Just before Norm heads down to San Diego for Comic-Con, we gather to talk about Apple’s new laptops, Samsung’s foldable phone plans, first sightings of Magic Leap, and Netflix’s newly-announced shows! Plus, Kishore answers science questions from listeners!
One Day Builds
Adam embarks on one of his most ambitious builds yet: fulfil…
Show And Tell
Adam recently completed a build of the royal St. Edwards cro…
Making
Viewers often ask to see Adam working in real-time, so this …
One Day Builds
Adam and Norm assemble a beautifully machined replica prop k…
One Day Builds
One of the ways Adam has been getting through lockdown has b…
Making
Adam unboxes and performs a quick test of this novel new hel…
Making
When Adam visited Weta Workshop early last year, he stopped …
One Day Builds
Adam tackles a shop shelf build that he's been putting off f…
Show And Tell
Time for a model kit build! This steampunk-inspired mechanic…
One Day Builds
Adam reveals his surprise Christmas present for his wife--a …
Poor Norm, walking around inside a claustrophobic costume that somebody else sweated profusely in.
Keanu must watches…(prior to Matrix and John Wick) Johnny Mnenomic, Constantine, Devil’s Advocate…
Just so you know: Timberline Lodge is way closer to Portland than Bend – only about 60 miles from downtown.
Also, seasons 1 and 2 of Detectorists are both available via Netflix and Prime, and I agree with Kishore 100% – it is simply wonderful.
No mention of Elon’s latest twitter meltdown?
To quote Erik Stevens, “Is this your King?”
We talk about Elon’s Flint comments on Inquiring Minds this week. But I’ve avoided the deleted tweets, because frankly I don’t have much to meaningfully say. I’m glad he apologized.
He didn’t really apologize though, he kept claiming the diver was lying, made himself out to be a victim that was lashing out in self defense (by referring to the joke about shoving the sub ‘where it hurts’ being a sexually themed personal attack) and in general still painting himself as the hero of this story.
Not to mention that once again, his slanderous tirade was part of an attack on a female journalist, who is still being harassed as a result.
This is the umpteenth time in the past few weeks where he has used his following as a weapon, and it is way past time that Tesla takes real action against him.
Kishore, a better answer to “tweet geek”, regarding the apparent reluctance of [scientists] to investigate things “we don’t understand” would be a correction: Scientists ONLY investigate things that are not well-understood
When a thing is understood, when the question has been answered, it no longer requires study.
As for why scientists may be reluctant to devote resources to “paranormal” phenomena in particular, it is not the lack of evidence for the paranormal that is discouraging. Rather, it is the overwhelming evidence for the mundane. Occam’s razor cuts away hypotheses which require supernatural causes for phenomena which can be adequately explained by natural causes.
Further, falsifiability requires that hypotheses be testable in a way that the supernatural never can be. Science starts with disbelief. If the spirits will only appear for true believers, then how do you test the hypothesis that the medium conducting the seance is other than a fraud? As Dr. Sagan asks, regarding the dragon in his garage. “…what’s the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all?”
As for your soapbox; “science” is not a monolith, “scientist” is not an ontological category, and “these universities” is a glittering generality. The suggested division between scientists — as a category — and some “greater society” does not exist. Scientists belong to the communities, to the societies, in which they live. The practice of science is a function of a society.
It certainly seems as if few people not employed as scientists understand what scientists do. It is also probably true that few scientists devote much time trying to explain the practice of science to laypersons. A possible explanation than this — more likely than the hypothesis that scientists are elitists with no fellow feeling for the non-scientist — is that doing science requires as much time and energy as any other profession. While many do undertake this, is not really fair to ask working scientists also to be advocates for science.