SGU Episode 387

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SGU Episode 387
15th December 2012
(brief caption for the episode icon)
SGU 386                      SGU 388
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
R: Rebecca Watson
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
Guest
JB: Joshie Berger
Quote of the Week
Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
George Bernard Shaw
Links
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SGU Podcast archive
Forum Discussion

Introduction

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

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Thursday, December 13, 2012, and this is your host Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella,

B: Hey, everybody.

S: Rebecca Watson,

R: Hello, everyone.

S: Jay Novella,

J: Hey, guys.

S: And Evan Bernstein.

E: Hey, Happy Hanukkah, guys.

S: Happy Hanukkah.

J: Is it Chonukkah?

E: It is.

J: Evan, I never asked you this before, but, what do you celebrate?

E: It's known as the Festival of Lights, and Jewish people commemorate the miracle of the olive oil that took place back in Jerusalem, in which there was a, basically a large conflict going on with the Jews, what else is new? And they needed eight nights' worth of oil to get through their turmoil and tumult at the time. But there was only enough oil for one night, so they lit the oil, and miraculously it lasted for a whole eight nights, until they could press more oil, which was the whole point of getting to the eighth day. And they were able to save the temple that they were defending and rid the bad guys, if you, you know, if you're on the side of the Jewish people. So, that's the miracle. You know, it's considered a celebration, a festival, it's not really a holiday. It's not Christmas, it's not what Christmas is to Christians and Catholics. This is more just a commemoration.

S: Catholics are Christians, by the way, just so we don't get any emails about that.

R: Well, not if you're Jack Chick. ____________ Christmas is celebrated by more than just Christians.

E: Are you saying what do we do here at the household?

J: Yeah, do you do both? What do you do?

E: Yeah, we celebrate both. We do the . . .

S: Secular thing.

E: secular version of all of this stuff, right? And

R: Oh, so it's like a war on Hanukkah, is what you're saying.

E: War on Hanukkah, exactly. Another war.

B: I'm more of a Festivus man myself.

E: Bob, you brought up Festivus, and it all happens around the time of the winter solstice, roughly. So, whereas a lot of people were celebrating that fact, of the seasons, you know, it all kind of, I guess, made sense to a certain degree to have these celebrations based on that.

S: It's all based on pagan celebrations, surviving the darkest day of the year.

E: Right.

B: Happy Saturnalia, everybody.

S: Well, Rebecca, welcome back from Australia. I hear you had a good time.

B: Yeah.

R: Thank you. Yeah, I had a blast. You guys were definitely missed. Several times I

E: And we missed you too.

R: I was asked where you were. You and George. Everybody wanted to know where you and George were.

S: Yeah.

R: So. I told them that you didn't love them. (laughter) And that you were at home, celebrating not being in Australia because you hate them, so…(laughter)

E: That's really nice.

S: You know, we have jobs and kids and stuff.

R: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, hopefully, you can go next time because they'd like to see you.

S: Love to go. Just need a little, little more

E: A little lead time. We have to plan a long time ahead for these things.

R: Especially the New Zealanders, because they didn't get to see the live show or anything last time.

S: We really want to go to New Zealand, but honestly, it's really the time off. Carving out that much time off in our schedule is really challenging.

R: So, yeah, it was, I had a blast. Possibly, my highlight, we went back to Waitomo Caves, where the glowworms are, and it was amazing.

B: Cool.

R: We went spelunking with inner tubes,

E: Wow.

R: And it was awesome.

J: All right, when you say "spelunking," like, how tight was it?

R: It wasn't that bad. There were some parts where, if you were claustrophobic you would have really had a bad time, but for the most part it was pretty easy. The reason why you carry the tubes for the most part though is because at one point it opens up and you can float down this underground river, and just like look up and see what looks like a galaxy of glowworms above you.

B: Oooh, wow.

R: It was really amazing.

J: Now is it true that they drop down, and they try to eat your face?

R: Yeah, no, they are carnivorous and they do eat people. They're at the top of their food chain. No. They actually don't have mouths wide enough to eat, the adults. So there's really no worry about that. Glowworms are, as our guide aptly pointed out, they're not worms, but glowmaggots doesn't get any tourists to the area. (laughter)

J: Glowmaggots. Oh, my god, that's so nasty.

R: Yeah, they're, technically, they're maggots, and they glow, and

S: They're the larval stage of the species.

R: Yeah.

J: Rebecca, like, when you're floating by, do they look down and go "You look delicious"?

(laughter)

E: Rebecca in Wonderland.

R: No, I don't think so. No, they have, each of them has a tiny thread coming down from it, and it uses that, it uses its light to attract bugs

J: Humans, yeah, and they float by on rafts.

R: Right. Yeah, but you should never get up and touch them or they'll eat you. They're one of the few species, I think, that eats its parents.

S: Um hmm.

E: Wow.

R: 'Cause the female lays the eggs, and then gets caught in the stickiness, I think, and eventually gets devoured by larva.

B: Mom and dad . . .

J: I think those monsters from Half Life that drop like a tentacle and pull you up and they eat you at the ceiling

R: Yeah, those are glowworms.

J: Those are pretty much rampant glowworms.

This Day in Skepticism (5:25)

• December 15, 1973 The American Psychiatric Association votes 13–0 to remove homosexuality from its official list of psychiatric disorders, the DSM-II.

S: Well, Rebecca, do you have a "This Day in Skepticism" for us?

R: I do. Yes. Today being December 15, back in 1973, December 15 was the that the American Psychiatric Association voted to remove homosexuality from the list of psychiatric disorders in the DSM. And back then, it was DSM-II. What they did was, they, there were tons of protests, obviously from gay rights organizations, grass roots activists. You know protesting the fact that homosexuality was, by 1973, 1974, still considered a disorder, a mental disorder. And so, eventually APA bowed to the pressure and there was also a lot of internal pressure from scientists who objected to that as well. Particularly the people like Alfred Kinsey, I think, was sort of helpful in getting that removed. So, yeah, in 1974 the DSM-II had a 7th printing and homosexuality was removed and sexual orientation disturbance took its place. And sexual orientation disturbance was meant to be for people who were uncomfortable with their orientation and were, would try to change their orientation. I liken it to the people who are in those gay therapy programs for, try to straighten yourself out.

E: Geez.

R: Of course, eventually sexual orientation disturbance was removed as well because it was pointed out that that's not actually an internal disorder so much as it is outside pressure from society about

E: Right. Cultural.

R: Yeah, about your orientation.

S: I found that document proposal to remove homosexuality from the DSM, penned by Robert Spitzer. Does that name sound familiar to you?

J: It does.

E: It does.

S: I'll tell you what that is in a second. Let me just read you one paragraph that summarizes the debate at the time, this is 1973. You know, almost 40 years ago.

The proponents of the view that homosexuality is a normal of human sexuality argue for the elimination of any reference to homosexuality in a manual of psychiatric disorders because it is scientifically incorrect, encourages an adversary relationship between psychiatry and the homosexual community, and is misused by some people outside of our profession who wish to deny civil rights to homosexuals. Those who argue that homosexuality is a pathological disturbance in sexual development assert that to remove homosexuality from the nomenclature would be to give official sanction to this form of deviant sexual development, would be a cowardly act of succumbing to a small but vocal group of activist homosexuals who defensively attempt to prove that they are not sick, and would tend to discourage homosexuals from seeking much needed treatment.

Isn't that interesting? Now, I also, in this document it lists a number of uncontroversial premises that they say these are things with which anyone can hardly disagree. One of them is that modern methods of treatment enable a significant proportion of homosexuals who wish to change their sexual orientation to do so.

R: And that's not even something that was quickly dropped. I mean, as early as 2001, Spitzer delivered a paper called "Can Some Gay Men and Lesbians Change Their Sexual Orientation?"

S: Yeah, so this is the same guy. Thirty years later, right, 2003, he published a paper "Can Some Gay Men and Lesbians Change Their Sexual Orientation?"

R: Oh, sorry.

S: But he later retracted his paper.

E: Oooo.

S: And he tried to get the journal to actually retract it completely, but what he said was, the data was there, so the data was some homosexuals, after going through a program to change their orientation, so-called "reparative therapy," that they claimed to have reduced same-sex desire and increased other-sex desire. And he essentially argued in the 2003 paper that there wasn't any evidence of lying or self-deception, so he took that at face value and said they've actually changed their orientation. He then later recanted and said, well, there's really no data to say that their self-report of altered orientation is not self-deception or lying. And so the entire interpretation of his paper was just made up. It wasn't really based on any data. It was just a subjective interpretation. So that pretty much ended, scientifically and within the psychiatric profession, any discussion of reparative therapy being legitimate, and now it's pretty much accepted that it doesn't work. It causes internal conflict to try to change someone's sexual orientation. It's basically a harmful intervention that doesn't work.

E: Leave people alone. (laugher) For Pete's sake, just leave them alone!

News Items

Creationist Tactics (10:25)

WhyEvolutionIsTrue: A Marshall McLuhan moment with creationist Paul Nelson

S: Jay, you're gonna tell us about a recent debate with a young Earth creationist, Paul Nelson.

J: A blogger named Jerry Coyne, who also is a Ph.D. and he's a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago. He was writing for a blog called Why Evolution is True. Jerry wrote a blog post about a young Earth creationist named Paul Nelson, who criticized Jerry for calling to task a biologist named Jim Shapiro. Jim is a biologist that minimizes the importance of natural selection in evolution. So Jerry commented about Jim Shapiro. Paul said, hey, you shouldn't have done that. As a matter of fact there's a lot of people, a lot of other prominent biologists out there that agree with Jim, and you are wrong. So he stated many times that these biologists have frank doubts about selection. And the list of biologists happens to be pretty heavy. Like the list here is Eric Davidson, Michael Lynch, Andreas Wagner, John Gerhart and Mark Kirschner. So what Jerry decided to do, he said, you know, I know a handful of these guys, and the other ones I think I can get in touch with or get their email addresses. I think I'm gonna send an email to all of them. Tell them what Paul Nelson wrote, and just ask them to clarify what their stance is. And he did that. He did it and it worked great. He actually got a response from all of them, they all said that he could use their responses as much or as little as he wanted to, so he had clearance to quote them and pull from their responses to him. And it turns out that each one of them responded and explained that Nelson's summation of their stance is wrong and that he really didn't even have a clue about what their stance was. So you could say, well, he either is making it up, like he's lying about it, or he didn't read, he never read it, or he did and he just doesn't get to the point where he can actually parse his way through what write.

S: Jay, he's a young Earth creationist. And motivated reasoning, that's their daily bread. So essentially he was saying that natural selection is not important to evolution, and therefore evolution is wrong. Essentially, that's where he's trying to get to. That the whole Darwinian construct of natural selection leading to evolutionary change is wrong and that even biologists, modern day biologists realize that natural selection doesn't work. But he quoted, this is a typical creationist strategy, of taking discussions internally about the relative importance of various different mechanisms within evolution, and then trying to interpret that as "evolution isn't true." And Coyne totally called him out on it. He was able to do that because Paul Nelson was quoting out of context living biologists who he could email and ask what your opinion is. And so unequivocally he showed that Nelson was taking them out of context. They are all, yeah, they all believe in evolution, they all believe that natural selection is important to evolution. It's just that there are other mechanisms that are also important. And it's just a discussion, a healthy debate, about the relative contribution of various different elements to the evolutionary process.

R: Henceforth creationists will go back to just quoting dead people like Einstein, and the founding fathers, yeah.

S: Right. Exactly. Bob, do you remember our encounter with Paul Nelson?

B: No.

S: No, apparently not. We met him at the skeptical conference, the CSI skeptical conference

B: In California?

S: we went to in California, about, what is it now? Ten years ago?

B: Oh, yeah.

S: If you recall, so he was actually, they actually had a debate on stage. It was Paul Nelson, some other intelligent design guy . . .

B: Yes! I do remember it. Oh, man.

S: And then afterwards there was a Q and A, and I went toe-to-toe with Paul Nelson for a minute.

B: Kicked his ass.

S: What I remember is that he was a super nice guy. Really friendly. Very nice guy. Very genuine. But totally clueless. Just had that deer-in-the-headlights look. I think I asked him about the fact that, it was the gaps—it was the whole god-of-the-gaps thing. And he was saying, yes, but there are still things we can't explain. And I made the point that, yeah, but you're taking a snapshot of what we know today. Right now. If you look at the history of evolution as a scientific discipline, those gaps are ever-shrinking. The things that creationists were talking about 30 years ago have been filled. Now you've just moved on to new gaps. And he had nothing to say. About that. He really just couldn't respond.

R: Shocker.

J: Yeah, from Jerry Coyne's blog, he does put Paul's email that Paul had written him, and Paul seemed like a very nice guy. He was actually trying to engage in legitimate conversation.

S: But he's a young Earth creationist, is the bottom line.

E: No way around it.

Truth in Education (15:31)

Neurologica: Truth in Education

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Dawn of Life (22:10)

Phys.org: Researchers propose new way to look at the dawn of life

History of Cheese (28:28)

BBC: Evidence of world's 'oldest' cheese-making found

Quickie with Bob - Ocean Robots (37:29)

Phys.org: Ocean science robot revolution hits symbolic millionth milestone

News Items Continued

Vampire Warning (29:31)

TheWeek: The Serbian village that's warning of a vampire on the loose

Who's That Noisy and Skeptical Puzzle (43:53)

• Answer to last week: Dr. Charles Crouthammer
• Puzzle: There are three boxes. One is labeled "CARROTS" another is labeled "CELERY". The last one is labeled "CARROTS AND CELERY". You know that each is labeled incorrectly. You may ask me to pick one vegetable from one box which you choose. How can you label the boxes correctly?

Interview with Joshie Berger (47:07)

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S: Well, Evan, Jay and I previously recorded a conversation with our friend Joshie Berger, so let's listen to that conversation now.

Well, we're being joined now by Joshie Berger; Joshie, welcome back to the SGU.

JB: I am so honored to be part of the extended SGU family. Thank you guys.

S: We wanted to touch base one last time before the world ends

E: Yeah.

JB: Ah, you know what, these Mayan sons-a-bitches; we're finally getting somewhere. Randi keeps getting stronger every year. I don't know what the hell that wizard is doing; every year at TAM he seems to be getting stronger. Finally, (unintelligible) is about to croak; that Sylvia Browne thing, it seems like she's almost hitting her end, and right now the world has to end. Why?! Good times are coming and they're ending for us.

(laughing)

E: Good times were not meant to last.

J: Joshie, come on; it was a good run, man, but everything has to end.

S: Yeah, we had four and a half billion years; that was good.

JB: Yeah, yeah, but you know what? Playstation 4 is about to come out, "Grand Theft Auto 5" is about to come out.

E: Call of Duty 18 or something, right?

S: Hey, but we'll get—we'll get to see "The Hobbit" before the world ends, so.

JB: I don't even know what that is, but—

E/J: (laughs)

JB: I'm sorry; I'm not a geek like you guys.

E: (laughs)

JB: I've composed a short list of things that I want to educate you guys on, and we're going to do a list, instead of Science and Fiction we're going to do Jewie or Fiction. And I am going to read to you guys four things then you guys have to decide are these real things that religious Orthodox Jews believe, or is one of them fiction—which one of them is. Did I explain that well, Steve; I think you do a better job.

S: Yeah, you got it. Three of these are things that Orthodox Jews really believe and one is wrong; you made it up, I'm assuming.

JB: All right. The first one: Now, the Bible prohibits work or labor on the Sabbath, as you all know; it's the day of rest. So, religious Jews define work very broadly and a lot of things you're not allowed to do. One of the things you're not allowed to do is to separate the bad from the good, which means you can't filter water; you can't even pick out a shirt if it's the wrong one, you have to pick the right one out when you want to wear something on the Sabbath. This also means you can't pick out the bones from fish, you have to pick out the bones from fish from the bones. It causes a lot of problems. This ultimately led to Jews creating what we now know as gefilte fish, a fish without bones in it.

J: Oh, OK.

JB: Eh, number one. Number two is: Additionally, one of the things prohibited on the Sabbath is carrying anything outdoors, meaning you can't walk out of your house with anything, anything in your pocket: keys; you can't push a baby in a stroller. To circumvent this, Jews, when they live in an area of concentration of lar— Jews put a string around their neighborhoods, so now they trick God into thinking it's one big area and it's no outdoors or indoors, and now they can push strollers across the street, go for meals and they can carry stuff in their pockets.

J: (laughing) Oh my God.

JB: (foreign accent) Hey, do not laugh at my people. (normal voice) Next: The Bible every once in a while gets something right, and it wants to say that you should be nice to animals. Thus, there is the enforcement, the prohibition of telling farmers that they are not allowed to muzzle their ox while they thresh their field. Threshing, if you don't know, and I didn't know until I was in Yeshiva, is separating the wheat from the inedible parts, so the animal steps in it, it gets separated. And it's cruel to allow your animal to be muzzled so he looks at the food and he can't eat while he's working. The Talmud, though, tries to find a loophole in this, to figure out how Jews can muzzle their animals while they're threshing the fields, so they can save some money. So what they do is, is they devise contracts between farmers where the farmers exchange fields while they're plowing, and for no other time, so technically the Bible you're not allowed to muzzle your ox, but you're muzzling someone else's ox if during this period of time, it's not really your ox and therefore they can get away with it; they save some money and you guys have to pay us rent and we win. Now—

J: I love it. It's like a negotiation, you know; like, how can they outsmart the Bible?

JB: Dude, that's why we never lose at Monopoly. I was born with this game. Next: the Bible prohibits shaving ones face. You wonder oftentimes why Chasidic Jews have beards; the Bible says that you're not allowed to shave certain points of your face. But, the non-extreme religious Jews say that cutting or trimming is allowed; it just says "shaving". Sooo, back in the days, to shave, cut with scissors and stuff, but now, with the advent of the electric shaver, which has a two-blade cutting system, which is like two little blades inside, Orthodox Jews can now shave, because technically they consider it, because it's two blades, to be like little mini scissors inside and it's not really shaving, although it shaves it because it's like little scissors cutting it up against your face. And that's why you'll go to court; you'll see your lawyers, and you'll go to your dentist and Dr. Greenberg, whatever, will be shaven because they use electric shavers but they still can't use blades. There you go!

J: That's awesome. That's awesome.

JB: I know. There you go! We're going to start with Steve.

S: Um, I proudly know none of this.

JB: Yes!

J/E: (laughing)

S: Yeah, it seems like always—yeah, getting out of a contract by following the details and not the spirit, you know?

J: Right.

S: So they're all equivalent in that way. I definitely have heard about the not-shaving thing, and also there's something about not cutting or trimming the hair at the temples and that's why they have the long hair—

JB: Correct, peyos.

S: —on both side hanging down. Yeah, so I know that that kind of restriction occurs; are some people getting out of it by saying that electric shavers are tiny scissors? That certain is plausible. The "thou shalt not muzzle your ox" one? Wow, that really is subverting the purpose of a restriction by focusing on a tiny word. That-that's, I think, the most egregious example of subverting God's will, if you will, of these four. The string one is the funniest one; you know, but that's—I'm going to employ that logic was, that's so out there that you probably wouldn't have made it up, and so that one's probably real, and—I like the gefilte fish one; that one just seems right to me for some reason, just separating the good from the bad just makes a certain Biblical kind of logic.

E: (laughs) Which means (unintelligible)

JB: So you're going with...

S: So I think I'm going to say that the ox one is the fiction, just because it's the most egregious.

JB: Wow. Very nice. Interesting. We're going to leave Evan for last because he has a little heads-up on you guys genetically. Go ahead, Jay; let's hear you.

J: Yeah, so the first one about not being able to separate the good from the bad, like I—after you do the reveal, Joshie, I'll be curious to hear why that's bad. Like, if this one's true, why would that be bad? Like, you can't even pick what T-shirt you wear? How ridiculous. Like, you know, every single thing we do is a decision.

JB: Yeah.

J: On some level. So that—

JB: See, the problem you're doing, though, is using logic for something that is really illogical.

J: You're right. OK, so this one, I'm not so sure about that one just because of how big of a problem it would be. But we'll get back to that. Now the second one about the string; I love this. I mean, I absolutely—you know, I always like to personify things where I'm like, so at one point in time, some guy, some rabbi was sitting there and he's like, "(Yiddish accent) Vat is this, ve can't do any of these things? Ve can't get outside? We get the string! Get the string!" I love that; I have to believe that's true, because I will be thoroughly disappointed if some awesome rabbi didn't like just be like, "we're going to wrap our neighborhood with a string!" I love it, so that one—

JB: Not to mention that you can cause so much chaos in a Jewish community with the mere implementation of a scissors.

J: Right. I love it. Now the third one about the ox, like OK—me and my neighbor farmer friend both have oxes; I'm going to—

JB: Oxen.

J: —I'm going to pull a fast one on God and I am going to use my neighbor's animals, not mine. Wow, like as if. As if! You know, you die and you go to Heaven, and God's like, "Really? Really?!"

S: (laughing) But isn't that true of all of these ones? Isn't God going to go, "Really, a string?"

E: (laughing)

S: I mean, come on.

J: And then, this last one with the microscopic scissors. "These are not razors; these are scissors!" You know, like, that's epic.

JB: It's like Austin Powers, yeah.

J: I-I wanna go with the separation one, the first one with the gefilte fish, because I just—it's not as entertaining as the others and I don't know; I just think that one's the fake.

JB: All righty. Evan, let's have some Jewie opinion here.

E: I—My DNA is not helping me here, I must admit, so... you know, it's not a bad thing. Here's what I did: I took these in the order of most ridiculous, basically, and I'm taking the least ridiculous one and I'm going to call that one the fiction. The gefilte fish one. I think, in regards to this one, they may have once adhered to this, but they ate—you know, you eat fish so much and after a few years, they're saying "wow, this is a big old pain in the ass and I'm tired of eating these damn fish bones and stuff; let's change this. Let's fix this and get this corrected." So I think that that one, gefilte fish is going to turn out to be the fiction in this game.

JB: Allll righty now, so we got Steve thinking that the fiction one is the ox one, and we got the other two clowns thinking that it's the gefilte fish one. So, let's take the last one, the shaving one first.

Science or Fiction (1:04:07)

Item number one. A new study finds that reducing dietary fat from a high fat diet can cause withdrawal symptoms of anxiety and food craving. Item number two. Researchers examining generic pharmaceuticals find that they frequently have significant chemical differences from the their brand-name version. And item number three. A new fossil analysis suggests that large multicellular creatures may have appeared on land prior to evolving in the sea.

Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:16:59)

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

George Bernard Shaw

References