SGU 10-Hour Show Part 10

SGU 10-Hour Show
2nd May 2015
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SGU 511                      SGU 512
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
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Hour 10: https://youtu.be/Bicy45I8rfs

Interview with Richard Saunders continued: (0:00)

Note: This page is not transcribed, but it has been summarized, and statements of the rogues has been paraphrased in order to provide limited searchability. Text is in gray to distinguish it from normal transcription.

RS: my idea was not to make any money. It's free to view. You don't need my permission to copy it. I don't want to have money come back to me, because that's not the point of the exercize.

S: You were telling us about some photos you're selling.

''(Steve shows a series of origami pictures over the next couple minutes)''

RS: I've been doing origami. And not long ago, I wondered what it would be like to make nice photos of them. They will soon be on display in Sydney. There's a café, and people can buy my photos there.

S: Has anyone ever done that before? It's very artistic.

RS: I found some wonderful paper.

J: It's such a good application of that artform.

S: They immortalize the origami, which is so fragile.

RS: It's sort of a little immortality to have other people copy it. It's not skepticism, but it's something I've been doing lately.

J: You were awesome to us when we visited Australia. There was a significant road trip where Richard took the wheel. 

RS: We had two buses full of SGU, and we had a great time. We went to a wild life area. It's amusing to Australians to see Americans take photos of mundane things.

S: What would you do over here?

RS: Every time I see a squirrel in the States, I go, “That's amazing!” It's amazing for you guys to reach ten years. The Skeptic Zone podcast has been going since 2008.

S: Percentage-wise ...

RS: Yeah.

S: We published 512 today.

RS: But my current crop of reporters are what make the show. Joe Alabastair has been doing great work. Dr. Rachie has been with the SkepticZone right since the beginnings, though she doesn't contribute as much as she used to. She's very busy with her work.

When I get people in places like Hungary writing to me and I help them out with whatever I can, in every episode I run a promotion for another skeptical group. Jay, you owe me a new teaser for the SGU. The longest one I've been running is Pamela Gay – Astronomycast. In pops something in my box since Iceland.

J: Connecting with people all across the globe. We had someone contact us from a nuclear submarine underneat Antarctic.

RS: That's true. I ask my listeners what they are doing when they listen to the podcast? They say they're mowing the lawn, or they're driving. Every week to be part of peoples' lives, it's quite something.

S: Do you want to play Science or Fiction with us?

RS: Last time I won.

Science or Fiction: (8:52)

S: These are pseudosciences. Two of these are real pseudosciences, and one is a pseudoscience I made up. Got it?

Item #1: The Bates Vision Correction system claims to correct vision by staring in particular compass directions, aligning the eyes with the Earth's magnetic field.

Item #2: Dr. Randell Mills claims that he has a process to make hydrogen atoms shrink into “hydrinos,” providing a source of free energy.

Item #3: The “New Chronology” claims that events attributed to ancient Greek, Roman, and Egyptian culture actually occurred in the Middle Ages and that recorded human history began around 800 AD.

RS: So which one is the fake fake? Somewhere around this house I've got a three-sided dice. They all sound pretty looping. I'm going to opt for the second one, the hydrinos. 'Cause I can see people trying to see the first one, because they sell all kinds of therapies.

B: This is not fair. Hydrino's.

J: I pick hydrino's.

E: I say the magnetic. Aligning eyes with the magnetic field. How do you even do that?

S: You all think the history is a real pseudoscience. And that one is real. That's a real pseudoscience. This is just an alternate history.

E: Who made this up?

S: There's a number of people who promote it, but scholars think it's shit! Nothing's older than about a thousand years old.

#1: The compass. Evan, you think this one is the fake. This one is the fake fake.

B: Damn! And it makes sense, because you can kind of hide. I know it was too late. The compass direction in fixing your vision is too obvious.

S: The Bates vision system is real, it's just based on something else. There's a pseudoscience about staring into the sun to get energy. It's just not magnetic fields.

Hydrinos is a real pseudoscience. The hydrinos are below the ground state. What are you shrinking?

B: What about my science or fiction?

RS: My friends from Hungary are laughing at that real pseudoscience.

B: My idea was science news items from the week that we started the show. All that work for naught.

RS: It's easy to make up pseudoscience. I say let's make up a pseudoscience. I list quantum energy, house cleaning, then I put up an advertisement that is word for word what I just said.

E: If we sold pseudoscience, we could make a lot of money, 'cause we know all the tricks!

J: I'll sell it to you. If we were robbing people, we wouldn't know Phil Plait and Richard.

B: There could be some cool charlatans out there.

S: No, they're all assholes.

RS: Also Iran Sigeve. What a great activist he is. He's good at doing interviews at conventions. It's the people involved. I could make a show every week just by myself. It's the people that support it that make it possible.

S: This is a good time to say that we've got a whole crew of people that make this possible.

RS: It's true. It was great to see Joe. I met Joe last year at TAM. And another one.

S: We have a spare.

RS: And I know your families too.

J: Richard, can you imagine, we did it twice already!

RS: The future's looking bright. All these years, there has been big changes. When I started, the Australian Vaccination Network was huge, and they've been reduced to dust now.

S: Incredibly impressive work.

RS: We don't wish people ill, we just want to prevent babies from dying from preventable diseases.

S: So, are you dedicated to doing podcasting for five years?

RS: I might not do it next week.

S: If you keep doing SGU, I'll be a rogue now and then. I'll commit to that. I have no plans to stop the show. It comes out every week. Although some weeks ...

J: Fatigue sets in after show 300, we know. Richard, you've been an amazing friend to us. We appreciate you and the work that you do.

RS: Thank you. You are an inspiration to people around the world.

S: Thank you Richard. All right, take care!

J: See you at TAM! 

''(Interview ends)''

Interview with Phil and Dennis: (22:47)

J: All right, Steve, I would like to have Phil and Dennis come over here real quick. Two important part of our crew that made this happen.

S: Have them hold the mike. A ton of people went into pulling this often. Our brother Joe helped build the set. Phil has been our video / technical adviser. And you ran the cameras for ten hours. Dennis, you work with Bob

Dennis: Yep

S: This is your first time working with the SGU, but you were invaluable.

Dennis: I thought it would be a lot smoother.

B: I've been working with Dennis for a few years now, so I know he's a master troubleshooter. I'm glad he was as valuable as he was.

J: We were in bad at one point. We were scared. Phil has been my mentor in all my film efforts. Everything I've ever done. Phil's been there. He came in and undid everything that I did here and made it look awesome. Phil and my wife Cortney made this set look perfect.

S: Also, Hans has been our audio engineer. He's behind the cameras. He works for NECSS. Joel Belugi works on our website and made the intro video. Jay's wife, Cortney is always our director. Always the person that makes everything happen. So ...

J: And we have Todd Weekly, who is a construction manager who helped us with the Occ project. It was good to have you here. Thank you for that. We have thirty minutes.

S: Let's close with some great content.

J: We can cut to a quick video that Joshie Berger made. We're hoping that it's over the top.

Joshie Berger video: (27:00)

Josh: What does skeptic mean? Do you believe in astrology?

''(Joshie asks several people on the street about skepticism and gets answers from them very rapidly, mostly from true believers of pseudosciences)''

''(The whole thing is too fast-paced to paraphrase, but Joshie presses the believers on their beliefs, and frequently argues against them, or makes them look ridiculous. It gets very confrontational in the second half)''

J: That was funny. The best line was, “The AIDS virus goes to heaven.” A lot of people believe a lot of things, and they have reason to believe it. But that was funny.

Winners and Losers of the last ten years: (38:12)

S: One last discussion topic: Winners and losers of the last ten years.

E: Private space flight in the last ten years is definitely a winner. NASA kept private space flight essentially illegal until 2004. Now it's legal. Many private companies are doing it now, and the future is very bright.

S: My first one is the anti-vaccine movement. They were in ascension in 2005. The movie pre-dated that, but Andrew Wakefield gave them a big boost. Jenny McCarthy was making a lot of noise. Now, ten years into our show, and they're definitely on the down side of that curve. The Australians have totally beaten back the anti-vaxxers in their country. Jenny McCarthy has faded. The media sees that they need to be marginalized. They've embarrassed themselves.

J: I would say, there's been strong successes. But there's always going to be a need for skeptical activism. New people like the Food Babe and Dr. Oz have come up. But this is generational, and we need people to do this forever. Right now, I like what's happening to Dr. Oz. He's starting to fray a little bit.

S: Just showing that it's okay to hold cracks accountable is great. It's okay to be critical and skeptical. If Oz survives this, just the fact that this happened was awesome.

J: Our culture has been morphing to this everyone wins an award. We have to start saying, “No, this is wrong. You can't make up your own facts.” You can't use a jet engine and get on a plane, and then tell me you use homeopathy.

S: Not all claims to facts are necessarily equal. So this is a bit of a tangent but the culture in medical education did shift. If a medical student said something wrong, they would be directly criticized. But it's come the other way to where you can't say that they're wrong any more. Meanwhile, they could kill somebody. We've gone too far to the PC, everyone is right. I get the nurturing stuff, but you have to be able to see that this is not valid. We need to get back to the balance of saying what's wrong is wrong.

J: The language needs to be respectful, but the facts, yeah.

S: In the skeptical community, we say, “It's okay to say that this argument is compelling and that argument is crap.”

B: I think vaccines is one of the clearest, but only in the last couple years has it turned around. But I think homeopathy has taken a bit of a hit. Countries are saying, “”no.” But homeopathy is the most egregious example.

E: American education. 2003: US ranked 19th out of 30 countries. Our rank has been falling over the last decade. We are losing the education battle.

S: We need to make it better, but the international comparisons are tricky. In the US, everyone gets tested. In other countries, only the best get tested. Scientific literacy has been improving over the last decades, and other countries have not. It's not all doom and gloom. I do think we need an invigoration of our STEM education. But there are some positive indicators. It doesn't totally erase what you're saying. Given our resources, we should be in the top five.

SGU works hard: (49:35)

J: Six minutes left. This is our ten year anniversary. What an impact it's had on all of us. We together got to experience some incredible thing. I can't believe we're here already. We lost Perry. It was very sad that Rebecca left the show.

S: But she's doing good work, and we're looking forward. I think there's gonna be great things in the future for the SGU. 

J: Yes, but guys, thank you.

S: I have to thank you too. I crack the whip at you guys. I need to know how much work I can get out of you guys. Like I had you guys overprep for this show, but I needed to know that if I ask you to do this level of work, you will do it.

B: Now you know!

S: I knew it coming in that I could ask you guys to do a ton of work for me, and you did it. Over the years, I have learned that I can count on you. I couldn't do this by myself. Think of how much we're accomplishing, directly proportional to the number of people who support us and collaborate with us. Jay and I have trouble keeping track. And our listeners. They contribute, they bring in new members. They mean a lot to us really, because we would just be sitting around in our basement otherwise.
We have our work cut out for us, but the support we have will keep us going.
So, three minutes.

J: There was a movie where they knew they were gonna die, and they say, “It was an honor serving with you.”

E: Apollo 13?

S: We met Christopher Hitchens. We performed on stage with Bill Nye.

E: I'm college educated, but my education didn't really start until I joined the skeptic's movement. I'm looking forward to learning more.

S: What I love about academia we can be teacher and student at the same time. This show is the same. 

J: Steve, you put this into us. Steve taught us how to do research, and gave us leadership. You really are the SGU.

S: I'm the Captain, but you guys are my crew! Okay, 44 seconds. We recorded the whole thing, which is great. We will put one hour chunks on YouTube. We will get that out as soon as we can.

Thank you all for joining us. This has been a lot of fun. I can't believe that ten hours and that ten years went by so quickly! Thank you all.

B: Good night!