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The Skeptics' Guide To The Universe - Podcast 97 - 5/30/2007
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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
97
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May 30, 2007
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News Items: Creation Museum Opens, Licensing Psychics, Homeopaths Lame Response
Your E-mails and Questions: China Follow Up, Kevin Trudeau, UFO Drone
Science or Fiction
Skeptical Puzzle
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Segment: News Items
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Segment: Questions and E-mails
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China follow up
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First E-mail
Dear Skeptics
What a great pleasure it was to hear your guest Gareth's analysis of China. So often your show is bogged down with science, experts and facts. It's great to hear someone who ignores all that.
My wife, who is Chinese, said she thought Gareth was just repeating uninteresting stereotypes and generalizations. I told her that's because she hasn't learnt how to think analytically or creatively.
It's great that none of you questioned anything that Gareth said and you took it all at face value. It really ruins the show when you ask your guests for evidence or for their sources. Good thing you didn't bother to do that with Gareth. Having lived in China for 3 years, he is clearly an authority.
I now see that I've been wasting my time reading articles and books about Chinese culture. I didn't realise that all of the academics inside China are just making up their research and all the others are "bought". About time you guys had the courage to agree with someone who denies the relevance of all other research but their own (or better still, just ignores it).
Could you ask Gareth for his views on whether all Chinese people are bad drivers. And whether they are all good at maths.
And could you also ask him why he thinks Chinese people have such an incorrect view of the US. Could it be that they just take at face value anything that they hear that fits their stereotypes? At least you guys don't do that.
Alan Alanson
China
Second E-mail
Please do not use my last name, I am a Foreign Service Officer and critical comments about China might come back to haunt me.
First things first, I love the show. I came across it back in January and have listened to all the previous podcasts. Listening to your podcast has actually made my commute something I look forward to.
The interview of Gareth Hayes brought back lots of memories of my five plus years in China. I speak Ch
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Kevin Trudeau
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Recently, I discovered Kevin Trudeau's newest text on weight loss on my local book store shelves. After asking around a bit in the store I learned that sales of Trudeau's book are robust. After leafing through this ridiculous pile of nonsense I had a hard time containing my anger and disbelief...for two reasons. First, how could anyone be so stupid as to pay good money for such drivel? Secondly, it angered me because I know that Trudeau is now a mega millionaire, solely due to his duping of the pubic with his previous books.
Steve, is anything being done to somehow show Trudeau's true colors? Can anything be done?
The straw that broke the camel's back for me was when I saw Trudeau's earlier natural cures book on my sister's bookshelf. Mind you, my sister is an emergency room nurse.
Is this a lost cause? Is the public free game to such predators?
Chet Scerra
References:
Kevin Trudeau Banned from Infomercials
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2004/09/trudeaucoral.shtm
Consumer Affairs calls book a "fraud"
consumeraffairs.com/health/trudeau.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9006287/
Salon article detailing Trudeau's fraud
dir.salon.com/story/books/feature/2005/07/29/trudeau/index_np.html?pn=1
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UFO Drone
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I believe these photographs are genuine, do you have any knowledge of what this 'drone' could be and its propulsion system?
(The following URL has 6 photographs - just scroll down)
http://www.earthfiles.com/news.php?ID=1252&category=Environment
There are also other sources of these pictures, but the photographer wishes to remain anonymous due to fear:
http://www.ufocasebook.com/strangecraftlaketahoe.html
Personally, I believe it to be a secret, but terrestrial, project.
Regards,
Matthew Rutherford
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Segment: Science or Fiction [ Click Here to Show the Answers ]
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Question #1  Science
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NASA scientists report that the chromosphere of the sun is powered and shaped by sound waves.
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Question #2  Fiction
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New research shows that accents have a partial genetic basis.
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Question #3 Science
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New study finds that moths use sound mimicry to avoid being eaten by bats.
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Segment: Skeptical Puzzle
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Puzzle
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This Week's Puzzle
Finish the last 5 characters in this sequence:
F 2 2 F 3 E 7 2 E 6 G 2 2 G 4 ? ? ? ? ?
Last Week's Puzzle
Audio puzzle
Recorded by Kom'n Cents
Answer: Dolor Krieger (developer of Therapeutic Touch)
Winner: D. Norberg
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Segment: Quote of the Week
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Quote
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"What is wrong with priests and popes is that instead of being apostles and saints, they are nothing but empirics who say 'I know' instead of 'I am learning,' and pray for credulity and inertia as wise men pray for skepticism and activity."
- George Bernard Shaw 1856-1950, Irish-born British Dramatist
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