Skeptics Guide #1010

The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe Skepticast #1010 November 13th 2024 Segment #1. Quickie with Evan Advertising Magic Banned in Kyrgyzstan https://24.kg/english/311033_Advertising_of_fortune_telling_magic_shamanism_prohibited_in_Kyrgyzstan/ Segment #2. News Items News Item #1 – Do Armed Police Make Schools Safer https://undark.org/2024/11/06/are-schools-with-armed-police-actually-safer/ News Item #2 – Training Medical Robots https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/11/241111123037.htm News Item #3 – New Imaging Technique https://phys.org/news/2024-11-particle-fossil-species-coelacanth.amp https://cardiovascularbusiness.com/topics/cardiac-imaging/new-imaging-technique-captures-human-heart-unprecedented-detail News Item #4 – Physician Misinformation https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/physician-misinformation/ Segment #3. Who’s That Noisy Segment #4. Your Questions and E-mails Question #1: Mid Atlantic Follow up Segment #5. Interview with Michael Mann Segment #6. Science or Fiction Each week our host will come up with three science news items or facts, two genuine, one fictitious. He will challenge our panel of skeptics to sniff out the fake – and you can play along. Item 1: Analysis of a Martian meteorite indicates the presence of bodies of liquid water on the surface of Mars as late as 742 million years ago. Item 2: A recent study finds that doctors using ChatGPT Plus as an additional aid did no better at making diagnoses than those using only traditional methods. Item 3: In an animal study, researchers have demonstrated the ability to deliver functional mRNA through inhalation. Segment #7. Skeptical Quote of the Week “I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time - when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.” - Carl Sagan, Demon Haunted World


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