SGU Episode 905
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| SGU Episode 905 |
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| November 12th 2022 |
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From Ratcheting of climate pledges needed to limit peak global warming, Click for detailed caption "The emissions pathways vary across assumptions about ambition level in 2030, post-2030 minimum decarbonization rate and timing of net-zero for countries with net-zero pledges. See text for detailed description of assumptions. The black colour corresponds to the 'NDC' cases, orange to the 'NDC+' cases and blue to the 'NDC++' cases. Each colour group comprises nine pathways. The thick bold lines in each colour group correspond to the central assumptions about post-2030 minimum decarbonization (2%) and year of net-zero (target year as specified). The thick dashed lines correspond to the most ambitious pathway within each colour group. The lighter lines within each colour group correspond to different assumptions about the post-2030 minimum decarbonization rate and timing of net-zero pledges. The shaded green area represents 15–85 percentile range of 1.5 °C pathways with no or limited overshoot from the IPCC SR1.5 report." |
| Skeptical Rogues |
| S: Steven Novella |
B: Bob Novella |
C: Cara Santa Maria |
J: Jay Novella |
E: Evan Bernstein |
| Quote of the Week |
It's much easier to con people than to convince them that they've been conned. |
John Allen Paulos, American professor |
| Links |
| Download Podcast |
| Show Notes |
| Forum Discussion |
Introduction, remembering CSICOP editor Kendrick Frazier
Voice-over: You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.
S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Thursday, November 10st, 2022, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella...
B: Hey, everybody!
S: Cara Santa Maria...
C: Howdy.
S: Jay Novella...
J: Hey guys.
S: ...and Evan Bernstein.
E: Good evening everyone!
S: So Evan, you were recently at CSICon, the CSI's annual conference. Isn't that right?
E: Yes, I was. I wasn't there long. I happened to be in Las Vegas on the same weekend that my sister got married in Las Vegas.
S: So you skipped the wedding and went to the conference?
E: Almost. It was just across the street at the Hotel Flamingo where the CSI conference was happening, so I went over there for a few hours and saw some people, saw some faces I hadn't seen and oh my gosh, at least since the last time we were at CSI back in 2018 that with some other people.
S: Yeah, and the before time. Before the pandemic.
J: In the before times.
E: The pre.
S: So in case anyone listening doesn't know, the CSI, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, used to be CSICOP. They're the biggest national skeptical organization. They've been around since, I think, the mid-70s. '75?
E: '76.
S: '76?
E: Yeah '75-'76.
S: They publish the Skeptical Inquirer, which is an excellent skeptical magazine. I get it every month, so one of the few things I enjoy reading cover to cover. Unfortunately, the editor of the Skeptical Inquirer, Kendrick Frazier, who we all know, somebody we would see at the conferences. He died two days ago. He was 80. So good run. Apparently, he was sick. People knew. It wasn't like a surprise. It was known that he was, you know, that he was sick and was going to die soon. I got out, I think, two days before he passed away. I got an email from CSI letting us know what was going on. So yeah, it's always sad for a fellow skeptic to pass and he was, basically dedicated majority of his adult life to promoting science and skepticism, through his work through CSI.
E: When we first went to, well, at least my experience, my first time going up to their facility in Buffalo was back in 1997 with you guys, and that was when I first met Kendrick then. And he then, as you said, Steve, sort of was a fixture of all the conferences that had taken place. He was one of the familiar faces there. You always saw him at these skeptic conferences.
S: Yeah, there's a lot of characters in the skeptical movement, you know what I mean? There's a lot of people you meet that have strong personalities. And Kendrick was just like, as you say, just a fixture, just a real professional, just always there, just doing his job, getting it done. You know what I mean? He's also always a super nice guy.
E: Absolutely.
S: A very no drama kind of executive kind of person.
E: Yeah, even keel. And a big Los Angeles Dodgers fan, if I recall. He was, I remember at the last conference I saw him, this was back in 2018 we were in Las Vegas, at the conference he was there and he was wearing a Dodgers jersey. And he was very happy and proud talking about his Dodgers who were, I believe, in the World Series, had just gotten to the World Series that year. And he was making plans, OK, I have to be here for this talk and I have to give a talk here, but then I'm going to sneak away and go see the baseball game for a while and then I'll be back. So he was apparently a very big baseball fan and loved his Dodgers. He was the author or editor on 10 different books. And I didn't know this, he was a fellow of the AAAS.
C: Is he a scientist or just a science writer?
S: More of a science writer than a practicing scientist, but he has a science education.
Dumbest Thing of the Week (4:03)
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S: All right, so we're going to move on with our news items, but Evan, you're going to start us off with a Dumbest Thing of the Week.
E: Yeah, Dumbest Thing of the Week. Do you want me to sing the song?
S: No, not really.
E: Cara, do you want me to sing the song?
C: I'm going to say no also, I'm going to get in trouble.
E: Then you know what, I'll not sing it this week, but if a listener writes us and says next time they want to hear it, it's going to happen, but I'll spare you, I'll spare you the enjoyment of me singing that song this week. Dumbest Thing of the Week. All right, Norway's Prince Louise, she is quitting her royal duties, it was announced a few days ago.
S: Oh, she must have a really good reason.
E: Oh, absolutely. She's going to devote all of her time to her true passion in life, alternative medicine.
S: Oh, boy.
C: What? What does that mean?
E: Well, I will explain, and you know the definition of alternative medicine is anything that is not medicine, just so we're clear about that. But this is essentially almost a follow-up news item to one that I had talked about back in June of this year concerning Princess Louise. If you remember that her fiancé announced, and his name is Shaman Durek, that he had become engaged to the princess, Princess Louise of Norway. Shaman Durek, a sixth-generation shaman, author of the best-seller book, Spirit Hacking, Shamanic Keys to Reclaim Your Personal Power, Transform Yourself, and Light Up the World. Yes, the book in which he claims many things, including that childhood cancer is caused by unhappiness. Perhaps that will ring a bell as to the last news item I spoke about in regards to him.
S: Let's blame the kids for their own cancer. That's a good idea.
E: Yeah, that's a wonderful, wonderful scientifically-based philosophy that he espouses. And there are other gems in that book. Yeah, and the book got pulled from publishers. Many publishers in Europe realized, oh, this is bad, it's coming out. And Norway also pulled the book. They said, nope, sorry, not here. I think in America it stayed on the shelf. We have apparently a higher tolerance for dangerous health claims here in America than they do in Europe when it comes to these things. But Shaman Durek, he helps his victims, I mean clients, tap into their personal power and this is his words, while "unblocking negative patterns that prevent them from reaching their optimal human performance." Does it get more gobbledygook than that? No, it does not. Now clearly he's beloved in Norway, apparently. Oh wait, the Wikipedia page about him, let's see. He advocates several conspiracy theories and has been characterized by Norwegian media and other critics as a con man. His only book was described by critics as nonsense, garbage, and dirty talk, and the ravings of a lunatic. But you know, he's actually a misunderstood soul. He addresses his critics and naysayers by comparing himself to the likes of Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison, claiming that they too were geniuses and simply misunderstood. Where have we heard that before? Now if all that background wasn't enough, he has the full endorsement and friendship of Gwyneth Paltrow and the Goop parade. So that, I think, sums him up pretty well. So yeah, they're engaged, Princess Louise and the Shaman. But in this latest update, which came courtesy of the BBC, among other news outlets that picked it up, she has relinquished her royal duties, yes, she's going to focus on her alternative medicine business with the showman, I mean the Shaman. And Princess Louise, here's what she says, she's aware of the importance of research based knowledge, but she believes alternative medicine can be an important supplement to help the conventional medical establishment.
S: Yeah, just like putting a little bit of manure on your ice cream supplements it and makes it better.
E: And yeah, so we hear that before all the time. Oh, here's what else she says, a warm hand, an acupuncture needle, a crystal, natural remedies, yoga, meditation, or therapeutic conversation can, I believe, help to make life better for many individuals. You see what the pseudoscientists do? They blend the crazy ideas, the acupuncture, the crystals, those natural remedies, with the non-crazy ideas, meditation, yoga, conversation with therapists. They couch themselves as being sort of these moderates, almost rationals, instead of just emphasizing the outright quackery agenda that they have. And they blend the two, they mix the two, it's a deception, is what it is. She also says: "I also believe that there are components of a good life in sound physical and mental health that may not be so easy to sum up in a research report." Translation, scientific research and analysis is lacking and therefore any of the blanks that science can't answer means the answer lies in unfounded beliefs and ideas that are untethered to reality.
S: Or I could ignore science whenever I want.
E: Instead, go with what your gut is telling you in a way. The princess, yes, she's controversial and has been so for many decades. She started a school, this was back in 2007 to help people get in touch with their angels. And not in a metaphoric way, to get in touch with their angels. Angels exist and you can communicate with them. And she's been doing this ever since she was a child. And she's brought it with her, now she's I think in her 50 so well into adulthood. She and a friend opened that school together back in 2007. The school is since closed in 2018. It didn't quite go I think as planned and had financial problems, she had to sell one of her houses in order to pay off the debts and so forth. So that went down. But there were some exposés and some things written about the school and they actually went into the school to do some, well to observe what exactly was going on. And they took some video about what was going on inside the classrooms there. And here's what they said, it mostly showed the princess and her friend, the other teacher, they would meditate with clients, trying to summon the spiritual energy needed to recognize and communicate with angels. That's it. That's all they did. They sat, I don't know, a seance, for lack of a better term, I don't know how else to really compare that. But hey, for $1,500 a class. Or a course, a semester, I have no idea. Probably 6 classes $1,500 that's what you would get. And yeah, you would use these angels to empower yourself and create miracles in your own life. These are all quotes right from their website, right from their literature. What is her business going to be, nobody really knows, time will tell. But based on her history and the history of her fiancé and the company that she keeps and the fact that her own family effectively cast her out because she's unpopular and detached from reality, I think we can safely assume that her foray into full-time pseudoscience will be, what, to be continued. We will find out.
S: So this is, I have two minds on this story. One is that it always makes me sad to think of people dedicating their life to nonsense. You know what I mean? It's like, they're going to put so much time and energy into a fantasy that they think is real because they have bought into it, and it's just such a waste. But also, she seems to have been into this since she was a child, right, so this just may be her predisposition rather than being seduced by it. She sounds like she's like all in from the beginning.
E: And she's made a choice here, Steve, a choice that so few people in life have, especially with someone of her exposure, her power, the wealth and the exposure that comes along with being part of a royal family and the good work that you could potentially be doing. And you're shunting that, you're throwing that away and that possibility in order to go down this specific route in life. That makes it worse.
S: All right, thanks, Evan.
E: There you go.
News Items
S:
B:
C:
J:
E:
(laughs) (laughter) (applause) [inaudible]
Climate Change in the Classroom (12:29)
12:28.600 --> 12:35.000 We have a couple of climate-related news items this week, partly because, you know, it's
12:35.000 --> 12:40.760 COP 27, it's the big climate get-together, UN meeting in Egypt this year.
12:40.760 --> 12:44.900 And of course, there are the usual people whining about all of the attendees taking
12:44.900 --> 12:48.780 private jets there, which, you know, is a distraction.
12:48.780 --> 12:53.440 But there's a few things we could talk about, but Jay, you're going to start us off by
12:53.440 --> 12:57.920 talking about how climate change is taught in the classroom.
12:57.920 --> 13:04.320 In the past few years, the science and education standards in Texas were reviewed and updated.
13:04.320 --> 13:10.520 So these education standards, they outline what the students in each grade and each subject
13:10.520 --> 13:11.520 should learn.
13:11.520 --> 13:12.520 Right.
13:12.520 --> 13:17.200 This is like literally what are the children going to learn and in what grade are they?
13:17.200 --> 13:22.040 This was the first review of the education standards that proposed students learn about
13:22.040 --> 13:23.880 human-caused climate change.
13:23.880 --> 13:24.880 Imagine that.
13:24.880 --> 13:29.520 This is the first review period that they're actually going to put the question out there.
13:29.520 --> 13:31.680 Should we teach our kids about climate change?
13:31.680 --> 13:34.560 This seems like they're already behind the ball here.
13:34.560 --> 13:37.440 Texas happens to be a key player in this situation.
13:37.440 --> 13:39.120 So let me give you the background here.
13:39.120 --> 13:44.320 Since Texas is one of the biggest single textbook purchasers, when they decide what should and
13:44.320 --> 13:48.880 should not be taught to their students, the companies that make textbooks, you know, they
13:48.880 --> 13:52.160 commonly change their products to fit what Texas wants.
13:52.160 --> 13:54.680 That's how much buying power Texas has.
13:54.680 --> 13:58.400 Then those books get sold all across the United States.
13:58.400 --> 14:03.520 In a 2020 review of science standards of all 50 states in the US, when looking at how well
14:03.520 --> 14:09.200 climate change was represented in their curriculum, most states got an A or B. Texas got an F.
14:09.200 --> 14:16.160 In 2019, NPR did a poll where four out of five people in the United States think that
14:16.160 --> 14:19.180 school children should be educated about climate change.
14:19.180 --> 14:22.480 So clearly, you know, these two things don't line up.
14:22.480 --> 14:27.840 The last time the Texas board reviewed and updated the Texas essential knowledge and
14:27.840 --> 14:33.920 skills, this is called TEKS, this was in regards to science.
14:33.920 --> 14:35.560 This happened back in 2009.
14:35.560 --> 14:39.640 Now, during that cycle of review, the board argued about evolution.
14:39.640 --> 14:43.320 They were really trying to figure out like how they want to present evolution to the
14:43.320 --> 14:45.240 children in Texas.
14:45.240 --> 14:49.520 And they also decided that high school students should hear both sides of the argument about
14:49.520 --> 14:52.360 whether or not global warming is happening.
14:52.360 --> 14:54.480 This was in 2009.
14:54.480 --> 15:00.440 Back in 2019, when it was again time to review and update the Texas essential knowledge and
15:00.440 --> 15:06.840 skills, the heavily debated topic at this point was finally climate science.
15:06.840 --> 15:09.640 This was the number one thing that was being debated.
15:09.640 --> 15:12.220 The board had three different curricula to consider.
15:12.220 --> 15:18.080 So they had high school core sciences, high school elective sciences, and then K-8, which
15:18.080 --> 15:20.200 is all the other grades.
15:20.200 --> 15:25.200 The board brought in 85 volunteers and some of them, you know, they were professionals.
15:25.200 --> 15:30.120 They were content advisors who could give the board suggestions on what should be changed.
15:30.120 --> 15:35.160 And those who worked on the high school core science standards initially did not include
15:35.160 --> 15:39.920 any reference to the science of modern climate change, remarkably.
15:39.920 --> 15:44.600 During the process of deciding on what will end up in the curriculum, the board had a
15:44.600 --> 15:45.600 public meeting, right?
15:45.600 --> 15:48.840 They, you know, they opened it up and they let everybody and anybody who wants to comment
15:48.840 --> 15:51.000 about it chime in.
15:51.000 --> 15:57.300 And 30 people raised the topic of how climate change should be included in these core classes.
15:57.300 --> 16:02.080 This came from parents and teachers and other people involved in education.
16:02.080 --> 16:06.360 So also in that same meeting, a man named Robert Unger gave his opinion.
16:06.360 --> 16:10.000 He, however, was a representative for the Texas Energy Council.
16:10.000 --> 16:11.520 Guess where this is going?
16:11.520 --> 16:15.460 He's an engineer from Dallas and he, oh, you know, just happened to be someone who worked
16:15.460 --> 16:19.000 for the oil and gas industry for over 45 years.
16:19.000 --> 16:24.640 So that you have a clear understanding of who this man was representing.
16:24.640 --> 16:31.200 He was representing the Texas Energy Council and that is a league of 35 oil and gas industry
16:31.200 --> 16:32.560 organizations.
16:32.560 --> 16:34.600 They have over 5,000 members.
16:34.600 --> 16:39.920 The Texas Energy Council had recruited 17 experts with varying backgrounds.
16:39.920 --> 16:44.520 And all of these people agreed that oil and gas should be portrayed in a balanced way.
16:44.520 --> 16:46.920 I don't know what the hell that means.
16:46.920 --> 16:48.620 You know, they just want it to be vague.
16:48.620 --> 16:53.840 This is a nice way of saying the way I read it, that they don't want oil and gas industries
16:53.840 --> 16:59.180 to be represented in a negative light due to their direct involvement in climate change.
16:59.180 --> 17:05.760 So their goal, this is taken from their, essentially taken from their website when you read between
17:05.760 --> 17:06.760 the lines.
17:06.760 --> 17:11.220 Their goal is to downplay the seriousness of climate change, to pass on the blame to
17:11.220 --> 17:19.320 other industries and countries, and most reprehensibly, and to delay actions that would mitigate climate
17:19.320 --> 17:20.320 change.
17:20.320 --> 17:21.320 How about that?
17:21.320 --> 17:22.620 That's what these people are about.
17:22.620 --> 17:27.760 So Unger suggested to the board that they remove any mention of social justice and ethics
17:27.760 --> 17:29.880 in these science classes.
17:29.880 --> 17:33.680 He proposed that they include a cost-benefit analysis.
17:33.680 --> 17:35.520 This is what, this is the way that he wanted this.
17:35.520 --> 17:36.520 Oh yeah?
17:36.520 --> 17:37.520 Yeah.
17:37.520 --> 17:38.520 Wait, wait until I read this.
17:38.520 --> 17:39.520 Yeah, let's go down that road.
17:39.520 --> 17:40.520 I mean.
17:40.520 --> 17:44.540 I know this is not going to end well for him if we do a cost-benefit analysis.
17:44.540 --> 17:50.160 So he goes on to explain how solar and wind also have negative aspects and that all energy
17:50.160 --> 17:54.560 sources should be looked at from a cost-benefit perspective.
17:54.560 --> 17:56.860 This of course is goddamn absurd, right?
17:56.860 --> 17:58.800 It's a false equivalence.
17:58.800 --> 18:02.800 Wind and solar produce a fraction of the greenhouse gases that gas and oil do.
18:02.800 --> 18:04.600 I mean, a fraction.
18:04.600 --> 18:08.680 Comparing negative aspects of oil, gas, wind, and solar is a complete waste of time.
18:08.680 --> 18:13.200 And it most certainly is not the conversation and not what we want students focusing on.
18:13.200 --> 18:16.760 Oh, let's do a cost analysis of these different sources of energy.
18:16.760 --> 18:17.760 Yeah, sure.
18:17.760 --> 18:21.280 Well, Jay, I'll push back on that, let me push back on that.
18:21.280 --> 18:25.800 I think that's fine as long as you do it accurately, right?
18:25.800 --> 18:32.880 If you did a full cost-benefit analysis, including the externalized costs of climate change.
18:32.880 --> 18:33.880 That's the key.
18:33.880 --> 18:40.040 Wind and solar come out way on top, you know, as well as, you know, geothermal, hydroelectric
18:40.040 --> 18:43.480 and nuclear, anything that's low carbon.
18:43.480 --> 18:49.040 And the massive carbon-emitting energies are, you know, just because of health care costs
18:49.040 --> 18:50.520 on the one side and the other.
18:50.520 --> 18:54.000 Steve, you're talking, but you're going into detail that they don't want and that they've
18:54.000 --> 18:57.120 clearly represented that they don't want those kinds of details.
18:57.120 --> 19:02.640 They don't want them to, they don't want the students to be talking about explicitly understanding
19:02.640 --> 19:03.840 what the root cause is.
19:03.840 --> 19:05.960 They want, this is their whitewash.
19:05.960 --> 19:07.400 Oh, I know.
19:07.400 --> 19:12.100 But you can call them out, rather than saying, we don't want to talk cost versus cost-benefit
19:12.100 --> 19:15.680 analysis, you say, all right, we'll do, here's the cost-benefit analysis.
19:15.680 --> 19:17.600 I mean, these things have been published.
19:17.600 --> 19:21.720 Yeah, but I'm sure that they have a handy-dandy curriculum for that.
19:21.720 --> 19:22.720 Yeah.
19:22.720 --> 19:23.720 Well, that's the problem.
19:23.720 --> 19:26.880 You can't let the industry write the science curriculum.
19:26.880 --> 19:32.000 How about we just talk about the actual facts as scientists understand that?
19:32.000 --> 19:37.680 Well, but Steve, not only did this guy who was representing these oil and gas companies,
19:37.680 --> 19:42.740 not only did he not specifically want what you say, but there are people that were sitting
19:42.740 --> 19:43.740 on the board.
19:43.740 --> 19:49.320 Like the next day, the board met and they were considering, you know, all the talkback
19:49.320 --> 19:55.460 that they heard, and one of the people on the board proposed that they do what this
19:55.460 --> 19:56.460 guy said.
19:56.460 --> 19:57.460 You know what I mean?
19:57.460 --> 20:03.080 Like, yeah, let's do the cost-benefit analysis, aka let's whitewash this thing and make it
20:03.080 --> 20:04.440 sound benign.
20:04.440 --> 20:09.320 Fossil fuel industry professionals, you know, these people took an active part in each stage
20:09.320 --> 20:12.120 of the Texas science standards review process.
20:12.120 --> 20:16.240 Every single time that there was any way that they could say what they wanted to say and
20:16.240 --> 20:18.240 skew things, they did.
20:18.240 --> 20:22.600 Any time it was open to the public, they successfully influenced the curriculum of all age ranges
20:22.600 --> 20:23.600 in Texas.
20:23.600 --> 20:26.560 And they did all this during the public hearings that I told you about.
20:26.560 --> 20:30.400 Now other things they argued for was like, there's just a couple more examples and just
20:30.400 --> 20:32.960 so you know, this story keeps going.
20:32.960 --> 20:37.680 I'm just telling you like the basic backbone of it, but there is so many details in here
20:37.680 --> 20:41.280 of all the things that they did and all the language that they want to change and all
20:41.280 --> 20:42.320 this stuff.
20:42.320 --> 20:44.080 But here's a good example.
20:44.080 --> 20:48.400 They didn't want the words renewable or nonrenewable used.
20:48.400 --> 20:53.420 Instead, they wanted the curriculum to use the term natural resources.
20:53.420 --> 21:02.500 So everything, solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, and oil and gas, these are all natural resources.
21:02.500 --> 21:06.320 It's astounding when you read it and you see it in black and white.
21:06.320 --> 21:09.000 It's so crystal goddamn clear what they're trying to do.
21:09.000 --> 21:11.360 I mean, anybody that works for oil and gas.
21:11.360 --> 21:14.760 Yeah, I mean, it is absolutely, Steve, you hit the nail on the head.
21:14.760 --> 21:16.000 It's double plus good.
21:16.000 --> 21:20.960 So you add the first thing that I said, where Texas has a massive influence on all of the
21:20.960 --> 21:26.440 textbooks that happen in the United States, massive influence, then their curricula is
21:26.440 --> 21:31.760 profoundly altered by these people who are essentially lobbyists.
21:31.760 --> 21:35.520 If you think about it, they're acting just like lobbyists, special interest groups who
21:35.520 --> 21:40.520 want certain things handled in certain ways in classroom textbooks.
21:40.520 --> 21:43.120 So their industry won't get hurt.
21:43.120 --> 21:44.120 It's disgusting.
21:44.120 --> 21:45.680 How do we let this happen?
21:45.680 --> 21:46.680 You look at it-
21:46.680 --> 21:47.680 It's also brilliant, right?
21:47.680 --> 21:48.680 Get them while they're young.
21:48.680 --> 21:49.680 Of course, man.
21:49.680 --> 21:50.680 Of course.
21:50.680 --> 21:53.320 But it doesn't just affect Texas, it affects the whole country.
21:53.320 --> 21:58.920 And this is why we need skeptical activists everywhere.
21:58.920 --> 22:05.000 Because at some town meeting, and just so you understand, this wasn't like tens of thousands
22:05.000 --> 22:08.160 of people in this huge consortium.
22:08.160 --> 22:12.840 This conversation and these decisions were being made in a relatively small venue in
22:12.840 --> 22:13.840 a town in Texas.
22:13.840 --> 22:19.520 Yeah, that's why I really think that we need to protect that process of determining the
22:19.520 --> 22:21.200 curriculum and the textbooks and whatever.
22:21.200 --> 22:29.280 It really should be done by, you know, scientists should be determining what is science in terms
22:29.280 --> 22:30.280 of what gets taught.
22:30.280 --> 22:31.280 Yeah.
22:31.280 --> 22:33.160 I mean, it sounds obvious.
22:33.160 --> 22:39.220 And educators should be deciding like what is an age appropriate educational level.
22:39.220 --> 22:40.220 And it's okay.
22:40.220 --> 22:45.520 I mean, obviously, I'm not against parents having input, because parents should absolutely
22:45.520 --> 22:49.640 have supervision and input into what their kids are taught.
22:49.640 --> 22:54.240 But there's got to be standards, it can't just be like anybody with an objection gets
22:54.240 --> 22:57.800 to interfere with the entire educational system, you know.
22:57.800 --> 22:59.440 It's a minority rule again.
22:59.440 --> 23:00.440 Yeah, right.
23:00.440 --> 23:03.280 It's the tyranny of the vocal minority, basically.
23:03.280 --> 23:04.280 All right.
23:04.280 --> 23:05.760 Well, we're not going to fix this problem.
23:05.760 --> 23:08.560 But this is something we definitely have to keep our eye on.
Effects of Climate in USA (24:30)
24:28.320 --> 24:35.200 Kara, so you're going to give us an update on how global warming is doing in the U.S.
24:35.200 --> 24:40.800 Basically, Jay, as I'm listening to you talking about these great lengths that these lobbyists
24:40.800 --> 24:48.840 are going to to, as Steve mentioned, double plus good our climate education for kiddos,
24:48.840 --> 24:56.320 it's super scary because a report was just released, a draft report that really shows
24:56.320 --> 24:59.160 just how dire things are.
24:59.160 --> 25:03.220 Probably one of the most dire reports I've come across thus far.
25:03.220 --> 25:07.040 So there's something called the National Climate Assessment.
25:07.040 --> 25:13.720 We're in the fifth version of it right now, and you can read about it at GlobalChange.gov.
25:13.720 --> 25:17.480 The National Climate Assessment is federally mandated.
25:17.480 --> 25:24.120 It's basically what the U.S. government is contributing to climate knowledge.
25:24.120 --> 25:30.640 And the final report is slated to be published late next year in 2023.
25:30.640 --> 25:35.080 It was actually pushed back because while Trump was in office, he tried to squash the
25:35.080 --> 25:36.960 entire project.
25:36.960 --> 25:38.360 But we did not let that happen.
25:38.360 --> 25:40.280 It just ended up getting pushed back.
25:40.280 --> 25:45.080 So it's coming out in 2023, but they release a draft report early so that it can be peer
25:45.080 --> 25:48.840 reviewed and so that individuals can comment publicly.
25:48.840 --> 25:50.560 So the draft report was released.
25:50.560 --> 25:53.520 It's 1,695 pages.
25:53.520 --> 25:55.000 I did not read it all.
25:55.000 --> 25:56.000 I know.
25:56.000 --> 25:57.000 I'm very sorry.
25:57.000 --> 25:58.000 It just came out on Monday.
25:58.000 --> 26:06.520 I don't know if I could possibly read that many pages in four days, even if I didn't
26:06.520 --> 26:09.520 have a full time job and a dissertation and work on two podcasts.
26:09.520 --> 26:12.760 And oh, yeah, by the way, I'm in the middle of a hurricane right now.
26:12.760 --> 26:13.760 Did you know?
26:13.760 --> 26:14.760 Did you know?
26:14.760 --> 26:15.760 Yeah.
26:15.760 --> 26:17.960 I'm connected to the guys on my phone because I don't have Wi-Fi.
26:17.960 --> 26:18.960 It's ridiculous.
26:18.960 --> 26:23.280 All this special pleading, oh my goodness.
26:23.280 --> 26:28.880 So looking at the National Climate Assessment, it's not good.
26:28.880 --> 26:34.240 Basically there are some big takeaways, but I wanted to point to one thing that a lot
26:34.240 --> 26:39.640 of people are reporting on, which is first the price tag.
26:39.640 --> 26:42.440 I mean, you mentioned the cost benefit analysis.
26:42.440 --> 26:45.000 What about just the cost of climate change?
26:45.000 --> 26:46.720 Yeah, it's going to be trillions.
26:46.720 --> 26:47.720 Oh my gosh.
26:47.720 --> 26:48.720 Okay.
26:48.720 --> 26:55.520 So historically we were averaging eight $1 billion, and I don't mean historically like
26:55.520 --> 26:56.520 a long time ago.
26:56.520 --> 26:58.640 I just mean like a decade ago.
26:58.640 --> 27:03.880 We were averaging eight $1 billion weather events every year.
27:03.880 --> 27:05.760 That's already really bad, right?
27:05.760 --> 27:08.720 Wait, wait, let me add this up.
27:08.720 --> 27:09.720 That's $8 billion.
27:09.720 --> 27:10.720 That's $8 billion.
27:10.720 --> 27:11.720 Yeah.
27:11.720 --> 27:13.440 In the last two years, we've had 80.
27:13.440 --> 27:20.880 So we're averaging a $1 billion weather disaster every three weeks in the United States.
27:20.880 --> 27:22.920 Is that because of inflation or?
27:22.920 --> 27:23.920 No.
27:23.920 --> 27:27.060 I'm pretty sure that's adjusted for inflation.
27:27.060 --> 27:30.400 Another big thing that's kind of just like drives us home, and then we'll get into some
27:30.400 --> 27:37.880 of the brass tacks and the nitty gritty, is that the US is actually experiencing warming
27:37.880 --> 27:44.280 68% faster than the rest of the world average.
27:44.280 --> 27:45.280 We're not-
27:45.280 --> 27:50.600 We had the warmest October that I remember, and November 5th was 70 degrees in Connecticut.
27:50.600 --> 27:51.600 That's nuts.
27:51.600 --> 27:53.240 Like I said, I'm in a hurricane right now.
27:53.240 --> 27:55.680 Hurricanes don't usually happen on November 10th.
27:55.680 --> 27:58.600 The hurricane season is usually over by now.
27:58.600 --> 27:59.880 By October, yeah.
27:59.880 --> 28:00.880 Yeah.
28:00.880 --> 28:08.640 So we're looking at the average temperature in the continental 48 being 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit,
28:08.640 --> 28:15.560 which is 1.4 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial averages, when the global average temperature
28:15.560 --> 28:19.480 is 1 degree Celsius over pre-industrial averages.
28:19.480 --> 28:24.840 Now this is to be expected because land warms faster than water.
28:24.840 --> 28:29.360 So land area is faster than the ocean, and also higher latitudes warm faster than lower
28:29.360 --> 28:30.360 latitudes.
28:30.360 --> 28:34.640 So you see this in other parts of the world as well.
28:34.640 --> 28:39.240 But when we're talking about these global averages, we tend to talk about them in terms
28:39.240 --> 28:40.240 of a global average.
28:40.240 --> 28:42.020 Well, that's not the case here.
28:42.020 --> 28:43.760 We're not looking at 1 degree Celsius right now.
28:43.760 --> 28:46.320 We're looking at 1.4 degrees Celsius right now.
28:46.320 --> 28:54.300 We're seeing so much bad stuff happening as a result of this runaway warming.
28:54.300 --> 28:58.160 So let's look at some of the highlights of this report.
28:58.160 --> 29:03.420 The first one is that obviously the way that climate change is affecting us here in the
29:03.420 --> 29:06.580 US is different depending on where you live.
29:06.580 --> 29:13.840 And we kind of already know this, but we're seeing terrible wildfires in the West.
29:13.840 --> 29:19.840 We are seeing terrible storm systems in both the Northeast and the Southeast.
29:19.840 --> 29:24.140 We're seeing terrible heat waves across most of the Midwest.
29:24.140 --> 29:28.840 And one thing that this report does, which is the exact opposite, Jay, of what they're
29:28.840 --> 29:35.080 trying to do in these Texas textbooks, is that they continuously bring it back to who
29:35.080 --> 29:38.640 is the most at risk, who is getting harmed by this.
29:38.640 --> 29:45.160 And we know that communities that are already overburdened, so we're talking people of color,
29:45.160 --> 29:50.900 low income communities, indigenous people, these are the places where they're feeling
29:50.900 --> 29:52.040 it the worst.
29:52.040 --> 30:00.520 It's that really terrible irony that the people causing the most destruction are the most
30:00.520 --> 30:02.280 protected from it.
30:02.280 --> 30:07.140 The people that are doing the least to contribute to global climate change are the most vulnerable
30:07.140 --> 30:08.140 to it.
30:08.140 --> 30:09.840 They're really getting hurt.
30:09.840 --> 30:12.880 And if you are sitting there saying, I don't really notice a difference, I don't really
30:12.880 --> 30:16.120 feel this, I've been lucky, it's because of your privilege.
30:16.120 --> 30:17.200 You have been lucky.
30:17.200 --> 30:19.240 A lot of people aren't so lucky.
30:19.240 --> 30:23.520 One thing that we never think about here in the US is water.
30:23.520 --> 30:24.780 Water is free.
30:24.780 --> 30:26.680 You just open the tap.
30:26.680 --> 30:31.680 People don't think about the fact that water is actually a precious resource and it's being
30:31.680 --> 30:32.680 threatened.
30:32.680 --> 30:40.000 So when we have extreme rainfall, extreme flooding, that equates to less clean drinking
30:40.000 --> 30:41.000 water.
30:41.000 --> 30:42.000 Just straight up.
30:42.000 --> 30:46.320 We're seeing that salt water, because the seas are rising, we're having these horrible
30:46.320 --> 30:51.840 storm surges and aquifers are getting polluted with salt water, which means then we have
30:51.840 --> 30:53.000 to desalinate.
30:53.000 --> 30:54.700 We can't drink salt water.
30:54.700 --> 30:59.080 So if salt water is getting into our aquifers, if it's getting into our wells, if it's getting
30:59.080 --> 31:04.320 into areas where we usually hold fresh water, all that fresh water is now poisoned, quote
31:04.320 --> 31:05.320 unquote.
31:05.320 --> 31:07.720 We have to desalinate it to make it drinkable again.
31:07.720 --> 31:15.240 We're seeing that floods are taking basically toxins and flooding them into our wells and
31:15.240 --> 31:16.920 into our water table.
31:16.920 --> 31:20.480 So we're not able to drink the water that we should be able to drink.
31:20.480 --> 31:26.400 And we're also seeing that there are a lot of algal blooms that are existing at a higher
31:26.400 --> 31:29.100 rate than they ever did in the past.
31:29.100 --> 31:33.560 Just because there's more water in certain places, more water doesn't necessarily mean
31:33.560 --> 31:34.920 better.
31:34.920 --> 31:39.200 And then of course we know the opposite side of that problem, which is, I mean I know this
31:39.200 --> 31:44.760 very well being an LA person, like drought is real.
31:44.760 --> 31:45.760 It's real.
31:45.760 --> 31:50.560 We are running out of water in a lot of the places like these huge reservoirs that used
31:50.560 --> 31:53.640 to be full just aren't and they're devastating images.
31:53.640 --> 31:58.180 I mean just literally go online and look at before and after images.
31:58.180 --> 32:01.880 You can see where the water level used to be for like decades and decades and decades
32:01.880 --> 32:04.960 and then it's just receded, receded, receded.
32:04.960 --> 32:11.460 We know that there, I mean this is the, this point about kind of extreme events causing
32:11.460 --> 32:14.040 a lot of damage to homes and property.
32:14.040 --> 32:18.480 We kind of already touched on that with the increase in billion dollar events.
32:18.480 --> 32:29.720 In 2021 there were $20 billion plus events that collectively ended up costing $145 billion
32:29.720 --> 32:33.780 and killed almost 700 people just in the US.
32:33.780 --> 32:39.240 So another way to conceptualize that statistic that I gave you before, the US experienced
32:39.240 --> 32:47.040 $7.7 billion disasters, so $7.71 billion disasters annually over the past four decades, but in
32:47.040 --> 32:51.800 the past five years now it's 18 events each year.
32:51.800 --> 32:55.360 So that translates to once every three weeks, like I mentioned.
32:55.360 --> 32:57.760 And again, this doesn't hit everybody equally.
32:57.760 --> 33:01.960 Obviously poorer neighborhoods, neighborhoods with less are getting hit harder, neighborhoods
33:01.960 --> 33:07.160 who are less likely to rebuild as it is and less likely to mitigate these effects, right?
33:07.160 --> 33:10.800 This is an important one that I think we don't talk about enough, which is climate migration
33:10.800 --> 33:15.760 and climate displacement because I think we think of this as something that happens elsewhere
33:15.760 --> 33:22.160 in the world, but it's happening here, it's happening now and it's only going to get worse.
33:22.160 --> 33:25.440 So we've seen it like with Hurricane Maria really recently.
33:25.440 --> 33:30.300 I mean every major hurricane we see that there's a terrible displacement and migration because
33:30.300 --> 33:32.140 people lose their homes.
33:32.140 --> 33:34.380 They don't have a place to live anymore.
33:34.380 --> 33:36.640 And the sad thing is there's nowhere for them to go.
33:36.640 --> 33:39.420 The housing market is bananas right now.
33:39.420 --> 33:42.560 Interest rates are bananas because of inflation.
33:42.560 --> 33:46.860 Post COVID there's some real difficulty and instability in the job market.
33:46.860 --> 33:48.160 It's scary.
33:48.160 --> 33:55.440 It's really scary that people who have long felt like they built a life for themselves,
33:55.440 --> 33:59.780 a stable life for themselves are being forced out of where they live.
33:59.780 --> 34:02.780 And obviously who's going to carry that burden?
34:02.780 --> 34:04.660 We have to have government intervention.
34:04.660 --> 34:10.200 We have to be able as a community to take care of individuals and we're not doing a
34:10.200 --> 34:17.380 great job of that, but ultimately massive explosions in homelessness is devastating
34:17.380 --> 34:22.080 for the people who are displaced, but it's also devastating for the economy.
34:22.080 --> 34:25.240 Obviously this is also a growing public health threat and this is like another one of those
34:25.240 --> 34:30.740 externalized costs that you mentioned before, Steve, higher rates of rabies, higher rates
34:30.740 --> 34:36.060 of Lyme disease, higher rates of dengue, higher rates of Zika, higher rates of chikungunya.
34:36.060 --> 34:42.960 And that's just because of mosquitoes and different kind of ecological, different organisms
34:42.960 --> 34:47.860 that used to live in certain ecological niches moving to areas where they never lived before
34:47.860 --> 34:54.000 or exploding in population because of the changes in their evolutionary pressure.
34:54.000 --> 35:00.020 You add to that wildfire smoke, you add to that certain agricultural toxins and things
35:00.020 --> 35:02.460 like that being run off into the water.
35:02.460 --> 35:05.980 It's scary how much of a public health risk climate change is.
35:05.980 --> 35:07.820 People get sick because of climate change.
35:07.820 --> 35:10.100 There are a lot of downstream effects.
35:10.100 --> 35:13.220 And one thing that we don't often think about is it's not just us, right?
35:13.220 --> 35:19.600 Like we are not the only organisms who are negatively affected and really the canary
35:19.600 --> 35:23.300 has been in the coal mine for a long time and we've refused to look at it.
35:23.300 --> 35:29.700 A lot of amphibian species, bird species, fish species, plant species are either being
35:29.700 --> 35:36.360 completely driven out of their native range to sort of like higher latitudes or they're
35:36.360 --> 35:39.620 just going extinct at record numbers.
35:39.620 --> 35:45.020 Just these ecosystems can't adapt as fast as they need to because the change is outpacing
35:45.020 --> 35:48.600 evolution, like the natural pace of evolution.
35:48.600 --> 35:49.600 We know that.
35:49.600 --> 35:51.620 This is anthropogenic climate change.
35:51.620 --> 35:54.100 This isn't naturally occurring climate change.
35:54.100 --> 35:58.040 So these organisms can't adapt fast enough and you end up seeing, you know, like there's
35:58.040 --> 36:02.140 so many examples we can point to, but like too many lionfish in the ocean, too much algae
36:02.140 --> 36:06.660 in the ocean, too many sea urchins in the ocean and they just like take over.
36:06.660 --> 36:07.660 We see coral bleaching.
36:07.660 --> 36:11.460 We see all of these negative downstream effects.
36:11.460 --> 36:17.260 And then the last point that's made, which is always the last point that's made, is there
36:17.260 --> 36:21.260 is still a chance that we can do something about this.
36:21.260 --> 36:22.820 There is a chance.
36:22.820 --> 36:28.500 We probably can't do things incrementally the way we have been.
36:28.500 --> 36:29.860 It's just not fast enough.
36:29.860 --> 36:34.300 If we keep doing the incremental, like even Biden, I think his new commitment is something
36:34.300 --> 36:35.740 like reducing global emissions.
36:35.740 --> 36:39.280 I'm doing this from memory, but I think it's reducing global emissions by half, greenhouse
36:39.280 --> 36:45.940 emissions by half by 2030 and net zero by 2050, which is like we're not on track to
36:45.940 --> 36:47.300 meet that at all.
36:47.300 --> 36:51.840 Like when you look at our pace, we're nowhere near it, but that's like the new standard.
36:51.840 --> 36:56.880 If we do that, it's maybe going to be, I mean, here's what we know.
36:56.880 --> 37:01.740 If we stop putting out greenhouse gases, we stop global climate change.
37:01.740 --> 37:02.780 That's how it works.
37:02.780 --> 37:07.740 There's a little bit of a blowback effect right after where like the effects are going
37:07.740 --> 37:13.460 to continue on, but they won't necessarily run away.
37:13.460 --> 37:18.060 If we stop putting out greenhouse gases, there are no more greenhouse gases being put out
37:18.060 --> 37:22.900 above these levels, and then we can start to kind of fix and heal.
37:22.900 --> 37:27.580 But none of that is going to happen until we stop, and the truth is we're not stopping.
37:27.580 --> 37:32.620 We're slowing down, but we're beyond the point where slowing down is going to do anything.
37:32.620 --> 37:33.620 We have to stop.
37:33.620 --> 37:34.620 Yeah.
37:34.620 --> 37:39.280 So, Carol, I've been doing a lot of research on that very question, like basically where
37:39.280 --> 37:47.180 are we in our efforts to slow down climate change, and there's actually some good news
37:47.180 --> 37:48.540 here.
37:48.540 --> 37:54.340 I think the bad news is that the negative effects at any given temperature rise is worse
37:54.340 --> 37:55.640 than we thought.
37:55.640 --> 38:03.060 So 2.0 is worse than we thought 2.0 was going to be 10 years ago, but the projection of
38:03.060 --> 38:05.400 where we are heading is getting better.
38:05.400 --> 38:12.380 So 10 years ago, the business as usual projection, like if we don't make substantial changes
38:12.380 --> 38:18.820 to what's happening, was that we would end up somewhere between like three to four or
38:18.820 --> 38:24.220 even higher degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, right?
38:24.220 --> 38:34.580 Now today, the business as usual projection is more like 2.3, 2.4 degrees, and what business
38:34.580 --> 38:42.380 as usual is, is if all of the countries do not reverse policies that they've already
38:42.380 --> 38:46.780 funded to mitigate climate change, so all they have to do is just keep doing what they've
38:46.780 --> 38:53.020 already actually funded, we'll settle in somewhere around 2.3, 2.4.
38:53.020 --> 38:59.560 If they keep all of their commitments that they've made at COP26 last year, even ones
38:59.560 --> 39:06.900 that haven't been funded yet by their government, we'll keep warming below 2.0, probably like
39:06.900 --> 39:10.060 somewhere around 1.8.
39:10.060 --> 39:18.100 We're not on track to get to 1.5, to keep it below 1.5, which was the Paris Accord goal,
39:18.100 --> 39:22.700 but they didn't commit to doing things that would achieve that goal.
39:22.700 --> 39:26.980 The commitments only keep it to maybe 1.8, and they've only funded enough to keep it
39:26.980 --> 39:29.380 to like 2.3, 2.4.
39:29.380 --> 39:32.140 That's still a lot better than where we were 10 years ago.
39:32.140 --> 39:35.340 Yeah, but remember, the reason it's better than where it was 10 years ago is because
39:35.340 --> 39:37.700 we've been doing so much.
39:37.700 --> 39:39.140 I know, because we've been doing things.
39:39.140 --> 39:40.660 I know that that's the point.
39:40.660 --> 39:41.660 And that is good.
39:41.660 --> 39:42.660 That's very good.
39:42.660 --> 39:43.660 Yeah.
39:43.660 --> 39:54.060 If we continue to up our game, I think at this point I would say that we have a good
39:54.060 --> 39:59.420 chance of keeping it below 2.0, 1.5, probably not.
39:59.420 --> 40:05.920 That would take a massive effort that no one really thinks we have the political will around
40:05.920 --> 40:07.880 the world to do it.
40:07.880 --> 40:11.980 Half of the solution is going to be technological progress.
40:11.980 --> 40:14.440 Things are progressing nicely.
40:14.440 --> 40:22.040 And the other half is things like Biden's climate change mitigation funding, which is
40:22.040 --> 40:23.300 making a difference.
40:23.300 --> 40:25.780 The industry responded.
40:25.780 --> 40:37.020 They're investing in transitioning to lower carbon technologies in response to that funding.
40:37.020 --> 40:42.040 And ultimately, here's the point of all that.
40:42.040 --> 40:43.780 It's going to hurt a little bit.
40:43.780 --> 40:46.020 We have to make sacrifices right now.
40:46.020 --> 40:47.020 We have to.
40:47.020 --> 40:48.020 I'm not sure I agree with that.
40:48.020 --> 40:49.020 I'm not sure I agree with that.
40:49.020 --> 40:50.020 Are you serious, Steve?
40:50.020 --> 40:51.020 Yeah, I am.
40:51.020 --> 40:52.020 I am serious.
40:52.020 --> 40:53.420 It's business as usual.
40:53.420 --> 40:59.460 No, there's a lot of territory between sacrificing and business as usual.
40:59.460 --> 41:01.420 We don't have to really sacrifice.
41:01.420 --> 41:04.340 All we have to do is invest wisely.
41:04.340 --> 41:05.340 That's it.
41:05.340 --> 41:10.260 I'm talking about personal experiential sacrifice.
41:10.260 --> 41:11.260 I don't think that the individuals-
41:11.260 --> 41:12.980 Give up your gas car.
41:12.980 --> 41:14.340 Don't use as much water.
41:14.340 --> 41:15.560 Yes, we do have to.
41:15.560 --> 41:17.780 We cannot keep living the way we've been living.
41:17.780 --> 41:18.780 We can't.
41:18.780 --> 41:20.340 So water is a separate issue.
41:20.340 --> 41:26.260 There are already places that are experiencing water insufficiency, I mean obviously around
41:26.260 --> 41:29.580 the world, but even in the US now, since that's what you're talking about.
41:29.580 --> 41:35.780 So yes, there are populations even in developed nations that are already paying the price
41:35.780 --> 41:38.220 for existing global warming.
41:38.220 --> 41:42.780 But I'm saying in terms of the solution, the solutions don't have to be sacrifice.
41:42.780 --> 41:45.460 The solutions really are just being smart.
41:45.460 --> 41:49.380 It's just investing money where we will get the most bang for the buck.
41:49.380 --> 41:57.140 If we do that, if we invested intelligently and we, for example, invest and this is why
41:57.140 --> 42:01.980 I think it was called the Inflation Reduction Act, but it included a lot of climate change
42:01.980 --> 42:03.940 mitigation funding.
42:03.940 --> 42:08.860 I read through that whole thing, there's a lot of smart funding in there that is going
42:08.860 --> 42:10.220 to move us in the right direction.
42:10.220 --> 42:14.100 We need a lot more of that and we need a lot of other countries to do that.
42:14.100 --> 42:18.580 But if we invest and upgrade in the grid, we continue our investments in grid storage,
42:18.580 --> 42:24.500 we continue to invest in building, build out the wind and solar as fast as we can to get
42:24.500 --> 42:31.060 to that 30 to 40% rate and then push it further by investing in the grid and grid storage.
42:31.060 --> 42:38.420 If we start investing in nuclear and geothermal and hydroelectric, we can get there.
42:38.420 --> 42:43.860 We incentivize the steel making industry and the cement making industry to continue to
42:43.860 --> 42:48.380 develop lower carbon alternatives, which there's already a lot of science there to work with
42:48.380 --> 42:54.320 – we absolutely can get there and we can do it without each individual having to make
42:54.320 --> 42:55.320 a big sacrifice.
42:55.320 --> 43:05.740 In fact, we'll be making less sacrifice because it'll be a lot easier on the individual
43:05.740 --> 43:08.140 than the resulting climate change is going to be.
43:08.140 --> 43:11.740 Of course it's going to be easier on certain individuals than the resulting climate change
43:11.740 --> 43:16.860 is going to be on certain individuals, but I fundamentally disagree with this mentality.
43:16.860 --> 43:21.180 I really, really don't believe that we can do everything on the other side of it.
43:21.180 --> 43:27.660 It's not all going to be industry-like free market options for preventing these kinds
43:27.660 --> 43:29.260 of outcomes.
43:29.260 --> 43:34.900 We cannot continue to live the extractive and consumptive lifestyles that we live.
43:34.900 --> 43:35.900 We can't.
43:35.900 --> 43:37.780 That's the reason this happened.
43:37.780 --> 43:42.780 We have to be mindful of how we live our lives because otherwise we're constantly going
43:42.780 --> 43:49.700 to see industries who claim that they're doing this in the best interest of their consumer
43:49.700 --> 43:52.140 to make sure that they get a pass.
43:52.140 --> 43:53.140 And I disagree.
43:53.140 --> 43:55.580 I just don't think those things are mutually exclusive.
43:55.580 --> 44:00.100 When I talk about making sacrifices, I don't mean that you have to die for this cause.
44:00.100 --> 44:05.260 I mean that you can't keep living as if climate change doesn't exist.
44:05.260 --> 44:08.140 I don't feel like buying an electric car was a sacrifice.
44:08.140 --> 44:11.820 I actually enjoy my electric car better than I do any gas car I've ever owned.
44:11.820 --> 44:17.100 Well, a lot of people don't feel that way, and that's what I'm talking about.
44:17.100 --> 44:21.340 A lot of people don't want to put a flow reducer on their showerhead.
44:21.340 --> 44:25.780 A lot of people don't want to turn their water off when they're brushing their teeth.
44:25.780 --> 44:30.900 I know they sound stupid and small, but the reason that we have to make these massive
44:30.900 --> 44:39.980 regulatory jumps in order to wildly mitigate, because the main outcome of this report is
44:39.980 --> 44:41.780 we cannot keep doing incremental shit.
44:41.780 --> 44:42.900 It's not working.
44:42.900 --> 44:50.260 We have to revolutionize the way that we want to put a stop to this.
44:50.260 --> 44:53.260 We do fundamentally disagree on this issue, because I think that you're wrong.
44:53.260 --> 44:57.860 I also think that your strategy will fail, because people are not going to do it.
44:57.860 --> 45:01.220 And I think my strategy will succeed, because people will do it.
45:01.220 --> 45:07.780 But you're also looking at it like it's a binary, like it's a dialectic, and it's not.
45:07.780 --> 45:10.280 Both of these things have to happen.
45:10.280 --> 45:13.420 We have to fundamentally change our approach to climate change, which young people, by
45:13.420 --> 45:14.900 the way, are.
45:14.900 --> 45:15.900 Young people get it.
45:15.900 --> 45:16.900 Yeah, I agree.
45:16.900 --> 45:20.940 But I think, and I agree, I think we need to science the shit out of it and moneyball
45:20.940 --> 45:26.240 the shit out of it, meaning that we need to say, what is the shortest path between where
45:26.240 --> 45:34.040 we are now and a massive decarbonization of our electrical sector and transportation
45:34.040 --> 45:37.580 sector and industrial sector, right?
45:37.580 --> 45:45.460 And that path is through picking the low-hanging fruit and making the most cost-effective decisions
45:45.460 --> 45:46.460 possible.
45:46.460 --> 45:47.460 Oh, hugely.
45:47.460 --> 45:51.180 And that's also the most politically expedient way to get there.
45:51.180 --> 45:54.540 And if our message is, all right, guys, we all have to sacrifice, we're going to get
45:54.540 --> 45:55.540 nowhere.
45:55.540 --> 45:57.420 It's just not going to happen.
45:57.420 --> 46:02.120 I hear what you're saying, like it's a messaging problem, but ultimately we do have to sacrifice.
46:02.120 --> 46:06.260 The truth of the matter is that may be the low-hanging fruit.
46:06.260 --> 46:11.220 It may be the most obvious and the most effective algorithm.
46:11.220 --> 46:16.520 But if people don't willfully do it, it's moot.
46:16.520 --> 46:17.520 And ultimately-
46:17.520 --> 46:21.500 Yeah, but that's why I think the solution can't be, all right, we need 8 billion people
46:21.500 --> 46:22.500 to change their behavior.
46:22.500 --> 46:23.500 That can't be the approach.
46:23.500 --> 46:24.500 That will never work.
46:24.500 --> 46:25.500 I never said that was the solution.
46:25.500 --> 46:26.900 I mean, that's not going to work.
46:26.900 --> 46:27.900 We can't-
46:27.900 --> 46:28.900 You're really minimizing what I said.
46:28.900 --> 46:31.620 No, I'm just saying, well, maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying.
46:31.620 --> 46:35.460 You're saying we all have to work together to make this work, and we all have to sacrifice
46:35.460 --> 46:36.700 individually.
46:36.700 --> 46:42.260 Just from a practical point of view, getting a lot of people to do something is a failed
46:42.260 --> 46:43.260 approach.
46:43.260 --> 46:44.260 It never works.
46:44.260 --> 46:46.420 I would rather pass one law than get-
46:46.420 --> 46:49.860 Yeah, but that's how you get people to do stuff, is you regulate the shit out of them.
46:49.860 --> 46:52.020 Yeah, I agree with that as well, but I mean-
46:52.020 --> 46:54.980 But I'm saying we need to regulate things that actually might hurt a little bit.
46:54.980 --> 46:59.700 We need to stop going, oh, it's never going to be popular, so we can't do it.
46:59.700 --> 47:02.180 I'm scared of the people we keep putting in power.
47:02.180 --> 47:08.420 Yeah, but you're just sort of pushing, kicking that can one leg down, if you say, all right,
47:08.420 --> 47:13.460 we're going to vote for people who are going to tell us things we don't want to hear.
47:13.460 --> 47:15.180 It's also not going to work.
47:15.180 --> 47:16.180 You're going to end up with-
47:16.180 --> 47:17.180 Because they won't vote for those people.
47:17.180 --> 47:18.520 With the global warming denials.
47:18.520 --> 47:23.900 If you say, all right, listen, all we have to do is invest wisely, and also I think we
47:23.900 --> 47:26.820 should be putting the burden on the industry, not the individuals.
47:26.820 --> 47:27.820 Of course we should.
47:27.820 --> 47:29.980 We should regulate the industries.
47:29.980 --> 47:33.420 I personally think we should just price carbon, and all the experts agree that that's the
47:33.420 --> 47:34.420 best way to fix this.
47:34.420 --> 47:36.940 Carbon tax, of course that's the way to do it.
47:36.940 --> 47:39.100 But nobody wants to do it, unfortunately.
47:39.100 --> 47:44.300 I'm not saying that this is a marketing strategy, is to tell people it's going to hurt.
47:44.300 --> 47:46.060 Of course that's not what I'm saying.
47:46.060 --> 47:50.100 What I'm saying is that we all need to be realistic, and stop living in a Pollyanna
47:50.100 --> 47:53.840 world where we're not willing to have it hurt.
47:53.840 --> 47:58.220 The things we have to do as a society are going to hurt a little bit, and if we sit
47:58.220 --> 48:02.020 here and cross our arms and say, I'm not willing to make any changes.
48:02.020 --> 48:06.140 I want to live the same extractive, consumptive life I've always lived.
48:06.140 --> 48:08.820 I'm sorry, we're not going to get out of this.
48:08.820 --> 48:10.400 That's how we got into it.
48:10.400 --> 48:13.660 My perspective is, I'll just say this, it's not necessarily mutually exclusive to what
48:13.660 --> 48:22.580 you're saying, but I would say just strategically, I would say let's do all the win-wins first.
48:22.580 --> 48:23.580 Let's do all-
48:23.580 --> 48:25.260 Yeah, and I would say we should have already done all of those.
48:25.260 --> 48:26.260 I agree.
48:26.260 --> 48:27.660 All of this we should have done 20 years ago.
48:27.660 --> 48:30.540 There's no question about that.
48:30.540 --> 48:36.460 We should go back in time 20 years and completely change the course of what we've done the last
48:36.460 --> 48:37.460 two decades.
48:37.460 --> 48:38.460 I like that plan.
48:38.460 --> 48:46.860 Failing that, again, the quickest path is first going through all the things that do
48:46.860 --> 48:48.340 not require sacrifice.
48:48.340 --> 48:50.420 They just require being smart.
48:50.420 --> 48:56.260 Let's do those things, and if we also then have to make some sacrifice after all of that,
48:56.260 --> 48:58.220 that's fine, we'll cross that bridge when we get there.
48:58.220 --> 49:02.340 I guess what I'm scared of is that 50% of the country thinks that those smart, low-hanging
49:02.340 --> 49:05.380 fruit things are sacrifices for them.
49:05.380 --> 49:09.060 Well, that's where messaging can help.
49:09.060 --> 49:13.220 If you ask people, why don't you want to drive an electric car, they give bullshit reasons
49:13.220 --> 49:16.300 that aren't true because they have misconceptions about it.
49:16.300 --> 49:18.120 They go, oh, the range isn't enough.
49:18.120 --> 49:19.120 That's not true.
49:19.120 --> 49:25.460 I think my thing is unless we're on the bleeding edge of this, we're already behind.
49:25.460 --> 49:30.580 But as I said, it's actually not as bad as it was 10 years ago.
49:30.580 --> 49:37.740 The thing is doing the things that we're doing and the technological progress has significantly
49:37.740 --> 49:41.580 improved our position, and it has.
49:41.580 --> 49:42.580 It just has.
49:42.580 --> 49:43.840 And we have to update the models constantly.
49:43.840 --> 49:50.740 And Catherine Hayhoe, who's quoted a lot in this one WAFO article, she basically makes
49:50.740 --> 49:54.700 the point, and I think it's an important point because we don't do this enough, that like
49:54.700 --> 49:56.960 this is all just modeling.
49:56.960 --> 50:00.700 We don't know if there's a difference between 1.6 and 1.7.
50:00.700 --> 50:01.700 These are just rants.
50:01.700 --> 50:06.980 Yes, there's data that goes into this, but these are just arbitrary cutoffs.
50:06.980 --> 50:08.980 It's all modeling.
50:08.980 --> 50:14.180 The bad news is the effect of the temperature is worse than we thought, but where we're
50:14.180 --> 50:20.180 going to land is better than it was.
50:20.180 --> 50:26.680 I do think that the only ultimate solution is technological, but what we really should
50:26.680 --> 50:32.620 be focusing on is just making that happen as quickly as possible by investing optimally
50:32.620 --> 50:35.640 and regulating industry optimally.
50:35.640 --> 50:37.680 And we're not there yet.
50:37.680 --> 50:39.340 We're moving in the right direction at least.
50:39.340 --> 50:44.940 Kara, my concern is, well, first let me say I really do agree with what you're saying.
50:44.940 --> 50:52.540 I would love it if we made palpable, very, very strong changes to our society in order
50:52.540 --> 50:54.700 to help the environment, absolutely.
50:54.700 --> 51:00.220 And I would be willing to sacrifice and spend more money on a lot of things and make changes
51:00.220 --> 51:07.340 at this point because I feel how desperate the situation is just like you do, and I want
51:07.340 --> 51:08.340 that.
51:08.340 --> 51:13.580 I honestly don't think that most people in the United States are capable of doing what
51:13.580 --> 51:14.940 I just said.
51:14.940 --> 51:18.320 But like even in the U.S., what are we going to do, you say, oh yeah, we should let gas
51:18.320 --> 51:19.320 be $5 a gallon.
51:19.320 --> 51:20.860 It's like, yeah, I could survive that.
51:20.860 --> 51:24.620 My point is, but there's a lot of people who can't survive that, like they literally cannot
51:24.620 --> 51:25.620 afford that.
51:25.620 --> 51:28.900 I totally turn off the water when I'm brushing my teeth.
51:28.900 --> 51:29.900 Thank you.
51:29.900 --> 51:31.460 I don't even brush my teeth with water anymore.
51:31.460 --> 51:32.460 Because of you, Kara.
51:32.460 --> 51:33.460 Thank you.
51:33.460 --> 51:34.460 I'm not kidding.
51:34.460 --> 51:35.460 Yeah, that makes me so happy.
51:35.460 --> 51:36.460 I just gargle with baking soda.
51:36.460 --> 51:39.940 I thought about that for so many times, like, yep, got to shut it down.
51:39.940 --> 51:43.300 I remember what Kara said and that was like a habit.
51:43.300 --> 51:44.300 I love it.
51:44.300 --> 51:45.300 We installed new toilets in our house.
51:45.300 --> 51:46.300 All.
51:46.300 --> 51:47.300 Low flow, baby.
51:47.300 --> 51:48.300 Yeah.
51:48.300 --> 51:49.300 Go with the low.
51:49.300 --> 51:50.300 All right, guys.
51:50.300 --> 51:51.300 Let's move on.
51:51.300 --> 51:52.300 Healthy discourse.
Closest Black Hole (51:52)
51:52.300 --> 51:53.300 All right, Bob.
51:53.300 --> 51:57.700 I understand that astronomers have detected the closest black hole to the Earth.
51:57.700 --> 51:59.220 Like that Disney movie from 1979?
51:59.220 --> 52:01.100 You understand nothing.
52:01.100 --> 52:07.820 I will say, I will say boffins baffled by black hole in backyard.
52:07.820 --> 52:08.820 Oh, Bob.
52:08.820 --> 52:10.460 I like that.
52:10.460 --> 52:17.060 So non alliteratively and less pithily, scientists have found the closest black hole to the Earth,
52:17.060 --> 52:20.060 three times closer, in fact, than the previous record holder.
52:20.060 --> 52:22.360 And it comes wrapped in a mystery, however.
52:22.360 --> 52:26.320 It's orbited by a sun like star and it shouldn't be there.
52:26.320 --> 52:29.660 So how did these two crazy kids get together?
52:29.660 --> 52:34.320 This was published in the monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, led by
52:34.320 --> 52:39.700 Kareem El Badri, is an astrophysicist at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
52:39.700 --> 52:43.740 So this black hole is called Gaia BH1.
52:43.740 --> 52:46.020 It's 1600 light years away.
52:46.020 --> 52:47.140 And you know, that's a lot.
52:47.140 --> 52:50.620 That's like, you know, nine thousand and a half trillion miles.
52:50.620 --> 52:53.940 But you know, it isn't a lot at the same time.
52:53.940 --> 52:59.540 The National Science Foundation's Newar Lab said it's in our cosmic backyard, which it
52:59.540 --> 53:00.540 really is.
53:00.540 --> 53:02.460 Sixteen hundred light years is not a lot.
53:02.460 --> 53:08.100 It also has a binary partner that is very much like the sun and is about as far from
53:08.100 --> 53:10.620 the black hole as we are from our sun.
53:10.620 --> 53:16.180 So take our solar system, take away all the planets and throw the sun where we are and
53:16.180 --> 53:18.540 put a big black hole where the sun is.
53:18.540 --> 53:20.100 And that's this system.
53:20.100 --> 53:21.280 So that's basically it.
53:21.280 --> 53:27.020 So the black hole has 10 times the mass of our sun, making it a stellar mass black hole,
53:27.020 --> 53:30.660 which typically ranges from five to 100 solar masses.
53:30.660 --> 53:35.820 And we've only detected a handful of stellar mass black holes in the Milky Way.
53:35.820 --> 53:40.860 And most are active, meaning that they pull matter from a companion and that process releases
53:40.860 --> 53:43.420 intense radiation like X-rays.
53:43.420 --> 53:49.580 But now not all stellar mass black holes that inhabit binary systems are actively feeding
53:49.580 --> 53:50.580 though.
53:50.580 --> 53:52.060 It's kind of like Jay.
53:52.060 --> 53:57.140 There are times during family dinners when he's not actively feeding, but you need specialized
53:57.140 --> 53:59.980 instrumentation to detect that.
53:59.980 --> 54:07.940 It's those hidden small black holes, stellar mass black holes that these researchers have
54:07.940 --> 54:12.920 been looking for and they found one after examining data from the European Space Agency's
54:12.920 --> 54:19.020 Gaia Space Observatory, hence the name Gaia BH1, black hole one.
54:19.020 --> 54:25.260 And Gaia studies basically the stars of the Milky Way in detail.
54:25.260 --> 54:30.700 These detailed measurements revealed a tiny wobble in a star that could be caused by a
54:30.700 --> 54:32.620 great unseen mass.
54:32.620 --> 54:36.700 So for follow-up observations and calculations, they used what's called the Gemini, or is
54:36.700 --> 54:43.360 it Gemini, the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph, and that allowed for even more precise velocity
54:43.360 --> 54:48.780 measurements and orbital periods, which then allowed for the calculation of the masses
54:48.780 --> 54:49.780 involved.
54:49.780 --> 54:51.080 And that was obviously critical.
54:51.080 --> 54:56.180 This revealed that the inner binary partner had to have something close to 10 times the
54:56.180 --> 54:57.900 mass of the sun.
54:57.900 --> 55:01.700 And I love how they described their conclusion in their paper.
55:01.700 --> 55:07.580 They said, we find no plausible astrophysical scenario that can explain the orbit and does
55:07.580 --> 55:09.640 not involve a black hole.
55:09.640 --> 55:13.660 So in other words, it's a fricking black hole, duh.
55:13.660 --> 55:18.540 This is not only then the closest black hole to the Earth we know of, but also the first
55:18.540 --> 55:24.500 verified sun-like star in such a wide orbit around a stellar mass black hole.
55:24.500 --> 55:29.820 And that's the key to the coming mystery of this system is like, this is a sun-like star
55:29.820 --> 55:33.020 and it's in a very, very wide orbit, which is unusual.
55:33.020 --> 55:37.980 Like I was saying, this is a mysterious system in a lot of ways because it doesn't make sense.
55:37.980 --> 55:42.060 The black hole, think about this black hole, it used to be a star, right?
55:42.060 --> 55:43.860 I mean, duh.
55:43.860 --> 55:50.260 That star probably had about 20 solar masses because that would probably produce a 10 solar
55:50.260 --> 55:51.260 mass black hole.
55:51.260 --> 55:56.180 So it had 20 solar masses, which means that it only lives for a few million years because
55:56.180 --> 55:59.420 it goes through that fuel so fast.
55:59.420 --> 56:05.500 And it would have puffed up into a super giant and consumed the star that's there now, the
56:05.500 --> 56:06.920 sun-like star that's there.
56:06.920 --> 56:13.460 Even before that star became a mature star, it would have just totally consumed it and
56:13.460 --> 56:15.340 wouldn't be there now.
56:15.340 --> 56:19.960 Models that the scientists have run show that the star could have survived, but it means
56:19.960 --> 56:26.180 that it would have ended up in a much, much tighter orbit, nothing like the 100 million
56:26.180 --> 56:30.380 mile or 95 million mile orbit that it's in now.
56:30.380 --> 56:35.660 So it's just like they're very puzzled, which of course is good in science in a lot of ways.
56:35.660 --> 56:40.160 So that means that our models of black hole binary evolution may need tweaking and there
56:40.160 --> 56:44.140 may be far more such systems than we think out there.
56:44.140 --> 56:48.220 Kareem El Badri said, it's interesting that this system is not easily accommodated by
56:48.220 --> 56:50.340 standard binary evolution models.
56:50.340 --> 56:55.060 It poses many questions about how this binary system was formed, as well as how many of
56:55.060 --> 56:57.540 these dormant black holes there are out there.
56:57.540 --> 57:00.700 The observations also leave a mystery to be solved.
57:00.700 --> 57:06.500 Despite a shared history with its exotic neighbor, why is the companion star in this binary system
57:06.500 --> 57:08.100 so normal?
57:08.100 --> 57:14.800 I'm sure in the future when Gaia releases more data, these researchers and other researchers
57:14.800 --> 57:20.380 of course will be poring over it, looking for more stealthy, dormant, stellar mass black
57:20.380 --> 57:27.380 holes and maybe find one even closer to Earth and hopefully the boffins will be less baffled.
57:27.380 --> 57:29.620 Excellent.
57:29.620 --> 57:33.020 But this black hole is not going to gobble us up though, right Bob?
57:33.020 --> 57:34.020 1600?
57:34.020 --> 57:36.460 No, it's just like, yeah, I love that.
57:36.460 --> 57:42.740 The gravity is going to reach 1600 light years and sure, that gravity is theoretically detectable,
57:42.740 --> 57:47.100 but it's, you know, it's so far away, it's not magically going to reach out and suck
57:47.100 --> 57:53.100 anything up, just like, you know, it's gravity folks, it's intense, but it's far.
57:53.100 --> 57:58.700 If our own sun were a black hole, gravitationally wouldn't, but of the same mass as our sun,
57:58.700 --> 57:59.700 right?
57:59.700 --> 58:01.700 But just in a black hole, gravitationally wouldn't make any difference to us.
58:01.700 --> 58:02.700 Yeah.
58:02.700 --> 58:03.700 It would get dark and we would stay in orbit.
58:03.700 --> 58:04.700 It would still be orbiting.
58:04.700 --> 58:07.100 We would still be orbiting it in the same way, the gravity wouldn't affect us anymore.
58:07.100 --> 58:08.100 We just wouldn't be alive because...
58:08.100 --> 58:09.100 It would just be dark.
58:09.100 --> 58:10.100 Yeah.
58:10.100 --> 58:11.100 Yeah.
58:11.100 --> 58:12.100 And cold.
58:12.100 --> 58:13.100 And cold.
58:13.100 --> 58:14.100 Very cold.
AWARE II Study of NDEs (58:13)
58:14.100 --> 58:15.100 All right, guys.
58:15.100 --> 58:16.900 I have a quick update on near-death experiences.
58:16.900 --> 58:17.900 Cool.
58:17.900 --> 58:18.900 Yeah.
58:18.900 --> 58:19.900 So I think...
58:19.900 --> 58:20.900 They're not as near as we thought?
58:20.900 --> 58:28.780 We spoke previously about the AWARE study and now the AWARE 2 study preliminary results
58:28.780 --> 58:29.780 are out.
58:29.780 --> 58:32.920 It hasn't been published yet, but they are being presented.
58:32.920 --> 58:39.620 So essentially what the study is doing is looking to see if they could document what
58:39.620 --> 58:44.380 is happening at the moment of near-death experiences.
58:44.380 --> 58:50.060 So they look at people who are undergoing CPR, right?
58:50.060 --> 58:55.420 They identify them in the participating emergency rooms and then they follow them.
58:55.420 --> 59:00.500 And for those that survive, which is a minority, you know, if you're getting CPR, chances are
59:00.500 --> 59:01.500 you're not going to survive.
59:01.500 --> 59:08.980 So for those who do, they see if they report any near-death experiences and they characterize
59:08.980 --> 59:09.980 them.
59:09.980 --> 59:17.340 But they also are doing detailed EEGs, electroencephalograms, during the CPR to see what the brain activity
59:17.340 --> 59:18.340 is.
59:18.340 --> 59:23.520 And remember, this is the same study where they put the cards on the tops of shelves
59:23.520 --> 59:25.900 to see if people were floating above their body.
59:25.900 --> 59:26.900 They could read the cards.
59:26.900 --> 59:28.980 It's really the only way you could see them.
59:28.980 --> 59:33.860 So the goal of this study, as far as I could tell, is, you know, if you're going to say
59:33.860 --> 59:40.780 that near-death experiences are truly anomalous, right, that they are not just explained as
59:40.780 --> 59:44.200 brain activity, you have to do two things.
59:44.200 --> 59:52.060 You have to prove that the experience that is being reported occurred during the near-death
59:52.060 --> 59:53.060 time period, right?
59:53.060 --> 59:55.440 It had to occur near-death.
59:55.440 --> 59:59.180 And you also have to show that there was no brain activity that could account for that
59:59.180 --> 01:00:00.980 experience, right?
01:00:00.980 --> 01:00:04.720 So that's sort of the goal of this study, is to show those two things.
01:00:04.720 --> 01:00:08.820 What do you mean there's no brain activity that could account for the experience, though?
01:00:08.820 --> 01:00:13.540 In other words, there's either no or insignificant brain activity, right?
01:00:13.540 --> 01:00:19.020 If you could show, like, the brain is flatlined at a time when they are absolutely having
01:00:19.020 --> 01:00:20.500 an experience.
01:00:20.500 --> 01:00:21.500 Then that would prove what?
01:00:21.500 --> 01:00:23.100 Well, that's a good question, right?
01:00:23.100 --> 01:00:28.820 It would just prove that it's that near-death experiences are not brain experiences.
01:00:28.820 --> 01:00:29.820 Okay.
01:00:29.820 --> 01:00:30.820 Yeah.
01:00:30.820 --> 01:00:34.540 Because I feel like ultimately that's an unanswerable question, because there could
01:00:34.540 --> 01:00:37.020 always be a brain reason for it.
01:00:37.020 --> 01:00:39.940 Well, but not if there's zero brain activity, right?
01:00:39.940 --> 01:00:40.940 Right.
01:00:40.940 --> 01:00:44.100 But then wouldn't that nullify the experience altogether?
01:00:44.100 --> 01:00:46.440 You couldn't have an experience if you had no brain activity.
01:00:46.440 --> 01:00:52.720 If you're a naturalist like you and I are, Kara, if you don't believe in all that physical
01:00:52.720 --> 01:00:59.140 nonsense about the brain causing consciousness, then—and near-death experiences are almost
01:00:59.140 --> 01:01:04.100 universally cited as evidence for dualism, right, for the fact that consciousness is
01:01:04.100 --> 01:01:05.260 more than just brain activity.
01:01:05.260 --> 01:01:07.500 Well, then how do you explain NDE's, right?
01:01:07.500 --> 01:01:14.740 It's like, well, but again, in order for an NDE to be evidence for an experience separate
01:01:14.740 --> 01:01:18.620 from brain activity, you need those two components.
01:01:18.620 --> 01:01:22.700 The reason why those are hard to prove is, one, if somebody wakes up a day or two days
01:01:22.700 --> 01:01:26.900 or a week later and they go, hey, I had this weird experience, how do you know what happened
01:01:26.900 --> 01:01:31.180 when they were getting their CPR, when they were dead, right?
01:01:31.180 --> 01:01:36.300 It could have happened any time during the recovery period.
01:01:36.300 --> 01:01:44.740 So you need to show that that experience formed when they were near death, and if they could
01:01:44.740 --> 01:01:50.260 do that, then we could say, well, you're getting CPR, that's producing decent blood flow.
01:01:50.260 --> 01:01:55.860 It's usually 20, 25 percent of what normal blood flow would be, and maybe that's enough
01:01:55.860 --> 01:02:00.100 to generate enough brain activity that they're experiencing something, you know, like dreaming
01:02:00.100 --> 01:02:05.100 or whatever, some altered state of consciousness, but enough to form some memories that they
01:02:05.100 --> 01:02:11.020 then interpret later as whatever culturally appropriate near-death experience they want
01:02:11.020 --> 01:02:13.220 to believe, right?
01:02:13.220 --> 01:02:15.620 So that's why the study was organized the way it was.
01:02:15.620 --> 01:02:19.900 They have an EEG going during CPR, and they want to see if people can report that they
01:02:19.900 --> 01:02:25.420 were floating above their body and seeing the card, or just that they accurately described
01:02:25.420 --> 01:02:26.820 what was happening in the room.
01:02:26.820 --> 01:02:31.660 That's a way more problematic criterion, because, you know, what do you consider accurate?
01:02:31.660 --> 01:02:33.660 Oh, there were people working on me.
01:02:33.660 --> 01:02:34.660 Yeah, of course there were.
01:02:34.660 --> 01:02:39.500 It's a kind of emergency room, and so just like telling just a typical kind of story.
01:02:39.500 --> 01:02:47.740 Now, with the WARE-1, the first study, nobody that got enrolled into the study and survived
01:02:47.740 --> 01:02:51.260 that was in an ER that had one of the cards in place.
01:02:51.260 --> 01:02:56.740 So they didn't, they were not able to gather any data on that, and out of the 140 cases
01:02:56.740 --> 01:03:03.780 that they documented, one case they said the person reported details about what was happening
01:03:03.780 --> 01:03:05.780 in the room when they were getting CPR.
01:03:05.780 --> 01:03:08.020 So I mean, to me, that's background noise, right?
01:03:08.020 --> 01:03:10.060 One out of 140, that's coincidence.
01:03:10.060 --> 01:03:15.540 That's just superficial similarity of what was reported and what was happening.
01:03:15.540 --> 01:03:16.540 It's ambiguous, right?
01:03:16.540 --> 01:03:21.060 It doesn't prove that the person's memories were happening when they were in the emergency
01:03:21.060 --> 01:03:22.900 room getting their CPR.
01:03:22.900 --> 01:03:28.420 So AWARE-2, so from their preliminary reporting, and this is like from Parnia, the guy who's
01:03:28.420 --> 01:03:34.260 running it and who would absolutely make the best case for his own data possible, no mention
01:03:34.260 --> 01:03:35.940 of anybody seeing the cards, right?
01:03:35.940 --> 01:03:38.660 So I think we can assume that that did not happen.
01:03:38.660 --> 01:03:41.300 And guess what the EEG showed?
01:03:41.300 --> 01:03:43.220 It showed brain activity during CPR.
01:03:43.220 --> 01:03:44.580 Well, there you go.
01:03:44.580 --> 01:03:48.580 So they failed both of the things that they were trying to find.
01:03:48.580 --> 01:03:52.660 They did not prove the experiences formed while they were in the emergency room getting
01:03:52.660 --> 01:03:56.760 CPR, and they did not prove no brain activity.
01:03:56.760 --> 01:04:02.300 So now they're doing the shuffle, they're dancing feverishly trying to parlay this into
01:04:02.300 --> 01:04:04.860 we identified something unique happening.
01:04:04.860 --> 01:04:06.420 No, you didn't.
01:04:06.420 --> 01:04:08.540 You showed nothing.
01:04:08.540 --> 01:04:13.100 You failed on the two primary outcomes you were looking for, and those are the only ones
01:04:13.100 --> 01:04:16.620 that mean anything, right?
01:04:16.620 --> 01:04:22.920 So again, we are left with no compelling evidence that NDEs or anything other than shit people
01:04:22.920 --> 01:04:26.700 remember when they wake up from having CPR, right?
01:04:26.700 --> 01:04:30.740 They still didn't prove that those memories weren't forming way later, and they didn't
01:04:30.740 --> 01:04:32.420 prove that there was no brain activity.
01:04:32.420 --> 01:04:38.020 There were spikes of brain activity during CPR.
01:04:38.020 --> 01:04:42.620 I'm not saying that that activity is what is causing the experience, because again,
01:04:42.620 --> 01:04:46.620 they haven't established that the experience is forming then.
01:04:46.620 --> 01:04:49.460 So we don't need to hypothesize that.
01:04:49.460 --> 01:04:55.180 All we could say is that for their hypothesis, they failed on both counts, and that's it.
01:04:55.180 --> 01:04:59.660 And this is the most rigorous study of NDEs to date, you know, even more rigorous than
01:04:59.660 --> 01:05:00.660 AWARE-1.
01:05:00.660 --> 01:05:01.660 So fine.
01:05:01.660 --> 01:05:08.260 It's always, this happens a lot with pseudoscience or things on the fringe where the actual data,
01:05:08.260 --> 01:05:12.380 the actual outcomes that they were looking for are negative, but they find some way to
01:05:12.380 --> 01:05:17.300 try to pretend like the study was positive because they're so invested in interpreting
01:05:17.300 --> 01:05:18.300 it that way.
01:05:18.300 --> 01:05:21.660 And instead of just saying, it was negative, the study was negative, the outcome measures
01:05:21.660 --> 01:05:23.660 we were looking for weren't there.
01:05:23.660 --> 01:05:29.900 Aren't there any rigorous, legitimate studies that are basically looking at what could account
01:05:29.900 --> 01:05:33.540 for individual experiences?
01:05:33.540 --> 01:05:34.540 So like, what did you have?
01:05:34.540 --> 01:05:35.540 What do you have in mind?
01:05:35.540 --> 01:05:36.860 There's lots of studies of like...
01:05:36.860 --> 01:05:37.860 Like hypoxia.
01:05:37.860 --> 01:05:38.860 Yeah.
01:05:38.860 --> 01:05:40.300 What happens during hypoxia?
01:05:40.300 --> 01:05:43.460 What happens during, you know, during drug exposure?
01:05:43.460 --> 01:05:44.460 Yeah.
01:05:44.460 --> 01:05:47.700 Qualitative experiences that people, like people who were interviewed after a hypoxic
01:05:47.700 --> 01:05:48.700 event, what did they experience?
01:05:48.700 --> 01:05:49.700 Yeah.
01:05:49.700 --> 01:05:53.140 And in fact, we have a lot of those episodes, you know, where they mostly come from?
01:05:53.140 --> 01:05:54.140 Pilots.
01:05:54.140 --> 01:05:55.140 Pilots.
01:05:55.140 --> 01:05:56.140 Fighter pilots.
01:05:56.140 --> 01:06:00.820 Fighter pilots will frequently accelerate, you know, pull Gs until they pass out.
01:06:00.820 --> 01:06:02.420 And guess what they report?
01:06:02.420 --> 01:06:08.860 They report pretty compelling NDE experiences, you know, all the elements are there.
01:06:08.860 --> 01:06:12.940 All the body sensation, all the elements are there.
01:06:12.940 --> 01:06:14.540 The tunnel vision.
01:06:14.540 --> 01:06:18.820 The feelings of kind of like dissociation, depersonalization.
01:06:18.820 --> 01:06:23.520 And those, they're there in other contexts as well, certain drugs that do that.
01:06:23.520 --> 01:06:28.560 And so the reason why you can have similar experiences in different condition is because
01:06:28.560 --> 01:06:37.140 the, what's provoking the condition, what's provoking the altered awareness is not what's
01:06:37.140 --> 01:06:39.580 producing the details of the experience.
01:06:39.580 --> 01:06:45.900 What's producing the details of the experience are the brain circuits that are shutting down.
01:06:45.900 --> 01:06:50.540 Like this is what you're, this is what it's like when you have some awareness, but these
01:06:50.540 --> 01:06:52.140 circuits aren't working.
01:06:52.140 --> 01:06:56.240 The circuit that makes you feel as if you're inside your body is not functioning.
01:06:56.240 --> 01:07:01.620 So you feel like you're floating outside your body and your brain always makes experiences
01:07:01.620 --> 01:07:04.500 seem real and seamless because that's how our brain works.
01:07:04.500 --> 01:07:11.300 If you have a memory of it, that memory will create the illusion of a real seamless experience.
01:07:11.300 --> 01:07:13.020 It just blows my mind that people don't see this.
01:07:13.020 --> 01:07:19.500 Like you can look at reports of what people experience when they're intubated in ICU and
01:07:19.500 --> 01:07:21.740 you have like really similar things.
01:07:21.740 --> 01:07:26.060 What people report when they first wake up from anesthesia and you have themes over and
01:07:26.060 --> 01:07:27.060 over.
01:07:27.060 --> 01:07:29.580 These are all variations on the same theme.
01:07:29.580 --> 01:07:30.580 Yeah, totally.
01:07:30.580 --> 01:07:35.480 Like, I mean, yeah, to you and me, Kara, it's blatantly obvious that these are just typical
01:07:35.480 --> 01:07:40.900 brain experiences from, you know, a brain that went through trauma was hypoxic and,
01:07:40.900 --> 01:07:45.900 or whatever was waking up slowly from an extreme event like that.
01:07:45.900 --> 01:07:46.900 Sure.
01:07:46.900 --> 01:07:49.220 You're going to have these weird experiences.
01:07:49.220 --> 01:07:52.500 One of the things they try to make hay out of is that some people report really vivid
01:07:52.500 --> 01:07:56.940 experiences like, well, how could their, their experience be more vivid when the brain's
01:07:56.940 --> 01:07:58.480 functioning less?
01:07:58.480 --> 01:08:01.900 It's because the majority of your brain is inhibitory, right?
01:08:01.900 --> 01:08:02.900 Yeah.
01:08:02.900 --> 01:08:04.900 So you're basically like almost seizing.
01:08:04.900 --> 01:08:05.900 Yeah.
01:08:05.900 --> 01:08:10.740 You're just not that it's not like you're seeing limits, limits the information.
01:08:10.740 --> 01:08:16.100 It's like, it's like when you're on LSD or something, you know, as people report really
01:08:16.100 --> 01:08:18.100 psychedelic vivid experiences.
01:08:18.100 --> 01:08:23.020 It opens everything up because all of that bloatware, all of that heavy processing that
01:08:23.020 --> 01:08:28.820 your brain does to see, is this real, you know, to have executive function, to make,
01:08:28.820 --> 01:08:32.720 to compare things with your memories and reality, none of that's working.
01:08:32.720 --> 01:08:36.860 This is like all lizard brain experiences, the straight jackets off.
01:08:36.860 --> 01:08:37.860 Yeah.
01:08:37.860 --> 01:08:41.620 So it's like, of course it's going to be vivid because it, and it may seem really intense
01:08:41.620 --> 01:08:44.100 because all of the dampeners are off.
01:08:44.100 --> 01:08:48.180 They're all down because that's what a lot of the processing that our brain does.
01:08:48.180 --> 01:08:49.740 It slows down the brain.
01:08:49.740 --> 01:08:54.180 It slows down our thought processes, but it adds all of the really important functions
01:08:54.180 --> 01:08:56.100 like executive function.
01:08:56.100 --> 01:09:00.160 But if you take that, strip that all away, you get these vivid psychedelic experiences
01:09:00.160 --> 01:09:02.460 that seem more real than real or whatever.
01:09:02.460 --> 01:09:06.860 But then you're like, well, and that's like what, I mean, it's not what, but delusions,
01:09:06.860 --> 01:09:10.460 hallucinations, like all of these positive symptoms.
01:09:10.460 --> 01:09:14.380 That's what that is, and it's hard to differentiate them from reality by definition.
01:09:14.380 --> 01:09:18.060 And then your waking brain tries to make sense of it all, right?
01:09:18.060 --> 01:09:23.140 And then it weaves it into a memory of something that's to me, the point that's so, so fundamentally
01:09:23.140 --> 01:09:27.760 important and important is that all these people who have these quote near death experiences,
01:09:27.760 --> 01:09:31.020 there's a particular pattern of what's happening in the brain.
01:09:31.020 --> 01:09:34.280 There is a particular experiential kind of pattern.
01:09:34.280 --> 01:09:36.000 And then what do we do because we're human beings?
01:09:36.000 --> 01:09:37.500 We make meaning of it.
01:09:37.500 --> 01:09:41.060 Oh yes, we don't like the chaos story.
01:09:41.060 --> 01:09:47.560 And so there's the, if you look at the details of NDEs, there are core details that are clearly
01:09:47.560 --> 01:09:52.460 related to brain phenomenon, like the tunnel vision and the out of body of experience.
01:09:52.460 --> 01:09:57.120 And then there's all the other details that are culturally specific.
01:09:57.120 --> 01:10:01.940 They overlay on the core experience, their religious beliefs.
01:10:01.940 --> 01:10:05.460 It is so blatantly obvious when you look at the actual data.
01:10:05.460 --> 01:10:11.820 So yeah, it's Steve, it's like, um, it's like waking, you know, you wake up and you hallucinate.
01:10:11.820 --> 01:10:12.820 What are you hallucinating?
01:10:12.820 --> 01:10:16.300 Well, that depends on, on, on your culture and your culture and what time you're in.
01:10:16.300 --> 01:10:17.300 Yeah.
01:10:17.300 --> 01:10:18.300 Yeah.
01:10:18.300 --> 01:10:21.940 Is there an alien sitting on your chest or a demon or a demon or a sea hag?
01:10:21.940 --> 01:10:22.940 Yeah.
01:10:22.940 --> 01:10:25.620 But, but the pressure is a neurological phenomenon.
01:10:25.620 --> 01:10:28.220 Your interpretation of it is a cultural phenomenon.
01:10:28.220 --> 01:10:30.180 It's the same thing with the NDEs.
01:10:30.180 --> 01:10:32.400 The out of body experience is a brain phenomenon.
01:10:32.400 --> 01:10:36.020 Your interpretation of that is a cultural phenomenon.
01:10:36.020 --> 01:10:40.460 And so it's, we're right smack dab in the middle of this is a traumatized brain, but
01:10:40.460 --> 01:10:44.620 Parnia is trying to say, if this isn't a trick of the brain, your data shows it's a trick
01:10:44.620 --> 01:10:45.620 of the brain.
01:10:45.620 --> 01:10:46.620 It's just ridiculous.
01:10:46.620 --> 01:10:47.620 Wow.
Who's That Noisy? (1:12:14)
01:12:13.660 --> 01:12:16.460 All right, Jay, it is Who's That Noisy? time.
01:12:16.460 --> 01:12:17.460 All right, guys.
01:12:17.460 --> 01:12:40.900 Let's see if I played this noisy.
01:12:40.900 --> 01:12:43.580 That is definitely a UFO landing somewhere.
01:12:43.580 --> 01:12:47.540 Oh, well, who got it right?
01:12:47.540 --> 01:12:52.340 So I had a lot of people guess on this one, but nobody won this week.
01:12:52.340 --> 01:12:54.180 But let me tell you some of the guesses that we got.
01:12:54.180 --> 01:12:56.100 So Shane Hillier wrote in, he said, hi, Jay.
01:12:56.100 --> 01:13:00.940 My guess this week is a backyard solar boiler and generator.
01:13:00.940 --> 01:13:06.620 And I can understand why you said that, because it does have kind of like a boiling noise
01:13:06.620 --> 01:13:09.220 in a sense, if you think about it.
01:13:09.220 --> 01:13:10.700 That is not correct, though.
01:13:10.700 --> 01:13:14.660 Frederick Niant said, strange noise, strange answer.
01:13:14.660 --> 01:13:20.620 A series of wide hollow bamboo trunks arranged in such a manner as to allow water to be poured
01:13:20.620 --> 01:13:24.480 down the middle, pushing air through precisely drilled holes, creating a bird whistle, which
01:13:24.480 --> 01:13:28.120 can be heard throughout the middle of the clip.
01:13:28.120 --> 01:13:29.260 That was a great guess.
01:13:29.260 --> 01:13:30.260 Incorrect, however.
01:13:30.260 --> 01:13:32.980 Visto Tutti said, this is a tough one, Jay.
01:13:32.980 --> 01:13:34.340 It could be so many machines.
01:13:34.340 --> 01:13:37.980 I'm guessing that it's a blender grinding peanuts into peanut butter.
01:13:37.980 --> 01:13:41.060 I wonder why you are so specific here with peanut butter.
01:13:41.060 --> 01:13:42.180 Why couldn't it be any nuts?
01:13:42.180 --> 01:13:44.820 But anyway, that is incorrect, but sounds delicious.
01:13:44.820 --> 01:13:46.940 Yeah, what, are you on a bias against cashews?
01:13:46.940 --> 01:13:47.940 Me?
01:13:47.940 --> 01:13:48.940 Yeah, right?
01:13:48.940 --> 01:13:49.940 What, you got a nut problem over here?
01:13:49.940 --> 01:13:53.300 So a listener named Philip Dejean wrote in, said, howdy.
01:13:53.300 --> 01:13:57.940 My guess for this week's noise is the sound of a fishing reel being spooled by a machine.
01:13:57.940 --> 01:14:02.780 And I can understand why that guess was submitted as well.
01:14:02.780 --> 01:14:08.180 I've heard fishing reels unspool very quickly, and they do have a weird sound to them.
01:14:08.180 --> 01:14:09.940 But anyway, nobody got it right this week.
01:14:09.940 --> 01:14:11.140 It was a tough one.
01:14:11.140 --> 01:14:14.000 I will tell you what this is, and then I'll play it for you again.
01:14:14.000 --> 01:14:20.540 This is a piece of chalk that has been dropped into a cup of water, and there is an underwater
01:14:20.540 --> 01:14:27.920 microphone, a hydrophone, that is recording the sound as the water, well, more importantly,
01:14:27.920 --> 01:14:31.860 as the air seeps out of the chalk.
01:14:31.860 --> 01:14:38.140 It is, it's essentially air leaving the piece of chalk in very, very tiny holes.
01:14:38.140 --> 01:14:42.180 So you have water going into the chalk and air leaving the piece of chalk.
01:14:42.180 --> 01:14:49.860 But anyway, listen to it again, now that you know what it is.
01:14:49.860 --> 01:14:56.500 Pretty cool.
01:14:56.500 --> 01:14:59.980 Cool.
01:14:59.980 --> 01:15:04.060 I know that one was very hard to guess, and I feel a little guilty because nobody guessed
01:15:04.060 --> 01:15:05.060 it.
01:15:05.060 --> 01:15:06.060 But it's such a cool noisy.
01:15:06.060 --> 01:15:07.060 I had to play it for you.
01:15:07.060 --> 01:15:08.060 You've got to throw some hard ones in there sometimes.
01:15:08.060 --> 01:15:09.060 You're right.
01:15:09.060 --> 01:15:10.060 Thank you, Steve.
01:15:10.060 --> 01:15:11.060 I feel very good now.
01:15:11.060 --> 01:15:12.060 All right.
New Noisy (1:15:11)
[song/melody of chimes and percussive bangs]
01:15:12.060 --> 01:15:18.180 So I have a new one, a new noisy sent in by a listener named Lila B. And I think this
01:15:18.180 --> 01:15:19.180 one is really cool.
01:15:19.180 --> 01:15:20.180 I hope you like it.
01:15:20.180 --> 01:15:25.820 Also, Lila is a grade six student who's graduating primary school in a few weeks.
01:15:25.820 --> 01:15:27.460 So thank you for sending that in, Lila.
01:15:27.460 --> 01:15:40.420 Check this one out, guys.
01:15:40.420 --> 01:15:55.420 OK.
01:15:55.420 --> 01:15:57.300 This is not just a song.
01:15:57.300 --> 01:16:02.940 There is a very important detail that you need to tell me in order for you to get this
01:16:02.940 --> 01:16:03.940 one correct.
01:16:03.940 --> 01:16:07.780 Jay, I know exactly what that is.
01:16:07.780 --> 01:16:13.060 And I know exactly why Lila knows what that is and how she came by that sound.
01:16:13.060 --> 01:16:14.060 You do?
01:16:14.060 --> 01:16:15.060 I do.
01:16:15.060 --> 01:16:16.060 Oh, my God.
01:16:16.060 --> 01:16:17.060 I love it.
01:16:17.060 --> 01:16:18.060 OK, this is great.
01:16:18.060 --> 01:16:19.060 So next week.
01:16:19.060 --> 01:16:20.060 I'll reveal it next week.
01:16:20.060 --> 01:16:21.060 Next week, we will talk about the details.
01:16:21.060 --> 01:16:24.300 And Steve's like, and I know exactly where she lives and what she studied.
01:16:24.300 --> 01:16:30.340 So I'm assuming she came to it the same way I did, which is highly likely, or it's a massive
01:16:30.340 --> 01:16:33.780 coincidence because I just saw that a few days ago.
01:16:33.780 --> 01:16:34.780 I love coincidences.
01:16:34.780 --> 01:16:35.780 OK, great.
01:16:35.780 --> 01:16:36.780 All right.
01:16:36.780 --> 01:16:39.100 Well, next week, we will reveal this.
If you think you know what this week's noisy is or if you have something cool that you've heard recently, you got to email me. Just go to WTN@theskepticsguide.org.
Announcements (1:16:49)
01:16:48.580 --> 01:16:49.580 Stephen Novella.
01:16:49.580 --> 01:16:50.580 Yes, Arizona.
01:16:50.580 --> 01:16:51.580 Come on.
01:16:51.580 --> 01:16:53.980 They're still counting votes in Arizona.
01:16:53.980 --> 01:16:56.220 Hopefully they'll be done by the time we get there in December.
01:16:56.220 --> 01:16:57.220 That's right.
01:16:57.220 --> 01:17:02.740 Right before the show, Evan and I happened to log on first and Evan's like, hey, man,
01:17:02.740 --> 01:17:03.740 this show.
01:17:03.740 --> 01:17:05.900 I mean, we are like right around the corner of this show.
01:17:05.900 --> 01:17:09.620 Yes, it's you know, we are we are as we record this.
01:17:09.620 --> 01:17:13.460 We are just under one month away from this show happening.
01:17:13.460 --> 01:17:14.900 And I like what George said last week.
01:17:14.900 --> 01:17:18.740 George said this would make a great gift if you know anyone that listens to the show or
01:17:18.740 --> 01:17:23.980 enjoys the show or you want to take someone that you think would enjoy the shows that
01:17:23.980 --> 01:17:25.220 we're putting on.
01:17:25.220 --> 01:17:28.980 Use it as a Christmas present, an early, awesome Christmas present.
01:17:28.980 --> 01:17:34.020 Go to the skeptics guy dot org forward slash events and you can find out about the two
01:17:34.020 --> 01:17:37.160 different kinds of shows that we're going to be putting on in Arizona.
01:17:37.160 --> 01:17:41.740 We're going to be doing each one of these shows in Phoenix and each one of them in Tucson.
01:17:41.740 --> 01:17:44.840 We have a private SGU recording.
01:17:44.840 --> 01:17:49.260 It's called The Private Show Plus because we also give about two hours.
01:17:49.260 --> 01:17:55.740 It's four hours total of SGU goodness, four hours total, but two hours basically of us
01:17:55.740 --> 01:17:59.300 recording the show and two hours of us hanging out with you guys having fun.
01:17:59.300 --> 01:18:03.540 We have all sorts of activities and cool stuff planned.
01:18:03.540 --> 01:18:06.940 So please do join us for one of those live recordings.
01:18:06.940 --> 01:18:08.500 And then we have an extravaganza.
01:18:08.500 --> 01:18:10.360 This is a holiday themed extravaganza.
01:18:10.360 --> 01:18:14.820 And if you don't know what it is, the extravaganza is essentially it's a stage show where we're
01:18:14.820 --> 01:18:20.140 we do a lot of improv comedy bits where essentially George is trying to make us, you know, trying
01:18:20.140 --> 01:18:21.140 to have a lot of fun.
01:18:21.140 --> 01:18:24.400 But George really is trying to embarrass us as best he can.
01:18:24.400 --> 01:18:26.740 And he does it, by the way.
01:18:26.740 --> 01:18:31.460 You got to see Bob when Bob gets a little pissed off when we're when we're doing this
01:18:31.460 --> 01:18:32.460 show.
01:18:32.460 --> 01:18:33.460 Right.
01:18:33.460 --> 01:18:34.460 I love that.
01:18:34.460 --> 01:18:35.460 Sometimes there's a lot to be pissed off about.
01:18:35.460 --> 01:18:36.460 I know.
01:18:36.460 --> 01:18:41.160 But when Bob gets angry and he gets a little passive aggressive, I am like, we are hitting
01:18:41.160 --> 01:18:42.160 our stride.
01:18:42.160 --> 01:18:43.160 I wouldn't say flustered, just pissed.
01:18:43.160 --> 01:18:48.140 I'd say flustered.
01:18:48.140 --> 01:18:51.180 So you could you could please, if you're interested, please join us.
01:18:51.180 --> 01:18:55.380 Go to the skeptics guide dot org forward slash events for all the details.
01:18:55.380 --> 01:18:56.780 And I'm looking forward to seeing Kara.
01:18:56.780 --> 01:18:57.780 Thank you, Jay.
Questions/Emails/Corrections/Follow-ups
Email #1: The Harm of Astrology (1:18:59)
01:18:57.780 --> 01:18:58.780 All right.
01:18:58.780 --> 01:19:00.620 We're going to do one quick email.
01:19:00.620 --> 01:19:05.740 This one comes from Dan from Seattle, Washington, and he writes, I have an ongoing friendly
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01:19:05.740 --> 01:19:06.740 dispute with someone.
01:19:06.740 --> 01:19:10.580 It boils down to what is the harm in following astrology?
01:19:10.580 --> 01:19:14.500 They loosely follow astrology for fun with a few friends, possibly as a running joke
01:19:14.500 --> 01:19:18.540 just to tease me and take the stance that it is pretty harmless.
01:19:18.540 --> 01:19:23.060 While I agree it's probably pretty harmless for most, my worry is that it could act as
01:19:23.060 --> 01:19:26.780 a sort of gateway drug to other pseudoscientific beliefs.
01:19:26.780 --> 01:19:32.260 Believing in astrology seems to demonstrate a disinterest at best or inability at worst
01:19:32.260 --> 01:19:37.600 in evaluating its scientific plausibility and the empirical evidence as to if it's actually
01:19:37.600 --> 01:19:43.700 a real phenomenon or put more broadly in the willingness to or ability to exercise certain
01:19:43.700 --> 01:19:45.660 critical thinking skills.
01:19:45.660 --> 01:19:48.660 He has a couple more paragraphs of basically making that same point.
01:19:48.660 --> 01:19:52.540 So he wants to know what we think about that is, do we really do we think that there are
01:19:52.540 --> 01:20:01.300 harmless pseudoscientific beliefs or is his formulation that it's brain poison more accurate?
01:20:01.300 --> 01:20:07.140 So I'm definitely far on the brain poison end of the spectrum, I think.
01:20:07.140 --> 01:20:10.860 So I could say what the evidence shows, first of all, for in case anyone listening needs
01:20:10.860 --> 01:20:16.580 to hear this, astrology is 100% pure superstitious pseudoscience.
01:20:16.580 --> 01:20:18.620 There is nothing to it.
01:20:18.620 --> 01:20:20.580 Yeah, it's like one of the worst.
01:20:20.580 --> 01:20:26.020 Yeah, it is like a classic, iconic example of a pseudoscience that's based on magic,
01:20:26.020 --> 01:20:27.020 on nothing.
01:20:27.020 --> 01:20:32.740 The idea is that the relative position of the stars as seen from the earth and the planets
01:20:32.740 --> 01:20:38.060 in relation to those stars has some influence on our personality and our fate, right?
01:20:38.060 --> 01:20:44.220 When of course there's no possible mechanism for that to be true and the relative positions
01:20:44.220 --> 01:20:46.700 are all subjective anyway.
01:20:46.700 --> 01:20:51.140 And I think I love how Carl Sagan put it, the obstetrician has more of a gravitational
01:20:51.140 --> 01:20:57.100 influence on you at the moment of your birth than Jupiter does.
01:20:57.100 --> 01:21:00.420 So there's literally zero plausibility.
01:21:00.420 --> 01:21:04.720 And the evidence for it is, again, it's a classic example, we use it as a classic example
01:21:04.720 --> 01:21:12.520 of retrofitting data because that's all they really have is they can retrodict why something
01:21:12.520 --> 01:21:15.060 happened if you look at the stars and interpret it the right way.
01:21:15.060 --> 01:21:18.220 It's all subjective and confirmation and bias, whatsoever.
01:21:18.220 --> 01:21:23.020 But anytime it's ever looked at under any kind of controlled, with good scientific controls,
01:21:23.020 --> 01:21:25.060 there's no effect there.
01:21:25.060 --> 01:21:28.920 So does believing in astrology rot your brain, right?
01:21:28.920 --> 01:21:33.120 That's basically the question, just to paraphrase.
01:21:33.120 --> 01:21:34.580 So I think there's a couple ways to look at this.
01:21:34.580 --> 01:21:39.920 So first of all, are people predisposed to believing in things like astrology?
01:21:39.920 --> 01:21:45.180 And does believing in astrology make you vulnerable to believing other kinds of nonsense?
01:21:45.180 --> 01:21:49.100 That's hard to control for, like you can't, like we're going to force you to believe in
01:21:49.100 --> 01:21:50.460 astrology and see what happens to you, right?
01:21:50.460 --> 01:21:52.220 You can't do that kind of study.
01:21:52.220 --> 01:21:56.780 So all the data is correlative, right, so we can do correlational studies.
01:21:56.780 --> 01:22:01.580 And what we do know is that if you believe in one pseudoscience, you are way more likely
01:22:01.580 --> 01:22:03.160 to believe in others.
01:22:03.160 --> 01:22:10.620 And we also know that believing in these pseudosciences does correlate with certain thinking styles.
01:22:10.620 --> 01:22:13.740 You're more intuitive and less analytical.
01:22:13.740 --> 01:22:19.760 And it also correlates with believing in conspiracy theories and lacking critical thinking skills.
01:22:19.760 --> 01:22:22.880 So it does correlate with all of these things.
01:22:22.880 --> 01:22:25.460 Does it cause it or does it result from it?
01:22:25.460 --> 01:22:27.380 That's the thing that we can't really say.
01:22:27.380 --> 01:22:33.340 But I think either way, you're certainly better not believing in nonsense, right, and believing
01:22:33.340 --> 01:22:34.820 in reality.
01:22:34.820 --> 01:22:39.220 And I think it's absolutely plausible, as he says, and he gets into this more later
01:22:39.220 --> 01:22:46.980 on, that if you regularly believe in pseudosciences, you develop certain habits of thought.
01:22:46.980 --> 01:22:50.100 Now I have personal experience to draw on.
01:22:50.100 --> 01:22:51.100 I think we all do, guys.
01:22:51.100 --> 01:22:54.100 Kara, I don't know, probably not so much for you, but when we were younger, we believed
01:22:54.100 --> 01:22:55.100 all this shit, right?
01:22:55.100 --> 01:22:57.600 When we were kids.
01:22:57.600 --> 01:22:58.600 Maybe not astrology.
01:22:58.600 --> 01:23:04.660 I don't know that I ever believed in astrology, but definitely UFOs, ESP, those kind of more
01:23:04.660 --> 01:23:07.220 science-y pseudosciences.
01:23:07.220 --> 01:23:11.740 I remember reading my horoscope and trying to see how it lined up with the girl that
01:23:11.740 --> 01:23:18.460 I liked in terms of her astrological sign, but that was it.
01:23:18.460 --> 01:23:23.060 So I remember being in that mindset, and it does affect how you think about things.
01:23:23.060 --> 01:23:27.700 And then eventually, when we learned about science and whenever we became critical thinkers
01:23:27.700 --> 01:23:33.900 towards really high school and college, we now think about things very, very differently.
01:23:33.900 --> 01:23:39.660 Same people, but we have very different habits and styles of thought as skeptics than we
01:23:39.660 --> 01:23:43.900 did as our younger true believers in pseudoscience.
01:23:43.900 --> 01:23:44.900 Science!
01:23:44.900 --> 01:23:45.900 Yeah.
01:23:45.900 --> 01:23:50.780 Were things differently?
01:23:50.780 --> 01:23:52.900 Could I be a pseudoscientist today?
01:23:52.900 --> 01:23:53.900 I don't know.
01:23:53.900 --> 01:23:54.900 Maybe.
01:23:54.900 --> 01:23:55.900 It's interesting to think about that.
01:23:55.900 --> 01:24:01.340 If my life had turned out differently, the influences on my life or whatever, if I didn't
01:24:01.340 --> 01:24:08.620 have the ability to get a degree in science, I could have been a different person today
01:24:08.620 --> 01:24:12.060 in terms of my critical thinking or skepticism, right?
01:24:12.060 --> 01:24:13.060 I suppose.
01:24:13.060 --> 01:24:16.340 I don't think there's a version of you that's a pseudoscientist, Steve.
01:24:16.340 --> 01:24:20.940 I'd like to think that to some degree, but we don't know that, and the fact that we believed
01:24:20.940 --> 01:24:24.420 in all this crap when we were younger means it's possible.
01:24:24.420 --> 01:24:31.100 I do think it's important not to instill, force people to defend nonsense, right?
01:24:31.100 --> 01:24:35.540 You don't want them to be like, find reasons to believe the things that they want to believe
01:24:35.540 --> 01:24:40.740 and to fend off scientific reputation and to fend off logic and analytical thinking,
01:24:40.740 --> 01:24:45.140 etc., as opposed to embracing those things and being willing to give up their beliefs.
01:24:45.140 --> 01:24:49.940 The same person, I think, could go either way, and most people go both ways.
01:24:49.940 --> 01:24:53.580 Of course, they compartmentalize, and they're skeptical sometimes, and they're gullible
01:24:53.580 --> 01:24:59.940 other times, so I think most people have the capacity to do either, so reinforcing the
01:24:59.940 --> 01:25:07.260 belief in pseudoscience can definitely have tremendous negative downstream effects, and
01:25:07.260 --> 01:25:12.580 reinforcing critical thinking and scientific literacy, and those kinds of beliefs can have
01:25:12.580 --> 01:25:14.540 massively positive effects.
01:25:14.540 --> 01:25:20.060 So we all know a lot of people who are not dumb.
01:25:20.060 --> 01:25:25.100 They're basically intelligent people, and they have the ability to think critically,
01:25:25.100 --> 01:25:33.260 but they have life experiences which they think is evidence for the paranormal, and
01:25:33.260 --> 01:25:37.080 so they're like, well, I know it's real because of this experience.
01:25:37.080 --> 01:25:38.220 How do you explain that?
01:25:38.220 --> 01:25:40.380 Something's got to be going on, right?
01:25:40.380 --> 01:25:46.900 And minus that experience, they probably would be more critical thinking.
01:25:46.900 --> 01:25:52.540 Of course, our goal is to get them to understand that experience through a skeptical lens,
01:25:52.540 --> 01:25:53.540 right?
01:25:53.540 --> 01:25:54.540 It's like, no, you didn't see a ghost.
01:25:54.540 --> 01:26:01.860 You were probably just hallucinating, or there's probably a hypnagogia, or we know somebody
01:26:01.860 --> 01:26:08.620 who was convinced that the world is paranormal because somebody tricked them with a Ouija
01:26:08.620 --> 01:26:10.540 board.
01:26:10.540 --> 01:26:14.540 Yeah, that was a go-to evidence for much of their life.
01:26:14.540 --> 01:26:18.940 It affected their life, how they think about the world and everything.
01:26:18.940 --> 01:26:23.940 So yeah, so bottom line is I think it matters, but the evidence is basically correlational,
01:26:23.940 --> 01:26:24.940 but it's pretty solid.
01:26:24.940 --> 01:26:26.220 There's a strong correlation.
01:26:26.220 --> 01:26:27.220 All right.
01:26:27.220 --> 01:26:28.220 Thanks, Dan.
01:26:28.220 --> 01:26:29.220 That's an interesting question.
01:26:29.220 --> 01:26:30.220 All right, guys.
Science or Fiction (1:26:32)
Theme: Common animal myths
Item #1: Daddy-Longlegs are not spiders, but arachnids in the Opiliones order. They do not have venom or fangs.[7]
Item #2: Sharks have a sense of smell about as good as other fish, equivalent to a drop of blood in an average-sized swimming pool. They can detect blood from hundreds of yards, but not miles, away.[8]
Item #3: The Alaskan wood frog does not actually freeze in the winter, but hibernates beneath the mud at the bottom of lakes and ponds.[9]
| Answer | Item |
|---|---|
| Fiction | Wood frog does not freeze |
| Science | Daddy-Longlegs not spiders |
| Science | Sharks' sense of smell |
| Host | Result |
|---|---|
| Steve | swept |
| Rogue | Guess |
|---|---|
Bob | Wood frog does not freeze |
Cara | Wood frog does not freeze |
Evan | Wood frog does not freeze |
Jay | Wood frog does not freeze |
Voice-over: It's time for Science or Fiction.
Bob's Response
Cara's Response
Evan's Response
Jay's Response
Steve Explains Item #1
Steve Explains Item #2
Steve Explains Item #3
01:26:30.220 --> 01:26:34.660 Let's go on with science or fiction.
01:26:34.660 --> 01:26:44.260 It's time for science or fiction.
01:26:44.260 --> 01:26:49.740 Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two real, one fake, and I
01:26:49.740 --> 01:26:53.660 challenge my panel of skeptics to tell me which one is the fake.
01:26:53.660 --> 01:26:55.260 You have a theme this week.
01:26:55.260 --> 01:26:58.100 It's animal myths, animal myths.
01:26:58.100 --> 01:27:03.180 And again, just the statements are either true or fake as stated, right?
01:27:03.180 --> 01:27:04.980 Don't confuse yourself.
01:27:04.980 --> 01:27:05.980 Guys ready?
01:27:05.980 --> 01:27:06.980 Yes.
01:27:06.980 --> 01:27:07.980 All right.
01:27:07.980 --> 01:27:08.980 Here we go.
01:27:08.980 --> 01:27:09.980 Item number one.
01:27:09.980 --> 01:27:18.700 Daddy long legs are not spiders, but arachnids in the Opiliones order, they do not have venom
01:27:18.700 --> 01:27:19.700 or fangs.
01:27:19.700 --> 01:27:20.940 All right.
01:27:20.940 --> 01:27:26.140 Number two, sharks have a sense of smell about as good as other fish, equivalent to a drop
01:27:26.140 --> 01:27:30.140 of blood in an average sized swimming pool.
01:27:30.140 --> 01:27:35.340 They can detect blood from hundreds of yards, but not miles away.
01:27:35.340 --> 01:27:40.980 And item number three, the Alaskan wood frog does not actually freeze in the winter, but
01:27:40.980 --> 01:27:45.100 hibernates beneath the mud at the bottom of lakes and ponds.
01:27:45.100 --> 01:27:46.420 Who hasn't gone first in a while?
01:27:46.420 --> 01:27:47.420 Bob hasn't gone.
01:27:47.420 --> 01:27:48.420 All right, Bob, go first.
01:27:48.420 --> 01:27:49.420 Evan threw you under the bus.
01:27:49.420 --> 01:27:50.420 What the hell, man?
01:27:50.420 --> 01:27:51.420 You're welcome.
01:27:51.420 --> 01:28:03.940 Daddy long legs are not spiders, but arachnids in the Opiliones order, they're not spiders.
01:28:03.940 --> 01:28:05.620 I know that for sure.
01:28:05.620 --> 01:28:08.380 Maybe I shouldn't say that.
01:28:08.380 --> 01:28:09.380 Ignore that people.
01:28:09.380 --> 01:28:10.380 All right.
01:28:10.380 --> 01:28:13.860 So daddy long legs, yeah, I don't like them.
01:28:13.860 --> 01:28:14.860 Don't like them.
01:28:14.860 --> 01:28:18.500 They're just like wannabe spiders, but they do not have venom or fangs.
01:28:18.500 --> 01:28:19.500 All right.
01:28:19.500 --> 01:28:23.860 Let's go, let's go to two sharks have a sense of smell as good as other fish.
01:28:23.860 --> 01:28:26.820 Yeah, that sounds about right there and that they can't, it's not for miles, but hundreds
01:28:26.820 --> 01:28:29.620 of yards kind of jives with my understanding.
01:28:29.620 --> 01:28:33.660 Let's go to the third one, which I didn't even, wasn't even listening to when you said
01:28:33.660 --> 01:28:34.660 it.
01:28:34.660 --> 01:28:38.780 The Alaskan wood frog does not actually freeze, but hibernates beneath the mud at the bottom
01:28:38.780 --> 01:28:39.780 of lakes.
01:28:39.780 --> 01:28:40.780 Hmm.
01:28:40.780 --> 01:28:42.820 Does not actually freeze.
01:28:42.820 --> 01:28:47.900 Is that the classic one where they actually show it being, you know what?
01:28:47.900 --> 01:28:54.260 I remember seeing it like they were, it was pretty damn frozen, um, does not actually
01:28:54.260 --> 01:28:55.260 freeze.
01:28:55.260 --> 01:28:56.260 Yeah.
01:28:56.260 --> 01:28:57.260 I'm gonna say that's fiction.
01:28:57.260 --> 01:28:58.260 Okay.
01:28:58.260 --> 01:28:59.260 Kara.
01:28:59.260 --> 01:29:00.260 Uh, I think I agree with Bob.
01:29:00.260 --> 01:29:01.260 Daddy long legs.
01:29:01.260 --> 01:29:02.260 Of course you do.
01:29:02.260 --> 01:29:03.260 Spiders.
01:29:03.260 --> 01:29:04.260 I feel like, I don't know.
01:29:04.260 --> 01:29:07.260 I feel like a lot of these are things where I'm like, I kind of heard that once before.
01:29:07.260 --> 01:29:08.260 Yeah, right.
01:29:08.260 --> 01:29:09.260 So annoying.
01:29:09.260 --> 01:29:10.260 That's the idea.
01:29:10.260 --> 01:29:11.260 Let's trust that.
01:29:11.260 --> 01:29:12.260 Yeah.
01:29:12.260 --> 01:29:15.860 I don't, I have no idea if they, I don't think they're venomous, but they might have fangs.
01:29:15.860 --> 01:29:16.860 I don't think so.
01:29:16.860 --> 01:29:19.580 They're little, they have long legs though, but they're little.
01:29:19.580 --> 01:29:23.300 I like the shark one cause I feel like that's a gotcha one.
01:29:23.300 --> 01:29:27.060 Like they, but maybe it's the opposite of a gotcha.
01:29:27.060 --> 01:29:32.320 Cause I feel like the myth is that they're like crazy good at detecting blood, but maybe
01:29:32.320 --> 01:29:35.620 all fish are crazy good at detecting blood.
01:29:35.620 --> 01:29:40.880 And I don't know anything about the Alaskan wood frog, but some animals can freeze.
01:29:40.880 --> 01:29:45.180 Like they have kind of an anti freeze situation going on in their blood or something.
01:29:45.180 --> 01:29:48.780 So I don't know if wood frogs are animals like that, but sure.
01:29:48.780 --> 01:29:52.660 I'm going to go with Bob, I guess, and say that that one's a fiction and they can freeze.
01:29:52.660 --> 01:29:53.660 GWB.
01:29:53.660 --> 01:29:54.660 Okay, Evan.
01:29:54.660 --> 01:29:55.660 Yeah.
01:29:55.660 --> 01:30:00.220 I think I'm going to ride that train as well.
01:30:00.220 --> 01:30:08.660 I did not know this about the wood frogs and their freezing, but hibernating beneath the
01:30:08.660 --> 01:30:14.060 mud at the bottom of the lakes and ponds, I don't, there's a disconnect here somewhere.
01:30:14.060 --> 01:30:19.020 I'm not quite putting my finger on it, but something's not, or not right there.
01:30:19.020 --> 01:30:22.900 And yeah, I think the shark, but the shark thing, I will make note of this that that
01:30:22.900 --> 01:30:28.140 has never sat right with me as far as, oh yeah, the shark can, uh, you know, since you
01:30:28.140 --> 01:30:34.980 might as well, like what, how the ocean's a soup with so much going on and how could
01:30:34.980 --> 01:30:38.280 it possibly that just stretched credulity to me.
01:30:38.280 --> 01:30:39.500 So always has.
01:30:39.500 --> 01:30:41.920 So I'll go with the frog as well.
01:30:41.920 --> 01:30:42.920 And Jay wait.
01:30:42.920 --> 01:30:48.420 You're saying that you were having trouble believing that sharks could smell blood like
01:30:48.420 --> 01:30:49.420 that little.
01:30:49.420 --> 01:30:50.420 Miles away.
01:30:50.420 --> 01:30:54.100 That, that's, that's something I've heard a very, for a long time.
01:30:54.100 --> 01:30:58.780 I think that's been parroted or, you know, by people and I, I don't know that I've ever
01:30:58.780 --> 01:31:00.220 really agreed with that.
01:31:00.220 --> 01:31:05.300 Not that I've looked into it, but it just never really sat with me as being, oh, right.
01:31:05.300 --> 01:31:06.300 No.
01:31:06.300 --> 01:31:07.300 I'll go with the boys.
01:31:07.300 --> 01:31:12.580 I really think that there are frogs, I don't know, you know, the Alaskan wood frog, you
01:31:12.580 --> 01:31:16.180 could have named any frog here, Kermit, anyone.
01:31:16.180 --> 01:31:17.180 I just don't know.
01:31:17.180 --> 01:31:23.680 But I am fairly confident that there are frogs that fully freeze and they just have the biological
01:31:23.680 --> 01:31:25.380 mechanism to deal with it.
01:31:25.380 --> 01:31:26.900 So I'm going to say that one is the fiction.
01:31:26.900 --> 01:31:27.900 Okay.
01:31:27.900 --> 01:31:28.900 So you all agree.
01:31:28.900 --> 01:31:29.900 So I guess we'll take these in order.
01:31:29.900 --> 01:31:31.140 Uh, we'll start with number one.
01:31:31.140 --> 01:31:36.700 Daddy long legs are not spiders, but arachnids in the O'Billion ace order, they do not have
01:31:36.700 --> 01:31:38.140 venom or fangs.
01:31:38.140 --> 01:31:43.340 You all think that one is science and that one is science.
01:31:43.340 --> 01:31:49.880 That is the notion that they have, that they're the most venomous spider, but they can't penetrate
01:31:49.880 --> 01:31:51.340 human skin is nonsense.
01:31:51.340 --> 01:31:55.860 They, they're not venomous and, and they're not spiders as Bob said.
01:31:55.860 --> 01:32:03.100 There is, however, there's some people, they, they mistake a particularly long legged spider
01:32:03.100 --> 01:32:09.380 for a daddy long legs and then their common name is the daddy long legs spider.
01:32:09.380 --> 01:32:12.940 So there is a daddy long legs spider, but it's not what we think of as a daddy long
01:32:12.940 --> 01:32:13.940 legs.
01:32:13.940 --> 01:32:16.820 And the, and that one, that spider is not on the East coast.
01:32:16.820 --> 01:32:20.480 You may have seen it in California, Kara, but we don't get it on the East coast.
01:32:20.480 --> 01:32:22.900 So we've probably never even seen it.
01:32:22.900 --> 01:32:23.900 Interesting.
01:32:23.900 --> 01:32:28.220 But in any case, yeah, but the daddy long legs itself is in the, uh, it's an arachnid
01:32:28.220 --> 01:32:31.020 so it has eight legs, but it's not a spider and it has like, look at the body.
01:32:31.020 --> 01:32:32.980 It doesn't have a, you know, it has one body.
01:32:32.980 --> 01:32:33.980 Not two.
01:32:33.980 --> 01:32:34.980 Yeah, exactly.
01:32:34.980 --> 01:32:39.420 They're really freaky looking when you see him like a very, very close up, like zoomed
01:32:39.420 --> 01:32:40.420 in picture of it.
01:32:40.420 --> 01:32:41.420 It looks very alien.
01:32:41.420 --> 01:32:42.420 All right.
01:32:42.420 --> 01:32:43.420 Let's go to number two.
01:32:43.420 --> 01:32:46.900 Sharks have a sense of smell about as good as other fish equivalent to a drop of blood
01:32:46.900 --> 01:32:49.260 in an average sized swimming pool.
01:32:49.260 --> 01:32:54.300 They can detect blood from hundreds of yards, but not miles away.
01:32:54.300 --> 01:32:59.460 You guys all think this one is science and this one is science.
01:32:59.460 --> 01:33:00.460 Yeah.
01:33:00.460 --> 01:33:03.660 This is a recent news item, wasn't it?
01:33:03.660 --> 01:33:04.660 I don't know.
01:33:04.660 --> 01:33:07.700 I read it just a few months ago where they basically said exactly that.
01:33:07.700 --> 01:33:15.100 So Bob basically blew it by giving two items away, but that's all right.
01:33:15.100 --> 01:33:21.420 Only been doing it for 17 years, but it was gold, gold.
01:33:21.420 --> 01:33:25.140 So I picked the wrong person to go first and you did that.
01:33:25.140 --> 01:33:26.140 Learn that lesson.
01:33:26.140 --> 01:33:30.380 I don't know who's going to know what.
01:33:30.380 --> 01:33:35.140 I see what spiders and Bob, you remember I got an A plus plus in my fifth grade spider
01:33:35.140 --> 01:33:36.140 report, right?
01:33:36.140 --> 01:33:37.140 How many times do you have to hear that?
01:33:37.140 --> 01:33:38.140 It was only one plus, Bob.
01:33:38.140 --> 01:33:40.580 The other one was a little spider that crawled on your paper.
01:33:40.580 --> 01:33:44.140 You drag that old fact out your whole life.
01:33:44.140 --> 01:33:46.940 I got an A plus plus in spiders and science books.
01:33:46.940 --> 01:33:52.420 Jay, if you got an A plus plus in piss in a kindergarten, you'd be talking about it
01:33:52.420 --> 01:33:53.420 too.
01:33:53.420 --> 01:33:55.460 I love it.
01:33:55.460 --> 01:33:56.460 Okay.
01:33:56.460 --> 01:34:00.260 Is that Edvard Munch's, the screen?
01:34:00.260 --> 01:34:03.500 So that sharks can sense blood about one part per million.
01:34:03.500 --> 01:34:06.860 So it's about like a drop of blood in the swimming pool and yeah, they could detect
01:34:06.860 --> 01:34:08.660 that much diluted in the water.
01:34:08.660 --> 01:34:13.540 They could still pick it up, you know, hundreds of yards away, maybe 200, you know, maybe
01:34:13.540 --> 01:34:16.540 300 yards away, not miles.
01:34:16.540 --> 01:34:21.700 And the other thing is it takes time for the blood to diffuse through the water so that
01:34:21.700 --> 01:34:22.700 they could detect it.
01:34:22.700 --> 01:34:27.180 It's like you start bleeding and sharks from miles away are instantly heading your way,
01:34:27.180 --> 01:34:28.180 you know.
01:34:28.180 --> 01:34:29.180 Right.
01:34:29.180 --> 01:34:30.180 FTL.
01:34:30.180 --> 01:34:31.180 Speed of light.
01:34:31.180 --> 01:34:32.180 Right.
01:34:32.180 --> 01:34:33.180 All right.
01:34:33.180 --> 01:34:35.460 So all this means that the Alaskan wood frog does not actually freeze in the winter but
01:34:35.460 --> 01:34:39.500 hibernates beneath the mud at the bottom of lakes and ponds is the fiction because they
01:34:39.500 --> 01:34:41.140 do freeze in the winter.
01:34:41.140 --> 01:34:42.780 They literally freeze.
01:34:42.780 --> 01:34:44.460 They are frogsicles.
01:34:44.460 --> 01:34:49.340 Now the way that they survive that, they thought in this spring, just wake up and go about
01:34:49.340 --> 01:34:50.820 their business, you know.
01:34:50.820 --> 01:34:54.260 So they have antifreeze inside their cells.
01:34:54.260 --> 01:35:01.580 So the cells themselves do not freeze but the water between the cells does freeze.
01:35:01.580 --> 01:35:06.500 So the cells are not destroyed, they survive, but the frog does freeze.
01:35:06.500 --> 01:35:13.240 The water in the frog but around the cells freezes and they're just, you know, they survive
01:35:13.240 --> 01:35:17.580 all winter frozen and then they literally thaw out and wake back up.
01:35:17.580 --> 01:35:18.580 It's fascinating.
01:35:18.580 --> 01:35:21.520 They're hungover when they thaw out.
01:35:21.520 --> 01:35:23.780 You have hibernation sickness.
01:35:23.780 --> 01:35:24.780 Yeah.
01:35:24.780 --> 01:35:25.780 Cool.
01:35:25.780 --> 01:35:26.780 Pretty cool.
01:35:26.780 --> 01:35:27.780 Yo-do.
01:35:27.780 --> 01:35:28.780 Yo-do.
01:35:28.780 --> 01:35:29.780 Good job, everyone.
01:35:29.780 --> 01:35:30.780 Bob cheated.
01:35:30.780 --> 01:35:31.780 All right.
01:35:31.780 --> 01:35:32.780 Evan.
01:35:32.780 --> 01:35:33.780 We did.
01:35:33.780 --> 01:35:34.780 I killed it.
Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:35:32)
It is much easier to con people than to convince them that they have been conned.
– John Allen Paulos, American professor of mathematics
01:35:34.780 --> 01:35:39.420 Give us a quote, Evan.
01:35:39.420 --> 01:35:43.740 This quote was suggested by a listener, Matthew from New Zealand.
01:35:43.740 --> 01:35:44.740 Thank you, Matthew.
01:35:44.740 --> 01:35:50.820 It is much easier to con people than to convince them that they have been conned.
01:35:50.820 --> 01:35:52.820 John Allen Paulos, mathematician.
01:35:52.820 --> 01:35:54.820 Ain't it the truth, man?
01:35:54.820 --> 01:35:55.820 Enumeracy.
01:35:55.820 --> 01:35:57.780 He wrote enumeracy.
01:35:57.780 --> 01:35:58.780 Did you read that, Bob?
01:35:58.780 --> 01:36:00.780 Yeah, I read it really good.
01:36:00.780 --> 01:36:01.780 I have to read that.
01:36:01.780 --> 01:36:03.260 I guess I got to put that on my list.
01:36:03.260 --> 01:36:05.380 I don't know that I've read one of Paulos' books.
01:36:05.380 --> 01:36:08.940 I bet you if that guy played science fiction, he wouldn't screw it up like you.
01:36:08.940 --> 01:36:09.940 Oh, yeah?
01:36:09.940 --> 01:36:13.120 Well, we'll have to have him on the show to find out, won't we?
01:36:13.120 --> 01:36:14.120 That is a good quote.
01:36:14.120 --> 01:36:18.780 It's sadly true, especially once they're convinced and people don't want to know that they've
01:36:18.780 --> 01:36:19.780 been conned.
01:36:19.780 --> 01:36:20.780 Oh, gosh.
01:36:20.780 --> 01:36:21.780 Right.
01:36:21.780 --> 01:36:23.460 But sometimes it flips.
01:36:23.460 --> 01:36:27.580 If you can somehow convince them, then they have to flip in their head.
01:36:27.580 --> 01:36:31.120 Then they feel like, I've been victimized, I've been lied to.
01:36:31.120 --> 01:36:34.940 But until you cross that line, they just don't want to think that they've been fooled.
01:36:34.940 --> 01:36:35.940 It sucks.
01:36:35.940 --> 01:36:36.940 Being fooled sucks.
01:36:36.940 --> 01:36:37.940 It's humility.
01:36:37.940 --> 01:36:38.940 It does.
01:36:38.940 --> 01:36:39.940 It's humility.
01:36:39.940 --> 01:36:40.940 Yeah.
01:36:40.940 --> 01:36:41.940 It comes down to humility.
01:36:41.940 --> 01:36:42.940 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:36:42.940 --> 01:36:44.780 They don't want to think that they figured it out on their own.
01:36:44.780 --> 01:36:45.780 That works.
01:36:45.780 --> 01:36:46.780 That's better.
01:36:46.780 --> 01:36:47.780 Yeah.
01:36:47.780 --> 01:36:48.780 Yeah.
01:36:48.780 --> 01:36:50.380 They're more accepting that way, definitely.
Signoff
S: —and until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.
01:36:50.380 --> 01:36:51.380 All right.
01:36:51.380 --> 01:36:53.220 Well, thank you all for joining me this week.
01:36:53.220 --> 01:36:54.220 You got it, Steve.
01:36:54.220 --> 01:36:56.620 Oh, it was nice to be enjoined with you.
S: Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is produced by SGU Productions, dedicated to promoting science and critical thinking. For more information, visit us at theskepticsguide.org. Send your questions to info@theskepticsguide.org. And, if you would like to support the show and all the work that we do, go to patreon.com/SkepticsGuide and consider becoming a patron and becoming part of the SGU community. Our listeners and supporters are what make SGU possible.
Today I Learned
- Fact/Description, possibly with an article reference[10]
- Fact/Description
- Fact/Description
Notes
References
- ↑ Center for Inquiry: Kendrick Frazier, Longtime Editor of Skeptical Inquirer, Has Died at Age 80
- ↑ [url_from_dumbest_thing_show_notes PUBLICATION: TITLE]
- ↑ Scientific American: Subverting Climate Science in the Classroom
- ↑ WaPo: Climate change threatening 'things Americans value most,' U.S. report says
- ↑ National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory: Astronomers discover closest black hole to Earth
- ↑ Neurologica: AWARE-II Near Death Experience Study
- ↑ UC Riverside Spider Research: Have you heard this one?
- ↑ SharksInfo.com: How far can sharks smell blood in the water?
- ↑ National Wildlife Federation: Wood Frog
- ↑ [url_for_TIL publication: title]
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