Hi folks. Can anyone advise on how to get the ad-free episodes to play through Apple Podcasts instead of the Patreon app? Is there even possible? Thank you.

In the last show Cara mentioned being fine at 40 but having an existential crisis at 41. I'm a few weeks older than her so recently turned 41 myself and didn't experience it this time, but had a very similar experience with turning 30/31. At the time I put it down to the linguistic difference between "being 30" and "being in my 30s". Somehow the latter one just sounds a lot older😅

I just heard about this AI from YouAreNotSoSmart and it's pretty damn interesting. I love the concept. I'm wondering if anyone has tried to use it irl

Steve mentioned at the end of the latest episode that's he's going to Dubai for a skeptical conference. Does anyone have any more information about it?

This is extremely nitpicky, but something I noticed in science or fiction this week drove me crazy the whole time. Cuneiform wasn't a Chinese script, and therefore should have been an immediate clue that that was the fiction. I know that most people are only vaguely aware of writing systems that old but this happened to cross over with an area of study I find particularly interesting. Hearing, I think it was Jay, refer to Gilgamesh and not pick up on the cuneiform bit was particularly irksome. Rant over, have a nice day.

After listening to this week’s episode I would love to hear the rouge’s coin new terms for phenomena that are common on the show.

Another podcaster that I love has coined several terms that come up frequently on the podcast. They’ve even been successful enough for some of their terms to enter the common vernacular.

I’ve heard the rouge’s talk about GMOs enough that I feel like a term for mass produced commercial products such as the commercial tomato’s (from this week’s show) very much needed. Something that really drives home that the food/crop isn’t different because it’s a GMO but because it’s a mass produced product made to taste something akin to a McDonald’s hamburger. So bland that taste is not really a thing.

Perhaps an acronym or something similar. If for no other reason than I want a good term to use for that type of food without sounding like I’m some kind of crack pot food babe or someone like that.

Listening to this I couldn't help but think of the Lucy Letby trial. The amount of material that the prosecution put forward was 100 or 1000 times what the defense used.

Anyone notice how the rogues are promoting VPNs with the claim that they can help you save money on hotels and airfare (vs. digital subscriptions)? This hasn't been true for around 10 years or so, if it ever was. In some rare cases you may save a few bucks. But you generally can't save substantial money using this "hack" so it burns me when VPN companies make this claim. If you claim substantial travel savings, please provide detailed examples.

UPDATE: I've never saved money using a VPN to purchase a single hotel room or flight. Any savings I may have seen during tests may have been illusory. I've never found any savings while trying to book actual travel. Let's discuss the claim and support it with evidence if it's true in some meaningful way (consistent and substantial savings on travel using a VPN).

https://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcasts/episode-874

Evan is owed a win. Item 3 should have been fiction, But was revealed as science.

Item #3 Science 83% of cumulative CO2 emissions since 1850 were produced prior to 1990.

I had to check this because it implied that 1850-1990 had just as high carbon intensity as 1990-2019 goes against everything we know about increases in consumption.

The report he references as the source on the show says the following. He simply mixed up the dates. He should have stated 1850-2010 a s 2010 to 2019. Would have made a lot more sense.

B.1.3 Historical cumulative net CO2 emissions from 1850 to 2019 were 2400±240 GtCO2 (high confidence). Of these, more than half (58%) occurred between 1850 and 1989 [1400±195 GtCO2], and about 42% between 1990 and 2019 [1000±90 GtCO2]. About 17% of historical cumulative net CO2 emissions since 1850 occurred between 2010 and 2019 [410±30 GtCO2]. [FOOTNOTE 10]

https://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcasts/episode-898

The special guest David was right...

Item #1 Science A survey of 48 coastal cities finds that they are sinking at an average rate of 16.2 mm per year, with the fastest at 43 mm per year. (For reference, average global sea level rise is 3.7 mm per year.) https://www.ntu.edu.sg/news/detail/rapid-land-sinking-leaves-global-cities-vulnerable-to-rising-seas

Although the press release cited supports this item as science, there was a significant error in this press release. The 16.2mm per year median is the median for Ho Chi Min, which also contains an areas with the fastest drop of 43mm per year. The 48 cities all have their own medians between (-16.2 and 1.1mm per year).

Source: The Nature article's abstract states "RLLS is also more variable across the 48 cities (−16.2 to 1.1 mm per year)". The -16.2 only applies to a singular city, whereas at the other end of the range another city actually sees an average of 1.1mm (so it is rising). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-022-00947-z

The supplementary information shows the median values in each of the 48 cities. They match the −16.2 to 1.1 mm per year range, but also the median of the medians is -1.0mm and the average of medians is -1.96mm. So -1.0 vs -16.2mm is an order of magnitude different and David deserved a win.

https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41893-022-00947-z/MediaObjects/41893_2022_947_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

Article in bloomberg published recently talks about the cost and, in the authors opinion, unnecessary element of taking a human back to the moon. What are everyone's thoughts?

The main gist is that NASA's Artemis project is way over schedule, way over budget, and incorporates the delivery of people to the moon, which they argue is unnecessary since we can do most everything with a rover nowadays.

Hey team,

As a parent with an autoinjector and someone who has used it. I was shocked to hear that there is evidence that they are ineffective at preventing death. My child had stopped breathing and then immediately started breathing after the injection and 7 minutes later the ambulance arrived to administer more epinepherin. It was clear to me that this injection reduce my son's risk of death.

This situation reminded me of the old addage there has never been a placebo control trial of a parachute. Similarly, defibrilation has never gone through such a trial. The evidence is simply that someone was dying and then they're weren't.

So I went to look at the paper. One of the pieces of evidence they lean on is that while epipen usage is going up, the deaths are remaining constant.

https://preview.redd.it/20300cqtv0wd1.png?width=500&format=png&auto=webp&s=a7a6cda7cf1c9a7fca81941a648f622e05480d64

https://preview.redd.it/ryy10r6qv0wd1.png?width=500&format=png&auto=webp&s=dfe31ec75ce46990f6d219091289d5536c391721

That seem pretty clear right?

But I would suggest we need a couple more graphs to get the full picture.

https://preview.redd.it/wyctcw7sw0wd1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=e52008a5afc52ab9387c3f7f7c89e5d33b0decc8

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/10/03/the-prevalence-of-peanut-allergy-has-trebled-in-15-years

https://preview.redd.it/oa0nth48w0wd1.png?width=850&format=png&auto=webp&s=4c8540c4a38526749c8c77a6276de93da9d372f3

Salter SM, Marriott RJ, Murray K, Stiles SL, Bailey P, Mullins RJ, Sanfilippo FM. Increasing anaphylaxis events in Western Australia identified using four linked administrative datasets. World Allergy Organ J. 2020 Nov 13;13(11):100480. doi: 10.1016/j.waojou.2020.100480. PMID: 33294113; PMCID: PMC7677753.

https://preview.redd.it/8yts5fu3w0wd1.png?width=861&format=png&auto=webp&s=cfa9f040d2ff7f6fabb68fc5ed8766744d4bbf32

Turner PJ, Campbell DE, Motosue MS, Campbell RL. Global Trends in Anaphylaxis Epidemiology and Clinical Implications. J Allergy Clin Immunol Pract. 2020 Apr;8(4):1169-1176. doi: 10.1016/j.jaip.2019.11.027. Epub 2019 Nov 28. PMID: 31786255; PMCID: PMC7152797.

So another way to interpret the former study is, that while allergies and analphylaxis have been increasing massively (as much as 5 fold!), we have not seen an increase in fatalities. That seems pretty good to me. And that seems to be important context.

Okay … so it took me until today to realise this was actually the Skeptics Guide to the Universe … and not a Star Gate Universe sub. Here I was thinking you were all Star Gate fans that were really just in to AI and LLMs 😳😩🤦🏼‍♀️

TL;DR: The topic of LLMs are/aren't a big step towards AGI had a lot of questionable statements stemming from possible misunderstanding of how LLM/AI/brain work.

I love Jay, but I think this latest episode missed the mark in this segment. I honestly don't even know what the point was. It started with a statement that some scientists think LLM is a big step towards AGI but the rest of it sounded like Jay's personal opinions on the subject. But to do that you need a pretty solid math and software background, and if you don't - the skeptics and sci-com 101 say "just cover what experts said". But there were no references or quotes of actual experts in the field..

"LLM just regurgitates" - how often can you say that whatever your opinion is is your own and is not a result from the knowledge taken from other people? Our brains regurgitate all the time. It's the most effective way to process the information and it would be weird if we didn't do that. Energy-wise.

"LLM just does statistics" - what's that supposed to convey? Our brain does that - connections become stronger the more often they are activated (among other things). That's pretty much - being driven by statistics. So why is this an argument against LLM being AGI?

The whole topic of "common sense". It's literally the most common answer you'd encounter in the body of knowledge of a society. That's exactly what LLMs do and do great. The whole issue on the path to AGI is to not do common sense, but to do actual logic. Maybe "common logic" is what was implied, but that's a totally different thing, and would probably result in a completely different discussion.

The examples were inadequate too, in my opinion. It takes 30 seconds to ask chat gpt why coffee gets cold and it explains it very well. You can ask to walk you through step by step what's happening and why, and it will tell you. Like Steve said multiple times before, you cannot tell if the system is AGI or not by just looking at the answers it gives you. LLMs currently WILL give you all the answers that make them seem AGI, while they are not. But your examples do not expose that. LLM totally knows what a "cheat day" is and will give you a proper answer (try it). But on the other hand, "cheat day" is not "common sense". Being from a non-US culture, I don't know what "cheat day" is and would be stumped by that question. Am I less AGI than Chat GPT?

With all that said, I do think LLMs are not AGI and will not become AGI simply by getting more training data. But the (emergent) thing they do, is converting the body of knowledge captured in written language, into mathematical/computer entities that can be operated on. And just that one thing could be a huge step to AGI. It's the ability to store and process knowledge and concepts (and not just combinations of letters) that brings a new power to these systems.

Have the skeptics ever covered this topic?

In Quebec it has had a history of being highly contested, however the scientific consensus does seem to be solidly FOR fluoride in drinking water.

The last remaining municipalities, still adding it in Montreal, will cease shortly. One interviewed politician says "We should check with the experts" which seems like a very reasonable approach. While another cites a new American study linking much higher fluoride levels to low IQ.

https://youtu.be/aKDYSuSkIqA?si=SX5ZXBVimOr91CQU

On a related note, Quebec was once known for it's citizens having very poor dental health, but I can't find a source.

https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/google-nuclear-power-artificial-intelligence-87966624?st=sGoEcF&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

The nuclear green energy dream is not dead.

Here is some nice take down of it on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BacklogReviewer/status/1846217255052357782

But I personally liked the most the fact, that in the clip he posted to advertise this scam he is wearing the amulet and a wireless microphone at the same time ;-)

What is the source Steve used for the epipen science or fiction?

It runs afoul of decades of research that shows that a pair of epipens administered ~15 minutes apart reduces the likelihood of a bad outcome, including death, upon arrival at an emergency room. People who don't receive Epinephrine injections within 30 minutes of the onset of symptoms are more likely to die than those who do. And among those who live, outcomes are better with early EpiPen use.

It seems like none of the rogues have been trained on EpiPen use (at least not recently). The instructions clearly state ALL of the limitations that they brought up, and calling 911/rushing the person to an ER, as well as administering additional doses every 5-15 minutes, are explicit steps included in the instructions for EpiPens -- which, I might add, are sold in packs of two for precisely this reason.

The prevalence of severe allergies has increased over the past 40 years. If epipens did nothing, I would expect anaphylaxis deaths to be increasing, not remaining stable. In addition, EpiPen usage is not common, with a minority of people experiencing anaphylaxis receiving early autoinjections. This makes the use of overall anaphylaxis deaths rates even more suspect as a line of reasoning to question the effectiveness of EpiPens. People aren't using them.

Frankly, I think it's dangerous to suggest that EpiPens don't work. We don't need even more resistance to their use. They don't cure anaphylaxis, but that's never been the intention. The scientific literature says they absolutely save lives.

E.g., https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(16)30795-1/fulltext

When I was listening to the "dumbest thing of the week" I was wondering what the sonar image looked like. It is a fish finder image, I found it online. What nobody knew, was that these screen readouts are just vertical slices, ie. Snapshots. Horizontal axis is time, with newest slice all the way to the right. Vertical axis is depth. The image in question strikes me as two scans of the same object, next to each other, as each scan is a separate vertical slice image. So, it wasn't two main blobs, just the same one twice. Anyone else familiar with reading fish finder screen output, can concur? Maybe I'm wrong, and this screen shot showed a larger object once, instead of what I think is just a duplicate reading?

#blobsquatch

I'm just wondering if today's episode, which should be 1005 I believe, has arrived for anyone? I don't think an episode has ever dropped this late in the day, and I'm wondering if something is up with my podcast app.