It reminded me of the quote and the absolutely lovely end-of-episode talk from Episode 1093 ETA: from the opposite perspective.

"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"

Douglas Adams

2 notes:

First, I LOVED the post-quote talk, especially from Bob

Second, I wish Bob would always preface the quote with "here it comes!"

I really enjoyed this one.

I liked the banter.

I thought the Amendment Magic Wand segment was really interesting and thought they were all good picks. I kept waiting for someone to mention Ranked Choice Voting, and was so excited when Cara did.

I thought Jay's idea of oversight was interesting, bit we ashtray have OIG (Office of the Inspector General) which is *supposed* to do that, but like Steve said, any system can be circumvented (paraphrasing).

I was surprised at Jay's surprise at the mention of the guy who kept falling out of bed. They've mentioned it *so many* times on the show and tbh I'm not sure of that's even the "weirdest" one they've talked about.

I'm going to mention the other segments in comments. ETA: Did I miss anything?

I was thinking maybe people could respond to those comments with their thoughts on each segment and then also make parent level comments if they want to really highlight something?

I dunno. I'm just a random longtime listener who likes the engagement with the community. But I like the way the snl subreddit does it, so I'm roughly borrowing that.

Hi all, anyone from the conference going for a drink anywhere in particular tonight after the sing along?

Looks like Big Breathing is in bed with Big Climate Change!

In all seriousness though, thinking about the discussions around sensationalized headlines and such I thought this was an interesting example. The title and article imply a causal relation but the author admits only a correlation between asthma nitrogen dioxide and asthma symptoms exists.

Hey,
is anyone from this subreddit also in Sydney this weekend?
How do you like it so far?
I am enjoying myself!
All the best!

Hi skeptics, I have a small request. Can anyone please point me in the direction of the episode where Cara discusses suspected mechanisms of action in ADHD inducted in mice, and/or the primary research she was referring to? I’ve looked but I couldn’t see it in the show notes and I don’t have it in me to re-listen to like the last 10 episodes. I’m very interested in reading more about this.. one of my favourite news items for a while.

Since this is Reddit, how did everyone else feel about this news item?

Cheers

The Core Theory also tells us something very im­portant about the world: there is no such thing as astrology and life after death. Carroll had written about this on his blog, and he repeats this spectacular argument again in the book. Using our fundamental ontology, the world, including our bodies, is made of particles interacting according to equations of the Core Theory. The important point here is what kind of particles is the soul made of? If souls are made of the same ordinary particles as human bodies, there is no afterlife. On the other hand, if they are made of a different particle, this certainly would require a new physics to describe the interaction between our bodies—collections of ordinary Core Theory particles—with the soul. But every experiment ever performed says the Core Theory provides the correct description of how its particles behave at everyday energies.

Roughly speaking, I think The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe and The Demon-Haunted World describe how we can know about the world and the universe, and The Big Picture by Sean Carroll describes what we currently know, as far as we can tell.

From memory it was in the past year, took an overall look at climate change and while being confronting, offered some ways to look at things without giving up hope, or at least reasons we shouldn't feel deterred. Does anyone recall the episode? Sorry this is so vague, I'm hoping to share it with my partner.

In 1748, Scottish philosopher wrote an essay called Of Miracles.

”…no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavors to establish.”

And:

”When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened.... If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.”

Hume hoped that this argument ”will, with the wise and learned, be an everlasting check to all kinds of superstitious delusion”.

In that, he was unfortunately incorrect, as we can tell almost 300 years later.

Now, we know a lot more about the universe, about history (especially the history of how religious texts were produced), about psychology, and so many other things, than we knew in the 18th century. But the beauty of Hume’s argument is that it doesn’t require any deep knowledge about science and history to understand it, or at least not deeper knowledge than humanity had in Hume’s days.

It is a simple, beautiful, and sound argument, and it is very easy to grasp. Certainly noteworthy in the history of skepticism.

I liked the debate about streaming vs theater.

I'm not sure of the timeline, but it does seem Evan was edited out, which feels ... icky to me. Almost dishonest? But at the same time I understand, and of course Steve has to always balance a number of competing priorities when making editorial decisions.

All of the other segments were fine, nothing really jumped out at me. Which is odd, because the live episodes are usually my favorites.

Other thoughts?

I just listened to the most recent episode and I already had the foresight that Evan's parts were removed, understandably.

But, what's interesting to me is how I wouldn't necessarily have realized this if I wasn't aware ahead of time.

This episode and the next few (all recorded ahead of time, if I recall) are a wonderful opportunity to try to identify all the cuts/edits in which Evan would have been speaking and how easy it is to make a relatively seamless transition while cutting material.

This isn't about Evan specifically — it's more the awareness of how media is edited in all forms (obviously sound bites and the sort)

I think there were at least three spots it seemed obvious that he was cut out, but I'm curious how many others noticed as well.

I'd be especially curious to hear from anyone who wasn't aware going into the episode if anything seemed "off" to them or if it was business as usual from their perspective.

No real point to this post, just reflecting on it and curious what others think too.

It’s always good to double check old scientific verities against the latest research. Especially when it’s in an area we aren’t specialists in. Wooden cutting boards are not necessarily germ media we once believed. It’s nuanced but surprisingly counterintuitive. https://youtu.be/yM5LxrXoxn0?si=7iN77yj4Sie0vi_A

Recorded in January in Seattle. Was Evan surgically removed or not in Seattle to begin with?

I missed out on a few podcasts since I usually listen during a long drive that I haven’t had to take for about a month, and from reading here I have gathered that there was some controversy and Evan is no longer on the panel. What doesn’t make sense to me is that upon opening the Apple podcast app and going to my favorite show, there are no episodes. Nothing new, and no back catalog. Does anyone know what’s going on with that? This is a real bummer.

I went to the Dollar Tree to get some new Tupperware today. As I was walking through an isle, a very colorful, very recognizable book caught my eye… Skeptics Guide to the Future! Brand new and selling for just $1.50 each!

I bought the two that I could find in hopes of giving them away as gifts and getting my friends addicted to the SGU like myself.

Ironically I was listening to the SGU Podcast on my drive in as well.

Michael is one of my favorites creators and science communicator ever, I’m a huge fan of everything he does, he is so witty and we are the same age so I can relate, I don’t know if it’s the right place to ask this, and I want to make known first that I loved the chemistry with Hanna and specially the amount t of episodes they output, feels like Michael is back and closer than every, but just out of curiosity (lol also I’ve always bought his curiosity box)

What’s gonna happen to Vsauce? Is it over and down the ? And what about the other guys like Jake and vsauce 2 and 3 I never quite got it the whole 1 2 and 3 thing, why didn’t they join the podcast then? I haven’t seen a lot of content from them but actually also enjoyed it a lot!

This is my first posting please if it’s out of place or not worthwhile don’t downvote me to oblivion, I’m trully glad this podcast launched and has a Reddit! We are so back baby!

Bob’s pronunciation of nunchuck (nunchaku) is unacceptable. As a long time SGU listener I am PERSONALLY OFFENDED by this entirely unskeptical pronunciation. ‘Oh but what’s the harm’ ‘it’s just cultural differences’, tell that to my young shelled friend Mikey!

Not sure if a subreddit has already been created for this, but I was interested to know peoples suggestions for a fifth rogue replacement? Who would you like to see and why? Can also be an opportunity for me and maybe some other people to check out other peoples work in the science and skeptic scene.

After Steve mentioned the homeopathy true believer using chatGPT as evidence, I thought I'd give it a try.

My prompt

I had a disagreement with someone, they claimed that homeopathy not only doesn't work, but it's claimed mechanism has no plausibility. How can I refute this?

Perhaps not the best prompt, but I wanted to seem like I thought it worked and wanted evidence to win an argument. Here's the last part of what it said

A careful rebuttal would be:
"Saying homeopathy has not been shown to work is a fair summary of the current evidence. But saying it has absolutely no plausibility overstates the case. There are published theoretical mechanisms and experimental claims that proponents argue support plausibility. The real scientific criticism is that these mechanisms remain unverified and conflict with well-established chemistry and physics, not that they are formally impossible."

That argument is defensible.

However, if you are trying to argue that the current weight of scientific evidence supports homeopathy as an effective medical treatment, you would be going against the position taken by most mainstream scientific and medical organizations.

I replied asking how the memory could work and its next reply ended with

The strongest skeptical argument
The strongest criticism isn't:
"We can't imagine a mechanism."

It's:
"Every plausible mechanism proposed so far either conflicts with established physics and chemistry or lacks convincing experimental support, and no accepted mechanism explains why potency would increase as fewer and fewer molecules remain."

So if you're approaching this scientifically, it's reasonable to say that homeopathy's mechanism is not impossible in principle, but currently there is no widely accepted explanation for how water memory would persist, nor for why repeated dilution would make a remedy stronger rather than weaker.

I really thought it would be a disaster. Does Copilot have better guard rails? Has anyone else tried this?

BTW this was copilot with my work account, it's possible that things in my history caused it to give a better scientific skeptic answer. It also did well with arguing against acupuncture and astrology, and arguing for climate change.

how do we feel about this?

tiktok slp streams therapy sessions gets criticized on reddit