SGU Episode 105

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Introduction

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

S: Hello and welcome to the 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 (Transcription paused here at 0:23:00)

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.