SGU Episode 535
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| SGU Episode 535 |
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| October 10th 2015 |
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| (brief caption for the episode icon) |
| Skeptical Rogues |
| S: Steven Novella |
B: Bob Novella |
C: Cara Santa Maria |
J: Jay Novella |
E: Evan Bernstein |
| Quote of the Week |
Don't be afraid to be curious. Don't be afraid to ask silly questions. Why is the sky blue? It turns out silly questions have profound and interesting answers. That at its heart is what science is all about. It's understanding nature and not being afraid to ask why. |
Amy Mainzer, astronomer |
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| Download Podcast |
| Show Notes |
| Forum Discussion |
Introduction
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.
S: Hello and welcome to the Sketpics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, October 7th 2015 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: Oh, a pleasure to be back.
S: So you're sticking with the howdy, huh?
C: I dunno.
(laughter)
S: It's alright.
E: For now.
S: You're allowed to do that because you're from Texas, right?
C: Exactly.
S: So this is a very interesting episode this week. We have the Nobel Prize reports coming up and we're going to review the movie The Martian.
Special Report ()
S: But first I have some very good news, an update on the lawsuit. As I'm sure most of our listeners know, I and the SGU were sued by a physician Edward Tobinick for an article I wrote about his treatments on Science Based Medicine. Last week the judge ruled on my motion for summary judgement, granting my motion for summary judgement.
J: What does that mean?
S: That means the case is over. She basically said that Tobinick cannot possibly win the case as a matter of law and that therefore it's over.
C: Yaaaay!
E: He has no merit, he has no grounds.
S: He has no merit, basically. And summary judgement, the bar is really high for that, you know. As the judge says in the decision itself that she has to give all the benefit of the doubt to the person not filing for summary judgement, you know, so anything in question, any doubt gets assumed in his favour, she has to look at the facts in a way that's most favourable to his position and then even still she said that his case has no merit. So there's a lot of confusion about what exactly the decision means. I wrote about it on Science Based Medicine obviously and posted on our Facebook page and the comments are all wonderful and I appreciate all of the support but it's clear to me from reading the comments that there's a lot of confusion about exactly what happened and that's understandable because it's complicated. So let me unpack it a little bit very quickly just so people understand what happened a little bit better. So first of all, there were multiple defendents in the case. Myself personally, SGU Productions, The Society for Science Based Medicine and Yale University. Yale had absolutely nothing to do with this, he just threw them in and they very quickly extricated themselves from the case. We convinced them, SGU Productions had to get their own lawyer and we convinced them to drop us from the suit. The Society for Science Based Medicine got their own lawyer, they also earlier this year filed a motion for summary judgement and they were granted summary judgement as well which removed them from the case. So I was the last defendant standing in the case.
J: Well I had to get a lawyer at one point too.
S: Well yeah, because they tried to rope Jay in at one point and they did depose him and he had to get his own attorney as well, it's true. There's also multiple plaintiffs in the case. There's Tobinick himself, his California corporation and his Florida corporation. And then there's also multiple counts in the case and they divide into two basic types. There's the defamation, libel, and then there was what we call the Lanham Act claims which is essentially unfair trade and tortuous interference meaning that I'm interfering with his business by saying untrue bad things about him. Now, the Lanham Act claims, these counts, are dependent upon the theory that my article in Science Based Medicine was commercial speach. That was essentially the entire legal argument: was the article that I wrote commercial speech or not?
(4:00)
Forgotten Supervillains of Science ()
- Bad Boys of the Nobel: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/10/151005-nobel-laureates-forget-racist-sexist-science/
News Items
Nobel in Physics ()
Nobel in Medicine ()
Nobel in Chemistry ()
Peer Reviewing The Martian ()
Movie Review ()
Who's That Noisy ()
- Answer to last week: Weirding Module
Science or Fiction ()
Item #1: Using a mathematical model to predict crime location in order to direct police deployments resulted in a significant decrease in crime, even outperforming crime experts. Item #2: Using a mathematical model to predict crime location in order to direct police deployments resulted in a significant decrease in crime, even outperforming crime experts. Item #3: Physicists have recently published a paper demonstrating that the precise measurement of time is fundamentally impossible.
Skeptical Quote of the Week ()
Don't be afraid to be curious. Don't be afraid to ask silly questions. Why is the sky blue? It turns out silly questions have profound and interesting answers. That at its heart is what science is all about. It's understanding nature and not being afraid to ask why. - Amy Mainzer, astronomer
S: The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is produced by SGU Productions, dedicated to promoting science and critical thinking. For more information on this and other episodes, please visit our website at theskepticsguide.org, where you will find the show notes as well as links to our blogs, videos, online forum, and other content. You can send us feedback or questions to info@theskepticsguide.org. Also, please consider supporting the SGU by visiting the store page on our website, where you will find merchandise, premium content, and subscription information. Our listeners are what make SGU possible.
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