Cosmic Quackery

In our quest to understand the universe, how can we be sure our conclusions are correct? Human beings have evolved to find meaningful patterns in nature, but sometimes the patterns we see are just figments of our imagination—or perhaps the result of wishful thinking. Join Neil and guest co-host Leighann Lord as they investigate the weird and wacky world of pseudoscience. NOTE: All-Access subscribers can listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/cosmic-quackery/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Speaker 00

  Our universe is filled with secrets and mysteries, leaving us with many questions to be answered. Now, more than ever, we find ourselves searching for those answers as the very fabric of space, science, and society are converging. Here, for the first time, these worlds collide. As we give you the knowledge that breaks the barrier between what is science and what is merely pop culture, this is StarTalk.

• 0:37Speaker 01

  Now, here's your hosts, astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Lynn Koplitz. StarTalk.

• 0:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk. Indeed, I am your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist. My day job is actually as director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. Today, my guest co-host, subbing for Lynn Koplitz, is comedian LeAnn Lord. LeAnn, welcome to StarTalk.

• 1:05Speaker 03

  Thank you, Neil. Thanks for having me.

• 1:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  LeAnn is a professional stand-up comedian. She's been on ABC's The View. She's occasionally called in to comment in FoxNews.com.

• 1:17Speaker 03

  Yes, I'm the fair of fair and balanced, so...

• 1:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're not the balance of the fair and balanced? And you've got a blog that I've loved reading, in VeryFunnyLady.com, called The Comic Perspective.

• 1:29Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A one-letter shift from the cosmic perspective.

• 1:32Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you know this?

• 1:34Speaker 03

  Yes, I do. I was actually telling people when I was coming here today that sort of the comic and the cosmic perspectives were meeting.

• 1:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go, yes. Well, today, we want to talk about cosmic quackery, really.

• 1:44Speaker 03

  Oh!

• 1:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've heard of medical quack...

• 1:46Speaker 03

  Yes, I have.

• 1:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? Well, there's actually versions of these folks who tell you things about the universe that's just simply not true. Things that they're just... They didn't take physics one-on-one in school.

• 1:57Speaker 03

  Uh-oh. Like, some other people who might be co-hosting today, okay?

• 2:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You never had phys... Did you never have physics?

• 2:03Speaker 03

  I never had physics.

• 2:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not even in high school?

• 2:05Speaker 03

  Well, it was an option, and I sort of avoided it. I'm so embarrassed to say that now. But, no, no, no, I'm gonna redeem myself. I'm going to the library, I'm getting Physics for Dummies, and I'm going to brush up.

• 2:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, alright. Now, but I also, from previous conversations with you, I know that you're like a sci-fi buff.

• 2:19Speaker 03

  I'm a huge sci-fi fan.

• 2:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, but that means you can't hang with like, the real, sort of...

• 2:23Speaker 03

  Can't hang?

• 2:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Geeks at the sci-fi convention.

• 2:25Speaker 03

  Dude, no, I, I, no, I'm queen of the geeks.

• 2:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 2:28Speaker 03

  I go, and I, I am conversant in Star Trek, old and new. I wear a Bajoran ear cuff.

• 2:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, ooh, ooh.

• 2:34Speaker 03

  Ooh, yeah.

• 2:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excuse me?

• 2:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. Don't, please don't question my sci-fi credibility.

• 2:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, well, we'll get back to that, maybe. So, interesting, because the people, there are many people, for example, who are in denial of the advances of science. And one of my favorite quotes from Arthur C. Clarke, who'd be a champion of sci-fi community, is that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

• 2:56Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, so, magic could be in our own technologies, or even if aliens came in, and they would just look like magic to you.

• 3:04Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If they had some, some, uh, some advanced hardware, or some ideas about how the universe works.

• 3:10Speaker 03

  Like, I have Windows, and Mac is magic to me.

• 3:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I, okay. Bring that up later, too.

• 3:19Speaker 03

  Sorry.

• 3:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you know, we, we hear from Bill Nye every, every show. Did you know?

• 3:22Speaker 03

  I, I love Bill.

• 3:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 3:24Speaker 03

  I do, I do.

• 3:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, the way you're looking, that face you just put on, I am so not giving you his, his email.

• 3:29Speaker 03

  Well, I, listen, listen. I know there's a whole restraining order thing with me and Bill, and... I know if he, if I could just talk to him for five minutes.

• 3:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then that'll all be good.

• 3:40Speaker 03

  We could get past it.

• 3:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's see what he's gotta say about this week's subject.

• 3:43Speaker 04

  Hey, hey, Bill Nye the Science Guy here. Last week, I was on television with a couple of guys who claimed that no one has ever been on the moon. The whole business was a hoax. When you hear something like that, it's your responsibility to decide if such a claim is reasonable. Landing on the moon seemed beyond our capabilities. Until you go have a look at the rockets and the records, pictures and warehouses full of documents, it's amazing, but not impossible. These guys didn't want to think about it very much. Magicians seem to saw people in half. Same athletically-built assistants night after night, hmm. Astrologers claim the moment of your birth determines remarkable features of your personality, no matter place or economic circumstance, and there would only be 12 varieties of people. Huh. Astronomy demands so much of our ability to think.

• 4:27Speaker 04

  We determined that we live on a round planet with no space pictures to prove it. We discovered the Big Bang without hearing a sound. We figured out that 94% of everything is made of something we know nothing about. This is Bill and I, hoping this week's StarTalk gives you something remarkable to think about.

• 4:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's my Bill.

• 4:44Speaker 03

  Uh, no, that's actually my Bill.

• 4:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  (laughing) There's songs, people singing about somebody named Bill, if I remember correctly.

• 4:50Speaker 03

  Yes, wasn't that the fifth dimension?

• 4:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The fifth dimension.

• 4:52Speaker 03

  Wow, ding ding ding, points for me.

• 4:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh my goodness. So, Bill is trying to set the mood here, and he's right on. There are things that go on, that we do in science, that some people are in denial of, and there's science that people think they know well enough to then sort of co-opt it and then do sort of pseudo-scientific things with that.

• 5:10Speaker 03

  And, and I'm assuming by your tone that that would be wrong.

• 5:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I don't want to say, I don't want to, I don't want to value judge it, and, well...

• 5:17Speaker 03

  Oh, no, dude, value judge, value judge.

• 5:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, it's wrong, it's wrong. It's, I don't mean wrong like is morally wrong, it's wrong because it's uninformed.

• 5:26Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 5:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's uneducated, it's, in many cases, most cases, it's just plain ignorant. And, now, I always wondered, I have, a good friend of mine is also a magician, a very famous magician, the Amazing Randy.

• 5:36Speaker 03

  Ah.

• 5:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know if you've heard of him, Amazing Randy. He's a professional magician, as well as someone who's scientifically literate. And so you know what he does, when someone makes a claim that's extraordinary, with pseudo-scientific, um, um, statements about how the world works, he goes and investigates what it is that they're doing.

• 5:56Speaker 03

  So he's a detective as well?

• 5:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that's it.

• 5:58Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 5:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, he's a...

• 6:00Speaker 03

  He's hustling.

• 6:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  His magic talents, magic talents, his talents at magic enable him to spot somebody else who might be using sleight of hand in whatever it is they're trying to perform. And so, but then I asked him, "So why do people believe things that are just not true? You do performances in front of people that are not true, so what's the harm? Like, who cares? Maybe it's just entertainment." Let's see what the Amazing Randy has to say about this.

• 6:24Speaker 05

  It's not all entertainment, that's the point. As a magician, I deceive people for purposes of entertainment. That's far, far different from deceiving them to cheat them or change their outlook on reality, which could easily be done if they begin to believe that what I'm doing on stage is genuine. An informed public serves us all, and I can't help but think as I see this nonsense being promoted that we're inundated with these days in the media all over the place, that these people, they vote as I do, that's the problem, you see. The people that listen to this nonsense, they get the same vote that I get.

• 6:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 6:59Speaker 05

  And I'm not gonna vote the way they will.

• 7:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Equal vote, that's right, that's right. But it's a free country, so what, again, so what? Why do you care? It's let them think what they want. Why do you care?

• 7:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, but it's a public service, Neil, I must say, it's a public service. You see, I know things that they don't know, and what I try to do is not reveal the magician's tricks to them, but I try to reveal to them the fact that they can be fooled. Now, I often get academics saying to me, after I do a public lecture, any place in the world, they come to me and they say, "Boy, you really taught us a lesson here," and it seems to me that these people who believe in all of this nonsense, the pseudoscience and the chicanery out there, they must be really stupid. Well, I take them aside, and what I'll do at that point, Neil, is I'll show them the damnedest card trick they've ever seen, and they rear back and say, "Oh, but that wasn't the trick." Simply because they're scientists,

• 7:52Speaker 05

  and scientists are not the best people to judge these things. They believe they can't be fooled. Anyone with a PhD after their name, I believe you do have one.

• 8:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right.

• 8:02Speaker 05

  At least one. They often get convinced, "I guess I know everything now, and no one's gonna be able to fool me," and so when I show them something like a dazzling card trick that really blows them out of the water, they assume falsely that it can't be a trick, because they know how tricks are done. No, they don't.

• 8:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's a bit of a kind of hubris, or an arrogance, of their academic position?

• 8:25Speaker 05

  Exactly, exactly, and they've gotta get over that, really.

• 8:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if they're ever called on to investigate somebody's telekinesis, or mind spoon bending, or whatever... Then they ought to bring you because you're an expert in watching people fool other people, whereas a scientist has no such training or background.

• 8:45Speaker 05

  That's right, and not necessarily me, of course, I'd be pretty busy under those circumstances. But, an experienced magician, and I emphasize that, an experienced magician, a professional, someone who's been in it for a long time, because amateur magicians often think that they know everything too, and they know how all the tricks are done, and they can be as easily fooled if they're not well informed. So, an experienced magician, and I've been called in on many cases like this, all over the world, is very valuable, just for the opinion. But not being scientist, remember, I'm not making any presumptions that I have the degree that I should have as a scientist. No, not at all, I'm strictly an amateur when it comes to that, but I do have this specialized expertise.

• 9:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the amazing James Randi.

• 9:31Speaker 03

  Very amazing.

• 9:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here on StarTalk. You're listening to StarTalk Radio, I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson, and I'm joined by this weekend's visiting co-host, LeAnn Lord.

• 9:41Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 9:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Professional comedian. LeAnn, welcome to StarTalk. If you have something to say that you want to tell us, you can tweet us at StarTalkRadio, all one word, of course, or give us a call at 1-877-5-Star-Talk. If you have an opinion, a comment about pseudoscience, or you might, maybe you're into some of this stuff and you want to tell us, and then, if you dare.

• 10:03Speaker 03

  If you dare, yes, because illusions are being dashed.

• 10:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, you know, there are a couple of cases here, there's, I'll give you an example, and some of it is just, I think, the consequence of rampant science illiteracy. There was a court case a couple of decades ago, where there was someone who was going to be indicted because the moon was in, they claimed it was in a particular phase one night instead of another phase, they brought in an astronomer to say, "Well, no, it was a different phase", rather than that, and the judge said, "Well, how did you know?" And there's this thing called the Astronomical Almanac, that gives all the phases of the moon, he said, "Here", and then the judge threw out the evidence, saying, "You can't know the phase of the moon any more than you can predict the weather." That somebody didn't have Physics 101.

• 10:42Speaker 03

  And wow, that was a judge?

• 10:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A judge, people standing in judgment of whether somebody goes to jail or not.

• 10:49Speaker 03

  And this is, this is an educated person, you know, law school.

• 10:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Someone who would claim they're educated.

• 10:53Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 10:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the problem.

• 10:54Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 10:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We have many people who say they are educated, believe they are educated, but they have these holes in their background and they don't know it. By the way, there's nothing wrong with ignorance. Ignorance has got a bad rap, but if you just happen to not know something, fine, you go learn about it or get in, bring in an educator. You're gonna plug that hole, but if you're ignorant and don't know it, that's danger. And our power.

• 11:15Speaker 03

  I don't think it's ignorant and not knowing it, it's ignorant and not wanting to change it.

• 11:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, that's even worse.

• 11:20Speaker 03

  That, that's where the, the evil lies, I think.

• 11:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that, that even worse. And I remember, you know, when I was a kid, uh, age 14, I, I remember this distinctly. You know, I already knew I was kinda interested in the universe and there was a comet coming along, uh, that was discovered way out in the solar system, farther away than comets are normally seen. So that meant by the time it gets close to the sun and the heat will evaporate the ices to make the long, beautiful tail, there'd be a really beautiful comet. It was, it was to come around at Christmas time.

• 11:45Speaker 03

  Oh, nice.

• 11:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, it was, it was a beautiful.

• 11:47Speaker 03

  A present from the universe.

• 11:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A present from the universe and it was called Comet Cohutec and I was all ready for this. And by the way, by the way, scores of comets are discovered every year and not all of them.

• 11:55Speaker 03

  So this is not special?

• 11:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, it was special because it was like slightly brighter, brighter than what the others would have been.

• 12:00Speaker 03

  From further away, so therefore brighter?

• 12:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you can see it from further away, so that means by the time it got close, it'd be even brighter.

• 12:05Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 12:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? So there you go. And so I, there I'm walking down the street and I saw grownups, holding up, not everybody of course, some grownups, holding up a sign saying, repent, the end of the world is near, the comet will end Earth. And I'm thinking, what? And I, I, I was 14 and the little bit of physics I knew told me that this guy had no clue, no clue. And so I didn't understand, I was just trying to.

• 12:27Speaker 03

  So you could have helped this man if you had simply given him a physics book and going, no dude, we're gonna be okay.

• 12:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're gonna be okay.

• 12:32Speaker 03

  Just read this book, we're fine.

• 12:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, some people don't want, some people like the, the end of the world, they're like that.

• 12:37Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, the, the, the end of the world is a very sexy concept. I mean, there, there's a lot of money to be made there.

• 12:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I guess so, we have movies and everything, you know, so it's.

• 12:45Speaker 03

  TVs, books, the whole deal.

• 12:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's, it's, so I know there's, this, it, I, I, my head was spinning after that, worried what I'd have to confront by the time I was an adult, living among them.

• 12:56Speaker 03

  The alien species that is adulthood?

• 12:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're gonna take our first break. Uh, you're listening to StarTalk Radio. Give us a call at 1-877-5-Star-Talk or send us a tweet at StarTalkRadio. We'll be back in just a moment.

• 13:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, joined by my guest co-host, Leanne Lord.

• 13:32Speaker 03

  Hey. I have a question for you.

• 13:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, what's that?

• 13:34Speaker 03

  We were talking about comets, and I didn't know that-

• 13:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just before the break.

• 13:36Speaker 03

  Right, just before the break. I didn't know that comet that you mentioned, because I'm more familiar with the Hale-Bopp comet.

• 13:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, everybody saw that one in the 1990s. It was so bright.

• 13:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, I remember that. And I remember it simply because, you know, they died with outfits on, you know, the people who, that cult.

• 13:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, the Heaven's Gate cult.

• 13:48Speaker 03

  Heaven's Gate cult, yeah.

• 13:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, people be doing, adults doing crazy things. This is scary stuff.

• 13:52Speaker 03

  But now, how did those comets sort of compare? Because you said the first one was really bright.

• 13:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The first one, people expected it to be very bright, as bright as what Hale-Bopp turned out to be, but it turned out that it wasn't that bright.

• 14:03Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 14:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It didn't have enough times around the sun. It was a very long period comet. And you gotta come around the sun enough times to jiggle loose enough ice to evaporate it, to give a very visible tail. And this was a very tight comet coming around.

• 14:16Speaker 03

  Okay, so lots of promo, no delivery, kind of like today's little teeny-bopper stars, not really delivering on the promise.

• 14:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All talk and no tail.

• 14:25Speaker 03

  Okay. Woo! Are we going there? Can we do that on StarTalk? I didn't know it was that kind of show.

• 14:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so Comet Hale-Bopp was one of the brightest comets in, actually, in recorded history. And there's this cult who believed that there was a spaceship behind the comet, and that the end of the world was coming, and they all put on that, I think they were wearing Nikes, was it?

• 14:43Speaker 03

  They were all wearing Nikes.

• 14:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's embarrassing.

• 14:45Speaker 03

  It was, and Adidas was very jealous.

• 14:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right. So, they're all wearing Nikes. They took some suicide potion. They were all dead, just dead, hauling the bodies out of the house. But I know that could not have been on the East Coast, because this is like, sounds like a West Coast kind of thing.

• 15:00Speaker 03

  It really does. Yeah, no, no, we don't roll like that here.

• 15:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, we are live in Los Angeles and Washington DC. This show is produced in New York City, destined. And you can stream it live on StarTalkRadio.net. You know, there are a lot of people, skeptics out there, who, like, professionals, do you know, you can, there are professional skeptics?

• 15:19Speaker 03

  Are they really?

• 15:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They get, like, paid to, like, be a skeptic.

• 15:21Speaker 03

  Now, you know how we get professional skeptics, don't you?

• 15:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 15:24Speaker 03

  They go to Catholic school.

• 15:26Speaker 03

  You get skeptics in comics, which explains why I'm in my field.

• 15:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you, did you come out of Catholic school?

• 15:31Speaker 03

  I, yeah, I escaped.

• 15:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you can only be a comedian after that, is that what you're saying?

• 15:35Speaker 03

  Well, it's one of the forms of therapy to recover. I can't afford to actually pay somebody, so this is it.

• 15:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, there's one thing, if someone has an idea, how do you know if they're saying the right thing and has scientifically informed, if you don't otherwise know your science? And somebody says something extraordinary, it's an interesting question for a skeptic, how do you expect someone to distinguish what is extraordinary fake from what is extraordinary real? And I asked Michael Shermer, who's editor of Skeptic Magazine.

• 16:03Speaker 03

  There's a magazine?

• 16:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a magazine, Skeptic Magazine.

• 16:06Speaker 03

  But they're too skeptical to actually subscribe?

• 16:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't believe the skeptics will, so there's, actually, that's principally, that is produced on the West Coast, there's an East Coast skeptics magazine called The Skeptical Inquirer, so, but I think that West Coast has got the bigger job ahead of them, given what we know comes out of California and

• 16:23Speaker 03

  Completely.

• 16:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and, and the Pacific Northwest. Let's see what Michael Shermer has to say. When I asked him, just, how do you distinguish science from pseudoscience? Because he does this professionally.

• 16:32Speaker 06

  The way I do it is, I have a certain confidence in the scientific community and the experts in that particular field, so, I don't know much about string theory, other than what I read in the popular accounts of it, so I go to my friends at Caltech, like, Kip Thorne, and go, hey, Kip, what's the deal with this stuff? I mean, you know, you know more about this than I, and, you know, what, what do you and your colleagues think? Is there something to this, is there not? And, and it's not that I have faith in Kip like a religious person would have faith in his pastor, I know that Kip Thorne and his colleagues at Caltech have a, a peer review system where there's checks and balances, and they keep track of each other, because they know what the, the science is, even if I don't.

• 17:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you're eavesdropping on the peer review system by

• 17:16Speaker 06

  Yeah, and they have, and they have a track record of debunking things. And I, I was encouraged by the, like, a couple of books last year that were skeptical of string theory, going, okay, that's enough, you guys don't have any empirical evidence yet, let's, you know, let's be a little more cautious here. And I thought, okay, this is a good example of science at work, being skeptical, that, you know, you, you get a grace period for a while, where you're just doing theory, but at some point, you know, you gotta have the facts, facts on the ground have to count for something.

• 17:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, so that grace period is where, nobody really has data yet, but they're just massaging ideas to see what, what, what works and what doesn't.

• 17:51Speaker 06

  Yeah, I think that begins at science fiction and works its way up into, you know, theoretical physics and then at some point, though, you have to have contact with reality. And if there's some empirical data. Now, another good example of this junk science is cold fusion. You remember in eighty-nine when Pons and Fleischmann held that famous press conference and everybody was very excited, "Energy too cheap to meter is going to save the world" and all, it was very exciting.

• 18:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is energy, fusion of atoms to make energy produced on a tabletop rather than in a big expensive particle machine.

• 18:21Speaker 06

  Yeah, and what could be cooler, you know, you don't have to use the energy company, you just have it in your house. Okay, great. But, within weeks, it was clear no one was able to replicate those experiments. So, that was a nice example of science. See, science is skeptical, I mean, we're skeptics, scientists are skeptics, and you start with an all hypothesis, that whatever it is you think is true, isn't. Now, go ahead and try to prove otherwise. So, you think you have cold fusion, great. Where's your evidence? Show us. And, you know, show us exactly what you did so we can go back to our labs and do the same thing, and we do, and we don't get the same results, so, okay, there's something else going on here.

• 18:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All comes down to, "Show me the evidence."

• 18:57Speaker 03

  Yeah. Now, I have a question. I was under the impression that cold fusion was just a band from the eighties. Am I wrong on that? Or is there more than one type of cold fusion?

• 19:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Was it a band? I have no memory of bands, any band from the eighties at all.

• 19:10Speaker 03

  Wow, did you just sort of skip that decade?

• 19:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I kinda did. I was in graduate school.

• 19:13Speaker 03

  Oh, so you weren't here.

• 19:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was not plugged into this universe.

• 19:16Speaker 03

  You were in an alternate universe?

• 19:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alternate universe.

• 19:18Speaker 03

  You missed a good decade, man.

• 19:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. You're listening to StarTalk Radio. Give us a call at one eight seven seven five StarTalk. I'm here with my co-host, Leanne Lord. Leanne, you know, part of, if it's about the evidence, this is what's interesting. You know about the face on Mars? There's a whole face on Mars community out there who believes that Mars has evidence of there having been civilizations thriving on its surface.

• 19:43Speaker 03

  There's a community of people?

• 19:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A whole vocal community of people.

• 19:47Speaker 03

  These people don't have cable, then?

• 19:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe they do have cable and they got the shows that don't know the difference. So, here's what happened. In the nineteen seventies, the Viking missions to Mars, there were two of them, one landed, one orbited. The orbiter took pictures of the Martian surface. And one of the mesas, because, by the way, Mars has wonderful surface features. There are rivers and valleys and dry river beds, and valleys and craters and mountains and volcanoes and ravines.

• 20:13Speaker 03

  Until the developers get in and there's Starbucks there.

• 20:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's coming. Starbucks or McDonald's will be the first ones in, for sure. So, so it has all these interesting land features. And if you photograph the surface at different sun angles, you get shadows showing up on the surface that take on certain shapes and sizes and forms. In those, in that first set of photos from the Martian surface, there was a mesa that looked like a face.

• 20:38Speaker 03

  A human face?

• 20:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A human face, yeah, not a-

• 20:40Speaker 03

  What a coincidence.

• 20:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not a turtle face.

• 20:43Speaker 03

  Not a cat face?

• 20:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and so who is it that's looking at these pictures? Humans are looking at the pictures.

• 20:48Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So-

• 20:50Speaker 03

  Coincidentally.

• 20:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so I, I wonder if we were lobsters, would we be looking for lobster faces, you know? So there's this, we wanna see what it is that we're most familiar with, alright? That's one thing that drives us. But another thing is, there it was, it was a human face, Simeon is more appropriate to say.

• 21:05Speaker 03

  Simeon?

• 21:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Simeon, it's, because it's ape, it's an ape-like face.

• 21:08Speaker 03

  Oh, okay, I thought you meant the guy that sells me beef patties in my neighborhood.

• 21:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, it's Simeon.

• 21:13Speaker 03

  It is, it actually is. I'm like, I'm sorry, Simeon.

• 21:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  These, these are Jamaican beef patties? Oh, cool, I haven't had one of those in a while.

• 21:19Speaker 03

  Well, are you serious? Man, what I brought some beef patties for you.

• 21:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gimme that, I'll bring some next time, we'll get you back.

• 21:27Speaker 03

  Yay!

• 21:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, by the way, that region of Mars is called the Sidonia region. And there's not only evidence for a face that, in these first photos, but people noticed what looked like pyramids and other sort of structures that would not have happened under natural causes. So here's what you do. You have to ask, if it's a face, it'll be in face, a face in any sun angle, because facial features look like a face no matter what angle of the rays of, of light that I put on your face.

• 21:51Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 21:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Otherwise, I could shift the light into another direction and you'd look like a slab or something, right?

• 21:56Speaker 03

  So it's a face today, all day, every day, if I come back next week, it'll be a face.

• 22:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly, so the trick here is to come back to that region with a different sun angle and see if it looks like a face. Well, we did that, we, and NASA did that.

• 22:08Speaker 03

  And?

• 22:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, didn't look like a face. But we found the region, we saw the, the raised ridges that would cast a shadow that would give you the impression that it was a face. So we got a better image under different sun, and this face went away.

• 22:19Speaker 03

  And

• 22:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so what happened was, the face people said, "Well, we think that it was a face back then, but the civilization knew that we were looking," this is one variant on this, "knew that we were looking at them and that they, and that they covered up the face. They covered up the evidence."

• 22:35Speaker 03

  The aliens covered up the face.

• 22:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, this is what, so here's what-

• 22:38Speaker 03

  Wouldn't these same aliens just come to Earth and take the memory of the face away from us?

• 22:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a good one.

• 22:43Speaker 03

  I'm just, I'm just trying to help the conspiracy people.

• 22:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right. So if, if, if, I'm curious how our listeners view evidence, and because this is a, it's an issue about how we move forward into the 21st century. What does evidence mean to you? And if you know what you believe in, no matter what, then does the absence of evidence matter to you at all as well? I'm, I'm just curious about that. And, you know, the, the, you know what it is, Leanne, it's pattern recognition. That's what it comes down to.

• 23:11Speaker 03

  What do you, I don't, what do you mean?

• 23:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're humans, we're trained, interestingly, to find patterns even if there isn't a pattern there. And our friend, Michael Shermer, is an expert at this.

• 23:20Speaker 03

  Ooh.

• 23:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So let's see what he has to say.

• 23:21Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 23:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  About pattern recognitions and why people's brains are wired in this peculiar way. Check him out. So why do people believe weird things? What's your take on that?

• 23:32Speaker 06

  Well, it's, uh, the, the deeper reason is because people have to believe things. That is, we're pattern-seeking primates. We connect the dots. We connect A to B and B to C, and often A really is connected to B, and B really is connected to C, and that's called association learning. All animals do it. You know, you grow new neural connections when you learn something repeatedly, and it's a good thing we're able to do that. That's, that's how, you know, organisms survive, and, and, and we're an organism, so-

• 24:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's also, you want to play the piano, I guess. You just-

• 24:02Speaker 06

  Yeah, or anything. And that's, so the problem is, though, we don't have a baloney detection kit built into our brain that says, "That's a true pattern, that's a false pattern, and here's how to tell the difference." It's very difficult, very tricky to tell the difference. So let's say you're a hominid on the plains of Africa, and you hear a rustle in the grass. Is that the wind, or is it a dangerous predator? Well, if you assume it's a dangerous predator, and it turns out it's just the wind, you've made a, a type-one error, false positive, but no harm. You just become more cautious, you move away, you start a glance over there.

• 24:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've actually numbered the errors? You've actually numbered the kinds of errors?

• 24:35Speaker 06

  But nothing, yeah. Uh-

• 24:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Type-one error?

• 24:39Speaker 06

  But let's say, let's say you, you, you think the rustle in the grass is just the wind. It turns out it's a dangerous predator. Well, that makes you lunch. And so you're now taken out of the gene pool. And so I'm arguing there's a natural selection for always assuming the patterns are real. The rustles in the grass are always dangerous predators and not just the wind. And so we've evolved this sort of natural tendency toward magical thinking, superstition.

• 25:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, wait, wait. But if it's, if I think it's wind, that could be real also because it might be the wind.

• 25:11Speaker 06

  That's right, yeah. So, so. That's right, and there's, there's no harm in that. The harm is not, not realizing it could be a predator.

• 25:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but what you're, what you're saying though is that it's better for me to think the worst of the patterns that I make than just to think, than to have just innocent thoughts about the patterns at all.

• 25:29Speaker 06

  That, that's right, and there's a selection for that. And not only that, but that, that the pattern is not only real, but also infused with intentional agency. That is, there's, there's some power, there's some force, some spirit behind it.

• 25:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why do you need that?

• 25:44Speaker 06

  And that's mag, that's magical thinking. Well, because, uh, when I mentioned the, the phrase dangerous predator, that implies that the predator has intention and the intention is to eat me. So that means, uh, that there's an intentional agent there. And that's the basis of the belief in ghosts and spirits and gods and, and aliens and conspiracy theories and, you know, if you think about what aliens are always like, they're always like these, these, uh, super secret, fast, powerful, invisible agents, you know, coming down from on high to save us or, or destroy us. And, and really that's, that's kind of the basis of, uh, polytheism and animism and the belief in ghosts and, and, uh, you know, angels and things like that.

• 26:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you've got it all explained.

• 26:26Speaker 06

  Uh, that's what our, that's what our brains are, unfortunately, our brains are designed to do that. And the best tool to tell the difference between true and false patterns is science. It's, but it's only a couple hundred years old and our brains are millions of years old, so guess, guess what wins out? It's the, it's the superstition.

• 26:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this is an uphill battle that you may never win.

• 26:44Speaker 06

  I have job security as the publisher of Skeptic Magazine. We're never gonna run out of topics. There'll always be a new generation to believe weird things.

• 26:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was Michael Shermer.

• 26:53Speaker 03

  That was great.

• 26:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Professional skeptic.

• 26:55Speaker 03

  Did I, did I hear you imply in that interview that thinking positively is gonna get us killed? We should just think negatively all the time and we'll be fine?

• 27:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think that comes, I think I did imply that, didn't I?

• 27:06Speaker 03

  Wow. So, don't worry, be happy is the, is not what we need.

• 27:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, the people-

• 27:10Speaker 03

  They're not here anymore.

• 27:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Those skipping through the grass saying, "Don't worry, be happy. That's just wind." Those who think it's a tiger are not eaten by the tiger. Yeah. So, and there are people who try to, you know, go to the end of the world with scenarios. You know, the whole field of numerology is a-

• 27:27Speaker 03

  Oh dear.

• 27:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People who try to see meaning in numbers, when numbers are just stuff we invented to account for the real world.

• 27:33Speaker 03

  Numbers aren't magic?

• 27:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, not in the least.

• 27:36Speaker 03

  See, I was an English major. Once again, numbers-

• 27:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, numbers are not-

• 27:39Speaker 03

  Are magic.

• 27:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Numbers, Pythagoras. Remember Pythagoras?

• 27:42Speaker 03

  I used to hang out with a guy. No, I'm sorry.

• 27:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 27:45Speaker 03

  I totally didn't.

• 27:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He made patty for you.

• 27:47Speaker 03

  (laughing).

• 27:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, you're listening to StarTalk Radio. You can give us a call at 1-877-5-Star-Talk. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist, with my guest co-host today, Leanne Lord.

• 27:59Speaker 03

  Leanne Lord.

• 28:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome, welcome. So, Pythagoras, we all, you should remember him-

• 28:03Speaker 03

  I remember Pythag-

• 28:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Pythagorean theorem.

• 28:05Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 28:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, okay. Whether or not you remember what it was?

• 28:07Speaker 03

  No, I can't remember what it was. I'll be honest.

• 28:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, there you go. All right. But you got Pythagorean theorem in your head.

• 28:11Speaker 03

  I remember the Pythagorean theorem.

• 28:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He was a pioneer of numerology. He would see, like, there'd be like six stones on the pathway, and there'd be like six people standing next to them. He'd think there was some mystical connection between the number six in that case. And so, numbers was, it was an attempt to get meaning out of nature just by the manipulation of numbers. And it's, you gotta start somewhere. I'm not even faulting him.

• 28:32Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 28:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it's a method of learning and knowing that has been so long discredited that it's astonishing that even today, that we have people who invest entire life's energies in them.

• 28:45Speaker 03

  But it, it seems kinda cool.

• 28:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's an entire Jewish sect that, that, that's all they do.

• 28:48Speaker 03

  Oh, no, that's Kabbalah.

• 28:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Kabbalah, that's right. That's what they do. They assign numerals to the Hebrew characters-

• 28:54Speaker 03

  Right.

• 28:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of the, you know, of the Torah, and they manipulate, add them, subtract them, multiply, divide. Here's the problem. There's so many ways to combine numbers, so many ways. Add, subtract, divide, multiply, times three, times four.

• 29:09Speaker 03

  Carry the two.

• 29:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Carry the two.

• 29:10Speaker 03

  Carry the two.

• 29:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got it. There's so many ways that, that you can find meaning in almost anything you look for. Because you extract it. You know what it's like? It's like, have you ever done archery or if you, if you shoot arrows?

• 29:23Speaker 03

  In the hood, all the time. That's how I get a seat on the bus. I come, went on with my crossbow.

• 29:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You never went to camp? Alright, I went to camp.

• 29:31Speaker 03

  Camp.

• 29:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excuse me. At camp, you have, and so if you shoot arrows in the side of a barn, no one does it, but try it one day.

• 29:37Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then try to aim for the same spot on the barn. Shoot all your arrows. Then afterwards, go back and draw a bullseye where most of your arrows hit. And then say, look how good an aim I have. That's what numerologists do.

• 29:49Speaker 03

  And you're, and, and that's wrong?

• 29:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would be wrong.

• 29:52Speaker 03

  Now, wait.

• 29:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would be wrong to do.

• 29:54Speaker 03

  Is the, is Kabbalah that thing that Madonna is doing?

• 29:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I have, I have, I can't keep up with Madonna. I don't know what she's doing.

• 30:00Speaker 03

  Okay, I'm sorry.

• 30:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where did you read about Madonna?

• 30:04Speaker 03

  It, it's just sort of out there in the universe.

• 30:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay, not my part of the universe.

• 30:07Speaker 03

  It's one of those pop culture things that you absorb, like, hey, Madonna's doing Kabbalah, I guess I should too.

• 30:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay. Now, I, now, speaking of numerology, just last night, I Netflix Knowing.

• 30:17Speaker 03

  I saw that. Okay, okay.

• 30:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's an interesting film.

• 30:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's numerology that, that's like, he's not manipulating the numbers. The numbers actually.

• 30:25Speaker 03

  The numbers are already there.

• 30:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The numbers are real data about real phenomena. So that one, it smelled a little like numerology at the beginning. And you remember his counterpart, astrophysicist, was saying, look, there are these numbers that look like they're nothing here.

• 30:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, they're, yeah.

• 30:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're just extracting the numbers that fit something that you're trying to find. He's drawing, drawing the bullseye around where the hits are. Then he found out all the numbers have meaning, so bada bing, you got some, you got some clairvoyant folks among you. Run with it. Roll with it. Go for it.

• 30:50Speaker 03

  So, so you're flip flopping, though?

• 30:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I'm not, no.

• 30:52Speaker 03

  Dude, you just totally flip flopped.

• 30:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 30:54Speaker 03

  You said, you can't just look at the numbers and extract meaning and you put them together, you can find anything? But no, but in this case, the numbers did mean something.

• 31:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, because if he had a whole sheet of numbers and found six digits that matched a disaster in the real world and say, all these numbers mean something, no, he drew a bullseye around those six digits. But every numeral on that page had meaning. Had actual meaning without having to manipulate, he didn't have to carry the two on anything on that sheet.

• 31:20Speaker 03

  But he did have to find the pattern. He had found the, because.

• 31:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which was apparently was pretty easy.

• 31:25Speaker 03

  Well, I don't know how easy it wa- well, he was drinking wine all through.

• 31:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yeah, and then it turns to scotch, but, so, so the point is, he, at the end of that, there's like, the end of the world, the kind of, I don't want to give away the movie, I just did both, but, and it, so the end of the world is an interesting state of mind.

• 31:38Speaker 03

  Spoiler alert, late.

• 31:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm sorry, after the fact, so, Michael Shermer, our skeptic, had, I asked him about apocalyptic scenarios, why do they keep coming up? Why does everybody want the world to end? Let's see, let's, let's see what he tells us.

• 31:51Speaker 06

  There you have a combination of that, that patternicity, the, the connecting the dots and finding meaningful patterns in random noise, and you have something else there, that, um, there's this whole idea of a, of a huge dramatic change, either it's gonna be a return to the good old days, you know, sort of like the Renaissance, the return to the, you know, the ancient Greeks, or something like that, or there's gonna be this catastrophic destruction and a starting completely over, and so it's not just that the right does this with religious apocalyptic scenarios, the left does this as well with environmental apocalyptic scenarios, and 2012 kinda combines them all, it has, you know, gods, and, and god, and angels, and, and, uh, and, and the destruction of the environment, and colliding

• 32:33Speaker 06

  planets, I mean, 2012 is like the mother of all disaster scenarios.

• 32:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you see the, the movie trailers for, for 2012?

• 32:41Speaker 06

  Oh, it changed a lot.

• 32:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It also had aliens, by the way, so you gotta, you gotta roll in some aliens.

• 32:45Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, we, we got it all, it's gonna be, it's gonna be, we're gonna milk this thing, believe me, with our, with Skeptic magazine, we have, we have three more years of just, you know, hammering this thing out, because it won't go away, you know, there's, there's gonna be a hundred documentaries, and films, and books, and magazines, and...

• 32:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But doesn't this mean that...

• 33:00Speaker 06

  And then, of course, and then, of course, nothing will happen, uh, so in 2013, we can all go, okay, so here we are, now what?

• 33:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're back on StarTalk Radio, that was Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic Magazine, based in Los Angeles, and just telling us about the penchant, the human penchant for thinking disaster is impending.

• 33:20Speaker 03

  It's very sexy.

• 33:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know why it's sexy. I think it's pretty, it's scary.

• 33:24Speaker 03

  You know, you know what it is? It's one of my favorite quotes by Voltaire, that any fool can survive a crisis. It's the day-to-day living that wears you out.

• 33:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, that's interesting.

• 33:33Speaker 03

  And the crisis is, ah, it's exciting and sexy and it's big, but you know, trying to-

• 33:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was not up on my Voltaire reading this morning, I'm sorry.

• 33:41Speaker 03

  It's, it's basic comedy reading, quite frankly, and uh-

• 33:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, this thing about 2012, you know, I'm averaging now 10 or so emails a week and it's up from five last year. People worried that the world was gonna end.

• 33:54Speaker 03

  Are people serious? I mean, okay, wait, but the world was gonna end, what was it?

• 33:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh yeah.

• 33:57Speaker 03

  In 2000?

• 33:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Every decade, there's an end of the world, yeah.

• 34:00Speaker 03

  And you would think we'd wise up?

• 34:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you'd think, but people forget.

• 34:03Speaker 03

  It's like it's back!

• 34:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The world's gonna end in 2000, the world's gonna end in 1991 because the sun was gonna fall off its axis, the world was gonna end in 1982 because there was a planetary alignment, the world was gonna end in 1973 because of the comet Kuhutak. So, so now, this decade needs its own end of the world scenario.

• 34:18Speaker 03

  So every generation, or a generation or half a generation gets something?

• 34:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think so.

• 34:22Speaker 03

  Actually, I got married because of the last one. My husband proposed to me.

• 34:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When?

• 34:26Speaker 03

  December 31st, 1999. I think maybe he thought it wouldn't go through.

• 34:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 34:30Speaker 03

  I swear to God, I don't know.

• 34:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He was worried. He said, "I bet get this one done right here, now."

• 34:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, right here, right now. And then, you know, the next day, we were still here and he's like, "Uh, okay."

• 34:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you said, "Too late, I got the ring."

• 34:40Speaker 03

  We're jumping the broom, there we go.

• 34:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We got a caller. We got Al from Los Angeles. Al, you on the line?

• 34:48Speaker 07

  Hi Neil, how are you?

• 34:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hi, you're live on StarTalk Radio. Welcome. You got a question?

• 34:52Speaker 07

  Yeah, I know that. First, I want to say that my friends and I agree that you're the smartest guy in physics, period.

• 34:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, well, thank, I'm not, but thank you anyway.

• 35:00Speaker 07

  Well, I take my chances. They're talking about ignorance, and more in relation to science, and how many, or most of us, are ignorant of science. And, you know, I look at scientists, and I can say that if you take them out of their realm- They probably too will show a basic ignorance with respect to certain aspects of other fields.

• 35:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, no, no doubt about it. No doubt about it. Go on.

• 35:28Speaker 07

  Let me give you an example. When you brought up the incident decades ago with respect to the defense that the moon was in a particular orbit, consequence was a triggering factor in this guy's behavior. And had a scientist was testifying and the judge asked him, how does he know? He said, it's in the book.

• 35:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yep.

• 35:49Speaker 07

  Well, in law, there are rules of evidence. If you just introduce the book, it's hearsay. Uh, in order to be, uh, admitted into evidence, there's certain rules that we have to follow. So maybe the lawyer who was involved in this wasn't familiar enough with the rules of evidence in order to, to, to question or to present his evidence in a way that conformed to the rules of evidence. Now, typically.

• 36:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Well, here, wait, wait, wait. So here's one of my concerns, though. You, you make an interesting point. The courts have their own rules. Science has its rules. I'll, I'll give you that. But one of my concerns is what we know in science. For example, and this, this shows up with like, for example, UFO sightings. The, and there's a whole separate show we're gonna do on that. But it has to do with, in science, the lowest form of evidence you can introduce to a conversation is eyewitness testimony. Yet, in the court of law, that seems to be such high form of evidence, and that scares me greatly because we all know.

• 36:49Speaker 07

  Well, that, that's changing. That's changing.

• 36:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, it's changing. Very nice.

• 36:53Speaker 07

  There's been a number, there've been numerous studies which have showed the, the problems with eyewitness, uh, identification. Especially when you're talking about members of different races trying to ID members of other races. And as a consequence, there's a substantial controversy that is going on now within the intellectual legal circle with respect to that. Just as with fingerprinting, believe it or not.

• 37:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But we, we've known this, we've known, yeah, but we've known this, this problem. In science, we've known this data problem with eyewitness testimony, like, for, for centuries. I'm just wondering why it took the legal folks so long to, to, to pick it up.

• 37:28Speaker 07

  The law changes, it's an evolution within the law. And, and before the law, before it is accepted that something represents the truth, i.e. as we know it, it has to first have an acceptance, uh, within your community, that is, the scientific community, of such certainty that we find its reliability to a certitude.

• 37:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, you, you-

• 37:52Speaker 07

  Practically to a certitude.

• 37:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You sound a lot like a lawyer yourself. And, and am I accurate in that assumption?

• 37:58Speaker 07

  Yes, you are.

• 37:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, busted!

• 38:00Speaker 03

  Wow. And did you do that with some sort of psychic ability?

• 38:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, psychic.

• 38:05Speaker 07

  Oh, by the way, I don't know who you had on your program last week, the comedian, but I swear she sounded just like Paula Poundstone.

• 38:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah, no, no, it was not, it was not Paula Poundstone. But, Paula-

• 38:17Speaker 07

  Probably related.

• 38:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thanks for checking in, and I'm heartened to learn that there's evolution, not only, uh, in, in science, but in legal professions as well. So, thanks for, thanks for your call.

• 38:29Speaker 03

  So, that means someday lawyers will be human? Is that what I am understanding?

• 38:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The lawyer jokes are no end in your profession.

• 38:35Speaker 03

  I had to take the shot!

• 38:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was a cheap shot.

• 38:37Speaker 03

  I'm sorry, Al, it's not for you, I just had to go for the shot.

• 38:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, you know, it's funny, uh, so this Mayan calendar is related to the 2012 apocalypse prediction.

• 38:46Speaker 03

  So, you mean, that's what it's based on?

• 38:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, it started it, because the Mayan calendar ends its cycle in the year 2012. And so, there are people who believe that the Mayans had deep insight into the 21st century. These are Mayans from a thousand years ago, and that they-

• 38:58Speaker 03

  Who are no longer here?

• 38:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're no longer here.

• 39:01Speaker 03

  Okay, I'm just checking.

• 39:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so their calendar was to predict the end of the world. Or it's claimed by others that it predicted the end of the world in 2012. That's, that was that claim. But, of course, they're not around anymore.

• 39:14Speaker 03

  Right, so we can't really ask, "Hey, Mayans, is this what you had in mind?"

• 39:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, Bill Nye has an idea about the, have you seen the Mayan calendar? It's like packed with content. And, Bill Nye said, "It ended in 2012 because, like, they ran out of rock, you know? Somebody had to go get another stone."

• 39:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, and that's probably why it did end. It's, it's not my turn to get the stone, you get the stone, forget it, no, we're not writing on the stone anymore, I'm not doing it.

• 39:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, it's so much we make of things that might have just had very simple causes and effects.

• 39:41Speaker 03

  It's like The Life of Brian, the gourd or the shoe. Do you know that movie?

• 39:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'd forgotten that scene.

• 39:46Speaker 03

  Right, it's, they're following who they believe is Jesus, and he drops a gourd, and someone picks up the gourd and goes, "This is what it means, it's the gourd." And they say, "No, no, no, Jesus dropped the shoe." "No, it's the shoe."

• 39:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 39:55Speaker 03

  So you get these divergent people of, "This is what I'm gonna follow, that's what I'm gonna follow."

• 39:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's the simple things.

• 39:59Speaker 03

  It's the gourd or the shoe, and it means nothing.

• 40:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Entire whole branches, you know. We're gonna, we're gonna take-

• 40:05Speaker 03

  That's another show, I'm sorry.

• 40:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're gonna take a break. We, you're listening to StarTalk Radio. I'm here with my guest co-host, Leanne Lord, professional comedian. You can call us at 1-877-5-Star-Talk, or send us a tweet at StarTalkRadio.net. See you in a minute.

• 40:21Speaker 00

  Bringing space and science down to earth. You're listening to StarTalk.

• 40:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist, with my guest co-host, Leanne Lord, comedian. Hello, Leanne.

• 40:38Speaker 03

  Hello, Neil.

• 40:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, our subject today is pseudoscience, and how people's minds can missink things because they don't know enough science to not missink it. So, in many cases, it's really just science illiteracy. Just the same way you can have literary illiteracy, you can have science illiteracy. And I think everybody just should have Physics 101, just coming out of the box. That's really what you're gonna have.

• 41:01Speaker 03

  Wow, start them out fresh in kindergarten. Okay, no ABCs, no 123s, we're doing physics. What? Do I get snack and a nap? No, we're doing Physics 101, because Neil sets up.

• 41:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think that's what you need. And otherwise, you're susceptible to being taken advantage of.

• 41:13Speaker 03

  But that, but that makes you a better consumer.

• 41:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, ooh, those are, whoa.

• 41:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's a little sinister.

• 41:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is sinister, and I have to agree. You're parted with your money really fast. And so, people in school who say, "I will never need to know this," as they're learning it in their science class or their math class, you do.

• 41:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you want to stay protected from chicanery that's out there.

• 41:35Speaker 03

  So, note to self-

• 41:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  James Randi, the amazing James Randi, the magician, we heard from him earlier in this hour, he, he, he- I asked him about pseudo-scientific beliefs and why do people believe one thing and not another and is there anything that's no longer with us that is still here? Let's see what James Randi tells us about this.

• 41:54Speaker 05

  You'd think that something like phrenology, which is reading the bumps on a person's head to tell their character, you might think that that's a bygone thing. A good part of our library here is a huge collection of books on phrenology in many different languages that was given to us as a gift. And it's sort of a sad little corner of the library, but it's a mass of nonsense that people wasted more intellect and time and trouble on trying to study how you could tell from the bumps on a person's head what their character was, whether they were criminal or whatever. And I've seen many, many more books than I have in this library on the same subject. That you might think that that would be dead, but no, it's making a comeback.

• 42:39Speaker 05

  Now, the Forestline Shoe Company, some years ago, they started to sell MagnaFors shoes.

• 42:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I remember that.

• 42:46Speaker 05

  The MagnaFors shoes, yes. They had little magnets, little magnets at the toe, at the insole, and at the heel of the shoe. And they cost about thirty-five dollars a pair more because they had these little magnets. Now, if you ever wanted to find a paperclip, all you have to do is go to the sole of your foot. It was very handy for that. But it was supposed to, according to the advertising that they published with it, it was supposed to help your blood circulate. When it got to your feet, it rushed it back up to your head. Now, don't ask me how that's supposed to happen, but there is iron in blood, you see, so there's a logical connection, ho, ho, ho. But the MagnaFors shoes were discontinued when they sold the company back to the original founder of it, and he canceled them out immediately.

• 43:31Speaker 05

  And that was a move forward, I would say. But can you imagine actually selling shoes with magnets in them because they'll help your blood?

• 43:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, they're people that they're magnetic necklaces for, that make the same claim.

• 43:44Speaker 05

  For the same purpose, exactly. I was hoping you might come up with that, because we've all seen that, haven't we?

• 43:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 43:50Speaker 05

  They had the Quanta Ray bracelets, for example, that has magnets in it. It doesn't make a darn bit of difference where you put magnets. It's going to help you pick up paperclips, but that's the only thing.

• 44:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  James Randi.

• 44:03Speaker 03

  Wow, I don't like Randi.

• 44:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why? Why?

• 44:08Speaker 03

  Because I...

• 44:11Speaker 03

  Magnets? I have the bracelet, man.

• 44:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You bought a magnetic bracelet?

• 44:14Speaker 03

  I did.

• 44:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why?

• 44:15Speaker 03

  Well, I hurt my elbow. I do martial arts, because comedy is really a very scary business.

• 44:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now you tell me this, because now I'm like, okay.

• 44:22Speaker 03

  But, I, I, long story short, I hurt my elbow, and it was really painful, and, you know, sort of going to the doctor. I was trying things, you know, the Bengay, everything. I said, "Oh, a magnetic bracelet. It says it'll help. It says healing on the package. Where can I go wrong?"

• 44:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:34Speaker 03

  I bought it. I put it on. Eventually, I did feel better, but I, I honestly could never tell you if it really was.

• 44:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what you have to do next time is hurt both elbows, and then put the bracelet on one, and then you could do the experiment the right way.

• 44:44Speaker 03

  I can have a control elbow, is what you're saying?

• 44:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly. Control elbow.

• 44:47Speaker 03

  I think I'm gonna subcontract that out, because I'm, I'm a wuss when it comes to pain.

• 44:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because what happens is you're, you go into deep pain, and the human body heals you all by itself, more often than not. And so when you're in deepest pain, and you're looking for a solution, whatever you did at the time you had deepest pain, you end up crediting that for getting better, when you would've gotten better, in most cases, all by yourself.

• 45:08Speaker 03

  So if I had had a rum and coke, I would've said, "Hey, it's the rum and coke."

• 45:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Especially the rum part, I'm sure.

• 45:13Speaker 03

  Especially the rum. No less coke.

• 45:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There are other things, like astrology. People, you know, believe that the universe affects them. By the way, I've never met a kid who's into astrology. It's only when people's social lives get more complex, do they start thinking that the universe is affecting their lives.

• 45:27Speaker 03

  It's the hormones. You, you, you need something to help you manage your hormones.

• 45:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that right?

• 45:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay.

• 45:32Speaker 03

  Because hormones, to me, is almost like a mental illness. You know, you're, you're doing fine in childhood, and then all of a sudden the hormones, and it's like, "Ah, how do I manage?"

• 45:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So do you know your sign?

• 45:38Speaker 03

  I do. I'm a Virgo.

• 45:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Virgo, which is supposed to mean that the sun was moving through the constellation Virgo when you were born.

• 45:45Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 45:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, in fact, it wasn't.

• 45:46Speaker 03

  It wasn't?

• 45:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no. It, it was 2,000 years ago, but not now. Because Earth processes on its, Earth, procession is like the science way to describe wobble. So Earth wobbles on its axis.

• 45:57Speaker 03

  Like a weevil?

• 45:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just like, exactly like a weevil, except we're also spinning, whereas the weevil-

• 46:01Speaker 03

  We're wobbling and weeb- I can't even say it.

• 46:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Weebles wobbled without spinning. We spin and wobble at the same time.

• 46:08Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 46:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where that coordinated.

• 46:10Speaker 03

  We're a drunken little planet.

• 46:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, the fact that we wobble 2,000 years ago was about 1/12 of the total period of our wobble, which is 26,000 years. And if you're 1/12 around, the sun actually was shifted into a different constellation now. So it's the sign before Virgo that corresponds with your birth sign right now. But they don't tell you that in the books. They don't tell you that. They leave that one out.

• 46:32Speaker 03

  Okay, I gotta be honest, I missed all the numbers because all I'm hearing is that I'm not a Virgo. I'm a Leo. I know nothing about being a Leo.

• 46:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've been reading the wrong horoscope the whole time.

• 46:40Speaker 03

  But it's so me!

• 46:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Actually, the professional horoscope people tell you that the old style stuff worked just as it needs to. So, I'm just saying. I'm just... So, anyhow.

• 46:50Speaker 03

  You're killing me, Neil. You're killing me.

• 46:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's an excuse to not take full control of your life. And it's, I think it's, it concerns me as an educator that this is rampant among us.

• 47:01Speaker 03

  Well, can't we have some illusions in our lives?

• 47:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, don't you want the real world to react to, rather than the elusive world?

• 47:07Speaker 03

  I'm not saying I want the entire world to be, you know, one big illusion, but some, some. I'd like to read my horoscope.

• 47:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I would like you to have some skepticism.

• 47:15Speaker 03

  Oh, I'm from New York.

• 47:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't be completely skeptical.

• 47:18Speaker 03

  No, of course not.

• 47:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But not be too gullible. You gotta be just right.

• 47:22Speaker 03

  So like, like, New York is really skeptical and maybe California is too gullible and we meet in the middle, which is...

• 47:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In Kansas?

• 47:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, we can't meet in Kansas. Okay, so that, yeah, that, I'm gonna, I'm gonna come back and work on that example because maybe that's not the best one.

• 47:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's check out Michael Shermer. He's gonna bring us to the end here with, uh, I asked him about skepticism and gullibility. Is it possible to be too much of either? Let's see what he has to say.

• 47:44Speaker 06

  I think we have the capacity to be good, critical thinkers. The rub is in, you know, keeping an open mind so that you don't miss exciting new ideas, but not so open-minded that your brains fall out. That's the rub. And, you know, Sagan used to make this point, he made the point beautifully in Demon Haunted World, his last book there, that, um, you know, there's a very delicate balance there because if you're, if you are too skeptical, then you're gonna miss some really exciting revolutionary new ideas. You don't wanna be too skeptical, but on the other hand, most of us tend to be too gullible, so better to err on the side of caution, but keep a, keep a little bit of an open mind.

• 48:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So really, the, the goal for all of us, but you especially, because you're at the top of the hill here, is to train people what measure of skepticism they should invoke.

• 48:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Leaving open the possibility of ideas and phenomenon that no one has ever experienced before.

• 48:37Speaker 06

  That's right.

• 48:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that's fair enough.

• 48:39Speaker 06

  Well said.

• 48:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's fair enough. So, Michael Shermer, thanks for being on StarTalk. What's your latest book?

• 48:44Speaker 06

  The latest book is The Mind of the Market, which is basically why people believe we're things about money. Which is very appropriate these days.

• 48:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, all subjects are a fair game to you.

• 48:55Speaker 06

  Absolutely, yeah. Not, you know, not the pseudoscience, but man, we tackle religion and politics and economics, the whole thing. Why not?

• 49:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we're gonna tap you big time for 2012, when the world ends.

• 49:05Speaker 06

  Yeah, oh yeah.

• 49:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, Mike, thanks for being on StarTalk.

• 49:09Speaker 06

  You're welcome. Thanks for having me.

• 49:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Leanne, we got a tweet, someone concerned about whether scientists are into pseudoscience as well.

• 49:15Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 49:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is a tweet, asks, "Given the postulated inaccuracies of the standard model of particle physics, do you think our science research will be considered pseudoscience?" Worried that the frontier of physics is such an extreme spot, in terms of so distant from experiment, that maybe it's just all pseudoscience. I've, on occasion, called it sort of a new mythology, because if you don't have experiments to back up your claim, go home, and come back when you do. Until then, there's not much of a conversation we can have. So...

• 49:48Speaker 03

  So, the person who came in from the tweet nation is actually correct, then?

• 49:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On some levels, yes.

• 49:55Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 49:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Yeah, so, you've got, on some level, the scientist has to be honest and say, "Look, I'm just making this stuff up, and I don't have the ability to show it."

• 50:02Speaker 03

  You just gotta trust me, dude. You just gotta trust me.

• 50:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Trust me on this one. But it's on the frontier, and as long as everybody knows it, it's the only game in town. And by the way, like I said, ignorance is not bad. It's just, if you're arrogant with your ignorance, that's the problem, because then you're spreading it and making other people ignorant alongside you.

• 50:18Speaker 03

  Like a virus.

• 50:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Leanne, thanks for being on the show.

• 50:21Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 50:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've been listening to StarTalk Radio. My guest host has been Leanne Lord, stand-up comedian. Thanks for being on. StarTalk Radio's been funded by the National Science Foundation. We'll see you next week.