Exposing Pseudoastronomy

Informações:

Sinopsis

Listen to learn the real state of science behind astronomy-, physics-, and geology-related creationist claims, hoaxes, conspiracy theories, misconceptions, and bad or incomplete media reporting.

Episodios

  • Episode 131 - Clip Show #3: Blood Moons, Ceres' Bright Spots, MESSENGER's Death, and Funding in Science Follow-Up

    01/05/2015 Duración: 49min

    A lot of small threads are discussed in this episodes: The latest lunar eclipse and its relation to the Blood Moons phenomenon, the bright spots on Ceres and conspiracies surrounding them, MESSENGER's crash landing into Mercury, and a follow-up to the Pamela Gay interview about funding in science. Also in this episode is my - and listeners' - tribute to Leonard Nimoy.

  • Episode 130 - Dealing with Pseudoscience at Scientific Conferences

    16/04/2015 Duración: 59min

    Who can present at a scientific conference is often shrouded in mystery to non-scientists, and it is viewed as an Ivory Gate by pseudoscientists. In this episode, we hear from the program committee chair of the largest planetary science conference in the world, Dr. Dave Draper, about how selections are made and what happens when ideas against the mainstream are submitted for presentations at these meetings.

  • Episode 129 - The Saga of Comet Hale-Bopp and its Fugacious Companion, Part 3

    01/04/2015 Duración: 38min

    Comet Hale-Bopp put on a fantastic display for Earth-bound skywatchers for over two years, often considered "the" comet of the 20th century. But, conspiracies and fear marred the event and led to the suicide of 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult. In this Part 3 of 3 episodes, I discuss the cult's belief system, their suicide, and the continued pseudoscience about Comet Hale-Bopp after their deaths.

  • Episode 128 - The Saga of Comet Hale-Bopp and its Fugacious Companion, Part 2

    16/03/2015 Duración: 40min

    Comet Hale-Bopp put on a fantastic display for Earth-bound skywatchers for over two years, often considered "the" comet of the 20th century. But, conspiracies and fear marred the event and led to the suicide of 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult. In this Part 2 of 3 episodes, I discuss how decidedly unceientific claims and methods were used to divine information that became a key component of the mythology.

  • Episode 127 - The Saga of Comet Hale-Bopp and its Fugacious Companion, Part 1

    01/03/2015 Duración: 01h06min

    Comet Hale-Bopp put on a fantastic display for Earth-bound skywatchers for over two years, often considered "the" comet of the 20th century. But, conspiracies and fear marred the event and led to the suicide of 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult. In this Part 1 of 3 episodes, I discuss the photographic claims of a companion object and their eventual reveal as a misunderstanding and fraud.

  • Episode 126 - The Facts and Misconceptions Behind Funding in Science, with Dr. Pamela Gay

    16/02/2015 Duración: 54min

    The issue of funding in science is near and dear to my heart ... or, perhaps to my grocery, rent, and utility bills. Most people who are not in science do not know - and have many misconceptions about - how research scientists get funding and what they do with it. In this episode, I interview and discuss with Dr. Pamela Gay this significant issue and why it is a larger issue than many realize.

  • Episode 125 - The Black Hole Conspiracy

    01/02/2015 Duración: 44min

    Black holes seem like a given in popular culture: They exist, they have to, right? Well, some people claim they don't. In this episode, we go through the theoretical underpinnings for black holes, some of the observational evidence for their existence, and examine some of the claims made by credentialed and practicing physicists who state that black holes cannot exist.

  • Episode 124 - The Astronomical Distance Ladder

    16/01/2015 Duración: 56min

    Measuring distance in every-day life requires some basic tools like a ruler. But who holds the other end when we want to measure the distance to the next galaxy? In response to young-Earth creationist claims, this episode delves into some of the science of how we measure distances across the cosmos and how all those different measurements fit together in what we call the Astronomical Distance Ladder.

  • Episode 123 - The Science and Pseudoscience of Communicating with Aliens

    01/01/2015 Duración: 01h03min

    Lingust, Dr. Karen Stollznow, discusses some of the communication problems on our own planet and how that translates to the huge potential problems of communicating with any type of intelligent creature who originated off our planet. We used this information to discuss some claimed contactees and how linguists have debunked their claimed communication with aliens.

  • Episode 122 - Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and Rosetta Conspiracies

    16/12/2014 Duración: 31min

    The Rosetta mission with a destination of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko has faced numerous conspiracies circulating throughout the internet (and even more mispronunciations of its target). In this episode, I talk about a few of them.

  • Episode 121 - James McCanney's Views on Other Stuff in the Universe, Part 2

    01/12/2014 Duración: 55min

    I've listened to Coast to Coast AM for many years, and one of the repeating guests I have not yet talked about on this show is James McCanney. His ideas can broadly be classified as falling into the Electric Universe model, and he is best known for his ideas about comets. While Part 1 dealt with those cometary ideas exclusively, this Part 2 deals with his ideas regarding Venus, the Big Bang, the Apollo moon landings, Planet X, weather, and conspiracies in general.

  • Episode 120 - James McCanney's Views on Comets, Part 1

    16/11/2014 Duración: 51min

    I have listened to Coast to Coast AM for many years, and one of the repeating guests I have not yet talked about on this show is James McCanney. His ideas can broadly be classified as falling into the Electric Universe model, and he is best known for his ideas about comets. It is these cometary ideas that are the focus of this Part 1 episode.

  • Episode 119 - The Norway Spiral

    01/11/2014 Duración: 20min

    On December 9, 2009, a strange spiral anomaly appeared in the skies over Trondelag, Norway, and Northern Norway, a day before President Barack Obama arrived to accept his Nobel Peace Prize. As with other weird, unexplained events, this gigantic blue- and yellow/or/white-glowing spiral has become a pet example of many different fill-in-the-blank paranormal phenomena.

  • Episode 118 - The Big Mars Hoax / The Two Moons Hoax

    16/10/2014 Duración: 26min

    "Come one, come all! See the never-before-seen and never-to-be-seen again phenomenon of two moons in the sky, when Mars appears as large as the moon! This August 27 ... don't miss it!" So the paraphrased claim goes. And goes around every August. I don't seem to recall seeing Mars as big as the Moon in the sky, so in this episode I explore the origins of the claim and why it can never be true.

  • Episode 117 - Eyewitness Accounts and UFOs, Interview with Dr. Elizabeth Loftus

    01/09/2014 Duración: 28min

    The majority of UFO = aliens reports today - if not in quality then at least in quantity - come from simple eyewitness testimony. People often point to "trained observers" as being key witnesses, such as police officers or pilots. But, skeptics tend to dismiss these reports, and in this episode, Dr. Elizabeth Loftus shares her research into the fallibility and manipulability of human memory, with implications for why this kind of testimony is not considered good evidence.

  • Episode 116 - The Electric Universe, Part 2, with Dr. Tom Bridgman

    21/07/2014 Duración: 57min

    Continuing from Part 1 which was a broad introduction to the Electric Universe concept, in this episode we delve into four different Electric Universe models for the Sun and explore whether the direct predictions made based upon those models bear out in observations.

  • Episode 115 - The Electric Universe, Part 1, with Dr. Tom Bridgman

    11/07/2014 Duración: 01h09min

    When originally formulated, the Electric Universe umbrella of ideas was a serious area of investigation. And Dr. Tom Bridgman describes many of the early tests that were done ... and why they failed. In this Part 1, we discuss a lot of these early ideas, tests, and a general overview of the Electric Universe.

  • Episode 114 - Ethics in Science, with Special Guest Interview, Dr. Jeffrey Robbins

    01/07/2014 Duración: 54min

    This episode was spurred by the #FacebookExperiment where researchers tried to influence moods of about 700,000 people, without their explicit knowledge or consent. Using that as a starting point, I interview my father (Dr. Jeffrey Robbins) about ethics in science and especially in human research. I then talk about my take on the subject and bring it back to ethics in general, and contrast that with pseudoscientists.

  • Episode 113 - The Blue-Haze Limb of Mars

    21/06/2014 Duración: 30min

    The True Color of Mars conspiracy was dispelled in Episode 74, but a niggling part remained: What about the haze of blue around the limb of Mars seen in many photos of it from Earth orbit, especially from the Hubble Space Telescope? This part of the conspiracy has a surprising result -- it's true!

  • Episode 112 - Is Mercury's Magnetic Field Decaying? Does that Prove Recent Creation?

    11/06/2014 Duración: 24min

    In 2008, and ever since, young-Earth creationists have claimed that MESSENGER spacecraft results from the planet Mercury indicate that Mercury's magnetic field has been decreasing, in-line with creationist Russell Humphreys' prediction back in 1984. Find out if the data support this, and if there are other explanations. Or, if we need to throw out an old Mercury for a recently created one.

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