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The Skeptics' Guide To The Universe - Podcast 387 - 12/15/2012
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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.
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Podcast
387
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December 15, 2012
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Interview with Joshie Berger
This Day in Skepticism: homosexuality and the DSM
News Items: Creationist Tactics, Truth in Education, Dawn of Life, History of Cheese, Vampire Warning, Ocean Robots
Who's That Noisy
Science or Fiction
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Segment: This Day in Skepticism
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December 15, 1973
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The American Psychiatric Association votes 13–0 to remove homosexuality from its official list of psychiatric disorders, the DSM-II.
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Segment: News Items
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Segment: Who's That Noisy
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Who's That Noisy
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Puzzle: There are three boxes. One is labeled "CARROTS" another is labeled "CELERY". The last one is labeled "CARROTS AND CELERY". You know that each is labeled incorrectly. You may ask me to pick one vegetable from one box which you choose.
How can you label the boxes correctly?
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Segment: Interview
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Interview with Joshie Berger
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Jewie or Fiction
Item #1: The bible prohibits work/labor on the Sabbath, the day of rest. Religious Jewish define this prohibition very broadly and consider a multitude of tasks n simple actions to be considered 'work.' Among them the prohibition of 'separating,' defined as removing anything undesired from desired things. Examples of this would be filtering water or even picking out bones from fish before eating. This prohibition ultimately led to religious Jews creating the boneless popular dish called 'gefilte fish.'
Item #2: Many things are prohibited for Jews to do during the Sabbath. Among them is carrying any item outdoors. This includes carrying home keys in your pockets or even pushing an infant in a stroller. To allow for such activities, Jews put up a string around their neighborhoods thus encircling it all and making it as if it was one large common area and things may be carried within its perimeter.
Item #3: The bible, in efforts to restrict cruelty to animals, does not allow a farmer to muzzle his ox while threshing his field. The Talmud revered book of religious Jews, entertains a loophole for Jews to employ where farmers would have contracts drawn up with neighbors that would temporarily switch ownership of oxen during threshing. This would result in the farmer not muzzling his own animal but rather his neighbors animal thus not violating the biblical prohibition which says 'thou shalt not muzzle YOUR ox.'
Item #4: The bible prohibits shaving ones face. While all religious Jewish abide by this biblical prohibition, non ultra orthodox Jews allow cutting/trimming ones beard. In recent times though, with the advent of electric shavers, the option of shaving is now available to religious Jews who do not wish to violate the biblical prohibition. The logic is that electric shavers employ a 2 blade cutting method which act like tiny scissors and are merely cutting the hair very short and not actually shaving it.
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Segment: Science or Fiction [ Click Here to Show the Answers ]
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Segment: Skeptical Quote of the Week
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Skeptical Quote of the Week
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"Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything."
- George Bernard Shaw
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