SIO498: The Science of Hallucinations, Ear-worms, and Phantom Limbs
Release Date: 11/26/2025
SIO522: College Is Impossibly Expensive. But It's Not Because of Bogus Degrees.
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Part 2! Thomas is joined again by David O'Brien, a higher education policy scholar with the California Community Colleges system, to finish dismantling The Daily's take on Trump's student loan crackdown. Reagan, Pell Grants, and decades of quiet state defunding all get their due, plus a theory on why tuition keeps climbing that has nothing to do with cosmetology degrees. Mentioned: Are you an expert in something and want to be on the show? ! Please support the show on Patreon! You get ad-free episodes, early episodes, and other bonus content!
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SIO521: The Daily Is Sane-Washing Trump's War on Higher Ed
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Thomas is joined by David O'Brien, a higher education policy scholar who works for the California Community Colleges system, to pick apart Trump's new rules threatening to cut off student loans and Pell grants from "low-earning" degree programs, and to fact-check The Daily's recent take on the same story. The real history runs through Reagan, Prop 13, and decades of quiet austerity nobody on that podcast wants to mention. Mentioned: Are you an expert in something and want to be on the show? ! Please support the show on Patreon! You get ad-free episodes, early episodes, and...
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SIO520: My Talk at SkeptiCal - Selective Skepticism Is Not Skepticism
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Thanks so much to the folks at SkeptiCal for inviting me! Though the talk does deal with the Butler shooting, I thought some way different stuff for this including a ridiculously overwrought hypothetical, my favorite kind! And, I found a Young Turks video where they are apparently Joe Rogan now!
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SIO519: People Are Misinterpreting Obsession in Very Revealing Ways
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The "nice guy" is the villain. We watched Obsession and cannot stop thinking about it. It has so much to say about gender, consent, "nice guys" and more. And it scarred Lydia for life. WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS. Are you an expert in something and want to be on the show? ! Please support the show on Patreon! You get ad-free episodes, early episodes, and other bonus content!
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SIO518: Biological Definitions Do Not Do What Richard Dawkins Says They Do
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Thomas is joined by Dr. Eric Jaffe, biologist, dinosaur enthusiast, and high school biology teacher, for a conversation that starts with a deceptively simple question: what are biological definitions actually doing? It turns out that biology is far more like history than math, and that difference has enormous consequences for anyone trying to weaponize phrases like "the biological definition of sex." Dr. Jaffe walks through why definitions in inductive sciences are descriptive, not prescriptive, and what that means for species, chromosomes, fungi, LeBron James, and trans people. "Exceptions...
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SIO517: How Is It That 9 Days in Space Means Weeks of Rehabilitation?
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Thomas is joined by Dr. Jenessa Seymour to dig into the brain science behind a surprisingly strange phenomenon: why do astronauts who spent just nine days in space need weeks of physical therapy to walk normally again? The answer turns out to involve ancient calcium carbonate ear stones, the same material crabs use for shells, a multi-layered sensory system your brain is constantly running without your knowledge, and a wild evolutionary theory about why motion sickness exists at all. Also: why pilots fly perfectly good planes directly into the ground, and what deaf NASA research...
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SIO516: How a Botched 1840 Census "Proved" Freedom Made Black Americans Disabled, with Sari Altschuler
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The history of disability rights is often treated as a modern story, but what if that framing misses centuries of earlier, more complicated history? This week, Thomas is joined by Professor Sari Altschuler, Associate Professor of English at Northeastern University, to explore her new book Before Disability: A History of American Citizenship. In the book, Professor Altschuler traces how disability and citizenship have been intertwined since the founding of the United States, and what that reveals about who America decided belonged and who didn't. In the early Republic, many physical and mental...
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SIO515: A Vast, Global Network! ... of 3 Guys
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Continuing the discussion of the CNN Rape Academy article. It gets even worse. And also, how our information environment is ruined and getting ruineder.
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SIO514: No Part of the "62 Million Men Enrolled In Online Rape Academy" Claim Was Correct
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You might have seen the CNN article from a while back entitled . While most of the article is technically true, the broad takeaway that virtually everyone had (including me) was wildly, irresponsibly false. Even if you came across debunks of this, there's a good chance that I'm debunking this even more than you've seen. I don't think people have fully grasped how misleading it was.
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SIO513: Debunking Butler Conspiracy Theories in Descending Order by Scope
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We continue the pruning of idiotic Butler Shooting conspiracy theories. Once we establish the facts using actual sources, what room is there left for a conspiracy or staging theory?
info_outlineDr. Jenessa Seymour is on to teach us more about the brain! What do hallucinations, ear-worms, and phantom limbs have in common? And is "hallucinating" really a good term for what AI does when it makes something up?