Skeptics Guide #971

The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe Skepticast #971 February 13th 2024 Segment #1. Quickie with Bob Metalenses https://phys.org/news/2024-02-optical-mirrors-image-power-human.html Segment #2. News Items News Item #1 – Flow Batteries https://theness.com/neurologicablog/flow-batteries-now-with-nanofluids/ News Item #2 – Green Roofs https://techxplore.com/news/2024-02-green-roofs-cool-cities-energy.html News Item #3 – LEGO MRI Scanner https://mymodernmet.com/lego-mri-scanner/ https://www.hearinglikeme.com/lego-minifigure-with-a-hearing-aid/ News Item #4 – The Circular Collider https://www.universetoday.com/165685/cern-wants-to-build-an-enormous-new-atom-smasher-the-future-circular-collider/ News Item #5 – Mayo Clinic and Reiki https://mcpress.mayoclinic.org/mental-health/my-journey-from-energy-work-skeptic-to-reiki-practitioner/ Segment #3. Who’s That Noisy Segment #4. Name That Logical Fallacy Hi SGU! I am a long time listener to the podcast and a long time OWNER of your first book, but (and I’m afraid to admit this) just getting around to reading it. I just finished the short section on the gamblers fallacy, The idea that if you flip heads five or 10 or 25 times in a row, tails is due, when, in reality, every individual flip has its own 50-50 chance of being either heads or tails, which is not influenced by past events. I have always had a little trouble with this idea, because, while an individual flip absolutely does have an Equal likelihood of landing heads or tails, if we consider an “event“ to be 25 flips, (maybe this isn’t allowed?) Then the likelihood of 25 heads in a row is vanishingly small, and the likelihood of 12 to 14 heads, much much higher, so if halfway through that “event”, you’ve got 12 heads, I would think that the likelihood Of flipping tails at least a few times throughout the second half, does, in fact go up significantly. I think of this as in line with The very well established statistical phenomenon of regression to the mean: While Outlier events and streaks are very much part of Randomness, over time those bumps and spikes tend to smooth out to show more or less the expected distribution. So I guess my question is, is there a conflict between the ideas of the gamblers fallacy and regression to the Mean? Is there not something valid in the idea that, if you’ve flipped heads 10 times in a row, the likelihood of continuing to flip heads on each successive flip, in a sense, does go down? Not because past events influence future ones, perhaps, but rather because we expand our idea of the present to include the very recent past, and the very near future? Aren’t there other probabilities at play than just the single, momentary 50-50 chance of the individual flip? Where am I just a hopeless gambler? Segment #5. 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. Item 1: A recent study shows that older adults are more vulnerable to first impressions of trustworthiness even in the face of contradictory evidence. Item 2: A machine learning analysis correlating road features with accident frequency finds that the most predictive variable for high crash risk is the presence of distracting billboards and other advertisements. Item 3: Researchers find that short and simple corrective statements on social media help readers identify false information. Segment #6. Skeptical Quote of the Week "Starving brains can hallucinate, but even well-fed minds can convince themselves they can feel something which simply isn’t there." - Jonathan Jarry, science communicator, McGill University Office for Science and Society