Podcast #149 5/28/2008
Interview with JPL Scientist Diana Blaney
News Items: Wi Fi Ban, New Zealand Considering CAM, Scientology Free Speech Follow Up, Medical Science Reporting
Your Questions and E-mails: Tasmanian Tiger Corrections; Least Skeptical
Science or Fiction

I think a reasonable answer to the question of the "least skeptical thing" would have to be something political, because so many people "interpret" data in so many directions to promote their own goals.  Sometimes, it's frustrating to even know if you are getting good facts, much less reasonable analysis and conclusions.

Remember, this question came up only a few minutes after Steve covered how poor science and medical journalism is.  When you see two groups (parties, pundits, activists) talking past each other who can't even agree on facts or reality, that is a big red flag that perhaps agnosticism is the only responsible viewpoint.

So the two on my list would be recycling and what to do about global warming.  (And remember, technology and economics is always going to change the playing field on these as well.)

I think you could make an anti-smell.  This sounds like classical pharmacology to me - make an antagonist for a certain receptor, binding but not activating and BAM! - anti-smell.

Jay's selection of government cover-up makes excellent sense to me. Many of the other things would cause us to make some serious re-evaluation about the nature of reality (FTL travel, the long-time survival of DNA, etc.), but a government cover-up wouldn't cause that serious a re-evaluation of anything except the competence of the government. 

The government covering things up has actually happened before. So I am the least skeptical about that.

Not for the reasons most people believe though. I think they are covering up mistakes. (Like hanging a picture over a hole you punched in the wall)

Middle ground fallacy?

Enjoyed the discussion about what woo woo beliefs you are least skeptical about. I am actually most inclined to agree with Jay. Off course I don't believe for a moment that the Bush government would be able to pull off an operation like 9-11 undetected (and I didn't get the impression that Jay did either), besides the attacks of 9-11 are exactly what I for one would expect from religious fanatics like Al-Quaida. However, if I was forced (with a gun to my head) to pick out one general category of woo woo as less obviously ridicoulous than the rest, I would have to pick conspiracy theories. It seems to me that there is a fine line between healthy doubt and outright paranoia, and I can easily imagine being sucked into a conspiratorial frame of mind if I was just a little less skeptical. Off course these grand conspiracies (just like God) only end up raising a bigger problem than they solve, namely the conspiracy itself. Still, unlike all the paranormal crap,  I can understand why people would buy it.

Regarding the idea of hyper-intelligent beings on other planets, I have a counter-argument that may be flawed for reasons I have not considered. Since I haven't really heard anybody discuss it before, I pass it on for what it is worth: As far as we can tell natural selection is the only mechanism capable of generating evolution in the specific direction of improvement anywhere in the universe (and it doesn't seem very likely to me that two completely different mechanisms would just happen to produce the same extremely improbable results ). However for natural selection to work there has to be, to borrow Darwin's words, "a severe struggle for life", such that most individual organisms die, or at lest don't get a chance to pass on their genes (or whatever replicators the aliens are based on) to future generations. It seems to me that when a species reaches a certain level of complexity, it will either stop evolving (at least in the direction of increased abilities) because there is no longer a sufficiently severe struggle for life (as far as we can tell this has already happened in the case of humans) or, if the struggle persists, it it will almost inevitably destroy itself before it has ever evolved to the level of complexity and intelligence we are talking about. If humans are in any way representative, we would expect any species to be capable of self-destruction long before it has even come close to interstellar flight etc. It doesn't seem very likely to me that a species capable of self destruction could survive a sufficiently intens struggle for existence for long enough to ever cross interstellar space.

yes I agree, of course Jay's pick is the most plausible, I mean it's not as if it's impossible. It's not probable...at all, we all agree on that (@Steven ) but IMO far more so than aliens traveling to earth, although granted that being more compelling a thought. About the journalists that "really really like to find out about it": What would suggest that they had any lead at all to begin with? It doesn't matter, the will does not give them the ability. Aaanyway

About T-shirts! Am I too nerdy if I'd like a signed one?  (From the rouges, not from bigfoot.)
Oh, and is there still shirts with the old logo available?

@ Sam: What suggests humans have stopped evolving, in the direction of increased abilities or not?? The mutations will still happen regardless of competition, and increased abilities could therefore still appear. As long as those abilities don't harm the individual there is no reason why they would not survive... Am I thinking about it from the wrong perspective, or what do you mean?

Two things:
1.  My least skeptical issue is the idea that animals can detect earthquakes and other natural disasters.  I think there may be truth to this.

2.  Private school teachers are not paid nearly what public school teachers are paid.  So Jay's comments about teachers was not accurate.

Enjoyed the show.

On the skeptical quote: I think the name should be read ahead of time, because it puts the quote into context -- mostly about what subject it's being applied to.

i am inclined to agree with Dr. Novella
the degree of 911 awareness without recognition is already known. The alien visits in the past is a classic black cat crossing behind your back kind of thing.
Bigfoot is just plain ridiculous

my 3 cents worth...

I totally agree. The impact is that much greater when you know who is being quoted. It puts it in the context of the time and the environment in which it was generated..... and I think it makes Jay's enthusiasm for repeating the name afterwards funnier

Also, it is Jay's quote. He should say it in whatever way amuses him the most.

Us aussies will ge ape sh*t if you dont give us credit for something that is ours, we will also claim things that arent ours and remain silent when you call us out on it eg Russel crowe.

Homeopathy is homeopathetic, off all the woo in this world it is really the only one im 100 precent, up and down, black and white sure that is total bunk. Randi does a cool thing at the start of a lecture where he will down a whole packet of Homeopathic 'sleeping' pills. Incredibly, hes still awake (and alive) at the end. Who'd have thunk?

Conspiracy theorys really get my goat. How people see harmless anomalies and lack of evidence as evidence for the CT ill never know. They are always the most arrogent perponents of woo too, they are sure they are right and your a blind sheep if you dont jump to the same oulandishly insane conclusions they do. We had some 911 troofers at the sydney Anon protests, they were yelling at us that we should be protesting somthing "real and worthwhile" like they were.

Was 911 a conspiracy? yep, a muslim conspiracy to bring death and fear to the kafiers. Did Bush use the attacks as an excuse to invade Iraq ? i think so. Did the government lie to the US public about WMDs ? yes, and he should be impeached. They could have handled intelligence reguarding terrorist threats to mainland US better but you can only keep goal for so long before you let one past.

Thanks for the Episode Guys.

Speaking of Bigfoot and about the new lander on mars.
Wasn't there a photo recently of a Bigfoot spotted on mars.
Maybe Rebecca is correct in speculating that such a creature exists, even on Mars! 

More information about the NZ CAM invasion?

The NZ Skeptic Society page that was linked to (http://www.skeptics.org.nz/SK:CAM) only seemed to suggest a review that has been concluded many years ago. As an NZ skeptic I'm very keen to become more active and help organize what needs to be done to keep CAM out of publicly funded healthcare.

Anyone know what is specifically being proposed right now?