– Date – April 10, 2012
– Send your cool ‘SCIENCE!’ shout-outs to
.
– Theme song by Steve Seamans of the Daisy Dillman Band. Get the song HERE.

Skepticism, Past and Future

– The Surgeon’s Photograph of the Loch Ness monster was published on April 19, 1934.
– Evangeline Adams began a thrice weekly astrology radio show on April 23, 1930.
– DPT: Vaccine Roulette created a vaccine safety scare after it aired April 19, 1982.
The 9/11 conspiracy film Loose Change was first released April 13, 2005.
– The anti-evolution film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed was released April 18, 2008.
– Wikipedia is the most famous crowd-sourcing effort, and is important to skeptics because of its visibility. Susan Gerbic leads a skeptic Wikipedia editing effort at her blog.
– Lanyrd, Hypothesis and RBUTR were all discussed in the previous episode of Skepticality.
– Fishbarrel is a way for skeptics to crowd-source consumer complaints about quacks.
– Skeptics StackExchange is a way for skeptics to crowd-source answers to skeptical questions.
– Tim will be speaking on crowd-sourced skepticism at the Madison Skeptics in Madison, Wisconsin on Saturday, April 21st.
– Tim’s workshop The Future of Skepticism Online: Crowd-sourced Activism will be presented July 15th at The Amazing Meeting in Las Vegas.
– Skeptic history facts are posted daily on social media find out where on this page at the Skeptools blog.

Unnatural Virtue Notes

– The Placebo Effect.
– Skeptics constantly harp on ‘alternative medicine‘.
– Some people think that ‘Complimentary Medicine‘ does actually work.
– Placebos have been given by doctors for a long time to please patients.
– Eventually there were some actual controlled studies on placebos.
– In some studies patients tended to get better when on placebos.
– Dr. Henery K. Beechern Placebo trials showed the efficacy of the ‘sham’ treatments.
– Research has shown that peoples bodies can actually produce chemicals to create healing effects.
– Bob Carroll is the Author of The Skeptics Dictionary and Unnatural Acts

Ask Bug Girl

– The Spring is happy bug time.
– It’s actually ‘Mantis Religiousa‘, named by Lanonus one of the first taxonomists.
– American Mantis are quite small compared to their native cousins.
– Some people have pet roaches, but they have gas.
– Ladybugs don’t fart they release a chemical to repel predators.
– Some insects the odor is actually ‘reflexive bleeding‘ from their joints.
– Is there really insects in Starbucks Frappuccinos?
– The answer is ‘YES’.
– Soy Strawberry Frappuccino’s red color is dye which is derived from the cochaniel bug.
– The Spaniards actually defended the ‘secret’ of the source of the red/pink dye.
– Starbucks decided to use is a dye because it is sustainable, and much better than the petrol based normal dye.
– No matter what you eat bugs and animal products no matter how hard you try.
– There are almost certainly insects in your Easter chocolate.
– %50-%60 of the world easts insects on purpose, it is a sustainable product and tastes good.
– Substituting roasted crickets for pine nuts is a good example of a good use of insects as food.
– Shellac is all made from insects and used in shiny candy coating, hairspray, mascara, and pills.
– Using bug products is great because it puts money into impoverished areas which need the income.
– It is sometimes hard to figure out the ethical cost of our foods.
– Why are we so afraid of spiders? Maybe ask Lynne Kelly?
– Some bugs are quite adorable if you actually look at them close up.
– Please use your Twitter account for good and use the hash tag ‘#askbug_girl’ and send them to her at @bug_girl.   

Guy Harrison Interview Notes

– We welcome back Guy P. Harrison.
– Last time we had Guy on the show was almost 2 years ago exactly.
– Guy just moved from the Cayman Islands to San Diego recently.
– His newest book is, ‘The 50 Popular Beliefs That People Believe Are True‘.
– Last book was ‘The 50 Reasons People Give For People Believing In A God‘.
– Just because someone has a PhD doesn’t mean they are actually right.
– People die because of lack of skeptical thinking every day, Guy hopes to reach out to all of those people.
– Most hard core skeptics have believed crazy stuff on their way to embracing critical thought and reason.
– Scientific ignorance of high level political candidates can make us all sad and worried for the future.
– The History of IQ shows that most people tend to use it improperly.
– Back in the 50’s people would give African Americans badly designed test to measure their IQ.
– Jay Leno ‘Jaywalking‘ segments would make a bad example for the general population.
– Asian Americans tend to have more family support and have a culture of promoting good work in academics.
– Michael Jordan practiced every day and was considered the hardest working player in he NBA.
– We attribute too much to genetics, and tend to ignore the reality of the need for hard work.
– It is frustrating to encounter people who don’t care that they are wrong even when evidence shows them to be wrong.
– Plant seeds of doubt, or good information so it eventually grows into a tree of reason.
– People think our memory works like a video camera, which is the furthest from the truth.
– Guy worked with Elizabeth Loftus to get the best research information about memory science.
– Our memory is more like an old, grumpy man living in your head who edits and embellishes.
– Even our ‘flash bulb’ memories are mostly incorrect.
– Our mind scrambles up events and is highly prone to suggestion.
– Guy even had a bad memory event when he ‘remembered’ Pete Rose’s hitting record.
– The New Jersey Supreme Court recently made a ruling that eye-witness testimony is highly flawed.
– Do people actually ‘remember’ hearing things when they are in a coma?
– Guy talked and worked with many big name scientists and skeptics like Phil Plait.
– The ‘Chariots of the Gods‘ documentary had a part in his turning into a skeptic.
– The list of crazy stuff is too long to teach someone about every nutty claim.
– Guy’s website is http://www.guypharrison.com/

Promo

– The Skeptics of OZ conference in Kansas.
– Thank you to everyone who has been purchasing books or Skepticality stuff from our stores.

Odds Must Be Crazy Interview Notes

– The Odds Must Be Crazy
– Derek even has contributed his own story to the website that involved Phil Plait.
– George Hrab has discussed it on his show, “The Geologic Podcast“, a few times.
– Jarrett Kauffman and Wendy Hughes met as part of the IIG West as steering members.
– Anyone can submit their own stories of fun/interesting coincidences.
– One story involved someone having a squirrel falling on their head.
– The Monte Hall problem is a classic example of how bad we are at determining odds.
– Barbara has finally written up a very simple explanation of the problem.
– Phil Plait had to deal with these issues when he wrote his latest book, ‘Death From The Skies‘.
– Humans are really bad with numbers, there is a whole city in the desert just because of that fact.
– Ross Blocher from the “Oh No Ross and Carrie” podcast created the logo for ‘The Odds Must Be Crazy’.
– The Odds Must Be Crazy will be making a debut on Skepticality next episode featuring music by Mr. Deity himself.
– On Twitter if you use the tag #tombc it will show up on the blog website.
– Everyone should start to use the phrase ‘The Odds Must Be Crazy’ all the time!
– Next episode there will be the premiere of the new Odds Must Be Crazy segment on Skepticality!

– Ending music is this weeks ‘science’ shout out, music by Peter Kanold, ‘Just Think‘, sung by his daughter, Rebekah.