SGU Episode 381

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SGU Episode 381
3rd November 2012
(brief caption for the episode icon)
SGU 380                      SGU 382
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
R: Rebecca Watson
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
Quote of the Week
Skepticism is essential to the quest for knowledge, for it is in the seedbed of puzzlement that genuine inquiry takes root. Without skepticism, we may remain mired in unexamined belief systems that are accepted as sacrosanct yet have no factual basis in reality.
Paul Kurtz
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Forum Discussion

Introduction

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

This Day in Skepticism (1:28)

November 3, 1957 Sputnik 2 launched

In Memorium

Paul Kurtz (3:45)

• 1925-2012

S: Well, we are going to start the new segment of the show with an in memoriam. We do like to, on the Skeptic's Guide, pause to remember those members of the skeptical community who have passed, and Paul Kurtz died several days ago, just the day before the organizers were coming down to the conference. He died on Sunday. He was 85 years old. It was 1925 to 2012, so that is 86. I can do math. (audience laughter) You'll know why i was confused in a moment.

R: 'Cause you're terrible at math?

S: Yes. So, before we get the show started, Ron Lindsay and Kendrick Frazier talked about Paul Kurtz. You know, he was one of the giants of the skeptical movement, of the skeptical community. You know, he was largely responsible for organizing the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, founding Prometheus Books, CFI, Secular Humanism. He was an academic, a philosopher. He really gave a lot of weight to the movement early on. He made it to that – he broke it to that next level. It wasn't that, you know, before he came on board. So he has to be remembered for that. We did have some interactions with Paul along the years. The first year that we started – (audience cooing)

R: Baby Steve!

E: Aww.

S: I was a little younger back then.

R: He's three years old there.

B: He's only half-grey there.

S: (laughing) I'm only half-grey!

E: A little less grey, yep.

S: You can mark my age by my greyness up until about ten years ago, when i went totally grey. Right when we got started, in 1996, you know, CSICOP, now CSI, you know, they were the big national skeptical organization. They'd definitely – They took us under their wing, you know, gave us their support, their local membership list, so that we could get our movement going. And i remember meeting Paul at the first World Skeptics Conference, and he was immediately—like, you know, your grandfather—like, you know, very, very comfortably took on that air of being a mentor. It's like, "Yeah, this is great. You're welcome to the skeptical movement." So i definitely remember him fondly in that way. A few years later, Paul organized a meeting of the local skeptical groups. In the picture here you can see me again with Bob, Perry, and Evan. The four of us came up together –

J: Now, if i remember correctly, Rebecca, you and i were off being badass somewhere else, right?

R: I think that's what was happening, yeah.

S: – and, i think, in the foreground, that's Colonel Joe Nickell, isn't it?

E: Colonel.

S: Yeah, he had broke his leg in Spain, or something?

R: Round of applause for Colonel Joe Nickell!

E: I remember that.

(applause)

S: Joe actually is going to come up, and he's going to read a poem that he wrote, i believe, about Paul.

JN: Paul was a great supporter of the arts, and i hope he would have liked this. The poem is called "Book of Seasons: An elegy". (Uncertain re: permission to reproduce poem)

S: Thank you, Joe.

Leon Jaroff (7:34)

• 1926-2012

S: This same weekend, Saturday before the show, Leon Jaroff also died. He was 85, hence my confusion. So, Leon Jariff—not a big name in the skeptical community recently, and if you ask, you know, people at conventions like this if they knew who he was – I mean, in fact, right before the show Rebecca said to me, "Who's Leon Jaroff?"

R: (indignant gasp)

S: Sorry, Rebecca.

(audience laughter)

S: But he was perhaps one of the most skeptical journalists that we have had.

B: Yeah.

S: He was the science columnist for Time Magazine. It was he who said, "You know, popularizing science is important, you know, we should start a science-dedicated magazine." And that was Discover Magazine. That was him. He was not afraid to be a hard-nosed skeptic when writing about scientific issues. So, for example, when writing about chiropractors, he wrote,

Chiropractors also employ a bewildering variety of weird practices to diagnose their patients. Some use applied kinesiology, a muscle test that supposedly can diagnose allergies and diseased organs. Hair analysis and iris readings are commonplace in the profession. Even sillier are many of the treatments that chiropractors use and recommend: homeopathic potions, colon irrigation, magnetic therapy, enzyme pills, colored-light therapy, and something called "balancing body energy," among other mystical procedures with undocumented effects.

S: That's from a mainstream journalist writing in Time Magazine. Do we see this kind of thing today? I don't think so.

B: Nope.

(audience applause)

S: So, you know, we do have to, I think, also note the support that Jaroff gave to such a good science journalism, and that kind of hard-nosed, skeptical science journalism is definitely something we miss. That's a void that, I think, that we in the skeptical community have to fill, but, unfortunately, it is a void.

News Items

Big Bang Conference at CERN (9:31)

• Big Bang and religion mixed in Cern debate

S: Rebecca –

R: Yes!

S: – this is a different quote. It's not as good a quote.

Science in isolation is great for producing stuff, but not so good for producing ideas.

R: Mm-hmm.

S: Who said that?

R: That was said by Andrew Pinsent at the Ramsey Center for Science and Religion. What I particularly liked about this quote is that it is completely reversed – it is the exact opposite of what I would have suggested.

S: Mm-hmm.

R: I would say that science is actually really good at ideas, but, in order to produce stuff, you have to add something else. You know, like, they might be able to figure out lasers, but to make a CD player you need a marketing executive.

S: Or death ray.

R: Thank you. Yeah, of course. Why didn't I go there first?

(laughter)

R: Yeah, so, this quote comes from a recent article that the BBC produced: "Big Bang and religion mixed in CERN debates". Apparently, there was a conference recently that CERN held—you remember CERN, you know, the guys who, apparently, may have found –

J: Higgs!

R: – the Higgs boson.

S: A boson with Higgs-like properties.

R: A Higgs-like thing.

S: Boson, yeah.

R: A Higgish. I like "Higgish" –

B: "Higgish"?

R: – a little bit.

J: (laughing) "A little bit!"

S: "Higgy"?

B: (singing, inaudible) Higgy again."

R: So, yes. Apparently, I don't know the purpose – I don't know what, who dreamt this up, but what I'm thinking is that someone was concerned that they may have found a particle that many people know as the "God particle", and, so, they're concerned that they're going to be excommunicated or, you know, that people will rebel—religious people will rebel—against science. Basically, we'll have some sort of Dark Ages–esque thing happening, and, so, maybe somebody at CERN thought, "Well, we should have this conference where we talk about how religious people should be OK with the Higgs boson."

B: Mm-hmm.

R: So, those are the good intentions that I'm assuming are behind this conference that has speakers such as this. The quotes in here are pretty fun, and none of them have any amount of intelligence to them. Steve, you're the one who brought this one to my attention here –

S: Yes.

R: I'm interested in what – we've talked a little bit before about things like the Templeton Foundation, which is an organization that gives out a prize – gives out prizes to people who can explore science in a religious context, basically. And I'm a bit opposed to it. I feel like it's muddying the waters. I think we don't need to bring religion into what people are doing at CERN.

S: Mm-hmm.

R: I think those two things are happily separated, but I'm interested in knowing your feelings on this.

S: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think trying to introduce theology into science is misguided. You know, this conference was specifically about the origin of the universe. So, it's not just about scientific issues in particular. I think the thinking, at least on the part of the theologians who were quoted about this conference, is that, well, you're talking about the origin of the universe. That's a really big question, and religion is about answering the really big questions—not science. Science is narrow and reductionist, and makes stuff, but can't really grapple with the big questions of our origins. And that's exactly incorrect, as you were saying. That's a complete knock to science. I mean, science is, in fact, the only human intellectual endeavor that can answer any empirical question about the origin of the universe.

R: Yeah.

J: So, was the conference, though, the scientists trying to appease religious people? The saying that –

R: Well, you know, apparently, this was – the conference was done on the part of CERN, according to BBC, and that's what I find troubling. I'm totally OK with a conference that religious people host, you know, and the topic might be "How do we –" you know, "How do we consider our theology now that we know X, Y, and Z—now that science has discovered this? What does that mean for our belief system?" And I think that's fine, but, you know, apparently, the theologians who were there seem to think that this was a chance to debate the scientists –

J: Yeah.

E: Yeah.

R: – and, no! Why would you do that? Debate is completely the opposite direction of where you want to go.

S: It also – I mean, the quotes seem to me like a desperate grasp at relevance, trying to make it seem like they're – you know, that theology is still relevant to questions about origins of the universe, when, in fact, science has completely displaced it from that endeavor.

J: So, did it end up with, like, a fistfight? Like, what happened?

(laughter)

E: Science won.

R: I haven't found any evidence of any arrests, so, apparently –

S: There were no fisticuffs?

J: That really must've been awkward as hell, though, right? Like, they're like, sitting there, like, after a whole day, and they're like, "Uh, OK, it's over now."

E: Something tells me they're not going to be doing this again. They're going to learn from this.

S: I don't know.

R: Well, I mean, it's actually not even – like, I wish it had been that exciting. But, instead, it just seems like it was really boring –

E: Yeah.

R: – and nobody came to any conclusions. Because you can't, you know?

S: Yeah.

R: You're just having a discussion of, like, well, you know, "But what don't we know?"

Italian Earthquake Scientists Convicted (14:57)

• Italian scientists convicted over earthquake warning

S: Now, we're trying to keep – we like to keep our live shows really light –

(laughter)

E: So far, so good.

S: So, we thought we'd talk about a horrible earthquake that killed over three hundred people.

E: Yeah, let's go there.

R: Good intro. Good intro there.

S: But there's actually a better story embedded in that. There were six Italian scientists, who were recently convicted of manslaughter –

B: Yeah.

S: – for failure to properly communicate the warnings about the upcoming L'Aquila earthquake in 2009. Yeah, we've been following this story, you know, since it happened. The quick version is that there were a number of small tremors in this very earthquake-prone part of Italy, and the geologists—the local geologists—you know, were following it. And their opinion was that, well, these tremors are very common. Most such tremors are not followed by major quakes. Most major quakes are not preceded by these kinds of tremors. So, the probability of a major quake occurring is not particularly higher, you know, now, just because of these tremors, than at any time, and, therefore, there's no cause for alarm. Now, they were specifically asked during a press conference, "Should we panic?" You know, "Should we evacuate?" And they said "No. There's no reason to evacuate. Stay at home and drink a glass of wine."

B: Steve, was this about a year ago that we covered this?

S: 2009. 2009 –

B: Oh, wow. (inaudible)

S: – so, was the quake, and then the court trial started about a year ago, and now the decision came down that the six scientists were convicted to six years – I think six years in prison and something like, you know, millions of dollars in damages for manslaughter—for the deaths of the people who didn't evacuate because they – of their reassurances that there was nothing to be worried about.

R: That's horrific.

J: Well, i, you know, to play devil's advocate real quick, if there was true negligence—like, if they didn't follow through with things that they needed to do, if they did a terrible job at analyzing the data, in a fashion that – where the data could have been analyzed better, or they actually weren't asking their peers for the information—i can understand if there was extreme negligence.

S: Right.

J: But, even still, like, that's very hard to prove, and I just don't understand –

S: Well, I mean, not really. The question is, was their opinion within the standard for their profession? That's—in my opinion—that's the only real question here. You can't be blamed for being wrong, right? You can't be blamed for a bad outcome if you were following the standard. Now, of course, scientists can't predict earthquakes. You can't predict when an earthquake is going to occur. That's the bottom line. What – every statement they said was truthful, you know, every factual statement. "These tremors do not necessarily mean that there's an earthquake coming, and they are not a reason to evacuate. We don't evacuate every city where there's tremors because there might be a major quake, because it's not that predictive." So, that was not negligent. No, and they weren't really being accused of negligence. They were basically being accused of poorly communicating to the public. It seems to be based on a lot of false premises about what scientists can know—what an expert about, you know, an earthquake, a geologist, expert can know.

R: Yeah, they've been convicted for not using a magical power they don't have.

S: Yeah.

R: They might as well have convicted all the psychics in Italy for not accurately predicting this earthquake.

J: I think we need to be careful—i don't disagree, of course. I don't think that these men should be going to jail for this at all—but it is an important thing to state that, I think, people should go to prison, or get in trouble legally, if they are misrepresenting science or – right? So you see where I'm going with this.

S: Well, yeah. If you are –

J: If you're setting that premise—you're saying, "Hey, these guys screwed up, they didn't do what they were supposed to do, they didn't communicate to us the real possible outcomes here", whatever—and, like –

S: Yeah.

J: – I'll reiterate, I don't think that they should be going to jail—

B: Well, I don't agree –

J: —but, I do think, though, that that standard that that court set needs to be applied all the way down the ladder.

B: Yeah, but, Jay, like, someone saying that "I have a cure for cancer and it's scientifically proven" but it's a sham?

J: Exactly, right? So, if they're going to actually take those scientists out and say "You're done. You're not performing science anymore and you're going to jail for that bad decision or information you gave", well, hello! Then, you know, all of a sudden, a million lawsuits need to be filed.

S: But, it wasn't – to clarify, though, it wasn't bad, it was just unlucky. I mean, doctors encounter this all the time, you know. You are asked to decide, you know, what tests to order, what diagnoses a patient might have. There's a whole lot of liability involved with that. You can't be convicted of malpractice just because of a bad outcome if what you did was within the standard of care.

B: Right.

S: So, was the information they were giving to the public within the standard for the profession? If the answer is "yes", the fact that there was a low-probability earthquake the next week is not their fault.

E: Right.

S: It doesn't change the fact – you know, if they're saying there's a 99% chance that there's not going to be an earthquake, and then the 1% thing happens, they were still right –

J: Yeah.

S: – in saying that it was unlikely.

R: Yeah.

E: Didn't the evidence show, basically, that they performed correctly, essentially? They did not –

S: That's the consensus. I mean, so, there's worldwide outrage, especially among the scientific community (inaudible) –

B: This has got to be shot down in a higher court.

S: Yeah.

B: This can't – can't possibly stand.

E: I hope so.

S: Well, there's two appeals left. There's two appeals, and they will stay out of prison before those appeals. So, the United States National Academy of Science, the Royal Academy of Science—the Royal Society, rather—issued a joint statement saying that "that is why we must protest the verdict in Italy. If it becomes a precedent in law, it could lead to a situation in which scientists will be afraid to give expert opinion."

J: Yeah, that's devastating.

E: Mm-hmm.

S: So, it would have a chilling effect. What – you know, what geologist is going to, you know, talk to the public in Italy now, if you could wind up in jail and, you know, financially devastated, and your career devastated, because you can't predict the future, you know, because you don't have a crystal ball? It's insane. It's insane.

J: Yeah. To think that they're going after these scientists, and they're not going after the rampant quackery throughout –

S: Well, there's that, too.

E: I wonder how much pressure they came under from, like, the families, the survivors, of this terrible, terrible devastation –

J: Oh yeah, they had to hang someone.

E: – and I imagine they put a lot of pressure on politicians and other people in order to hold somebody accountable.

J: They have to. They had to send someone down the river for that.

B: Did they have a trial?

S: Yeah.

B: Did they have witnesses and experts coming in?

S: Yeah. Yep.

B: I'd love to know the details of what exactly happened, because how could –

(laughter)

S: So, we'll see if the worldwide backlash has an effect. I mean, again, they do have two appeals left, so we'll definitely follow it.

Whale Makes Human Sounds (21:35)

• Beluga whale 'makes human-like sounds'

PANDAS Controversy (26:18)

• A PANDAS Story

Reporting Ghost Stories (39:44)

• pnd

Live Q&A (51:06)

• Questions from the CSICon audience

Science or Fiction (55:19)

S: Item number one. A new study finds that astronauts who spent more than one month in microgravity have a 35% increased risk of heart attacks and strokes. Item number two. Scientists have discovered the first feathered dinosaur in the western hemisphere, and also adds another dinosaur group known to have feathers. And item number three. Researchers find that, at the molecular level, evolutionary changes can be highly predictable.

Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:08:11)

Skepticism is essential to the quest for knowledge, for it is in the seedbed of puzzlement that genuine inquiry takes root. Without skepticism, we may remain mired in unexamined belief systems that are accepted as sacrosanct yet have no factual basis in reality.

J: Paul Kurtz!

References