Episode #247

News Items

Who's That Noisy

  • Answer to last week: Vladimir Zworykin

Question # 1 – Human Population

  • In episode #246 either Bob or Jay (I can’t tell which is which) said (paraphrased) ‘there are more people alive today than ever existed before’. This is incorrect. Conservative estimates put the total number of Homo sapiens that have existed in total at just over 100 billion – not including Neanderthal or Homo erectus, etc. There are just under 7 billion people alive today, so we represent approximately 7% of the total human population to have ever existed. The ‘there are more humans alive today than ever existed before’ bit is a common misconception. Steve Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
  • I’m Dutch so I have access to more sources on the story of the psychic Paul van Bree who is supposed to work for the Dutch justice department. Well, the department of justice claims not to know mr. Van Bree. One journalist did call Van Bree for clarification. Van Bree told him he last visited a prison 1,5 years ago. The whole story seems to go back to a ‘one-off’ gig Van Bree did in prison several years ago, on invitation of that particular prison (Scheveningen). The Dutch justice department does not hire psychics on a structural base. Of course Van Bree is boasting on his website he is working for the department of justice. It’s not true. The source of the story is the Dutch newspaper Telegraaf, which is the Dutch ‘The Daily Mail’ (see: Dan and Dan). I’m very surprised the British The Telegraph copied the story without checking the story. Not very skeptical, right? Love, Peter Jan Haas Amsterdam

Science or Fiction

Skeptical Quote of the Week.