SGU Episode 470
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| SGU Episode 470 |
|---|
| July 12th 2014 |
 |
| (brief caption for the episode icon) |
| Skeptical Rogues |
| S: Steven Novella |
B: Bob Novella |
R: Rebecca Watson |
J: Jay Novella |
E: Evan Bernstein |
| Quote of the Week |
The capacity to blunder slightly is the real marvel of DNA. Without this special attribute, we would still be anaerobic bacteria and there would be no music. |
| Links |
| Download Podcast |
| Show Notes |
| Forum Discussion |
Introduction
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.
This Day in Skepticism ()
- July 12, 1895: Happy birthday to Buckminster Fuller! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller
News Items
Solar Freakin' Rebuttal (4:58)
S: Do you guys remember the Solar Freakin' Highways?
R: The ones we talked about? Didn't we talk about them?
E: Those hexagonal tiles that you put together?
S: Yeah, they use these little pavers with these embedded solar panels and they planned an indi go go campaign to replace all of our highways and roads with solar panels.
E: Yeah, a couple of trillion of those and we're good.
S: They wrote a rebuttal to all of the criticism that they've been getting online. Apparently they were a little stung by the fact that there's an Internet and people are going to discuss their ideas and maybe in unflattering tones.
E: How dare they?
B: Someone's wrong on the Internet!
S: First of all, their Indie Go Go campaign concluded and they reached 2.2 million dollars.
J: Wow
R: Wow
S: Raised 2.2 million dollars.
B: What were they shooting for.
S: One million, I think was their goal.
B: So, nice.
S: Good for them. But after reading their article called Clearing the Frickin' Air
B: haha, nice.
S: Now I despise them.
B: Oh, really?
S: Yeah, because it's...
B: Oh, I can't wait to hear this.
R: Oh, no.
S: It's the worst to respond to criticism. It is absolutely the worst. Let me just read you some bits of it.
B: Oh, yeah!
S: So they say:
"Most of the attention has been very positive, but as the campaign became more and more successful (and popular), the naysayers began coming out in force trying to grab some attention. They use non-scientific "facts", misquote and mislead, and sometimes flat out lie. They write unprofessional articles and create deceiving videos to lead people astray. We were told by the Indiegogo staff that this happens to every successful campaign, regardless of the invention.
"Haters are going to hate. Nothing we can do about that. One unscrupulous individual even took our viral Solar Freakin' Roadways video (by volunteer Michael Naphan) without our permission, and has used it to create another video, in which he has embedded deliberately misleading information."
S: And he just keeps going on like that. I mean, it's just like like are you new to the Internet?
R: Whining.
S: Yeah, the worst possible whining.
B: Wait, but he does address the major problems that people with it and deals with them scientifically, right? I mean isn't that what you're supposed to do? Right? Did he attempt?
S: Well let's see what he does.
B: Alright.
S: Well, first of all, a lot of people said a lot of things about the solar highways, including us, we talked about it on the show, and essentially we were saying "good for them, knock yourselves out, probably ultimately an impractical idea", and we named multiple reasons why. But then a lot of people said stupid things about it on the Internet, because, you know, it's the Internet, and that's the baseline. And they picked a lot of the dumbest things that people said about the panels, so they're picking the low hanging fruit but some of the things they said were, I mean. So they're not doing what they should do. They're proposing a major paradigm shift in the way that we build and maintain our road infrastructre as well as our energy infrastructure in this country and they raised over 2 million dollars to get going on that, right? So you'd think they'd be able to handle a little bit of criticism but what they're doing is not what they should be doing which is taking a very self-critical look at the potential limitations and roadblocks and difficulties with this, like really seriously considering the feedback. Instead, they're constructing a defensive, motivated reasoning, best lawyers' case for themselves and really giving short shrift to legitimate criticism. Some of the things they rebut are, the points were not very good, so they're picking, again, the bad points. One of the things is that they picked a stupid place to put solar panels, and one legitimate point is that the project didn't start by asking the question: Where should we put solar panels? It started by asking the question: How can we technically upgrade our roads? What would be the next generation of a high-tech road? Because we're still using the same basic pavement technology we had 100 years ago. So that's how the idea evolved, that's why, it's solar. So OK, I get that. That still doesn't mean it's a good idea. It still doesn't address the concern of, if we're going to build a solar infrastructure, that the roads are not the best way to do it. And they justify themselves in broad brush stroke, vague terms, without ever doing the math to justify their claims. They say that the whole idea is that we're going to build an infrastructure that's going to have a return on investment. OK, show me at least a back-of-the-envelope calculation that tells me that this is going to be a return on investment. And how long is that going to take, and what's going to be the lifespan of these pavers and are they actually going to pay for themselves at some point? Meanwhile they're giving just totally pulled-out-of-their-butts speculation. It's a sales pitch, it's not serious investigation of the claims that they're making. And then they, a lot of their responses are tangential which means they're just grabbing at straws to defend themselves. So they say,"False Claim: Solar Roadways is going to cost $60 trillion dollars"
S: OK, that figure is surely not accurate, I don't think it's based on anything. But then, again, they never address how much it's actually going to cost. They don't say how much it's going to cost.
R: Just: not that.
S: Yeah, just not that. We don't know what it's going to cost, but...
R: Three times, maybe, but not that.
S: And then they try to compare it to asphalt. So they give all these statistics on how much it costs to build and maintain our roads, which has absolutely nothing to do with what they're claiming. So for example
Slower Light ()
Orion Capsule ()
UFO Sightings ()
Facebook Experiment ()
Who's That Noisy ()
- Answer to last week: PC fan error
Questions and Emails
Question #1: TDDCS ()
Hi crew,DIY trans dermal direct current stimulation - what gives?It seems that there's a popular movement emerging - people are building their own DIY stim kits, and a few companies are marketing them. However, the way it's presented has multiple characteristics of pseudoscience. I understand there's some serious research underway... but is it really such a good idea to build an at-home kit to send currents through your own head? I feel the obvious answer is hell no. With a side of no, seriously.If only someone knew a neuroscientist who could comment...Love the show, etcGareth in Sydneyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_direct-current_stimulationhttp://www.diytdcs.com/ 'Become a tDCS expert in only a few hours!' - wtf?http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/psychiatry/specialty_areas/brain_stimulation/tdcs.html
Science or Fiction ()
Item #1: Researchers find that a mutation in a skin protein not related to pigment has a greater effect on Vitamin D levels than does melanin. Item #2: A new study finds that cats and elephants, and all animals intermediate in size, empty their bladders in the same amount of time, regardless of volume. Item #3: A new study finds that cats and elephants, and all animals intermediate in size, empty their bladders in the same amount of time, regardless of volume.
Skeptical Quote of the Week ()
'The capacity to blunder slightly is the real marvel of DNA. Without this special attribute, we would still be anaerobic bacteria and there would be no music.'— Lewis Thomas
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.
References
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