SGU Episode 5

Work in progress -- Av8rmike (talk) 20:16, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Introduction

S: Hello and welcome to The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. This is your host, Steven Novella, President of the New England Skeptical Society. And with me, as always, is my panel of skeptics: Perry DeAngelis,

P: Hello, everyone.

S: Evan Bernstein,

E: Hi, all.

S: And Robert Novella.

B: Good evening, everyone.

S: This week we have a special guest with us: Dr. Michael Shermer. Dr. Shermer is the director of the Skeptics Society, the publisher of Skeptic magazine, he is also the author of a column in Scientific American called-- can you guess what it's called? Skeptic. He is the author of many books: The Science of Good and Evil, The Borderlands of Science, Denying History, How We Believe, and I believe, his first skeptical book, Why People Believe Weird Things; still a classic in the genre. Hello and welcome, Michael.

M: Hi, good evening.

S: Thanks for joining us this week.

M: You're welcome.

S: So i thought that we would-- since we're dealing with an expert skeptic, that we would do our Science or Fiction segment with the guest and Michael agreed to play along. So we'll start off with that segment, but first a little bit of follow-up from last week. Now if you'll remember, the first Science or Fiction segment that we did, my fake science news item was that NASA scientists had discovered an Earth-sized planet. And within a few days, NASA discovered an Earth-sized planet.

E: I remember.

S: You remember that. We joked about how prophetic that was. Well, last week, you guys remember the fake story from last week was that scientists had successfully frozen a dog in order to test medical technology. This week, reported on June 27, was that US scientists had succeeded in reviving dogs after three hours of clinical death. They brought them down to near-freezing temperature; they didn't quite freeze them, but they did bring their body temp down to a few degrees Celsius. So I'm two-for-two on predicting future news stories.

P: Don't appreciate your own power of pre-cognition, obviously.

S: Obviously not.

B: Better give Randi a call, Steve.

S: Well, I hope you'll support my application to Randi's million-dollar giveaway.

B: Good luck repeating it.

S: This week, there's an animal theme to this week. I'm going to give you three amazing animal facts and you have to tell me which one of the three is not real.

B: Ooh

S: Are you ready?

B: Yep!

Science or Fiction (2:54)

S: It's time to play (echoing) Science or Fiction

S: Topic number one-- or claim number one is that koala bears never drink. I'll name all three and then we-- I'll let you guys tell me which ones you think are real and fake. The second one is that a bird by the name of the sooty tern can remain aloft for up to ten years at a time; eating, drinking and even sleeping on the wing. Topic number three is that chimpanzees have been observed communicating with each other in written symbols. Those are your three amazing animal facts. Who would like the first crack at it? Bob? You've been two-for-two so far.

B: We'll let Michael go first.

M: I'll take number one, Alex.

(laughing)

S: You think number one is the fake one?

M: Yeah.

S: So, you think that "koala bears never drink" is fake and the other two are real. What's the reason for your choice?

M: Well, number three is true, and number two seems so improbable that you wouldn't have made that one up. Too improbable.

(laughter)

P: That's sound reasoning.

M: (inaudible) so it must be true.

P: Now the first one's not a trick question, Steve, you're not talking about booze.

B: (laughs)

S: No, it's not a trick; they never drink.

P: Period.

S: Period.

P: I don't know, I think that it's possible an animal can get enough liquid from what it eats. I mean, I guess it's possible. Number two sounds way out there. Number three seems reasonable. I'm not a creationist, so it's somewhat reasonable. I'll say number two is not real.

S: OK. you think number two is not real. Bob?

B: I think I agree; I think I read somewhere that koalas never drink so that seems pretty-- doesn't seem too unreasonable to me. Ten years at a time aloft; I've heard of some long-duration flights for certain species, but ten years I think is really pushing it. I'm going to go with that one.

S: OK. Evan?

E: Well, Michael, I'm sorry; I hate to leave you alone with your choice of number one, but I'm afraid I have to choose number two, for the-- because that one just sounds a lot more improbable, I think, than number one.

M: I agree.

E: Perry, you observed what, that it would get the food from-- water from the food? I think that-- that's reasonable?

P: I think that's feasible.

B: People don't realize how much water we consume in our food. Just a slice of bread, you would think, "oh there can't be too much water in bread" but a slice of bread is like, you know, 30, 40% water. So you can get a lot of water from these things that don't seem like there's really any water in them. So, that makes sense to me.

E: So there you go, I'll choose number two.

S: So you're all going to abandon our guest for this week. Well, all right, so--

P: With all due respect...

E: I have to make amends for last week for getting the question wrong. Getting-- choosing the wrong one.

S: Let's start with number one: Koala bears never drink. That is, in fact, true. They do get all of their fluid, all of their water from the eucalyptus leaves that they eat. So that one is true. That is an amazing but true animal fact. Number two-- now who said that number two was wrong?

E: I said that number two was wrong.

P: The three of us.

S: All three of you did. Number two was the reason why I used this theme for this week. Number two is correct.

P: What?!

B: Ten years?

S: Ten years, between three and ten years as sub-adults; they only land when they mature and it's time to breed.

E: How do they observe that?

S: The sooty tern. Some guy sat there--

E: Exactly right.

S: They tagged them.

E: They tagged them?

P: I want to see a ten-year video of that.

(laughter)

E: That's the only good enough proof, yes.

P: All right.

S: You're skeptical of that, are you? Number three, now, I always try to cut it close to the edge. Now certainly chimpanzees communicate with each other, and in the laboratory they have been taught sign language, but in the wild, they do not use written symbols to communicate with each other. Michael, you said that you thought that was true.

M: Yeah, I guess I didn't hear you say "in the wild". Did you say "in the wild"?

S: I did not say "in the wild". I did not say "in the wild".

M: Well, yeah, because Koko has communicated with symbols to Michael the gorilla in the lab using sign language; that's symbolic communication between two gorillas--

S: Well, actually I did say "written symbols". "Written symbols".

M: You didn't say "written". You just said "symbols".

S: I did say "written". But that's OK, that was a tough one. It was-- the devil is in the details. I do have "written" in front of me; I thought I read it, you know, word for word what I wrote down.

M: You started to say "written" and then you said "symbols" and maybe it just cut off in my phone, anyway, it's all right.

S: Maybe. OK. I know I'm dealing with a tough crowd here; I'm not going to get easy ones past you guys, so I always have to take it one sliver beyond--

(agreement)

E: Steve, I really like this exercise because it points out a lot of different things and the thing that strikes me the most is that three plausible things-- I mean, how are the average people on the street gonna know the difference, how do they tell the difference between what's real and what's not? Anything that they're fed by the media, people will absorb, and the majority of it just happens to be wrong.

S: Psychology experiments show that people believe anything they're told unless it contradicts something they already believe.

E: Correct.

S: But number two is tough; I tell you, when I first heard it I didn't believe it. I had to really verify it before I would accept that one.

B: Ten years...

S: I knew that would be the one that would get you guys. I was shocked, shocked. But I guess-- you figure, once they can-- if they can stay aloft for a few days, you know, eat and sleep on the wing, then they can do it indefinitely, right? Once you get past that threshold of being able to fly asleep, I guess you could stay aloft forever.

B: Yeah, that's a big threshold.

S: It sounds dramatic, but once you think about it that way...

B: I wonder how they do it; I wonder if it's like dolphins that actually-- half their brain sleeps at a time. So they're like minimally awake but they are resting at least one hemisphere at a time of their brain. Maybe it's similar--

S: I don't know, that's a good question, what's the neurology of this. The other possibility would be that they have some sub-hemispheric, some primitive neurons in their brain stem that just turn on and enable them to hold tone in their wings and keep them aloft, even when they're not conscious, basically. That's an interesting question. So, I did get you guys, finally. Thanks for playing, Michael; thanks for being a good sport. So, you have just returned from--

M: Now, what if Jane Goodall's team observes this this week?

B: (laughs)

S: Right, right.

M: Written communication in the dirt out in the plains of Africa. Wouldn't you be surprised?

S: If they do, then on next week's show, I'm going to predict that some billionaire dies and leaves billions of dollars to the Skeptic's Society. That will be my next prediction.

B: And make it your only prediction.

(laughing)

Interview with Michael Shermer (10:00)

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Follow-up (43:57)

S: The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is a production of the New England Skeptical Society. For more information on this and other episodes, see our website at www.theness.com.

References