SGU Episode 361

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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 Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, today is Monday June 11th 2012 and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella.

B: Hey Everybody.

S: Rebecca Watson.

R: Hello Everyone.

S: Jay Novella.

J: Hey guys.

S: And Evan Bernstein.

E: Make it so!

This Day in Skepticism (0:26)

June 16 - Captain Picard Day

http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2009/06/16/captain-picard-day/

S: Why do you say that, Evan?

E: I don't know, why do I say that?

R: Well maybe because today is Captain Picard day, apparently.

B: For real!?

S: Captain Picard Day?

B: Who decided that?

R: Apparently someone on Evan's facebook page decided that.

B: Ah.

E: (laughs) They did. Sent me the link and everything.

J: Ensign Crusher.

E: Shut up Wesley.

R: Apparently there's a Star Trek episode and Captain Picard day is a thing on the episode and it was on stardate 47457.1 which apparently matches up with June 16th but apparently there are also other opinions about what that date would be, like November 4th or January 8th or January 10th so I see this a lot like the...

E: Throw a dart at a dart board.

R: ...a lot like how the creation of the universe happened on October 23rd, you know at exactly you know, which year that was. It depends on how you read the texts, basically. But apparently some geeks think today is Captain Picard day.

E: It's a geeky form of numerology.

S: Is there a specific formula for stardate conversion?

B: There can be, but it varies between various series and movies, so yeah just don't use it.

R: It depends if you're the people's front of the federation or the federation's front for the people.

J: (laughs) the front for the people of the federation.

R: Yeah, it depends which you subscribe to.

E: And you wonder why Leonard Nimoy isn't doing conventions any more. This is the stuff he gets.

S: Well what's supposed to happen on Captain Picard day?

R: Well, you talk about how awesome Captain Picard is.

J: You basically put on the British accent, telling people to engage, to disengage.

E: Make it so.

J: Wesley, you know, you just.

R: You tell Worf he's wrong.

S: But apparently in the Star Trek episode, the Next Gen episode, on Captain Picard day, you're supposed to host school children and show them what Starfleet is like. So we could turn this into a science/skepical thing and we could say on Captain Picard day we teach school children about science and skepticism.

R: We do that all the time though.

J: Yeah I mean we do that every week, Steve.

B: Every day is Captain Picard day.

(laughter)

E: It sort of is. School children though, you know, specifically.

News Items

LiDAR (2:52)

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/06/08/lasers-help-discover-lost-city-gold-sought-by-conquistadors-in-1500s/?intcmp=obnetwork

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Who's That Noisy? (41:37)

Questions and Emails

Homeopathic Pharmacists(46:30)

Subject: Pharmacists enthusiastically promoting homeopathy

Message: Dear skeptical rogues, I want to address a topic of utmost importance: the medical credibility lend to non-physicians. Pretty much all German pharmacies sell homeopathic remedies. After gathering an relatively big amount of information about current studies and so on, I wanted to confront some local pharmacists with the ethical question: how to justify selling, what obviously doesn't work? The responses were.. unexpected, to say the least. I went to 4 pharmacies, stating that I'm "interested to learn about homeopathy", setting up a little trap, hoping to get the every-day response to a question like that. All 4 pharmacists I talked to, assured me (enthusiastically), that homeopathy certainly works and that it's a great way to go. They were clear that there is not the least(!) doubt about the effectiveness. ( I was even told that homeopathy was, in fact, real medicine and shall not be confused with nutritional supplements. When confronted with the studies, they avoided to address any argument I made. Instead their responses became, ironically enough, some kind of liquid. I heard some arguments from ignorance, some false dichotomies and constantly moving the goalpost. I don't know about pharmacists in the US, but in Germany they have almost the same credibility as physicians. They sell a big variety of (non-homeopathic, actually real) medicine on own judgment and even tell people what dosage to take. Physicians usually only get consulted by Germans, if the state of health appears to be somewhat critical. Most medicine is sold purely on the pharmacists judgment. Today I discovered how full of crap they really are. I would love to hear your opinions on the topic. Especially regarding the potential risk of people selling medicine while basically believing in magic. If you should read from this mail in your show, feel free to change my wording so the grammar is correct. As you can tell, I'm not a native speaker, although I'm trying hard. Keep up the great work! Toni Michel Stuttgart in Germany PS: The reason I learned about this podcast is my older brother, Andreas Michel. He is a really great guy and a big fan of your show for quite some years now. It would be totally incredible, if you could greet him on the air. I probably wouldn't have to buy him birthday presents for the upcoming years.

Name That Logical Fallacy

Congruence Bias (53:19)

Science or Fiction (59:26)

Item number one. Christian Huygens was the first to postulate, in 1678, the particle theory of light. Item number two. In 1695 he wrote a book expounding on his belief in extraterrestrial life. Item number three. He invented and patented the pendulum clock in 1657. And item number four. He designed a basic internal combustion engine fueled by gunpowder.

Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:14:50)

Science does not aim at establishing immutable truths and eternal dogmas; its aim is to approach the truth by successive approximations, without claiming that at any stage final and complete accuracy has been achieved.

Bertrand Russell's "The ABC of Relativity" (4th revised edition).

Announcements (1:16:00)

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SGU Episode 361

Contents

Introduction

This Day in Skepticism (0:26)