SGU Episode 105

This episode is in the middle of being transcribed by Skepticat (talk) as of {{{date}}}. To help avoid duplication, please do not transcribe this episode while this message is displayed.

Introduction

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

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, July 25^th, 2007, and this is your host, Steven Novella, president of the New England Skeptical Society. Joining me this evening are Bob Novella...

B: Hey, everybody.

S: ...Rebecca Watson...

R: Hello, world.

S: ...Perry DeAngelis...

P: Hello.

S: ...Jay Novella...

J: Good evening, guys.

S: ...and Evan Bernstein.

E: Hi, everyone.

S: How is everyone this evening?

x: I'm good, Steve.

x: Very good!

x: Awesome.

x: Very, very good.

R: Couldn't be better.

P: We all went on honeymoon with Jay.

x: That's right.

x: We did.

P: All there in the hotel room. It's a little...

R: I thought, I thought it would be awkward, but you know...

x: It's kinda cool, right?

(inaudible)

R: It's kinda cozy.

P: No, his, his new bride is very cooperative.

R: Um-hm.

x: She snores.

P: And, I'd like to thank you, Jay.

S: 'S right. Jay was married five days ago. How's married life treating you, Jay?

J: I'm totally excited. I love it. Very, very happy. It's exactly what she told me to say, too, so.

S: Good. You're learning already.

(laughter)

x: Is there any difference now that you're no longer really living in sin?

J: I did feel that the air conditioning worked better. That's kinda strange, but...

(laughter)

x: That's happened before. That's common.

x: You know, as you guys...

S: If you want, if you want to meet Jay's wife, Cheryl, she's gonna be at the August 11^th event that we're having in Brooklyn, New York.

R: Is she?

x: Yes, she is.

R: That, that gets me very excited because I met Cheryl at the wedding for the first time, and I found that I actually like her better than Jay.

(laughter)

x: Yeah.

S: Well, we all do.

R: Well, I'm really looking forward to that.

x: That's why they call it the "better half".

R: Yeah.

J: I don't know how to take that, Rebecca. Thanks.

R: Ma...marrying up. (laughter)

J: Oh, I'm defininely punching above my weight with this girl. Absolutely.

(snicker)

R: Jay, you know I love you.

J: Thank you. I love you too.

x: For ten dollars a minute, she'll talk in that English accent for you.

x: Oh, go.... (laughter)

x: She only charged us five.

S: In fact, Cheryl does do the sexy British voice that introduces our podcast.

J: And in other places, too.

(laughter)

R: We don't wanna hear about that, Jay.

x: I do.

S: Now we have a very special interview coming up later in the show.

x: Jimmy "Peanut Lovin'" Carter.

(laughter)

S: Yes, this is our, probably our highest profile interview to date - President Jimmy Carter. We interviewed him about his UFO sighting and other th...interesting things. So that's coming up in just a moment. But first, we'll start with some skeptical news.

News Items

"Item 1" (Ward Churchill Fired)

(00:02:26)
S: First news item is a little bit of follow-up from a previous story that we talked about. Ward Churchill, who is the professor of ethnic studies at Colorado University, was officially fired yesterday, on July, July 24^th.

R: Though he claims he's not going anywhere, so I'm not really sure what that did.

(inaudible)

S: Yeah. He, well, he's saying that he's gonna sue the university for violation of his freedom of speech.

R: He's a tenured professor, though, so he gets a full year's pay.

S: Mm-hm

R: I'm wondering what he's complaining about. Just go.

S: Right. Yeah, right.

R: Go work on your wacky 9/11 theories.

x: They found him guilty of academic misconduct, including plagiarism.

R: Yeah, so it's not just that he has wacky theories about 9/11, which is why we're talking about him right now, in case anyone...

P: Actually, it specifically says he was not fired for that, Rebecca.

R: Ah.

S: Yeah, in fact, that wasn't considered at all. There, the quick backstory is that a couple years ago, Ward Churchill, in an essay, compared the World Trade Center 9/11 victims to little Eichmanns.

P: That's correct.

S: Who, comparing them to Adolf Eichmann, who was complicit in the Nazi Holocaust.

P: For some reason, some people took exception to that.

S: Yeah, for some unknown reason.

P: Couldn't figure it out.

S: That sparked a controversy and also triggered the University of Colorado to investigate his academic career and what they found, they found that he was guilty of academic misconduct and plagiarism. That led to a review of his tenure, disciplinary review, and that was just concluded and they found that he was guilty of academic misconduct and that was sufficient to fire him, despite the fact that he had tenure. He's saying that it's all about his political opinions, not about the academic misconduct. I don't know if he's denying that, if he's denying the specifics of the accusation. He's just saying this was a witch hunt, basically over his unpopular political views.

R: I think it's less, I don't think it's quite his unpopular political views and more his unpopular conspiracy theories that are crazy and untrue.

S: Right.

R: I mean, at some point, it stops being a political opinion and starts just being nonsense - and that's where he is.

P: My recollection is...

x: I agree.

P ...That when he first came out with the statements, the university backed him a hundred percent.

S: Well, universities will typically defend the, the rights and the freedoms of their professors to, to express their opinions. And, you know, the, the purpose of tenure is to protect academics from outside pressure, you know, from having to comport to the politics of the day, so they could be, you know, free to pursue the truth wherever it leads them. Although, initially, it was actually intended to protect professors from, like, donors and trustee members who would try to use their influence and their money to get rid of people they didn't like or to influence the politics of the university. It was meant to empower the university itself, and in practice, the colleagues, the academic colleagues of professors to, to police themselves. It didn't mean that tenured professors can't be policed. It just meant they were policed from the inside, not from the outside. And then over the last hundred years, the concept of tenure and the rights and privileges of it have evolved, you know, partly through legal precedent, sometimes through tradition. At this point, in order to remove somebody, discipline somebody from, with tenure, fire them, there's a process that's pretty similar to the legal process. You have to have due process, representation, the, you know, the tenured professor has the right to confront the evidence against them, and you, and Colorado, the University of Colorado went through that due process.

P: So it's possible, but laborious.

S: Yeah. So Churchill and his lawyer are accusing them of, of the, Churchill said specifically that the, "the process was a farce. They, the results were predetermined. It was orchestrated. And they were doing it to get rid of me". So, he said they were, quote unquote, "creating the illusion of scholarly review". And he's going to now go on the offensive, going to, he says, quote, "We will be into cour...into court to expose the nature of that fraud". So he's accusing Colo...the University of Colorado of fraud now.

P: Well, I hope the charges, I mean, I hope they stick. I hope his, he remains, his ass remains fired. But, he deserves his day in court.

S: Yeah.

P: I, I have no objection to that.

S: Now he, now he's chall...you know, he's challenging the, the scholarly review, now he's taking it into the courts. You know, it's a civil case, basically.

P: Let him, let him use the courts, I don't care.

S: It, it does bring up the question, you know, with which we touched upon before. You know, what is the role of the university? Do they have the right to police, you know, the content of their professors, their academics, or should they basically just give them the freedom to do what they want?

x: Not to plagiarize though.

S: Well, clearly, not to commit fraud, not to plagiarize. That's, that's, that's out of bounds. But, like, let's take the example of a history professor or a professor who teaches that 9/11 was an inside job, for example. Should the university say, "Well, that's his opinion. You know, we respect him as a scholar and we don't necessarily have to police the details of his opinions, and we're not going to presume that we're right about everything and this is, we, you know, the purpose of universities are to, are to inspire vigorous debate and that includes allowing people to voice very unpopular opinions". I, I, I buy all of that, as far as it goes. Except, I think that the university also has both a duty and, and the right to establish some sort of academic standards, and some things are below the standard of academics. It's not just that it's unpopular - it's also that, I mean, the, the 9/11, the claims about 9/11 are, are demonstrably wrong, and they employ poor logic, misrepresentation of the facts, etcetera, poor method. And, and, and there are actually standards for disciplining somebody with tenure that include scholarly incompetence, and you could argue that, that's, it's imcompetent to make such a ridiculous argument. Not because it's unpopular, just 'cause the method is so poor. The same exact issue, by the way, crops up all the time. It crops up with the Intelligent Design proponents, who say that they're being academically persecuted and that they should be free to promote Intelligent Design, whereas universities are like "No. That's nonsense. It's not science, it's below the standard, it's imcompetent, and we have the right to police it", which I totally agree with. The same thing comes up with paranormal researchers. Now glo...the global warming skeptics are saying that they're being persecuted academically in the same way, that there are not, their careers are being, you know, are being inhibited because their opinions are going against the prevailing, you know, political opinions. So this is an issue that keeps cropping up over and over again, and, and, you know, and often surrounds issues that we deal with typically as, as skeptics. The core conflict is freedom versus standards.

P: So Steven, how, if, if you were the dean, say, of that particular university, and Ward taught that it was a inside job - 9/11 - what would you do? You'd summon him to your office and say what to him?

S: I, I, I would follow a procedure, you know, I think universities do have procedures for things like that, but it would ultimately amount to, you know, a review of appropriate academics and experts to establish, just, is this academically legitimate, it, or is it academically incompetent? And if it follo...falls below the standards of the university, then I think that action can be taken. You know, starting with censorship, ending with being fired.

x: Do you guys think the tenure system is broken as well?

P: No, it has its place.

S: It's a double-edged sword.

P: Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's very much like why Supreme Court justices are appointed for life.

S: It's exactly that way, yeah.

P: You know, it's that kind of protection. So, it has its place, but, like, like Steve said, you have to what? Police it for abuse.

x: Yeah. Supreme Court justices can be brought up on charges and...

P: They can be impeached.

x: ...Kicked off the Court. You bet they can.

P: They can be impeached.

S: Mm-hmm.

P: Again, it's laborious.

S: It should, it should be a high standard. It should be a high threshold, but it's, there's gotta be some mechanism, otherwise, you know, once somebody gets in, then they could be teaching students nonsense and the university would be implicitly endorsing that if they didn't have a mechanism of dealing ____

x: How'd they deal with John Mack?

S: Yale, Harvard, John...so, again for background, John Mack was a Harvard psychiatrist who, who believed that some of his patients were, were truly being abducted by aliens, and Harvard publicly disagreed with him, but said he, but respected his tenure and didn't take action against him. He was, he was...

x: Wimps.

S: ...Killed in a car accident, so it eventually, obviously the issue ended.

x: So the aliens finally got him at the end.

S: Yeah, I mean they were clearly embarrassed by the episode, but they hid behind the notion of academic freedom. But yeah, and, and some people have, this also came up with a very similar situation with Courtney Brown, you guys remember this? The Emory professor who believed he was communicating with UFOs, but he did that all in his spare time. So sometimes you think, this is stuff he's doing outside the context of his academic job, so that's okay. Or they say, it's covered by academic freedom and it's not below the standard of imcompetence. So, we don't like it, but it's okay. And also, they say, he's free to teach that and we're free to criticize him, and that's how we deal with it. We just deal with it in the open through criticism.

P: That's an important note, you know.

S: Yeah.

P: Also, you're dealing with collegians here, you know. It's not like you're indoctrinating five-year-olds. I mean, there's a big difference...between...

S: It absolutely depends upon the level of education. Absolutely.

P: Right.

S: The higher up you go, the more, the more open we should be to cutting edge or, or, you know, differing ideas.

E: Like Holocaust deniers too.

S: That, it's another good example. Well, let's move on to the next news item.

"Item 2" (Homeopathic Surgeon)

(0:12:18)
S: This one is about a homeopathic doctor in Arizona who is being disciplined for killing this, his third patient who died on the table for doing li...during liposuction.

P: Who keeps track?

J: This...you couldn't come up with this if you threw it together. It's like, he's a homeopathic doctor doing liposuction. Where did, where do these two crisscross? How does a homeopath...

S: Arizona is, which is probably the center of, you know, "woo" and spiritual nonsense...

(inaudible)

P: Yeah, they crisscross in the marketing department, Jay.

x: Yeah.

x: Yeah.

S: It has very, sort of permissive laws, and they license homeopaths, and in there, and, in the United States, the, the regulation of health care is state by state. States license all practitioners and determine their scope of practice. In Arizona, homeopaths are licensed by the state and their scope of practice includes minor, quote unquote, "minor surgical procedures".

R: And obviously knowing anything about the human body is not really a part of the licensing procedure.

S: Yeah, obviously know...understanding the science or the scientific method or, oh you know, reality...

P: Med-i-cine.

S: ...Is not a prerequisite.

x: Reality.

S: But apparently, the, the definition of "minor surgical procedure" in Arizona is ambiguous, so he was performing liposuction, you know, basically just "de facto", claiming that it was within the scope of practice of a homeopathic physician. And, and ad...and administering conscious sedation, so, using, you know, pharmaceuticals which (laugh) is, is kind of ironic for a homeopath. And, you know, a few people died under his care.

x: A few people.

E: Eh, what's a few people?

S: Right.

P: Unbelievable.

x: Steve, I thought that when somebody died under a doctor's care, under this auspice, they got their license taken away from them, whatever licensing they had. I mean, did he...

S: Yeah, well, the state, the state suspended his license. That's correct.

x: And then, was he doing the other two on the sly?

S: Well, no. What he, he, I think two patients died...well, when one patient dies, a patient dies, and that usually doesn't trigger an investigation, but two patients of his died within a couple of months. That triggered an investigation. They suspended, restricted his practice, said you can no longer do, perform conscious sedation. But he cont...he continued to perform liposuction, just not with the sedation, and then he lost another, another patient that way.

P: And, you know, liposuction is no joke.

S: No, it isn't.

P: And then it's an invasive...

x: Aw, it's...

P: ...Bru...violent procedure.

J: Yeah, you're asking for a bacterial infection when you do that.

P: I..exactly right, Jay. I saw a documentary and the guy went in there for a woman. She wanted to lose ten pounds. Popped her bowel. She got so infected, she lost both her legs!

S: Yeah. You know, it's no joke. It's serious surgery.

(laughter)

E: She lost more than ten pounds.

P: She lost more than ten pounds.

x: Yeah, reminds me, I saw on TV, I saw this show about the schlock doctors. You know, it's like, literally like an alleyway door and they go in and this doctor was performing pectoral implants on this guy - and he was using a wooden spatula as the operating tool.

R: Ohmygod.

x: Wow.

P: I don't know.

x: Like he's cooking sauce, he's doing surgery, you know...

(laughter)

x: What the hell?

S: Well, now I do think that, you know, the point of this piece is that, you know, homeopathic...homeopaths are not really adequately trained as medical physicians and the entire basis of homeopathy is pseudoscientific. Of, of course, you know, patients have complications and patients die under the care of MDs as well, but I think having really permissive rules, permissive scopes of practice for people who are operating without adequate training and under a pseudoscientific philosophy of medicine is a grave mistake. I think it does not serve the public well. This is just an anecdote that demonstrates that.

x: There's no Federal oversight or...

S: No, just the, just the...

x: ...Department or influence that they can...

S: No.

x: ...They can help Arizona take steps to correct these...

S: Nope. Drawn by the states.

x: ...These loose rules?

P: State medical.

S: Run by the state. Yep. The, the...

x: Wow.

S: ...The Federal government regulates through the FDA, you know they regulate drugs and, and devices and things like that, but they don't, do not regulate the, the practice of, of medicine.

"Item 3" (UK UFO)

(0:16:32)
S: Next news item comes from the UK. This is another UFO sighting. A crowd of a hundred, quote unquote, "stunned stargazers" brought a t...a town center to a standstill when five mysterious UFOs were spotted hovering over the sky. The, the sighting took place over Stratford, which happens to be Shakespeare's birthplace. And this is your typical "points of light in the sky" type of UFO sighting. This is, of course, this was five points of light. Couple funny bits - one is they say that it was in a formation. Well, you know, any...

(inaudible)

S: ...Clustering of lights is going to be in some kind of formation, you know. It makes the, three of them make a triangle. Well, you know, pretty much any three points make a triangle. Yeah. So it's not...it could be random, it's not particularly or necessarily in a formation. You know, those observers who are trying to argue that this was, you know, an alien spacecraft encounter cite the usual things. They were silent...

P: But deadly.

(laughter)

S: So they, they were not making, the lights were not making any noise...and that they, they moved in a, in a bizarre fashion.

P: Ah.

S: The movement.

x: I love how, I love how the, the reporters said, you know, to create the scene of people being all shook up and everything, is like, "Drinkers spilled out of pubs." Well, that makes me really wanna believe them now.

(laughter)

P: Come on. He's...

x: Mm-hmm.

P: ...He's trying to paint with dramatic license. He's using...

x: How 'bout that one line, one line that bugged me the most was, "Skeptics dismissed the UFOs as nothing more than hot-air balloons, fireworks, or even lanterns which had broken loose from a local rugby club." What kind of skeptics...

x: Well.

x: ...Are in that town?

x: Yeah, right?

x: Hot-air balloons? Fireworks? I mean, what's the first thing you think when you, when you see something like that? What's, what's the first thing you, what's the first thing you think?

x: It could be potential beings.

x: What?

x: Bob, it must be lanterns that broke off from something at the rugby club and floated up there, and they're spinnin' around. It's like, yeah.

(laughter)

S: Well, I mean it could be ultralight aircraft, I mean that's...

x: That, that's my first thought. If it, if it's...

S: ...That's certainly one possibility.

x: ...Something that persists for an extended period of time and they're moving and they could be, you know, they can be very silent and they can be very, very low, very low altitude and still be relatively silent. That's the first thing I think. Nobody...

S: Yeah.

x: ...Nobody's tossing that around?

S: That's an omission, but the, the floating lanterns, although it sounds bizarre, is not an impossible thing. You have those paper lanterns with the little flame in there. They could float, just from the hot air from the flame, and they would be a, a glowing, silent floating object.

x: Yeah, but they, it wouldn't match the pattern that, that they described. It wouldn't...

S: Yeah, I don't know if that fits this particular case...

x: Right.

S: ...But, I mean, that, that kind of phenomenon, some burning, floating...

P: The bizarre movement claim is a, is a favorite one, you know. "Impossible for a plane to have moved like that!"

x: I don't think they were the lanterns, Steve, 'cause...

(inaudible)

P: All the time.

x: ...They were up in the air for over thi...a half an hour, so I don't think...

S: Yeah, I'm not saying that that was the case in this case. I'm just saying that, that's in...so that, that's in, that's, so that's a possible cause that is often neglected. And also, bizarre things are gonna happen, and when they do and produce an unusual and unidentified floating object, or flying object, it, people will have a hard time explaining them because it's not one of the usual things. It's something unusual, or something bizarre - just not an alien spacecraft.

x: Here's the line that floored me. "A few minutes later, a fifth light came into view, travelling towards the others at breakneck speeds before slowing down and stopping a short distance away."

S: Right.

x: Breakneck speed? Are they kidding? How the heck are they gonna judge that?

x: That's the problem, you know. You have no idea how big these things are and how far away they are, so breakneck speed would only apply if it was big and far away, but who knows? It might have been relatively small and cl...much closer than you think. Then it wouldn't be breakneck speed.

S: Yeah. That's right. And you could look at the picture, you could see that's lights, it's against the black sky, there's no...nothing for reference. So all statements about movement and speed are really unrel...completely unreliable. But again, that's what people cling to, to argue that these had to be something fantastical or extraterrestrial.

x: This is a typical UFO sighting.

S: Yeah, it was typical.

P: This is another bunch of lights up in the sky. BO-RING!

"Item 4" (Asian Parasite Killing Bees)

(0:20:32)
S: One last news item. Quick follow-up from our, the disappearing bee piece that we discussed a couple of months ago with Bug Girl, if you recall. There's a new hypothesis out there that seems to have some support. They're saying now that the culprit is a microscopic parasite called Nosema ceranae that basically is a, an infection that could be spreading through the, the honeybee hives, resulting in these "colony collapses", as they call them.

x: So Steve, I, I could start using my cellphone again.

S: Yes. Yeah, the cellphones are not killing off the honeybees.

x: Oh, well, some guy at work told me I can't use cellphones. That's, that's interesting.

x: Now, there's a cure for this, right?

S: There's a treatment, there's a treatment, and it's pretty cheap and effective, so that, that'll be the ultimate test. If they, they treat this parasite and the bees bounce back...I mean, from a single event, you can never be sure, but that would lend some support to this then...

x: Yeah, but Steve...

S: ...The latest hypothesis.

x: ...How'd they get all those bees to go to the doctor? I mean, come on, it's ridiculous.

S: Yeah, it's tough. That's the tough part.

x: Yeah.

(inaudible)

x: Unfortunately, it, it requires three shots a day for every bee...

(laughter)

x: And it depends what state you're in, Bob.

S: So this is an Asian variant and the Asian honeybees are less vulnerable to it, but apparently the European and North American bees are much more susceptible to it.

x: Town is all abuzz about a bee problem.

(laughter)

S: Yeah, you just know that, that the stupid puns are gonna be flying.

x: Flying. I got it.

Your Questions and E-mails

(Electric Car, Brain Evolution)

(0:21:56)
S: Let's move on to your...

x: Please.

S: ...Questions and e-mails. First e-mail comes from David, who writes: "Hi. I'll shorten the kudos for the show. Suffice it to say, it keeps me thinking on my long commute. Like none other. A recent show had a 175-mile-per-gallon car in the "Science or Fiction" segment. I was surprised by the talk on the topic, especially the flippant remark about the electric cars in California in the late Eighties and Nineties. Have none of you seen the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?" It seems compelling to me, and batteries were not the issue. Many people wanted to take over the leases on these vehicles, that could be charged at home and go 125 miles on a charge with the batteries of the day. They even had charging stations in the last century. In big cities, this would eliminate a lot of smog and many have commutes of way under half that. But something else extinguished them. The inventor of nickel-metal hydride batteries is interviewed and his solar cell roofing tiles seem like a no-brainer. But, please discuss this issue in-depth. Thanks. - David
So this is reference to the documentary movie "Who Killed the Electric Car?"

x: You know I, I had not seen or, nor heard of "Who Killed the Electric Car?" It wa...it was interesting, in a 2006 documentary written and directed by Chris Paine about the rise and fall of the battery electric vehicle, specifically General Motors EV1 in the 1990s - you might have heard of that one. This, this, well, this battery electric vehicle, the EV1, was offered purely as a leased vehicle in southern California , and much of the film recounts GM's effort to show that there was no demand for the car and how they took back every car for disposal and pretty much, like, crushed every one of them. Now, the impetus for the EV1 was the California Air Resources Board's ZEV mandate - ZEV is "Zero Emission Vehicle" - and that was back in 1990. The film claims that this board reversed its mandate after suits were filed from auto manufacturers, the oil industry and the Bush administration. The film also interviews celebrities who, who apparently drove the car and engineers and technicians who had a hand in its development. Now the verdict, the verdict of this film, on who killed the electric car, follows: "Consumers: Guilty." Primarily of ambivalence, but ironically, the movie itself shows that they were primarily unaware of the vehicle or they were dismayed that it's, that it was no longer un...unavailable. "Batteries: Not guilty." When the EV1 was released, it was getting 60 to 70 miles per charge, and then, I think, round number two of the release of the cars, I'm not sure how long it took for that to come out, but that was 110 to 160 miles per charge, which isn't too shabby. And what they're saying is that with today's batteries, today's laptop batteries, this car could, could've been getting 300 miles per charge, which is impressive, which, I think that's pretty much the gold standard, isn't it, for an electric car? (inaudible) ...around 300 miles?

S: 300. Well, for any car, yeah, yeah. But, you know, but hang on. That's in a very light car. Right, which only has a certain niche in the market. Not saying that there's no market for it, but this is in a small, very light, very aerodynamic car.

x: Yeah, you like...

S: You...and...

x: ...To roll large, Steve, so this wouldn't work for you.

S: And the, the other aspect of batteries is the time it takes to recharge them.

x: Right, which...

S: So... (inaudible)

x: ...Which had a big range for the EV1, right. There was a big range. But let me continue with the verdicts here. "The oil companies: Guilty." They didn't wanna lose business. They bought patents to prevent modern batteries from being used in US electric cars...interesting. "Car companies: Guilty." They used negative marketing, which sabotaged their own production program, and that there was a failure to meet demand. Now the reason offered in the movie was that perhaps, the, these electric cars had much less expensive repairs and that was one of the prime motivators, apparently, for these car companies to not really push it, because once you bought it, not much more money was gonna be coming in with all these repairs. "The government: Guilty." The federal government joined the automakers' suits against California. See...the couple more...Cal...the California Air Resources Board is pronounced guilty in this, in this film. Its head, Alan Lloyd, apparently caved to pressure and was given directorship of the new fue cell...fuel cell institute, which is clearly a conflict of interest. And then, finally, the hydrogen fuel cell itself is said to be guilty in that it's a distraction from the real and immediate potential of electric vehicles. Now the, the, the research I did on this did mention some criticisms. GM, some communication officer from GM apparently issued a statement on the web at some point, and he mentioned that GM had invested big in this technology before and after the EV1 came out, but the, the market was limited and they, they had made great progress in fuel cell technology and claims that by 2010, they could have a design that's comparable to a combustion engine in terms of durability and performance. Good luck with that. So that's what I have. It was interesting and it, it really, it really seems like, you know, external agencies totally killed this thing and it could have been, you know, it could have been something pretty interesting if, if it was allowed to, to actually continue.

S: Yeah, I mean I agree. I think, I think it, there was potential there, but I think it still would've been probably a niche market at the time. You know...

x: Right.

S: ...In the 1990s. The thing now, with rising oil prices and just, and more awareness of global warming, etcetera, I think there's more of a, of a demand for these types of vehicles. I, they didn't, I'm interested they did...there was no mention of hybrid technology, just hydrogen fuel cell technology. And the hybrids seem to me, was like the answer to, you know, why the electric car was unpopular. It basically got you a lot of the benefits of the electric car but had the power and range of a gasoline engine. The other thing...

x: It's a hybrid.

S: ...That wasn't mentioned was the performance of the pure...

x: Right.

S: ...Electric cars is not that great. You know...

x: That's true.

S: ...How they power, under the accelerator. So, my bottom line take on this is that it was primarily a marketing decision, which you could disagree with, the marketing decision of the car companies, but it was mainly a marketing decision, but a lot of times it's portrayed as if it's a big oil company conspiracy, that they, that it was crushed by that and not more complex, you know, set of, of circumstances.

x: Yeah, but...

S: (inaudible)

x: ...Didn't you find it interesting that it's claimed in this movie that oil companies actually bought patents to prevent modern batteries from being used in our electric cars? That's, that was interesting.

S: Yeah, I've been reading about the, the battery, the electric, the electric battery issue. It's actually very complex. Here are the two sides of the story. One is that Chevron came into possession of, of a controlling share of a company called Cobasys that makes the nickel-metal hydride batteries and that they used their influence to restrict the sale, in the United States, of batteries that were large enough to power electronic vehicles and that they were restricting the sale to those batteries that could be used in hybrid electric vehicles, so that at least part of the car would be using gasoline. The other side of the story says that there's no direct evidence for that, these are people who are reading between the lines. There's no smoking gun, to say that that's the intention of Chevron, and that Chevon is just diversifying into other energy technologies, just like other oil companies investing in solar or other types of energy. They're hedging their, their energy bets, they're not planning on surviving forever on oil - and that, in fact, it's possible to sell these batteries. They're, they're, they're not really being restricted. You know, wading through all of this, I honestly couldn't tell which side was more compelling, which, which means to me that there's probably a little truth on both sides. I also think that the, you know, like, in the Nineties, the technology just wasn't quite there, but we are getting there, you know, rapidly now, and that this is gonna, this is coming, you know, better batteries. Now they're even talking about carbon-nano, you know, fiber batteries that are gonna be even better, lighter, so I think this technology's coming, and I don't think any conspiracy of Big Oil is gonna be able to stop it.

x: Yeah, I, I think the technology, from all the things I've read, was somewhat marginal at that point. I mean, when, when it, you know, if it, if it takes you ten hours to recharge your car, that's, that's not gonna do it. And like you said, I haven't, I haven't really read any specs on the performance, but I suspect the performance wasn't that great.

x: The market studies probably showed that there was no, no profits to be made.

x: Yeah, a lot of people will, would disagree with that. I mean, a lot...so many people said to them, when GM said, "Give me my car back. I wanna, I wanna get rid of it," people said, "Hey, I'll pay it off. I'll give you the money for the whole thing." Apparently, lots of people were saying that, and they said, and they just took every car that they could possibly get their hands on, and since it was a lease, they wou...of course, could legally just take the car, I think. There's probably s...

S: Yeah. Right.

x: ...Some clause in there that said they can, they could relieve you of their car at any time.

E: Well, Bob, I mean, but if it, but if it was a profitable idea, don't you think that, don't you think that the manufacturers would've found a way to get this, to, to get this car up, running, take care of these technical problems, stick with it, especially if there was money to be made. I mean that's, that's kind of how they've operated in history, in the past, they've (inaudible)...

x: Well, I mean, there's no guarantee that money was, would be made from this. There, there's no guarantee with that. And then, with all these external agencies inhibiting the whole enterprise, it just totally collapsed.

S: Evan's point is, and I agree with it, that if there was money to be made off an electric vehicle, they would've found a way. And that these, these hur...none of these hurdles were absolute.

x: Well, you're, you're assuming that, that, that you could absolutely determine if this could be profitable. I, I'm saying, I think that I don't think you can determine that.

S: You're right, and, and historically, the auto industry has made bad decisions about, you know, what, what is marketable, like the Edsel, for example, is always the one that comes up. And, I also think that, you know, GM apparently at one point decided to, to skip the hybrid phase and go right on to f...to hydrogen fuel cell cars - and that was probably a huge mistake as well.

x: Absolutely.

S: So again, as I said, you can disagree with the marketing decision and maybe it was a huge mistake, but I don't think it was this big conspiracy.

P: What's fascinating from our point of view is the endless need for conspiracies.

x: They're fun, Perry.

P: That, that's what I think.

x: That's the thing. They're fun. For some reason, there is an entertainment value to a conspiracy.

P: I gue...I mean, I was writing the other day, and I needed some information on the Flight 800 explosion.

x: Mm-hmm.

P: And I, it was so hard to find the actual report, you know, from the government. And there, everything I looked up was a different society saying it was a missile!

x: Yeah, I think, I think it's very possible that the oil companies...

P: Possible is not evidence!

x: I know it is...I know that, Perry, I'm not saying that there, I think that there is a lot here, there's a lot here. It's not just, you know, cut-and-dry, that it, it's...

P: No comment.

(laughter)

S: The bottom line is, I don't think that the performance, even today, is that great. Even the hybrid cars don't have great performance right now.

x: They're pretty good cars, Steve. Those hybrids, I mean, you know what the thing that sucks about them is that they're, they're not really cost-effective yet. But they actually work really well, they do work well.

S: The, the technology had a lot of promise and in, in certain areas, it can be advantageous under certain driving conditions. In New England, where we live, it's actually very disadvantageous because that the colder the weather gets, the less efficient the regenerative breaking technology is, so the less of, of a benefit you get from the hybrid technology. And also, the more highway driving you do, the less of a benefit it is, and in fact, it becomes a detriment because you're dragging around all the heavy batteries and, and unl...unless you're doing a lot of city driving, in, in a warm climate, you're not really getting much benefit from it. So, for many drivers, it really isn't an ad...an advantage.

x: Well, if you wanna get technical, sure, you know.

S: So, but it, I thi...you know again, we, there are some times where there's a, there's bridging technology, there's a time when you, when you go over to a new technology, the advantages are not immediately there, but...

x: Right.

S: ...It puts you on a track where eventually you will get the advantages. And I think that's where we are with hybrid technology. I think it's interesting to speculate about what's gonna happen. Is the hybrid technology going to mature to the point where that really becomes the mainstay of our fleet for (inaudible)...

x: The dominant. Right. (inaudible) something else.

S: ...For decades? Will the hydrogen fuel cells ever come online? Will they ever solve the problems? Will...

x: Or will it be something completely unique, like, say, solar, or well, yeah...

x: Right. Nanotechnology.

x: ...Of course.

(laughter)

(0:34:37) S: The, we'll do, we'll do one more e-mail before we go on to our interview.
This one comes from Christian in central PA, and he writes: How do biologists refute the following argument by evolution deniers? "The brain has the capacity for storing information far greater than can be filled in many human lifetimes. If the brain is developed by the natural selection of desirable traits, how would this incremental process develop such storage capability far beyond any useful purpose?" I have a good idea of how I would refute this, but perhaps your answer would be more thorough and precise. Thanks for setting the record straight.
Well, that's an interesting question and in fact, the co-discoverer of evolution through natural selection, Alfred Russel Wallace, thought that that was an insolvable problem, and he believed that, unlike Darwin, he thought that evolution could not explain the human brain and the, that you had to invoke God and creation in order to explain the human brain. Because of this very reason. That the brain had capabilities that could not be specifically selected for. However, it's, first of all, it's a bit of a false premise...

x: Hmm. Right.

S: ...The, the brain does not have a tremendous amount of biologically untapped potential. You know, if you utilize your brain and you, you lead an intellectually active life, you use quite a bit of it, you know. It's not, there's not this vast, you know, reservoir of untapped neurons in the brain.

P: So maybe Jay uses ten percent.

S: Right.

x: It's very peaceful, though, to only use ten percent of your brain, Perry.

S: Yeah, it's kinda similar to the ten percent thing.

x: Loose, loosely, I mean, he's talking really st...storage capacity. How big your hard drive is.

x: Yeah, no, I, I understand, but it, it comes off as (inaudible)

P: And an ultimate storage capacity of 800 quadrillion bits. Who said that?

x: Data.

x: Data.

P: Yeah... (laughter)

x: Steve...

x: Data.

x: ...Steve, I have a question for you.

(laughter)

S: Yeah, go ahead.

x: Let's say that, in the future, people live two, three hundred years, and, you know, just, just to make a, to build a case here, let's say that, you know, nanotechnology doesn't swoop in and do anything miraculous or, and all that.

S: Yeah.

x: Just the way that...

(inaudible)

x: ...A human being is today. What happens when someone's brain does get filled? Would, would it overwrite? What would the brain do in that circumstance?

S: Well, that's what happens all the time, Jay.

x: Yeah.

S: You're, you're overwriting. You know, you're, you're forming memory pathways on top of memory pathways on top of memory pathways, and memories fade over time.

P: Get mixed together.

S: Yeah, they mix together. It's a very dynamic process. It's not like there are specific addresses where you're putting information and it's getting used up in that way. There's a...you just have a specific number of neurons, you know - about a hundred billion - and they, they could store so much information. And, and, and th...

x: I'm sorry. My brain just wrote over everything you just said. Could you please repeat that?

(laughter)

S: But the, the other, the evolutionary point that I wanted to make here is that we evolve structures for a specific function, and they, because they provide a specific advantage, right. So that a bigger brain gives a certain advantage and that, and therefore gets selected for. That doesn't mean that everything that you could possibly do with this new structure that evolved had to have been specifically selected for. So, we, we, I, I don't think that anyone argues that we evolved in order to be really good at playing the piano, you know. That, that is just an epiphenomenon.

x: Right. Epiphenomenon, yep.

P: (inaudible)

S: Yeah. It's just something that emerges out of, as a consequence of the fact that we just are raw brain power increased, so that we could be smarter and, and function better in our environment, be better adapted to our local environment.

P: What's an epiphenomenon?

x: It's, it's kind of a side phenomenon. It just kinda happened, for no real reason. It's just a, a nice happy coincidence that it happened.

S: Yeah. Just emerges spontaneously out of, out of the process. In the same token, you know, we, we may have a lot of, you know, we do certainly have a, do have some reserve, and that, along with all the other sort of things that we can do - you know, write poetry and, and play the piano and, and whatnot - that did not provide an advantage for our ancestors, you know, in, on the plains of Africa, doesn't mean that, that they were, that they brain was not evolved. So Alfred Russel Wallace was wrong, in that argument. It is not an argument against evolution; it's a misunderstanding of evolution. In fact, that's, a lot of evolution takes place that way, you know. Structures evolve for one reason, and they could be co-opted for lots of other things. We evolved hands with opposable thumbs and dexterity so that we could manipulate tools, but we could then use that to do a lot of other things that we did not specifically evolve hands for, for example.

Interview with President Jimmy Carter

(0:39:22) S: Well, let's move on to our interview.

(Music)

S: Joining us now is the 39^th President of the United States, President Jimmy Carter. Mr. President, welcome to the Skeptic's Guide.

PJC: It's a pleasure.

S: So, we were actually putting, this interview was set up by your grandson, Josh Carter, who is a, a fine young man. He wanted us to give you the opportunity to sec...set the record straight regarding your eyewitness encounter with a UFO back in 1969. Can you first just start by telling us about what you saw?

PJC: Well, back in those days, I was the district governor of 56 Lions Clubs, and I had to visit each one of those Clubs during my year of service. And I was in a small south Georgia town one night, outside the schoolhouse waiting to eat supper and to talk to them, and all of us - there were 26 men, I believe, if I remember right - all of us saw a very bright light in the western sky and it was bright enough to attract our attention, much brighter than a star. And it got closer and closer and then it seemed to stop in its proximity to us, and then the color of it changed from white to blue to red, and it stayed there for a while. All of us were aghast at, at what we were seeing, couldn't figure it out. And then the light, that's all we could see, not a solid object, the light then slowly disappeared back into the direction from which it came. So, I'm a, a scientist by training...

S: Mm-hmm.

PJC: And, and I have never thought there were extraterrestrial beings on a, on a sh...you know, ship from outer space or anything, but it was an unidentified flying object. It was obviously unidentified, it was flying and it was an object.

S: Mm-hmm.

PJC: And so, that's the limit of my experience with so-called UFOs.

S: And even in retrospect now, do you have any ideas of, of what you think that was? What do you think you saw?

PJC: I don't really know. A very large military base - Fort Benning Army Base, where they plain...train paratroopers and do various kinds of, of military experiments - are in the general direction from which the light came, and most of us men, most of those were farmers or small businessmen who ordinarily are members of the Lions Club, just surmised that it might be a, some kind of a device that was being tested or something like that. It, we, we never heard anything.

S: Yeah.

PJC: Like a helicopter motor. If we had heard the engine, we would just have surmised it was a helicopter or something, but we never heard anything. It was a silence, there. So I never have been able to assess, even all the years that have passed, exactly what it might have been.

S: And have you ever heard the speculation, and, and what do you think about the idea that perhaps it was the planet Venus - which, you know, at some times may have a halo around it?

PJC: No, it was much...no, no. No, we were, all of us outdoorsmen who were there, we, we know what Venus looks like, we know what Mars looks like, we can distinguish between Saturn and so forth. Some of us even have, have a, like I do, have amateur telescopes, small telescopes. So we were thoroughly familiar with Venus as it changes from a morning to the evening star. It was, it was not Venus.

S: Okay. You're, you're confident about that.

PJC: Oh yes.

S: Evan, you had a question?

E: Yes, I do. President Carter, in 1973, by request, you filled out an eyewitness report for a UFO group called the International UFO Bureau Incorporated?

PJC: Yes.

E: Can you, can you tell us why you did that, or felt need to do that?

PJC: Why I did it. I was, let's see, it's 1973, I was governor then.

E: Mm-hmm.

PJC: Of Georgia. And maybe they requested it or maybe one, one of my innocent sons might have asked that I do it for them. I don't know. I don't remember that.

S: Right. So it was just that request and you didn't really think much about it at the time.

PJC: No, and I don't remember why I did it, but I, I would presume it was one of my descendants...

S: Mm-hmm.

PJC: ...If not grandson. I didn't have the grandsons (inaudible), but I have, I had three sons who were teenagers.

S: And, what, part of the reason why we were interested in this interview is because, because of all of these events. You, you occupy now a place in UFO folklore. And, and...

PJC: (laughter)

S: ...One of the aspects of this...

PJC: Listen. It's not a place that I, it's not a place that I have sought.

S: Right. Right.

x: Right. Of course.

PJC: (inaudible)

S: It's thrust upon you, like many things. And this, part of, part of the, the folklore now is that prior to becoming President, you promised to get to the bottom of the government's involvement with UFOs and aliens and spacecraft. So, this is another thing where I think there, there's still a tremendous number of rumors about this, there's a lot of conspiracy theories about there. When you were President, did you pursue the government's knowledge of UFOs, and if so, how far did you get with that? (Transcription paused at 0:44:51)

S: The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is produced by the New England Skeptical Society in association with the James Randi Educational Foundation. For more information on this and other episodes, please visit our website at www.theskepticsguide.org. Please send us your questions, suggestions, and other feedback; you can use the "Contact Us" page on our website, or you can send us an email to info@theskepticsguide.org'. 'Theorem' is produced by Kineto and is used with permission.