Skeptics Guide #802

The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe Skepticast #802 November 18th 2020 Segment #1. COVID-19 Update https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/modernas-covid-vaccine/ Segment #2. News Items News Item #1 – Resisting Facial Recognition https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03188-2 News Item #2 – Farming Mars https://www.sciencenews.org/article/mars-farming-harder-martian-regolith-soil News Item #3 – Sound Beaming I suggested this on Monday: https://apnews.com/article/new-tech-device-sound-beaming-noveto-38327ae5fe116080a5eaf2374eb0f5c8 News Item #4 – Hydrogen from Ammonia https://phys.org/news/2020-11-technique-seamlessly-ammonia-green-hydrogen.html Segment #3: Who’s That Noisy Segment #4: Your Questions and E-mails Question #1: Rankine Scale Segment #5: Name That Logical Fallacy I have had many conversations with friends and family, and I have run into the same issue on many occasions. Someone will disregard a piece if information based solely on the source. "CNN said this, so it must be fake," of "It was on Fox, so I don't believe it." I hear this from both my "red" and "blue" friends. My response is to explain what I call the "Hitler Weatherman Fallacy." If Hitler comes on TV and says it is raining, and it is in fact raining outside, you would be foolish to leave your umbrella at home solely based on the source. Believing Hitler that it is raining doesn't make you a Nazi. Sometimes the bad guy can give a correct piece if information, and it is ok evaluate and accept it without endorsing their entire world view. I'm sure I have stolen the logic from an existing logical fallacy and just applied my own label to it. Can you tell me which logical fallacy I have ripped off, and is there a less clunky way to explain it? Love the show! Thanks for everything!!! Ben Brown Arab, AL Segment #6. Science or Fiction Each week our host will come up with three science news items or facts, two genuine, one fictitious. He will challenge our panel of skeptics to sniff out the fake – and you can play along. #1) A study in mice uses a new CRISPR technique called CRISPR-LNP for “lipid nanoparticle” to attack cancer cells, increasing survival by 30% in glioblastoma and 80% in ovarian cancer. #2) A recent test of AI natural language processing (NLP) was able to generate coherent sentences from a list of common nouns and verbs that could not be distinguished from human-generated sentences by test subjects. #3) Scientists report a new technique for forming regular gem diamonds at room temperature in only minutes. Segment #7. Skeptical Quote of the Week "One reason we must have a moral regard for the idea of reasonable communication is that caring passionately about truth, about accuracy, and about the proper relationships of statements, will diminish errors and ignorance and other kinds of foolishness." Steve Allen