Research into conspiracy beliefs reveals that there are basically two kinds of people who believe in conspiracies. One type is the dedicated conspiracy theorist. For them, the conspiracy is what they are interested in. They never met a conspiracy theory they didn’t like, and they believe pretty much all of them. It’s part of their cognitive makeup. Others, however, are opportunistic conspiracy theorists – they believe one or two conspiracies that align with their ideology or tribe. Rosie O-Donnell is a 9/11 truther probably because it aligns with her politics. (As and aside, I can’t help thinking of her “fire melt steel” quote every time I see someone burn their steel on Forged in Fire.)

We are now facing a new conspiracy that largely follows the opportunistic paradigm, the notion that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump due to massive coordinated voter fraud. Persistently, surveys show that about 70% of Republicans feel that Biden was not legitimately elected. This is still a minority of Americans, about 30% total, but it represents a substantial political movement. The reasons for the popularity of this conspiracy theory are complex and debated, including a general rise in conspiracy claims surrounding elections (on both sides), the closeness of the election, the fact of the “red mirage” that was later wiped away, and of course the fact that Trump himself has been vehemently promoting the “big lie”.

I would note, however, that belief in conspiracies itself is not increasing over time. A recent study shows that conspiracy belief is essentially flat over long periods of time. The stolen election is a blip, an anomaly caused by the factors I listed above. I also note that while doubt in election results has been increasing over the last two decades, the 2020 stolen election belief is of an entirely different order of magnitude. This is not just some whining on the fringe – this is now a core political movement.

Continue Reading »

In “The Future” we will have flying cars. Or so we have been promised since there were cars. The flying car is an almost ubiquitous element of visions of the future, whenever that future is. I have been seeing prototype flying cars on TV since I was a child, with reporters breathlessly touting how soon we might have one in every garage. And yet this promise remains elusive.

Here is yet another report of yet another flying car – as the BBC reports:

A flying car capable of hitting speeds over 100mph (160kmh) and altitudes above 8,000ft (2,500m) has been issued with a certificate of airworthiness by the Slovak Transport Authority.

The AirCar has been extensively tested and completed short a 35-minute flight between international airports in Nitra and Bratislava, Slovakia. The company reports is should have a range of about 1,000 km, and it runs on regular gasoline. The wings fold entirely back so that it can drive on regular roads, and takes two minutes 15 seconds to change from car to plane. But then, of course, you need a runway to take off.

So yeah, it’s a flying car, or at least one type of one, a hybrid vehicle that can convert from a car to a plane. It is then flown exactly like a plane, requiring a runway to take off and a pilot’s license to fly. It’s also not the first one. However, I don’t consider this to be the “flying car” we were promised. A fully realized flying car needs vertical take-off and landing so that it can travel point-to-point, without the need for an airport. The AirCar is more of a regular plane that can convert into a car. This makes it feel like a bait-and-switch.

But past futurism aside – is the AirCar a novelty or potentially something useful? Avionics expert Dr. Steve Wright nailed it, I think, when he said:

It seems we can add the dwarf planet, Ceres, to the list of ocean worlds in the solar system. These are planets or moons that have vast oceans beneath their surface – Earth is the only world with stable liquid water on its surface. These worlds are of particular interest because liquid water means the potential for life.

Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. When it was first discovered it was categorized as a planet. Then it was discovered that it was the largest member of a belt of objects, and so it was “downgraded” to an asteroid (although the king of the asteroids). But then in 2006 the International Astronomical Union (IAU) famously created the new category of dwarf planet. Pluto was then demoted from full planet status to dwarf planet, but Ceres was upgraded also to a dwarf planet. These are worlds that orbit the sun, are not satellites, are large enough to pull themselves into a rough sphere, but have not cleared out their orbit of other large objects.

The recent study, based on data from the Dawn probe which did close up high-resolution imaging of Ceres (coming as close as 35 km) strongly suggests that there is at least a regional subsurface briny ocean on Ceres. The bright spot in Occator crater, which formed 22 million years ago from an impact, appears to be salt left behind by salty water leaking to the surface at the site of impact. The water then evaporated, leaving behind the highly reflective salt. This bright spot is a very unusual feature, that quickly grabbed attention when the Dawn probe images were first coming back.

At the very least, therefore, there is a large salty ocean beneath that crater. It is unknown if the ocean is regional or global, but even if regional it still qualifies Ceres as an ocean world.  It joins the list which includes the moons of Jupiter Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, the moons of Saturn Enceladus and Titan, and possible (still unconfirmed) Saturn moon Mimas and the moon of Neptune, Triton. Astronomers believe that the subsurface ocean of Ceres must be slowly freezing. Moons of gas giants have tidal forces to produce internal heat and keep their oceans liquid.

Continue Reading »

One of the frustrating things I encounter as a practicing physician is listening to patients describe how they are motivated to improve their health, and then list all the things they are doing, none of which will improve their health. I am eating organic, taking probiotics, taking supplements, and “eating clean.” They may go into detail about their “paleo” diet, some specific megavitamin or superfood, or list the herbal supplements they think will supercharge some aspect of their health.

This is not their fault. They are motivated and taking action and responsibility for their health, but they have been failed by society. The regulatory infrastructure in place to protect the public from false or misleading health claims, from outright fraud, charlatans and snake oil peddlers has clearly failed. Further, the public largely assumed they are protected from fraud, when clearly they are not. People must protect themselves with information, often having to find on their own the glimmers of reliable information hiding in a sea of misinformation and slick marketing. So let me add one bit of helpful information – herbal supplements, according to a recent systematic review, do not work for weight loss.

To be more technically precise – there is currently insufficient evidence to conclude that any herbal product reviewed is effective for weight loss. Historically the most common reason for insufficient evidence of efficacy for a treatment that has been studied is that it simply does not work, or has only a clinically insignificant effect (which is functionally the same thing). You can hold out for larger and better studies to show a statistically and clinically significant effect, but don’t hold your breath, and in the meantime the most reasonable approach is to consider such treatments as ineffective until proven otherwise.

The authors reviewed and did meta-analysis on 54 placebo controlled trials. The herbs tested fell into one of several categories. Some straight up did not work. Others has small effects considered not clinically significant. Still others has few studies of poor methodological design, but also with clinically insignificant effects. No single treatment was shown to have both statistically and clinically significant effects in well-designed trials.

Continue Reading »

What do you call it when you are both excited and pessimistic about something at the same time? Well whatever the word is, that’s what I feel now. Rolls-Royce has announced that it plans to build so-called small modular reactors (SMRs), which could be in operation by 2029. These are small nuclear reactors that would sit on a 10 acre space, about 1/16 the size of a standard reactor. The Rolls-Royce design is not the first one. The US has been developing SMRs of varying sizes, up to 300 MW capacity, and China and South Korea are developing SMRs.

Actually – small nuclear reactors are not new. We have been using them on nuclear submarines and other vessels for years. What is new is commercial SMRs for grid power. I could not find any in operation currently. The US company NuScale, has approval for a design and could be operational by 2026. They estimate the electricity costs at $65 per MW hour, which is not far from the current costs of solar at $60, and offshore wind at $50. Of course, wind and solar prices are dropping, but the hope is that economies of scale will also drop the cost of SMRs.

There are also potential advantages of SMRs over renewable and traditional nuclear power plants. Regarding renewables, while the prices are dropping now once we saturate the grid with renewable energy, something like 30% penetration, in order to increase the grid share of power from renewables you need some combination of two things, grid storage and overcapacity (sharing energy across the grid). The latter also requires a massive grid update. So the effective cost of renewables will start to skyrocket. The solution is to make up the rest of our energy infrastructure with on-demand energy sources. We can try to maximize hydroelectric and geothermal (which are geographically limited), but for now that means fossil fuel or nuclear.

So realistically, over the next several decades at least, the real choice we face is not between nuclear vs renewables, it’s nuclear vs fossil fuel – and I think the answer here is a no-brainer (I will return to this below).

Continue Reading »

It’s fun and interesting to look back over the last decade and think about what has happened and how far we have come. Round years are arbitrary, but it’s a sufficient trigger to take stock and hopefully gain some perspective on the medium course of history. There is a lot to say about the 2010s, and I may take the opportunity to say more, but I want to discuss in this essay what is perhaps our greatest challenge and disappointment over the last decade. In many ways this has been a lost decade for climate change mitigation.

Over the last decade the scientific evidence (and resulting consensus) that the planet is warming, that humans are the primary driver of this trend, and that the consequences are not likely to be good, has only become greater. The last five years have been the hottest five years on record, and this has been the case for most of the last decade. The year 2016 was the hottest, because it was an El Niño year (short term fluctuations will still be overlaid on top of the longer term trend) but the trend is unmistakable. The story of the world’s ice is more complex, with greater regional and year-to-year variations, but total global ice has been decreasing, and if anything accelerated over the last decade. The Greenland ice sheet in particular experienced accelerated melting. As a result there is a real and growing scientific consensus, north of 97% among relevant scientists, that anthropogenic climate change is happening.

We are also experiencing more extreme weather events. We are seeing more droughts, fires, heat waves, and more powerful storms. In the last decade it become clear that, while the worst consequences of climate change are decades and even centuries in the future, we are starting to see real consequences now.

Economists have started to weigh in as well. Numerous studies were published over the last decade, concluding that – climate change will cost the world many billions of dollars and will reduce economic growth, costing even more. Further, the option of allowing climate change to happen and adapting to the results will likely be the costliest option. In addition to the monetary cost, there is a quality of life cost. Extreme weather causes displacement, psychological trauma, and social upheaval. If you think we are having a refugee crisis now, just wait as flooding increasing and more locations become essentially uninhabitable.

Continue Reading »

For the next two weeks I will be traveling to New Zealand and Australia to attend two skeptical conferences:

Christchurch, NZ, Nov 29 – Dec 1. 

Melbourne, Dec 6-8

In addition, tomorrow (Nov 23) we will be debuting our new stage show, the Skeptical Extravaganza 2.0, in Los Angeles (sorry, this is sold out). This show is a lot of  fun – it’s kind of a skeptical variety show, interactive with the audience, designed to mainly just have fun but to also expose the audience to some basic principles of neurological humility and skepticism.

We have three upcoming shows in the Northeast – this page will provide updated information on our show dates and locations as well as links to get tickets. If you want us to come to your city or region, there is also a place on that page to submit your request. If we get enough requests from the same location, that will definitely influence our schedule.

The SGU events page will also list show dates, in addition to all upcoming SGU events.

Over the next two weeks I will still be posting, but not as regularly, depending on my travel and prep schedule. We do tend to be more active on twitter (@SkepticsGuide) while we are traveling. So no promises, but do check back for more content over the next two weeks.

Now off I go to Middle Earth.

When I was in high school in the 1970s, computers were just entering the school environment. We had a small computer lab with embarrassingly primitive computers by today’s standards, but at the time they were cool. I remember using one very simple DOS-based program that taught the user how to use chemical nomenclature. It was a simple game where you get asked to solve a problem and then are given immediate feedback. I was impressed at how quick my learning curve was using this simple individualized feedback mechanism. Basically this was a video game designed to teach one skill, and it worked really well.

At the time, and really ever since, I figured that in the near future schools and education would be transformed by this technology. Now, four decades later, I am surprised at how little such technology has been incorporated into the classroom. My teen-aged self would be shocked.

For sure there is great educational software out there. But they are mostly commercial products intended to use at home. If you want to learn a language, or improve your child’s reading skills, there are apps for that. It is still a lot less than I would have figured, and less than it should be. And what’s missing is a comprehensive virtual educational curriculum designed for use by schools. The bottom line is that I don’t think we are leveraging this technology as much as we should, by at least an order of magnitude.

I was reminded of this by a recent study that finds that young children learn basic math skills more quickly from an AI virtual character.  What they call “parasocial” interaction (because it is with a virtual character powered by AI) improved the math skills of children beyond computer learning without the virtual character.

I am seeing moves in this direction. Certainly many schools (those with adequate resources) have access to computers for their students, and often they are incorporated into their assignments. I have a daughter in college and another still in highschool, so I just witnessed a standard public education in a fairly affluent part of the country. My overall assessment is that computer learning is an afterthought. It has not been integrated into the learning experience. Their education was and is still essentially based on teachers and text-books. This style of education is obsolete, and extremely inefficient compared to what it can be.

Continue Reading »

There is plenty of fraud and corruption in the world, even in the halls of science. No one has a monopoly. But there are some hot spots that deserve specific attention. Recently significant concerns have been raised about the published research of Xuetao Cao, a Chinese Immunologist. This story is newsworthy because Cao is not just any immunologist – he is also the President of Nankai University, in Tianjin, China. But more to the point – he is the Chairman of research integrity in all Chinese research. When your head of research integrity is exposed for massive scientific fraud, you have a problem.

Here is a thorough treatment of the evidence for fraud, which covers over 50 published papers. The fabrication of data was noticed because much of it has to do with pictures, of either western blots, gels, flow cytometry images, and microscopy images. There appears to be two general types of fabrication going on. One type results from sending the same sample multiple times through analysis, but treating the data as if it came from different samples. In this case the resulting imaging will be strikingly similar in pattern, but not identical. The second type of fabrication is to simply photoshop copy and paste images.

Either way, the resulting data fabrication is undeniable once it is noticed. The images are simply too similar (and again, sometimes identical) to be genuine data. Once researchers started pouring through Cao’s other papers, the extensive fraud became obvious. When confronted with this revelation online, Cao responded by first standing behind his work, then stating:

Nevertheless, there is no excuse for any lapse in supervision or laboratory leadership and the concerns you raised serve as a fresh reminder to me just how important my role and responsibility are as mentor, supervisor, and lab leader; and how I might have fallen short.

Wow – you see what he just did there? He simultaneously apologized and took responsibility, but only for failure of supervision. So essentially he is throwing all of the people who work for him under the bus. Either way, however, this is really bad for Cao. Even in the best case scenario, all the fraud was perpetrated by others under his watch. Keep in mind, he is in charge of research integrity for all of China, but apparently can’t keep an eye on his own lab. There are certainly famous cases where research assistants were the ones perpetrating the fraud. Another immunologist, Jacques Benveniste, claimed to have evidence of immunological activity from high “homeopathic” dilutions. An investigation found his results to be highly unreliable at least, and likely straight-up fraudulent (although may have been do to really sloppy techniques and bias). But it also appears that the positive results all seemed to come from one lab assistant, Elizabeth Davenas – certainly a disturbing pattern.

Perhaps a similar pattern will emerge from Cao’s lab, but it seems unlikely that an overzealous assistant can be responsible for data fabrication in 50 published studies. This is clearly a systemic problem.

Continue Reading »

There is an interesting article over at The Conversation asking the question – have humans reached peak intelligence? This is something we have discussed previously on the SGU so I was keen to find out what philosophers think about this question. The core question is this – are there ultimate limits to the ability of humans to think, understand, and hypothesize? If so, are we approaching that limit now? There is also an angle to this the article did not cover directly – is there is limit to our ability to manage complexity (as opposed to just comprehending reality)?

There are different ways to approach this question. From an evolutionary point of view, our ancestors were likely under selective pressure to solve problems of immediate survival, and not to unravel the deep mysteries of the universe. But I don’t think this is ultimately relevant. This is a hyper-adaptationalist approach. It actually doesn’t matter to the ultimate question, because our hands did not evolve to play the piano either. Abilities that evolve for one purpose may be more generally useful. Clearly humans evolved some general cognitive abilities that go way beyond their immediate narrow evolutionary function.

But the broader point is salient – our cognitive abilities are not necessarily unlimited. What if the universe is simply more complex than our brains can comprehend? Take quantum mechanics, for example. The best thinkers we have, specializing in this question, still cannot solve the mystery of duality and apparent non-locality. We have some ideas, but it is possible that our brains are simply not equipped to imagine the true answer. It may be like a cat trying to understand calculus. If this is true, then what would we expect to happen in the course of scientific development? Would we hit a wall?

As they also discuss in the article, I don’t think so. Rather, if we look at the course of scientific development, our ability to do science is progressing, the technology of science, if you will. But at the same time the difficulty, complexity, and subtlety of the problems are increasing. We are having to work harder and harder for progressively smaller returns. Rather than hitting a wall, I agree that we will likely just wade into the molasses. We will keep pushing deeper and deeper into fundamental theories about how the universe works, but progress will become slower and slower. It may never actually stop, but advances will simply come fewer and farther between.

Continue Reading »