#ICYMI - Breaking the Rules–The Physics & Psychology of Cheating

In case you missed this episode on the Playing with Science channel… You can break the rules of the game, but you can’t break the rules of physics. Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly investigate the physics and psychology of cheating, with physicist John Eric Goff and sport psychologist Dr. Leah Lagos.

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

• 0:09Gary O'Reilly?

  I'm Gary O'Reilly.

• 0:10Chuck Nice?

  And I'm Chuck Nice.

• 0:11Gary O'Reilly?

  And this is Playing with Science. You can play by them, you can bend them, or you can just straight up break them. The choice is yours, but remember, the rules are the rules, and the art of playing dirty is most certainly to try and get away with it.

• 0:29Chuck Nice?

  Yes, which by the way is easier said than done, and unlocking his box of dirty tricks and exploring the physics with us is the one and only Professor Eric Goff, while sports psychologist Dr Leah Lagos will explain what is going on in the minds of those who cheat to win. But keep in mind, winners never cheat, and cheaters never truly win.

• 0:51Gary O'Reilly?

  And the good guys always finish last.

• 0:54Chuck Nice?

  This is so true.

• 0:55Gary O'Reilly?

  And joining us now by video call to break down the physics is Professor Eric Goff, author of Gold Medal Physics and Professor of Physics at Lynchburg College in Virginia. Now, before we get to the professor, he is eagerly waiting, I just have to expand upon something that's happened recently. It's happened in the world of cricket, which for some people doesn't bother them, because they don't care if cricket exists. Some people absolutely love it, like football, or baseball, or soccer.

• 1:23Chuck Nice?

  The fans are super passionate about that.

• 1:25Gary O'Reilly?

  They are, and in some parts of the world, particularly India, it's almost tantamount to being a religion.

• 1:30Chuck Nice?

  It's like a religion. I have to tell you.

• 1:32Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes, please do.

• 1:33Chuck Nice?

  I watched my first cricket match. I was watching it, and I was like, how the hell could you make baseball more boring? But somehow they did it.

• 1:40Gary O'Reilly?

  Possibly not the best way to open this section, but let's see what we can do, and focus on what happened in Australia. The Australian national team were playing the South African national team. And ball tampering, Chuck's gonna love this, ball tampering is what took place. One of the players has a piece of sandpaper, an Emery board, no sniggering, please. So in his pocket and they are trying to create roughness on the ball. Uh, this then doesn't stay within the parameters of the world of cricket. The Australian Prime Minister gets involved. Then the governing board of Australian cricket banned Steve Smith, the all time great batsman.

• 2:24Gary O'Reilly?

  David Warner, he gets banned from playing domestic and international cricket. Cameron Bancroft, who's a young upcoming star, gets banned for nine months. The coach quits. It is a national scandal. It then becomes a global scandal. Um, ah, and, and then it's like, wow, what just happened? So professor, please, uh, thank you for being patient. We, in cricket is so full of physics and it can be dependent on the surface of the wicket. It can be the atmospherics and then you can do things with the ball to get reverse swing. Yes, reverse swing and, and the ball aerodynamics, there's natural scuffing, there's shiny side, there's all sorts.

• 3:09Gary O'Reilly?

  So please professor, uh, expand upon what is going on with the physics in cricket.

• 3:16Speaker 02

  So let me just talk about the, the ball first.

• 3:19Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, look at that, you've got a cricket ball there.

• 3:21Speaker 02

  It, it, it's about the same size as a baseball. The baseball has the hundred and eight double stitches around it. The cricket ball has a diameter of two sets of three, uh, seams that go around the ball. And they have about 60 to 80 or so seam, uh, stitches on each one of those seams. So you've got six seams around the equator of the ball. And both sides of the ball tend to be very shiny when the ball is new and very smooth and polished. So the idea of throwing a ball with swing, whenever you throw the ball.

• 3:58Speaker 02

  Uh, overhanded in cricket, you're gonna have about something close to ninety miles an hour that you can get the ball up to when you're throwing these things really hard, the elite players. And what they'll do is, is they'll put a spin on the ball to keep the seams along the equator. And just like a bicycle wheel that's turning, there's stability associated with that spin. And what that'll do is it'll keep the ball spinning such that the seams maintain a certain location on the, on the hip, uh, equator of the ball while it's moving through the air. Mm-hmm. On the smooth side, the air separates what we call laminarily. It's a smooth separation from the ball and it doesn't happen back behind the ball very far.

• 4:42Speaker 02

  On the rough side, where the seam is, you get what's called a turbulent separation of the ball and the roughness will actually delay the separation of the ball. So, normal swing of a cricket ball is to move toward the rough side. Okay. And you can, you can really enhance this effect by, by rubbing the ball, really trying to roughen it. You're allowed to spit on the ball, polish the shiny side to keep it really nice and smooth, and then you try to roughen it in any way you can, one side of the ball, to really enhance the movement toward the rough side of the ball. So, that's what's called normal swing. Now, the cricket scandal that happened with the test match down in South Africa with the

• 5:27Speaker 02

  Australian team, they were looking for something that would provide what's called reverse swing. Now, on a legal cricket ball, reverse swing can really be thrown by elite players because you have to get the speed of the ball up to about ninety miles an hour or so. You have to be able to throw it really hard. When you get the ball moving that fast, you actually get the layers of air on both sides of the ball being turbulent. And the rough side actually thickens that boundary layer and causes it to come off early. So, what happens is, is you actually move the opposite direction. You move toward the smoother side of the ball. That's called reverse swing.

• 6:10Speaker 02

  Now here's what the Australian cricket team was trying to do. A really old or worn ball, one that you can really roughen up on both sides, can cause that transition, the drag crisis that I know you love Chuck.

• 6:25Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 6:26Speaker 02

  It can cause that to happen at a lower speed. So instead of being an elite player that needs to get this over about 90 miles an hour, you can actually achieve reverse swing by intentionally roughening the, all the ball, making it very worn, up to about 70 miles an hour. So you can drop the speed at which you need to throw the ball for reverse swing.

• 6:49Chuck Nice?

  Why would you do that? Because that in and of itself is a tip off to anyone watching the game, whether they're an official or not, that you're cheating. Because they know that whenever they see reverse swing, it's on balls thrown like as hard as an elite player can throw it. So why would, I mean, wouldn't that be an immediate tip off? If I see a ball that, I mean, there's a big difference, even in baseball, when you see a 70 mile an hour ball thrown, which you, normally your curve ball and your balls with movements in baseball, are thrown at a lower speed.

• 7:22Speaker 02

  Agreed.

• 7:22Chuck Nice?

  Okay? So there's a big difference between seeing that and a blazing 93 mile an hour fastball go by. Like you, they don't even compare in, when, when you're looking at the two of them. So why, why would you do that?

• 7:38Speaker 02

  Keep in mind that 70 mile an hour is about a lower limit on this. So anything over 70 miles an hour, you're going to be able to get that ball to have the reverse swing, if thrown in the right direct, in the right way, as long as you've really worn and roughened

• 7:52Chuck Nice?

  Oh, okay.

• 7:53Speaker 02

  the entire ball. So we're talking about maybe somebody who could only go, say, 85, 84 miles an hour.

• 7:59Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:00Speaker 02

  Can't quite get it up to that elite speed, can now achieve that reverse swing. And it, and it's, you know, it's like throwing a screw ball to a, to the batsman.

• 8:09Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:09Gary O'Reilly?

  Don't forget Chuck, that probably 90.

• 8:13Gary O'Reilly?

  Nine percent of all of the, you call them throws, bowls that take place have contact with the ground.

• 8:19Chuck Nice?

  With the ground, right.

• 8:20Gary O'Reilly?

  Before they, they arrive at the batsman and his wicket. And, and they're looking even then, professor, to gain advantage through the physics of contact to spin and rotate from, from that sort of contact, surely.

• 8:32Speaker 02

  That, that's right. So when the ball has the swing, and of course it's going to have typically some backspin on it like so, and when it hits, it can skid off at a certain angle. If it's already moving with a certain swing, that's going to influence the angle that's going to come off of the pitch. So that absolutely, it can prove devastating to the batsman if the ball is coming in in a direction that the, the bowler is throwing it, that's going to have that perfect bounce off the, the pitch and knock it right into the wickets.

• 9:01Chuck Nice?

  So this was, there was a similar, and it wasn't as much of a controversy that happened in professional baseball. I think the guy's name was, uh, Phil Niekro. And he was, uh, was it Joe Niekro?

• 9:13Speaker 02

  It was his younger brother, Joe.

• 9:15Chuck Nice?

  Okay, his younger brother, Joe Niekro. Uh, had an Emery board, uh, in, in, when he was on the pitching mound. And what he was doing was taking the Emery board and roughing the ball. And, and then he would throw a ball that had so much movement in it that it looked like a cartoon pitch. Like the ball was, the ball was literally moving in a corkscrew.

• 9:35Gary O'Reilly?

  When was this?

• 9:36Chuck Nice?

  Oh God, how long ago was that, Eric?

• 9:38Speaker 02

  Oh gosh, I gotta think that was back in the eighties. I mean, I, I remember when it happened, but it, it's been thirty years or more.

• 9:45Gary O'Reilly?

  Thing is now, we have such ultra hu- HD cameras.

• 9:51Chuck Nice?

  Oh, you couldn't do that today.

• 9:52Gary O'Reilly?

  And you have so many more cameras at a game.

• 9:55Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 9:56Gary O'Reilly?

  Everybody's on camera at some point.

• 9:58Chuck Nice?

  Oh yeah. And by the way, the closeups in today's game are, make it impossible because like, you ever see the closeups during like the playoffs where the camera goes into the glove?

• 10:07Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 10:08Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, the guys, the, the, the, the players holding, the pitcher's holding the glove, the ball in the glove, and then they somehow, they get a shot from all the way across the field of the, of the pitcher's hand inside the glove. So there's no way that you can do it. I wonder what they're looking for.

• 10:22Speaker 02

  Well, the the video that you saw of the the cricket player, I think it was a Cameron Bancroft that was the one that was caught.

• 10:29Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 10:29Speaker 02

  So you have the the little yellow piece of uh uh the the sandpaper that was seen between the fingers and he was actually seen roughening the side of the ball with that paper. And then he was also filmed actually trying to put it down in his in his trousers.

• 10:44Chuck Nice?

  Well, at least he he wasn't as bad as Joe Negro, who just threw the Emery board in the air when the ump walked up to him.

• 10:50Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 10:51Chuck Nice?

  He literally put his hands up like, what Emery board and threw it.

• 10:56Speaker 02

  Baseball infield are littered with Emery boards all the time.

• 10:59Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 11:00Gary O'Reilly?

  I mean, we have a term in baseball called juicing.

• 11:04Chuck Nice?

  Juicing.

• 11:04Gary O'Reilly?

  Juicing a baseball and there were allegations in the last World Series, weren't there, that the balls were juiced.

• 11:09Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 11:10Gary O'Reilly?

  Uh uh and there's a lot of things. Is there any way in cricket you can juice the ball outside of what we've just discussed or even the bats for that matter?

• 11:19Chuck Nice?

  What do they put in the ball to make it juiced? What do they do? They make the core bigger or smaller, Eric?

• 11:24Speaker 02

  So, I mean, you've got all kinds of, in in a baseball, I mean, you when you take these things apart, you've got all kinds of winding and you've got a, you know, a really hard rubber core in there. I mean, if you change the internal structure of the ball, you can change the way it comes off of the bat, the speed at which it's going to come off the bat.

• 11:40Gary O'Reilly?

  It's not, if I might, correct me if I'm wrong here, a baseball isn't built to an exact size. It is within certain parameters?

• 11:49Speaker 02

  It does have a a a fairly narrow range, though. It I mean, it's not like golf. I mean, a baseball, the rulebook for a baseball, it's actually fairly rigid. I mean, you have a very narrow range that you can have for the circumference of the ball and for the weight, but we're only talking about like a quarter ounce or so that you can vary the the weight of the ball.

• 12:08Gary O'Reilly?

  But would that make any difference were you to increase the weight?

• 12:14Speaker 02

  Sure. I mean, the ball bat collision is mostly determined by the bat speed, but of course, there's a small component that's associated with the ball speed. If the pitcher is able to throw the ball faster, you could actually hit it harder or faster, you know, coming off the bat. If you can actually get your bat swing up, you know, players have tried to do things to doctor their bats. There's very little evidence that shows that, you know, corking their bats is going to help much, but there's also a psychological component too.

• 12:44Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's interesting. The fact that you think you're going to hit the ball better makes you actually hit the ball better.

• 12:51Gary O'Reilly?

  And yeah, the psychology of it, we will visit very shortly in this show. But first of all, we're going to take a break. Yeah, when we come back, we'll be looking at some very famous incidents of people not quite playing, but they call it cheating today.

• 13:06Chuck Nice?

  Cheaters.

• 13:06Gary O'Reilly?

  I would, I would say not playing by the rules.

• 13:08Chuck Nice?

  Yes, yes.

• 13:09Gary O'Reilly?

  But then again, that's just me being polite, isn't it? And

• 13:11Chuck Nice?

  And we're even going to have a clip from my appearance on the show, Cheaters.

• 13:16Gary O'Reilly?

  That's a joke.

• 13:17Chuck Nice?

  Interesting.

• 13:17Gary O'Reilly?

  Never cheat. So we're going to take that break, but when we come back, examples of people not playing fairly and the good professor. So stick around, we'll be back in a jiffy.

• 13:32Gary O'Reilly?

  Welcome back. I'm Gary O'Reilly.

• 13:34Chuck Nice?

  And I'm Chuck Nice.

• 13:35Gary O'Reilly?

  And this is Playing with Science. And today, we'll call it Cheating with Science.

• 13:43Chuck Nice?

  Cheating with Science?

• 13:44Gary O'Reilly?

  Cheating with Science, yes.

• 13:46Chuck Nice?

  I think cheating with Science sounds pretty talk and good.

• 13:49Gary O'Reilly?

  Doesn't it?

• 13:49Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 13:50Gary O'Reilly?

  It sounds like not fair at all.

• 13:52Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 13:53Gary O'Reilly?

  Perfect. Let's not be playing by the rules. Let's break them. Let's mess around with bending them. Let's just straight up break the rules. So the good professor is with us via Skype. He must like us, Chuck. Yes.

• 14:06Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, to put up with us. I can't believe it.

• 14:07Gary O'Reilly?

  He's absolutely putting up with us. Right, where should we go first? I think we'll visit one of Chuck's favourites.

• 14:13Chuck Nice?

  What?

• 14:14Gary O'Reilly?

  Deflate gate.

• 14:14Chuck Nice?

  Oh my, really?

• 14:16Gary O'Reilly?

  Really.

• 14:16Chuck Nice?

  Someone cheated during deflate gate?

• 14:18Gary O'Reilly?

  Possibly.

• 14:19Chuck Nice?

  Who could that be?

• 14:19Gary O'Reilly?

  Uh, we'll find out.

• 14:21Chuck Nice?

  Oh my god.

• 14:21Gary O'Reilly?

  Professor, so.

• 14:22Chuck Nice?

  How awful.

• 14:23Gary O'Reilly?

  If, if a ball were to be deflated, such as a pigskin, what advantage would there be to, say, a quarterback?

• 14:31Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:32Gary O'Reilly?

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:32Chuck Nice?

  You know, a quarterback, maybe he's slightly dreamy looking, married to a supermodel and, uh, I don't know, considered one of the best quarterbacks of all time. I'm not thinking of anybody in particular. I'm just saying, if quarterback actually deflated a ball, what, what would he gain?

• 14:47Speaker 02

  So, the, the deflate gate game, I mean, that was played in the cold, so sometimes the quarterback is gonna have a little trouble, you know, making a good contact with the hand with the ball, so what could happen?

• 15:00Chuck Nice?

  For those of you who don't have, uh, startalkallaccess.com, you can't see that the good professor is holding up a football.

• 15:07Gary O'Reilly?

  A deflated football.

• 15:08Chuck Nice?

  A deflated football, and he's gripping it.

• 15:10Speaker 02

  It is deflated, that is right.

• 15:12Chuck Nice?

  He's gripping it like a pillow.

• 15:14Gary O'Reilly?

  He's got his own prop store.

• 15:15Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, it's.

• 15:16Gary O'Reilly?

  He's got everything. It's fabulous.

• 15:17Chuck Nice?

  So, go ahead.

• 15:19Speaker 02

  So, i- if you have a slight reduction in the, in the pressure of the ball, the idea is, is that you could grip the ball a little bit better in the, in the winter where the cold might make it just a little bit more slippery and, you know, that's gonna give you a slight advantage whenever you hold the ball.

• 15:37Chuck Nice?

  Are you saying that Tom Brady's fingers are too delicate to grip a cold ball? Is that what you just said, Professor Ericoff? My god, how, how dare you?

• 15:47Speaker 02

  Oh, well, I mean, y- you can certainly break the laws of the game, but you can't break the laws of physics, so I mean, whenever you're looking at the, the footballs, the, the NFL states that you gotta have 12 and a half to 13 and a half PSI in the ball.

• 16:00Chuck Nice?

  So, they actually give you a range. It doesn't, i- it's not like it has to. You can go down the 12 and a half PSI, which is the limit, or the, the floor. That's the floor, and you're within the range, right?

• 16:12Speaker 02

  That's right. And you got to remember that, you know, normal atmospheric pressure is like fourteen point seven PSI. So, you know, every little square inch on our body, we feel about the weight of a bowling ball from the, from the air. And of course, our cells have evolved to balance that in the other direction. But the, the football, that gauge pressure is above atmospheric pressure. So you have twelve and a half to thirteen and a half PSI above the normal atmospheric pressure. Whenever you check the ball, say in a warm locker room, maybe it's seventy degrees or so, if the pressure is legal, you can actually take it outside. And maybe if it's thirty degrees Fahrenheit, the pressure on that ball could

• 16:54Speaker 02

  drop by as much as one and a half PSI or so. You can actually dip below the, the legal range.

• 17:00Gary O'Reilly?

  So what's the, what happens then? Say, for instance, you're playing the Dolphins in Miami, or you're playing the Broncos in Denver. There's a mile about, about a mile difference between the two in terms of altitude. That must then again have a influence.

• 17:13Speaker 02

  So when you reduce the air density, that's going to help them throw the ball with less air drag. So they can throw the ball a little faster when they're in Denver compared to Miami.

• 17:24Gary O'Reilly?

  Surely, surely a deflated football is, is identifiable because it's not traveling the way that you would naturally expect to see a ball travel.

• 17:34Speaker 02

  That, that's right. You're going to have a slight reduction in speed with the, the deflated ball. But that, that's going to be really hard to notice if you're only talking about taking, you know, one PSI or something out of the ball.

• 17:46Chuck Nice?

  So what you just described about the ball being inflated in a seventy degree locker room, then going outside to thirty degree weather, is it possible, please God say no, that Tom Brady didn't cheat, that he just inflated a ball to twelve and a half PSI, and then it went, they took it outside, and the cold weather caused the ball to, to, to shrink a little bit. I mean, that happens to your tires on a cold winter morning. Like if it, like in a day where you get a really big swing in temperature, right? So it's a fall night, right? And it goes down into the thirties, right? You come outside in the morning, and you're like, holy crap, my, my tire's going flat. But really, it was just the cold weather that, that deflated your tire a bit.

• 18:30Speaker 02

  So. One of the questions I got asked on NPR when all this was going on was, you know, do you think the Patriots cheated? And of course, my answer was, I don't know. I don't have any information to know whether at that time they cheated. But keep in mind, the each team is supplying the balls. So if you have, you know, the Patriots are using a ball outside and then you've got, you know, the other team is using the ball. I mean, they're using their balls and the Patriots are using theirs. You should be able to tell if the two balls are roughly the same by, you know, grabbing them, throwing them, that kind of thing. I think what got the Patriots in trouble was the balls they were using

• 19:12Speaker 02

  felt a little different compared to the ones that the, was it the Colts they were playing in that game? That they were using on the other side of the ball, or on the other side of the field, I mean.

• 19:21Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, okay. Oh, well, then I'm gonna say, yes, they cheated. All right, good. I'm glad we cleared that up.

• 19:27Speaker 02

  Glad to help you.

• 19:30Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, that's therapeutic, professor. Right, let's move on to a subject that's close to your heart, cycling. I know you are a massive Tour de France fan, and you model every stage of the Tour every year. So how do you go about, and there's some various famous cheating or breaking the rules in cycling, but how do you go about in terms as an individual and then in terms of a team? Because we've seen a lot of rumors just recently with Team Sky, who are a big player in the world of cycling. How do we look at that and some of the things that take place in cycling?

• 20:07Speaker 02

  Well, of course, I mean, Team Sky is such a powerful team. I mean, that's the one that, you know, has won the last, three of the last four, you know, Tours de France. And what I do with my modeling is I have to use actual power input from measured cyclists and try to get the elite cyclists to determine who's gonna win a mountain stage or a flat stage. So when Chris Froome is winning in the, you know, the mountains, let's say, for Team Sky, I mean, he's a little guy, and that's a different power output from, say, one of the bigger cyclists.

• 20:49Speaker 02

  That are going to win one of the flat stages that are able to sprint really fast at the end. So I've got a way to alter the power. But what we did notice was that whenever we got to 2013, there were some really, really high times in the, or fast speeds, low times in the early part of the, the first half, I would say of the race. And there were some very, you know, raised eyebrows at some of the cyclists who were actually finishing stages that Lance Armstrong would have been proud of. And then the, the, I think because the questions were being asked, then you go into 2014 and 15 and 16 and the, and the speeds came down a little bit. So, I mean, there, there's a little bit of self correcting

• 21:33Speaker 02

  going on. Once, you know, the, the technology is able to watch, you know, how fast these, these cyclists are going and, and to track them. And they also have the black sticks on the bike. So they could actually get some power output readings from those sticks to get the, the biomechanical data supplied by the, you know, the teams could publish that. Chris Froome Steve published a stage 10 from a couple of years ago, and it was right on to what we were modeling. So we weren't too worried about him. But you occasionally get some pretty high power outputs that you, you know, cause your eyebrows to raise.

• 22:07Chuck Nice?

  So is it true that everybody is on some kind of doping in the World Cup? I mean,

• 22:12Gary O'Reilly?

  Tour de France.

• 22:13Chuck Nice?

  Tour de France. I'm sorry. Not, not the World Cup. In the Tour de France. Is it, is it true that like, you know, augmentation is just something that is part of the sport and has been forever?

• 22:23Speaker 02

  I, I honestly have no idea. I'd like to think it's, it's, it's competed fairly, but there are years.

• 22:30Chuck Nice?

  If everybody's doing it, it's still fair. As, I mean, you know.

• 22:33Speaker 02

  Um, I mean, I gotta think there are some that aren't doing it, but I just, I, you know, I gotta say, I don't know. I don't know what every single cyclist is doing. I know we've heard stories about how the, the locker rooms are and how some of the younger cyclists feel like they need to do something to, you know, keep their livelihood going. Um, you know, I, I kinda hope the sport's gotten cleaner since, since Armstrong was caught.

• 22:57Gary O'Reilly?

  I think there's a, there's a major hope along the lines of what you've just described that it is clean, but there were, there was pictures of a bike being doped with like a secret engine built into.

• 23:10Gary O'Reilly?

  The the upright of a frame and when a when a rider went over, the rear wheel just kept spinning.

• 23:15Chuck Nice?

  Oh, no. Oh, how embarrassing.

• 23:19Gary O'Reilly?

  Have I had, have I just been watching fake news or did that actually happen?

• 23:23Speaker 02

  I'm not really sure what was in the bike frame there. I mean, the the the rules do put a lower limit on the mass of the bike. So, you know, the cyclists try to improve the technology of the bike so that they can work with as as, you know, small a mass bike as they can. So that they're not having to lug too much massive equipment up the Alps, for example.

• 23:44Gary O'Reilly?

  It's a strange one to talk because it's such an emotional

• 23:48Gary O'Reilly?

  ride for, was it three weeks?

• 23:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's it's 21 stages. You got two rest days in the middle of those three weeks, just just two. So you got 21 stages and, you know, you the the average calorie burn is equivalent to about 10 Big Macs per stage. So that that's a lot of calories are burning every single day.

• 24:10Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 24:10Gary O'Reilly?

  Well, okay, so let's move from France, just across the English Channel to England. And something close to a lot of Englishmen's hearts, the hand of God. In the World Cup in Mexico in the 80s, Diego Maradona, probably the shortest person on the field, wins a ball in the air and Argentina score. Now, TV replay show it's you don't have to dust it for fingerprints. It's handball. Okay. He bats it in with his hand. Right. But the referee apparently doesn't see that. Professor, do you remember that incident at all?

• 24:48Chuck Nice?

  But where's the cheating there? That's not really cheating. That's a referee who's gotten paid to.

• 24:53Gary O'Reilly?

  Of course, it's cheating.

• 24:54Chuck Nice?

  How's that cheating?

• 24:55Gary O'Reilly?

  Because he's hit the ball in the goal with his hand.

• 24:56Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, well.

• 24:57Gary O'Reilly?

  Every Englishman would tell you, every other nationality will say it's not cheating.

• 25:03Speaker 02

  Well, every other nationality is gonna say it. It's not cheating if you're not caught, is what they're gonna say, right?

• 25:10Gary O'Reilly?

  Look, it's not in the spirit of the game and we didn't like it.

• 25:15Speaker 02

  Oh, I agree. You still have 1966 tattooed on everybody's head, right?

• 25:20Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, yeah. I mean, to be fair, what comes around goes around. In 66, did the ball cross the line? We didn't have any goal line technology. There's a conspiracy theory about the Russian linesman. Oh, there's never a game without a conspiracy theory.

• 25:36Speaker 02

  And Gary, where was the 66 World Cup played?

• 25:39Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, if memory serves me right, London.

• 25:42Speaker 02

  Oh, yes. So that's a little different from Mexico and Argentina, right?

• 25:46Gary O'Reilly?

  However, it was Diego Maradona, and he shouldn't have done it, and we didn't like it.

• 25:51Speaker 02

  It certainly looked like a handball. I agree.

• 25:53Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, Eric, that's just so not right. It certainly didn't look like a handball. It was a handball.

• 25:59Speaker 02

  I know, I know.

• 26:00Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, well, now we've cleared that up.

• 26:02Chuck Nice?

  Exactly. So it's so great because we're going to talk about, you know, what is it that makes a cheater? You know, but I mean, for these guys who are professional sports players, I would say that, you know, when you're, when you talked about the younger players and the younger cyclists in the Tour de France, who feel like, hey, I've got to maintain my livelihood.

• 26:23Gary O'Reilly?

  Hair pressure.

• 26:23Chuck Nice?

  I mean, that's a huge incentive to cheat when you're talking about, look, I'm either on the team or off the team. I'm getting a paycheck. I'm not getting a paycheck. That's a huge incentive.

• 26:35Speaker 02

  Well, you got to think, some of these, you know, athletes are, you know, 18, 19, 20 years old, maybe coming from poor backgrounds. If you think about baseball, you know, maybe you're coming out of a, you know, Caribbean island country or somewhere in Central America. You got a chance to make, you know, more money than maybe your whole village has. I mean, you've got a chance to, you know, set up your family and your friends for, for, you know, two or three generations to come at least. I mean, I could definitely understand the incentive that people are going to feel like, you know, hey, I got a chance to, you know, help my family and, and, you know, and it's not an ethical decision I'd want to have to face myself.

• 27:20Gary O'Reilly?

  It's a financial decision in the end. But I just look at it and say, of all the examples we've gone through, do you look at it from the point of view of physics and think, yeah, I can see that's worth it? Or do you think the gain from tampering with a ball? Doesn't seem to be ultimately worth it. You may have a minor success rather than a total success within the A game or an event.

• 27:45Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, I think the quintessential example is Barry Bonds and he doesn't have a, you know, a positive test. There are rumours, there are, you know, his trainer, Balco, all these types of innuendo that, and then just looking at pictures of him from rookie year to...

• 28:03Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I was gonna say, I don't think you need a blood test when your head grows to the size of a Mardi Gras character.

• 28:10Speaker 02

  No, no, I, I, I agree, but whenever, you look at somebody who had a career with three MVPs and over 400 home runs and all of a sudden you got, you know, Sosin Maguire captivating the world in 1998 and, you know, Bonds thinks, now wait a minute, I might want a piece of this. And, you know, three years later, he's going to hit 70. So, or sorry, 73, he's going to break Maguire's record of 70. So, that was a case where it was not a financial decision. It was, you know, I'm tired of being number two or number three. I want to be back to number one again.

• 28:47Gary O'Reilly?

  Wow.

• 28:48Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 28:48Gary O'Reilly?

  And that leads us nicely into our next guest. But first, we are going to take a break. But before we do, Professor Eric Goff, thank you so much.

• 28:55Chuck Nice?

  Always a pleasure.

• 28:56Gary O'Reilly?

  Absolute pleasure.

• 28:57Speaker 02

  Glad to be here.

• 28:58Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, thank you. We're going to take that break and up next, we'll try and understand what happens in the cheater's mind with the help of our good friend, sports psychologist Dr. Leah Lagos. So, stick around, we'll be back very, very shortly.

• 29:16Gary O'Reilly?

  Welcome back. I'm Gary O'Reilly.

• 29:18Chuck Nice?

  And I'm Chuck Nice.

• 29:19Gary O'Reilly?

  And this is Still Playing with Science and we're talking about cheating in sports, breaking the rules, not bending them, breaking them. And joining us now via Skype is sports psychologist, Dr. Leah Lagos. So, welcome back, doctor. Good to have you back on the show. Hello. Good to see you both.

• 29:35Chuck Nice?

  Nice to see you, Lea.

• 29:36Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, we've been discussing the recent cricket scandal between Australia and ball tampering and South Africa. And it's sort of got everybody thinking on the show about the perspective of what goes on. In.

• 29:50Chuck Nice?

  The mind of an athlete.

• 29:52Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, why.

• 29:52Chuck Nice?

  You're a cheater.

• 29:53Gary O'Reilly?

  Why go from you spend so much time working hard, training hard, and then you just go.

• 29:59Chuck Nice?

  Ah, I'm gonna risk it all.

• 30:01Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 30:01Chuck Nice?

  I just gotta do this. And and and with that, let me ask you, uh, from a neurological standpoint.

• 30:08Gary O'Reilly?

  Hmm.

• 30:09Chuck Nice?

  Is there a difference in the brain chemistry between someone who is a serial cheater, I'll call them?

• 30:18Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 30:18Chuck Nice?

  I mean, this is the person who just, for whatever reason, they gotta win. I they'll cheat at poker, they'll cheat at golf among friends. They just cheat.

• 30:27Gary O'Reilly?

  That person.

• 30:28Chuck Nice?

  And then the person who cheats because they feel as though they have to. I'm gonna get cut from the team, so I gotta perform a little better. Or the difference between like a guy being hungry and stealing a loaf of bread. And a guy who's just like, I love stealing stuff.

• 30:46Gary O'Reilly?

  Yep.

• 30:47Speaker 03

  Well, you know, it's such an interesting question, and there are so many different pieces of this that I'm excited to tap into today. But what I see from a physiological perspective, these people that are perpetual cheaters in everything, not just sports, but life. Gamiship, friendship, work. They have difficulty managing their emotions, a physiological imbalance, or a heightened arousal level that they can't quell or satiate in any other way.

• 31:16Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 31:16Speaker 03

  But there is a dopamine response that happens amongst this subset when they do cheat. It's short term, of course, because there's punitive consequences, right?

• 31:26Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 31:26Speaker 03

  You get caught. Um.

• 31:28Chuck Nice?

  So it's the it's it's the thrill of getting away with it? Is that the reward system in play here?

• 31:35Speaker 03

  It can be at certain times. Now, when we talk about a team like the Australian cricket team, the the features here are different. Because this is a team. Cricket, the the sport of cricket in Australia is is such a just. An esteemed sport, a a respected sport. This team was looked at as deities and godlike in in terms of. What they were capable of on the field, but also eh they touted this kind of ethical standard. So why on earth? Would these players be involved in a scandal of cheating? Well, what's interesting about this team is that they had a winning record. Which seem makes it seem even eh more strange. But when you think about it from a psychological perspective.

• 32:20Speaker 03

  It it doesn't seem so strange because they had more at stake than let's say the underdog. So we see that time and time again that the teams. That are more likely to cheat are actually ones that have had a history of success as opposed to failure.

• 32:34Chuck Nice?

  So now is that history of success a result of the fact that they're cheaters?

• 32:38Gary O'Reilly?

  It's possible.

• 32:40Speaker 03

  It's, that's a fair point. Um but it's not necessarily a a cause and effect.

• 32:45Gary O'Reilly?

  But sure surely. There's a culture around these athletes.

• 32:51Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 32:51Gary O'Reilly?

  That must enable them. Because I I I think back to some coaches and there is no way. I am gonna be pulling that kind of stroke or anything like that while he's my coach. Imagine Vince Lombardi as your head coach. And you thinking, I'll I'll deflate the ball today. The fear of what he would do to you is enough for you to take a step backwards. So it's this. The the culture around these athletes, these players must have had some sort of fracture. I'll call it that.

• 33:23Speaker 03

  A hundred percent. When you have a team with a strong team culture, they. The team culture can hold one team member or even an isolated behaviour accountable. Such that the deviant behaviours get flushed out.

• 33:40Speaker 03

  Um, in in this instance, the coach conceded, you know, in his resignation. There was an aspect of this that he wasn't able to instill in the team, which was a team culture that that was able to uphold the principles of the game.

• 33:55Gary O'Reilly?

  It's interesting, he quit, but these other player, the players that were responsible were just banned. Well, that's because they're players. No, no, but it's it's. Nobody wants to get rid of their good merchandise. Now, he looked at himself and said, I've in a way enabled this, or maybe he just said, this looks so bad for me, I've got only one option. But did wasn't there political pressure as well from the Prime Minister of Australia? Well, that's a good reason to quit.

• 34:24Speaker 03

  Yes, some some pressure from external pressure indeed. Uh, and it was, it was certainly very interesting to see the events that then followed, which was the response from the Australian public. After they saw the players remorseful, apologetic and even teary eyed on the screen, what happened to the Australian public?

• 34:47Chuck Nice?

  What?

• 34:48Speaker 03

  They become, they became empathic.

• 34:52Chuck Nice?

  Well, I mean, that, but isn't that what you want to do? Isn't that what happens when you have a familiarity with somebody? When you feel as though you know them, like for instance, if a stranger does something terrible, you say, what an awful person. But if a family member does the same thing, then you look for a reason why they did it. You try your best to justify it in some way.

• 35:18Speaker 03

  It it sounds, it sounds reasonable, but it's not always the case. I mean, take someone like, I I know it's not a, and it, it exactly analogous situation, but Tiger Woods. Uh, you know, he was in the hearts of many people and and and they they were not soft in in their response. And I, it's not a perfect analogy, uh, because there were consecutive, uh, issues, but, um, uh, so there there can be very different responses that aren't empathic from from people that are third parties that felt attached to the players.

• 35:51Gary O'Reilly?

  Is is this a singular act? Or do you find that this has to be a party agreement in a, in a, in an act of cheating?

• 36:04Speaker 03

  Singular meaning these two people on the team.

• 36:07Gary O'Reilly?

  No, no, if we come out, if we come out of the cricket situation and look at it as a broad spectrum. Do you find it's just one person acting alone? Or is this a, is this a series of people who combine to, to, to put, to, to take this on and cheat?

• 36:27Speaker 03

  It, it varies from situation to situation, but what we do find is that teams that are very close.

• 36:37Speaker 03

  Can also be at more of a risk to cheat because they do everything together. So that, that's not always an intervening factor. Now, team culture is different than, than, than a team that, that identifies culturally as one.

• 36:52Chuck Nice?

  Well, and you're right, because you know, there was a scandal, um, I believe, I don't know what school district this was. I believe it was Atlanta, if I'm not mistaken, I could be. Uh, where the teachers got together and helped students cheat on a test. That was a very important test. And I mean, I'm sure that screws you up as a teacher, I mean, as a student. You know, that's gotta screw your mind. It's just like, wait a minute, you're the one who wants me to cheat? Like, get out of here. But it's because those teachers who were very close as a unit. Felt as though that, um, their reputations were on the line. So the children really didn't mean anything to them. The children were just, were just a pawn in what, to further their own goals.

• 37:35Speaker 03

  That's really an interesting point because I play psychologically, from my perspective, with the Australian cricket team. Was a cognitive shift from seeing the risk is not worthy of cheating, seeing the risk is worthy. And what you just described was a similar change in cognition with those teachers, right? The, the, the consequences were worth, were worth the possible, uh, risk.

• 38:00Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 38:01Gary O'Reilly?

  Do you find that at one level, I look at this this scenario and go, there must be an unbelievable amount of arrogance, because there are so many cameras, you are so obviously scrutinized. And then I'd look further back and think, what if it's not cheating to these individuals? Because this thing has happened for decades, that they've grown up with ball tampering in cricket.

• 38:29Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 38:29Speaker 03

  And it's normalizing the behavior.

• 38:32Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, so what what if they haven't in their own mind, broken the rule? They've not cheated because the rules are such that that's always been like that.

• 38:43Speaker 03

  It's a really important aspect and and one of very critical reasons people cheat. They find ways to normalize it. Now, whether that's true or not.

• 38:52Chuck Nice?

  Right, yeah.

• 38:53Speaker 03

  We we can question, but in their mind, it it's it's a way to normalize the behavior and it's no longer a deviant behavior.

• 39:00Chuck Nice?

  So do those same attributes, can they be applied to the cheater? Who breaks the laws or like marriage or relationships? A lot of people, when they're in a relationship, not they feel like, hey, we're exclusive, which should just be us. And what you find is in every single culture, all across the world, no matter what it is, how religious or not, you have people who cheat on their wives or their husbands. That's all there is to it. Is this something that is just in us, like as human beings? Or do the same confluence of events come together to cause the person to do it?

• 39:42Speaker 03

  Well, you know, the the desire to cheat in a relationship can stem from some similar cognitions as cheating in sports, although it's not a perfect similarity. The cheating in relationships can oftentimes occur.

• 39:58Speaker 03

  Because of an interpersonal need for connectedness and and there's evolutionary psychology and it's a different perspective. But this idea of needing to connect, it's in the DNA. Uh, you know, there's a, there's a cohort of people that propose that, that that's, that's more of a baseline need than being monogamous. Uh, you know, it, everyone has, they're different perspectives, but, but that's, that's one. Um, and, and that need for interpersonal connection is different than per se than what we're seeing more in this particular Australian cricket situation, which is what? We're, we're seeing that in that instance, in the heat of the moment. Um, they're making a decision to take a risk that seems worthy to them.

• 40:44Gary O'Reilly?

  Interesting. I just wonder now, to take this to another level, if Chuck and I are athletes.

• 40:52Chuck Nice?

  Well, only one of us can laugh at that and that be me.

• 40:54Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, so this, this, this. No, this is obviously a make-believe scenario. And then we find ourselves in a state-sponsored program. Where the state is doping and we're just fed into the machinery. How does an athlete cope with that? Or did they just say, you know what, I'm winning, I don't care?

• 41:15Speaker 03

  How, how do they cope with seeing other people?

• 41:17Gary O'Reilly?

  No, how do you, how do you, how, how do you cope if you know you're being put through the machinery of a state-sponsored program where you are cheating?

• 41:25Chuck Nice?

  Like Russia. To, to be honest, I mean, you know.

• 41:29Gary O'Reilly?

  And then, so, uh, uh, as a, as an athlete, do you start to examine yourself and say, I'm only doing well because of, or do you just say, I don't care, I'm winning?

• 41:40Speaker 03

  Well, I think there's another interesting point about identity, right? You're assuming the overarching identity of the organization. And therefore changing perhaps what would be your internal based behavior based upon what? The identity that, that you accepted or, or you're touting. Then, then it becomes a cognitive dissonance about reducing dissonance so that your identity that you've now accepted matches, matches the way you're behaving.

• 42:10Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I mean, that's, that's, that's pretty wild. So now that wouldn't apply to the person who just wants to win at everything. Like, I have a friend who, I mean, you know. Chuck. Yeah, yeah. We'll call him, we'll call him, we'll call him Buck Rice. Yes. Yeah, okay. I've heard of him. I have this friend Buck Rice. And can't stand to lose at anything, okay? And so, uh, if, if, if, if perhaps you're playing pool and you see that the ball grazed another ball, it's like, no, it didn't. That didn't happen. And like, clearly, we all saw it happen, but since there are no camera, no instant replay, you know, no, that didn't happen, no. And I'm taking my next shot. What is in the mind of that person?

• 42:55Chuck Nice?

  Because that's a form of cheating. Yeah. What is going on in that brain that makes somebody feel like it's okay? Like, to me, you lost the game when you did that. Like, when you made that move right there, you lost, you lost the game. As far as I'm concerned, because.

• 43:09Speaker 03

  Where could it?

• 43:10Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah, because at that point, it's like, how can this win mean anything when you know that you got it on the cheap? But, you know, that's me. Buck Rice, on the other hand, that cheating bastard, he doesn't care. So what's going on?

• 43:24Speaker 03

  You know, it's, it's a lot of focus on external outcomes as, as opposed to processes, which in the long run, from a sports psychology perspective, is derailing to any type of performance. But in the moment, uh, they're, they're after a concrete ball, which is numbers, or a win. Um, and it's, what's so interesting is that these behaviors, the, the line that you just talked about, calling a ball in when it's out, we see it as young, in young children on, let's say, the tennis court. And you wonder, where did they learn that? Is that neurologically driven? Or is that something they observed and then modeled?

• 44:03Chuck Nice?

  We're blaming John McEnroe. Yes, yeah, that's all John McEnroe's fault. But even beyond that, like, for instance, like, you'll play cow, you know, you, you shoot, you shoot them up, right? You're playing a shoot them up game with your friends, right? You, you got sticks and you, you pop up from behind a rock. You're point blank from your friend, pow, pow. You never got me. I shot you. He's sitting right there. You didn't get me. No. No, you didn't get me. How the hell could I not got you? I, I got you. I put the stick to your head. I blew your brains out. Children. No. We are dealing with adults here in a professional athletic scenario. Adults do the same thing. So.

• 44:39Speaker 03

  So I I have an interesting question for you because I think we're leading towards it, which is, what are the factors that can predispose someone to be a cheater in sport, right?

• 44:50Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 44:50Speaker 03

  How do we screen for that?

• 44:52Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 44:52Speaker 03

  Many, many years I've I've helped different NFL teams screen players' assessments at the combine. And they want to know specific questions.

• 45:01Chuck Nice?

  Alright.

• 45:02Speaker 03

  And and and a common one is what kind of risk does this player bring to the team? And and there can be ways, different ways to assess it, but one of the most frequent frequent ways is to assess for other risk behaviors and outside of, say, cheating. What what are some of those risk behaviors that come to mind to you?

• 45:26Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, uh, okay, so if I bring this guy into or this woman into the locker room, are they toxic? Is their behavior therefore contagious?

• 45:36Chuck Nice?

  Are they narcissistic? I'm wanna know because narcissism is, I'm sure that could lead to cheating.

• 45:42Gary O'Reilly?

  And uh, well, are they actually going to turn up for every training session on time? If the bus leaves for the airport at eight AM, are they going to make it? Are are they, but I I know for a fact that the some soccer clubs, when they're spending an awful lot of money, will put a private detective.

• 45:59Chuck Nice?

  What?

• 46:00Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah. That's an awful lot of money to be spending on an individual.

• 46:04Chuck Nice?

  Tell me about it, like you got MI six going after a guy?

• 46:07Gary O'Reilly?

  I can't possibly. Well, just James Bond, that's enough. So, um, yeah, so I think there's there's all that sort of thing that goes on. Uh, gosh, what is it?

• 46:19Chuck Nice?

  What are they looking for?

• 46:20Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 46:20Speaker 03

  So so the likelihood is for you to, if you engage in one type of risk behavior, you're going to engage in other cohorts or other types of risk behaviors, things like drinking, drug abuse. Have you been expelled from your team? Why? Have you been suspended from school? Have you driven under the influence? So so lots lots of these different types of behaviors can serve as uh, red flags per se.

• 46:50Speaker 03

  To to understand or or predict the likelihood um that that this person engages in high risk behaviours overall. Um past certainly dictates the future.

• 47:02Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 47:03Gary O'Reilly?

  Doctor, do you want to recruit only saints?

• 47:09Speaker 03

  Well, that's a very beautiful question.

• 47:12Gary O'Reilly?

  Because sometimes I know the guy I want.

• 47:15Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 47:16Gary O'Reilly?

  Has to have a little bit.

• 47:18Chuck Nice?

  An edge.

• 47:18Gary O'Reilly?

  An edge. He has to have a little bit of grit because it's that that's gonna get me the oyster I need.

• 47:23Speaker 03

  That's right. And and so those are those are some of the the the questions the coaches answer. The the psychologists provide the information and the coaches decide what's what's proficient or or acceptable for each.

• 47:38Chuck Nice?

  Is it worth it? Interesting. Wow.

• 47:40Speaker 03

  But the problem is if you have a whole team of of high risk, you're. And there are teams that are known to accept more high risk.

• 47:51Chuck Nice?

  The Raiders.

• 47:53Gary O'Reilly?

  The Badland Raiders. The Bad News Bears.

• 47:57Gary O'Reilly?

  I can see what you said. See, that then gets the culture of that recruitment gets driven by the head coach.

• 48:05Gary O'Reilly?

  And the head coach might just want a dirty dozen, as it were.

• 48:09Speaker 03

  Head coaches, you're right, have have different perspectives on what they need.

• 48:13Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 48:13Speaker 03

  And so you won't always get the same questions for screening players each year from each coach.

• 48:19Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 48:19Speaker 03

  It may be different factors based upon what's what's important in their eyes.

• 48:24Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 48:25Gary O'Reilly?

  Wow. Doctor, thank you. Yes, it has been. Thank you once again for your time and your insight.

• 48:31Speaker 03

  My pleasure. Great to see you both.

• 48:32Gary O'Reilly?

  Likewise.

• 48:34Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 48:34Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, Chuck.

• 48:35Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I'm off to go cheat someplace and indulge in some very risky behaviour.

• 48:41Gary O'Reilly?

  But is is it all worth it? Is it all about the W?

• 48:45Chuck Nice?

  It's never worth it because the truth is, I mean, seriously, in the quiet of the night. At three o'clock in the morning when you can't sleep and you're staring at the ceiling.

• 48:53Gary O'Reilly?

  Mm-hmm.

• 48:53Chuck Nice?

  And you're recounting in your mind, the parade and the being hoisted up on the shoulders and the jumping up on the mound. And getting the ring. And you know that all of that is based on a lie. I mean.

• 49:06Gary O'Reilly?

  Some people can live with that.

• 49:08Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 49:08Gary O'Reilly?

  See, that medal is hollow.

• 49:10Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 49:10Gary O'Reilly?

  Rather than being solid, precious metal.

• 49:13Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 49:14Gary O'Reilly?

  And I know people, and I've worked with and played alongside guys, that would not be anything.

• 49:19Chuck Nice?

  Just, you wouldn't care. I got the ring, that's all that counts.

• 49:22Gary O'Reilly?

  In the middle of the night, are you kidding?

• 49:23Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 49:23Gary O'Reilly?

  Sleep all the way through.

• 49:25Chuck Nice?

  See, I couldn't do it. I see, for me personally, it's like, it's, I couldn't do it. I would, that's what would eat at me. You know what I mean? I'm the kind of guy that if, if I say the wrong thing at a party, I think about it for three weeks. You know what I mean? Like, God, why did I say that? That had to be so, that was the dumbest thing. I can't believe I said that. I'm sure that person thinks I'm such an a-hole. Like, you know?

• 49:45Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 49:46Chuck Nice?

  And, you know, so.

• 49:47Gary O'Reilly?

  It's called being responsible, having a conscience.

• 49:49Chuck Nice?

  Oh, God.

• 49:50Gary O'Reilly?

  Right, um.

• 49:51Chuck Nice?

  That sounds awful.

• 49:54Gary O'Reilly?

  I don't know, some people give it a try, some people don't.

• 49:56Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 49:56Gary O'Reilly?

  Right, I'm Gary O'Reilly.

• 49:58Chuck Nice?

  And I'm Chuck Nice.

• 49:59Gary O'Reilly?

  You are Chuck Nice, you are. Yeah, the nice Chuck Nice.

• 50:01Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 50:02Gary O'Reilly?

  And this has been Playing with Science. I hope you've enjoyed our show, it's been quite insightful, and we look forward to seeing you all soon.