SGU Episode 156

page in progress --Teleuteskitty (talk) 17:06, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

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 Wednesday July 16^th, 2008, and this is your host, Steven Novella, President of the New England Skeptical society. Joining me this evening are Bob Novella,

B: Hey everybody

S: Rebecca Watson

R: Hello everyone

S: Jay Novella

J: Hey guys

S: and Evan Bernstein

E: Hi everyone,

This Day in Skepticism (0:30)

E: On this day in 1994, Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 collided with Jupiter

J, B, R: Ooooh

B: Cool

E: Impact continued for several days until July 22^nd

S: That was a cool event

B: Yeah, it was awesome

E: It was remarkable, remarkable stuff

S: What was the impact that hit Jupiter with was it thousands of times like the Hiroshima bomb. Pretty nasty.

B: I'm sure it was something like that

E: Yeah

S: Something like that. But Jupiter's good that way, Jupiter sucks up all those comets so they don't hit us

E: Left that black scar on Jupiter, which, I don't think anybody expected that to happen, so they were- it was incredible

J: Did you guys know that the eye of Jupiter is about the size of the Earth?

E: Yes

S: I did know that

B: Everybody knows that

R: Oh, come on guys, at least act a little impressed

B: No

S: Did you know that the picture that you see of Jupiter is-

J: upside-down? Yeah, we know that, get with it.

(laughter)

R: Alright, we're about to have a nerd-off

(laughter)

E: Did you know your eye turns things upside-down and re- well, you know

S: Your brain swaps it back up?

R: Yes.

E: That's right, yes

B: Yes

R: Do you know I'm naked?

E: So therefore, is Jupiter really right-side-up, and we're just seeing it upside-down, oh

B: Ha- next

S: We have an interview coming up, another TAM interview, this one with Neil deGrasse Tyson

E&R: Oooh

R: Big fan

S: Yes, excellent

J: He's a cool guy, his talk at TAM was excellent

S: It was stellar

J: It was called 'brain droppings'

R: Ha-ha! Stellar

E: Yeah, that was good

(laughter)

R: It was out of this world, ha-haa

(laughter)

B: It was…cool

S: But first, some news items-

R: It was astronomical! haa

(laughter)

E: Oh, god

News Items

Black Hole Hubbub (2:10)

DallasNews.com: Dallas County officials spar over ‘black hole’ comment

S: The first news item has a bit of an astronomy theme to it as well, Dallas County officials spar over the ‘black hole’ comment.

J: Oh god

S: This is just a bit of ridiculous funniness: Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said it seemed that central collections “has become a black hole” because paperwork reportedly has become lost in the office. Commissioner John Wiley Price, who is black, interrupted him with a loud “Excuse me!” He then corrected his colleague, saying that his office had become a “white hole”. So apparently, commissioner Price took the black hole comment as a racial slur, apparently not knowing what a black hole is

E: Wow

R&J: (inaudible)

B: or, not even that, you don't have to know what a black hole is, you just know what the expression, the colloquial expression means

S: Yeah, it's pretty-

B: And he obviously didn't know that either

J: Wait, wait, wait, you can't assume that he didn't know either of those things, because some people are that uptight. Like, the term black hole is no longer acceptable to this person,

R: (skeptically) mmmm-

J: that's how I read it

B: I think we assume ignorance because there's just- you can't have a problem with the expression black hole, because that means you then really should then have expression with black-list, blackmail and all the other expressions with black in it. So, I'm just assuming that he's just stupid.

E: (laughs) When in doubt, assume stupidity.

S: Well, scientifically illiterate, at least. And that also said, a white hole would eject paperwork from it, producing more paperwork, not something that would cause it to disappear.

E: If it would've been so much cooler if he'd called him a white dwarf, that would have shown that he knew what was going on.

(laughter)

E: That, and also given him a cosmic slam.

S: I wonder if the American Indians are upset at the term red giant.

(pained laughter)

S: I mean you can take this to an absurd extreme.

B: Yeah, that's my point

R: It's already to the absurd and extreme

S: That's right, it is! You can't even satire it. But the interesting thing is, also present at the meeting, Judge Thomas Jones, who is also black, demanded an apology from Mayfield.

E: (in despair) Oh!

S: So he also didn't get the scientific reference of a black hole.

E: Now, isn't that incredible, three lawyers in a room, and two of the three of them have no clue what a black hole is! It's pathetic!

(laughter)

J: You know, we're moving backwards, guys, we're not moving forwards

B: The cool thing is, though, he refused to apologise.

S: Good

J: He shouldn't

R: Maybe we are moving backwards, if the universe is expanding

S: Actually, the news items get worse and worse from there.

It's Just a Cracker ( )

Pharyngula: IT'S A FRACKIN’ CRACKER!
NetworkWorld.com: Woman fired over death threat sent from work e-mail

S: The next one I wanted to talk about- it's been kind of a slow science news story week.

B: It was, it was.

S: We got some, I don't know if it's the summer slow-down, I don't know, no-one's in the lab publishing research, I don't know what it is.

(laughter)

S: But, these are a few funny items. The next one has to do with PZ Myers, the blogger who blogs for Pharyngula. PZ Myers, in addition to doing a science blog, Pharyngula also is an atheist blog, and also he does not shy away from expressing his political opinions on that blog. So it's really his personal blog where he talks about a bunch of different issues, including his atheiim.

R: What happened was, it started when this kid in Florida went into a Catholic church and he took communion, and he didn't swallow the wafer like supposedly the Catholic priest turns this cracker into the flesh of Jesus, and you actually eat the flesh of Jesus. Like, they actually believe that the waver turns into flesh, which is really gross. But set that aside for a second. So the kid takes the cracker outside of the church to go show his friend, and the Catholics freak out over it. First, they try to keep him from leaving, and he runs away, and then it turns into this big uproar, where people are sending him nasty letters, and Catholics are up in arms. Not all Catholics, you know, I think that most Catholics understand that it's not really that big of a deal, but there's a certain subset of the hardcore Catholics who were not having any of this, including Bill Donahue of, I believe it's called the 'Catholic League'? He kind of freaked out about the whole thing. So PZ steps in and reports on the story, and happens to say that he thinks it's all a bunch of crap, thhat people are coming down too hard on this kid, supposedly there were death threats against the kid-

S: They called it a hate crime, you know, he objected to the characterizing this as a hate crime.

J: Hate crime?

R: Right. And PZ said "you know what? It's a frackin' cracker"

(laughter)

R: as he's- I would never say the word 'frackin', but I'm using his words, 'It's a frackin' cracker'

S: Well, fracking is perfectly cromulent, I mean it's right out of Battlestar Galactica.

(laughter)

J: Friggin'

R: Fraggin'

E: No

S: No, it's Battlestar Galactica lingo, I love that.

R: Ok, nerd

(laughter)

R: So- I prefer 'smegging', ok? It's a smegging cracker

S: Smegging?

R: That's Red Dwarf, by the way.

S: (laughing) Ok

R: I just out-nerded you, just in case you didn't know. So, PZ says, yeah, it's just a cracker, let it go. In fact, PZ says: if anybody out there wants to get another eucharist host, cracker thing and send it to him, he will personally desecrate it in the manner of his choosing.

(laughter)

R: So, you know, and that's-

S: And for some strange reason, the Catholics took offence at that

R: (cheekily) Yeah! I don't know why! (normally) But Bill Donahue sent his minions to, not only pepper PZ with emails, but to also write to PZ's employer – he is a professor for a university – and try to get him fired. So people when on, and they flooded the university with these angry emails, and then also sent actual death threats to PZ! Over a cracker! It was… it was pure insanity. So wait, cos it gets better, PZ took a few of the worst death threats and in order to discourage other death threats from coming in, he posted them to the blog, copy-paste, complete with email address and full headers-

J: Woah

R: -ok? So, one of the death threats came from an email address that was 'so-and-so'@1-800-Flowers.com. So immediately people are commenting on this post, 'could it really be somebody who works for 1-800-Flowers who's using their work email to send a death threat? They check the IP numbers, and yes! It actually came from the computer of a 1-800-Flowers employee, people start sending that person emails-

B: Oooh

R: -and also notifying the IT department at 1-800-Flowers. Well, that person was found, it was a female employee, which surprised a lot of people because of the language, including the C-word, and others. And that employee was fired, shortly thereafter, that employee's husband stepped forward to say that it was actually him, using his wife's computer to send PZ a death threat.

B: Too late

R: And you know what? It's PZ's fault that the wife got fired!

(sounds of weariness)

R: And that's where we are right now.

B: Perfect

R: All over a cracker!

S: The whole affair is officially a 'kerfuffle'

(general mumblings of 'kerfuffle')

R: It's a cracker kerfuffle

S: A cracker kerfuffle, it absolutely is. It was a to-do, but it's beyond that now

R: It's upgraded-

S: Upgraded to a kerfuffle

R: -to a kerfuffle, mm-hmm

B: It's not a, like a holy hubbub or-

S: A hubbub?

R: Hubbub? No, but we are quickly approaching mêlée

(laughter)

S: So, a couple of things I wanted to note about this, when Donahue was on the campaign to get PZ fired, his argument was that PZ's blog is accessible from his work computer.

B,J&E: Oooh

S: Hello! It's on the internet!

R: I think he means that it was linked from the university's website? You mean?

S: No, his statement says 'accessible from', if he was referring to the fact that there was a link from somewhere, he wasn't even that specific. Maybe he was referring to that, but-

R: I think that's what he meant, because part of the angry letters were to encourage the university to stop linking to PZ's blog from the university website.

S: That may be true, but his argument was that he should be fired, because he was using, somehow, official university computer to access the web- his blogs. His blog is on scienceblogs, it's not on the university website, it's not hosted by the university, I mean, you know, firing somebody because it links to another site? It's ridiculous.

R: Yeah.

S: And of course, this all becomes a question of freedom of speech. I have no preoblem with anyone criticizing PZ for what he's doing, PZ has a right to say whatever he wants to say, it's his blog, he could use it to express whatever opinions he wishes, people have a right to criticize him for that on their own venues. But they tried to essentially make the point that PZ doesn't have the right to do what he did, or to criticize Catholic beliefs. And this comes up occasionally, essentially the premise is, that some religionists use, and the recent cartoon incident with the Muslims came up as well, like cartoons depicting Mohammed, is that other people, in fact all other people must respect the things that they deem to be sacred. That's the false premise I think they're coming from, so you think that's sacred, so you can revere it, you could, you know, do whatever you think is appropriate, but you can't demand that other people behave as if it's sacred, out of this notion that that's necessary in order for you to have your religious freedom. So I think that's the logical fallacy, false premise, that they're proceeding from. You know, this is- that's free speech.

E; How about the first amendment?

S: You know, burning a flag, if it's part of political speech, that's protected free speech. You know, desecrating a wafer? If that's part of your political free speech, you have the right to do that, you know?

R: Yeah, the thin is, they gave him a cracker, and he didn't sign anything saying 'I will eat the cracker on the premises, and not hold it hostage'.

(laughter)

R: I mean, it's all, the whole thing! It's just-

E: Its ridiculous

R: -soo ridiculous, it blows my mind that people could actually threaten the life, or even just the livelihood, of another person over a cracker.

S: Yeah, and the most absurd thing, is that it draws the most ridiculous negative attention to them, and it gives PZ and other critics the opportunity to say 'you're upset over what happens to a cracker, and not over your priests buggering little boys, you know, let's put things in perspective!'

R: Yeah, the same day all of that was blowing up, I read in the newspaper, it was a headline that was literally like 'Pope considering apology' (laughs) 'for Catholic priests'

B: Yeah!

R: Like, seriously?

E: Whatever happened to the old adage 'turn the other cheek', and all these other-

J: Rebecca, what's the pope doing? Is he sitting there like 'should I apologise? Was it bad enough?'

R: Exactly! 'Well, once we deal with this cracker kerfuffle'

(laughter)

R: 'Maybe then I'll give some thought to that'. Yeah, and one of the funny things that strikes me in the 'turn the other cheek' category, is that a lot of the people emailing PZ were saying things like 'you just say something like that about the Muslims and see what happens to you, and then we'll all be laughing'. And it's basically 'I'm not going to kill you, but I'll laugh when someone else does the dirty work for me', and it's like, you know, not much better

S: Right, yeah, in fairness, I think this is a rabid minority, it's not your rank and file-

R: Yeah, it definitely is.

S: But, talk about negative press, it's incredible.

J: To add a little detail on the death-threat that PZ received, the email gave him until the first of the month to resign his position at the university, or, the email said, you have two choices, you can quit your job for the good of the children, or you can get your brains beat in. That's a Christian.

B: Wow

S: Right

R: That was just one of them

S: 'For the good of the children'. It's always about the children. Let's go on to the next news item

Eponymous ( )

EvolutionNews.org: Tiktaalik roseae: Where's the Wrist?

Zapping Cancer Cells ( )

MIT Technology Review: Zapping Individual Cancer Cells

References