Skeptics Guide #994

The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe Skepticast #994 July 24th 2024 Segment #1. What’s the Word Calculus Segment #2. News Items News Item #1 – Water Harvesting https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/07/240723182005.htm News Item #2 – Chimp Conversation Speed https://cosmosmagazine.com/nature/animals/chimpanzees-gestures-speed/ News Item #3 – Dark Oxygen https://www.npr.org/2024/07/24/nx-s1-5049587/scientists-dark-oxygen-without-photosynthesis News Item #4 – Nuclear Clock https://www.iflscience.com/we-just-took-a-step-closer-to-building-the-first-nuclear-clocks-69115 News Item #5 – New Creationism Poll https://news.gallup.com/poll/647594/majority-credits-god-humankind-not-creationism.aspx Segment #3. Who’s That Noisy Segment #4. Name That Logical Fallacy Dr. Steve - You’ve had emails conversations in the past with a Tim Dowling. That’s my dad. 🙂 Long time listener, first time writer. Thanks for all you do. You’ve beee a big influence in my life and how I look at the world. But to the point. I had a big religious conversation with my sister this evening. Much of the discussion was about if God (evangelical Christian interpretation) is logical. She was back and forth, but eventually settled on God being logical. She then qualified that by saying, “we just don’t always understand it.” The example we were anchoring one was how God could be in control of everything yet let things happen that are not of his will. That sounds illogical to me. You’re either in control of everything, and everything that happens is your will, or you aren’t and it’s not. But that’s a discussion for another day. First question, but not the real one I’m asking, what logical fallacy is “we just don’t understand it?" Maybe moving the goal posts? Now for the real question. It seems to me that she is really just conflating the words “logic” and “reasons.” I'm 100% happy with the statement “we just don’t understand the reason God does things.” But “God is logical, we just don’t always understand it” doesn’t sit right. Isn’t the very nature of logic knowable? If you don’t follow someone’s logic, it isn’t because it’s a mystery or unknowable. You just need more info to understand it. Granted, we can’t ask God questions, but we can look at the Bible and get that knowledge - to a degree at least. I don’t think my sister would say, “we can’t know God’s logic because there isn’t enough information in the Bible.” Bottom line - what is the nature of logic? Can it be unknowable? I know there is probably a lot of unstated baggage with this question. I’m not trying to ask a religious question. For the record, I’m a diest at best. And I don’t find the Christian God terribly logical. Or if he is, it’s not a logic I want any part of. Thanks! Tim. Segment #5. Your Questions and E-mails Hey gang, I really enjoyed episode 993 but I wanted to make a small correction to something that was said regarding piling up regolith on top of lunar habitats to protect from space radiation: "...if you made a protective structure on a moon base with two to three feet of mooncrete on the outside, that would go a long way towards protecting you from radiation." It turns out that when incoming radiation enters shielding around a habitat, it can react with atoms in the shielding and produce secondary radiation. The counter-intuitive thing is that this secondary radiation can actually be more penetrating and harmful to the occupants of the habitat than the original primary radiation. So in order to effectively shield a habitat, you don't just need sufficient shielding to stop incoming cosmic rays and what-not, but you also need enough shielding to shield against the spallation neutrons and other secondary nasties that the cosmic rays generate within the shielding. Some folks working on NASA's In Situ Resource Utilization efforts estimated that the *break-even* point for piled up lunar regolith (where the effective dose within the habitat was the same as if there were no habitat shielding at all) could be as high as 7-9 METERS of regolith. After that, your shielding starts to actually be effective. GO LAVA TUBES! Thanks for everything you do, -Mouser Nuclear Engineer, Los Alamos National Laboratory 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. Theme: Item 1: A recent analysis finds that the teeth of Komodo dragons are coated with iron to help maintain their strength and cutting edge. Item 2: An extensive study finds that for about half of the sites analyzed, the cost per ton of carbon removal is lower when just letting the land naturally regenerate than planting trees. Item 3: A recent study finds that the ability to recognize a previously heard piece of music significantly decreases with age in older adults. Segment #7. Skeptical Quote of the Week "One of my biggest pet peeves is when people use science that they don't understand to try to justify their stupidity and hate.” ― Forrest Valkai