480 --> 02:43.680] Oh, okay.

[02:43.680 --> 02:48.160] We did talk about it briefly during the live show, Jane.

[02:48.160 --> 02:51.440] You brought up the fact that you've heard some criticism.

[02:51.440 --> 02:54.160] So I did a deeper dive on it because I've heard some criticism too,

[02:54.160 --> 02:55.520] and I wanted to know where that was.

[02:55.520 --> 02:59.440] The bottom line is that it's just really expensive, you know?

[02:59.440 --> 03:04.160] They're spending, you know, $150 billion to get this thing up.

[03:04.160 --> 03:11.680] It's going to cost a billion dollars or $2 billion a launch just for the launch fees itself.

[03:11.680 --> 03:14.000] If you amortize the development cost,

[03:14.000 --> 03:17.440] it's going to be between four and five billion dollars per launch,

[03:18.400 --> 03:22.720] and they only have the infrastructure to launch one a year.

[03:22.720 --> 03:24.080] That's all we're going to get out of it.

[03:24.080 --> 03:26.080] One launch a year, and at the end of the day,

[03:26.080 --> 03:29.840] it's probably going to be at like four to five billion dollars per launch.

[03:29.840 --> 03:32.160] So that's mainly where the criticism is coming from.

[03:32.160 --> 03:32.880] It's expensive.

[03:33.520 --> 03:37.120] It's not really going to be able to do that many launches.

[03:37.120 --> 03:40.480] But you got to keep in mind that you go back to 2011

[03:40.480 --> 03:42.960] when they canceled the Constellation program,

[03:42.960 --> 03:47.360] which is the predecessor to the Space Launch System, the SLS,

[03:47.360 --> 03:51.280] and also that was the end of the life of the space shuttle.

[03:51.280 --> 03:54.640] So we had no, basically, no rockets to go up.

[03:54.640 --> 04:00.160] So at that time, the Obama administration basically made a bargain with NASA.

[04:00.160 --> 04:06.480] They said, okay, we will fund the SLS program for deep space,

[04:06.480 --> 04:10.800] but you are going to contract out low Earth orbit to private industry.

[04:10.800 --> 04:11.680] So that's what they did.

[04:12.480 --> 04:15.920] And that's where SpaceX comes from and like Blue Origin, all these companies.

[04:15.920 --> 04:17.040] So that worked out really well.

[04:17.040 --> 04:21.120] The low Earth orbit, you know, and SpaceX worked out tremendously well,

[04:21.120 --> 04:25.440] but they're kind of hobbled with this really over budget, delayed,

[04:25.440 --> 04:29.680] really expensive SLS, you know, heavy launch system.

[04:30.400 --> 04:34.400] And, you know, now looking back 11 years later,

[04:34.400 --> 04:37.360] it's like, you know, there's nothing innovative about it.

[04:37.360 --> 04:45.040] It's not reusable, you know, and the SpaceX is basically completely leapfrogged over it.

[04:45.040 --> 04:47.600] So I think that's where a lot of the criticism comes from.

[04:47.600 --> 04:50.560] But still, here we are, you know, it's going to get us to the moon.

[04:50.560 --> 04:53.760] You also have to keep in mind that at the other end of the spectrum,

[04:54.400 --> 04:56.800] the Artemis program, not the SLS,

[04:56.800 --> 05:00.640] but the Artemis program was originally planned for 2028.

[05:00.640 --> 05:04.720] Well, to the moon, right, to be back on the moon in 2028.

[05:04.720 --> 05:08.160] That's Artemis mission, not the SLS system, right?

[05:08.160 --> 05:09.280] So not the rocket.

[05:09.280 --> 05:15.520] But the Artemis mission was moved up from 2028 to 2024 by the Trump administration.

[05:15.520 --> 05:18.400] And then it's now pushed back to 2025.

[05:18.400 --> 05:20.880] That's still three years ahead of schedule.

[05:20.880 --> 05:22.080] Of original schedule, yes.

[05:22.080 --> 05:23.120] Original schedule.

[05:23.120 --> 05:26.320] And nobody ever thought that the 2024 thing was realistic.

[05:26.320 --> 05:28.640] NASA was like, this is just not going to be like, OK, sure, right.

[05:28.640 --> 05:32.560] But they knew politically it sounded good, but never going to happen.

[05:32.560 --> 05:35.120] So, all right, we're still on track to get back to the moon

[05:35.120 --> 05:36.720] by the middle of this decade.

[05:36.720 --> 05:39.360] And hopefully, you know, the SLS will work out.

[05:39.360 --> 05:40.720] Artemis will launch.

[05:40.720 --> 05:43.760] It's obviously I'd rather have them scrub for six weeks

[05:43.760 --> 05:45.200] and have the thing blow up on the pad.

[05:45.200 --> 05:46.800] That would be a disaster.

[05:46.800 --> 05:47.840] My gosh.

[05:47.840 --> 05:51.760] What I do think is that NASA should already be planning

[05:51.760 --> 05:53.760] the successor of the SLS, though.

[05:54.960 --> 05:55.200] Right.

[05:55.200 --> 05:55.920] I mean, they shouldn't.

[05:55.920 --> 05:59.040] Well, the SLS is expensive to fly.

[05:59.040 --> 06:01.600] And it's like, you know, it's not reusable.

[06:01.600 --> 06:03.440] It's not efficient or whatever.

[06:04.000 --> 06:06.000] They should probably just contract out, you know,

[06:06.000 --> 06:09.360] to the private space industry now to develop the next thing

[06:09.360 --> 06:12.320] that's going to be able to get to the moon and to Mars

[06:12.960 --> 06:14.720] and not try to do it themselves.

[06:14.720 --> 06:15.440] You know what I mean?

[06:16.000 --> 06:16.560] Yeah.

[06:16.560 --> 06:19.760] Yeah, I mean, that's a really hard thing to predict, Steve.

[06:19.760 --> 06:22.800] You know, first of all, we don't know how well the SLS is going to work.

[06:22.800 --> 06:26.640] It seems like private industry is going to work out better

[06:26.640 --> 06:28.880] than NASA owning their own rockets at this point.

[06:28.880 --> 06:29.920] Don't you agree?

[06:29.920 --> 06:32.160] I mean, for low Earth orbit, it's worked out really well.

[06:32.800 --> 06:34.720] You know, that was sort of the division of labor.

[06:34.720 --> 06:37.120] They would let private industry handle low Earth orbit

[06:37.120 --> 06:39.040] and then NASA will do deep space, right?

[06:39.040 --> 06:40.720] Go back to the moon and then eventually Mars.

[06:41.280 --> 06:45.360] Orion, which is NASA's capsule, that is the only spaceship

[06:45.360 --> 06:47.760] that can get to the, you know, to the moon now, right?

[06:47.760 --> 06:49.120] That can do deep space missions.

[06:49.120 --> 06:51.680] It's rated for 21 days.

[06:51.680 --> 06:54.240] It's long enough to get to the moon and back, you know what I mean?

[06:54.240 --> 06:56.480] So the Dragon module can't do it?

[06:56.480 --> 06:59.360] Well, according to NASA, it's the only one that's rated for,

[06:59.360 --> 07:00.720] like, moon missions at this point.

[07:00.720 --> 07:05.200] So they would, not that you, you know, I'm sure you could get the Dragon capsule

[07:05.200 --> 07:09.280] or a version of it to the point where it would be rated for deep space,

[07:09.280 --> 07:10.480] but it isn't right now.

[07:11.200 --> 07:15.040] But again, they gave the contract to SpaceX, remember, for the lunar lander

[07:15.040 --> 07:20.240] and Musk wants to convert the Starship into a lunar lander.

[07:20.240 --> 07:22.240] Yeah, that's still on.

[07:22.240 --> 07:23.760] Which is, like, weird in a way.

[07:24.640 --> 07:28.080] Would that ship, Steve, leave from Earth or would it stay?

[07:28.080 --> 07:29.120] Well, it'd have to, right?

[07:29.120 --> 07:31.680] We're not going to build it on Earth, send it to the moon,

[07:31.680 --> 07:34.560] and then it's going to land on, that's the ship that's going to land on the moon.

[07:34.560 --> 07:36.560] But, you know, I think we talked about it at the time,

[07:36.560 --> 07:39.360] it's like, yeah, but it's going all the way to the moon.

[07:39.360 --> 07:41.760] Why don't you just make that your moon ship, you know what I mean?

[07:41.760 --> 07:46.800] Like, why are you going to take the SLS to the moon, then hop on over into the Starship

[07:46.800 --> 07:49.120] to go down, to land down on the moon?

[07:49.120 --> 07:49.680] I don't know.

[07:49.680 --> 07:51.680] I don't know exactly how that's going to work.

[07:51.680 --> 07:56.320] So, okay, so it is that way, that ship is going to basically ferry people

[07:56.320 --> 08:00.400] from low moon orbit to the surface.

[08:00.400 --> 08:01.440] Yes, that's right.

[08:01.440 --> 08:04.480] And it stays out there and they just refuel it and keep reusing it.

[08:04.480 --> 08:05.520] I guess so.

[08:05.520 --> 08:08.560] Steve, I'm hoping that the next thing that will be developed

[08:08.560 --> 08:14.720] will be a deep space nuclear rocket, because they're developing nuclear rockets for cislunar.

[08:14.720 --> 08:17.920] Now, they won't be really rated for beyond cislunar, right?

[08:17.920 --> 08:20.960] They really won't be designed to go beyond the moon.

[08:20.960 --> 08:25.680] But, and this is why NASA is working with them on this, once they have it,

[08:25.680 --> 08:29.040] then the homework, you know, the foundational homework will be done,

[08:29.040 --> 08:32.880] and then NASA could take that and then extend it and then make it,

[08:32.880 --> 08:34.640] you know, for a much deeper space.

[08:34.640 --> 08:36.320] So that's my hope.

[08:36.320 --> 08:40.400] That's my hope. The question is, is it going to be the next gen deep space,

[08:40.400 --> 08:41.920] or is it going to be the one after that?

[08:42.560 --> 08:48.560] Well, maybe just like let private companies handle just the heavy lift rockets

[08:48.560 --> 08:49.600] that get you to the moon.

[08:50.240 --> 08:54.560] And NASA just completely focuses on developing nuclear rockets.

[08:54.560 --> 08:57.120] Yeah, shit man, I'd be, I'm all for that.

[08:57.120 --> 08:58.400] Because that's the next thing we need.

[08:58.400 --> 09:01.680] And chemical rockets are just so inefficient, you know,

[09:01.680 --> 09:04.560] like it's just not the way to get to Mars and back.

[09:04.560 --> 09:11.760] No, anything beyond the moon, and chemical rockets are just going to be marginalized.

[09:11.760 --> 09:14.080] I mean, of course, now I'm thinking much deeper into the future,

[09:14.080 --> 09:16.880] but as we, as the decades and centuries accrue,

[09:17.760 --> 09:21.360] chemical is really going to be just like maybe for Earth launch.

[09:21.360 --> 09:22.160] And that's it.

[09:22.160 --> 09:25.120] Getting out of Earth's gravity well, that's pretty much going to be it.

[09:25.120 --> 09:28.640] Right. But that's, you know, who knows how long that's going to take,

[09:29.600 --> 09:32.880] you know, when chemical no longer has any role in deep space,

[09:32.880 --> 09:35.600] because, you know, long distance rocket equation says,

[09:35.600 --> 09:37.360] screw you chemical rockets.

[09:37.360 --> 09:38.080] Yeah.

[09:38.080 --> 09:38.640] Yeah.

[09:38.640 --> 09:40.720] And then, and then eventually fusion.

[09:40.720 --> 09:44.480] Once we get to fusion, then we're, that's the, that's the game.

[09:44.480 --> 09:45.440] Started man, that's good.

[09:45.440 --> 09:45.920] Yeah.

[09:45.920 --> 09:46.800] And what's interesting is-

[09:46.800 --> 09:49.200] Especially the hydrogen proton proton fusion engine.

[09:49.200 --> 09:54.640] Once we develop fusion engines, that's going to be our engines forever.

[09:54.640 --> 10:00.080] Like there's the probability that anything will replace it is so remote.

[10:00.080 --> 10:05.200] Like we don't know if it will ever happen and if it does, it will be in the distant far future.

[10:05.200 --> 10:05.600] Right.

[10:05.600 --> 10:08.560] So that's the brass ring right there.

[10:08.560 --> 10:11.360] Well, for reaction rockets, yes.

[10:11.360 --> 10:16.080] I think that's going to be it for quite, for potentially centuries.

[10:16.080 --> 10:18.560] And you could do an amazing amount of things-

[10:18.560 --> 10:19.520] I think thousands of years.

[10:19.520 --> 10:21.920] With, with, that's silly.

[10:21.920 --> 10:22.960] Technically centuries too.

[10:22.960 --> 10:23.840] But that's, yeah.

[10:23.840 --> 10:24.960] But that's, yeah.

[10:24.960 --> 10:28.320] I mean, even the best we can do with that type of reaction rocket,

[10:28.320 --> 10:31.120] say a fusion hydrogen proton proton, which is really efficient,

[10:31.120 --> 10:34.960] like say 11%, 11% speed of light exhaust velocity.

[10:34.960 --> 10:40.400] That is, you could still do, you know, 20% the speed of light with that type of rocket.

[10:40.400 --> 10:45.040] And if you don't care about cargo at all, you can get that rocket up to 50% the speed of light.

[10:45.680 --> 10:49.520] But then cargo of course becomes literally a millionth of the payload,

[10:49.520 --> 10:52.720] but still 10%, 20% the speed of light with a super advanced-

[10:52.720 --> 10:58.560] Give it a bob, you add, add a little bit of light sails and then that'll get you.

[10:58.560 --> 10:58.880] Yes.

[10:58.880 --> 10:59.680] That'll get you there.

[10:59.680 --> 11:01.840] So that's going to be light sails and fusion.

[11:01.840 --> 11:02.720] That's going to be space travel.

[11:02.720 --> 11:06.880] That seems to be, I think that's pretty much where we're going for centuries.

[11:06.880 --> 11:10.960] Unless an ASI, artificial super intelligence, rises and then all bets are off.

[11:10.960 --> 11:16.880] But even then, he or she would be constrained to, to the physics, to physics as we know it.

[11:16.880 --> 11:19.280] And even, even, you know, the ASI might say,

[11:19.280 --> 11:22.640] damn man, this is the best I could do, but it's still going to be cool.

[11:22.640 --> 11:24.560] Yeah. It's almost as if we wrote a whole book about it.

[11:24.560 --> 11:24.720] Yeah.

[11:26.560 --> 11:30.560] It's almost as if I just did a deep dive research on it because I talked about it at Dragon Con.

[11:31.200 --> 11:31.680] Dragon Con.

[11:31.680 --> 11:32.480] How was Dragon Con?

[11:33.040 --> 11:33.920] It was great.

[11:33.920 --> 11:39.360] Liz and I went first time in three years and I know you guys were just so wicked jealous.

[11:39.360 --> 11:40.000] It was great.

[11:40.000 --> 11:40.560] Totally.

[11:40.560 --> 11:42.160] It was pretty much as we remember it.

[11:42.160 --> 11:45.840] Amazing costumes, amazing fun, lots of people.

[11:45.840 --> 11:50.160] And pretty much, I was double masked for like four days in a row

[11:50.160 --> 11:55.680] and I took a, took a test today and totally clean, no, totally negative.

[11:55.680 --> 11:59.360] So I think I totally, you know, got away with it totally.

[12:00.400 --> 12:01.040] I did a talk.

[12:01.040 --> 12:04.480] I called the science, I called, I called the science panel guys and I'm like,

[12:04.480 --> 12:07.840] I want to do the future of rockets.

[12:07.840 --> 12:10.880] And they'd made a panel with like five guys and I was one of them.

[12:10.880 --> 12:12.320] And I just went off.

[12:12.320 --> 12:14.480] I did a deep dive for weeks.

[12:14.480 --> 12:17.840] For weeks I did a deep dive just to refresh my memory and all the research that I had

[12:17.840 --> 12:20.880] done for the chapter of the book about future rockets.

[12:20.880 --> 12:21.920] And I got it down, man.

[12:21.920 --> 12:26.880] I made an awesome bullet list of all the top, the top things that I needed to keep straight

[12:26.880 --> 12:27.440] in my head.

[12:27.440 --> 12:29.680] And it was so much fun to research.

[12:29.680 --> 12:34.000] And there was a great panel, great panel, great fellow panelists with me.

[12:34.000 --> 12:36.960] They were all very knowledgeable and it was great.

[12:36.960 --> 12:38.880] But also I did some skeptical stuff.

[12:38.880 --> 12:40.240] I talked about the two books.

[12:40.240 --> 12:45.760] I did a, I did a one man show on stage on the skeptical track and I was like, oh boy,

[12:45.760 --> 12:46.960] this is scary.

[12:46.960 --> 12:47.840] But it was fine.

[12:47.840 --> 12:48.640] It was fine.

[12:48.640 --> 12:52.160] I just, I just went off on the books and then I started talking about rockets again.

[12:52.160 --> 12:52.960] And then that was it.

[12:52.960 --> 12:54.400] I was in my happy place.

[12:54.960 --> 12:56.560] And, uh, totally great.

[12:56.560 --> 13:00.160] Bob, totally utterly, absolutely.

[13:00.160 --> 13:04.560] Indubitably your solo talk was basically like a pared down news item for Bob.

[13:04.560 --> 13:06.080] Yeah, that's basically what it was.

[13:06.880 --> 13:07.520] It was great.

[13:07.520 --> 13:13.760] And, uh, so many, as usual, so many great costumes, the talent on display at Dragon

[13:13.760 --> 13:19.840] Con blows me away every time I go and I'm determined next year to have an awesome homemade

[13:19.840 --> 13:21.520] costume, which I didn't have this year.

[13:22.320 --> 13:22.480] Yeah.

[13:22.480 --> 13:24.240] We haven't been, I've been what, in four years now.

[13:24.240 --> 13:26.480] It'll be, we're definitely going to make a plan to go next year.

[13:27.120 --> 13:27.440] Yeah.

[13:27.440 --> 13:28.800] I mean, we were fine.

[13:28.800 --> 13:30.480] Pandemic willing, but I hopefully will.

[13:30.480 --> 13:30.720] Yeah.

[13:30.720 --> 13:31.200] It's time.

[13:31.200 --> 13:33.360] I mean, as long as things are good, we gotta go.

[13:33.360 --> 13:36.960] We were surrounded at times by thousands of people.

[13:36.960 --> 13:39.840] And at a couple of times I was like, this is uncomfortable.

[13:40.560 --> 13:44.080] But I had my double masks, you know, I held my breath a lot.

[13:44.640 --> 13:46.000] And it, and I'm fine.

[13:46.000 --> 13:48.720] Both Liz and I are both, you know, totally testing negative.

[13:48.720 --> 13:50.400] And it's been many, it's been days.

[13:50.400 --> 13:51.200] So it's doable.

[13:51.200 --> 13:53.760] Just, you know, you just, you know, you could take it easy.

[13:53.760 --> 13:57.840] You don't have to go into the big shoulder to shoulder crowds, um, you know?

[13:57.840 --> 13:58.320] And, uh, it's totally doable.

[13:58.320 --> 14:00.400] How about the, uh, the merch room?

[14:00.400 --> 14:00.800] Oh yeah.

[14:00.800 --> 14:02.640] That was, that was, you know, it was Christmas.

[14:02.640 --> 14:04.080] I'm, I'm walking towards it.

[14:04.080 --> 14:04.240] Yeah.

[14:04.240 --> 14:04.720] But how was it?

[14:04.720 --> 14:06.320] Was there a shoulder to shoulder in there?

[14:06.320 --> 14:07.200] No, no.

[14:07.200 --> 14:10.400] The first day, the first day it opened where I was like waiting for it.

[14:10.400 --> 14:13.360] And it was, it was, there's four floors, as you know.

[14:13.360 --> 14:17.680] And, uh, it was not shoulder to shoulder craziness at that, that the first few hours that I was

[14:17.680 --> 14:18.400] there.

[14:18.400 --> 14:20.080] And, uh, so that's, so that was fine too.

[14:20.080 --> 14:21.680] I was worried about that as well.

[14:21.680 --> 14:26.160] By the way, one last detail I've got to mention about the Orion capsule is that it's not just

[14:26.160 --> 14:27.920] that it's rated for 21 days.

[14:27.920 --> 14:32.800] When you come back from the moon, you reenter the atmosphere much faster than when you,

[14:32.800 --> 14:35.520] than when you're just coming down from low earth orbit.

[14:35.520 --> 14:39.360] And so the capsule has to be rated for high speed reentry.

[14:39.360 --> 14:39.680] Yeah.

[14:39.680 --> 14:43.360] And I think the, the Orion capsule is the only one that could do that.

[14:43.360 --> 14:48.400] So like the dragon capsule would really need to be redesigned or refitted to be a high

[14:48.400 --> 14:49.360] speed reentry.

[14:49.360 --> 14:51.520] That's yeah, that's, yeah, that's major.

[14:51.520 --> 14:53.200] You're not going to just slap on duct tape.

[14:53.200 --> 14:56.160] That's like a major event, major redesign.

[14:56.160 --> 14:56.960] I'm sure they could.

[14:56.960 --> 14:57.360] Yeah.

[14:57.360 --> 14:57.520] Yeah.

[14:57.520 --> 14:58.880] But I'm sure they could do it if they wanted to.

[14:58.880 --> 15:02.480] All right, Bob, um, you're going to start us off with a quickie.

[15:02.480 --> 15:05.200] You're going to tell us about Frank Drake.

[15:05.200 --> 15:06.320] Thank you, Steve.

Quickie with Bob: Frank Drake (15:00)

• Frank Drake passes away [link_URL TITLE]

[15:06.320 --> 15:08.800] Hello and welcome to your Quickie with Bob.

[15:08.800 --> 15:12.800] No need to gird your loins for this one, Kara, but you may need a hanky.

[15:12.800 --> 15:17.600] We lost astrophysicist Frank Drake this past September 2nd, 2022.

[15:17.600 --> 15:18.880] He was 92.

[15:18.880 --> 15:19.680] Good run.

[15:19.680 --> 15:20.400] Nice run.

[15:20.400 --> 15:20.880] Good run.

[15:20.880 --> 15:24.960] We always say that when you're like, you know, in the eighties or nineties, but 92 is great.

[15:24.960 --> 15:30.240] I would, I would pay a good chunk of money right now if you can guarantee me, um, 92.

[15:30.240 --> 15:35.600] So he is most famous, of course, for his 1961 Drake equation.

[15:35.600 --> 15:39.920] I would love to have an equation named after me like that, which attempts to determine

[15:39.920 --> 15:44.560] the number of technological civilizations in our galaxy whose signals we could detect.

[15:45.200 --> 15:46.800] We talked about it on the show many times.

[15:46.800 --> 15:49.120] I won't go into any more detail on the equation itself.

[15:49.120 --> 15:51.120] We all know it by heart.

[15:51.120 --> 15:52.080] He did this now.

[15:52.080 --> 15:58.160] He did this after doing the very first modern SETI experiment in 1960 called Project

[15:58.160 --> 16:04.960] OSMA using a radio telescope to examine the stars, Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani, two names

[16:04.960 --> 16:06.560] of stars that I absolutely love.

[16:06.560 --> 16:09.040] I think it's what the Star Trek vibe or whatever.

[16:09.040 --> 16:10.240] I just love those names.

[16:10.240 --> 16:12.320] To me, there's just so science fictiony.

[16:12.320 --> 16:18.080] Now he used a part of the spectrum called the water hole, which is awesome on many levels

[16:18.080 --> 16:20.720] because it's near the hydrogen spectral lines.

[16:20.720 --> 16:21.360] Get it?

[16:21.360 --> 16:26.400] And it's also that, that part of the spectrum, the electromagnetic spectrum that's especially

[16:26.400 --> 16:31.600] quiet, and he reasoned that other intelligences would realize that as well and that it would

[16:31.600 --> 16:35.360] be a really good, efficient frequency to communicate over.

[16:36.000 --> 16:42.480] Now that experiment took two months and $2,000 in new equipment, and he essentially created

[16:42.480 --> 16:47.280] a new field by doing that SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

[16:47.280 --> 16:51.760] From what I could tell, he did come up with that Drake equation to necessarily determine

[16:51.760 --> 16:56.320] the number of aliens that are out there, but as a way to stimulate discussions at the first

[16:56.320 --> 17:02.560] SETI meeting, because he was asked, hey, dude, because he became famous the year after he

[17:02.560 --> 17:02.960] did this.

[17:02.960 --> 17:09.120] He became well known the world over, and he was asked, hey, have this SETI conference,

[17:09.120 --> 17:10.560] the very first SETI conference.

[17:11.360 --> 17:17.280] He then came up with the Drake equation for that to stimulate discussions and thinking.

[17:17.280 --> 17:21.680] Drake's passion for astronomy and the possibility of life out there began when he was eight

[17:21.680 --> 17:26.000] years old, imagining alien Earths scattered across the night sky.

[17:26.000 --> 17:31.680] After his dad told him there were many worlds out there in space, and that was in 1938,

[17:31.680 --> 17:32.160] by the way.

[17:32.160 --> 17:32.960] Good on you, dad.

[17:33.760 --> 17:37.520] Seth Shostak said of him, Drake was never an impatient listener.

[17:37.520 --> 17:40.720] He was, to my mind, one of the last nice guys around.

[17:40.720 --> 17:44.800] He was never moody, never angry, and he didn't show the slightest annoyance if you walked

[17:44.800 --> 17:48.320] into his office and took his attention away from whatever he was doing.

[17:48.320 --> 17:53.920] And I read that over and over, people who had known him, that he was such a great, great

[17:53.920 --> 17:54.480] guy.

[17:54.480 --> 18:00.080] And I'll end with a quote from Nadia Drake, Frank's daughter, a titan in life, dad leaves

[18:00.080 --> 18:01.600] a titanic absence.

[18:02.720 --> 18:04.800] This was your sad quickie with Bob.

[18:04.800 --> 18:05.120] Thank you.

[18:06.000 --> 18:07.920] Yeah, it's always like a bittersweet, right?

[18:07.920 --> 18:14.000] It is sad to lose a giant like Frank Drake, but you're happy that he lived a long life.

[18:14.000 --> 18:16.560] He was relevant to the end.

[18:17.200 --> 18:23.440] Yeah, I mean, for centuries, as we're looking, and I think we'll never stop searching for

[18:23.440 --> 18:29.840] a life out there, his name will, and he will be in the thoughts of all the other big explorers

[18:29.840 --> 18:32.880] that haven't even been born yet that will be looking to the stars.

[18:32.880 --> 18:35.120] Bob, you and I are going to have to come up with our own equation.

[18:35.120 --> 18:36.400] It'll be the novella equation.

[18:36.400 --> 18:37.040] Yes, yes.

[18:37.040 --> 18:40.480] How about the probability that AI will wipe out human civilization?

[18:40.480 --> 18:41.920] Yes, all right.

[18:41.920 --> 18:42.640] Done.

[18:42.640 --> 18:43.440] We will do this.

[18:43.440 --> 18:44.800] That's too good not to happen.

[18:44.800 --> 18:45.040] All right.

[18:45.040 --> 18:45.840] All right.

[18:45.840 --> 18:46.640] Well, we'll work on it.

[18:46.640 --> 18:47.520] We'll come up with some other ideas.

[18:47.520 --> 18:48.880] That's horrible.

[18:48.880 --> 18:49.760] That's horrible.

News Items

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

follow up on the MOXIE instrument on Mars (18:51)

• [link_URL TITLE]

[18:50.720 --> 18:51.440] All right, Jay.

[18:51.440 --> 18:55.520] You actually were kind of an astronomy space theme.

[18:56.480 --> 19:02.320] You're going to tell us, give us a follow up on the MOXIE instrument on Mars.

[19:02.320 --> 19:04.240] Yeah, do you guys remember MOXIE?

[19:04.240 --> 19:05.040] The oxygen thing?

[19:05.040 --> 19:06.640] MOXIE is creating oxygen on Mars right now.

[19:06.640 --> 19:07.040] Yeah.

[19:07.040 --> 19:08.000] Oh, okay.

[19:08.000 --> 19:08.800] Now I remember.

[19:08.800 --> 19:12.160] It's one of my favorite things about Perseverance.

[19:12.160 --> 19:17.760] So just to go through the basics so you guys understand, it's totally worth talking about

[19:17.760 --> 19:19.840] again because it's this fascinating technology.

[19:19.840 --> 19:25.920] It's an instrument about the size of a lunchbox that is connected to the Perseverance rover.

[19:25.920 --> 19:30.240] It happens to live in the front right side of Perseverance.

[19:30.240 --> 19:36.240] And its job is to take in the Martian atmosphere, which is 96% death, right?

[19:36.240 --> 19:38.640] It's 96% carbon dioxide.

[19:38.640 --> 19:41.840] And what it does is it strips the carbon atom away from the oxygen atoms.

[19:41.840 --> 19:43.200] I'll get into more detail about that.

[19:44.240 --> 19:48.640] And they're testing it and it's gone amazingly well.

[19:48.640 --> 19:50.480] So let me get into some details.

[19:50.480 --> 19:56.240] So first of all, MOXIE stands for Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment.

[19:56.880 --> 20:00.320] And it couldn't be, the name is perfect for what this little bugger does.

[20:00.320 --> 20:02.880] So details about how it works.

[20:02.880 --> 20:08.560] So it takes in the Martian air and it filters it to remove any contaminants that happen

[20:08.560 --> 20:11.440] to be in there and dust particles, dirt and all that crap.

[20:11.440 --> 20:15.760] The air is then pressurized and then it's fed into something called the Solid Oxide

[20:15.760 --> 20:16.640] Electrolyzer.

[20:16.640 --> 20:19.280] That totally sounds like, what was that?

[20:19.280 --> 20:20.480] The encabulator, Steve?

[20:21.040 --> 20:22.720] Yeah, the turbo encabulator.

[20:22.720 --> 20:23.220] Yeah.

[20:23.840 --> 20:29.120] So the Solid Oxide Electrolyzer, this is an instrument that electrochemically splits the

[20:29.120 --> 20:33.120] carbon dioxide molecule into oxygen ions and carbon monoxide.

[20:33.680 --> 20:40.880] The oxygen ions are separated from the carbon monoxide and then they combine them to make

[20:40.880 --> 20:43.920] molecular oxygen, which is essentially just oxygen.

[20:43.920 --> 20:47.440] MOXIE then measures how much oxygen it creates, right?

[20:47.440 --> 20:54.000] So as it has created this batch, it measures how much it has just created and it also checks

[20:54.000 --> 20:56.720] its purity before it releases it back into the atmosphere.

[20:56.720 --> 21:00.320] And that's what MOXIE is doing right now, is just spitting this stuff right back out

[21:00.320 --> 21:01.200] into the atmosphere.

[21:01.920 --> 21:04.640] The single unit weighs, how much do you guys think this thing weighs?

[21:04.640 --> 21:05.140] Four pounds?

[21:06.160 --> 21:07.280] 21 kilos.

[21:07.280 --> 21:10.080] Not bad, 37 pounds or 17 kilos.

[21:10.080 --> 21:14.720] And now it does the work of a small tree, if you can believe that.

[21:14.720 --> 21:15.280] The unit was-

[21:15.280 --> 21:15.780] How small?

[21:16.640 --> 21:17.520] I'll get into detail.

[21:17.520 --> 21:21.760] A small tree, meaning I would say anything that's probably below 10 feet, like it's

[21:21.760 --> 21:23.520] a non-mature tree.

[21:24.160 --> 21:29.040] The unit was first turned on in February 2021 and every test they ran worked perfectly.

[21:29.040 --> 21:33.920] They ran seven experimental runs at different conditions, which now that I think about it,

[21:33.920 --> 21:39.360] of course they had to test it under different conditions because Mars can be so variable.

[21:39.360 --> 21:44.160] They first have to warm up MOXIE for a few hours because it's cold.

[21:44.160 --> 21:47.600] And then they run it for about an hour and then they shut it down.

[21:47.600 --> 21:49.680] And that's them just running a cycle test on it.

[21:50.800 --> 21:54.880] And what they do is they run it during the day, then they tested it at night, then they

[21:54.880 --> 22:00.640] tested it in different seasons because the temperature and the air pressure, the density

[22:00.640 --> 22:05.360] and the overall air temperature can vary a lot, like 100 degree shifts in temperature

[22:05.360 --> 22:08.080] depending on the season and time of day and all that.

[22:08.080 --> 22:13.600] So they haven't tested it during dawn and dusk because there are significant temperature

[22:13.600 --> 22:17.200] changes that happen during those times and they just want to like do preliminary testing

[22:17.200 --> 22:19.280] and then they're going to get into the more advanced testing.

[22:19.280 --> 22:25.120] But so far, every scenario that they put it through, it worked fantastically well.

[22:25.120 --> 22:28.880] It produces six grams of oxygen per hour.

[22:29.440 --> 22:32.720] So this is equal to, as I said, a small tree on Earth.

[22:32.720 --> 22:38.320] MOXIE is the first, it's the first thing that we've put on another planet that does what

[22:38.320 --> 22:38.800] guys?

[22:38.800 --> 22:41.280] Creates oxygen.

[22:41.280 --> 22:46.640] Well, more importantly, it's the first thing that ever used local resources and manufactured

[22:46.640 --> 22:48.400] them into something that's usable.

[22:48.400 --> 22:48.880] That's cool.

[22:50.000 --> 22:50.720] Very cool.

[22:50.720 --> 22:53.040] That is like, that is a milestone here.

[22:53.040 --> 22:57.680] It's incredibly useful because it could save, I'm going to start off by saying millions,

[22:57.680 --> 23:01.840] but after hearing Steve talk about how expensive these missions are, it could save billions

[23:01.840 --> 23:07.600] of dollars or more quintillions in cost to ship oxygen to Mars, right?

[23:07.600 --> 23:11.680] Think about it because we'd have to ship frequently ship a lot of oxygen to Mars.

[23:11.680 --> 23:13.600] That stuff is heavy, by the way.

[23:13.600 --> 23:14.880] Sorry, the launch is late, guys.

[23:14.880 --> 23:16.080] Hold your breath for a week.

[23:16.080 --> 23:20.400] The current version of MOXIE was made small deliberately so it could fit on perseverance

[23:20.400 --> 23:26.080] and it wasn't built to run continuously, but in its current form, it has proven to be very

[23:26.080 --> 23:29.840] efficient, which is very important because it won't use a lot of energy and it's reliable.

[23:29.840 --> 23:35.600] The next big test for MOXIE is to run it when the atmosphere is at its densest and they

[23:35.600 --> 23:37.920] plan to run it for as long as possible now.

[23:37.920 --> 23:40.960] They're just going to let that little bugger keep chugging along and just see what happens

[23:40.960 --> 23:43.520] to it because that'll teach us more about what to do.

[23:43.520 --> 23:48.160] Since MOXIE has to be turned on and then it has to be heated up and then they turn it

[23:48.160 --> 23:50.720] off, it goes through something called thermal stress, right?

[23:50.720 --> 23:54.240] Temperature goes up and the metal and parts expand and do what they're going to do and

[23:54.240 --> 23:56.320] then when it cools off, it shrinks back down.

[23:56.320 --> 24:01.600] Now since MOXIE is able to handle thermal stress, the researchers say that a new larger

[24:01.600 --> 24:06.720] system, MOXIE on steroids, would be able to last a very long time since it won't be

[24:06.720 --> 24:12.240] experiencing anywhere near the number of thermal stresses that MOXIE has already proven to

[24:12.240 --> 24:12.960] go through.

[24:12.960 --> 24:18.880] I know they've only tested it seven times, but that's a lot and they could turn on the

[24:18.880 --> 24:23.680] larger version of it and it may never turn off until its end of life cycle.

[24:23.680 --> 24:24.480] It just does what it does.

[24:24.480 --> 24:25.520] Just let it run, yeah.

[24:25.520 --> 24:30.560] Yeah, the larger version of MOXIE could be placed on Mars way before we put humans there.

[24:30.560 --> 24:32.800] It could be producing oxygen for a long time.

[24:32.800 --> 24:35.600] There could be a whole cache of oxygen ready to go.

[24:36.560 --> 24:42.720] The new unit, of course, they want it to run continuously and it could make approximately

[24:43.360 --> 24:46.400] several hundred trees worth of oxygen per day.

[24:46.400 --> 24:47.120] Per day?

[24:47.120 --> 24:47.600] Yes.

[24:47.600 --> 24:48.160] Not bad.

[24:48.160 --> 24:48.640] How many?

[24:48.640 --> 24:49.440] How much is that?

[24:49.440 --> 24:53.920] As a point of reference, Kara, I'm going to tell you a single person needs about seven

[24:53.920 --> 24:56.240] to eight trees worth of oxygen a day.

[24:56.240 --> 24:57.600] Oh, damn.

[24:57.600 --> 24:58.800] That's a lot.

[24:58.800 --> 24:59.040] Yep.

[24:59.600 --> 25:05.120] But, you know, if you do the math, you know, several hundred trees divided by eight turns

[25:05.120 --> 25:09.200] into quite a good crew of people there that the machine could keep alive.

[25:09.200 --> 25:12.240] And who says that they don't put two or three MOXIE machines?

[25:12.240 --> 25:13.840] Yeah, they want some redundancy.

[25:14.720 --> 25:18.160] The great thing about oxygen is what, first, it keeps us alive.

[25:18.720 --> 25:23.040] And the second great thing is that it, of course, can be used as fuel because we need

[25:23.040 --> 25:24.800] fuel to get off the surface of Mars.

[25:24.800 --> 25:29.600] And oxygen is a primary component in fuel, you know, in chemical fuel.

[25:29.600 --> 25:32.560] So thank you, MOXIE, for working.

[25:32.560 --> 25:35.680] So the carbon monoxide is useful, too.

[25:35.680 --> 25:36.000] Oh, yeah.

[25:36.000 --> 25:38.640] Don't discount the carbon monoxide is a high energy molecule.

[25:38.640 --> 25:42.880] And that's feedstock for things like hydrocarbons.

[25:42.880 --> 25:44.640] So all that you need is hydrogen.

[25:44.640 --> 25:49.360] If we could get a source of hydrogen on Mars, then you can combine the hydrogen with the

[25:49.360 --> 25:51.120] carbon monoxide to make methane.

[25:51.120 --> 25:55.120] The hydrogen, obviously, itself could be burned with the oxygen as rocket fuel.

[25:55.920 --> 25:58.000] And there are sources of hydrogen on Mars.

[25:58.000 --> 26:03.360] There are there's a lot of water on Mars and so not all of it is in drinkable form.

[26:03.360 --> 26:09.360] There are like what they call perchlorate brines, which is a lot of hydroxyl groups,

[26:09.360 --> 26:13.920] a lot of a lot of water type, you know, molecular groups in there.

[26:13.920 --> 26:14.880] Water-ish.

[26:14.880 --> 26:18.880] Yeah, well, hydrogen and oxygen, but it's not necessarily drinkable water.

[26:18.880 --> 26:23.840] But you get that you split the hydrogen off, you have pure hydrogen, you have more oxygen,

[26:23.840 --> 26:26.800] you could make fuel, you have oxygen to burn with the fuel.

[26:26.800 --> 26:30.560] We definitely are going to need to be able to make all of our fuel for the return trip

[26:30.560 --> 26:31.600] locally on Mars.

[26:31.600 --> 26:33.280] You can't carry all that crap with you.

[26:33.280 --> 26:36.000] Yeah, rocket equation will kill you if you try to do that.

[26:36.000 --> 26:42.400] So and then if and then if we could find a source of nitrogen on Mars, then we also have

[26:42.400 --> 26:45.600] our fertilizer to grow our own food there.

[26:45.600 --> 26:50.160] And there is nitrogen on Mars already fixed in the form of nitrates.

[26:50.160 --> 26:56.160] So, yeah, the bottom line is pretty much we have everything we need on Mars, you know,

[26:56.160 --> 26:57.840] for food, oxygen and water.

[26:57.840 --> 26:59.600] Except for the hamburger molecules.

[26:59.600 --> 27:05.280] Well, yeah, but you just grow the food and then you raise the animals and slaughter them.

[27:05.280 --> 27:08.080] And then you have your hamburger.

[27:08.080 --> 27:10.080] Thank you, Dr. Strangelove.

[27:10.080 --> 27:12.880] Just make some lab-grown meat, that'd be fine.

[27:12.880 --> 27:14.400] Yeah, there you go, lab-grown meat.

do people like you more if you talk more or talk less (27:16)

• [link_URL TITLE]

[27:14.400 --> 27:21.120] All right, Kara, tell us, do people like you more if you talk more or talk less?

[27:21.120 --> 27:22.480] Let's get into it.

[27:22.480 --> 27:23.480] Let's talk about it.

[27:23.480 --> 27:27.360] When you say you, do you mean someone specifically or people in general?

[27:27.360 --> 27:28.360] People in general.

[27:28.360 --> 27:29.360] Yeah.

[27:29.360 --> 27:33.440] So I guess that is the important question, and that is the question that some researchers

[27:33.440 --> 27:41.120] from a little place called Harvard and the University of Virginia wanted to know.

[27:41.120 --> 27:45.880] So they have a new empirical paper that was published in Personality and Social Psychology

[27:45.880 --> 27:49.600] Bulletin called Speak Up!

[27:49.600 --> 27:53.000] Mistaken beliefs about how much to talk in conversations.

[27:53.000 --> 27:57.080] And as the title implies, I probably shouldn't have said that out loud, very often people

[27:57.080 --> 28:02.160] make judgments that are not reflective of reality about how much they should speak based

[28:02.160 --> 28:04.800] on what their outcome goals are.

[28:04.800 --> 28:12.080] So they wanted to know if somebody wants to be liked, how much do they think they should

[28:12.080 --> 28:13.480] talk in a conversation?

[28:13.480 --> 28:19.200] If somebody wants to be or to seem important, how much do they think they should talk in

[28:19.200 --> 28:20.360] a conversation?

[28:20.360 --> 28:25.200] And finally, if somebody just wants to enjoy the conversation, how much do they think they

[28:25.200 --> 28:26.200] should talk?

[28:26.200 --> 28:30.000] And they used a couple of different paradigms to look at this, like most psychology experiments

[28:30.000 --> 28:33.280] they kind of ran it a few different ways to ask different questions.

[28:33.280 --> 28:37.800] So first, I guess I'm curious from all of you, what do you think across those three

[28:37.800 --> 28:38.800] different parameters?

[28:38.800 --> 28:44.080] If somebody wants to be liked, what percentage of time do you think that they will think

[28:44.080 --> 28:45.080] that they should talk?

[28:45.080 --> 28:49.760] Do they think or should they do this in a one on one conversation?

[28:49.760 --> 28:50.760] What's the environment?

[28:50.760 --> 28:51.760] One on one.

[28:51.760 --> 28:52.760] So these are diets.

[28:52.760 --> 28:53.760] Yeah.

[28:53.760 --> 28:57.720] So with a partner, how much and again, not how much should they talk to be liked?

[28:57.720 --> 29:00.720] How much do they think they should talk to be liked?

[29:00.720 --> 29:01.720] 30%.

[29:01.720 --> 29:08.160] Well, no, are minutes, are we measuring, are we, 50% of time, 31% you think 50% you think

[29:08.160 --> 29:16.600] 30% definitely lower than 50% probably 30% for Evan says 30%.

[29:16.600 --> 29:17.600] Okay.

[29:17.600 --> 29:18.600] So it's interesting.

[29:18.600 --> 29:23.480] Evan, you said before you said 30%, you said definitely lower than 50%.

[29:23.480 --> 29:24.800] That's what the researchers thought as well.

[29:24.800 --> 29:30.920] They were like, okay, people whose goal is to be liked very often, and this bears out

[29:30.920 --> 29:34.720] in the literature, very often think they should talk less than half the time.

[29:34.720 --> 29:39.800] Cause it's a, it's a gesture of politeness and courtesy in a, in a cultural sense.

[29:39.800 --> 29:42.720] People love to talk about themselves.

[29:42.720 --> 29:44.360] And they actually have a name for this.

[29:44.360 --> 29:46.160] They call it the reticence bias.

[29:46.160 --> 29:47.160] Reticence.

[29:47.160 --> 29:48.160] Very good.

[29:48.160 --> 29:49.160] Yeah.

[29:49.160 --> 29:53.920] As they say, the reticence bias we suggest is rooted in the fact that people lack confidence

[29:53.920 --> 29:56.000] in their conversational abilities.

[29:56.000 --> 30:00.520] They go on to talk about social anxiety, but they also, um, and that the people are hard

[30:00.520 --> 30:05.160] on themselves and that they don't get a lot of valid external feedback.

[30:05.160 --> 30:10.000] Um, but generally speaking, people think that if they listen more than they talk, they're

[30:10.000 --> 30:11.880] going to be liked more.

[30:11.880 --> 30:13.060] Here's the rub.

[30:13.060 --> 30:15.980] That's not the case.

[30:15.980 --> 30:22.480] So second paradigm do if people's goal is not to be liked, but it's to seem interesting.

[30:22.480 --> 30:23.480] What do you think?

[30:23.480 --> 30:25.560] Well, then I would think talk more, right?

[30:25.560 --> 30:26.560] You would think that, right?

[30:26.560 --> 30:28.280] Then they would want to talk more.

[30:28.280 --> 30:32.000] And that's exactly how it bared out with their, with their study.

[30:32.000 --> 30:37.760] People when told that the goal was to seem interesting, did talk more in the dyad because

[30:37.760 --> 30:40.240] they thought, or they, they selected that option.

[30:40.240 --> 30:44.120] I should talk more in the dyad because that will make me seem more interesting.

[30:44.120 --> 30:50.080] And then finally, if they wanted to just enjoy themselves in the conversation, what do you

[30:50.080 --> 30:51.080] think?

[30:51.080 --> 30:52.080] Don't talk at all.

[30:52.080 --> 30:53.080] Even.

[30:53.080 --> 30:54.080] Even.

[30:54.080 --> 30:55.080] Yeah.

[30:55.080 --> 30:56.080] 50 50.

[30:56.080 --> 30:57.080] So.

[30:57.080 --> 30:58.520] That's the most important question.

[30:58.520 --> 31:06.200] But what if your goal is to get laid, that probably is the most important.

[31:06.200 --> 31:07.560] That is their follow up study.

[31:07.560 --> 31:09.840] Well, you got to do all of them though.

[31:09.840 --> 31:10.840] You got to be liked.

[31:10.840 --> 31:15.480] You got to be interesting thing at all at the same time.

[31:15.480 --> 31:16.480] And enjoy yourself.

[31:16.480 --> 31:17.480] Yeah.

[31:17.480 --> 31:19.400] So actually, interestingly, something will bear out from that.

[31:19.400 --> 31:24.120] So basically they, um, they did a couple of studies where they were forecasting.

[31:24.120 --> 31:27.320] So they, you know, this is very classic psychology study.

[31:27.320 --> 31:32.120] So they used a mechanical Turk and Qualtrics and they asked some questions.

[31:32.120 --> 31:34.880] Let me go to study one.

[31:34.880 --> 31:41.520] And they asked some questions where they imagined having a conversation with different conversational

[31:41.520 --> 31:43.320] prompts.

[31:43.320 --> 31:47.000] And then they were asked, you know, how much should they, how much did they think they

[31:47.000 --> 31:48.000] should talk?

[31:48.000 --> 31:50.240] Because remember, this is not about whether or not they did.

[31:50.240 --> 31:54.360] It's about their self kind of assessment of should they talk more, talk less.

[31:54.360 --> 31:55.840] And those were the outcomes, right?

[31:55.840 --> 32:03.520] I think it was, uh, let's see if the goal was to be liked, people said on average that

[32:03.520 --> 32:12.520] they should speak 43% of the time, whereas their partner should speak 56% of the time.

[32:12.520 --> 32:16.440] If the goal was to be interesting, they said they themselves should speak about 57 and

[32:16.440 --> 32:20.320] a half percent of the time, whereas their partner should speak 42% of the time.

[32:20.320 --> 32:24.740] And if the goal was to enjoy themselves, it was right around 50, 50.

[32:24.740 --> 32:30.960] And then they repeated the study and found very similar outcomes.

[32:30.960 --> 32:35.520] And then they actually kind of forced the hand and made people talk a certain amount

[32:35.520 --> 32:36.520] of time.

[32:36.520 --> 32:37.520] Right?

[32:37.520 --> 32:38.680] Like, of course that would be the followup study.

[32:38.680 --> 32:42.400] It was a little bit arbitrary and a little bit fake because they used like a computer

[32:42.400 --> 32:45.560] would cue them and say, talk now, now you talk, now you talk.

[32:45.560 --> 32:51.120] But it actually measured it out at these certain points, like 30%, 40%, 50%, 60% or 70% of

[32:51.120 --> 32:52.120] the time.

[32:52.120 --> 32:53.800] What do you think happened to that?

[32:53.800 --> 32:54.840] It worked.

[32:54.840 --> 32:55.840] What worked?

[32:55.840 --> 33:02.360] They were, they achieved the goal of like, you know, enjoying themselves more or being

[33:02.360 --> 33:03.360] liked more.

[33:03.360 --> 33:04.360] Interesting.

[33:04.360 --> 33:05.360] It worked.

[33:05.360 --> 33:06.360] Yeah.

[33:06.360 --> 33:10.680] So, so basically that the outcomes would have followed the intentions.

[33:10.680 --> 33:14.200] Like if they thought they wanted to be liked and they spoke less than they were liked more.

[33:14.200 --> 33:16.160] No, the opposite.

[33:16.160 --> 33:17.160] They were wrong.

[33:17.160 --> 33:18.160] The opposite happened.

[33:18.160 --> 33:19.160] Yeah.

[33:19.160 --> 33:20.160] Their initial assessment was wrong.

[33:20.160 --> 33:21.160] It's kind of neither.

[33:21.160 --> 33:27.240] It sort of doesn't follow the most clear pattern, but it looks like it's a little bit bimodal.

[33:27.240 --> 33:32.760] The more important outcome that the researchers point to is something that they call, they

[33:32.760 --> 33:34.320] call it halo ignorance.

[33:34.320 --> 33:37.520] And to understand halo ignorance, you have to first understand the halo effect.

HALO Effect (33:27)

[33:37.520 --> 33:40.720] Do you guys, have you ever heard of the halo effect in social psychology?

[33:40.720 --> 33:41.720] Okay.

[33:41.720 --> 33:42.720] It's pretty interesting.

[33:42.720 --> 33:49.120] I'm going to describe it because I had experience demonstrating it when I worked on brain games.

[33:49.120 --> 33:54.480] So this was a really fun episode that we did where I got to go to this like fake art gallery

[33:54.480 --> 33:59.760] and I played the gallerist and opposite me was Colin Hanks.

[33:59.760 --> 34:01.200] You guys know Colin Hanks, right?

[34:01.200 --> 34:02.200] Tom Hanks' son.

[34:02.200 --> 34:03.200] Colin.

[34:03.200 --> 34:04.200] Yes.

[34:04.200 --> 34:05.200] Oh, with all the tattoos.

[34:05.200 --> 34:06.200] He was in the offer.

[34:06.200 --> 34:07.200] He was in the offer.

[34:07.200 --> 34:08.200] No, he doesn't have a lot of tattoos.

[34:08.200 --> 34:09.200] Oh, maybe the other son.

[34:09.200 --> 34:12.200] No, he's like a very famous actor who looks a lot like Tom Hanks.

[34:12.200 --> 34:13.200] I see.

[34:13.200 --> 34:14.200] Yeah.

[34:14.200 --> 34:15.200] Yeah.

[34:15.200 --> 34:16.200] And has been in, yeah, he was in band of brothers.

[34:16.200 --> 34:17.200] He was in a ton of stuff.

[34:17.200 --> 34:23.760] So he played himself in one paradigm where he had all, we set the art gallery up with

[34:23.760 --> 34:27.360] a bunch of art and in one paradigm he was like, Hey, I'm Colin Hanks.

[34:27.360 --> 34:29.160] I've decided my hand at art.

[34:29.160 --> 34:32.320] I really interested in you guys as you know, feedback, blah, blah, blah.

[34:32.320 --> 34:36.980] And then we got their, their feedback, not to his face where they talked about whether

[34:36.980 --> 34:39.060] or not they enjoyed his art.

[34:39.060 --> 34:44.100] And then in another paradigm, we dressed him up as this alter ego named Giannis Patch.

[34:44.100 --> 34:48.280] And he had like a soul patch and was dressed really weird and was like super aggressive

[34:48.280 --> 34:51.320] and like not nice to anybody.

[34:51.320 --> 34:54.600] Like he was very holier than thou and just played this awful character that nobody got

[34:54.600 --> 34:55.600] along with.

[34:55.600 --> 34:56.600] And what do you think happened?

[34:56.600 --> 35:01.360] They liked Colin Hanks' art and they hated Giannis Patch's art, even though it was the

[35:01.360 --> 35:02.360] same art.

[35:02.360 --> 35:03.360] Wow.

[35:03.360 --> 35:04.360] Right.

[35:04.360 --> 35:10.840] So the halo effect really is this idea that there are global features that come together.

[35:10.840 --> 35:14.040] So if you like the person, you like the person's art.

[35:14.040 --> 35:16.000] If you dislike the person, you dislike the person's art.

[35:16.000 --> 35:17.960] Those things aren't independent of each other.

[35:17.960 --> 35:21.120] And so what the researchers here are saying is that there's, there's probably something

[35:21.120 --> 35:22.400] called halo ignorance.

[35:22.400 --> 35:24.760] Most people aren't aware of the halo effect.

[35:24.760 --> 35:29.920] And so they don't realize that it's not so simple that I want to be liked, but I want

[35:29.920 --> 35:33.360] to seem, I want to be liked here and I want to seem important here.

[35:33.360 --> 35:35.780] They're not mutually exclusive.

[35:35.780 --> 35:40.600] Generally speaking, if somebody in a conversation has a positive effect on somebody, you're

[35:40.600 --> 35:42.640] going to like them and find them interesting.

[35:42.640 --> 35:47.400] If they have a negative effect, you're going to dislike them and find them disinteresting.

[35:47.400 --> 35:48.400] But most people-

[35:48.400 --> 35:50.400] And your breath smells too.

[35:50.400 --> 35:51.400] Exactly.

[35:51.400 --> 35:52.400] Okay.

[35:52.400 --> 35:58.140] So most people are ignorant of the halo effect, which is probably why they estimate that they

[35:58.140 --> 36:01.860] have to speak differently for different outcomes.

[36:01.860 --> 36:07.740] But the truth of the matter is that basically the big takeaway, because the, the final study

[36:07.740 --> 36:09.860] outcomes are a little all over the place.

[36:09.860 --> 36:10.860] They're not super clean.

[36:10.860 --> 36:14.080] Like the less you talk, the less you're like, the more you talk, the more you're like, it's

[36:14.080 --> 36:15.420] not really that clean.

[36:15.420 --> 36:23.360] It's basically that generally speaking, if you're in the 30% or 40% group, you're kind

[36:23.360 --> 36:26.080] of not liked or interesting.

[36:26.080 --> 36:31.160] Like if you don't talk that much, you don't get this good feedback.

[36:31.160 --> 36:36.880] So most people think I need to be quiet and be a good listener in a dyad and then I'm

[36:36.880 --> 36:38.600] going to be more well liked.

[36:38.600 --> 36:41.660] But the truth is that's, that doesn't bear out.

[36:41.660 --> 36:47.820] If you talk way too much, we start to see diminishing returns, so it's sort of somewhere

[36:47.820 --> 36:48.820] in the middle.

[36:48.820 --> 36:54.560] Kara, the halo effect reminds me of the Oscars because I, right?

[36:54.560 --> 37:00.820] I always had the feeling that like the, the movie that wins like best art direction.

[37:00.820 --> 37:04.800] Was that really the movie that had the best art direction or was that just the favorite

[37:04.800 --> 37:07.360] movie that was nominated for the, for best art?

[37:07.360 --> 37:08.360] Yeah.

[37:08.360 --> 37:09.360] What was it?

[37:09.360 --> 37:13.200] Was it one of the eight movies that got nominated for everything because there's like only certain

[37:13.200 --> 37:15.200] movies that were quote, Oscar worthy.

[37:15.200 --> 37:19.660] Did that movie really have the best editing and costuming and all the other little technical

[37:19.660 --> 37:22.760] things just because it was a popular movie?

[37:22.760 --> 37:23.760] You don't, yeah.

[37:23.760 --> 37:24.760] It just boggles the imagination.

[37:24.760 --> 37:25.760] Completely agree.

[37:25.760 --> 37:26.880] Completely agree.

[37:26.880 --> 37:35.400] I had a friend once who used to call the Oscars rich people prom and nary was their true statement.

[37:35.400 --> 37:42.840] The difference between a person perceived wanting to be liked versus that same person

[37:42.840 --> 37:46.800] perceiving to be either polite or courteous.

[37:46.800 --> 37:50.240] We talking, we're splitting hairs, are they two very different things?

[37:50.240 --> 37:51.240] It wasn't the paradigm.

[37:51.240 --> 37:52.240] So I can't tell you that.

[37:52.240 --> 37:53.240] You know what I mean?

[37:53.240 --> 37:54.840] They did not ask that question.

[37:54.840 --> 37:57.240] They asked three very simple questions.

[37:57.240 --> 37:58.240] Okay.

[37:58.240 --> 38:01.840] Do you want to be like, you know, if you want to be liked, how often will you talk?

[38:01.840 --> 38:03.880] If you want to seem interesting, how often will you talk?

[38:03.880 --> 38:05.720] If you want to enjoy the conversation, how often will you talk?

[38:05.720 --> 38:12.720] But I wonder if a person can confuse the desire to be liked with the desire to be accommodating

[38:12.720 --> 38:17.800] or you know, courteous to the other person by speaking less.

[38:17.800 --> 38:23.520] Is it, you know, can that be, can those two things be confused and therefore that's why

[38:23.520 --> 38:28.080] people would think that, yeah, I should probably talk less, not so much to be liked, but just

[38:28.080 --> 38:29.680] to give for consideration.

[38:29.680 --> 38:30.680] Right.

[38:30.680 --> 38:33.840] But, but you're basically talking about constructs, right?

[38:33.840 --> 38:36.560] Like these aren't, these aren't actual things that exist.

[38:36.560 --> 38:39.880] Being liked is not specifically different from being courteous.

[38:39.880 --> 38:43.920] It's all in how you construct that reality, how you interpret it.

[38:43.920 --> 38:48.240] So if your definition of being liked is that you're very courteous, that's how you're

[38:48.240 --> 38:50.240] going to view that when you do this study.

[38:50.240 --> 38:51.240] Okay.

[38:51.240 --> 38:52.240] All right.

[38:52.240 --> 38:54.600] So you can totally interpret that differently.

[38:54.600 --> 38:56.680] And that's the interesting thing about psychology.

[38:56.680 --> 39:01.480] It's why we have to always operationally define everything because nothing, there's no like

[39:01.480 --> 39:04.960] fundamental truth to the idea of being liked.

[39:04.960 --> 39:05.960] It's how we define it.

[39:05.960 --> 39:06.960] Right.

[39:06.960 --> 39:07.960] Right.

[39:07.960 --> 39:08.960] Yes.

[39:08.960 --> 39:09.960] It does seem nebulous.

[39:09.960 --> 39:10.960] Yeah.

[39:10.960 --> 39:12.440] And there's probably, sorry, there's probably a ton of crossover there.

[39:12.440 --> 39:17.640] If I want to seem likable, I might have different factors that if I were to ask, if I were to

[39:17.640 --> 39:22.400] sit down in a separate study and the researchers were to say, what are the five features of

[39:22.400 --> 39:24.920] likability that are most important?

[39:24.920 --> 39:27.960] My list might be different than your list, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a

[39:27.960 --> 39:30.680] lot of crossover among people.

[39:30.680 --> 39:35.680] And so courteousness is probably one of those things.

[39:35.680 --> 39:37.200] So I wouldn't say it's a conflation.

[39:37.200 --> 39:40.120] I would say it's part of it.

[39:40.120 --> 39:42.880] And the United States, is this a US study?

[39:42.880 --> 39:43.880] Yeah, absolutely.

[39:43.880 --> 39:44.880] This is a US study.

[39:44.880 --> 39:48.640] So we've got to remember that there's always a massive culture bias in these kinds of studies.

[39:48.640 --> 39:53.160] And this really only applies to the group of college students that they were looking

[39:53.160 --> 39:54.160] at.

[39:54.160 --> 39:59.680] But they do, like any good paper, cite the available research literature, show areas

[39:59.680 --> 40:05.120] where this reinforces things that have already been studied and basically move the needle

[40:05.120 --> 40:08.840] that much more because there is a body of literature around this.

[40:08.840 --> 40:14.000] But so the cool thing is basically the big two outcomes here are the reticence bias seems

[40:14.000 --> 40:15.640] to exist.

[40:15.640 --> 40:20.400] People generally think they are reticent to speak because they think that they will be

[40:20.400 --> 40:23.200] liked less when they speak more.

[40:23.200 --> 40:24.600] And that does not bear out.

[40:24.600 --> 40:29.240] The truth is you're actually liked more if you speak more up to a point.

[40:29.240 --> 40:30.320] And yeah, up to a point.

[40:30.320 --> 40:35.920] And then the other one, yeah, they did show that with but it's actually it's not a huge

[40:35.920 --> 40:40.160] effect like you it does start to have diminishing returns at the 70%.

[40:40.160 --> 40:42.000] And they didn't look at anything over 70%.

[40:42.000 --> 40:46.240] They didn't look at the extremes like 90% of the time.

[40:46.240 --> 40:54.800] But interestingly, being interesting plateaus more so basically that are liked and are interesting

[40:54.800 --> 40:59.120] and enjoy themselves less when they don't speak that much.

[40:59.120 --> 41:03.920] It all kind of peaks around the 50% so about when you're even and then you see a diminishing

[41:03.920 --> 41:08.920] return that's the heaviest on enjoyment.

[41:08.920 --> 41:15.920] So basically, you're seeing that there is a sort of bimodal distribution, but the researchers

[41:15.920 --> 41:19.960] make a kind of blanket statement, which I think is kind of a good statement, which is

[41:19.960 --> 41:22.840] that all things being equal, you should talk.

[41:22.840 --> 41:27.560] Because all things being equal, you're actually going to have a better outcome from talking

[41:27.560 --> 41:29.700] more than talking less.

[41:29.700 --> 41:34.440] And that flies in the face of most people's preconceived notions, which is often the case,

[41:34.440 --> 41:37.940] you know, people usually misjudge.

[41:37.940 --> 41:44.120] It's interesting how bad we are at intuitively like thinking about how our behavior affects

[41:44.120 --> 41:48.120] our relationships, you know, people do things that have the opposite effect of what they

[41:48.120 --> 41:49.120] want.

[41:49.120 --> 41:50.120] Absolutely.

[41:50.120 --> 41:51.120] Yeah.

[41:51.120 --> 41:52.120] People shoot themselves in the foot all the time.

[41:52.120 --> 41:57.040] It's also I mean, that's a fundamental part of exactly what Jay mentioned in the ad this

[41:57.040 --> 42:00.020] week of cognitive behavioral therapy.

[42:00.020 --> 42:06.360] It's recognizing these biases and recognizing all of the times that we we act in a way that

[42:06.360 --> 42:11.480] we think is going to achieve a goal when actually it gives us the opposite outcome or an outcome

[42:11.480 --> 42:13.160] that we weren't looking for.

[42:13.160 --> 42:14.160] Right.

[42:14.160 --> 42:17.320] That's why studies like this are important.

[42:17.320 --> 42:18.320] All right.

[42:18.320 --> 42:19.320] Thanks, Kara.

[42:19.320 --> 42:22.400] Well, everyone, we're going to take a quick break from our show to talk about our sponsor

[42:22.400 --> 42:23.880] this week, Wondrium.

[42:23.880 --> 42:26.600] Guys, we talk about therapy a lot on the show.

[42:26.600 --> 42:31.740] And I found a course on Wondrium that is called cognitive behavioral therapy techniques for

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[42:37.600 --> 42:42.820] basically one of if not the best technique that you can learn in therapy to help yourself

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[43:42.520 --> 43:44.720] All right, guys, let's get back to the show.

Electromagnetic Dynamic Resonance (43:45)

• [link_URL TITLE]

[43:44.720 --> 43:47.160] Guys, what do you know about EMDR?

[43:47.160 --> 43:49.520] Oh, EMDR.

[43:49.520 --> 43:50.520] That's a new boy band.

[43:50.520 --> 43:51.520] I know a lot about that.

[43:51.520 --> 43:52.520] South Korea.

[43:52.520 --> 43:55.520] Electromagnetic Dynamic Resonance?

[43:55.520 --> 43:56.520] What?

[43:56.520 --> 44:01.560] Eye movement and desensitization and reprocessing.

[44:01.560 --> 44:04.080] Eye movement, desensitization and reprocessing.

[44:04.080 --> 44:05.080] Oh, yeah, that too.

[44:05.080 --> 44:06.080] Yeah.

[44:06.080 --> 44:07.080] All right.

[44:07.080 --> 44:10.600] So, Kara, do you know when it was developed and how?

[44:10.600 --> 44:12.280] Maybe by the VA.

[44:12.280 --> 44:13.280] Probably not.

[44:13.280 --> 44:14.280] But they use it.

[44:14.280 --> 44:21.720] In 1987, a PhD psychologist, Francine Shapiro, was walking through the park when she realized

[44:21.720 --> 44:29.920] that her eye movements, looking around at the trees, reduced her anxiety and depression.

[44:29.920 --> 44:31.480] And that was it.

[44:31.480 --> 44:38.000] EMDR was born, a single subjective personal observation.

[44:38.000 --> 44:44.800] She said, maybe the eye movements itself is making me feel less anxious and depressed.

[44:44.800 --> 44:45.800] And that was it.

[44:45.800 --> 44:46.880] That's like the entire base of it.

[44:46.880 --> 44:53.120] It did not come out of any basic science or any neuroscience or any thinking about how

[44:53.120 --> 44:55.080] the brain works or how depression works or anything.

[44:55.080 --> 44:58.080] It was just that naked observation.

[44:58.080 --> 45:05.360] Now that is reminiscent of a lot of medical pseudosciences where a single quirky observation

[45:05.360 --> 45:11.480] is the entire basis of the whole thing, like iridology and chiropractic, et cetera.

[45:11.480 --> 45:12.800] Yeah, so that was the origin.

[45:12.800 --> 45:14.200] Doesn't mean it doesn't work.

[45:14.200 --> 45:18.000] Is it possible that she made an observation that actually was based on reality?

[45:18.000 --> 45:20.520] Well, that's how science often is started.

[45:20.520 --> 45:21.520] Yeah, it's okay.

[45:21.520 --> 45:25.200] You make an observation, then you test it.

[45:25.200 --> 45:30.760] It's fine as a method of hypothesis generation, but not hypothesis testing, right?

[45:30.760 --> 45:35.040] You can't conclude that it's real because you made an anecdotal observation.

[45:35.040 --> 45:36.400] All right.

[45:36.400 --> 45:39.600] So that was, what, 35 years ago.

[45:39.600 --> 45:45.560] So there's been 35 years of research into EMDR, mainly for PTSD, post-traumatic stress

[45:45.560 --> 45:46.560] disorder.

[45:46.560 --> 45:51.360] That's the most common thing that it is used for and studied for, but also pretty much

[45:51.360 --> 45:52.360] everything.

[45:52.360 --> 45:56.920] It's been also studied for anxiety and depression and other things as well.

[45:56.920 --> 45:59.440] So what's the idea behind it?

[45:59.440 --> 46:05.080] Again, there really isn't anything very compelling in terms of what's the putative mechanism.

[46:05.080 --> 46:10.920] There have been probably dozens, hundreds of proposed possible mechanisms, but it all

[46:10.920 --> 46:15.560] is some version of, oh, you're sort of forcing the right half of the brain to communicate

[46:15.560 --> 46:20.280] with the left half, and there's something going on there, and you're rewiring the brain.

[46:20.280 --> 46:26.360] That's the reprocessing, the connection between the memory and the emotional feeling.

[46:26.360 --> 46:34.440] But it's all this made-up, hand-waving, very, I think, neurologically naive kind of statements,

[46:34.440 --> 46:38.400] and there's really no science behind it.

[46:38.400 --> 46:44.160] But again, irrelevant to the core question, or at least not irrelevant, but yeah, does

[46:44.160 --> 46:45.160] it work?

[46:45.160 --> 46:50.840] It sort of, it does impact how we address that question, but you could have sufficient

[46:50.840 --> 46:54.400] evidence that it works even if you don't know what the mechanism is and even if it was based

[46:54.400 --> 46:56.700] on a quirky observation.

[46:56.700 --> 47:02.320] So what's the research been into EMDR over the last 35 years?

[47:02.320 --> 47:08.360] So from where I'm sitting from like a psychologist in training who reads the APA literature,

[47:08.360 --> 47:13.260] blah, blah, blah, and I'll give you my, I'm going to approach this really quickly with

[47:13.260 --> 47:18.000] my skeptical hat, but also with my psychologist hat, and also I am in the process of co-editing

[47:18.000 --> 47:21.120] a volume about pseudoscience and therapy, so it's informed by that, too.

[47:21.120 --> 47:22.900] I've read some good chapters on this.

[47:22.900 --> 47:30.120] Number one, the evidence base shows that people who get EMDR have better outcomes than people

[47:30.120 --> 47:32.280] who don't get therapy.

[47:32.280 --> 47:36.040] It also shows that they have sometimes better outcomes than people who get certain types

[47:36.040 --> 47:42.680] of therapy, but from where I'm sitting and a lot of people who, I think it was Rosen

[47:42.680 --> 47:44.860] who dubbed this a purple hat therapy.

[47:44.860 --> 47:46.400] Did you come across that statement?

[47:46.400 --> 47:47.400] Yeah.

[47:47.400 --> 47:48.400] Yeah.

[47:48.400 --> 47:49.400] I love this, right?

[47:49.400 --> 47:55.800] The idea is, is it the EMDR or is it the fact that they're learning anti-anxiety reduction

[47:55.800 --> 47:56.800] skills?

[47:56.800 --> 48:01.420] Like if you taught somebody how to reduce their anxiety while driving and then you gave

[48:01.420 --> 48:05.600] them a purple hat and said, wear this while driving, then they finish driving and they

[48:05.600 --> 48:07.320] go, oh my God, I wasn't anxious.

[48:07.320 --> 48:09.200] Was it because of the purple hat?

[48:09.200 --> 48:10.200] Yeah.

[48:10.200 --> 48:12.600] So that's exactly what's going on here.

[48:12.600 --> 48:18.520] So Scott Lillian Field, who is a skeptical psychologist, yeah, passed away a couple

[48:18.520 --> 48:19.520] years ago.

[48:19.520 --> 48:20.520] Yeah.

[48:20.520 --> 48:21.520] Yeah, unfortunately.

[48:21.520 --> 48:22.520] Died young, really tragic.

[48:22.520 --> 48:23.520] But great guy.

[48:23.520 --> 48:29.400] He did a very good review of the literature on EMDR a few years ago, and I liked the way

[48:29.400 --> 48:30.400] he summarized it.

[48:30.400 --> 48:35.080] All right, so first we could ask, does EMDR work better, this is like for PTSD, does it

[48:35.080 --> 48:38.840] work better than nothing, right, than no therapy?

[48:38.840 --> 48:40.520] And the answer is like, yeah, it clearly does.

[48:40.520 --> 48:47.760] But remember, EMDR is you're moving your eyes while you're doing essentially exposure therapy,

[48:47.760 --> 48:49.600] imaginal exposure therapy.

[48:49.600 --> 48:57.000] So it's not, in fact, Shapiro, you know, tried doing the eye movements by itself and it didn't

[48:57.000 --> 48:58.640] work at all.

[48:58.640 --> 49:03.320] So she had to combine it with, basically with cognitive behavioral therapy, and so now it

[49:03.320 --> 49:04.320] works.

[49:04.320 --> 49:08.360] When you combine it with this already established effective psychological treatment, it quote

[49:08.360 --> 49:09.360] unquote works.

[49:09.360 --> 49:10.360] All right, but he said-

[49:10.360 --> 49:13.560] How can you possibly have an effect size that's large enough to differentiate?

[49:13.560 --> 49:21.160] Yeah, so he said, in the literature, you compare EMDR to no therapy at all, and of course it

[49:21.160 --> 49:23.160] works, compared to nothing.

[49:23.160 --> 49:29.300] You can also compare it to an intervention, but the intervention itself is not effective.

[49:29.300 --> 49:35.000] So for example, it's often compared to passive listening, where you just have a therapist

[49:35.000 --> 49:40.640] going, mm-hmm, yeah, tell me more, mm-hmm, you know, not doing any therapy, just listening,

[49:40.640 --> 49:42.240] which isn't really an effective treatment.

[49:42.240 --> 49:43.720] And yeah, is it better than that?

[49:43.720 --> 49:44.720] Sure.

[49:44.720 --> 49:50.320] Is it better than doing the exact same thing, but without the eye movement?

[49:50.320 --> 49:52.560] No, it's not better than doing it.

[49:52.560 --> 49:58.040] And if you adequately control it, where you're doing, say, a fixed gaze therapy, as opposed

[49:58.040 --> 50:02.280] to eye movement therapy, but otherwise, cognitively, you're doing the exact same thing.

[50:02.280 --> 50:08.920] You're imagining the stressor, and also imagining yourself in a safe space at the same time,

[50:08.920 --> 50:09.920] whatever.

[50:09.920 --> 50:14.260] If you're going through the cognitive therapy, it's exactly the same.

[50:14.260 --> 50:21.600] So the EMDR, again, my purple hat phrase that I like to use is the part of this nutritious

[50:21.600 --> 50:22.600] breakfast, right?

[50:22.600 --> 50:25.080] So you remember those commercials?

[50:25.080 --> 50:26.640] When served with a nutritious breakfast.

[50:26.640 --> 50:29.560] Yeah, so it was like selling Pop-Tarts or something.

[50:29.560 --> 50:34.480] It's like, this Danish is part of this, and they show a nutritious breakfast with orange

[50:34.480 --> 50:41.200] juice and whatever, and this tumor is part of a healthy body.

[50:41.200 --> 50:42.200] It's irrelevant.

[50:42.200 --> 50:45.000] It's an irrelevant part of this nutritious breakfast, but that's the thing.

[50:45.000 --> 50:51.500] It's a completely irrelevant superficial component of a treatment that is already established

[50:51.500 --> 50:55.400] as being effective, and it doesn't appear to add anything.

[50:55.400 --> 51:00.280] And so, and again, another critic who, again, I like this statement that I've applied this

[51:00.280 --> 51:06.600] to many other things, like, what is unique about EMDR doesn't work, and what works about

[51:06.600 --> 51:09.040] EMDR is not unique, right?

[51:09.040 --> 51:10.040] So it's like-

[51:10.040 --> 51:11.040] You said that a lot about chiropractic.

[51:11.040 --> 51:12.040] Chiropractic, yeah.

[51:12.040 --> 51:16.600] What chiropractors do that works isn't unique to chiropractors, and what is unique to chiropractors

[51:16.600 --> 51:17.600] doesn't work.

[51:17.600 --> 51:20.280] But in any case, so that's the case of EMDR.

[51:20.280 --> 51:24.120] It's essentially unnecessary, but here's the thing.

[51:24.120 --> 51:27.160] It's massively popular within psychotherapy.

[51:27.160 --> 51:29.080] It's so popular.

[51:29.080 --> 51:30.960] It's so frustrating.

[51:30.960 --> 51:40.640] It's so frustrating, because the APA has basically said it's an evidence-based treatment, because

[51:40.640 --> 51:44.420] there is some evidence to support it, but it's poor evidence.

[51:44.420 --> 51:47.800] So that is an indictment of EBM, right?

[51:47.800 --> 51:51.120] In my opinion, that's why it's not a science-based medicine treatment.

[51:51.120 --> 51:56.280] It may be an EBM treatment, but that's only because, and then even then I think it fails

[51:56.280 --> 52:03.000] the EBM standard, but essentially people exploit the weaknesses in evidence-based medicine

[52:03.000 --> 52:08.320] to say things like EMDR is quote-unquote evidence-based, because there is clinical evidence to show

[52:08.320 --> 52:14.520] that it quote-unquote works, but only when not comparing it to an adequate control, not

[52:14.520 --> 52:16.920] as an isolated variable.

[52:16.920 --> 52:18.760] It's exactly like acupuncture.

[52:18.760 --> 52:23.120] It only works when you're not isolating what acupuncture is, you know, the variable that

[52:23.120 --> 52:24.120] is acupuncture.

[52:24.120 --> 52:27.720] And do you know what the saddest part of all of this is, and it's a part we don't often

[52:27.720 --> 52:33.800] talk about on the show, is that the variable that works the most of almost any therapeutic

[52:33.800 --> 52:36.400] variable is relationship.

[52:36.400 --> 52:41.000] Yeah, it's the therapeutic relationship, yeah.

[52:41.000 --> 52:42.480] Here's the other way to look at this.

[52:42.480 --> 52:46.960] So EMDR, the evidence is really crappy.

[52:46.960 --> 52:51.360] I was really reading a recent systematic review and they said they looked at like all of the

[52:51.360 --> 52:58.400] randomized controlled trials over whatever, you know, since forever, and the total number

[52:58.400 --> 53:02.960] of subjects in all of the studies that they were able to add into a meta-analysis was

[53:02.960 --> 53:03.960] like 420.

[53:03.960 --> 53:04.960] That's it?

[53:04.960 --> 53:05.960] That's it.

[53:05.960 --> 53:06.960] Oh, yeah.

[53:06.960 --> 53:07.960] That's terrible.

[53:07.960 --> 53:08.960] It's terrible.

[53:08.960 --> 53:16.840] Like 35 years down with, there should be thousands of patients in the meta-analysis of EMDR.

[53:16.840 --> 53:18.960] And then most of the studies are crap too.

[53:18.960 --> 53:22.740] Most of the studies are not well, are they're pragmatic studies or they're not well controlled

[53:22.740 --> 53:26.360] or they're just comparing it to no intervention or to inadequate intervention.

[53:26.360 --> 53:30.080] So the thing is they're doing studies that are like pragmatic studies that are not designed

[53:30.080 --> 53:33.760] to test whether or not it works, right?

[53:33.760 --> 53:37.280] They're not really doing efficacy trials and when they do, it doesn't work.

[53:37.280 --> 53:39.500] And they just sort of gloss over that.

[53:39.500 --> 53:43.480] And so a lot of people, when I talk about this kind of thing, like EMDR specifically

[53:43.480 --> 53:47.800] or similar things, they say, well, what's the problem, what's the harm?

[53:47.800 --> 53:53.420] It's gimmicky, it's superficial, but people feel that it works, it feels better, you know.

[53:53.420 --> 53:55.160] It waters down the entire system.

[53:55.160 --> 54:00.400] It makes me a less trustworthy practitioner because my field says this works.

[54:00.400 --> 54:01.400] Exactly.

[54:01.400 --> 54:06.880] So there is a lot of harm when you have a profession endorsing essentially pseudoscience

[54:06.880 --> 54:12.400] or at least these, you know, pop, you know, popular, what would you call it, like pop

[54:12.400 --> 54:18.960] psi or pop whatever sort of bizarre or superficial notions of how the brain works.

[54:18.960 --> 54:19.960] Marketing scam.

[54:19.960 --> 54:20.960] Yeah.

[54:20.960 --> 54:27.200] So this basically completely feeds into snake oil industry, completely feeds into that.

[54:27.200 --> 54:30.560] Also it is a massive distraction.

[54:30.560 --> 54:35.080] There is a feedback loop between clinical studies and basic science research, right?

[54:35.080 --> 54:40.160] So if people are making up these weird, you know, notions about what's happening in the

[54:40.160 --> 54:46.680] brain, and then they say, and that's how EMDR works, then they then they falsely conclude

[54:46.680 --> 54:50.680] that EMDR works because of studies that don't show that it works, but they're misinterpreting

[54:50.680 --> 54:51.680] it.

[54:51.680 --> 54:56.520] Then they say that supports these bizarre neuroscience ideas that I have about how it's

[54:56.520 --> 54:57.680] working, right?

[54:57.680 --> 55:00.800] That's like saying, oh, we know qi exists because acupuncture works.

[55:00.800 --> 55:04.440] It's like, well, no, acupuncture doesn't work and there's no reason to think that qi

[55:04.440 --> 55:05.440] exists.

[55:05.440 --> 55:06.440] It's the same kind of thing.

[55:06.440 --> 55:08.700] It poisons the whole research paradigm.

[55:08.700 --> 55:14.960] And so, you know, mental health practice has a hard enough time grinding forward with really

[55:14.960 --> 55:17.980] rigorous science based modalities.

[55:17.980 --> 55:20.600] This kind of thing just makes it harder.

[55:20.600 --> 55:27.300] It's like throwing dirt in the gears of trying to move the whole field forward.

[55:27.300 --> 55:31.480] They really do need to be able to, plus they also need to recognize the research does not

[55:31.480 --> 55:33.840] show that this is a real phenomenon.

[55:33.840 --> 55:37.300] And if they think that it does, they don't know how to do or interpret research.

[55:37.300 --> 55:39.660] And that's the real problem.

[55:39.660 --> 55:46.560] That is the real problem here is that it is exposing a real problem in the in the understanding

[55:46.560 --> 55:48.600] of how clinical science works.

[55:48.600 --> 55:52.880] And in the discipline that I would argue that needs to understand it the best because it

[55:52.880 --> 55:54.140] is the hardest.

[55:54.140 --> 55:59.480] It is really hard to do good research when your outcomes are so subjective and so complicated

[55:59.480 --> 56:00.480] and interdependent.

[56:00.480 --> 56:06.240] It's almost like good psychology research, really good psychology research is some of

[56:06.240 --> 56:07.240] the best research.

[56:07.240 --> 56:08.240] Yes, totally.

[56:08.240 --> 56:12.900] Like we have such a good handle on sophisticated statistics because we're looking for tiny

[56:12.900 --> 56:16.960] outcome measures and we're looking for controlling variables.

[56:16.960 --> 56:21.220] It's not that hard to take a bunch of cloned animals and drop something in the water of

[56:21.220 --> 56:22.220] half of them.

[56:22.220 --> 56:23.220] Yeah.

[56:23.220 --> 56:26.000] Or send an electron through a detector a trillion times or whatever.

[56:26.000 --> 56:27.000] Exactly.

[56:27.000 --> 56:28.000] And I'm not saying that laboratory work isn't hard.

[56:28.000 --> 56:29.000] It's really freaking hard.

[56:29.000 --> 56:30.000] I did it for years.

[56:30.000 --> 56:33.560] But what I'm saying is you have to get real creative when you're working with human subjects

[56:33.560 --> 56:38.040] and when you're looking, like you said, with these more subjective outcomes that much more

[56:38.040 --> 56:39.040] rigorous.

[56:39.040 --> 56:40.040] Yeah, exactly.

[56:40.040 --> 56:42.680] There's a lot of unique challenges to doing this kind of research.

[56:42.680 --> 56:44.640] It has to be all the more rigorous.

[56:44.640 --> 56:46.680] And that's the EMDR.

[56:46.680 --> 56:51.880] The fact that it's able to thrive within this community, this profession is a problem.

[56:51.880 --> 56:56.000] And it's a big flashing light that we need to a lot of celebrities have taken on to this

[56:56.000 --> 56:57.000] as well.

[56:57.000 --> 56:58.560] And that helps perpetuate the problem.

[56:58.560 --> 56:59.560] Yeah.

[56:59.560 --> 57:00.560] Yeah.

[57:00.560 --> 57:06.320] And sometimes these treatments do proliferate within sort of the fringe professionals.

[57:06.320 --> 57:09.960] But EMDR is really thriving within the mainstream of the profession.

[57:09.960 --> 57:10.960] I know.

[57:10.960 --> 57:11.960] It's really scary.

[57:11.960 --> 57:12.960] That's a real problem.

[57:12.960 --> 57:13.960] All right.

[57:13.960 --> 57:14.960] Let's move on.

how meteorites may have created the continents (57:14)

• [link_URL TITLE]

[57:14.960 --> 57:18.840] Bob, tell us about how meteorites may have created the continents.

[57:18.840 --> 57:19.840] What's going on there?

[57:19.840 --> 57:20.840] Oh, yeah, right?

[57:20.840 --> 57:25.840] Scientists have revealed the best evidence yet that the Earth's continents formed from

[57:25.840 --> 57:29.260] meteorite impacts billions of years ago.

[57:29.260 --> 57:34.280] This is from the Nature paper called Giant Impacts and the Origin and Evolution of Continents

[57:34.280 --> 57:40.440] by Dr. Tim Johnson from Curtin School of Earth and Planetary Sciences in Australia.

[57:40.440 --> 57:41.440] Okay.

[57:41.440 --> 57:47.840] So now this idea or speculation that the force of meteorite impacts essentially planted the

[57:47.840 --> 57:52.560] seeds of Earth's continents, if you will, it's been bandied about for decades and nobody

[57:52.560 --> 57:53.560] ever told me.

[57:53.560 --> 57:54.620] I never heard of this.

[57:54.620 --> 57:57.040] But there was no good proof for it.

[57:57.040 --> 58:01.280] You know, just nothing really solid to back it up until now, apparently.

[58:01.280 --> 58:07.240] So this evidence comes from Pilbara Craton in Western Australia.

[58:07.240 --> 58:12.200] Now this area of Western Australia is one of the only two places on the Earth that has

[58:12.200 --> 58:18.220] pristine Earth crust from the Archean Epoch 3.6 to 2.7 billion years ago.

[58:18.220 --> 58:22.520] So this is the oldest crust on the planet that we have identified.

[58:22.520 --> 58:26.680] And it was during this ancient time that rocks themselves first formed at the beginning of

[58:26.680 --> 58:27.720] the Archean.

[58:27.720 --> 58:33.600] And when that period ended, almost three quarters of Earth's crust had been formed during that

[58:33.600 --> 58:34.600] time.

[58:34.600 --> 58:39.600] Now this is a very iron rich rock and it started forming before there was even any atmospheric

[58:39.600 --> 58:43.000] oxygen, before there was even life on Earth.

[58:43.000 --> 58:47.440] And later rocks from that time, though, have evidence of some of the earliest life ever

[58:47.440 --> 58:52.880] found 3.45 billion year old fossil colonies of microbial cyanobacteria.

[58:52.880 --> 58:59.040] Yeah, so a lot of important foundational things happening during the Archean Epoch.

[58:59.040 --> 59:04.700] Now the smoking gun in the rocks was the tiny crystals of the mineral zircon in the ancient

[59:04.700 --> 59:08.880] crust that show the scientists evidence of the ancient and huge meteorite impacts.

[59:08.880 --> 59:14.800] Dr. Johnson said, studying the composition of oxygen isotopes in these zircon crystals

[59:14.800 --> 59:19.280] reveal the top down process, starting with the melting of rocks near the surface and

[59:19.280 --> 59:24.640] progressing deeper, consistent with the geological effect of giant meteorite impacts.

[59:24.640 --> 59:28.520] Our research provides the first solid evidence that the process that ultimately formed the

[59:28.520 --> 59:32.040] continents began with giant meteorite impacts.

[59:32.040 --> 59:33.720] So that this is amazing.

[59:33.720 --> 59:39.100] I always thought that continents themselves just was formed purely from internal processes

[59:39.100 --> 59:43.000] of the Earth, you know, the formation and cooling of the Earth.

[59:43.000 --> 59:49.200] It's really it's interesting to think that, you know, that at least Earth perhaps needed

[59:49.200 --> 59:52.920] these meteorites to hit to really get this process going.

[59:52.920 --> 59:57.160] So does that lessen the possibility that life like Earth life can exist?

[59:57.160 --> 59:58.160] I don't know.

[59:58.160 --> 59:59.440] It kind of seems like it.

[59:59.440 --> 01:00:03.160] But then again, how common is that kind of those kind of meteorite impacts?

[01:00:03.160 --> 01:00:07.600] So speaking of the impacts, they happened during an interesting period of Earth's early

[01:00:07.600 --> 01:00:10.880] history called the Late Heavy Bombardment.

[01:00:10.880 --> 01:00:14.760] You guys heard of that from 4.1 to 3.8 billion years ago.

[01:00:14.760 --> 01:00:19.480] Now the Late Heavy Bombardment is distinguished from the very early light bombardment and

[01:00:19.480 --> 01:00:23.780] especially the on time mediocre bombardment.

[01:00:23.780 --> 01:00:27.280] So please ignore that last sentence entirely.

[01:00:27.280 --> 01:00:33.000] So it was during it was during the millions years long late heavy bombardment that an

[01:00:33.000 --> 01:00:38.560] unusually large number of asteroids and meteoroids terrorize the inner solar system.

[01:00:38.560 --> 01:00:40.960] Now, of course, there's no evidence on the Earth of that, right?

[01:00:40.960 --> 01:00:43.920] Because of weathering and plate tectonics.

[01:00:43.920 --> 01:00:49.120] But the moon and Mercury still bear signs from billions of years ago of that bombardment

[01:00:49.120 --> 01:00:51.680] that are discernible even today.

[01:00:51.680 --> 01:00:52.680] So does this matter?

[01:00:52.680 --> 01:00:54.080] Well, it's science.

[01:00:54.080 --> 01:00:56.000] Of course it matters, right, Steve?

[01:00:56.000 --> 01:01:03.120] More specifically, continents are pretty important, even from a purely selfish, human centric

[01:01:03.120 --> 01:01:04.120] point of view.

[01:01:04.120 --> 01:01:09.760] Look, not only do we live on them, but 98 percent of the world's biomass is terrestrial.

[01:01:09.760 --> 01:01:15.920] So yeah, there's a lot going on and critically important, but not just for biomass.

[01:01:15.920 --> 01:01:21.680] On this point, Dr. Johnson chimes in and he says, not not least, the continents host critical

[01:01:21.680 --> 01:01:27.840] metals such as lithium, tin and nickel, commodities that are essential to the emerging green technologies

[01:01:27.840 --> 01:01:31.480] needed to fulfill our obligation to mitigate climate change.

[01:01:31.480 --> 01:01:32.480] OK.

[01:01:32.480 --> 01:01:36.640] So as Dr. Johnson finishes his thought with this, he says these mineral deposits are the

[01:01:36.640 --> 01:01:42.720] end result of a process known as crustal differentiation, which began with the formation of the earliest

[01:01:42.720 --> 01:01:46.800] land masses of which Pilbara Craton is just one of many.

[01:01:46.800 --> 01:01:48.960] Now in the future, what's going to happen?

[01:01:48.960 --> 01:01:53.480] The future of this research is probably, as you might imagine, find stronger evidence,

[01:01:53.480 --> 01:01:54.480] right?

[01:01:54.480 --> 01:01:55.480] More evidence.

[01:01:55.480 --> 01:01:58.840] So what they're going to probably do is they're going to look at other ancient crusts, probably

[01:01:58.840 --> 01:02:04.640] the other oldest piece of crust from the Archean epoch that's in Africa, but I think other

[01:02:04.640 --> 01:02:08.720] crusts that are maybe not quite as old, but still quite old.

[01:02:08.720 --> 01:02:12.840] And they're going to they're going to apply their models to those crusts and see if if

[01:02:12.840 --> 01:02:15.280] their models fit there as well.

[01:02:15.280 --> 01:02:21.240] And and then and then the time may come in the not too distant future where it's common

[01:02:21.240 --> 01:02:27.040] knowledge and the consensus that that the Earth's continents were created pretty much

[01:02:27.040 --> 01:02:31.360] directly because of meteorite impacts billions of years ago.

[01:02:31.360 --> 01:02:34.360] And who knows what Earth would be like if that didn't happen?

[01:02:34.360 --> 01:02:35.360] But really interesting.

[01:02:35.360 --> 01:02:36.360] Didn't know this.

[01:02:36.360 --> 01:02:40.680] Yeah, it's one of those interesting things like we're not really sure how why the continents

[01:02:40.680 --> 01:02:41.680] exist.

[01:02:41.680 --> 01:02:42.680] Yeah.

[01:02:42.680 --> 01:02:43.680] I mean, mysterious.

[01:02:43.680 --> 01:02:44.680] Yeah.

[01:02:44.680 --> 01:02:45.680] To a certain extent.

[01:02:45.680 --> 01:02:46.680] Yeah.

[01:02:46.680 --> 01:02:47.680] I didn't realize it.

[01:02:47.680 --> 01:02:48.680] All right.

[01:02:48.680 --> 01:02:49.680] Thanks, Bob.

[01:02:49.680 --> 01:02:50.680] Sure, man.

Special Segment: Death by Pseudoscience (1:02:47)

[01:02:50.680 --> 01:02:51.680] Evan, you're going to give us another installment of Death by Pseudoscience.

[01:02:51.680 --> 01:02:52.680] Indeed.

[01:02:52.680 --> 01:02:53.680] Yep.

[01:02:53.680 --> 01:02:57.440] So supplements and herbal remedies back in the headlines.

[01:02:57.440 --> 01:03:02.400] It was reported recently that the wife of a U.S. congressman died with the cause of

[01:03:02.400 --> 01:03:08.560] death being and this is a quote from the autopsy report, dehydration due to gastroenteritis

[01:03:08.560 --> 01:03:16.480] due to adverse effects of white mulberry leaf ingestion and gastroenteritis, am I pronouncing

[01:03:16.480 --> 01:03:17.480] that right?

[01:03:17.480 --> 01:03:18.480] Gastroenteritis.

[01:03:18.480 --> 01:03:19.480] Yeah, that's right.

[01:03:19.480 --> 01:03:22.780] Is an inflammation of the stomach and intestines.

[01:03:22.780 --> 01:03:28.120] Her name was Lori McClintock, 61 year old wife of U.S. Congressman Tom McClintock from

[01:03:28.120 --> 01:03:29.660] California.

[01:03:29.660 --> 01:03:32.400] This happened back in December of twenty twenty one.

[01:03:32.400 --> 01:03:36.840] Lori was found unresponsive in her locked residence by her husband, Tom.

[01:03:36.840 --> 01:03:41.480] The day prior, she had complaints of an upset stomach and the results of the autopsy were

[01:03:41.480 --> 01:03:44.400] finally just reported last week.

[01:03:44.400 --> 01:03:50.040] And this was an autopsy with toxicology testing that confirmed the cause of death in her stomach.

[01:03:50.040 --> 01:03:56.260] They found a partially intact white mulberry leaf and people who take white mulberry leaves

[01:03:56.260 --> 01:04:02.080] sometimes or more often brew them into a tea, you know, they'll drink the tea and perhaps

[01:04:02.080 --> 01:04:07.020] in the process they'll consume the liquid, of course, but some fragments or dregs go

[01:04:07.020 --> 01:04:08.460] in there as well.

[01:04:08.460 --> 01:04:12.640] Now it wasn't clear from the autopsy report whether she drank tea with white mulberry

[01:04:12.640 --> 01:04:18.420] leaves or ate fresh or dried leaves or took it as a dietary supplement containing the

[01:04:18.420 --> 01:04:20.160] leaf.

[01:04:20.160 --> 01:04:23.440] Didn't get into that level of detail in that particular report.

[01:04:23.440 --> 01:04:27.980] But independent lab tests ordered by the coroner's office showed that the body had elevated levels

[01:04:27.980 --> 01:04:33.800] of nitrogen, sodium and creatine, all signs of dehydration, according to three pathologists

[01:04:33.800 --> 01:04:36.440] who reviewed the coroner's documents.

[01:04:36.440 --> 01:04:43.780] Dr. DeMichelle Depree, who is a retired forensic pathologist and a former medical examiner

[01:04:43.780 --> 01:04:46.860] in South Carolina, also reviewed the documents.

[01:04:46.860 --> 01:04:51.160] White mulberry and said white mulberry leaves do tend to cause dehydration and part of the

[01:04:51.160 --> 01:04:55.940] uses for that can be to help some people lose weight, mostly through fluid loss, which in

[01:04:55.940 --> 01:04:57.760] this case was excessive.

[01:04:57.760 --> 01:05:01.920] Allison Colwell, who's a curator with the UC Davis Center for Plant Diversity at the

[01:05:01.920 --> 01:05:08.120] University of California, Davis wrote in December of 2021 afterwards, about a week after she

[01:05:08.120 --> 01:05:12.880] had died, she wrote a letter to the Sacramento County coroner's office and said, in comparing

[01:05:12.880 --> 01:05:17.520] this leaf fragment to fresh leaves and to our extensive library of pressed specimens,

[01:05:17.520 --> 01:05:21.960] we determined that this leaf fragment is a match to Morris Alba, the white mulberry.

[01:05:21.960 --> 01:05:26.020] So it was definitely confirmed that that is what they found in her stomach.

[01:05:26.020 --> 01:05:32.400] Now, right on the heels of this report, the arguments against the findings, the proponents

[01:05:32.400 --> 01:05:36.800] of herbs and supplements all questioned these findings.

[01:05:36.800 --> 01:05:43.800] For example, Daniel Fabrikant, CEO and president of the Natural Products Association, who represents

[01:05:43.800 --> 01:05:48.680] the dietary supplements industry and oversaw dietary supplements at the FDA during the

[01:05:48.680 --> 01:05:53.800] Obama administration, questioned whether her death was related to this supplement.

[01:05:53.800 --> 01:05:55.440] He said, it's completely speculative.

[01:05:55.440 --> 01:05:57.380] He said, there's a science to this.

[01:05:57.380 --> 01:06:00.280] It's not just what the coroner feels.

[01:06:00.280 --> 01:06:03.440] People unfortunately pass from dehydration every day and there's lots of different reasons

[01:06:03.440 --> 01:06:05.340] and lots of different causes.

[01:06:05.340 --> 01:06:10.960] Another person, Peter Cohen, a doctor, associate professor at Harvard Medical School in Boston

[01:06:10.960 --> 01:06:15.080] who leads the dietary supplement research program at Cambridge.

[01:06:15.080 --> 01:06:18.400] After reading the actual report, which clearly states that it's the cause, I still don't

[01:06:18.400 --> 01:06:20.960] believe that's an accurate description of what happened.

[01:06:20.960 --> 01:06:24.840] If you eat any leaves, they'll upset your stomach, but they will not kill you.

[01:06:24.840 --> 01:06:28.160] And here's another one, Bill Gurley, who's the principal scientist with the National

[01:06:28.160 --> 01:06:33.720] Center for Natural Products Research at the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy

[01:06:33.720 --> 01:06:36.280] called the coroner's report bizarre.

[01:06:36.280 --> 01:06:41.360] He said he's looked at a lot of botanical toxicology reports over the years and in the

[01:06:41.360 --> 01:06:45.640] pantheon of those reports, I would say Mulberry ranks right up there as among the top three

[01:06:45.640 --> 01:06:49.600] or four safest botanicals that you will ever run across.

[01:06:49.600 --> 01:06:55.100] So you definitely had the people coming out sort of in defense of the industry because

[01:06:55.100 --> 01:07:00.720] as you can imagine, there's also a lot of people who were after this got reported, were

[01:07:00.720 --> 01:07:06.720] bringing up the fact that, and bringing attention to quite correctly, that the supplement industry

[01:07:06.720 --> 01:07:10.440] in the United States is woefully under regulated.

[01:07:10.440 --> 01:07:15.840] And we're talking about, they said it's grown to a $54 billion industry in the United annual

[01:07:15.840 --> 01:07:19.120] in the United States alone.

[01:07:19.120 --> 01:07:27.540] And there's, and for that going on and the lack of oversight and the lack of agencies

[01:07:27.540 --> 01:07:33.460] ensuring that these products are safe is really a serious problem.

[01:07:33.460 --> 01:07:35.760] There are some laws that are being proposed.

[01:07:35.760 --> 01:07:42.240] In fact, there is one in particular that was raised in recent months, Senator Richard Durbin

[01:07:42.240 --> 01:07:46.120] from Illinois is co-sponsoring bill with another Republican senator.

[01:07:46.120 --> 01:07:52.320] I'm sorry, I don't have his name handy, but he said he's introducing legislation to strengthen

[01:07:52.320 --> 01:07:55.160] the oversight of the dietary supplement industry.

[01:07:55.160 --> 01:07:58.560] It would require manufacturers to register with the FDA and provide a public list of

[01:07:58.560 --> 01:08:03.400] ingredients in their products, which are provisions that are backed by the Council for Responsible

[01:08:03.400 --> 01:08:04.400] Nutrition.

[01:08:04.400 --> 01:08:08.320] And he goes into a description about all of that.

[01:08:08.320 --> 01:08:14.240] So it sort of brought all this to the forefront, this particular incident and a lot of news

[01:08:14.240 --> 01:08:18.080] reporting and commentary from both sides of the argument here.

[01:08:18.080 --> 01:08:23.860] Yeah, I mean, I think the takeaway for the average person is that supplements are drugs.

[01:08:23.860 --> 01:08:27.680] They're not like this magically safe because they're quote unquote natural things.

[01:08:27.680 --> 01:08:31.960] And the mulberry leaves are known to cause GI symptoms.

[01:08:31.960 --> 01:08:34.680] They can cause constipation, bloating, et cetera.

[01:08:34.680 --> 01:08:40.240] I think this level of reaction may be unusual, but not implausible.

[01:08:40.240 --> 01:08:42.320] Maybe she had an allergic reaction to it.

[01:08:42.320 --> 01:08:48.080] It's hard to say, but they shouldn't be considered to be magically safe because they're natural.

[01:08:48.080 --> 01:08:50.320] They are drugs.

[01:08:50.320 --> 01:08:55.800] Mulberry in particular has a very nasty taste to it, which is an evolutionary signal that

[01:08:55.800 --> 01:08:57.600] it's poison.

[01:08:57.600 --> 01:09:00.680] So asparagus is poison?

[01:09:00.680 --> 01:09:01.680] Everything is poison.

[01:09:01.680 --> 01:09:07.960] Pretty much every plant that we eat, plants make poisons to protect themselves and we

[01:09:07.960 --> 01:09:14.480] bred plants, cultivated plants to not protect themselves so that we can eat them.

[01:09:14.480 --> 01:09:18.020] And then that's why we have to carefully take care of them because otherwise, you ever wonder

[01:09:18.020 --> 01:09:21.440] why weeds grow so easily in your garden and it's hard to keep your plants alive?

[01:09:21.440 --> 01:09:24.440] That's because weeds are poisonous and they protect themselves and the plants that we

[01:09:24.440 --> 01:09:27.600] eat are vulnerable because we bred them to be vulnerable.

[01:09:27.600 --> 01:09:32.920] But in any case, the other thing is not only are they drugs, they're just massively understudied

[01:09:32.920 --> 01:09:34.440] and poorly regulated.

[01:09:34.440 --> 01:09:37.600] So these kinds of things absolutely can happen.

[01:09:37.600 --> 01:09:40.960] Not to mention the interactions with existing medications that otherwise a doctor might

[01:09:40.960 --> 01:09:41.960] be prescribing.

[01:09:41.960 --> 01:09:42.960] Exactly.

[01:09:42.960 --> 01:09:45.780] They can have drug interactions, absolutely.

[01:09:45.780 --> 01:09:48.000] And then a lot of them do, and we know that they do.

[01:09:48.000 --> 01:09:52.760] So you're just taking a poorly regulated, dirty drug about which we don't have a lot

[01:09:52.760 --> 01:09:54.340] of information.

[01:09:54.340 --> 01:09:58.340] The probability that's going to help you is vanishingly small compared to the probability

[01:09:58.340 --> 01:10:03.780] that it's going to hurt you, although the most likely outcome is probably nothing.

[01:10:03.780 --> 01:10:08.200] The biggest thing about them is that they have very low bioavailability.

[01:10:08.200 --> 01:10:11.280] You're probably going to get like a tummy ache is probably the most common thing that's

[01:10:11.280 --> 01:10:12.940] going to happen to you.

[01:10:12.940 --> 01:10:17.640] But it's a roll of the dice, and again, chances are pretty low that it's going to actually

[01:10:17.640 --> 01:10:19.680] be helpful.

[01:10:19.680 --> 01:10:26.220] And using ancient anecdotal evidence is not very reassuring.

[01:10:26.220 --> 01:10:31.060] The things that have obvious effects we already are exploiting and have turned into regulated

[01:10:31.060 --> 01:10:32.920] drugs.

[01:10:32.920 --> 01:10:37.840] And everything else is basically just plants.

[01:10:37.840 --> 01:10:42.480] Anyway, it's a good reminder of those basic things.

Who's That Noisy? (1:10:42)

Answer to previous Noisy:

Chinese tongue-twisting poem, "Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den

J: ... similar to English's "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo [+ 3 'buffalos']"

...

C: (sing-song) Homonymy!

New Noisy (1:14:49)

[musical boings and dings]

J: ... If you think you know the answer or you have a cool Noisy you heard this week, you can email me at WTN@theskepticsguide.org.

[01:10:42.480 --> 01:10:44.840] All right, Jay, it's who's that noisy time.

[01:10:44.840 --> 01:10:59.360] All right, guys, last week I played this noisy.

[01:10:59.360 --> 01:11:03.760] And it goes on and on and on and on.

[01:11:03.760 --> 01:11:08.920] And that's a case where if the person speaks more, actually, they'll be more liked.

[01:11:08.920 --> 01:11:09.920] Exactly.

[01:11:09.920 --> 01:11:13.200] So yeah, it's good that it goes on like that.

[01:11:13.200 --> 01:11:14.200] Do you guys have any idea?

[01:11:14.200 --> 01:11:16.200] I really have no idea what this is.

[01:11:16.200 --> 01:11:17.200] No, I don't.

[01:11:17.200 --> 01:11:19.960] It's weird, whatever it is.

[01:11:19.960 --> 01:11:20.960] It's weird.

[01:11:20.960 --> 01:11:21.960] It is definitely weird.

[01:11:21.960 --> 01:11:26.120] So a listener named Tom Patterson wrote in and said, hello, fellow skeptics.

[01:11:26.120 --> 01:11:31.960] This noisy is the effect of putting a nonsense phrase made of actual words into Google Translate.

[01:11:31.960 --> 01:11:35.800] The result sounds silly because the words all have similar sound when translated.

[01:11:35.800 --> 01:11:37.880] So that's not correct.

[01:11:37.880 --> 01:11:43.880] And I would think that it isn't Google Translate because how would you be playing it?

[01:11:43.880 --> 01:11:46.680] Like, what is the mechanism to play what you've translated?

[01:11:46.680 --> 01:11:47.680] Do you know what I mean?

[01:11:47.680 --> 01:11:51.520] Like, you can put something in and get a nonsense response out of Google Translate, but how

[01:11:51.520 --> 01:11:52.760] would you vocalize that?

[01:11:52.760 --> 01:11:55.640] I wonder if you could vocalize Google Translate.

[01:11:55.640 --> 01:11:59.720] Another listener named Brian Jackson wrote in and said, I'm fairly certain that what

[01:11:59.720 --> 01:12:05.880] is being said in the noisy is a specific Mandarin Chinese tongue twister similar to English's

[01:12:05.880 --> 01:12:08.560] buffalo, buffalo, buffalo, buffalo, buffalo.

[01:12:08.560 --> 01:12:12.480] However, I have absolutely no idea what is producing the sound.

[01:12:12.480 --> 01:12:16.040] So that is a definite step in the right direction.

[01:12:16.040 --> 01:12:20.040] I have another guest here from a listener named Matt Nichols that said, love you guys,

[01:12:20.040 --> 01:12:21.040] love the show.

[01:12:21.040 --> 01:12:24.640] This week's noisy is definitely a villager from Minecraft.

[01:12:24.640 --> 01:12:28.820] The sound is a little off, so I'll assume it's poison or being hit by a zombie.

[01:12:28.820 --> 01:12:33.840] So without a doubt, that is indeed what the villagers of Minecraft sound like, but that's

[01:12:33.840 --> 01:12:34.960] not what the noisy is.

[01:12:34.960 --> 01:12:38.120] If you know Minecraft, you know that that is what they sound like, which is kind of

[01:12:38.120 --> 01:12:39.120] funny.

[01:12:39.120 --> 01:12:45.200] I have a couple of people get, well, first off, about four or five dozen people answered

[01:12:45.200 --> 01:12:46.520] correctly today.

[01:12:46.520 --> 01:12:47.720] I can't believe it.

[01:12:47.720 --> 01:12:49.320] I never heard this thing before.

[01:12:49.320 --> 01:12:50.720] I had no idea what it was.

[01:12:50.720 --> 01:12:55.040] I had literally zero information in my head about it, but tons of people recognize this

[01:12:55.040 --> 01:12:57.360] right out and got it perfectly correct.

[01:12:57.360 --> 01:13:02.900] So the first person that got it right named Chubby from Romania said, hello Jay, this

[01:13:02.900 --> 01:13:08.000] week's noisy is the Chinese tongue-twisting poem called The Lion Eating Poet in the Stone

[01:13:08.000 --> 01:13:09.000] Den.

[01:13:09.000 --> 01:13:15.280] And he says it is playful tongue twister based on Chinese homonymy.

[01:13:15.280 --> 01:13:16.280] I like it.

[01:13:16.280 --> 01:13:17.280] I like it.

[01:13:17.280 --> 01:13:18.280] That's good.

[01:13:18.280 --> 01:13:19.280] Homonymy.

[01:13:19.280 --> 01:13:23.000] It is a playful tongue twister based on Chinese homonymy and tonality.

[01:13:23.000 --> 01:13:24.080] So that is correct.

[01:13:24.080 --> 01:13:26.240] There's a lot more details that I can give you guys.

[01:13:26.240 --> 01:13:32.600] Another listener wrote in named Colin Flahive, and he's an American who lives in Southwest

[01:13:32.600 --> 01:13:33.600] China.

[01:13:33.600 --> 01:13:36.480] He says he listens to the show every Sunday morning.

[01:13:36.480 --> 01:13:38.520] And he also guessed correctly this week.

[01:13:38.520 --> 01:13:41.280] So let me give you some details about what this thing is.

[01:13:41.280 --> 01:13:45.180] The person who sent it in, Joshua Twilley, wrote, Dear Jay, what you are hearing in this

[01:13:45.180 --> 01:13:49.820] audio clip is a poem called Lion Eating Poet in the Stone Den written by Chinese linguist

[01:13:49.820 --> 01:13:51.440] Yan Renchao.

[01:13:51.440 --> 01:13:55.680] What makes this poem unique is that every single one of the Mandarin characters used

[01:13:55.680 --> 01:14:00.120] in its composition is a homophone pronounced she.

[01:14:00.120 --> 01:14:04.720] The only variation in the sound of the characters used there are tones.

[01:14:04.720 --> 01:14:09.160] While tones are very important to any tonal language in identifying the meaning of different

[01:14:09.160 --> 01:14:13.960] words, deciphering the meaning of this poem by sound alone is nearly impossible.

[01:14:13.960 --> 01:14:18.480] If you played this recording to a native speaker, they would find it incomprehensible.

[01:14:18.480 --> 01:14:21.040] Yet written down, the poem is coherent.

[01:14:21.040 --> 01:14:22.040] Oh, cool.

[01:14:22.040 --> 01:14:23.040] Yeah, very cool.

[01:14:23.040 --> 01:14:27.140] Like, you know, he also included the poem itself.

[01:14:27.140 --> 01:14:28.800] But let me play it for you again.

[01:14:28.800 --> 01:14:38.480] This is what the poem sounds like when read.

[01:14:38.480 --> 01:14:41.720] So anyway, that's crazy stuff, man.

[01:14:41.720 --> 01:14:45.560] A poem with one word all pronounced differently.

[01:14:45.560 --> 01:14:46.560] I love it.

[01:14:46.560 --> 01:14:49.080] That is a who's that noisy if I ever heard one.

[01:14:49.080 --> 01:14:51.460] I have a new noisy for you guys this week.

[01:14:51.460 --> 01:14:56.600] This noisy was sent in by a listener named Anthony from Edmonton.

[01:14:56.600 --> 01:15:12.460] And here it is.

[01:15:12.460 --> 01:15:14.440] So I would like you to be very specific.

[01:15:14.440 --> 01:15:16.440] Yeah, it's very cool sound.

[01:15:16.440 --> 01:15:17.680] Be very specific.

[01:15:17.680 --> 01:15:21.560] I will only accept perfectly correct answers on this one.

[01:15:21.560 --> 01:15:24.720] If you think you know the answer or you have a cool noisy you heard this week, you can

[01:15:24.720 --> 01:15:28.040] email me at WTN at the skeptics guide.org.

Announcements (1:15:29)

[01:15:28.040 --> 01:15:29.040] Steve.

[01:15:29.040 --> 01:15:30.040] Yes, brother.

[01:15:30.040 --> 01:15:38.600] We have six hours, six hours of SGU content coming up for free on September 24th, 12 p.m.

[01:15:38.600 --> 01:15:41.980] Eastern to 6 p.m. Eastern time.

[01:15:41.980 --> 01:15:43.520] That is a Saturday.

[01:15:43.520 --> 01:15:44.520] We will be talking.

[01:15:44.520 --> 01:15:45.520] We will.

[01:15:45.520 --> 01:15:46.520] A few things are happening.

[01:15:46.520 --> 01:15:49.520] One, we are going to introduce everybody to our new book.

[01:15:49.520 --> 01:15:53.000] The name of the book is The Skeptics' Guide to the future.

[01:15:53.000 --> 01:15:56.360] You know, you must have heard us talk about this before, but if you haven't, the book

[01:15:56.360 --> 01:16:00.520] is about the technologies that exist today that are important to us today.

[01:16:00.520 --> 01:16:01.720] But where did they come from?

[01:16:01.720 --> 01:16:02.720] How did they start?

[01:16:02.720 --> 01:16:06.640] What's the history of those technologies and where do we think that they'll be going in

[01:16:06.640 --> 01:16:07.640] the future?

[01:16:07.640 --> 01:16:09.560] It was a ton of fun to write.

[01:16:09.560 --> 01:16:12.300] And if you want to learn more about the book, please join us.

[01:16:12.300 --> 01:16:13.860] Something cool will be happening on that day.

[01:16:13.860 --> 01:16:20.180] We will be giving away a signed copy of the book and, you know, quite a bit of swag all

[01:16:20.180 --> 01:16:22.100] going to one person.

[01:16:22.100 --> 01:16:24.780] You have a chance to win if you listen to the live stream.

[01:16:24.780 --> 01:16:28.800] We will be giving out a secret password that we will say during the live stream that you

[01:16:28.800 --> 01:16:33.600] can enter in to enter yourself into the the free signed book giveaway.

[01:16:33.600 --> 01:16:35.140] We don't do this that often.

[01:16:35.140 --> 01:16:36.140] It's a big deal.

[01:16:36.140 --> 01:16:38.240] I hope you join us for it.

[01:16:38.240 --> 01:16:41.060] We're really going to enjoy doing that six hours, guys.

[01:16:41.060 --> 01:16:42.060] We could do it.

[01:16:42.060 --> 01:16:43.060] We've done so much more.

[01:16:43.060 --> 01:16:46.440] We'll also be doing two SGU episodes.

[01:16:46.440 --> 01:16:49.520] It'll provide the content for two episodes and we're going to organize it that way.

[01:16:49.520 --> 01:16:53.420] So there'll be like two intros to science or fiction, et cetera, et cetera.

[01:16:53.420 --> 01:16:54.920] A couple more things.

[01:16:54.920 --> 01:16:59.040] We have shows happening in Arizona in December.

[01:16:59.040 --> 01:17:05.960] So December 15th to December 17th, we will be doing four different shows, you know, two

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[01:17:06.960 --> 01:17:10.640] This is SGU private recording where you can listen to us do the show live and then we

[01:17:10.640 --> 01:17:15.140] spend an extra hour with the audience doing some fun stuff.

[01:17:15.140 --> 01:17:21.600] So that that'll be one of those will be happening in Phoenix on Thursday, the 15th of December.

[01:17:21.600 --> 01:17:27.080] And we will be doing another one in Tucson at noon on Saturday, the 17th.

[01:17:27.080 --> 01:17:30.020] And then we also will be doing two extravaganza's.

[01:17:30.020 --> 01:17:31.440] These are our stage shows.

[01:17:31.440 --> 01:17:33.440] This is very different than the private recording.

[01:17:33.440 --> 01:17:39.200] This is a completely different thing where we basically do a lot of improv stand up and

[01:17:39.200 --> 01:17:42.280] we discuss how your brain can fool you.

[01:17:42.280 --> 01:17:46.300] So it's mixed in throughout this whole show, we teach you about how your brain fools you

[01:17:46.300 --> 01:17:49.880] and how you can't trust what you see in here.

[01:17:49.880 --> 01:17:51.740] That is called the extravaganza.

[01:17:51.740 --> 01:17:56.680] And you can go to theskepticsguy.org forward slash events for all the details on these

[01:17:56.680 --> 01:18:00.200] four shows, two in Phoenix, two in Tucson.

[01:18:00.200 --> 01:18:01.200] Join us.

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[01:18:02.200 --> 01:18:06.460] We are adding some benefits to our higher Patreon levels.

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[01:18:20.960 --> 01:18:23.600] So keep an eye out for that as well.

Science or Fiction (1:18:27)

Theme: Social Psychology Item #1: A recent study finds that positive fortune-telling results in increased financial risk-taking for men but not for women. Item #2: A study of 5-years-olds finds that they perceive overweight people to be happier than thin people. Item #3: A study of college students finds that mask-wearing does not impair social interactions.

Answer	Item
Fiction	Overweight happier than thin
Science	Risk-taking men vs. women
Science	Mask-wearing impairs not

Host	Result
Steve	win

Rogue	Guess
Bob	Mask-wearing impairs not
Jay	Mask-wearing impairs not
Evan	Overweight happier than thin
Cara	Overweight happier than thin

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

Steve Explains Item #3

[01:18:23.600 --> 01:18:29.800] All right, everyone, let's go on with science or fiction.

[01:18:29.800 --> 01:18:39.680] It's time for science or fiction.

[01:18:39.680 --> 01:18:43.880] Each week I come up with three science news items, two real and one fake, and then I challenge

[01:18:43.880 --> 01:18:46.760] my panel of skeptics to tell me which one is the fake.

[01:18:46.760 --> 01:18:48.920] You have a theme this week.

[01:18:48.920 --> 01:18:52.480] It's three news items, but they all happen to cluster within a theme.

[01:18:52.480 --> 01:18:54.640] The theme is social psychology.

[01:18:54.640 --> 01:18:56.640] Oh, no.

[01:18:56.640 --> 01:18:57.640] Okay.

[01:18:57.640 --> 01:19:00.240] Are you guys ready?

[01:19:00.240 --> 01:19:01.240] Yeah.

[01:19:01.240 --> 01:19:02.240] All right.

[01:19:02.240 --> 01:19:07.800] Item number one, a recent study finds that positive fortune telling results in increased

[01:19:07.800 --> 01:19:12.440] financial risk taking for men, but not for women.

[01:19:12.440 --> 01:19:17.000] Item number two, a study of five year olds finds that they perceive overweight people

[01:19:17.000 --> 01:19:20.580] to be happier than thin people.

[01:19:20.580 --> 01:19:25.920] And item number three, a study of college students finds that mask wearing does not

[01:19:25.920 --> 01:19:28.680] impair social interactions.

[01:19:28.680 --> 01:19:29.680] Bob go first.

[01:19:29.680 --> 01:19:30.680] No.

[01:19:30.680 --> 01:19:31.680] Okay.

[01:19:31.680 --> 01:19:37.480] So a recent study finds that positive fortune telling results in increased financial risk

[01:19:37.480 --> 01:19:39.680] taking for men, but not for women.

[01:19:39.680 --> 01:19:41.160] Yeah, that just sounds right.

[01:19:41.160 --> 01:19:43.760] Yeah, you know, men are stupid.

[01:19:43.760 --> 01:19:49.640] A study of five year olds find that they perceive overweight people to be happier than thin

[01:19:49.640 --> 01:19:50.640] people.

[01:19:50.640 --> 01:19:51.640] Yeah, that sounds right too.

[01:19:51.640 --> 01:19:52.640] All right.

[01:19:52.640 --> 01:19:55.560] A study of college students find that mask wearing does not impair social interactions.

[01:19:55.560 --> 01:19:57.480] Yeah, that sounds right too.

[01:19:57.480 --> 01:19:59.360] So I'll say that three is fiction.

[01:19:59.360 --> 01:20:00.360] Thank you very much.

[01:20:00.360 --> 01:20:01.360] The mask wearing.

[01:20:01.360 --> 01:20:02.360] That's it.

[01:20:02.360 --> 01:20:03.360] Yes.

[01:20:03.360 --> 01:20:04.360] Yeah.

[01:20:04.360 --> 01:20:05.360] Wow.

[01:20:05.360 --> 01:20:06.360] That's how you did it.

[01:20:06.360 --> 01:20:07.360] Yeah.

[01:20:07.360 --> 01:20:08.360] Bingo, bingo.

[01:20:08.360 --> 01:20:09.360] This one's fiction.

[01:20:09.360 --> 01:20:10.360] All right, Jay.

[01:20:10.360 --> 01:20:11.360] All right.

[01:20:11.360 --> 01:20:13.420] The first one, a recent study finds positive fortune telling results in increased financial

[01:20:13.420 --> 01:20:15.160] risk taken for men, but not for women.

[01:20:15.160 --> 01:20:17.160] I don't even understand this one.

[01:20:17.160 --> 01:20:18.960] I'll tell you.

[01:20:18.960 --> 01:20:25.080] So if you go to a fortune teller and they give you a reading that's positive, like good

[01:20:25.080 --> 01:20:28.560] things are going to happen in your life as opposed to a neutral or a negative reading,

[01:20:28.560 --> 01:20:29.560] right?

[01:20:29.560 --> 01:20:34.880] Then after that, you're more likely to take increased financial risk, like you will bet

[01:20:34.880 --> 01:20:37.080] more money or invest more money or whatever.

[01:20:37.080 --> 01:20:38.080] Roger that.

[01:20:38.080 --> 01:20:41.360] So the men are duped more, I guess, than the women is what it seems like.

[01:20:41.360 --> 01:20:43.160] Or maybe just women are more risk averse.

[01:20:43.160 --> 01:20:44.160] I don't know.

[01:20:44.160 --> 01:20:45.160] All right.

[01:20:45.160 --> 01:20:47.480] Next one, a study of five year olds finds that they perceive overweight people to be

[01:20:47.480 --> 01:20:49.040] happier than thin people.

[01:20:49.040 --> 01:20:52.360] I can't possibly think that that is true.

[01:20:52.360 --> 01:20:53.800] That is so odd.

[01:20:53.800 --> 01:20:55.360] How overweight, Steve?

[01:20:55.360 --> 01:20:58.200] Well overweight is a very specific medical definition.

[01:20:58.200 --> 01:21:01.680] Like there is a BMI range that is considered, quote unquote, overweight.

[01:21:01.680 --> 01:21:03.560] Can you give me an idea?

[01:21:03.560 --> 01:21:04.560] So overweight but not obese.

[01:21:04.560 --> 01:21:05.560] Well, it depends.

[01:21:05.560 --> 01:21:06.560] Yeah, then there's obese.

[01:21:06.560 --> 01:21:09.560] So there's like thin, normal, overweight obese, right?

[01:21:09.560 --> 01:21:12.680] I forget what the exact numbers are and it's different for men and women, but you know,

[01:21:12.680 --> 01:21:16.240] it's like if you're 20, 30 pounds, you're probably in the overweight category.

[01:21:16.240 --> 01:21:19.360] Yeah, it depends on your height and all that.

[01:21:19.360 --> 01:21:23.360] The last one here is college students find that mask wearing does not impair social

[01:21:23.360 --> 01:21:24.360] interactions.

[01:21:24.360 --> 01:21:28.240] I mean, I would think that's the opposite.

[01:21:28.240 --> 01:21:29.480] Which one did you pick, Bob?

[01:21:29.480 --> 01:21:31.740] The right one.

[01:21:31.740 --> 01:21:32.740] That one?

[01:21:32.740 --> 01:21:33.740] Yeah, I did.

[01:21:33.740 --> 01:21:34.740] Yeah, I'm leaning to that one.

[01:21:34.740 --> 01:21:36.600] I'll take that one as the fake.

[01:21:36.600 --> 01:21:37.600] Okay, Evan.

[01:21:37.600 --> 01:21:42.160] All right, positive fortune telling results in increased financial risk taking for men,

[01:21:42.160 --> 01:21:43.160] but not for women.

[01:21:43.160 --> 01:21:51.240] You know, I think the thing here is that we, oh, stereotype women, unfortunately, as the

[01:21:51.240 --> 01:21:58.480] ones who, you know, would be probably more swayed by the results of a fortune teller

[01:21:58.480 --> 01:21:59.480] rather than a man.

[01:21:59.480 --> 01:22:01.760] But this is basically, you know, kind of saying the opposite.

[01:22:01.760 --> 01:22:07.560] I'm not trying to be sexist here or anything, but in general, it's my perception of it.

[01:22:07.560 --> 01:22:10.000] So maybe that's why this one could be the fiction.

[01:22:10.000 --> 01:22:11.700] It could be a flip flop here.

[01:22:11.700 --> 01:22:12.960] Maybe not.

[01:22:12.960 --> 01:22:18.560] The five year olds perceiving overweight people to be happier than thin people like, you know,

[01:22:18.560 --> 01:22:24.080] like a Santa Claus kind of effect, maybe the jolly old, you know, elf kind of thing.

[01:22:24.080 --> 01:22:27.600] That's all that's coming to my mind here with this one.

[01:22:27.600 --> 01:22:31.520] I have no, why would you, it's interesting that someone would even think to study this.

[01:22:31.520 --> 01:22:34.400] How do they come up with these ideas?

[01:22:34.400 --> 01:22:40.480] And then the last one, college students specifically find that mask wearing does not impair social

[01:22:40.480 --> 01:22:42.000] interactions.

[01:22:42.000 --> 01:22:47.080] I think all three are fiction, but the most fictiony of them, I'll say the five year old

[01:22:47.080 --> 01:22:49.920] one, I think.

[01:22:49.920 --> 01:22:55.640] It's the one I have the least understanding of even why this would be studied.

[01:22:55.640 --> 01:22:58.600] So just got no vibe for this one.

[01:22:58.600 --> 01:22:59.600] I'll say that's the fiction.

[01:22:59.600 --> 01:23:00.600] All right.

[01:23:00.600 --> 01:23:01.600] And Kara?

[01:23:01.600 --> 01:23:02.600] It's got no vibe.

[01:23:02.600 --> 01:23:07.440] I really think it all go either way.

[01:23:07.440 --> 01:23:11.160] Pretty much like all social psychology studies.

[01:23:11.160 --> 01:23:12.160] Exactly.

[01:23:12.160 --> 01:23:13.160] Yeah.

[01:23:13.160 --> 01:23:20.000] It says, okay, maybe women might be more credulous, but then on the flip side of that, as Bob

[01:23:20.000 --> 01:23:25.480] pointed out, maybe men are already taking higher risks.

[01:23:25.480 --> 01:23:28.640] That's not what you thought I was going to say.

[01:23:28.640 --> 01:23:32.400] Maybe men are, you know, women are already more risk averse and that's just exacerbated

[01:23:32.400 --> 01:23:33.400] by this.

[01:23:33.400 --> 01:23:34.400] You know what I mean?

[01:23:34.400 --> 01:23:35.920] So it could go either way.

[01:23:35.920 --> 01:23:37.720] The five year old, same thing.

[01:23:37.720 --> 01:23:44.160] It could be the like, you know, jolly St. Nick effect, but it could also be, I think,

[01:23:44.160 --> 01:23:47.880] some internalized sizes.

[01:23:47.880 --> 01:23:51.120] And then the last one, it's a study of college students, Evan, because they're all a study

[01:23:51.120 --> 01:23:53.520] of college students because they're easy to study.

[01:23:53.520 --> 01:23:54.520] Psychologists are studying.

[01:23:54.520 --> 01:23:55.520] They're available, I suppose.

[01:23:55.520 --> 01:23:56.520] Yeah, they're in their class.

[01:23:56.520 --> 01:23:57.520] College student bias.

[01:23:57.520 --> 01:23:58.520] Right.

[01:23:58.520 --> 01:24:02.360] Mask wearing does not impair social interactions.

[01:24:02.360 --> 01:24:06.880] This one's tough because it's like on what measure and is it, you know, is it a significant

[01:24:06.880 --> 01:24:08.800] difference and how, you know, what's the outcome?

[01:24:08.800 --> 01:24:18.560] I hope this one is science because as a therapist, we wear masks and I don't want my own therapy

[01:24:18.560 --> 01:24:23.520] sessions to be dramatically affected by the fact that we are wearing masks.

[01:24:23.520 --> 01:24:29.920] So and I would hope that it would be the psychologists themselves who studied that and said, okay,

[01:24:29.920 --> 01:24:34.440] we should probably, you know, when we're measuring the different types of risk, the risk of COVID

[01:24:34.440 --> 01:24:37.240] is higher than the risk of like negative outcomes from not wearing masks.

[01:24:37.240 --> 01:24:38.800] So I'm going to say that one's science.

[01:24:38.800 --> 01:24:44.280] So it's really between the first two, all the, everybody said that the masks was fiction

[01:24:44.280 --> 01:24:45.520] except for Evan, right?

[01:24:45.520 --> 01:24:47.320] You said the five year olds was fiction.

[01:24:47.320 --> 01:24:48.320] Okay.

[01:24:48.320 --> 01:24:49.320] Yeah, the five year olds.

[01:24:49.320 --> 01:24:53.320] So nobody said the risk taking, I could go out on that limb and spread it out, but I

[01:24:53.320 --> 01:24:55.380] think I'm leaning towards the five year olds too.

[01:24:55.380 --> 01:24:59.000] Something about this one tells me that that may have been the case like a hundred years

[01:24:59.000 --> 01:25:04.800] ago, but that that trend has reversed very similar to the doll studies, like super young

[01:25:04.800 --> 01:25:10.080] children will say that like the black doll is less likable than the white doll.

[01:25:10.080 --> 01:25:14.660] Even black children, there are these horrid stereotypes that become internalized when

[01:25:14.660 --> 01:25:16.200] we're very, very young.

[01:25:16.200 --> 01:25:21.600] And I wouldn't be surprised if this is like a, like a thin bias and it was the opposite.

[01:25:21.600 --> 01:25:25.840] So I'm going to go with Evan and say that it's the five year old study that's a fiction.

[01:25:25.840 --> 01:25:26.840] All right.

[01:25:26.840 --> 01:25:27.840] So you all agree with number one.

[01:25:27.840 --> 01:25:28.840] So we'll start there.

[01:25:28.840 --> 01:25:33.120] The science and study finds that positive fortune telling results in increased financial

[01:25:33.120 --> 01:25:35.120] risk taking for men, but not women.

[01:25:35.120 --> 01:25:39.780] You all think this one is science and this one is science.

[01:25:39.780 --> 01:25:41.780] You're all safe so far.

[01:25:41.780 --> 01:25:45.120] Part of the reason why I chose this one is because they did, the study was fairly rigorous.

[01:25:45.120 --> 01:25:48.600] They actually did three separate independent studies.

[01:25:48.600 --> 01:25:54.800] They used online, real online gambling games and, but in a laboratory setting.

[01:25:54.800 --> 01:26:02.160] And they, they basically had subjects, men and women get a fortune telling that was either

[01:26:02.160 --> 01:26:03.920] positive, neutral and negative.

[01:26:03.920 --> 01:26:08.160] And then they measured their behavior in the online gambling.

[01:26:08.160 --> 01:26:13.160] In all three studies, there was a pretty robust effect where the men had increased risk taking.

[01:26:13.160 --> 01:26:16.240] They made larger bets, you know, riskier bets.

[01:26:16.240 --> 01:26:20.200] For women it was mixed, but when they did a meta analysis across the three studies,

[01:26:20.200 --> 01:26:21.320] there was zero effect.

[01:26:21.320 --> 01:26:23.840] So basically there was no effect for the women.

[01:26:23.840 --> 01:26:27.920] So again, they said there might be a small effect because it was positive or whatever.

[01:26:27.920 --> 01:26:30.920] But basically it was negative across all three studies.

[01:26:30.920 --> 01:26:34.660] So yeah, interesting, you know, and again, is that because the, so, you know, you think

[01:26:34.660 --> 01:26:37.240] people feel good that good things are going to happen.

[01:26:37.240 --> 01:26:41.640] They feel positive because even if they don't believe in it, just the idea that somebody

[01:26:41.640 --> 01:26:45.680] told them good things are going to happen, it made them take more risks because they,

[01:26:45.680 --> 01:26:49.040] they guess they felt that their probability of winning was going to go up.

[01:26:49.040 --> 01:26:54.960] Now the question is, did we not see that effect in women because women did, didn't have the

[01:26:54.960 --> 01:26:59.560] effect or it was canceled out by, by just being higher, more risk averse of baseline?

[01:26:59.560 --> 01:27:00.560] Exactly, yeah.

[01:27:00.560 --> 01:27:04.000] Was it, was it, then this study couldn't answer that question, but it is interesting to think

[01:27:04.000 --> 01:27:05.000] about.

[01:27:05.000 --> 01:27:06.000] All right, let's go on to number two.

[01:27:06.000 --> 01:27:10.160] A study of five-year-olds finds that they perceive overweight people to be happier than

[01:27:10.160 --> 01:27:11.160] thin people.

[01:27:11.160 --> 01:27:15.640] Evan and Keri, you think this one is the fiction, Bob and Jay, you think this one is science.

[01:27:15.640 --> 01:27:20.880] So I guess the question is, Keri, you, you, you, I think zeroed in on the actual question.

[01:27:20.880 --> 01:27:22.600] Is it the jolly effect, right?

[01:27:22.600 --> 01:27:29.000] Do they think that overweight people are jolly or is there an attractiveness bias here even

[01:27:29.000 --> 01:27:33.440] in, even in, even in five-year-olds?

[01:27:33.440 --> 01:27:38.520] And this one is the fiction, you guys are right.

[01:27:38.520 --> 01:27:39.520] Doesn't surprise.

[01:27:39.520 --> 01:27:41.400] It's so sad, but it was the opposite.

[01:27:41.400 --> 01:27:48.040] They thought that the thinner people were, were happier and more likable, you know, than

[01:27:48.040 --> 01:27:49.880] the overweight people.

[01:27:49.880 --> 01:27:54.720] And then they do, they didn't interpret this as an overall attractiveness bias, that we

[01:27:54.720 --> 01:27:59.080] think that attractive people are just, they're better people, they're more interesting, they're

[01:27:59.080 --> 01:28:01.480] more likable, they're happier, et cetera.

[01:28:01.480 --> 01:28:07.760] And that even at five-year-old level, that bias has already culturally seeped in into

[01:28:07.760 --> 01:28:08.760] that.

[01:28:08.760 --> 01:28:09.760] Yeah.

[01:28:09.760 --> 01:28:12.480] And all of the stuff reinforcing that.

[01:28:12.480 --> 01:28:13.480] Yeah.

[01:28:13.480 --> 01:28:17.240] This means that a study of college students finds that mask wearing does not impair social

[01:28:17.240 --> 01:28:19.560] interactions is science.

[01:28:19.560 --> 01:28:27.040] This was a convenience sample of college students and in this paradigm, they basically instructed

[01:28:27.040 --> 01:28:31.080] students to like go into the library, find somebody at random and then talk to them.

[01:28:31.080 --> 01:28:35.740] And then for whatever, a half an hour or so, and then they rate the interaction.

[01:28:35.740 --> 01:28:39.720] And then for half of them, they had them wear like a hat, glasses and a mask.

[01:28:39.720 --> 01:28:42.980] And the other half, they didn't do anything.

[01:28:42.980 --> 01:28:48.360] And there was no effect on any of the measures for the social interaction.

[01:28:48.360 --> 01:28:55.320] They measured the ease of the interaction, authenticity, friendliness, mood, discomfort,

[01:28:55.320 --> 01:28:56.920] and interestingness of the interaction.

[01:28:56.920 --> 01:29:00.000] There was no measurable effect between the two groups.

[01:29:00.000 --> 01:29:06.000] So they found basically there was no impairment of social interaction while wearing the mask

[01:29:06.000 --> 01:29:11.200] within obviously the paradigm of this study and of course within college students.

[01:29:11.200 --> 01:29:12.200] So interesting.

[01:29:12.200 --> 01:29:16.560] Obviously, you know, with social psychology study like this, no one study is definitive

[01:29:16.560 --> 01:29:19.560] or is the final word on any phenomenon like this.

[01:29:19.560 --> 01:29:23.280] But I thought that was an interesting way to look at that question.

[01:29:23.280 --> 01:29:24.520] All right.

[01:29:24.520 --> 01:29:26.080] So Kara and Evan, good job.

[01:29:26.080 --> 01:29:27.080] Hey.

[01:29:27.080 --> 01:29:28.080] Thanks.

[01:29:28.080 --> 01:29:29.080] Yay, Evan.

Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:29:29)

A good ghost story may hold entertainment and even cultural value, but the popular portrayal of pseudoscientific practices as science may be detracting from efforts to cultivate a scientifically literate public.
– Micheal Knees, engineering psychologist

[01:29:29.080 --> 01:29:30.080] All right.

[01:29:30.080 --> 01:29:31.080] Evan, give us a quote.

[01:29:31.080 --> 01:29:36.520] A good ghost story may hold entertainment and even cultural value.

[01:29:36.520 --> 01:29:42.120] But the popular portrayal of pseudoscientific practices as science may be detracting from

[01:29:42.120 --> 01:29:46.000] efforts to cultivate a scientifically literate public.

[01:29:46.000 --> 01:29:49.400] Yeah, not maybe.

[01:29:49.400 --> 01:29:52.640] Not possibly.

[01:29:52.640 --> 01:29:57.360] Michael Nees, assistant professor of psychology, Lafayette College.

[01:29:57.360 --> 01:30:01.120] And yes, and I'm calling out things like, you know, the Travel Channel and the History

[01:30:01.120 --> 01:30:04.200] Channel and all these channels on TV.

[01:30:04.200 --> 01:30:09.840] Every night there's Ghost and there's Bigfoot and there's My Haunted Lover and every other

[01:30:09.840 --> 01:30:10.840] stupid show.

[01:30:10.840 --> 01:30:13.280] There's a thousand of these things out there.

[01:30:13.280 --> 01:30:14.440] There's more, not less.

[01:30:14.440 --> 01:30:16.200] It's crazy.

[01:30:16.200 --> 01:30:19.300] What's incredible to me, and I know I'm a skeptic, I don't believe it, but the thing

[01:30:19.300 --> 01:30:25.600] is I just hard for me to imagine how anybody gets any entertainment value out of these

[01:30:25.600 --> 01:30:30.320] shows, even if you're a believer, because nothing happens.

[01:30:30.320 --> 01:30:32.020] They never find Bigfoot.

[01:30:32.020 --> 01:30:36.560] They never find a ghost because these things don't exist.

[01:30:36.560 --> 01:30:37.560] Nothing happens.

[01:30:37.560 --> 01:30:42.360] It's so obvious that they're just trying to gin up, just, oh, what was that?

[01:30:42.360 --> 01:30:43.360] Was there a sign?

[01:30:43.360 --> 01:30:48.120] I mean, they're trying to make something from nothing and it's so pathetic, I just don't

[01:30:48.120 --> 01:30:50.320] understand how people will find this entertaining.

[01:30:50.320 --> 01:30:52.180] There's nothing to tune into.

[01:30:52.180 --> 01:30:53.680] There's nothing to latch on to.

[01:30:53.680 --> 01:30:59.440] I mean, these are not some of the most dynamic people either in any other aspect.

[01:30:59.440 --> 01:31:03.000] The whole thing, you're right, Steve, is as boring as white toast.

[01:31:03.000 --> 01:31:04.000] Yeah.

[01:31:04.000 --> 01:31:05.000] It's like watching paint dry.

[01:31:05.000 --> 01:31:06.000] Awful.

[01:31:06.000 --> 01:31:07.000] I don't get it.

[01:31:07.000 --> 01:31:08.000] All right.

[01:31:08.000 --> 01:31:09.000] Thank you, Evan.

[01:31:09.000 --> 01:31:10.000] Thank you.

Signoff

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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