The
Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe
Skepticast
#40: April 26th 2006
Topics:
Segment #1. News Items:
Segment #2. Your E-mails:
Corrections – Hurricanes and Birthdays, Logical Fallacies and Bananas
Segment #3. Interview with Brian Trent
Segment #4. Science or
Fiction
Segment #1. News Items
News Item #1 – Penn
& Teller admit to hoaxing the
News Item #2 – Channeling
John Lennon
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060421/tv_nm/leisure_lennon_dc
Segment #2. Your E-mails
E-mail #1 – Corrections and Additions– Hurricanes,
Birthdays, and Richard Dawkins
Correction 1
Hi guys,
In your latest podcast,
your were discussing the impact of global warming on hurricanes. Steve and
Perry stated that statistically we would have more storms/hurricanes with
global warming (around 15-20 min. into the show).
I think the current research says that we would have more intense
hurricanes, but we have no evidence of more frequent hurricanes. I heard this
in an interview with Andrew Revkin, science journalist
for the NYT and author of "The North Pole was here". Also after a
quick google search found this: http://www.pewclimate.org/hurricanes.cfm#8.
"Because of the link between higher ocean temperatures and hurricanes,
there is speculation that hurricanes will increase in frequency or intensity in
a warmer world, with higher wind speeds and greater precipitation. As
stated above, the frequency of hurricanes has not increased on average over the
long term."
I know this is a minor point, but you guys always seem concerned with
being accurate (which I appreciate).
Avid fan,
-Keith
Correction 2
I would like to correct your birthday problem posed in the
first part of the latest show. First off the problem should be stated ending
with "at least 50%" and not "50-50" as you stated.
The correct answer to the problem is 23 not 20.
Mike Chartier
Correction 3
I have just downloaded your latest podcast
which wasrecommended via the Skepticality
forum.
I was flabbergasted that your recommendations to a listener's voice request for
more information on Evolution did not include one of Richard Dawkins' books!
What about 'The Selfish Gene' or 'The Blind
Watchmaker'? These are *classic* publications on the
subject!
You naughty people :-(
Roy Preston
E-mail #2 – Logical Fallacies
Date/Time(Eastern Time):
Email Purpose: FEEDBACK / SUGGESTIONS
Message: I'm a little bit behind on my podcasts, but let
me offer some comments on your recent discussions.
I get the impression that nobody on the show has actually read Hubbard's "Dianetics," and really, who can blame you?
Thanks to the Church of Scientology's aggressive marketing over the years, many
local public libraries have copies available, and speaking as maybe the only
skeptic who has made it through the whole thing, I can highly recommend
it. Years later, I'm still laughing. You have to read it yourself
to appreciate
what a loopy, appalling mess Scientology really is. It's a wonder it ever
caught on at all.
(Let me stress -- BORROW a copy, don't buy one. These people do NOT need
the encouragement.)
My only suggestion for the show would be to put more of an emphasis on logical
fallacies, like the ones listed on your web page. Logic geek that I am, I
find these very entertaining, and they're also useful everyday tools,
especially in a popular culture where fallacious thinking runs rampant.
But they're not always self-evident, even when they have been pointed out and
identified. As a result, I think the nature of fallacy is too often
ignored. For instance, I happen to have on my desk a booklet called
"The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools" from
the Foundation for Critical Thinking (http://www.criticalthinking.org),
and amazingly, I can find no mention of logical fallacies anywhere in it. Whaaa?
One idea for the show would be to spotlight a fallacy and explain it using current
examples from popular media or the news. The examples wouldn't need to be
from scientifically oriented stories exclusively, as long as they include an
attempt to support a certain position using a logical fallacy. I have a
feeling that examples would be trivially easy to find.
Thanks for a great podcast. In a perfect world,
you guys would be paid like pro basketball players, and Rebecca would be on the
cover of every magazine. Keep up the fight, and keep livin'
the sweet dream of reason! Woo-hoo!
Mark Smith
E-mail #3 - The God of Bananas
Here is a short clip of Kirk Cameron visiting with a guy who
tries to prove the exisitence of God by exhibiting
the amazing design of the Banana. I checked the top 20 and I am not skilled enough
to recognize the fallacy, can you help?
http://thatvideosite.com/view/2204.html
Thanks!
Cecil,
Segment #3. Interview with Brian Trent
Brian is an author of the award-winning historical novel, Remembering Hypatia, about the final collapse of the enlightenment of the ancient world and its plummeting into the Dark Ages. It is a classic tale of the clash between reason and fundamentalism, still relevant in today’s world.
Brian is also the author of numerous books and articles on topics as diverse as the future of immortality and the effect of modern technology on privacy and freedom.
http://www.rememberinghypatia.com/
Segment #4. Science or
Fiction
Each week our host will come up with three science news items or facts, two genuine, one fictitious. He will challenge our panel of skeptics to sniff out the fake – and you can play along.
Item#1:
Item #2: Oil drillers have dug up a piece of a dinosaur
fossil from 2,615 meters below the ocean floor of the
Item #3: Some astronomers believe that evidence is mounting for the existence of a companion star to our sun.
Answer:
Item #1: Fiction
Item #2: Science –
http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060424/full/060424-5.html
Item #3: Science –
see below
Item #3
Evidence mounts for sun's companion star
Walter Cruttenden at BRI, Professor Richard Muller at
UC Berkeley, Dr. Daniel Whitmire of the
In the May 2006 issue of Discover, Dr. Brown stated: "Sedna
shouldn't be there. There's no way to put Sedna where
it is. It never comes close enough to be affected by the sun, but it never goes
far enough away from the sun to be affected by other stars... Sedna is stuck, frozen in place; there's no way to move it,
basically there's no way to put it there unless it formed there. But it's in a
very elliptical orbit like that. It simply can't be there. There's no possible
way - except it is. So how, then?"
"I'm thinking it was placed there in the earliest history of the
solar system. I'm thinking it could have gotten there if there used to be stars
a lot closer than they are now and those stars affected Sedna
on the outer part of its orbit and then later on moved away. So I call Sedna a fossil record of the earliest solar system.
Eventually, when other fossil records are found, Sedna
will help tell us how the sun formed and the number of stars that were close to
the sun when it formed."
Walter Cruttenden agrees that Sedna's
highly elliptical orbit is very unusual, but noted that the orbit period of
12,000 years is in neat resonance with the expected orbit periodicity of a
companion star as outlined in several prior papers. Consequently, Cruttenden believes that Sedna's
unusual orbit is something indicative of the current solar system
configuration, not merely a historical record. "It is hard to imagine that
Sedna would retain its highly elliptical orbit
pattern since the beginning of the solar system billions of years ago. Because
eccentricity would likely fade with time, it is logical to assume Sedna is telling us something about current, albeit
unexpected solar system forces, most probably a companion star".
Outside of a few popular articles, and Cruttenden's
book "Lost Star of Myth and Time", which outlines historical
references and the modern search for the elusive companion, the possibility of
a binary partner star to our sun has been left to the halls of academia. But
with Dr. Brown's recent discoveries of Sedna and Xena, (now confirmed to be larger than Pluto), and timing
observations like Cruttenden's, the search for a
companion star may be gaining momentum.