SGU Episode 904
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| SGU Episode 904 |
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| November 5th 2022 |
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| Skeptical Rogues |
| S: Steven Novella
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| [ https://sguforums.org/index.php?BOARD=1.0 Forum Discussion] |
Introduction
Voice-over: You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality. 00:12.840 Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.
00:12.840 --> 00:17.880 Today is Thursday, November 3rd, 2022, and this is your host, Stephen Novella.
00:17.880 --> 00:19.440 Joining me this week are Bob Novella,
00:19.440 --> 00:20.440 Hey everybody.
00:20.440 --> 00:21.440 Kara Santamaria,
00:21.440 --> 00:22.440 Howdy.
00:22.440 --> 00:23.440 Jay Novella,
00:23.440 --> 00:24.440 Hey guys.
00:24.440 --> 00:25.440 And Evan Bernstein.
00:25.440 --> 00:26.440 Good evening, everyone.
00:26.440 --> 00:27.440 How is everyone?
00:27.440 --> 00:29.480 Bob, how was your Halloween?
00:29.480 --> 00:31.000 It was really good.
00:31.000 --> 00:32.000 It was really good.
00:32.000 --> 00:33.560 I decorated the new house.
00:33.560 --> 00:40.080 It was a challenge, and I just actually finished because the party is November 5th, and most
00:40.080 --> 00:42.360 of you are coming.
00:42.360 --> 00:45.240 Those of you who aren't are sadly too far away.
00:45.240 --> 00:46.240 Sorry.
00:46.240 --> 00:48.080 Did you get a lot of kids at your new place?
00:48.080 --> 00:49.080 What's the traffic like?
00:49.080 --> 00:50.080 Did not.
00:50.080 --> 00:51.080 Did not.
00:51.080 --> 00:52.080 Got 16 little punks.
00:52.080 --> 00:53.080 That's a lot.
00:53.080 --> 00:55.600 They were, yeah, they were adorable, but 16.
00:55.600 --> 00:56.600 But it was fun.
00:56.600 --> 00:58.640 Liz and I, we sat on our porch swing.
00:58.640 --> 01:00.080 We had hot cider.
01:00.080 --> 01:02.600 I carved a pumpkin, listened to creepy music.
01:02.600 --> 01:04.400 It was, it was, it was adorable, fun.
01:04.400 --> 01:10.120 And then after that at six thirty, we went, we went in and watched scary movies all night.
01:10.120 --> 01:13.120 Is that, is 16, I don't know.
01:13.120 --> 01:15.880 Living in big cities, I feel like nobody comes to doors anymore.
01:15.880 --> 01:17.600 So 16 sounds like a lot to me.
01:17.600 --> 01:18.600 No, no, no.
01:18.600 --> 01:19.600 It's nothing.
01:19.600 --> 01:24.000 I mean, a lot I would say is 70 is a lot.
01:24.000 --> 01:25.000 I remember when it was a hundred.
01:25.000 --> 01:29.280 Yeah, no, Evan and I used to go around my neighborhood because it was better for trick
01:29.280 --> 01:30.280 or treating than his neighborhood.
01:30.280 --> 01:33.160 So he would bring his daughter over, right, Evan?
01:33.160 --> 01:37.160 And there were like dozens and dozens of groups of kids roaming the neighborhood.
01:37.160 --> 01:39.960 Oh, there easily had to be a hundred kids in that neighborhood, Steve.
01:39.960 --> 01:42.960 Yeah, but this year we only got three groups of kids.
01:42.960 --> 01:47.400 I wonder if it's the pandemic or is just the neighborhood aging out?
01:47.400 --> 01:48.400 You know?
01:48.400 --> 01:49.400 I think it's the neighborhood aging out.
01:49.400 --> 01:52.280 You're just a whole bunch of old fuddy-duddies in that neighborhood.
01:52.280 --> 01:55.000 Yeah, but you kind of think that new families would rotate in.
01:55.000 --> 01:56.920 I mean, it's not like it's remained static.
01:56.920 --> 02:01.880 No, but still, you know, like my daughters are now away, you know, either at college
02:01.880 --> 02:06.800 or moved out and all of their friends that they were going to school with in the neighborhood
02:06.800 --> 02:08.440 are also moved away.
02:08.440 --> 02:12.400 So it hasn't been a complete turnover of everyone in the neighborhood.
02:12.400 --> 02:16.680 So but I do wonder how much of a pandemic effect there is, like are just people not
02:16.680 --> 02:17.680 doing this anymore.
02:17.680 --> 02:19.360 But you can easily wear a mask.
02:19.360 --> 02:24.600 Now Halloween is still hugely popular in terms of money spent and activities and stuff.
02:24.600 --> 02:26.480 It's still a huge, huge holiday.
02:26.480 --> 02:29.740 Like second only to Christmas in terms of money spent.
02:29.740 --> 02:30.740 It's big.
02:30.740 --> 02:31.740 Well, Valentine's Day.
02:31.740 --> 02:32.740 What about Valentine's Day?
02:32.740 --> 02:36.320 What about going to live performances of skeptical podcasts?
02:36.320 --> 02:37.920 Ooh, that sounds like fun.
02:37.920 --> 02:39.560 Steve, we got something coming up.
02:39.560 --> 02:41.240 I don't know if you're aware of this.
02:41.240 --> 02:45.600 I don't know if you've even considered the fact that in a short number of weeks, like
02:45.600 --> 02:46.600 what are we talking about?
02:46.600 --> 02:53.160 We're talking about like six weeks, five and a half weeks in about five and a half weeks.
02:53.160 --> 02:55.040 We are going to be in Arizona.
02:55.040 --> 02:56.120 Boots on the ground.
02:56.120 --> 02:57.120 Four shows lined up.
02:57.120 --> 02:58.200 Five and a half weeks.
02:58.200 --> 03:02.800 And I think we need to talk a little bit about what this means for the people that are in
03:02.800 --> 03:07.820 and around Arizona, because this is, you know, we're flying the whole crew out.
03:07.820 --> 03:08.820 This is a big deal.
03:08.820 --> 03:09.820 I mean, even George.
03:09.820 --> 03:10.820 You know what?
03:10.820 --> 03:11.820 We got to bring George on here.
03:11.820 --> 03:14.640 I want George to tell everyone about all the stuff that's going to happen.
03:14.640 --> 03:16.040 OK, let's bring him on.
03:16.040 --> 03:17.040 George Rob?
03:17.040 --> 03:18.040 I'm sorry.
03:18.040 --> 03:23.040 I'm still just unwrapping my candy from the weekend.
03:23.040 --> 03:24.040 Sorry.
03:24.040 --> 03:25.040 Oh, God.
03:25.040 --> 03:26.040 Delicious.
03:26.040 --> 03:27.040 Hi, George.
03:27.040 --> 03:28.040 Hi, George.
03:28.040 --> 03:29.040 Hey, everybody.
03:29.040 --> 03:30.040 What's going on?
Annoucements: Private Show (3:30)
03:30.040 --> 03:33.560 You know, you know, it's the season now, boys and girl.
03:33.560 --> 03:35.600 It's the it's we're past Halloween.
03:35.600 --> 03:37.140 We're getting into Thanksgiving now.
03:37.140 --> 03:38.560 And what happens after Thanksgiving?
03:38.560 --> 03:44.120 It's the holiday season full on, full on, 100 percent holiday season, whatever holiday
03:44.120 --> 03:45.120 you may be celebrating.
03:45.120 --> 03:49.320 And you know what's one of the most difficult things to do during the holiday season, especially
03:49.320 --> 03:52.840 if you've like been in a relationship for a long time or maybe you're like you're brand
03:52.840 --> 03:57.040 new to a relationship and you don't you don't you're not comfortable, you're not familiar
03:57.040 --> 03:58.640 or you've done everything a thousand times.
03:58.640 --> 03:59.840 You can't think of something new.
03:59.840 --> 04:05.140 The hardest thing to do at the holidays is to get a really good news.
04:05.140 --> 04:08.360 It's really hard to get a really good gift for someone.
04:08.360 --> 04:09.740 And wouldn't you know it?
04:09.740 --> 04:16.220 We here at SGU Productions have a really, really great gift that you can you can not
04:16.220 --> 04:19.200 only give to someone you love, you can give it to yourself.
04:19.200 --> 04:21.160 The way the world is nowadays.
04:21.160 --> 04:22.440 Give yourself a gift.
04:22.440 --> 04:23.440 You deserve it.
04:23.440 --> 04:25.240 What else is there to look forward to?
04:25.240 --> 04:30.680 We are so excited because we have this Arizona trip going on and you can get yourself or
04:30.680 --> 04:35.480 a loved one an incredibly special, unique kind of gift.
04:35.480 --> 04:36.480 Am I right, everybody?
04:36.480 --> 04:37.480 Guys?
04:37.480 --> 04:38.480 All right.
04:38.480 --> 04:39.480 Absolutely.
04:39.480 --> 04:40.480 It's going to be super fun.
04:40.480 --> 04:41.480 That's for sure.
04:41.480 --> 04:45.280 This is going to be above and beyond any kind of private event thing that we've ever done
04:45.280 --> 04:46.280 before.
04:46.280 --> 04:47.760 We've got the extravaganza's.
04:47.760 --> 04:48.760 Those are booked.
04:48.760 --> 04:51.760 Those are those are happening, which that that's a fantastic gift.
04:51.760 --> 04:53.120 You can get that for yourself.
04:53.120 --> 04:54.500 You can get that for your kids.
04:54.500 --> 04:56.120 You can get that for a loved one.
04:56.120 --> 05:00.640 Maybe maybe you want this gift and your loved one doesn't listen to the podcast.
05:00.640 --> 05:04.240 Well, you play them just like this little section right now and you just look at them
05:04.240 --> 05:05.240 to go.
05:05.240 --> 05:06.240 Well, that's interesting.
05:06.240 --> 05:07.240 Hello.
05:07.240 --> 05:08.240 Hello.
05:08.240 --> 05:09.240 That's interesting.
05:09.240 --> 05:10.240 That's interesting.
05:10.240 --> 05:11.240 Sweetheart is interesting.
05:11.240 --> 05:14.920 And we and we live close to Arizona.
05:14.920 --> 05:16.800 We even live in Arizona.
05:16.800 --> 05:21.760 We are going to have these two special private events that I am I am right now formulating
05:21.760 --> 05:27.160 a series of games that are going to not only put the rogues through their paces, but they're
05:27.160 --> 05:30.540 going to involve the audience in a very special and unique way.
05:30.540 --> 05:33.080 This is going to be something that we've never done before.
05:33.080 --> 05:34.080 It's going to be kind of common.
05:34.080 --> 05:38.160 I don't want to give away too, too much because part of the fun is unwrapping the gift, you
05:38.160 --> 05:39.160 know.
05:39.160 --> 05:47.800 But imagine imagine sort of combining scavenger hunts along with trivia, along with opportunities
05:47.800 --> 05:51.880 to see the rogues be absolutely embarrassed.
05:51.880 --> 05:52.880 What else do you want?
05:52.880 --> 05:53.880 Right.
05:53.880 --> 05:58.160 What else could you possibly want during the holiday season in the middle of December in
05:58.160 --> 06:03.080 the desert other than to see maybe Bob being really embarrassed because he couldn't figure
06:03.080 --> 06:06.660 out an answer to something and he has to pay a penalty by, I don't know, maybe dancing
06:06.660 --> 06:11.640 the Macarena or just something I'm just spitballing here.
06:11.640 --> 06:14.280 I am formulating a bunch of relief.
06:14.280 --> 06:15.960 It's oh, it's so going to happen.
06:15.960 --> 06:16.960 It's so going to happen.
06:16.960 --> 06:18.240 It's going to be fantastic.
06:18.240 --> 06:22.360 Look, in all seriousness, this is going to be if you are a fan of the program, if you've
06:22.360 --> 06:27.400 never got an opportunity to see the rogues live, there's going to not only be a chance
06:27.400 --> 06:30.600 to have one on one time with all of the rogues.
06:30.600 --> 06:34.960 There's going to be a live show that we're recording a private live podcast.
06:34.960 --> 06:39.500 You get to see how the sausage is made, and in this instance, you want to see how the
06:39.500 --> 06:43.800 sausage is made because invariably, there's always stuff that doesn't quite make the
06:43.800 --> 06:44.800 show.
06:44.800 --> 06:45.800 All the juicy stuff.
06:45.800 --> 06:49.520 Maybe you wonder to yourself, all the juicy stuff, what doesn't make the show?
06:49.520 --> 06:50.520 What arguments?
06:50.520 --> 06:51.520 What little f-bombs?
06:51.520 --> 06:55.560 What little particular kinds of things might not make the final show?
06:55.560 --> 07:01.320 Well, you're going to have an inside viewer's look at this and to see what goes into the
07:01.320 --> 07:02.320 process.
07:02.320 --> 07:08.120 Let me tell you, as someone that's been on the inside and heard it all, it is so worth
07:08.120 --> 07:09.560 the price of admission sometimes.
07:09.560 --> 07:10.560 Let me tell you.
07:10.560 --> 07:15.240 There's going to be a two-hour-ish private recording thing, which is really fun, and
07:15.240 --> 07:20.100 then as if that's not enough, there'll be another hour and a half of just games and
07:20.100 --> 07:24.920 trivia and music and singing and scavenge hunting and singing.
07:24.920 --> 07:28.200 Again, Bob, probably dancing at some point.
07:28.200 --> 07:29.720 Maybe with a shirt on, maybe with a shirt off.
07:29.720 --> 07:30.720 I don't know.
07:30.720 --> 07:35.920 I'll show you how it works out, but it'll be amazing and so I cannot stress enough how
07:35.920 --> 07:39.600 you need to go to this program, go to these shows, go to the extravaganzas and get the
07:39.600 --> 07:40.600 private shows.
07:40.600 --> 07:41.600 Here's the thing.
07:41.600 --> 07:43.440 Here's the really cool thing.
07:43.440 --> 07:47.000 The private shows are always different, just like the extravaganzas.
07:47.000 --> 07:50.160 You can go to two extravaganzas in a row, and you'll have a very different time each
07:50.160 --> 07:55.320 time because there's so much improv involved in each night of the extravaganza.
07:55.320 --> 08:00.180 Every time we do that show, the funniest bit is something that's completely unscripted
08:00.180 --> 08:02.080 that takes all of us by surprise.
08:02.080 --> 08:03.080 Yeah, vacuum cleaner.
08:03.080 --> 08:04.080 100%.
08:04.080 --> 08:05.080 Vacuum cleaner.
08:05.080 --> 08:07.840 That happens like two or three times a show, all the time.
08:07.840 --> 08:12.120 Yeah, so you do that, but with the private show, with the private super... What are
08:12.120 --> 08:13.120 we calling this again?
08:13.120 --> 08:16.880 The private show plus because we're just lame at thinking of viewing the games, but it's
08:16.880 --> 08:19.360 a four-hour event, so I'm clear.
08:19.360 --> 08:24.320 The total thing is four hours, and it's made to have... In the middle, there's a private
08:24.320 --> 08:29.160 recording of the SGA, but the rest of it is designed to optimize intimate contact between
08:29.160 --> 08:30.520 the audience and the rogues.
08:30.520 --> 08:32.320 Yeah, so you want a photo with everybody?
08:32.320 --> 08:33.320 Done.
08:33.320 --> 08:34.320 You want an autograph?
08:34.320 --> 08:35.320 Done.
08:35.320 --> 08:36.320 You want to ask a question?
08:36.320 --> 08:37.320 Done.
08:37.320 --> 08:41.000 This is all stuff that you get to do plus, again, Bob dancing.
08:41.000 --> 08:45.160 I can't get past this idea of just... I'll take it easy.
08:45.160 --> 08:46.160 George, there may be prizes too.
08:46.160 --> 08:47.160 I'll dance with Kara.
08:47.160 --> 08:48.160 You didn't mention the prizes.
08:48.160 --> 08:49.160 Well, there's... Oh, gosh.
08:49.160 --> 08:53.800 Yeah, so not only will the games be happening, but as you're involved with the rogues and
08:53.800 --> 08:57.820 you're maybe on their team, maybe you're cheering them on, there will be prizes which
08:57.820 --> 09:03.120 will be giving out very exclusive, very fantastic, only limited to this kind of event, prizes
09:03.120 --> 09:05.840 that, again, maybe you want the prize signed.
09:05.840 --> 09:06.840 We can make that happen.
09:06.840 --> 09:08.200 What do we got going on?
09:08.200 --> 09:14.400 Shirts and books and buttons and kazoos and t-shirt cannons and all kinds of stuff is
09:14.400 --> 09:15.400 going to be happening.
09:15.400 --> 09:16.400 Yeah, we're giving away t-shirt cannons.
09:16.400 --> 09:17.400 It's insane.
09:17.400 --> 09:18.400 We're giving away... Yes, we're giving away 400 t-shirt cannons.
09:18.400 --> 09:19.400 It's going to be amazing.
09:19.400 --> 09:23.520 We had to... We wanted to know, hey, if we're going to give away t-shirts, somebody brought
09:23.520 --> 09:25.520 the idea that we should shoot them with a cannon.
09:25.520 --> 09:26.520 I looked it up.
09:26.520 --> 09:27.520 Those things are expensive.
09:27.520 --> 09:28.520 They're crazy.
09:28.520 --> 09:29.520 We're not going to be bringing the t-shirt cannon.
09:29.520 --> 09:34.280 We're not bringing the t-shirt cannon, but yeah, but we'll gladly throw something at you.
09:35.280 --> 09:36.280 We'll throw something at you.
09:36.280 --> 09:41.720 We'll lovingly lob something at you, which may be a t-shirt, maybe some kind of a prize,
09:41.720 --> 09:47.680 but it's all part of this four-hour monster event, which is just... It's going to be something that you'll remember for a very, very long time, and if you've been listening to the show for years or maybe you're brand new to the show, it'll be the kind of experience
09:56.400 --> 10:00.540 that will... It's funny how sometimes when people come to these programs that have never
10:00.540 --> 10:06.640 seen all of you live, how they're sometimes surprised at how you look, how you interact,
10:06.640 --> 10:11.600 who's tall, who's short, who's this, who's that, who's aged well, who's not aged so well.
10:12.600 --> 10:13.600 People always think I'm taller.
10:13.600 --> 10:14.600 I'm always amazed.
10:14.600 --> 10:15.600 We thought you'd be taller.
10:15.600 --> 10:16.600 I'm like, no, this is it.
10:16.600 --> 10:17.600 This is what you get.
10:17.600 --> 10:18.600 This is it.
10:18.600 --> 10:22.260 I'm sorry, but that's the kind of thing you get to experience at these private shows.
10:22.260 --> 10:27.480 We can't stress enough how excited we all are, and we can't stress enough how excited
10:27.480 --> 10:33.280 you will all be after having this monstrous four-hour private show plus event.
10:33.280 --> 10:35.120 Look, tickets are limited.
10:35.120 --> 10:37.160 That's the thing that we've got to press as well.
10:37.160 --> 10:41.920 Tickets are limited because we want it to be a relatively intimate kind of thing.
10:41.920 --> 10:45.180 We can't have four, five, 600 people at these things.
10:45.180 --> 10:48.120 It's got to be a smaller number of people so that we can have one-on-one time with all
10:48.120 --> 10:54.400 of you in various permutations, and we can throw a shirt at each one of you if you answer
10:54.400 --> 10:56.760 questions correctly or win prizes.
10:56.760 --> 10:58.080 It's going to be wonderful.
10:58.080 --> 10:59.080 It's going to be fantastic.
10:59.080 --> 11:00.080 What's the dates again there, Jay?
11:00.080 --> 11:04.240 Just give us the official dates.
11:04.240 --> 11:09.280 December 15th is the Phoenix Private Show Plus, so that's the live podcast recording.
11:09.280 --> 11:10.280 That's a Thursday.
11:10.280 --> 11:12.520 That's everything that George is just saying.
11:12.520 --> 11:19.080 On Friday night, we will be doing the Tucson extravaganza, then Saturday afternoon, we
11:19.080 --> 11:24.120 will be doing the Tucson Private Show Plus, and Saturday night, we will be back in Phoenix
11:24.120 --> 11:25.680 doing the extravaganza.
11:25.680 --> 11:29.520 It's a ping-ponging back and forth across the desert kind of weekend for us, which we
11:29.520 --> 11:31.440 are so excited.
11:31.440 --> 11:37.000 You have four opportunities if you live anywhere near Phoenix or Arizona or both of those to
11:37.000 --> 11:45.080 come to all four, or do one, or do two, or let's say three, or maybe even four, and have
11:45.080 --> 11:49.640 the time, have the SG-U-est time you could possibly have.
11:49.640 --> 11:50.640 Be full of SG-U-ness.
11:50.640 --> 11:51.640 It's full of SG-U-ness.
11:51.640 --> 11:56.880 While we're talking about it, George, the extravaganzas are going to be holiday-themed,
11:56.880 --> 12:00.480 and I guarantee you this will never happen again.
12:00.480 --> 12:05.800 That's the other cool thing, yeah, that we're making these special holiday-themed extravaganzas.
12:05.800 --> 12:10.640 The extravaganzas are always a great fun time, lots of games, lots of opportunities to watch
12:10.640 --> 12:16.960 the rogues try to improvise their way out of challenges that I provide for them, but
12:16.960 --> 12:20.360 because it's the middle of December, we're going to have lovely holiday-themed, which
12:20.360 --> 12:24.420 again, it's just going to put you in the mood, and it's the perfect present.
12:24.420 --> 12:25.680 It's the perfect present.
12:25.680 --> 12:30.900 Two weeks before Christmas, or whatever, 10 days before Christmas, like, here it is, sweetheart.
12:30.900 --> 12:33.240 Let's have a holiday extravaganza, and then guess what?
12:33.240 --> 12:36.680 I'm going to surprise you with a private show, plus we get to hang out with the rogues
12:36.680 --> 12:41.440 for another four hours tomorrow, where we did it yesterday and it was amazing.
12:41.440 --> 12:42.440 What's the site there?
12:42.440 --> 12:43.440 Where do they get the tickets, Jay?
12:43.440 --> 12:44.440 Tell them.
12:44.440 --> 12:49.040 They can go to theskepticsguide.org forward slash events for all four of these events.
12:49.040 --> 12:50.040 Do it.
12:50.040 --> 12:51.040 Do it.
12:51.040 --> 12:52.040 It's going to be great.
12:52.040 --> 12:53.040 We can't wait to see all of it.
12:53.040 --> 12:54.040 Thank you, George.
12:54.040 --> 12:55.040 Thanks for joining us.
12:55.040 --> 12:56.040 Thanks, George.
12:56.040 --> 12:57.040 I'm going to go back to my candy.
12:57.040 --> 12:58.040 Wait a minute.
12:58.040 --> 12:59.040 Where's my wrap?
12:59.040 --> 13:00.040 Don't overdo it.
13:00.040 --> 13:01.040 Don't overdo it.
13:01.040 --> 13:02.040 Paste yourself, George.
13:02.040 --> 13:03.040 Paste yourself.
13:03.040 --> 13:06.040 Well, I got to fit in my Santa outfit.
13:06.040 --> 13:07.040 Bye, everybody.
13:07.040 --> 13:08.040 Thanks, George.
13:08.040 --> 13:09.040 Bye.
Update from Ajia Moon (13:09)
13:09.040 --> 13:14.200 Well, that was fun to talk with George, but you know what, guys?
13:14.200 --> 13:19.160 We actually have another guest joining us for this episode.
13:19.160 --> 13:21.040 You guys may remember Ajia.
13:21.040 --> 13:23.840 Asia, you've been on the show a couple of times before.
13:23.840 --> 13:25.080 Thanks for joining us again.
13:25.080 --> 13:26.200 Thanks for having me back.
13:26.200 --> 13:29.360 So remind our listeners what you do.
13:29.360 --> 13:34.800 I've kind of gone to the moon and back since I spoke to you guys last.
13:34.800 --> 13:42.720 So I used to own a medical marijuana dispensary, and Canada changed the Cannabis Act in 2018,
13:42.720 --> 13:47.880 so we closed to work with the new laws in Canada.
13:47.880 --> 13:54.840 I also had to close my original magazine due to the new laws with advertising, and I spent
13:54.840 --> 14:00.200 a couple of years just watching the grass grow and figuring out what I would do next.
14:00.200 --> 14:05.920 I got bored of watching the grass grow, so I opened the magazine, and I'm back out there
14:05.920 --> 14:07.160 and doing my stuff.
14:07.160 --> 14:11.700 We had a huge event on Sunset Beach in Vancouver.
14:11.700 --> 14:17.680 We had a special guest, Mercurys, and Snack the Ripper, and Golden BSP join us on the
14:17.680 --> 14:19.720 beach for a free party.
14:19.720 --> 14:25.520 We had 1,500 people show up, and we're about to do the same thing again, but for $420 in
14:25.520 --> 14:26.520 Vancouver.
14:26.520 --> 14:31.320 Our artist lineup is crazy, and everyone gets to come for free yet again, and my magazine
14:31.320 --> 14:32.320 will be ready.
14:32.320 --> 14:33.320 Awesome.
14:33.320 --> 14:34.320 Cool.
14:34.320 --> 14:38.520 Well, you're a patron of the SGU, and we're glad to have you on the show this week.
14:38.520 --> 14:42.640 We're going to go through our news items, starting with a Quickie with Bob.
14:42.640 --> 14:43.640 All right.
14:43.640 --> 14:44.640 Thank you, Steve.
This Day in Skepticism ()
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Forgotten Superheroes of Science ()
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"5 to 10 Years" ()
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What's the Word? ()
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Your Number's Up ()
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Quickie with Bob: Matter in Neutron Star Collisions (14:44)
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14:44.640 --> 14:45.640 This is your Quickie with Bob.
14:45.640 --> 14:51.680 Hey, Eric, gird your loins, neutron stars are the second densest thing we know in the
14:51.680 --> 14:58.720 universe, being essentially, as its name implies, solid neutrons, but we don't know what even
14:58.720 --> 15:04.440 more exotic matter would appear when neutron stars collide, even though we can now directly
15:04.440 --> 15:07.640 detect the gravitational waves from such an event.
15:07.640 --> 15:09.800 What's happening on the neutron stars?
15:09.800 --> 15:12.640 What kind of weird things are created?
15:12.640 --> 15:17.480 A new model has been published in Physical Review X, which recently describes the use
15:17.480 --> 15:23.200 of nuclear physics models that have been extended, because those models cannot handle such high
15:23.200 --> 15:28.600 density events, but they've been extended to include a string theory technique.
15:28.600 --> 15:35.200 So doctors Demersic and Jarvinen said regarding this, our method uses a mathematical relationship
15:35.200 --> 15:40.180 found in string theory, namely the correspondence between five-dimensional black holes and strongly
15:40.180 --> 15:46.880 interacting matter to describe the phase transition between dense nuclear and quark matter.
15:46.880 --> 15:47.880 Five-dimensional black holes.
15:47.880 --> 15:49.400 I can picture that.
15:49.400 --> 15:54.400 Using this new model in computer simulations shows that not only what the gravitational
15:54.400 --> 15:59.000 waves would be like that were produced, but also that both hot and cold quark matter can
15:59.000 --> 16:01.880 be created by neutron star collisions.
16:01.880 --> 16:06.920 So next, obviously, is to compare this, that the model results to the real gravitational
16:06.920 --> 16:11.240 waves in the near future of colliding neutron stars, and I'm looking forward to it.
16:11.240 --> 16:14.640 This has been your Quickie with Bob, un-gird your loins, people, and I hope it was good
16:14.640 --> 16:15.640 for you, too.
16:15.640 --> 16:16.640 Thanks, Bob.
16:16.640 --> 16:17.640 That was quick.
16:17.640 --> 16:18.640 That went by very quickly.
16:18.640 --> 16:19.640 Yeah, yeah.
16:19.640 --> 16:20.640 It's called the Quickie.
16:20.640 --> 16:21.640 Very nice.
16:21.640 --> 16:22.640 Neutron stars are endlessly fascinating.
16:22.640 --> 16:23.640 They are.
16:23.640 --> 16:26.240 I'd rather see one up close than a black hole, actually.
16:26.240 --> 16:27.240 Yeah.
16:27.240 --> 16:28.240 Although not too close.
16:28.240 --> 16:29.240 Well, right.
16:29.240 --> 16:30.240 Closest.
16:30.240 --> 16:31.240 Yeah.
COVID-19 Update ()
News Items
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Daylight Saving Time (16:31)
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16:31.240 --> 16:32.240 All right.
16:32.240 --> 16:36.120 So, guys, this weekend is the end of daylight saving time.
16:36.120 --> 16:37.120 Oh, boy.
16:37.120 --> 16:38.120 Yeah, that's right.
16:38.120 --> 16:41.400 Asia, do you guys have daylight saving time in Canada?
16:41.400 --> 16:44.120 We do, but it's different depending on where you are.
16:44.120 --> 16:45.120 Oh, yeah?
16:45.120 --> 16:46.120 That's crazy.
16:46.120 --> 16:49.960 Meaning not all the territories or states observe it, or?
16:49.960 --> 16:50.960 Or the time when you do it is different.
16:50.960 --> 16:51.960 We do switch at different times.
16:51.960 --> 16:52.960 Ah.
16:52.960 --> 16:53.960 Yeah.
16:53.960 --> 16:54.960 You switch at different times.
16:54.960 --> 16:57.960 That has to be not confusing at all.
16:57.960 --> 16:58.960 Right.
16:58.960 --> 17:02.520 We've been trying to get rid of daylight saving time for a couple of reasons.
17:02.520 --> 17:06.800 The big one is that nobody knows how to pronounce it, and they say daylight savings time.
17:06.800 --> 17:14.280 But, Evan, tell us what's the update on the efforts to get rid of it.
17:14.280 --> 17:15.280 Yeah.
17:15.280 --> 17:17.680 So the efforts to get rid of it has made the news, of course, this week.
17:17.680 --> 17:23.480 There's lots of stories out there right now as it approaches this coming Sunday.
17:23.480 --> 17:28.400 You know it's called summer time in the United Kingdom and much of Europe, so if you ever
17:28.400 --> 17:34.480 have someone's summer time, and for those of you who don't know, this is when you advance
17:34.480 --> 17:40.800 your clocks during the warmer months so that darkness falls at a later clock time.
17:40.800 --> 17:46.480 And usually it's one hour difference in most cases around the planet, and in the spring
17:46.480 --> 17:51.000 you spring forward, and in autumn or the fall you fall back.
17:51.000 --> 17:54.940 That's how you're supposed to remember exactly how it works.
17:54.940 --> 18:00.060 So as a result, you have one of your days in the spring, it's a 23 hour day, and then
18:00.060 --> 18:05.360 you get one coming up this coming Sunday, it's going to be a 25 hour day.
18:05.360 --> 18:09.400 And here in the United States it's been in place for quite a while now.
18:09.400 --> 18:14.360 It's pretty much since the 1960s we've been using it regularly.
18:14.360 --> 18:21.100 There have been a few times in which they've used it in the 70s for full for the entire
18:21.100 --> 18:22.100 year.
18:22.100 --> 18:26.640 It had to do with daylight savings, it had to do with energy consumption in the 70s when
18:26.640 --> 18:30.840 there was energy issues going on with oil.
18:30.840 --> 18:35.800 Since then pretty much it's been spring forward and fall back.
18:35.800 --> 18:36.900 Every year we do this.
18:36.900 --> 18:38.440 Now a couple updates on this.
18:38.440 --> 18:44.440 Number one, as Steve as you alluded to, where are we now in getting this thing fixed?
18:44.440 --> 18:48.000 And by fixed I mean rid of it.
18:48.000 --> 18:54.160 So we've got the U.S. Senate, which back in March of this year they passed legislation
18:54.160 --> 18:59.960 that would make daylight saving time permanent starting with 2023.
18:59.960 --> 19:05.320 So essentially once we move into daylight saving time that starts in March of 2023 we'd
19:05.320 --> 19:07.000 never come off of it at that point.
19:07.000 --> 19:08.000 That would be it.
19:08.000 --> 19:09.000 We'd be locked into that.
19:09.000 --> 19:10.560 It'd be permanent summertime.
19:10.560 --> 19:11.560 Yep.
19:11.560 --> 19:16.280 So the Senate has passed that and they passed it unanimously by the way, which is you know
19:16.280 --> 19:19.040 that's- That never happens.
19:19.040 --> 19:20.320 That almost never happens.
19:20.320 --> 19:21.640 It was by acclimation, right?
19:21.640 --> 19:24.240 I mean it's not like it was a formal vote.
19:24.240 --> 19:29.600 No it wasn't really a formal vote it was a voice vote but it does, it counts.
19:29.600 --> 19:31.000 So that's part of it.
19:31.000 --> 19:37.880 But in our system of government in order to get this law passed it has to pass both houses
19:37.880 --> 19:44.440 or both branches of the legislative branch, both chambers and the other is the House of
19:44.440 --> 19:45.440 Representatives.
19:45.440 --> 19:50.080 So over in the House of Representatives it's being held.
19:50.080 --> 19:55.560 Held at desk is the term and it's being held by a subcommittee, the Subcommittee on Consumer
19:55.560 --> 20:01.320 Protection and Commerce, which is a subcommittee under the Energy and Commerce Committee, House
20:01.320 --> 20:03.140 Resolution 69.
20:03.140 --> 20:08.780 Now they're saying that the reason that it's held up there is that they're not sure how
20:08.780 --> 20:11.560 to move forward with it, trying to figure it out.
20:11.560 --> 20:17.160 They agree it's a good idea to settle on something and make it permanent in some way.
20:17.160 --> 20:20.600 But they haven't found a consensus yet on the best way to do it.
20:20.600 --> 20:25.400 Do you lock into the daylight saving mode in which you get the extra hour of light in
20:25.400 --> 20:30.160 the evenings or are you going to go to standard time, are you going to lock in there, in which
20:30.160 --> 20:33.080 that extra hour of daylight will occur during the morning hours?
20:33.080 --> 20:38.440 See they are saying that we haven't been able- This is Frank Pallone who's the U.S. Representative
20:38.440 --> 20:41.500 and Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
20:41.500 --> 20:44.040 We haven't been able to find consensus in the House on this yet.
20:44.040 --> 20:47.760 There are a broad variety of opinions about whether to keep the status quo or to move
20:47.760 --> 20:50.760 to a permanent time and if so, what time that should be.
20:50.760 --> 20:54.580 We don't want to make a hasty change and then have it reversed several years later after
20:54.580 --> 20:59.400 public opinion turns against it, which is what happened when they tried it out in the
20:59.400 --> 21:00.400 70s.
21:00.400 --> 21:02.660 So he says those are the concerns there.
21:02.660 --> 21:07.360 So I don't know that we're really going to see anything solid on this, at least certainly
21:07.360 --> 21:12.760 not in time, I don't think in time for the 2023 year and I have no idea what that does
21:12.760 --> 21:15.880 to the Senate bill, if that means that has to go back and they have to revote on that,
21:15.880 --> 21:17.440 who the heck knows.
21:17.440 --> 21:24.720 But we've talked about this before on the show and we have some differing opinions kind
21:24.720 --> 21:28.220 of on this, at least we've expressed it in the past.
21:28.220 --> 21:31.280 By the way, here's Bob, this is for you.
21:31.280 --> 21:34.560 At two o'clock in the morning this coming Sunday, we're going to go back to one o'clock,
21:34.560 --> 21:35.560 right?
21:35.560 --> 21:36.560 That's how it works.
21:36.560 --> 21:38.480 On that Sunday, it goes back to one.
21:38.480 --> 21:43.020 That means we're going to have a pair of 1 a.m.s. at the same day, right?
21:43.020 --> 21:52.520 And that's 60 duplicate minutes, that's 3600 more seconds and five quadrillion, 600 trillion
21:52.520 --> 21:53.520 additional picoseconds.
21:53.520 --> 21:54.520 Ooh, nice.
21:54.520 --> 21:55.520 So Bob, that's for you.
21:55.520 --> 21:56.520 Well done, well done.
21:56.520 --> 21:57.520 Thank you.
21:57.520 --> 21:58.520 Thank you very much.
21:58.520 --> 22:02.320 And you know that, hey, those are precious picoseconds of life, if you ask me.
22:02.320 --> 22:03.320 Precious.
22:03.320 --> 22:07.980 If you think about it that way, during a person's life, if they happen to die during daylight
22:07.980 --> 22:11.920 saving, they're going to lose five quadrillion, 600 trillion picoseconds.
22:11.920 --> 22:15.000 So I don't think that's necessarily a trivial thing.
22:15.000 --> 22:18.420 Now there's some more news about daylight saving.
22:18.420 --> 22:22.000 There are some new studies that are out and they have to do, well, one has to do with
22:22.000 --> 22:25.280 sleep and the other has to do with accidents.
22:25.280 --> 22:26.840 Sleep interference is bad.
22:26.840 --> 22:32.920 Well, we all agree on that and I think there are many, many studies that have revealed
22:32.920 --> 22:37.200 this, and more studies have confirmed this.
22:37.200 --> 22:41.880 And you know, certainly children need lots of sleep and they are perhaps the worst at
22:41.880 --> 22:46.040 adapting to sudden changes in those kinds of routines, especially when it comes to sleep.
22:46.040 --> 22:51.500 Again, there have been studies published, more recently a 2019 study published in the
22:51.500 --> 22:52.640 Journal of Sleep.
22:52.640 --> 22:58.320 They found that changes in the clock usually result in a loss of sleep for kids and they
22:58.320 --> 23:02.800 have longer and greater disruptions happening among infants and young kids.
23:02.800 --> 23:06.020 So the younger you are, apparently the worse it is for you.
23:06.020 --> 23:08.400 It can affect children's sleep badly.
23:08.400 --> 23:13.640 In some cases, seven to 28 days they could take to adjust to that time change, a one
23:13.640 --> 23:19.860 hour time for a child could take up to almost a month for them to be able to adjust.
23:19.860 --> 23:21.860 So that's not trivial.
23:21.860 --> 23:26.680 And they say to help offset that, what you should do is in the days leading up to the
23:26.680 --> 23:31.680 change, you change everybody's bedtime accordingly to make that adjustment.
23:31.680 --> 23:32.960 And you do it by 30 minutes.
23:32.960 --> 23:34.360 You don't do it by the full hour.
23:34.360 --> 23:35.820 So it doesn't seem so severe.
23:35.820 --> 23:38.520 It's more of a gradual ease into it.
23:38.520 --> 23:42.840 But then there's this other study that came out just not too long ago.
23:42.840 --> 23:44.880 This was late August or early September.
23:44.880 --> 23:50.040 In PLOS One, this was reported, sleep loss leads to the withdrawal of human helping across
23:50.040 --> 23:54.680 individuals, across groups, and large scale societies.
23:54.680 --> 24:00.460 And they specifically reference daylight saving time as one of those reasons, especially at
24:00.460 --> 24:02.540 the large scale level.
24:02.540 --> 24:07.280 And of these studies, they said, we demonstrate that one hour of lost sleep opportunity inflicted
24:07.280 --> 24:12.640 by the transition to daylight saving time reduces real world altruistic helping through
24:12.640 --> 24:15.360 the act of donation giving.
24:15.360 --> 24:20.480 And they established it through the analysis of over three million charitable donations.
24:20.480 --> 24:25.760 The other studies that they did with this, it triggers the withdrawal of help from one
24:25.760 --> 24:27.520 individual to another.
24:27.520 --> 24:31.880 And the FMRI findings revealed that the withdrawal of human helping is associated with deactivation
24:31.880 --> 24:38.440 of key nodes within the social cognition brain network that facilitates willingness to help
24:38.440 --> 24:40.040 others.
24:40.040 --> 24:45.080 And they said it also at another study at a group level, the night to night reductions
24:45.080 --> 24:49.160 in sleep across several nights predict corresponding next day reductions in the choice to help
24:49.160 --> 24:52.120 others during day to day interactions.
24:52.120 --> 24:57.480 So yeah, they're saying that here we go, daylight saving time again.
24:57.480 --> 24:59.160 Ben Simon was the lead author on this.
24:59.160 --> 25:02.880 He says, this is actually the first study to show that there is an impact on people's
25:02.880 --> 25:07.240 generosity and pro social behavior following daylight saving time.
25:07.240 --> 25:11.400 It's just more evidence of the importance of sleep on people's behavior.
25:11.400 --> 25:14.760 Brain areas that are typically active when we think about what other people might want
25:14.760 --> 25:20.800 or need were significantly less active following a night of lost sleep directly tied in one
25:20.800 --> 25:22.080 of these studies to daylight saving.
25:22.080 --> 25:23.080 Yeah.
25:23.080 --> 25:24.720 So basically we're grumpy when we don't get enough sleep.
25:24.720 --> 25:25.720 Yeah.
25:25.720 --> 25:32.040 And less willing to help others, it puts us into a different state.
25:32.040 --> 25:33.040 Yeah, definitely.
25:33.040 --> 25:34.040 This is so complicated.
25:34.040 --> 25:36.680 So I don't think there's no consensus on this.
25:36.680 --> 25:41.200 About a third of people want to keep it the way it is, a third want permanent DSA and
25:41.200 --> 25:46.080 a third want permanent standard time, you know, it's a little bit more for the standard
25:46.080 --> 25:50.800 time, but it shifts from year to year, the survey, but it's basically a third, a third
25:50.800 --> 25:51.800 and a third.
25:51.800 --> 25:54.720 So that's why no matter what you do, someone's going to complain.
25:54.720 --> 25:58.040 You know, if we make a change, people are going to complain, just kind of ignore them.
25:58.040 --> 26:01.160 Just have to decide what the one's best and just go with it and let people complain until
26:01.160 --> 26:02.720 we all stop complaining about it.
26:02.720 --> 26:05.960 I think there's no question that changing is bad, right?
26:05.960 --> 26:11.920 Going back and forth between the two has its own problems, increased accidents, loss of
26:11.920 --> 26:13.080 sleep, et cetera.
26:13.080 --> 26:17.740 But the data on what's better, permanent daylight saving time or permanent standard time is
26:17.740 --> 26:21.600 mixed and it's just like, it's a pick your poison kind of thing.
26:21.600 --> 26:27.880 The sleep specialists all say that that standard time is better, that daylight because it matches
26:27.880 --> 26:31.920 the circadian rhythm to the light, you know, the sun cycle better.
26:31.920 --> 26:35.440 Depending on where you live, that doesn't necessarily apply.
26:35.440 --> 26:38.680 Of course, this depends, this is hugely, hugely regionally.
26:38.680 --> 26:44.520 And yeah, because I lived up in the Yukon for about six months and it goes from like
26:44.520 --> 26:51.760 12 to 12 to 10 to 14, all of a sudden you're in 22 hour days during the summer and then
26:51.760 --> 26:55.920 it just right into winter and it's really, yeah, I don't think, I don't think adjusting
26:55.920 --> 26:59.700 by an hour is going to do a whole lot for you in that situation.
26:59.700 --> 27:03.520 And that's, that's really the question though, right, Steve, like obviously the permanent,
27:03.520 --> 27:08.640 the permanentness, it might have some difference if it's an hour forward, an hour back, but
27:08.640 --> 27:10.440 isn't the main problem, the changing?
27:10.440 --> 27:11.440 Yeah.
27:11.440 --> 27:13.960 Well, as I said, the changing is definitely a problem.
27:13.960 --> 27:14.960 There's no question about that.
27:14.960 --> 27:15.960 Yeah.
27:15.960 --> 27:20.240 But if you get to which, which one should be permanent, it's a mixed bag.
27:20.240 --> 27:25.000 You know, it sounds like for the sleep scientist say you're better, you know, from a medical
27:25.000 --> 27:29.760 point of view, you're better off having standard time, but that assumes of course that we don't
27:29.760 --> 27:32.120 adjust our like school starting time.
27:32.120 --> 27:37.120 See, I think we should go to permanent DST and make school start an hour later.
27:37.120 --> 27:40.920 A lot of people already have flex time in terms of when they start their day, but you
27:40.920 --> 27:44.360 know, for work, but we could make that more standard.
27:44.360 --> 27:45.360 There's some interesting things.
27:45.360 --> 27:46.360 I just did a deep dive on this.
27:46.360 --> 27:47.500 Why I have all this loaded up.
27:47.500 --> 27:52.960 So one thing is, um, economically it's all better DST has advantages cause there's basically
27:52.960 --> 27:55.840 more economic activity happening in the early evening.
27:55.840 --> 27:59.000 Then that's why it's been extended like it used to be six months out of the year.
27:59.000 --> 28:03.360 Now in the U S now it's eight months out of the year because of the candy lobby for Halloween
28:03.360 --> 28:09.680 and the golf course lobby and you know, barbecue supplies, like all these things and those
28:09.680 --> 28:14.320 activities are increases with DST.
28:14.320 --> 28:21.280 The other thing is DST matches better with solar power and energy use.
28:21.280 --> 28:26.320 So if we, if we want to maximize solar power, DST is better.
28:26.320 --> 28:32.800 I just saw a study today that DST matches better with deer, um, which you might not
28:32.800 --> 28:34.200 think, Oh, who cares what the deer want.
28:34.200 --> 28:35.200 Right.
28:35.200 --> 28:42.680 But the studies showed that by going to permanent DST would reduce 36,550 deer deaths, 33 human
28:42.680 --> 28:50.360 deaths, 2054 human injuries, and $1.19 billion in costs from hitting deer on the roadways.
28:50.360 --> 28:56.280 Do you have something like the second most lethal animal in America or something like
28:56.280 --> 28:57.280 that?
28:57.280 --> 28:58.280 I don't know.
28:58.280 --> 28:59.280 I don't know about that statistically.
28:59.280 --> 29:00.280 I've hit three.
29:00.280 --> 29:01.280 I've hit one.
29:01.280 --> 29:02.280 Oh my gosh.
29:02.280 --> 29:03.280 No, I've never.
29:03.280 --> 29:04.280 I've yet to hit one.
29:04.280 --> 29:05.280 Thank goodness.
29:05.280 --> 29:08.920 It's incredible that we have that much data about what goes on in the world.
29:08.920 --> 29:12.920 You know, every one of these gets reported as a, as a, to insurance companies, right?
29:12.920 --> 29:15.200 That's probably why we have so much data on it.
29:15.200 --> 29:19.360 And the original reason, the original, we, this was a world war one time idea.
29:19.360 --> 29:23.000 Let's let's go to DS DST in order to save energy.
29:23.000 --> 29:28.640 It saves about 1% for lighting, but if you include a heating, it flips the other way.
29:28.640 --> 29:33.200 So it's, it's more of a mixed bag again, if you include total energy, not just energy
29:33.200 --> 29:34.660 for lighting.
29:34.660 --> 29:37.300 So you know, it's basically a mixed bag.
29:37.300 --> 29:42.320 We just should pick one so that we don't have to change, adjust to it if we need to and
29:42.320 --> 29:43.320 go on with our lives.
29:43.320 --> 29:44.320 Yeah.
29:44.320 --> 29:46.360 Universally, the change is what's the worst part of all.
29:46.360 --> 29:47.360 Yeah, exactly.
29:47.360 --> 29:48.360 You have to make the change.
29:48.360 --> 29:49.360 Okay.
29:49.360 --> 29:50.360 All right.
29:50.360 --> 29:51.360 Let's go on.
Humans Working With Robots (29:51)
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29:51.360 --> 29:54.800 Jay, are we getting close to having humans and robots working together?
29:54.800 --> 29:56.640 Steve, it's already happening.
29:56.640 --> 29:57.640 Is it?
29:57.640 --> 29:58.640 Oh yeah.
29:58.640 --> 30:03.080 There's, there's, there's lots of companies out there that have some type of automation
30:03.080 --> 30:05.220 robot doing some work.
30:05.220 --> 30:09.880 You know, what's happening is more and more industries are starting to utilize robots
30:09.880 --> 30:12.800 to do a huge variety of jobs.
30:12.800 --> 30:16.920 And you know, we have humans and robots, they they're working together.
30:16.920 --> 30:22.280 And if they work together correctly and if things are optimized, this can, can have a
30:22.280 --> 30:25.280 significant improvement on manufacturing processes.
30:25.280 --> 30:28.920 It could save time, it could save labor, it could save, you know, costs, everything.
30:28.920 --> 30:30.320 It's just a really good thing.
30:30.320 --> 30:35.520 And this of course means that more people are finding that they have to work alongside
30:35.520 --> 30:36.520 some type of robot.
30:36.520 --> 30:39.000 You know, it's, it's just starting to happen.
30:39.000 --> 30:44.180 Companies need to make sure that their workers can effectively work alongside robots of course.
30:44.180 --> 30:48.560 And ideally companies can help make the experience of working with robots positive for their
30:48.560 --> 30:49.560 workers.
30:49.560 --> 30:53.040 They don't want it to be like, you know, have this horrible negative experience that happens
30:53.040 --> 30:54.200 every day while they're at work.
30:54.200 --> 30:56.060 They want it to be as seamless as possible.
30:56.060 --> 30:57.060 They want it to be safe.
30:57.060 --> 31:01.640 There's lots of factors that they, you know, apply here, but a key factor is that humans
31:01.640 --> 31:05.840 need to develop trust for their robot coworkers.
31:05.840 --> 31:09.080 And if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense.
31:09.080 --> 31:14.920 You know, a human has to be able to accept what the machine is doing and be able to work
31:14.920 --> 31:15.920 alongside it.
31:15.920 --> 31:19.600 And a big factor in there is the idea that they have to have, simply have to have trust
31:19.600 --> 31:21.400 for the work that it's doing.
31:21.400 --> 31:27.320 And if companies can establish trust in robotic workers, the quality and safety can easily
31:27.320 --> 31:28.320 improve.
31:28.320 --> 31:32.200 So trust is actually critical for a shared human and robot workspace to actually function
31:32.200 --> 31:37.500 and, you know, in the first place, like there is already this issue of whether or not some
31:37.500 --> 31:41.680 companies that, you know, employees of companies have trust in the robotics that are happening
31:41.680 --> 31:42.680 there.
31:42.680 --> 31:48.060 So I think we should distinguish between robots that have been working in factories for decades
31:48.060 --> 31:54.000 now would be like, say, like car manufacturers where they've got a zone that you humans aren't
31:54.000 --> 31:55.000 allowed.
31:55.000 --> 31:56.000 We're not talking about that, right?
31:56.000 --> 32:00.000 We're talking about close proximity with no swinging arms that's going to take your head
32:00.000 --> 32:01.000 off.
32:01.000 --> 32:02.000 Yeah.
32:02.000 --> 32:03.000 I'll get into that, Bob.
32:03.000 --> 32:05.080 I'll get more into details about what kind of robot we're talking about.
32:05.080 --> 32:11.360 But in this study that I'm about to tell you about, there's a robot called the UR-10 collaborative
32:11.360 --> 32:12.360 robot.
32:12.360 --> 32:18.640 And it's essentially a robot arm that has five points of articulation that, you know,
32:18.640 --> 32:20.700 isn't that much bigger than a human arm.
32:20.700 --> 32:24.420 But it could just spin and do different, you know, it can move in many different ways.
32:24.420 --> 32:30.520 So in Human Factors, the Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, researchers
32:30.520 --> 32:35.820 at the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Texas A&M University are trying
32:35.820 --> 32:41.520 to figure out how human behavior is affected by robots and having them present in the workspace.
32:41.520 --> 32:46.760 So for example, when humans get fatigued, and this is counterintuitive to me, at least
32:46.760 --> 32:52.000 when humans get fatigued and or stressed out at work, they become more trusting of the
32:52.000 --> 32:54.240 robots they work alongside.
32:54.240 --> 32:56.200 And just think about that for a second.
32:56.200 --> 32:57.200 That's pretty interesting.
32:57.200 --> 32:58.200 Right.
32:58.200 --> 33:02.440 You know, when they get tired, well, we'll begin to trust the robots that are that are
33:02.440 --> 33:07.800 working alongside them more, you'd think maybe the opposite of that, but that's not the case.
33:07.800 --> 33:08.920 And look, I'm too tired.
33:08.920 --> 33:09.920 You do it.
33:09.920 --> 33:11.640 Yeah, maybe that's it.
33:11.640 --> 33:13.200 That's a simple explanation.
33:13.200 --> 33:19.720 So using functional near infrared spectroscopy on 16 test subjects, researchers looked at
33:19.720 --> 33:22.160 their brain activity during the test.
33:22.160 --> 33:28.080 And particularly they looked at brain activation, connectivity, subjective responses and performance
33:28.080 --> 33:30.120 were measured throughout this study.
33:30.120 --> 33:35.040 They were they were studying the brains of the test subjects to see what kind of responses
33:35.040 --> 33:40.480 that they were having to having the robotic worker work near them next to them with them.
33:40.480 --> 33:43.840 And most importantly, they did something really interesting.
33:43.840 --> 33:47.880 So they wanted to know how the test subjects, you know, how their trusting behaviors were
33:47.880 --> 33:51.800 affected as they interacted and worked with the UR-10 collaborative robot.
33:51.800 --> 33:55.240 Now, and like I said, this robot has five points of articulation, it could do a lot
33:55.240 --> 33:59.080 of really, really good, very precise types of movements.
33:59.080 --> 34:03.640 So what they did was they varied the robot's reliability and the robot's level of assistance
34:03.640 --> 34:04.640 during the test.
34:04.640 --> 34:10.080 Now, when I say the robot's reliability, the robots would make mistakes deliberately, right?
34:10.080 --> 34:14.880 The people, the researchers were deliberately having the robot's reliability go down and
34:14.880 --> 34:19.960 then they tested the test subjects to see what was going on in their brain.
34:19.960 --> 34:20.960 And check this out.
34:20.960 --> 34:26.440 Here's a quote from the study, significantly increased neural activation was observed in
34:26.440 --> 34:33.280 response to faulty robot behavior within the medial and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
34:33.280 --> 34:34.640 PFC.
34:34.640 --> 34:39.880 A similar trend was observed for the anterior PFC, primary motor cortex and primary visual
34:39.880 --> 34:41.040 cortex.
34:41.040 --> 34:45.680 Faulty robot behavior also resulted in reduced functional connectivity strengths throughout
34:45.680 --> 34:46.680 the brain.
34:46.680 --> 34:48.440 Steve, what did I just read?
34:48.440 --> 34:52.080 First of all, you know, this is an fMRI study, I'm assuming, right?
34:52.080 --> 34:58.240 I mean, you always got to take those with a grain of salt because there's a high noise,
34:58.240 --> 35:00.720 you know, factor in them.
35:00.720 --> 35:01.720 You know what I mean?
35:01.720 --> 35:03.760 It's like an average of an average.
35:03.760 --> 35:05.680 And they're also usually super low ends.
35:05.680 --> 35:06.680 Yeah.
35:06.680 --> 35:08.960 You're just looking at like a random, like a very, very small sampling.
35:08.960 --> 35:14.320 But if we assume that that's correct, they're just saying, oh yeah, these frontal lobe parts
35:14.320 --> 35:19.560 of the brain are, they're more active when the robot makes mistakes.
35:19.560 --> 35:21.840 Is that what, is that the bottom line?
35:21.840 --> 35:22.840 Yeah.
35:22.840 --> 35:27.920 So the researchers found that when the robot made an error, that the test subjects trust
35:27.920 --> 35:28.920 in the robot lowered.
35:28.920 --> 35:33.680 So when the test subject was in a lower state of trust for the robot coworker, parts of
35:33.680 --> 35:35.240 their brain began to work harder.
35:35.240 --> 35:36.880 And this is the part that I find fascinating.
35:36.880 --> 35:37.880 That makes sense, right?
35:37.880 --> 35:39.920 You know, like, okay, they have to pay attention more.
35:39.920 --> 35:43.080 Now they have to monitor what the robot's doing there.
35:43.080 --> 35:46.880 Part of trust, this does also, I think it's back to like when they're tired, they trust
35:46.880 --> 35:47.880 more.
35:47.880 --> 35:51.520 Lack of trust is a high mental energy state, right?
35:51.520 --> 35:55.720 And trust is like permission to like go to a lower mental energy state.
35:55.720 --> 35:57.120 I trust you're going to do this.
35:57.120 --> 35:58.660 I can relax.
35:58.660 --> 35:59.660 You don't trust somebody.
35:59.660 --> 36:00.660 You can't relax.
36:00.660 --> 36:02.120 You've got to be, you know, looking over their shoulder.
36:02.120 --> 36:05.220 So that makes basic sense, I guess.
36:05.220 --> 36:09.240 So as they like, let me give you a, for instance, they, they lower the accuracy of what the
36:09.240 --> 36:11.180 robot arm is doing.
36:11.180 --> 36:17.080 And what they found was this translated into more brain activity, which increased the test
36:17.080 --> 36:20.920 subjects workload because they began to compensate for the faulty robot.
36:20.920 --> 36:25.020 So again, you know, on the opposite side of this, when the robots performed well, these
36:25.020 --> 36:26.800 brain regions worked well together.
36:26.800 --> 36:32.800 So, you know, what we're seeing is that the test subjects were showing a fatigue.
36:32.800 --> 36:36.700 They were more fatigued and they were working at a higher level of stress when the robot
36:36.700 --> 36:38.520 wasn't working as efficiently.
36:38.520 --> 36:44.120 So it does have an emotional impact on human workers when and if the robots weren't working
36:44.120 --> 36:45.900 in an optimal way.
36:45.900 --> 36:50.480 So that might seem obvious, but it is something that they were able to prove.
36:50.480 --> 36:54.300 And because they're studying the brain and studying which parts of the brain are lighting
36:54.300 --> 37:00.400 up during these very specific moments, it gives them, it teaches them where to look
37:00.400 --> 37:04.260 in the future for more clues about a human response.
37:04.260 --> 37:08.240 And if you, if you think about it, you know, because so many people are going to be working
37:08.240 --> 37:13.280 with robots and interacting with robots and at some point even talking to robots, you
37:13.280 --> 37:18.760 know, this is a very early study, but we need to study human robot interaction in general.
37:18.760 --> 37:24.080 If you think about it, we need to optimize the way robots handle working with human beings
37:24.080 --> 37:28.120 in the way that we respond to the, to them working in our space.
37:28.120 --> 37:32.440 So it's a very complicated situation, but I find it to be really fascinating because
37:32.440 --> 37:37.960 we're right at the beginning guys of, of robots really starting to go into many different
37:37.960 --> 37:41.060 industries and, and you know, they're going to proliferate.
37:41.060 --> 37:43.320 They're going to, they're starting to show up everywhere.
37:43.320 --> 37:49.820 What I want to know though, Jay, is what's the difference between a robot coworker making
37:49.820 --> 37:52.720 an error and a human coworker making an error?
37:52.720 --> 37:53.720 Maybe it's the same.
37:53.720 --> 37:54.720 Yeah.
37:54.720 --> 37:55.720 They were, I agree.
37:55.720 --> 37:56.800 And they were, they studied that.
37:56.800 --> 38:01.400 They studied humans as well, like human and humans working together.
38:01.400 --> 38:03.400 And were they fine?
38:03.400 --> 38:07.360 Well, from what I read, it seemed to be very similar to the response to the robot.
38:07.360 --> 38:08.360 Yeah.
38:08.360 --> 38:12.880 So I was going to say the through line here might be that people react the same to working
38:12.880 --> 38:16.120 with a robot as they do with a human, right?
38:16.120 --> 38:20.760 And as far as at least that is concerned that they will trust a robot, but that trust will
38:20.760 --> 38:25.620 go down when the robot makes mistakes, just like you would read same way you would respond
38:25.620 --> 38:31.160 to a human coworker, which is what I think, you know, my take on the totality of this
38:31.160 --> 38:36.060 research is that, yeah, people will treat robots like people, you know, as long as they
38:36.060 --> 38:37.060 act like people.
38:37.060 --> 38:38.160 They'll be treated like people.
38:38.160 --> 38:40.120 The fact that they're a machine makes no difference.
38:40.120 --> 38:44.800 See, they did say that if you put googly eyes on the robot arm, that it could anger some
38:44.800 --> 38:45.800 people.
38:45.800 --> 38:46.800 Yeah.
38:46.800 --> 38:47.800 That could.
38:47.800 --> 38:48.800 Yeah.
38:48.800 --> 38:49.800 But how cool is this, guys?
38:49.800 --> 38:54.560 I mean, we are, we are studying people's brains to see how they react to working with a robot.
38:54.560 --> 38:55.560 I just love that.
38:55.560 --> 38:56.560 Yeah.
38:56.560 --> 39:01.720 I mean, there's, there's a lot of angles to this research, making robot faces be expressive,
39:01.720 --> 39:06.560 have emotion, you know, having softer robot parts so they could interact in human spaces
39:06.560 --> 39:07.560 more.
39:07.560 --> 39:11.720 So I think this is just one piece of a much bigger puzzle, you know, in terms of robots
39:11.720 --> 39:12.720 in human spaces.
39:12.720 --> 39:13.720 Right.
39:13.720 --> 39:14.720 Yeah.
39:14.720 --> 39:18.440 As Bob was saying, having hard robots on factory floors where people don't go, that's different.
39:18.440 --> 39:19.440 That's easy.
39:19.440 --> 39:20.440 We've been doing that for decades.
39:20.440 --> 39:24.160 But like having a robot in your house, that's a totally different kettle of fish.
39:24.160 --> 39:28.400 Well, just to make it perfectly clear, Steve, this was a collaboration workspace.
39:28.400 --> 39:31.920 Like they had to work together, like they had to, they were touching the same parts.
39:31.920 --> 39:35.720 They had to hand things off to each other and do, you know, some coordinated movements.
39:35.720 --> 39:36.720 Totally.
39:36.720 --> 39:37.720 Yeah.
39:37.720 --> 39:40.400 So that I could, I could really see how fatiguing that would be.
39:40.400 --> 39:45.240 Imagine, you know, you're working an eight hour shift and the robot is, is having problems
39:45.240 --> 39:46.560 over and over and over again.
39:46.560 --> 39:49.120 You'd get to the point where you want to pull your hair out, you know?
39:49.120 --> 39:50.120 Yeah.
39:50.120 --> 39:51.120 All right.
39:51.120 --> 39:52.120 Thanks, Jay.
Lottery Miracle (39:52)
- [link_URL TITLE][5]
39:52.120 --> 39:54.840 So guys, have you heard, Evan, you sent this to everybody, but you've read the article
39:54.840 --> 39:58.440 or heard about the lottery miracle that happened earlier this week.
39:58.440 --> 40:02.160 Well, there was a miracle or maybe it was last week.
40:02.160 --> 40:03.160 Yep.
40:03.160 --> 40:04.160 Yeah.
40:04.160 --> 40:08.080 So tell me what, tell me what logical fallacy this is.
40:08.080 --> 40:10.800 Here is the headline of the New York post.
40:10.800 --> 40:13.200 Now I know the New York post is a rag.
40:13.200 --> 40:19.040 You don't have to tell me a high quality, uh, journal Alexander Hamilton founded the
40:19.040 --> 40:20.040 New York post.
40:20.040 --> 40:21.200 What are you talking about?
40:21.200 --> 40:22.200 We love that.
40:22.200 --> 40:23.200 Whatever.
40:23.200 --> 40:26.120 But all of the local news had basically the same reporting, right?
40:26.120 --> 40:28.600 This was just the local news reported it this way.
40:28.600 --> 40:32.920 It hit the national news, but with all the local news reporting, this is the way it was
40:32.920 --> 40:33.920 reported.
40:33.920 --> 40:42.040 So here's the New York post headline, one in 331 billion chance, same New York lottery
40:42.040 --> 40:44.680 numbers drawn twice in one day.
40:44.680 --> 40:45.680 Oh, wow.
40:45.680 --> 40:46.680 You guys think about that.
40:46.680 --> 40:47.680 That happened.
40:47.680 --> 40:50.680 I've never heard of that.
40:50.680 --> 40:52.520 It did happen.
40:52.520 --> 40:56.040 What do you think about the one in 331 billion chance of that happening?
40:56.040 --> 40:57.040 That seems pretty remarkable.
40:57.040 --> 41:00.680 Well, I mean, how many, how many times, I mean, it's a law of large numbers, right?
41:00.680 --> 41:03.720 I mean, you have a lot of lottery numbers are being pulled.
41:03.720 --> 41:07.180 All the time, all over the country, although in many countries.
41:07.180 --> 41:12.680 So the chance is one place doing the same number twice is not as crazy as you might
41:12.680 --> 41:13.680 think.
41:13.680 --> 41:15.200 Do you think there are billions of lottery draws?
41:15.200 --> 41:16.200 No, there's not.
41:16.200 --> 41:20.840 And it is, you know, a hell of a coincidence if it happened and it's a five number system
41:20.840 --> 41:25.560 at one through, Oh, what's the 38, I think it's 39, it goes to 39.
41:25.560 --> 41:26.800 So numbers one through 39.
41:26.800 --> 41:31.200 So, well, here's the, all right, so it's actually not a big deal at all.
41:31.200 --> 41:34.440 And the 331 billion is wrong.
41:34.440 --> 41:35.720 It's straight up wrong.
41:35.720 --> 41:37.000 They lied to me.
41:37.000 --> 41:38.000 So all right.
41:38.000 --> 41:42.820 So as Evan says, a five number system, the chance of getting any particular sequence
41:42.820 --> 41:43.880 of numbers, right?
41:43.880 --> 41:52.300 So, or the chance of winning with a single ticket is one in 575,757, right?
41:52.300 --> 41:55.520 So the chance of drawing the same number twice in a row is what?
41:55.520 --> 41:56.520 It's the same.
41:56.520 --> 41:57.520 It's the same.
41:57.520 --> 42:03.560 So the chance of winning with a single ticket is one in 575,757, the first number could
42:03.560 --> 42:04.560 be anything.
42:04.560 --> 42:08.840 It's the chance of the second number matching the first number.
42:08.840 --> 42:09.840 That's it.
42:09.840 --> 42:11.080 That's the probability.
42:11.080 --> 42:15.400 So the 331 billion is calculating it for both numbers, right?
42:15.400 --> 42:21.120 You would have had to place a bet if you were, if you bet for both numbers ahead of time,
42:21.120 --> 42:25.800 that's the 331 billion, but just the fact that, so the other thing, right?
42:25.800 --> 42:26.800 So that's wrong.
42:26.800 --> 42:27.800 They're saying it was a one.
42:27.800 --> 42:34.120 They said, but experts told us, so experts took out their calculator, squared 575,757
42:34.120 --> 42:37.200 and came up with a number, but that's absolutely wrong.
42:37.200 --> 42:38.200 So what's the fallacy?
42:38.200 --> 42:45.740 Well, it's really the expert fallacy really obvious when you think about it, really obvious
42:45.740 --> 42:55.520 when you think about it, but the lottery fallacy, the lottery fallacy, that was another trick.
42:55.520 --> 43:00.920 First the New York Post, then Steve, I can't take this because they're calculating the
43:00.920 --> 43:06.880 odds of those numbers coming up rather than any numbers coming up, right?
43:06.880 --> 43:13.840 So but it's even a little worse than that because they're deciding on the pattern after
43:13.840 --> 43:14.840 the fact, right?
43:14.840 --> 43:16.600 So there's a sort of little bit of post hoc thing.
43:16.600 --> 43:21.660 So for example, would they have reported this if the numbers came up twice in a row, even
43:21.660 --> 43:23.600 if they weren't both in the same day?
43:23.600 --> 43:24.600 Of course they would.
43:24.600 --> 43:25.600 Right?
43:25.600 --> 43:30.840 The reason why we tend to see a lot of coincidences is because we are retrofitting, like we're
43:30.840 --> 43:33.800 deciding what the pattern is after we see it, right?
43:33.800 --> 43:34.800 We love pattern seeking.
43:34.800 --> 43:35.800 It's like we do it with dice.
43:35.800 --> 43:36.800 Yeah.
43:36.800 --> 43:37.800 What are the odds?
43:37.800 --> 43:38.800 I rolled a seven three times in a row.
43:38.800 --> 43:39.800 The same as the odds of rolling anything.
43:39.800 --> 43:40.800 Yeah, right.
43:40.800 --> 43:47.960 In this case, you could say, well, you know, it doesn't have to be two numbers coming up
43:47.960 --> 43:48.960 in the same day.
43:48.960 --> 43:51.320 It could just be two in a row.
43:51.320 --> 43:55.120 So this is a daily seven days a week, twice a day lottery.
43:55.120 --> 44:00.500 So it's literally 365 opportunities for this to happen every year.
44:00.500 --> 44:07.420 So in 10 years, in 10 years, the odds of this happening, one in 157.
44:07.420 --> 44:08.420 Not that big.
44:08.420 --> 44:09.420 No.
44:09.420 --> 44:12.040 One in 131 billion.
44:12.040 --> 44:14.040 It's really one in 157.
44:14.040 --> 44:18.880 If you consider like if this should happen once every, you know, whatever, a few decades.
44:18.880 --> 44:24.360 The other thing is there are 180 lotteries in the world, right?
44:24.360 --> 44:29.760 So out of those hundreds, this should happen every year or whatever, you know, exactly
44:29.760 --> 44:31.760 how many times those are those were repeated.
44:31.760 --> 44:34.700 But something like this should be happening on a regular basis.
44:34.700 --> 44:35.700 And guess what?
44:35.700 --> 44:36.700 It does.
44:36.700 --> 44:42.240 The first time this has happened in 2009, but the Bulgarian lottery turned out the same
44:42.240 --> 44:43.240 numbers in one week.
44:43.240 --> 44:44.240 Right.
44:44.240 --> 44:48.560 And that was considered to be too big a coincidence to have been happening.
44:48.560 --> 44:49.560 It's rigged.
44:49.560 --> 44:50.560 There's something wrong with the system.
44:50.560 --> 44:51.560 It should be happening.
44:51.560 --> 44:52.560 Oh, my God.
44:52.560 --> 44:53.560 All the time.
44:53.560 --> 44:56.880 You know, it would be extraordinary if it didn't happen.
44:56.880 --> 44:57.880 Right.
44:57.880 --> 44:58.880 Exactly.
44:58.880 --> 45:05.440 And if we extend it out to a week, if we do 14 sets of numbers, that's 91 possible comparisons
45:05.440 --> 45:07.920 out of that hundred and fifty seven.
45:07.920 --> 45:12.800 So it's basically a bit greater than 50 percent chance that you go that that would happen.
45:12.800 --> 45:14.880 So anyway, it's it should happen.
45:14.880 --> 45:15.880 Yeah.
45:15.880 --> 45:17.980 It's this kind of thing should be happening.
45:17.980 --> 45:21.980 But the fact that I mean, I know that, you know, whatever, again, the local news isn't
45:21.980 --> 45:22.980 going to get this right.
45:22.980 --> 45:27.240 You know, they're going to present it in the most sensational way possible.
45:27.240 --> 45:31.060 So somebody because somebody with a calculator is, by definition, an expert, right?
45:31.060 --> 45:34.640 Somebody multiplied those two numbers with three hundred thirty one billion.
45:34.640 --> 45:35.640 That was enough for them.
45:35.640 --> 45:38.600 They didn't have to think about it for two seconds.
45:38.600 --> 45:42.320 And then, you know, you see that that was their headline one in three hundred thirty
45:42.320 --> 45:43.320 one billion chance.
45:43.320 --> 45:45.780 But I knew that had to be wrong or had to be something wrong about that.
45:45.780 --> 45:47.640 But it was it was pretty quick to figure that out.
45:47.640 --> 45:53.120 And so that concept, you know, because I wrote about this and the people were talking about
45:53.120 --> 45:57.720 in the in the in the comments, every time this idea comes up, some people just have
45:57.720 --> 46:04.000 a hard time wrapping their brain around the basic concept of the lottery fallacy.
46:04.000 --> 46:08.320 It's like, yeah, but the chance of that person winning was still really low.
46:08.320 --> 46:11.080 It's like, yeah, but you're deciding that after the fact.
46:11.080 --> 46:15.080 I heard somebody in the comments had another great example.
46:15.080 --> 46:22.120 It's like hitting a golf ball into a fairway and the golf ball lands somewhere on the fairway.
46:22.120 --> 46:26.200 And let's say it hits one blade of grass dead center.
46:26.200 --> 46:31.280 That blade of grass must feel really special, right?
46:31.280 --> 46:35.580 But after the fact, you could say, yeah, what were the odds that that blade of grass was
46:35.580 --> 46:36.580 hit by that ball?
46:36.580 --> 46:37.840 It's astronomical.
46:37.840 --> 46:38.840 That's the sharpshooter fallacy.
46:38.840 --> 46:39.840 Yeah.
46:39.840 --> 46:43.360 But the drawing the circle after that is the similar.
46:43.360 --> 46:45.680 There are similar logical problems with that.
46:45.680 --> 46:46.680 Yeah.
46:46.680 --> 46:50.700 It would be like conclude like something miraculous must have happened because the probability
46:50.700 --> 46:54.440 of me hitting that blade of grass was so remote.
46:54.440 --> 46:56.760 But of course, yeah, of course, determine that after you hit it.
46:56.760 --> 47:00.600 But of course, the probability of hitting some blade of grass approaches one.
47:00.600 --> 47:01.600 Right.
47:01.600 --> 47:02.600 I mean, 100 percent.
47:02.600 --> 47:03.600 Yeah.
47:03.600 --> 47:04.600 Unless you get lost.
47:04.600 --> 47:05.600 Unless you're horrible at golf.
47:05.600 --> 47:06.600 Yeah.
47:06.600 --> 47:07.600 Or you land in a sand trap, I guess.
47:07.600 --> 47:10.920 You know, but if you're if you're driving on the fairway, I mean, let's say there's
47:10.920 --> 47:12.580 no sand traps in range.
47:12.580 --> 47:16.340 It's pretty close to 100 percent that you're going to hit some blade of grass.
47:16.340 --> 47:17.760 It's the same idea.
47:17.760 --> 47:18.880 It's the same idea.
47:18.880 --> 47:24.160 So anyway, but again, we talk about before, like somebody winning the lottery twice.
47:24.160 --> 47:28.040 It also happens on a regular basis and should happen on a regular basis.
47:28.040 --> 47:29.680 My grandmother won the lottery twice.
47:29.680 --> 47:30.680 I've never played.
47:30.680 --> 47:33.200 There you go.
47:33.200 --> 47:38.400 And they always reported as the probability of two individual tickets winning.
47:38.400 --> 47:42.720 I'd like to point out she probably spent more than what she won.
47:42.720 --> 47:44.080 I'm sure of that.
47:44.080 --> 47:51.280 Well, actually, I don't know how much she won the first and thirty eight thousand Canadian.
47:51.280 --> 47:54.680 And the second time was over two hundred thirty thousand.
47:54.680 --> 47:55.680 J.K.
47:55.680 --> 48:01.240 He gave me thirty bucks every day, like throughout my childhood, all the way up to a very nice.
48:01.240 --> 48:06.640 But it's a common myth that people who win the lottery fritter away their winnings.
48:06.640 --> 48:12.080 Usually people who win the lottery maintain their wealth long term and most of them invest
48:12.080 --> 48:13.080 it wisely.
48:13.080 --> 48:14.080 Right.
48:14.080 --> 48:17.840 I think what she meant is she spent more playing the lottery than she ever won.
48:17.840 --> 48:20.680 Yeah, she played every day.
48:20.680 --> 48:21.680 Yeah.
48:21.680 --> 48:22.680 Yeah.
48:22.680 --> 48:23.680 Lotteries have issues.
48:23.680 --> 48:24.680 It would be interesting to calculate that.
48:24.680 --> 48:26.080 You're better off.
48:26.080 --> 48:27.080 You are better off.
48:27.080 --> 48:30.400 Like let's say you're going to invest ten dollars a week in lottery tickets or twenty
48:30.400 --> 48:31.440 dollars a week in lottery tickets.
48:31.440 --> 48:34.160 Just put that money in an IRA every week.
48:34.160 --> 48:35.160 You'd be better off.
48:35.160 --> 48:36.160 Better off.
48:36.160 --> 48:37.160 All right.
Mechanical Neural Network (48:37)
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48:37.160 --> 48:41.000 Bob, what is this mechanical neural network that sounds suspicious?
48:41.000 --> 48:42.400 What is that?
48:42.400 --> 48:44.280 This kind of came out of nowhere.
48:44.280 --> 48:45.480 This is really fascinating.
48:45.480 --> 48:51.280 It's a new type of engineered material called the mechanical neural network that takes inspiration
48:51.280 --> 48:56.560 from artificial neural networks and machine learning to adapt and improve its ability
48:56.560 --> 49:00.280 to deal with unexpected forces and even change shape.
49:00.280 --> 49:04.520 So this is an interesting advance by UCLA mechanical engineers, and it's described
49:04.520 --> 49:08.960 in the journal Science Robotics, and it's called Mechanical Neural Networks, architected
49:08.960 --> 49:11.560 materials that learn behaviors.
49:11.560 --> 49:16.040 Now this new approach to material science, it reminds me of metamaterials, Steve, you
49:16.040 --> 49:21.120 might be reminded of as well, because metamaterials, we've talked about many times on the show,
49:21.120 --> 49:26.080 metamaterials have properties that derived essentially from its micro or nano structure
49:26.080 --> 49:28.280 instead of its chemical properties.
49:28.280 --> 49:32.120 It doesn't matter really what it's made of, it's just how it's organized.
49:32.120 --> 49:35.960 So this new type of material I'm talking about gets its properties from its design
49:35.960 --> 49:37.600 and its geometry.
49:37.600 --> 49:43.640 In this way, they often discuss how it's similar to Velcro and that it doesn't matter
49:43.640 --> 49:44.960 what the Velcro is made of.
49:44.960 --> 49:48.720 As long as it has those hooks and those loops, it's going to function no matter what it's
49:48.720 --> 49:49.720 made of.
49:49.720 --> 49:53.080 That will work because it's basically the hooks and the loops that are doing the work.
49:53.080 --> 49:57.960 So a mechanical neural network consists of beams that are organized in a sort of triangular
49:57.960 --> 50:03.760 lattice pattern that change length and stiffen when needed and can interact with other beams.
50:03.760 --> 50:06.480 That's one of the critical aspects to it.
50:06.480 --> 50:13.120 It's that connection between all these little beams that make it similar to neural networks.
50:13.120 --> 50:17.360 Now neural networks, we've described them as well on the show, neural networks build
50:17.360 --> 50:22.360 up deep learning algorithms by passing or not passing data from one node to a deeper
50:22.360 --> 50:24.440 node in the network.
50:24.440 --> 50:28.540 The strength of that connection is manipulated and it's called a weight.
50:28.540 --> 50:33.320 So mechanical neural networks, on the other hand, they tune the weighted connections between
50:33.320 --> 50:39.640 those beams in a similar way by making them stiffer or weaker depending on what they want
50:39.640 --> 50:42.500 to achieve in the environment and things like that.
50:42.500 --> 50:47.600 So that's how it's similar to the neural networks in artificial intelligence.
50:47.600 --> 50:53.360 The engineers say this, they say, we hypothesize that a mechanical lattice with physical nodes
50:53.360 --> 50:57.960 could be trained to take on certain mechanical properties by adjusting each connection's
50:57.960 --> 50:58.960 rigidity.
50:58.960 --> 51:03.280 The idea was to have the mechanical lattice be able to adopt and maintain new properties
51:03.280 --> 51:08.720 like taking on a new shape or changing directional strength and they finished here saying once
51:08.720 --> 51:13.360 the many connections are tuned to achieve a set of tasks, the material will continue
51:13.360 --> 51:15.360 to react in the desired way.
51:15.360 --> 51:20.400 The training is in a sense remembered in the structure of the material itself.
51:20.400 --> 51:22.600 So now they show that this idea actually works.
51:22.600 --> 51:28.760 They built a prototype, they actually about as big as a microwave, it's like a prototype
51:28.760 --> 51:33.940 lattice that they built that was actually able to learn and morph in specific ways when
51:33.940 --> 51:36.620 various forces were applied to it.
51:36.620 --> 51:40.500 So now in the future, they speculate that this could be used as say, for example, part
51:40.500 --> 51:46.660 of a plane wing that could adapt to unexpected things like say internal damage to the inside
51:46.660 --> 51:53.040 the wing itself or unusual or strong wind patterns that just were not expected.
51:53.040 --> 51:57.580 It could strengthen and weaken connections to maintain important attributes like directional
51:57.580 --> 51:59.660 strength because that's pretty much important.
51:59.660 --> 52:04.480 You want to be very strong, those wings need to be very strong in the direction of movement.
52:04.480 --> 52:09.800 So this thing could actually adapt and change so that it maintains that directional strength
52:09.800 --> 52:14.920 regardless of what's going on, whether there's even some weakening of the wings itself or
52:14.920 --> 52:21.360 if the connection to the body of the plane is being changed somehow, it could actually
52:21.360 --> 52:23.720 adapt to that kind of stuff.
52:23.720 --> 52:28.240 Then over time, the algorithm would actually maintain these new properties.
52:28.240 --> 52:32.880 So you could easily extrapolate this idea to buildings, earthquake protection, making
52:32.880 --> 52:38.640 the building stronger and adapting to earthquakes and many other things.
52:38.640 --> 52:44.440 So moving forward, the researchers hope to move from their essentially 2D prototype that
52:44.440 --> 52:49.080 they created to something with smaller components that's three dimensional.
52:49.080 --> 52:53.400 Regarding this, they say, the material my colleagues and I created is a proof of concept
52:53.400 --> 52:57.000 and shows the potential of mechanical neural networks.
52:57.000 --> 53:01.040 But to bring this idea into the real world will require figuring out how to make the
53:01.040 --> 53:06.520 individual pieces smaller and with precise properties of flex and tension.
53:06.520 --> 53:11.240 We hope new research in the manufacturing of materials at the micron scale will lead
53:11.240 --> 53:16.520 to advances that make powerful, smart mechanical neural networks with micron scale elements
53:16.520 --> 53:22.000 and dense three dimensional connections a ubiquitous reality in the near future.
53:22.000 --> 53:27.800 They even describe ideas to use this in armor to deflect shock waves and also using sound
53:27.800 --> 53:29.600 waves in acoustic imaging.
53:29.600 --> 53:31.680 So, yeah, this is fascinating.
53:31.680 --> 53:34.200 I'm really curious to see where this is going to go.
53:34.200 --> 53:38.920 Clearly, though, they need to be able to migrate this idea to the three dimensional scale because
53:38.920 --> 53:40.400 that's where the real power of this would come in.
53:40.400 --> 53:45.880 I'm not sure how much utility it would have in purely two dimensional applications.
53:45.880 --> 53:49.480 But also, and of course, it's got to get a lot smaller and they talk about that micron
53:49.480 --> 53:53.600 scale or even eventually potentially nano scale as well.
53:53.600 --> 53:58.940 Imagine, could you combine this idea with metamaterials, metamaterials with mechanical
53:58.940 --> 53:59.940 neural networks?
53:59.940 --> 54:00.940 What would that be like?
54:00.940 --> 54:07.180 In a way, this idea, it makes these systems more like a biology that could actually adapt
54:07.180 --> 54:11.160 and change to the environment like biology on Earth does.
54:11.160 --> 54:12.160 It's fascinating stuff.
54:12.160 --> 54:13.160 Yeah.
54:13.160 --> 54:14.160 Yeah.
54:14.160 --> 54:18.420 When we like research this, that's one of the this, you know, embodies a couple of themes
54:18.420 --> 54:21.640 that we sort of came up with in terms of future technology.
54:21.640 --> 54:27.200 One is that the distinction between biology and machines is going to get blurry as we
54:27.200 --> 54:28.200 go forward.
54:28.200 --> 54:32.880 You know, sure, biology will be you'll have more machine components and machines will
54:32.880 --> 54:34.400 act more like biology.
54:34.400 --> 54:36.300 This is an example of that.
54:36.300 --> 54:42.440 But also, like one of the real game changing advances for technology is new materials.
54:42.440 --> 54:46.000 We've said that before on the show, like material science is the thing that changes
54:46.000 --> 54:47.000 the game.
54:47.000 --> 54:48.000 Care's favorite discipline.
54:48.000 --> 54:49.000 Yeah.
54:49.000 --> 54:50.000 It really is.
54:50.000 --> 54:54.320 The stuff that you, a lot of the cutting edge stuff that you get is because of a material
54:54.320 --> 54:55.320 science breakthrough.
54:55.320 --> 54:56.320 Yeah.
54:56.320 --> 54:59.960 And it's so dramatic and we're seeing, you know, a lot of, we say that in the book, Steve,
54:59.960 --> 55:05.160 a lot of the materials that we use today very commonly have been around for centuries, if
55:05.160 --> 55:06.920 not millennia, right?
55:06.920 --> 55:09.160 But I think some of that's changing now.
55:09.160 --> 55:15.200 And you know, especially with, you know, automating the research and kind of like research building
55:15.200 --> 55:19.060 on research, you know, standing on the shoulders of giants, creating, you know, having these
55:19.060 --> 55:22.000 breakthroughs in material science, I think are just going to come faster.
55:22.000 --> 55:23.280 Yeah, I agree.
55:23.280 --> 55:27.080 Although I still think the stuff we've been using for thousands of years actually was
55:27.080 --> 55:29.120 still going to be around for a long time.
55:29.120 --> 55:30.120 Yeah.
55:30.120 --> 55:31.120 They'll be coexisting.
55:31.120 --> 55:32.120 They'll be coexisting.
55:32.120 --> 55:36.200 It's not going to do away with cement and concrete and wood, right?
55:36.200 --> 55:37.200 That's not going anywhere.
55:37.200 --> 55:38.200 Steel.
55:38.200 --> 55:39.200 Yeah.
55:39.200 --> 55:40.200 It's not going anywhere.
55:40.200 --> 55:41.200 All right.
55:41.200 --> 55:42.200 Thanks, Bob.
Special Report: History of Vibrators (55:42)
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55:42.200 --> 55:43.200 All right, Carrie, you're going to do a special report.
55:43.200 --> 55:45.460 It's not really a news item, but you, you discussed.
55:45.460 --> 55:46.960 It was a science or fiction.
55:46.960 --> 55:51.180 And the idea came up about Victorian medicine.
55:51.180 --> 55:57.680 Did Victorian physicians treat, quote unquote, hysteria in women with vibrators?
55:57.680 --> 56:03.360 And there's, you know, we inadvertently crowdsourced that claim and we got some amazing feedback.
56:03.360 --> 56:08.200 So what's, what's the, we had to do a deeper dive on that, on that specific question.
56:08.200 --> 56:09.200 Yeah, Steve.
56:09.200 --> 56:13.720 So, so thinking back to that science or fiction item, I think we just kind of like we often
56:13.720 --> 56:18.320 do throughout the conventional knowledge that we have, which is, oh yeah, back in the day,
56:18.320 --> 56:23.320 Victorian era, blah, blah, blah, doctors, hysteria, they treated hysteria by bringing
56:23.320 --> 56:24.760 women to orgasm.
56:24.760 --> 56:28.720 They treated it by bringing women to orgasm with vibrators.
56:28.720 --> 56:37.260 And apparently some components of that are possibly true, but like the, the larger claims
56:37.260 --> 56:42.920 that most of us sort of just regurgitate may actually be a myth.
56:42.920 --> 56:49.920 And it's a really interesting story as to how all of this came to be discovered.
56:49.920 --> 56:55.960 So there was a book, we're going to start with a book, and this book was written by
56:55.960 --> 57:00.400 Rachel Maines in 1999.
57:00.400 --> 57:06.760 And the book is called The Technology of Orgasm, Hysteria, the Vibrator and Women's Sexual
57:06.760 --> 57:08.320 Satisfaction.
57:08.320 --> 57:11.480 It was published by Johns Hopkins University Press.
57:11.480 --> 57:14.180 So this is not a trade publication.
57:14.180 --> 57:18.860 It's an academic publication, which means that it was subject to peer review.
57:18.860 --> 57:21.360 So that's something that's important to remember.
57:21.360 --> 57:26.680 It was not subject to intensive fact checking like a journalistic publications are, but
57:26.680 --> 57:27.960 it was subject to peer review.
57:27.960 --> 57:31.620 There were editors involved and it was published by an academic press.
57:31.620 --> 57:39.880 So this book that was written has been cited a lot of times, like a lot, a lot of times.
57:39.880 --> 57:48.220 And Maines' ideas in this book seem to be the template, the basis for a lot of the folk
57:48.220 --> 57:51.100 knowledge that we all use.
57:51.100 --> 57:54.840 The interesting thing is it wasn't really made up out of whole cloth.
57:54.840 --> 58:03.200 It was like a lot of out of context quotes, a lot of kind of stretches in explanations
58:03.200 --> 58:08.400 that ultimately seemed right, felt like, made sense for the zeitgeist that then would be
58:08.400 --> 58:13.260 cited and cited and cited, and everybody just kind of knew this to be.
58:13.260 --> 58:20.500 So now enter Hallie Lieberman, who at the time is a PhD student.
58:20.500 --> 58:21.860 She's a historian.
58:21.860 --> 58:24.460 Also Rachel Maines was a historian.
58:24.460 --> 58:31.600 And Hallie Lieberman is writing her dissertation, her thesis on technology and technology's
58:31.600 --> 58:34.160 use in orgasm.
58:34.160 --> 58:44.740 And she goes to her thesis advisor, Dr. Eric Schatzberg, also at Georgia Tech, and then
58:44.740 --> 58:50.620 Ms. Lieberman, now Dr. Lieberman, started to ask some questions.
58:50.620 --> 58:55.220 And he said, you know, it's a good exercise when you're doing this academic type of research
58:55.220 --> 59:02.100 to not just read the sources that make up your structure of knowledge, but to see who
59:02.100 --> 59:03.540 they were citing.
59:03.540 --> 59:08.820 So go back multiple levels and understand the people who you're citing, who were they
59:08.820 --> 59:09.820 citing?
59:09.820 --> 59:11.780 And so she started to do that with Rachel Maines' book.
59:11.780 --> 59:15.960 And she was like, uh-oh, I see some real red flags here.
59:15.960 --> 59:18.140 She's citing these different people.
59:18.140 --> 59:22.000 And that's not what I'm reading that they said.
59:22.000 --> 59:25.960 Like I'm interpreting some of these quotes wildly differently.
59:25.960 --> 59:31.820 And so they started to systematically try to make sense of this book, The Technology
59:31.820 --> 59:33.180 of Orgasm.
59:33.180 --> 59:39.300 And what they found is that there are three main claims that are made in the book.
59:39.300 --> 59:46.060 So you could kind of break down her core argument is that Victorian physicians used vibrators,
59:46.060 --> 59:50.760 electromechanical vibrators, specifically on the clitorises of women to bring them to
59:50.760 --> 59:56.740 orgasm and that that was a typical treatment for hysteria at the time.
59:56.740 --> 01:00:05.200 And you can kind of break that down into three different main claims.
01:00:05.200 --> 01:00:12.600 The first one is that clitoral massage with a vibrator, and this was big in Maines' book,
01:00:12.600 --> 01:00:20.060 was not seen as a sexual act because it was long viewed that sex with women was only penetrative.
01:00:20.060 --> 01:00:24.440 And the purpose of sex was like it was very male focused.
01:00:24.440 --> 01:00:29.560 So anything where a woman would have an orgasm from clitoral stimulation wasn't viewed as
01:00:29.560 --> 01:00:30.980 sex because it was like useless.
01:00:30.980 --> 01:00:31.980 Right.
01:00:31.980 --> 01:00:32.980 Where did the man get out of that?
01:00:32.980 --> 01:00:33.980 Right.
01:00:33.980 --> 01:00:34.980 Exactly.
01:00:34.980 --> 01:00:39.020 So that's the first claim was that because doctors didn't see it as sexual because no
01:00:39.020 --> 01:00:46.220 penetration was involved, it was a perfectly cromulent medical practice.
01:00:46.220 --> 01:00:52.480 The second claim was that vibrators were widely used to treat hysteria.
01:00:52.480 --> 01:00:58.540 And finally, sort of the bigger funnel claim there, is that massaging the clitoris, even
01:00:58.540 --> 01:01:03.020 pre-vibrator invention, was a practice.
01:01:03.020 --> 01:01:08.660 That physicians did this regularly and it persisted throughout the Victorian era.
01:01:08.660 --> 01:01:11.780 And basically that vibrators were invented.
01:01:11.780 --> 01:01:16.100 When vibrators were invented, doctors were like, great, now we no longer have to spend
01:01:16.100 --> 01:01:20.940 a whole hour doing this manual stimulation of the clitoris to induce this orgasm which
01:01:20.940 --> 01:01:25.460 will treat her hysteria, but instead we have a tool so our arms don't get tired and it's
01:01:25.460 --> 01:01:28.140 way easier and I can see more patients and I can make more money.
01:01:28.140 --> 01:01:30.620 And that's really the crux of the argument.
01:01:30.620 --> 01:01:37.300 And there's a paper that came out again by these two Georgia Tech researchers, Drs. Lieberman
01:01:37.300 --> 01:01:43.760 and Schatzberg, that basically systematically, this was in 2018, so quite recently, systematically
01:01:43.760 --> 01:01:51.320 breaks down every aspect of their argument or of her, of Rachel Maines' argument.
01:01:51.320 --> 01:01:54.700 You'll see some interviews with Rachel Maines.
01:01:54.700 --> 01:02:00.780 You'll see some writings where she basically says, oh, well, I was just testing a hypothesis.
01:02:00.780 --> 01:02:03.540 Not testing, I was just talking about a hypothesis.
01:02:03.540 --> 01:02:06.460 I hypothesized that that's what was going on.
01:02:06.460 --> 01:02:09.360 I didn't ever actually say that that's what was going on.
01:02:09.360 --> 01:02:15.260 But sadly, when you actually read the core text, the tone is pretty assertive.
01:02:15.260 --> 01:02:16.540 This is what they did.
01:02:16.540 --> 01:02:17.540 This is why they did it.
01:02:17.540 --> 01:02:21.780 And remember, this was being written by an academic historian and then she cites a bunch
01:02:21.780 --> 01:02:22.780 of evidence to support it.
01:02:22.780 --> 01:02:23.780 Yeah, right.
01:02:23.780 --> 01:02:24.780 Where are the citations?
01:02:24.780 --> 01:02:25.780 Well, but that's the thing.
01:02:25.780 --> 01:02:26.780 It's not just about a citation.
01:02:26.780 --> 01:02:29.980 It's about what is that citation actually saying and how is it said?
01:02:29.980 --> 01:02:34.900 And that's the nuance that you get when you read this 2018 review because there are lots
01:02:34.900 --> 01:02:38.180 of examples that you can pick out.
01:02:38.180 --> 01:02:41.620 I'm not going to spend a lot of time pointing to them, but maybe she'll talk about an example
01:02:41.620 --> 01:02:44.900 where doctors were talking about the finger technique used.
01:02:44.900 --> 01:02:48.780 But if you dig deeper into the original citation, they were actually talking about the finger
01:02:48.780 --> 01:02:54.620 technique used to do manual massage of other body parts for other ailments.
01:02:54.620 --> 01:03:00.660 Or they'll be talking about vibrators, specifically electromechanical vibrators being used as
01:03:00.660 --> 01:03:02.340 a medical treatment.
01:03:02.340 --> 01:03:08.420 But when you actually dig into the source material and you broaden out what you're reading
01:03:08.420 --> 01:03:12.740 other than that tiny quote that was clipped out, you'll see that they were actually referring
01:03:12.740 --> 01:03:19.780 to vibrators to treat all manner of ailments because the vibrators at the time were snake
01:03:19.780 --> 01:03:21.420 oil medicine.
01:03:21.420 --> 01:03:22.540 It was patent medicine.
01:03:22.540 --> 01:03:27.220 When vibrators came out, a lot of physicians were like, it'll treat what ails you.
01:03:27.220 --> 01:03:28.540 You can use it on your intestines.
01:03:28.540 --> 01:03:29.780 You can use it in your mouth.
01:03:29.780 --> 01:03:30.780 You can use it on your butt.
01:03:30.780 --> 01:03:32.020 You can use it on your foot.
01:03:32.020 --> 01:03:36.340 And it'll help with heartburn and it'll help with muscle fatigue and it'll help with whatever.
01:03:36.340 --> 01:03:42.500 Now that's not to say that there isn't some scant evidence in the literature base that
01:03:42.500 --> 01:03:46.740 shows that vibrators were actually used intravaginally.
01:03:46.740 --> 01:03:51.980 And sometimes they were used intravaginally to treat, quote, hysteria.
01:03:51.980 --> 01:03:55.900 Remember hysteria is a very old diagnosis that goes back to like Hippocrates era.
01:03:55.900 --> 01:04:02.140 They didn't actually use that word, but there were early, early conceptualizations that
01:04:02.140 --> 01:04:07.640 women's uteruses wandered inside of their bodies and that that's what actually caused
01:04:07.640 --> 01:04:15.220 all of these super vague symptoms that very often literally just sound like being alive.
01:04:15.220 --> 01:04:16.220 Being alive.
01:04:16.220 --> 01:04:17.220 How terrible.
01:04:17.220 --> 01:04:18.220 Either that or evil spirits.
01:04:18.220 --> 01:04:19.220 Exactly.
01:04:19.220 --> 01:04:23.940 So first it was like the uterus is wandering and then it was like maybe it's not wandering,
01:04:23.940 --> 01:04:26.180 but you know, something's going on.
01:04:26.180 --> 01:04:27.700 And then it was like, yeah, some evil spirit.
01:04:27.700 --> 01:04:32.740 I mean, there's been iterations throughout, throughout the eras, but hysteria persisted
01:04:32.740 --> 01:04:35.880 as a diagnosis for a very, very long time.
01:04:35.880 --> 01:04:42.260 And there's no question that that was very much of the zeitgeist, that that was a very
01:04:42.260 --> 01:04:45.240 sexist and very lacking in good evidence.
01:04:45.240 --> 01:04:50.900 This was a male dominated field that was studying women in a way that was not very inclusive.
01:04:50.900 --> 01:04:58.960 But sadly, I think because we get that now, this argument that vibrators were used on
01:04:58.960 --> 01:05:03.740 women's clits to induce an orgasm, which was non-sexual in nature, at least so these dumb
01:05:03.740 --> 01:05:08.020 doctors thought, and that way they were treating their hysteria and then the women were loving
01:05:08.020 --> 01:05:10.700 it so they came back to the doctor over and over.
01:05:10.700 --> 01:05:14.780 There doesn't seem to be any evidence to support that.
01:05:14.780 --> 01:05:20.420 Again, a lot of these actual uses that were even remotely close to that claim were intra
01:05:20.420 --> 01:05:25.980 uterine or sorry, intra vaginal or even intra uterine and they were really to treat things
01:05:25.980 --> 01:05:35.860 like uterine prolapse or vaginismus or vaginismus, like different diagnoses that were related
01:05:35.860 --> 01:05:42.040 to sexual health or that were related to pain, bleeding heavily, different things like that.
01:05:42.040 --> 01:05:48.460 But this idea that it was like a vibrator, a clit and hysteria, those three things, it
01:05:48.460 --> 01:05:54.180 looks like mains took the vibrator component, the clit component and the hysteria component
01:05:54.180 --> 01:05:56.020 and glued them together.
01:05:56.020 --> 01:06:00.620 But all of the research that shows that vibrators were used were not used, usually not used
01:06:00.620 --> 01:06:01.960 genitally at all.
01:06:01.960 --> 01:06:04.140 They were also not used to treat hysteria.
01:06:04.140 --> 01:06:09.300 All the research that showed treatments versus hysteria had nothing to do with clitoral massage
01:06:09.300 --> 01:06:13.900 and all of the research that showed anything having to do with anything around the vulva
01:06:13.900 --> 01:06:18.940 very often didn't have anything to do with vibrators or hysteria.
01:06:18.940 --> 01:06:24.280 And so it's pretty interesting that they systematically are able to deconstruct this claim and show
01:06:24.280 --> 01:06:32.300 that dozens if not hundreds of academic papers cited this uncritically because they assumed,
01:06:32.300 --> 01:06:37.860 I mean, it's peer reviewed, that it held water and unfortunately it didn't.
01:06:37.860 --> 01:06:42.380 And so that's why this article is literally called a failure of academic quality control,
01:06:42.380 --> 01:06:44.180 the technology of orgasm.
01:06:44.180 --> 01:06:47.300 So it's not our fault that we, you know, kind of glossed over it.
01:06:47.300 --> 01:06:49.260 Well, I mean, it is and it isn't, right?
01:06:49.260 --> 01:06:54.460 Like this is such a good example of why we all have to work really hard to be good skeptics.
01:06:54.460 --> 01:06:56.900 But at the same time, we can't know everything all the time.
01:06:56.900 --> 01:07:02.100 And that's, it's really fun, I think, when we get a crowdsourced peer review on our show.
01:07:02.100 --> 01:07:03.100 Oh, maybe I shouldn't say that.
01:07:03.100 --> 01:07:04.100 What am I opening the floodgates to?
01:07:04.100 --> 01:07:10.240 Well, it often happens on sort of the off the cuff remarks that we make, which do happen
01:07:10.240 --> 01:07:11.240 regularly.
01:07:11.240 --> 01:07:13.500 So that's bound to happen.
01:07:13.500 --> 01:07:18.520 If we prepare something, we research it and things like that are likely to come up sometimes
01:07:18.520 --> 01:07:19.520 even then.
01:07:19.520 --> 01:07:24.200 Like you go three or four levels deep and it's the fifth level that you get the paper
01:07:24.200 --> 01:07:27.700 that says, or the reference that says, oh no, this is all wrong.
01:07:27.700 --> 01:07:29.580 But usually we do a pretty good job off the cuff.
01:07:29.580 --> 01:07:33.540 I just got to remember that things we think we know, if we didn't recently verify them,
01:07:33.540 --> 01:07:34.540 may not be true.
01:07:34.540 --> 01:07:35.540 Yeah.
01:07:35.540 --> 01:07:41.780 And you can, if you Google sort of like vibrator hysteria, you're going to find a bunch of
01:07:41.780 --> 01:07:52.780 articles from like pre-2016, 17 that are like really credulous and super mainstream publications,
01:07:52.780 --> 01:07:55.980 like scientific, mainstream scientific publications.
01:07:55.980 --> 01:07:58.300 Not easy to say, okay, that's a problem.
01:07:58.300 --> 01:07:59.300 Right.
01:07:59.300 --> 01:08:00.300 Right.
01:08:00.300 --> 01:08:04.260 So after this kind of, you know, was published, then you start to see all of these popular
01:08:04.260 --> 01:08:08.940 write ups of like, hey, maybe it's a myth, like, whoa, we need to be more critical of
01:08:08.940 --> 01:08:09.940 this.
01:08:09.940 --> 01:08:15.100 And again, that's not to say that number one, the vibrator hasn't been used historically
01:08:15.100 --> 01:08:19.460 and isn't still to this day used sometimes as a medical device.
01:08:19.460 --> 01:08:25.740 It is actually listed, like the FDA does have listings of vibrators as the sexual tools
01:08:25.740 --> 01:08:27.540 for very specific purposes.
01:08:27.540 --> 01:08:29.660 It's mostly a trade device, right?
01:08:29.660 --> 01:08:34.860 Obviously we know that vibrators are purchased by women or actually purchased, I shouldn't
01:08:34.860 --> 01:08:38.980 say by women, purchased by anybody who could, you know, benefit from the use of a vibrator
01:08:38.980 --> 01:08:42.900 specifically to enhance sexual pleasure, specifically as a sex toy.
01:08:42.900 --> 01:08:46.340 But they're also often sold as muscle massagers.
01:08:46.340 --> 01:08:47.340 They're sold, yeah.
01:08:47.340 --> 01:08:51.940 I mean, depending on like how kind of puritanical the place you're shopping is and where you
01:08:51.940 --> 01:08:54.740 live and things, they might be sold that way.
01:08:54.740 --> 01:09:00.160 But there are some like FDA listings for vibrators as medical devices.
01:09:00.160 --> 01:09:06.080 And of course now there is a lot of really modern literature about, you know, enhancing
01:09:06.080 --> 01:09:08.980 sexual function through clitoral stimulation with a vibrator.
01:09:08.980 --> 01:09:15.500 Like because we have, we're studying this kind of stuff now and we know that it works.
01:09:15.500 --> 01:09:19.840 So you know, you'll find all sorts of cool, if you want to really read the like the neat
01:09:19.840 --> 01:09:25.100 sexual literature, you know, sex relationships, therapy, human health, all that good stuff.
01:09:25.100 --> 01:09:30.840 But when we're specifically talking about literature from the Victorian era and earlier,
01:09:30.840 --> 01:09:34.480 I think the safest thing to say is there is scant evidence.
01:09:34.480 --> 01:09:36.380 In some cases there is no evidence at all.
01:09:36.380 --> 01:09:40.580 In other cases the evidence shows that this was not a regular practice.
01:09:40.580 --> 01:09:44.580 There were a few kind of French physicians who tried it out and go, oh, we don't really
01:09:44.580 --> 01:09:47.000 think this actually works.
01:09:47.000 --> 01:09:50.620 This doesn't seem to be doing anything for hysteria and they abandoned the practice.
01:09:50.620 --> 01:09:53.580 It just wasn't a regularly used practice like we think it was.
01:09:53.580 --> 01:09:55.540 It went back to electroshock therapy.
01:09:55.540 --> 01:09:56.540 Yeah.
01:09:56.540 --> 01:10:01.460 Well, and eventually, you know, we started to rename what hysteria was.
01:10:01.460 --> 01:10:04.260 There was a movement towards recognizing hysteria in men.
01:10:04.260 --> 01:10:07.180 So then it was like, okay, maybe this has nothing to do with the uterus.
01:10:07.180 --> 01:10:08.500 Maybe it's a misnomer.
01:10:08.500 --> 01:10:09.500 Maybe it's not hysteria.
01:10:09.500 --> 01:10:13.580 And eventually it kind of, it kind of morphed into what we now see as certain aspects of
01:10:13.580 --> 01:10:14.580 mental illness.
01:10:14.580 --> 01:10:16.980 But we didn't understand it back then.
01:10:16.980 --> 01:10:23.180 It's interesting to see the progression of psychological diagnoses over time as well.
01:10:23.180 --> 01:10:26.480 That's a whole different kind of ball of wax, but super interesting.
01:10:26.480 --> 01:10:31.220 And thank you to, I think we had two different listeners who brought that to our attention
01:10:31.220 --> 01:10:32.220 in the emails.
01:10:32.220 --> 01:10:33.220 All right.
01:10:33.220 --> 01:10:34.220 Thank you, Kara.
Interview with ___ ()
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Skeptical Puzzle ()
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New Puzzle ()
Who's That Noisy? (1:10:34)
01:10:34.220 --> 01:10:36.620 Jay, it's Who's That Noisy Time?
01:10:36.620 --> 01:10:37.620 All right, guys.
01:10:37.620 --> 01:10:41.620 Last week I played this noisy.
01:10:41.620 --> 01:10:48.660 I don't know, it's just a 71, 72, 73.
01:10:48.660 --> 01:11:03.900 Okay, I wasn't really expected to be the loudest type of a person.
01:11:03.900 --> 01:11:16.040 All right, you get the idea.
01:11:16.040 --> 01:11:17.040 Anybody have any guesses?
01:11:17.040 --> 01:11:20.640 That's that old cartoon where the skeleton plays his ribcage like a xylophone.
01:11:20.640 --> 01:11:21.640 Oh, really?
01:11:21.640 --> 01:11:23.360 God, I remember that.
01:11:23.360 --> 01:11:24.960 I totally remember that.
01:11:24.960 --> 01:11:25.960 Winner.
01:11:25.960 --> 01:11:29.760 All right, well, I'll start by saying that I got a lot of correct guesses.
01:11:29.760 --> 01:11:31.800 People did a very good job on this one.
01:11:31.800 --> 01:11:37.460 So I got an email from Tracy McFadden, and Tracy said, hey, Jay, I think this week's
01:11:37.460 --> 01:11:42.340 Noisy is a model train with a striking device that hits objects along the track that are
01:11:42.340 --> 01:11:44.100 tuned to a specific note.
01:11:44.100 --> 01:11:50.040 I have seen something similar done with a moving vehicle hitting things that have been
01:11:50.040 --> 01:11:51.360 set up along a roadway.
01:11:51.360 --> 01:11:53.640 I know exactly what you're talking about.
01:11:53.640 --> 01:11:56.960 And sure, that could make a similar noise.
01:11:56.960 --> 01:12:02.560 But there was no train noises, and this was not a train doing what you described.
01:12:02.560 --> 01:12:07.300 Another listener named John McKinnon said, hi, Jay, this week's Noisy sounds like a xylophone
01:12:07.300 --> 01:12:11.640 or a music box mechanism being powered by a spinning water wheel.
01:12:11.640 --> 01:12:17.600 It sounds like the tempo speeds up and slows down, maybe as the rate of water flow changes.
01:12:17.600 --> 01:12:23.520 You are not correct about the spinning water wheel, but you did get something correct in
01:12:23.520 --> 01:12:27.000 your guess, and you will figure that out in a second as I go on here.
01:12:27.000 --> 01:12:30.240 So now I'm just going to get to basically three people who got it correct.
01:12:30.240 --> 01:12:34.400 So Brian Forte said, Jay, this is a great Noisy.
01:12:34.400 --> 01:12:40.040 He said, it's a marble that is running or rolling over a bunch of wooden bars that are
01:12:40.040 --> 01:12:42.160 cut into specific pitches.
01:12:42.160 --> 01:12:43.160 That is correct.
01:12:43.160 --> 01:12:46.560 Adam Hepburn, his family made a bunch of guesses, but I'll jump to his guess.
01:12:46.560 --> 01:12:50.140 He said, now this is that he identifies the song.
01:12:50.140 --> 01:12:53.400 This song is called Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring.
01:12:53.400 --> 01:12:57.520 That's the English version of it.
01:12:57.520 --> 01:13:01.680 And also, he said, Joy by Apollo 100 is a fun song.
01:13:01.680 --> 01:13:05.320 As for his guess, it sounds like a rolling marble sculpture where the marbles are directed
01:13:05.320 --> 01:13:07.320 to a xylophone so it plays music.
01:13:07.320 --> 01:13:08.320 That is correct.
01:13:08.320 --> 01:13:10.180 So you got the song correct.
01:13:10.180 --> 01:13:13.100 Now I'm going to go down to the last one here.
01:13:13.100 --> 01:13:18.620 This is a Japanese wood ball rolling down steps of different lengths of wood bars as
01:13:18.620 --> 01:13:21.120 part of a musical art display.
01:13:21.120 --> 01:13:25.040 This was sent in by a listener named Winnie Wan.
01:13:25.040 --> 01:13:26.720 This is a cool video that you can look up.
01:13:26.720 --> 01:13:32.400 If you just look up Japanese woods or forest xylophone, you'll be able to see it.
01:13:32.400 --> 01:13:39.480 So in essence, this is a wooden ball or some type of ball, I think it's made out of wood,
01:13:39.480 --> 01:13:47.320 that is rolling down a series of steps and each step is a xylophone note.
01:13:47.320 --> 01:13:48.320 That is a piece of wood.
01:13:48.320 --> 01:13:50.480 So as it rolls down, it's making these noises.
01:13:50.480 --> 01:13:52.840 So maybe you can visualize that as you hear this.
01:13:52.840 --> 01:13:59.760 I'll just forward it a little bit here.
01:13:59.760 --> 01:14:05.480 This ball is literally rolling down as it hits each one of these notes.
01:14:05.480 --> 01:14:06.480 Very cool idea.
01:14:06.480 --> 01:14:07.480 Yeah.
01:14:07.480 --> 01:14:08.480 It's very pretty.
01:14:08.480 --> 01:14:09.480 So you should look it up and take a look at it.
01:14:09.480 --> 01:14:12.520 Like the location and where they did it is wonderful.
01:14:12.520 --> 01:14:15.200 So thank you very much for this noisy.
01:14:15.200 --> 01:14:18.760 This was sent in by Peter Kennald from Japan.
01:14:18.760 --> 01:14:20.680 So maybe he even saw this thing in person.
01:14:20.680 --> 01:14:21.680 You never know.
01:14:21.680 --> 01:14:23.540 I have a new noisy this week, guys.
01:14:23.540 --> 01:14:27.360 This noisy was sent in by a listener named Justin Fisher.
01:14:27.360 --> 01:14:28.360 Check this one out.
01:14:28.360 --> 01:14:52.440 This one is very strange.
01:14:52.440 --> 01:14:53.440 Nutty huh?
01:14:53.440 --> 01:14:54.480 It's a bit nutty.
01:14:54.480 --> 01:14:58.320 If you think you know what this week's noisy is, or you heard something cool, you can email
01:14:58.320 --> 01:15:01.800 me at wtn at theskepticsguide.org.
01:15:01.800 --> 01:15:02.800 Thank you, Jay.
New Noisy ()
[_short_vague_description_of_Noisy]
Announcements ()
Dumbest Thing of the Week ()
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Name That Logical Fallacy ()
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with_reduced_spacing_for_long_chunks –
Questions/Emails/Corrections/Follow-ups ()
_consider_using_block_quotes_for_emails_read_aloud_in_this_segment_
with_reduced_spacing_for_long_chunks –
01:15:02.800 --> 01:15:03.800 All right.
01:15:03.800 --> 01:15:04.800 We got one email.
01:15:04.800 --> 01:15:06.400 It's actually one email question.
01:15:06.400 --> 01:15:07.400 There were several emails.
01:15:07.400 --> 01:15:08.400 Yeah.
01:15:08.400 --> 01:15:09.400 We did not get one.
01:15:09.400 --> 01:15:10.400 Yeah.
01:15:10.400 --> 01:15:15.040 But I mean, there were several emails about this topic.
01:15:15.040 --> 01:15:17.720 I'm just going to combine them into one bit of feedback.
01:15:17.720 --> 01:15:18.720 And I knew this was going to happen.
01:15:18.720 --> 01:15:20.280 I basically was setting people up for this.
01:15:20.280 --> 01:15:25.720 So whenever I talk about renewable energy, I get this feedback.
01:15:25.720 --> 01:15:32.800 I think it was, you know, last week before I mentioned that, you know, if you do simulations,
01:15:32.800 --> 01:15:41.200 do analyses, like how much intermittent renewable energy can we have on the grid at one time?
01:15:41.200 --> 01:15:45.360 And you know, because these are not on demand sources, we have no control over when the
01:15:45.360 --> 01:15:49.600 sun shines or when the wind blows, that there's a limit to how much of that the grid can take
01:15:49.600 --> 01:15:53.080 and still be able to balance supply and demand, right?
01:15:53.080 --> 01:15:57.940 Because you know, the electricity grid has to exactly balance supply and demand moment
01:15:57.940 --> 01:16:02.400 to moment, you know, second to second, minute to minute, hour to hour.
01:16:02.400 --> 01:16:06.400 And we do that by turning supply on and off.
01:16:06.400 --> 01:16:11.720 You can turn wind turbines off, but you can't make the wind blow if it's not blowing and
01:16:11.720 --> 01:16:13.520 you can't make the sun shine if it's not shining.
01:16:13.520 --> 01:16:16.520 So we got to take it when it's available.
01:16:16.520 --> 01:16:18.240 So how do we balance these things?
01:16:18.240 --> 01:16:24.200 We balance them in a couple of ways by having other sources of energy that are on demand,
01:16:24.200 --> 01:16:30.780 so-called dispatchable energy, by networking these over a large area so they balance out
01:16:30.780 --> 01:16:35.400 and by having overcapacity, you know, you have more than you need so that some, like
01:16:35.400 --> 01:16:36.900 the wind's always blowing somewhere, right?
01:16:36.900 --> 01:16:44.000 So that you're getting wind from someplace, but spread over a long enough area, it tends
01:16:44.000 --> 01:16:49.360 to, to average out, but that means that you need a lot more total capacity than the actual
01:16:49.360 --> 01:16:50.360 energy that you're producing.
01:16:50.360 --> 01:16:53.800 But of course, that's true of every source of energy.
01:16:53.800 --> 01:16:58.660 Every source of energy has a capacity factor and actually not bad for wind.
01:16:58.660 --> 01:17:01.880 It's really bad for solar, it's only like 22%.
01:17:01.880 --> 01:17:06.320 It's getting over 50% for wind, depending on where we put it in the bigger, you know,
01:17:06.320 --> 01:17:07.840 wind turbines are better.
01:17:07.840 --> 01:17:13.560 It's only in the 50 something percent for fossil fuels and nuclear is about 92%.
01:17:13.560 --> 01:17:14.560 That's the best.
01:17:14.560 --> 01:17:20.880 But in any case, I made the point that if you do simulations, you could, a grid could
01:17:20.880 --> 01:17:26.960 take maybe 30% intermittent sources before you start to get into trouble, meaning you
01:17:26.960 --> 01:17:33.860 can't, you know, effectively balance supply and demand or, you know, the costs tend to
01:17:33.860 --> 01:17:40.680 start shooting up, you know, in terms of trying to go beyond, you know, 30% penetration.
01:17:40.680 --> 01:17:44.280 And it always happens that people respond and say, Oh no, but this study showed that
01:17:44.280 --> 01:17:47.480 you can, or that analysis showed that you can, or this place has it.
01:17:47.480 --> 01:17:51.520 And you know, cause I get it, there are people who are very enthusiastic about wind and solar
01:17:51.520 --> 01:17:56.020 and they want to believe that we can have like a hundred percent wind and solar.
01:17:56.020 --> 01:17:58.140 But the, it's just not true.
01:17:58.140 --> 01:18:00.440 And the examples are always flawed, right?
01:18:00.440 --> 01:18:07.280 So one person, for example, said, yeah, but the UK has more than 30% wind and solar and
01:18:07.280 --> 01:18:12.240 they're doing just fine and they plan on going to 60% or 70%.
01:18:12.240 --> 01:18:16.860 But actually in the email itself, they gave the answer to why that's not a counterexample
01:18:16.860 --> 01:18:17.860 to what I was saying.
01:18:17.860 --> 01:18:24.120 Cause they say they just, they sell their excess electricity to Norway that has, that
01:18:24.120 --> 01:18:30.960 gets most of its energy from hydroelectric and they get extra energy from France, which
01:18:30.960 --> 01:18:32.920 gets most of its energy from nuclear.
01:18:32.920 --> 01:18:35.280 It's like, yeah, that's the point.
01:18:35.280 --> 01:18:38.680 The UK is not an isolated grid.
01:18:38.680 --> 01:18:44.400 It's you know, it has a specifically has an interconnection to someplace where it could
01:18:44.400 --> 01:18:49.380 sell its excess energy and to someplace else where it can get energy when it needs it.
01:18:49.380 --> 01:18:52.300 You have to consider that as a whole.
01:18:52.300 --> 01:18:59.920 So you know, the wind and solar may be 40% of the UK, but it's, it's not 40% of the UK,
01:18:59.920 --> 01:19:05.220 France and Norway, you know, that which is the actual grid we're talking about here.
01:19:05.220 --> 01:19:09.560 So if we're talking about, for example, the Eastern in the Eastern grid, right?
01:19:09.560 --> 01:19:14.580 So the, the United States basically has two big grids, the Eastern and connect and the
01:19:14.580 --> 01:19:16.960 Western interconnect.
01:19:16.960 --> 01:19:19.200 And then it has, Texas is like a smaller grid.
01:19:19.200 --> 01:19:23.900 Alaska is also a smaller grid and Quebec is also like its own grid.
01:19:23.900 --> 01:19:26.240 But otherwise we have two big grids.
01:19:26.240 --> 01:19:31.520 So we have to consider what the balance is on each of those grids, right?
01:19:31.520 --> 01:19:36.120 But the other thing is even if it's technically interconnected, you have to consider the capacity
01:19:36.120 --> 01:19:37.840 of that interconnection.
01:19:37.840 --> 01:19:46.040 So even though we technically could share electricity between Connecticut and Indiana,
01:19:46.040 --> 01:19:51.480 you know, we have to consider how much electricity can we send between those two locations and
01:19:51.480 --> 01:19:53.240 at what cost.
01:19:53.240 --> 01:20:00.280 So having more sharing in order to compensate for intermittent sources increases transmission
01:20:00.280 --> 01:20:06.320 costs, which is why even though wind and solar is getting super cheap, it doesn't necessarily
01:20:06.320 --> 01:20:11.000 decrease the cost of electricity when you add it to the grid.
01:20:11.000 --> 01:20:12.400 There's two reasons why that doesn't happen.
01:20:12.400 --> 01:20:16.280 One is because at least in the United States, they immediately charge their customer for
01:20:16.280 --> 01:20:17.520 the cost of adding it, right?
01:20:17.520 --> 01:20:19.140 That gets added onto your bill.
01:20:19.140 --> 01:20:21.340 And second, it increases transmission costs.
01:20:21.340 --> 01:20:23.840 So how do we solve that problem?
01:20:23.840 --> 01:20:27.620 You know, the big answer is you upgrade the grid and there are studies which show that
01:20:27.620 --> 01:20:32.320 when you invest in upgrading the grid, you get more than the money you invest back in
01:20:32.320 --> 01:20:37.680 reduced transmission costs and it increases your ability to add intermittent sources to
01:20:37.680 --> 01:20:38.680 the grid.
01:20:38.680 --> 01:20:42.720 So if you ask, how much can we add right now?
01:20:42.720 --> 01:20:45.360 That's where that 30% figure comes in.
01:20:45.360 --> 01:20:49.040 If you say, what could we add theoretically in the future?
01:20:49.040 --> 01:20:51.120 The answer is it depends.
01:20:51.120 --> 01:20:58.560 It depends really on two big things and one is how much money are we going to invest in
01:20:58.560 --> 01:21:00.220 upgrading the grid?
01:21:00.220 --> 01:21:02.980 So we need a more robust grid.
01:21:02.980 --> 01:21:09.600 We need a grid that is able to share electricity over a wider area and we need a smart grid
01:21:09.600 --> 01:21:13.600 that will balance loads second to second.
01:21:13.600 --> 01:21:17.520 The other big thing is, I'm sure you guys would guess, grid storage, right?
01:21:17.520 --> 01:21:22.180 The more grid storage you add, the more intermittent sources you can have.
01:21:22.180 --> 01:21:24.360 So that's the other type of feedback you get.
01:21:24.360 --> 01:21:26.040 People say, oh no, we can get to 70, 80.
01:21:26.040 --> 01:21:27.400 All you need is all this grid storage.
01:21:27.400 --> 01:21:28.880 Like, yeah, I know that.
01:21:28.880 --> 01:21:30.600 That wasn't my point.
01:21:30.600 --> 01:21:35.380 The point is we can't add it now because we don't have the grid storage now.
01:21:35.380 --> 01:21:41.000 And so these models which say we can get up to 70% wind and solar, they always include
01:21:41.000 --> 01:21:48.720 really optimistic projections about grid storage, right, and also grid upgrades in addition
01:21:48.720 --> 01:21:53.520 to realistic but still optimistic projections of wind and solar costs.
01:21:53.520 --> 01:21:57.100 I buy that those costs are going to continue to come down, although we don't know where
01:21:57.100 --> 01:22:04.360 they're going to peak in terms of, we can't assume that trends will continue inevitably.
01:22:04.360 --> 01:22:08.480 Like you pick the low hanging fruit and then the benefits tend to plateau at some point.
01:22:08.480 --> 01:22:16.080 But even if we assume very cheap wind and solar, you only get past that 30, maybe 40%,
01:22:16.080 --> 01:22:18.520 depending on which analysis you read.
01:22:18.520 --> 01:22:21.360 And again, I've tried to, I've read every one I could get my hands on, every one that
01:22:21.360 --> 01:22:23.440 I could find just to try to say, what is that number?
01:22:23.440 --> 01:22:27.400 What's the number of penetration of wind and solar?
01:22:27.400 --> 01:22:32.200 And there's a range of estimates based on a range of assumptions, but that 30 to 40%,
01:22:32.200 --> 01:22:33.800 that's basically the average.
01:22:33.800 --> 01:22:36.160 That's where it comes in.
01:22:36.160 --> 01:22:40.520 To get past that, there's always assumptions about grid storage and grid upgrades.
01:22:40.520 --> 01:22:41.760 And it's like, yes, I get that.
01:22:41.760 --> 01:22:47.200 That's why we need to invest in those two things so we can get past that 30%.
01:22:47.200 --> 01:22:54.760 Even then though, you're only going to get up to 40 to 60% unless you have ridiculously
01:22:54.760 --> 01:22:56.000 massive grid storage.
01:22:56.000 --> 01:23:00.000 And that's what I think a lot of people don't understand is that when you're talking about
01:23:00.000 --> 01:23:06.680 high levels of grid storage, you're talking about multiple orders of magnitude beyond
01:23:06.680 --> 01:23:13.240 what we can realistically add in the next five to 10 years.
01:23:13.240 --> 01:23:16.160 There's a lot of electricity going through the grid.
01:23:16.160 --> 01:23:23.320 And storing it for even a very short amount of time would just take massive grid storage.
01:23:23.320 --> 01:23:27.400 Massive grid storage is the kind of thing we should be thinking about as, we'll have
01:23:27.400 --> 01:23:31.320 that in 40 to 50 years, seriously.
01:23:31.320 --> 01:23:33.040 Not the next 20 years.
01:23:33.040 --> 01:23:40.600 The next 20 years, we are going to have incrementally increasing very modest amounts of grid storage.
01:23:40.600 --> 01:23:43.960 Unless there's a technological breakthrough, it's like, I can make batteries out of nothing.
01:23:43.960 --> 01:23:44.960 You know what I mean?
01:23:44.960 --> 01:23:47.960 Like the kind of things that people are researching, but that we're not mass producing at this
01:23:47.960 --> 01:23:49.160 point in time.
01:23:49.160 --> 01:23:52.600 And there's always things, we talk about grid storage like, oh yeah, they're making breakthroughs
01:23:52.600 --> 01:23:59.320 in more efficient compressed air grid storage and whatever salt, you know, melted salt grid
01:23:59.320 --> 01:24:00.320 storage, whatever.
01:24:00.320 --> 01:24:01.320 Yeah, those are all great.
01:24:01.320 --> 01:24:05.840 You know, and that will, that I'm counting that as adding incrementally to our grid storage.
01:24:05.840 --> 01:24:11.360 But you know, when you look at how much you would actually need to get to high penetrations
01:24:11.360 --> 01:24:13.680 of wind and solar, it's massive.
01:24:13.680 --> 01:24:16.480 It's like that's decades and decades away.
01:24:16.480 --> 01:24:20.160 So we have to be thinking about what's our energy mix going to be over the next 20 to
01:24:20.160 --> 01:24:23.920 30 years, and then what's it going to be after that?
01:24:23.920 --> 01:24:28.560 And if you, you can't have a solution that's, you know, 30 plus years away and say, that's
01:24:28.560 --> 01:24:34.520 our solution now, because by the time that comes in play, it's too late, right?
01:24:34.520 --> 01:24:37.800 It's your past 2050, all the bad stuff has happened.
01:24:37.800 --> 01:24:42.960 Obviously it could still get worse, but we will have blown past the two degree Celsius
01:24:42.960 --> 01:24:47.680 goal that we're trying to keep under, let alone the 1.5 one, you know.
01:24:47.680 --> 01:24:53.880 So for the next 20 years, 30% wind and solar, that's basically all we're going to get.
01:24:53.880 --> 01:24:58.200 And beyond that, it really becomes implausible.
01:24:58.200 --> 01:25:00.520 And so what's the rest going to be?
01:25:00.520 --> 01:25:01.700 That's really the only question.
01:25:01.700 --> 01:25:04.980 And it shouldn't be fossil fuel, right?
01:25:04.980 --> 01:25:07.620 So it's got to be something else.
01:25:07.620 --> 01:25:12.880 After 30 years, you know, maybe we'll have some, some game changing grid storage kicking
01:25:12.880 --> 01:25:16.680 in that'll be a game changer, but not in the next 20 to 30 years.
01:25:16.680 --> 01:25:17.680 Okay.
01:25:17.680 --> 01:25:18.680 But I'm happy to be wrong about that.
01:25:18.680 --> 01:25:23.200 But again, none of the references anybody sent me contradicted that they all had these
01:25:23.200 --> 01:25:27.920 other assumptions in there that were not correct, that don't apply to what I was saying.
Question_Email_Correction #1: _brief_description_ ()
Question_Email_Correction #2: _brief_description_ ()
Science or Fiction (1:25:27)
| Answer | Item |
|---|---|
| Fiction | |
| Science |
| Host | Result |
|---|---|
| Steve |
| Rogue | Guess |
|---|
Voice-over: It's time for Science or Fiction.
_Rogue_ Response
_Rogue_ Response
_Rogue_ Response
_Rogue_ Response
Steve Explains Item #_n_
Steve Explains Item #_n_
Steve Explains Item #_n_
Steve Explains Item #_n_
01:25:27.920 --> 01:25:35.360 All right, let's go on with science or fiction.
01:25:35.360 --> 01:25:44.840 It's time for science or fiction.
01:25:44.840 --> 01:25:49.720 Each week I come up with three science news items, four facts, two real and one fictitious.
01:25:49.720 --> 01:25:54.400 And then I challenge my panel of skeptics to tell me which one they think is the fake.
01:25:54.400 --> 01:25:56.200 We have a theme this week.
01:25:56.200 --> 01:26:00.480 It's kind of a fall theme, although it's a little bit late, but it's still, it's still
01:26:00.480 --> 01:26:03.080 a perfectly acceptable fall theme.
01:26:03.080 --> 01:26:05.080 The theme is apples.
01:26:05.080 --> 01:26:06.080 Apples.
01:26:06.080 --> 01:26:07.080 Yeah.
01:26:07.080 --> 01:26:10.760 Jay, how do you like them apples?
01:26:10.760 --> 01:26:13.760 Can't beat me to that.
01:26:13.760 --> 01:26:15.120 All right.
01:26:15.120 --> 01:26:17.280 Three things about apples.
01:26:17.280 --> 01:26:18.280 Two real, one fake.
01:26:18.280 --> 01:26:19.280 Here we go.
01:26:19.280 --> 01:26:24.720 Item number one, evolutionarily, apples have been around for about 12 million years, but
01:26:24.720 --> 01:26:34.040 the oldest archeological evidence of apples being used as food goes back to 3160 BCE.
01:26:34.040 --> 01:26:40.860 Item number two, John Chapman, more famously known as Johnny Appleseed, promoted the process
01:26:40.860 --> 01:26:47.520 of hybridizing apple cultivars and his basic process is still used today to produce the
01:26:47.520 --> 01:26:50.960 most commercial apple trees from seeds.
01:26:50.960 --> 01:26:55.960 Item number three, even though the US is the second most apple producing country in the
01:26:55.960 --> 01:27:01.480 world after China, only crab apples are native to North America.
01:27:01.480 --> 01:27:06.080 Edible apples were imported from Europe in the late 16th century.
01:27:06.080 --> 01:27:10.920 Asia, as our guest, and since you've played this twice before, you get to go first this
01:27:10.920 --> 01:27:11.920 week.
01:27:11.920 --> 01:27:12.920 Yeah.
01:27:12.920 --> 01:27:13.920 Do you know what your history is?
01:27:13.920 --> 01:27:17.840 I mean, what your score is for your previous Science for Fiction?
01:27:17.840 --> 01:27:18.840 Your record?
01:27:18.840 --> 01:27:20.880 I think my record is bad.
01:27:20.880 --> 01:27:24.920 Well, you have an opportunity to turn around.
01:27:24.920 --> 01:27:27.440 Show us what you know about apples.
01:27:27.440 --> 01:27:31.280 I believe the crab apples being native to North America is true.
01:27:31.280 --> 01:27:34.120 So I'm going to go with that fact.
01:27:34.120 --> 01:27:35.120 Let's find the fiction.
01:27:35.120 --> 01:27:41.680 We're going to go with an educated guess.
01:27:41.680 --> 01:27:44.880 I'm going to go with number one is the fiction.
01:27:44.880 --> 01:27:46.880 I'm probably going to regret that later.
01:27:46.880 --> 01:27:47.880 Yeah.
01:27:47.880 --> 01:27:51.400 The 12 million years old, but only 3160 BC.
01:27:51.400 --> 01:27:52.400 Okay.
01:27:52.400 --> 01:27:54.120 Jay, you seem to want to talk about apples.
01:27:54.120 --> 01:27:55.800 You can go next.
01:27:55.800 --> 01:27:56.800 Apples.
01:27:56.800 --> 01:28:02.840 The first one about apples, you know, 12 million years, but they have archaeological evidence
01:28:02.840 --> 01:28:03.840 3160 BC.
01:28:03.840 --> 01:28:07.880 I mean, I see no reason why that can't be true.
01:28:07.880 --> 01:28:12.760 I mean, whatever apples came from had been around for millions of years, just like tons
01:28:12.760 --> 01:28:15.580 of other plants and things like that.
01:28:15.580 --> 01:28:18.080 So I think that's probably fine.
01:28:18.080 --> 01:28:20.080 Johnny Chapman Appleseed.
01:28:20.080 --> 01:28:21.820 This guy, he's a bastard.
01:28:21.820 --> 01:28:23.920 Never trust Johnny Appleseed, Steve, I'm telling you.
01:28:23.920 --> 01:28:24.920 I don't know.
01:28:24.920 --> 01:28:28.680 So this guy was walking around, he's dropping seeds, you know, he's trying to...
01:28:28.680 --> 01:28:29.680 Here we go.
01:28:29.680 --> 01:28:32.600 We'll get 10,000 corrections probably on that next week.
01:28:32.600 --> 01:28:34.600 He's spitting them out as he's eating them.
01:28:34.600 --> 01:28:37.720 And then, you know, mixes a couple of these plants together.
01:28:37.720 --> 01:28:39.560 Next thing you know, you got Fuji apples, right?
01:28:39.560 --> 01:28:40.560 Is that what we're saying?
01:28:40.560 --> 01:28:41.560 Steve?
01:28:41.560 --> 01:28:42.560 Hello?
01:28:42.560 --> 01:28:43.560 Yeah.
01:28:43.560 --> 01:28:44.560 Self explain.
01:28:44.560 --> 01:28:45.560 He hears everything you're saying.
01:28:45.560 --> 01:28:46.560 I don't remember.
01:28:46.560 --> 01:28:49.520 I remember reading about this guy when I was young.
01:28:49.520 --> 01:28:51.120 I don't remember what he did.
01:28:51.120 --> 01:28:52.520 I'm pretty sure he's real.
01:28:52.520 --> 01:28:53.520 Let's start with that.
01:28:53.520 --> 01:28:57.720 But I don't know if he had anything to do with the hybridization of apples.
01:28:57.720 --> 01:28:58.860 So I'm going to put that one on hold.
01:28:58.860 --> 01:29:03.320 The third one, even though the US is the second most apple producing country in the world
01:29:03.320 --> 01:29:07.760 after China, only crab apples are native to North America.
01:29:07.760 --> 01:29:08.760 Damn.
01:29:08.760 --> 01:29:10.880 Crab apples in America, in the Americas.
01:29:10.880 --> 01:29:12.560 I mean, it makes sense.
01:29:12.560 --> 01:29:16.820 It makes sense that, you know, but then you got to talk about Native Americans and what
01:29:16.820 --> 01:29:17.880 were they doing?
01:29:17.880 --> 01:29:22.320 You know, if they were going to be messing around with any fruits, it was probably apples.
01:29:22.320 --> 01:29:23.320 Damn you, Steve.
01:29:23.320 --> 01:29:24.320 This is a tough one.
01:29:24.320 --> 01:29:26.920 I'm going to say that the Johnny Appleseed one is the fiction.
01:29:26.920 --> 01:29:27.920 Okay, Kara.
01:29:27.920 --> 01:29:31.040 I didn't even know Johnny Appleseed was a real person.
01:29:31.040 --> 01:29:34.200 I thought he was, that was like a nursery rhyme or something.
01:29:34.200 --> 01:29:35.200 Like Peter Cottontail.
01:29:35.200 --> 01:29:36.200 That's so terrible.
01:29:36.200 --> 01:29:41.200 Like he doesn't sound real.
01:29:41.200 --> 01:29:42.560 Oh my gosh.
01:29:42.560 --> 01:29:44.520 But clearly that's not his real name.
01:29:44.520 --> 01:29:46.000 His real name was John Chapman.
01:29:46.000 --> 01:29:50.040 People called him Johnny Appleseed probably because he did something with apple seeds.
01:29:50.040 --> 01:29:55.360 So that sounds, again, cromulent.
01:29:55.360 --> 01:29:58.520 There's a lot of cromulants in this episode.
01:29:58.520 --> 01:30:01.560 But did he hybridize different cultivars?
01:30:01.560 --> 01:30:07.120 And is his basic process still used today to produce trees from seeds?
01:30:07.120 --> 01:30:08.960 I don't know.
01:30:08.960 --> 01:30:12.100 When you say, Steve, and you probably can't answer this because I'm going like fourth,
01:30:12.100 --> 01:30:16.160 but when you say evolutionarily, apples have been around for about 12 million years, do
01:30:16.160 --> 01:30:17.420 you mean like apple?
01:30:17.420 --> 01:30:19.800 You don't mean apples as we know them today, I'm assuming.
01:30:19.800 --> 01:30:20.800 You mean some lineage.
01:30:20.800 --> 01:30:26.080 Not the species, not the specific varieties that we know today, but they were apples.
01:30:26.080 --> 01:30:27.080 They were called that.
01:30:27.080 --> 01:30:28.080 You know what I mean?
01:30:28.080 --> 01:30:30.000 There was something different enough about them to make them apple-y.
01:30:30.000 --> 01:30:31.000 Yeah.
01:30:31.000 --> 01:30:33.040 They were technically apples.
01:30:33.040 --> 01:30:34.040 Okay.
01:30:34.040 --> 01:30:35.040 All right.
01:30:35.040 --> 01:30:38.920 So that could be the case, but it could also be that something that was like the predecessor
01:30:38.920 --> 01:30:41.080 of the apple is that old.
01:30:41.080 --> 01:30:44.080 And you know, oldest archaeological evidence is super, super old.
01:30:44.080 --> 01:30:47.520 That would make sense if they're naturally occurring.
01:30:47.520 --> 01:30:52.800 And of course, finding archaeological evidence of something that does not preserve very well
01:30:52.800 --> 01:30:54.400 is probably really hard to do.
01:30:54.400 --> 01:30:58.200 So yeah, there could be something to that.
01:30:58.200 --> 01:31:00.920 And then are crab apples apples?
01:31:00.920 --> 01:31:02.400 Yeah, they're apples.
01:31:02.400 --> 01:31:03.400 Oh, okay.
01:31:03.400 --> 01:31:04.400 They're not crabs.
01:31:04.400 --> 01:31:05.560 So I buy it.
01:31:05.560 --> 01:31:12.360 I buy that crab apples are native, but regular apples aren't native to North America.
01:31:12.360 --> 01:31:16.120 There's a lot of things that we think of as being like quintessentially American, like
01:31:16.120 --> 01:31:19.520 American as apple pie that we imported from somewhere else.
01:31:19.520 --> 01:31:24.840 So I don't know, I feel like the Johnny Appleseed one has the most like myth associated with
01:31:24.840 --> 01:31:25.840 it.
01:31:25.840 --> 01:31:29.120 Also, I didn't know he was real until like right now, so I'm going to say that's the
01:31:29.120 --> 01:31:30.120 fiction.
01:31:30.120 --> 01:31:31.120 Okay, Bob.
01:31:31.120 --> 01:31:33.840 I mean, nothing would surprise me here.
01:31:33.840 --> 01:31:42.200 I want Johnny Appleseed to be true, so I'm going to say it's fiction, so I'll be happy
01:31:42.200 --> 01:31:43.200 either way.
01:31:43.200 --> 01:31:44.200 That's it?
01:31:44.200 --> 01:31:45.200 All right.
01:31:45.200 --> 01:31:46.200 Yeah, definitely.
01:31:46.200 --> 01:31:47.200 Yeah.
01:31:47.200 --> 01:31:52.360 Okay, I'll get to the core of it here and say that, yeah, I think the Johnny Appleseed
01:31:52.360 --> 01:31:54.960 one, something's wrong there.
01:31:54.960 --> 01:32:00.840 Obviously, John Chapman was a person, but did he really hybridize apple cultivars?
01:32:00.840 --> 01:32:02.840 I don't even know.
01:32:02.840 --> 01:32:03.840 Really?
01:32:03.840 --> 01:32:10.040 I don't know that part of the legend of him, not that I know much about it, but I don't
01:32:10.040 --> 01:32:11.040 know.
01:32:11.040 --> 01:32:12.040 That doesn't sound right.
01:32:12.040 --> 01:32:17.280 I mean, Kara said that that has, I think, the most wiggle room in it for it to be fiction,
01:32:17.280 --> 01:32:19.120 so I'll say that's fiction.
01:32:19.120 --> 01:32:22.320 Okay, so you all agree with the third one, so we'll start there.
01:32:22.320 --> 01:32:27.120 Even though the US is the second to most apple producing country in the world after China,
01:32:27.120 --> 01:32:29.900 only crab apples are native to North America.
01:32:29.900 --> 01:32:34.200 Edible apples were imported from Europe in the late 16th century.
01:32:34.200 --> 01:32:40.480 You guys all think this one is science, so were apples in the Americas prior to the 16th
01:32:40.480 --> 01:32:41.480 century?
01:32:41.480 --> 01:32:45.120 And this one is science.
01:32:45.120 --> 01:32:46.120 This is science.
01:32:46.120 --> 01:32:51.160 Yeah, so recent introduction to North America, but yeah, we only had, only crab apples are
01:32:51.160 --> 01:32:53.200 native to North America.
01:32:53.200 --> 01:33:00.320 What do you think is the most popular variety of apple in the world?
01:33:00.320 --> 01:33:03.440 In the world?
01:33:03.440 --> 01:33:05.280 The green apple?
01:33:05.280 --> 01:33:07.040 Green is a three.
01:33:07.040 --> 01:33:08.040 Granny Smith is three.
01:33:08.040 --> 01:33:09.040 Okay.
01:33:09.040 --> 01:33:10.040 Number three.
01:33:10.040 --> 01:33:11.040 Oh, not a red delicious.
01:33:11.040 --> 01:33:12.040 And number one.
01:33:12.040 --> 01:33:13.040 What's it called?
01:33:13.040 --> 01:33:14.040 Fiji?
01:33:14.040 --> 01:33:15.040 Fuji?
01:33:15.040 --> 01:33:16.040 It's called the...
01:33:16.040 --> 01:33:17.040 Fuji's four.
01:33:17.040 --> 01:33:18.040 Fuji's four, okay.
01:33:18.040 --> 01:33:20.240 Is it the Macintosh 2C?
01:33:20.240 --> 01:33:21.240 Crab apples.
01:33:21.240 --> 01:33:24.080 Steve, is it the Honeycrisp?
01:33:24.080 --> 01:33:25.080 That's five.
01:33:25.080 --> 01:33:27.720 Oh, is it red or is it green?
01:33:27.720 --> 01:33:30.760 You guys would be doing good if you were on like a Family Feud or something.
01:33:30.760 --> 01:33:31.760 Yeah, seriously.
01:33:31.760 --> 01:33:32.760 Good answer.
01:33:32.760 --> 01:33:33.760 Good answer.
01:33:33.760 --> 01:33:34.760 But then the other team would steal it with the very first one.
01:33:34.760 --> 01:33:35.760 They would.
01:33:35.760 --> 01:33:36.760 They would steal it and they would say...
01:33:36.760 --> 01:33:37.760 Oh, there's Macintosh.
01:33:37.760 --> 01:33:38.760 There's Fuji.
01:33:38.760 --> 01:33:39.760 There's Pinkly.
01:33:39.760 --> 01:33:40.760 We didn't say Macintosh yet.
01:33:40.760 --> 01:33:41.760 We didn't say Macintosh is six.
01:33:41.760 --> 01:33:42.760 No.
01:33:42.760 --> 01:33:43.760 The Gala apple.
01:33:43.760 --> 01:33:44.760 The Gala.
01:33:44.760 --> 01:33:45.760 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:33:45.760 --> 01:33:46.760 Those are good.
01:33:46.760 --> 01:33:47.760 Those are yummy.
01:33:47.760 --> 01:33:48.760 Is it Gala or Gala?
01:33:48.760 --> 01:33:49.760 I don't know.
01:33:49.760 --> 01:33:50.760 I don't know.
01:33:50.760 --> 01:33:51.760 Those are sweet and sour.
01:33:51.760 --> 01:33:52.760 That's number one.
01:33:52.760 --> 01:33:53.760 Yeah.
01:33:53.760 --> 01:33:54.760 Of those, my favorite is Honeycrisp.
01:33:54.760 --> 01:33:55.760 Yeah.
01:33:55.760 --> 01:33:56.760 Honeycrisp tends to be the...
01:33:56.760 --> 01:34:01.280 Oh, there's a local apple orchard that does the pick your own thing.
01:34:01.280 --> 01:34:04.440 My favorite one to eat off the tree is the Goldencrisp.
01:34:04.440 --> 01:34:10.680 It's basically a yellow apple, a golden apple that they hybrid with the Honeycrisp.
01:34:10.680 --> 01:34:11.680 It is amazing.
01:34:11.680 --> 01:34:15.880 Steve, when you eat that golden apple, does it heal up your hit points?
01:34:15.880 --> 01:34:16.880 It does.
01:34:16.880 --> 01:34:17.880 Totally.
01:34:17.880 --> 01:34:18.880 Yeah.
01:34:18.880 --> 01:34:21.880 Gives you a morale bonus.
01:34:21.880 --> 01:34:22.880 All right.
01:34:22.880 --> 01:34:23.880 Let's go back to number one.
01:34:23.880 --> 01:34:28.000 Evolutionarily, apples have been around for about 12 million years, but the oldest archeological
01:34:28.000 --> 01:34:32.280 evidence of apples being used as food goes back to 3160 BCE.
01:34:32.280 --> 01:34:34.640 Asia, you think this one is the fiction.
01:34:34.640 --> 01:34:37.040 All the rogues think this one is the science.
01:34:37.040 --> 01:34:38.840 So did Asia beat the rogues?
01:34:38.840 --> 01:34:41.040 This might be the fiction.
01:34:41.040 --> 01:34:43.080 This one is...
01:34:43.080 --> 01:34:44.080 This is science.
01:34:44.080 --> 01:34:45.080 Sorry, Asia.
01:34:45.080 --> 01:34:46.080 12 million.
01:34:46.080 --> 01:34:47.080 That's a long time.
01:34:47.080 --> 01:34:50.680 12 million is a long time, and they were just wild apples, and there are wild apples still
01:34:50.680 --> 01:34:51.680 in the world.
01:34:51.680 --> 01:34:52.680 I mean, you could just go and...
01:34:52.680 --> 01:34:53.680 You can eat them.
01:34:53.680 --> 01:35:01.280 They're actually edible wild apples, but the apple was very easy to cultivate, which means
01:35:01.280 --> 01:35:07.040 that John Chapman, Johnny Appleseed, promoted the process of hybridizing apple cultivars,
01:35:07.040 --> 01:35:10.560 and his basic process is still used today to produce most commercial apple trees from
01:35:10.560 --> 01:35:11.560 seeds.
01:35:11.560 --> 01:35:19.200 So John Chapman was a real person, Cara, who was colloquially called Johnny Appleseed because
01:35:19.200 --> 01:35:24.680 he did promote a process of hybridizing apple cultivars from seeds, right?
01:35:24.680 --> 01:35:27.860 So he was all about producing apple seeds.
01:35:27.860 --> 01:35:36.120 The problem is his process did not work, and we don't use it today for a very good scientific
01:35:36.120 --> 01:35:37.120 reason.
01:35:37.120 --> 01:35:38.120 Because he was wrong.
01:35:38.120 --> 01:35:39.120 And the reason...
01:35:39.120 --> 01:35:40.480 Does anybody know this reason?
01:35:40.480 --> 01:35:42.600 It has to be a genetic reason.
01:35:42.600 --> 01:35:45.080 Yeah, it is a genetic reason.
01:35:45.080 --> 01:35:46.080 Good.
01:35:46.080 --> 01:35:50.080 Do any of you grow apple trees in your backyard?
01:35:50.080 --> 01:35:51.080 I do not.
01:35:51.080 --> 01:35:52.080 No.
01:35:52.080 --> 01:35:55.280 I do, and one of the things you learn when you plant apple trees is that if you want
01:35:55.280 --> 01:35:58.320 your apple trees to actually produce apples...
01:35:58.320 --> 01:36:00.040 You need something to pollinate them.
01:36:00.040 --> 01:36:03.280 You need another kind of apple tree to pollinate them.
01:36:03.280 --> 01:36:04.280 What?
01:36:04.280 --> 01:36:06.880 You need different cultivars that are complementary.
01:36:06.880 --> 01:36:12.320 I mean, they'll still produce apples, they just won't be big or good, or a lot of them.
01:36:12.320 --> 01:36:13.920 What the hell, man?
01:36:13.920 --> 01:36:17.720 Because apples are extreme heterozygotes.
01:36:17.720 --> 01:36:19.320 They're extreme heterozygotes.
01:36:19.320 --> 01:36:26.260 What that means is that when you produce an apple from a seed, it does not produce the
01:36:26.260 --> 01:36:29.240 same cultivar that you got the seed from.
01:36:29.240 --> 01:36:30.240 Gotcha.
01:36:30.240 --> 01:36:31.800 So it's got all this recessive stuff popping out.
01:36:31.800 --> 01:36:32.800 Yeah, yeah.
01:36:32.800 --> 01:36:37.240 So you cannot produce a stable cultivar from seeds.
01:36:37.240 --> 01:36:38.240 That sucks.
01:36:38.240 --> 01:36:39.240 Clone it?
01:36:39.240 --> 01:36:40.240 You have to clone it.
01:36:40.240 --> 01:36:43.760 So if you buy an apple tree, those are graftings.
01:36:43.760 --> 01:36:50.380 They take the honeycrisp apple tree, and then you have to just take clippings from that
01:36:50.380 --> 01:36:56.800 and graft it onto rootstock, and then you sell those trees to orchards or people who
01:36:56.800 --> 01:36:57.800 want to plant them.
01:36:57.800 --> 01:37:02.320 By the way, isn't that faster and cheaper anyway than growing from seed?
01:37:02.320 --> 01:37:04.160 Well, there are other advantages.
01:37:04.160 --> 01:37:08.280 The other things you do is you graft them onto dwarf trees so that you don't have to
01:37:08.280 --> 01:37:11.800 climb up these 30-, 40-, 50-foot trees to pick your apples.
01:37:11.800 --> 01:37:12.800 Oh, nice.
01:37:12.800 --> 01:37:13.800 Holy crap.
01:37:13.800 --> 01:37:14.800 So you put them on dwarf trees.
01:37:14.800 --> 01:37:18.360 You put them on trees that are going to be really productive.
01:37:18.360 --> 01:37:23.320 So yeah, absolutely, it's a better technique for those reasons as well.
01:37:23.320 --> 01:37:27.520 But also, if you want a specific cultivar, it's your only option.
01:37:27.520 --> 01:37:31.120 You cannot get a reliable result from a seed.
01:37:31.120 --> 01:37:32.120 It doesn't work.
01:37:32.120 --> 01:37:34.320 Johnny Appleseed totally failed.
01:37:34.320 --> 01:37:39.360 So why was he so, like, is it just because we didn't know all this other stuff?
01:37:39.360 --> 01:37:41.160 He really was pushing this.
01:37:41.160 --> 01:37:46.760 Even at the time, even at his time, we knew this, but he was promoting, like, no, we need
01:37:46.760 --> 01:37:52.440 to be planting apples from seeds, and he really tried to sell it, and he went out west and
01:37:52.440 --> 01:37:57.120 planted seeds everywhere, and he set up an institute to promote the whole idea of growing
01:37:57.120 --> 01:37:59.560 apples from seeds, and it didn't work.
01:37:59.560 --> 01:38:01.120 He never got it to work.
01:38:01.120 --> 01:38:02.120 Yes.
01:38:02.120 --> 01:38:03.120 And he never abandoned it?
01:38:03.120 --> 01:38:04.120 No, I guess not.
01:38:04.120 --> 01:38:05.120 I don't know.
01:38:05.120 --> 01:38:06.120 Oh, he's a con artist then.
01:38:06.120 --> 01:38:08.240 Or he had a lot of motivated reasoning.
01:38:08.240 --> 01:38:10.240 Yeah, a ton of it.
01:38:10.240 --> 01:38:11.240 I don't know.
01:38:11.240 --> 01:38:12.240 It's going to work, damn it.
01:38:12.240 --> 01:38:16.040 Yeah, a late-life conversion or whatever, but from what I was reading, it's like, nope,
01:38:16.040 --> 01:38:21.600 he really pushed the whole apples from seeds thing, and it didn't work.
01:38:21.600 --> 01:38:22.880 It never worked.
01:38:22.880 --> 01:38:23.880 That bastard.
01:38:23.880 --> 01:38:27.600 And we don't do that because it's not a good idea.
01:38:27.600 --> 01:38:28.600 You know what?
01:38:28.600 --> 01:38:31.320 How many apple seed is dead to me?
01:38:31.320 --> 01:38:36.760 It's for the same reason that apples don't do well when they self-pollinate.
01:38:36.760 --> 01:38:40.560 If you cross-pollinate with other varieties, they do much better.
01:38:40.560 --> 01:38:44.920 And I experienced that firsthand, because I had one apple tree in my backyard.
01:38:44.920 --> 01:38:50.400 The tree is big, healthy, beautiful, and produced crap, these small few apples.
01:38:50.400 --> 01:38:53.280 Then I planted, and I read about it, and I'm like, oh, I've got to plant another freaking
01:38:53.280 --> 01:38:54.280 apple tree.
01:38:54.280 --> 01:38:59.000 I planted another apple tree next to it of a different variety, and I make sure I got
01:38:59.000 --> 01:39:04.720 a good match with the original, and it had a dramatic effect on my apple tree production.
01:39:04.720 --> 01:39:06.000 It had a dramatic effect.
01:39:06.000 --> 01:39:09.160 I produce hundreds of big apples now.
01:39:09.160 --> 01:39:10.160 What the hell?
01:39:10.160 --> 01:39:12.400 What selective pressures would do that?
01:39:12.400 --> 01:39:14.080 I don't know that it was a selective pressure.
01:39:14.080 --> 01:39:18.000 First of all, it doesn't really matter to the apple.
01:39:18.000 --> 01:39:19.760 It still works for the apple.
01:39:19.760 --> 01:39:22.760 Animals will still eat it and spread the seeds.
01:39:22.760 --> 01:39:25.760 But fewer apples means fewer chances of spreading your seeds.
01:39:25.760 --> 01:39:26.760 No, but the thing is-
01:39:26.760 --> 01:39:28.400 Is it fewer or just lower quality?
01:39:28.400 --> 01:39:29.680 That's an artificial thing, Bob.
01:39:29.680 --> 01:39:37.600 It's because I have this cultivar that was selected to be a clone.
01:39:37.600 --> 01:39:43.360 Now I have a tree that's producing basically clones, and that's why it doesn't work well.
01:39:43.360 --> 01:39:47.760 But a wild apple tree would already have more variation built in, so it would be fine.
01:39:47.760 --> 01:39:50.880 And it would probably also be not growing alone.
01:39:50.880 --> 01:39:52.320 Yeah, right.
01:39:52.320 --> 01:39:54.920 Like a wild apple tree would be growing with other wild apple trees.
01:39:54.920 --> 01:39:55.920 Anyway, it doesn't matter.
01:39:55.920 --> 01:40:01.320 Johnny Appleseed doesn't give a crap if he is in a position to give anything, because
01:40:01.320 --> 01:40:04.920 no one's going to be talking about us in 150 years.
01:40:04.920 --> 01:40:05.920 He's a pure seedoscientist.
01:40:05.920 --> 01:40:06.920 Nice.
01:40:06.920 --> 01:40:07.920 Nice.
01:40:07.920 --> 01:40:16.400 It says here online that the only surviving tree he planted is on the farm in Richards
01:40:16.400 --> 01:40:18.400 in Phyllis, Allegro, Nova, Ohio.
01:40:18.400 --> 01:40:19.400 Wow.
01:40:19.400 --> 01:40:20.400 Just one.
01:40:20.400 --> 01:40:21.400 Only one.
01:40:21.400 --> 01:40:22.400 Yeah.
01:40:22.400 --> 01:40:23.400 Every tree he planted.
01:40:23.400 --> 01:40:24.400 Yeah.
01:40:24.400 --> 01:40:25.400 I mean, he's the guy with the pot on his head, right?
01:40:25.400 --> 01:40:26.400 I don't know why he wore a pot on his head.
01:40:26.400 --> 01:40:27.400 See, this is why I thought he was just in children's books.
01:40:27.400 --> 01:40:28.400 Come on, you guys.
01:40:28.400 --> 01:40:33.400 I will never look at him the same way again.
01:40:33.400 --> 01:40:40.400 But yeah, but he was a serious apple scientist who just was wrong.
01:40:40.400 --> 01:40:41.400 It's okay.
01:40:41.400 --> 01:40:42.400 It's okay to be wrong.
01:40:42.400 --> 01:40:43.400 Okay.
Skeptical Quote of the Week ()
TEXT
– AUTHOR (YYYY-YYYY), _short_description_
01:40:43.400 --> 01:40:44.400
Evan, give us a quote.
01:40:44.400 --> 01:40:48.960 Many people seem to confuse cynicism with skepticism and believe that critical thinking
01:40:48.960 --> 01:40:52.480 results in a negative attitude about life.
01:40:52.480 --> 01:40:59.440 However, this opinion rests on a number of mistaken assumptions about the nature of skepticism.
01:40:59.440 --> 01:41:03.600 Skeptics must correct these misconceptions if they hope for the wider application of
01:41:03.600 --> 01:41:05.440 critical thinking.
01:41:05.440 --> 01:41:11.840 That was written by Phil Mole, who is a columnist at Skeptical Inquirer Magazine, among other
01:41:11.840 --> 01:41:14.400 skeptical magazines out there.
01:41:14.400 --> 01:41:17.160 This is back from 2002, 20 years old.
01:41:17.160 --> 01:41:18.160 20 years old.
01:41:18.160 --> 01:41:19.160 20 years ago.
01:41:19.160 --> 01:41:20.160 Wow.
01:41:20.160 --> 01:41:21.160 Yeah.
01:41:21.160 --> 01:41:25.280 I mean, he's correct, but it's one thing to say, yeah, we should do this.
01:41:25.280 --> 01:41:27.940 We should correct that misconception.
01:41:27.940 --> 01:41:29.160 Here we are 20 years later.
01:41:29.160 --> 01:41:31.160 I don't know that we figured out a way to do that.
01:41:31.160 --> 01:41:32.160 Yeah.
01:41:32.160 --> 01:41:33.160 You know?
01:41:33.160 --> 01:41:34.160 Yeah.
01:41:34.160 --> 01:41:35.160 It's easier said than done.
01:41:35.160 --> 01:41:36.160 It's like, yeah, somebody should do that.
01:41:36.160 --> 01:41:37.160 Yeah.
01:41:37.160 --> 01:41:38.160 Yeah, it's easier said than done.
01:41:38.160 --> 01:41:39.160 Yeah.
01:41:39.160 --> 01:41:44.360 And actually, it's arguably worse because since then, the deniers have hijacked the
01:41:44.360 --> 01:41:47.840 word skeptic in a very negative way.
01:41:47.840 --> 01:41:53.080 So it's still, unfortunately, a brand with a lot of baggage.
01:41:53.080 --> 01:41:54.080 But it's ours.
01:41:54.080 --> 01:41:55.080 Damn it.
01:41:55.080 --> 01:41:56.080 Yeah.
01:41:56.080 --> 01:41:57.080 And we'll keep working at it forever.
01:41:57.080 --> 01:41:58.080 Right.
01:41:58.080 --> 01:41:59.080 Or we'll switch over to something else like the brights.
01:41:59.080 --> 01:42:00.080 That will work out.
01:42:00.080 --> 01:42:01.080 Oh, God.
01:42:01.080 --> 01:42:03.120 I thought we said we'd never mention that again.
01:42:03.120 --> 01:42:04.120 Yeah.
01:42:04.120 --> 01:42:05.120 Yeah.
01:42:05.120 --> 01:42:06.120 Oh, well.
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