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The Skeptics' Guide To The Universe - Podcast 286 - 1/5/2011
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The Skeptics' Guide To The Universe

The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is produced by SGU Productions, LLC - dedicated to promoting critical thinking, reason, and the public understanding of science through online and other media. The first episode of the SGU podcast went online on May 4th, 2005. It soon became a popular science/skeptical podcast, and remains one of the most popular science podcasts on iTunes.

SGU Podcasting Awards: SGU on XM: You can listen to the SGU on America's Talk XM 166 every Saturday night from 8-9pm Eastern.

Podcast 286 - January 05, 2011

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Predictions 2010 and 2011
News Items: Mysterious Bird Deaths, Predictions from 1931, Mars News in 2010, Apocalypse 2011, Printing Solar Cells
Who's That Noisy
Your Questions and E-mails: Thomas Kuhn
Science or Fiction



Segment:   This Day in Skepticism     
National Bird Day     http://www.nationalbirdday.com/

Segment:   News Items     
Mysterious Bird Deaths     http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/01/03/why-did-thousands-of-birds-drop-dead-in-the-arkansas-sky/
Predictions 2010 and 2011     The Rogues review the accuracy of psychic predictions, and make some of their own
Predictions from 1931     http://www.abnormaluse.com/2010/12/views-of-2011-from-1931.html http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/12/16/132105724/predictions-for-2011-from-1931
Mars News 2010     http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=proof-of-martians-to-come-this-year-2010-01
Apocalypse 2011     http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/01/03/judgement-day-will-may-21-2011-be-the-end-of-the-world/?iid=moreonnf
Printing Solar Cells     http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-solar-cells-toilet-paper-delicate.html

Segment:   Who's That Noisy     
Who's That Noisy     Answer to last week: an emu

Segment:   Questions and E-mails     
Question #1 - Thomas Kuhn     Hello SGU hosts, I'm a history teacher at a high school here in Tokyo, Japan. I love your show and sometimes use it in my class. The stuff you talk about on the show and the skeptical world view you advocate is very useful for my students, as Japan is a scientifically advanced country but has a lot of problems instilling critical thinking skills in its young people. My "World History" class for 9th-graders covers the Renaissance and I have a unit that traces the shift in astronomical theories from Ptolemy all the way to Newton via Copernicus, Kepler Galileo, etc. When I teach it, I always emphasize that science is cumulative and that the scientific method is the best thing humans have come up with so far to understand the universe because it is objective and self-correcting when past theories are disproven through evidence. This Christmas break I was back home in Indiana hanging out with some college friends who are now in grad school. We were having a late-night, beer-fueled philosophical discussion about science and my friends started going on and on about Thomas Kuhn and how he proved that science was a not cumulative, inherently flawed, and just one of many, equally valid human perspectives. As a skeptic, I took issue with this and a friendly, but heated debate ensued. I think it was a tie, but I would have done better had I understood Kuhn's real argument. The version my friends were using seemed to be either flawed form the start or misinterpreted. Could the SGU hosts explain what Thomas Kuhn was trying to say in "Structures of Scientific Revolutions" and also give your take on why you think postmodernists in the academic humanities (my friends and their teachers) have chosen him as their guide when they want to criticize science. Cheers, Triston McMillan St. Mary's International School Tokyo, Japan

Segment:   Science or Fiction     [ Click Here to Show the Answers ]
Item #1     New research finds that hair color can be predicted with 80-90% accuracy from DNA analysis alone. http://www.springer.com/about+springer/media/springer+select?SGWID=0-11001-6-1055821-0
Item #2     The longest follow up study of cholesterol and heart disease published to date failed to show any protective effect for increased levels of HDL, or so-called "good cholesterol." http://newscenter.lbl.gov/feature-stories/2011/01/04/cholesterol-heart-disease/
Item #3     Researchers have developed a prototype "invisibility cloak" - but this one can render a submerged object invisible to sonar. http://www.news.illinois.edu/news/11/0105sound_fang.html

Segment:   Quote of the Week     
Quote of the Week     "That which can be destroyed by the truth should be." -- P.C. Hodgell
 
 
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