Comments on: Rogue astronomer!

By: RBH

RBH — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 07:01:54 +0000

In fact, having thought about it whilst walking the dogs just now, it sure sounded to me that you all were being pretty dickish to Yudkowsky, laughing and giggling and calling him a solipsist, when what he said was exactly the reverse of solipsism. I suggest (since your mocking was in a public podcast) that you offer him a public apology.

By: RBH

RBH — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 05:47:09 +0000

I just got a chance to listen to this one. I think you guys did Eliezer Yudkowsky a disservice. Let me repeat the quotation as it was read on the podcast:

The correspondence between reality and my beliefs comes from reality controlling my beliefs, not the other way around.

Isn’t that precisely what we want, that reality (empirical evidence, etc.) is important in controlling our beliefs about the world, rather than our beliefs controlling our perceptual construct of the world? The latter is the Answers in Genesis ‘we all use the same evidence, we just start from different presuppositions than the evolutionists’ argument.

I’m afraid you perceptive skeptics missed that big-time. It was far from solipsism.

By: John Sandlin

John Sandlin — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 22:16:58 +0000

@ Chris A: Don’t tell me people read OMNI for science content! I read it for the science fiction… that’s pretty much how I took that whole magazine.

By: Sili

Sili — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 17:24:36 +0000

Only heard half of it so far (ran out of washing up to do), but that neutrino/radioactive decay reminded me why I occasionally get infuriated with the SGU. Too much gushing and wild speculation and next to no attempt at getting some facts. They may know a lot about medicine and skepticism, but they can be such annoying fanbois when it comes to physics.

Good on you for doubting these results, but even if you were ‘just’ a guest, I think you could have improved the episode by being a dick and telling them to shut up and get some data and expertise instead of going off the rails, dreaming of NEW PHYSICS ZOMG!

They rightly mocked the “Darwin was wrong!” headline, yet they don’t see that this is nearly as much of a “Becquerel was wrong!” headline.

/whining

By: DreamDevil

DreamDevil — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 11:30:24 +0000

Gratz, Phil. SGU is by far the best podcast out there. I went through 250 eps from the archive before I caught up and now eagerly await every new episode.

By: Buzz Parsec

Buzz Parsec — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 05:00:45 +0000

@jcm, me too. If you see some guy walking around Fresh Pond arguing with his iPod, … (I just got to the one in Sept 05 with the guy from Junk Science arguing against AGW. He was ahead of the curve, saying “well, maybe it’s happening, but who’s to say it’s not GOOD?”)

By: YK Lim

YK Lim — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:50:38 +0000

@Chris A. ah…I had to look up Omni magazine, but now I see what you mean.. I kinda agree.

On the Kaku thing, around me I see lots of people who are hanging on to every word he says, enthusiastically sharing his articles/videos on Facebook, and they chose physics as a major because of him. I wonder if this is a good thing or a bad thing…

By: Taiga

Taiga — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:44:51 +0000

Neutrinos! Here’s a story for you, Phil. I’m from Sudbury, Canada, home of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO). Years ago (~1995) the paper ran a story about a local UFO enthusiast who claimed that the Sudbury region had a large number of visits from alien spaceships. One of the reasons he suggested for this was the presence of SNO. Maybe the aliens use neutrinos to power their spaceships and they come to Sudbury to stock up, he speculated. I showed the article to my physics prof, who was as amused as I was. He wrote a reply to the newspaper explaining that SNO just OBSERVES neutrinos, it doesn’t STORE them.

By: alfaniner

alfaniner — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:34:49 +0000

That’s the first podcast I ever heard. Unfortunately, it spoiled me because I thought all the other (non-SGU) ones would be equally as good. I’ve found a few others I like, though, and I have listened to the entire SGU archive.

By: Chris A.

Chris A. — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:44:13 +0000

@YK Lim (#3):
To me, Michio Kaku is to science what Omni magazine was to Nature.