SGU Episode 951

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SGU Episode 951
September 30th 2023
The sample return capsule from NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission is seen shortly after touching down in the desert. Credit: Keegan Barber/NASA
SGU 950                      SGU 952
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
C: Cara Santa Maria
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
Quote of the Week
I honestly believe it is better to know nothing than to know what ain't so.
Josh Billings, American humorist
Links
Download Podcast
Show Notes
Forum Discussion

Introduction, Bob gets Covid

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

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, September 27^th, 2023, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella...

B: Hey, everybody!

S: Cara Santa Maria...

C: Howdy.

S: Jay Novella...

J: Hey guys.

S: ...and Evan Bernstein.

E: Good evening everyone.

S: So, Bob, I understand your COVID cherry has popped.

B: Yes, I'm so disappointed in my immune system.

S: Your superior genes and immune system have utterly failed.

C: This is your first time?

B: First, yeah. First timer.

C: Oh, no.

B: It must have had to have happened in Disney. We were with thousands of people. We were there for like five days. And we did wear our masks quite often when we felt uncomfortable, when you're like shoulder to shoulder with people. It's just like you just doesn't feel normal anymore, right? So we would still put on our masks, but often we would be with a lot of people and we were outside and you usually feel a lot safer outside. But yeah, whatever, something happened. We got it. But we got it the day we got back. So like, all right, if we had to have it, this is the time.

J: Yeah, right.

S: You made it through your wedding reception.

B: We had a huge September, multiple big events that we were very paranoid about getting sick for. So getting sick after, all right, that kind of works.

E: And before Halloween. Let's not forget that.

B: Yes. Oh yeah, baby. It's haven't been this sick and I can't even remember. Not that it wasn't bad, but it's just that I so rarely get sick that it was weird to have a fever and to feel so achy. Oh my God. But that's that's all gone now. Just a little congested and coughing now at this point. I'm on-

C: Paxlovid? Did you take paxlovid?

B: Yeah, I'm on.

C: Okay. Did you have the burn hair thing? Like, how does the back of your mouth taste?

B: Yeah, my taste is a little off in terms of like, what is that back there? What's going on in my mind? You know, it's like you have a weird taste in your mouth, but I barely noticed it just once in a while. Like, oh, that's nasty. Not that bad.

C: Really? It was debilitating for me.

B: Oh, not even close.

E: Is that one of the listed side effects?

B: I've only had three, nine pills. That's three doses.

C: Oh, no. So from dose one, immediate and nonstop for five full days.

E: Do you think that's because you're a super taster, Cara?

C: Maybe. Steve, did you take it?

S: No, I've never taken it.

C: Okay. So if you get it, I'm not wishing this on you, but if you get COVID and if you take paxlovid, please report back to us on what the back of your mouth tastes like.

S: It's complicated because super tasting is not a single thing. It's multiple.

C: Yeah, it's lots of different genes. I know for sure, though, that when I used to teach the, I know that for sure that when I used to teach the simple dominance lectures and whatever labs that I think we had like four or five different tasting papers that we would use and I was a super taster on all of them.

S: Yeah. I only remember doing that for the quinine one. I'm definitely positive for that.

C: Anyway, back to Bob. Bob, how you feeling?

B: I'll say I recommend, I highly recommend the Magic Kingdom Mickey's spooky Halloween party. So good. It was so good. They do projection mapping on that castle that just blows you away. It's basically projectors that are designed to project just onto the castle, the entirety of the facade of the castle. They could change its look and mood in a second. And they've been doing it for a while, but for Halloween, it was especially awesome. And of course, the fireworks and the parade, the Halloween parade and the stage show, the Hocus Pocus, Disney villain stage show, they were all wonderful. You're in the park till midnight. It was the best day. So very nice. And thank you, COVID.

S: I'm actually amazed to be we all went to Dragon Con and none of us got COVID at Dragon Con. So we definitely wore our masks, wore a mask on the plane, wore a mask whenever we were basically inside with crowds. And you can't say it worked because we don't know what would have happened if we didn't. But we but none of us got sick for what it's worth. And even though that's anecdotal, but interestingly, we were posting pictures on social media. And on one of the pictures of us on Facebook, we were wearing our masks because we were wherever. I think we were in the airport. And people started hating on our masks. Non skeptical people on Facebook.

E: Well, yeah, some people hate masks.

S: They took it really personally, they took it because we were wearing masks.

Discussion: Misinformation (4:42)

J: I mean, I don't get it. I mean, when I read the responses, this is like a part of I guess this has a lot to do with politics, I guess, right? But there are people like that fully absolutely believe that the whole effort to get people to wear masks was all fake. And the science behind it is all fake. And I don't know, I guess I kind of missed it during COVID or whatever. Maybe this developed even stronger the last couple of years. I don't know.

E: But like, you were busy protecting yourself and your family, Jay.

J: I know. But I just feel like I felt like I missed something cultural like, wow, wow, there are people out there that really don't like masks like, damn, I had no idea.

S: It's one thing to to say you don't like mask mandates, but to like shame people for wearing a mask. That's ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous.

E: Come on.

S: It's also wrong because masks work. They you know what I mean? They are effective.

E: That's like making fun of people for wearing seat belts.

S: Or a helmet on a on a motorcycle.

B: Yeah.

E: Right.

S: Absolutely.

E: Or a bicycle.

J: Yeah, I mean, it makes no sense. It's it's all political.

B: Just imagine the misinformation ecosystem that they swim in. And there you go. That's what they're exposed to. That's the "evidence" that they trust that they hear all the time. So that's what they think.

J: Well, I listen just as a you know, talking about misinformation, right? It's a huge thing. We talk about it all the time here on the show. The Internet is littered with misinformation. So I take it upon myself to try to listen to news stations that come from different sides. And if you ever do it, it's pretty damn remarkable how different the news is.

B: Remarkable.

J: It's pretty it is very different.

S: It's a different universe.

J: It is a different universe. You know, and I find that to be it's really compelling if you just sit back and think about like what's actually happening is you really do have people that are deciding to legitimately skew the information. It's not like I don't believe it because of my perspective. There are people sitting around a desk that are deciding to what degree they're going to lean into one thing or another. And the news comes off so so different. It's a really good thing, though, I think, as a skeptic to to experiment with. Just doesn't matter where you are politically. Just listen to like the hardest right leaning and the hardest left leaning news you can find and just marvel in the fact of how unbelievably different they cover the news.

S: Because they're not covering the news, they're curating the news. They are creating a narrative by cherry picking from the news and spinning the news.

E: Right. Because it's a business and you have customers who have wants needs and and you have to cater to them if you want their money, if you want the advertisers. Let's not forget what news is. News is business.

C: It used to be.

S: Yeah, that was because they got rid of the Fairness Doctrine and the whole infotainment industry.

B: What a colossal mistake.

C: Right?

S: It wasn't so much a mistake as by design.

B: What do you mean?

C: Whatever do you mean?

S: I mean-

C: People lobbied for that. That wasn't just like-

E: Oh gosh, sure.

B: Yeah, but it was still a mistake, a huge I mean...

E: One of many.

C: But the people lobbing for it, do you think that they feel that way? That's the question.

S: Again, Bob, the point is we're saying it was a what happened was a feature, not a bug.

C: Yeah, like we know objectively, you're right, Bob, that like as a society, it was a mistake to allow that to happen. But yeah, I think they're pushing for it to happen. They don't see it that way.

B: Yeah. And in the future, I think it will be even more painfully obvious that it was a historically immense mistake.

J: But this is why, guys as a skeptic, it's important for us to really communicate this type of information very carefully, right? Especially when it comes to people that have political differing political views, science has formally completely but up against political views now. That's the world that we live in. But as a skeptic, it's really important to understand just how distorted the information we are getting. And Steve, you're right, it's curated that way. It is fashioned that way. It's not like it's just, well, we'll only talk about these three news items. They're changing the news items themselves, the intensity of them and what points they want to make. And then just as powerful, what points they don't make.

S: Yeah, that's true, Jay. But although you shouldn't underestimate the power of just curating the individual news items because there is so much happening in the world. You could make whatever narrative you want out of news stories without really having to distort them. But then if you if you do distort them, that adds yet another layer of influencing the narrative. You know what I mean? But even like I can't get into too many details, but there are people in my life who bring me stories like, did you hear this one? And they tell me a story which I'm sure is basically true because the details of the story itself are completely unremarkable. But they take it as evidence of a specific narrative.

J: Yeah, yeah, of course. Right.

S: Oh, like this guy from Ukraine ran into these other people. And to them, this is a deliberate act of terror that feeds into a certain narrative about Ukraine and everything. When it's probably just one of a million accidents that happened over the last week, that has nothing to do with anything. It's just amazing how you just once you have the framework, you can fill it with the noise, the background noise that's happening in the world. And it's very easy to make it seem sinister. And again I've watched a lot of these extreme news outlets as well, and they do a ton of that. There's a lot of you say a fact, which probably is true, and then they give you that quizzical look like, what does that mean? It's the just asking questions thing. It's like, oh, isn't that odd? You say something like that and then you make it into a sinister sort of question. And then that's the fundamental raw material of conspiracy thinking. But you could see it happening on these extreme news channels. That's one of the primary methods that they use. And it's unfortunately, it resonates with a lot of people.

E: Yes, it gets clicks, it gets ears.

S: It's better than making a claim, because if you make a truth claim, that makes people skeptical. But if you just sort of throw something out there, lawyers do this all the time as well. I've had enough interface with the legal system to know that one of the things lawyers do is like they'll throw out a fact or ask a question in order to establish something. And they never connect the dots, right? They don't say, right, they don't bring you to the conclusion because then that could be wrong. They just or whatever. Now they're making a claim or whatever. If they just sort of let it sit there, they let the jury connect the dots. It's so much more effective to let people connect their own dots than you to connect the dots for them. It's a very powerful, deceptive method. And you see it used all the time, especially on these extreme curated news outlets that are primarily about promoting a certain narrative and perspective and ideology, not objectively presenting the news and analysis. It's very disturbing. I can only take so much of it at once. It really is just very, very disturbing to to watch such an assault on reality especially when you realize how effective it is.

B: Yeah.

J: So this summer, guys, I didn't read the news for over two months. And I got I got to tell you, it was like it was it was good. It was like a definite it helped me. It really did help me because.

E: Yep. Did you limit your Facebook activity?

J: Oh, I don't think I did any Facebook. When I wasn't feeling well this summer, I just cut out anything that had like Internet noise news, social media. I just didn't want to have anything to do with it. Well, I mean, the mental health component to it is we're getting mostly negative news, right? You go to the major news outlets, outlets. They're not talking about the cute giraffe like they're talking about all the bad stuff like all the shootings and everything. Yeah, I don't know. Like, I don't think as as a human being, we're not supposed to be hearing like negativity every day. Dozens of examples of it every day, every day, all the time. Like it is bad. It's bad for us.

S: Before we get to the news items, one more thing. Have you guys watched the latest season of Black Mirror?

J: No

C: No.

B: No.

S: Got to watch it. It's great season.

C: I know I haven't been. I feel like my mental health hasn't been-

S: I do want to spoil something.

E: Give us one spoiler.

S: One of the best episode. Oh, it's I mean, it's a mild spoiler. You'll learn this very, very early on. I won't give you the ending of it, but basically they it's about making reality TV that's like mimicking somebody's real life in almost real time.

B: Oh, wait, I did see that. (laughter) OK, that was fun.

S: Yeah, there's just one scene with the executive of the whatever the network that's doing this. And they're just flat out saying because they're basically it's like they're taking your life and making you seem like a horrible person. And they said that that tested better. It got more people, it got more clicks, got more views, it tested better than making you seem like a hero. Like we make you seem like a complete ass. That was good. That was good for viewers. So that's what they're doing.

C: Oh, my God, it's so...

S: It was a really clever worst case scenario. Nightmare of social media. It really was well, well done.

E: And I get how powerful all this stuff is psychologically and everything. People do need to learn to be better consumers of lots of things. And news is one of those. You have to you have to learn and you have to control to a certain degree.

C: I think we also have to remember that, like the social kind of world, the digital. I think we've kind of come to a place where there's this idea that if you aren't on social or if you take these big breaks, that you're like some sort of Luddite. But I do think it's important to remember that, for some people, yes, their lives exist in this sort of digital social sphere. But really, generally, that doesn't have to be real life. And it's not real life. And there are a handful of very loud, very aggressive people who I think for a lot of people, there's this twisted perception that comes from existing as if social is some sort of perfect sample, like scientific sampling of the population that is reality. Exactly. It's just not. It's very, very biased. And it's a handful of really loud people that have a lot of verbal pull. But if you if you extricate yourself like you did, Jay, and you just sort of exist without it, you can find that it does wonders for your mental health.

S: Yeah, you definitely need to define a balance with interfacing with the real physical world. I cannot completely extricate online-

C: No, you can't.

S: -reality from my world. With both of my jobs I can't do that. But yeah, we do have to make sure that we carve out enough time for like boots on the ground, right. Actually being out there in the world interfacing with physical reality.

E: Board games.

S: Yeah, but definitely in in in social media, the monkeys are running the zoo.

C: That's that's the point. There's a difference between being online like, like, get off the email. There's a difference between like needing to be online for life, for work, for all the things. And like living your life as if social media is representative of reality.

News Items

S:

B:

C:

J:

E:

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

Zoom Backgrounds (17:12)

• Your Zoom background might influence the first impression you make 

Manifesting Fails (24:38)

• Manifesting More Money Is Linked to Worse Financial Outcomes 

...the Mirror in Harry Potter

Tong Test for AI (37:51)

• The Tong test: A new approach to evaluating artificial general intelligence 

Looking for Service Worlds (54:42)

• Forget Alien Megastructures. New Study Says We Need to Look For 'Service Worlds'. 

NASA Recovers Asteroid Sample (1:09:47)

• NASA asteroid sample lands safely in Utah before being whisked away by helicopter 

...when we last reported on it^{[link needed]}

...(Evan_mentions_cool_NASA_graphics_so_replace_this_with_some_of_his_words_for_the_hyperlink)

Who's That Noisy? (1:17:16)

Answer to previous Noisy:

two glass marbles being knocked together

New Noisy (1:20:55)

[evangelist's screaming speech]

... who this week's Noisy is

Questions/Emails/Corrections/Follow-ups (1:25:14)

Email #1: Natural Gas vs. Coal

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Science or Fiction (1:35:38)

Item #1: A series of cognitive studies finds that people tend to make worse decisions when given more information. Item #2: In the first study of its kind, researchers find that antihydrogen atoms respond the same to gravity as normal matter, ruling out the existence of repulsive antigravity. Item #3: Engineers have published a method for making thin crystalline silicone solar cells that are one eighth the thickness of existing commercial solar cells with record-breaking efficiencies of 29%.

Answer	Item
Fiction	Thin crystalline solar cells
Science	Worse decision w/ more info
Science	Antihydrogen atoms & gravity

Host	Result
Steve	clever

Rogue	Guess
Cara	Antihydrogen atoms & gravity
Jay	Worse decision w/ more info
Bob	Worse decision w/ more info
Evan	Thin crystalline solar cells

Voice-over: It's time for Science or Fiction.

Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:50:30)

I honestly believe it is better to know nothing than to know what ain't so.  – Josh Billings (1818-1885), pen name of Henry Wheeler Shaw, American humorist

Signoff

S: —and until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

S: Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is produced by SGU Productions, dedicated to promoting science and critical thinking. For more information, visit us at theskepticsguide.org. Send your questions to info@theskepticsguide.org. And, if you would like to support the show and all the work that we do, go to patreon.com/SkepticsGuide and consider becoming a patron and becoming part of the SGU community. Our listeners and supporters are what make SGU possible.

[top]                        

Today I Learned

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