Skeptics Guide #1065

The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe Skepticast #1064 December 4th 2025 Segment #1. News Items News Item #1 – Cognitive Legos https://theness.com/neurologicablog/cognitive-legos/ News Item #2 – China’s Planting Lots of Trees https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/plants/china-has-planted-so-many-trees-its-changed-the-entire-countrys-water-distribution News Item #3 – Misinformation and Birth Control https://undark.org/2025/11/24/misinformation-birth-control/ News Item #4 – Dark Matter Detection https://futurism.com/space/scientists-detected-dark-matter-first-time News Item #5 – Asteroid Bennu Ingredients for Life https://www.newscientist.com/article/2506650-asteroid-bennu-carries-all-the-ingredients-for-life-as-we-know-it/ Segment #2. Who’s That Noisy https://youtube.com/shorts/OPsVAT3SMCs?si=wzPZ9osDQcbTXtik Segment #3. Your Questions and E-mails Question #1: Climate Denial Recently my father, who has been an extremely well read individual with a degree in law and philosophy, has been diving deeper and deeper into what we would consider fringe or even pseudoscience. His latest target is climate. The issue for me is that he's generally a very clever man that thinks critically about things, so for him to come out and say things like this is concerning for me. He has linked me to this article in a move that seems like it's on the path to full on climate denial. Is there some kind of logical fallacy in this article or is it otherwise debunkable in some other way that I'm missing. I'd love to get your take on it. Thank you for all that you do. Best Sam Sareen https://climaterealists.ca/climate-science-is-not-traditional-science-so-how-can-it-be-settled/ https://theness.com/neurologicablog/is-climate-science-post-normal-science/ Question #2: Cardiac Calcium Scans I’ve been listening to your show for a really long time and even bought your book. I saw my doctor today and paraphrased your segment about Cardiac Calcuim Scans and to her as I’m a 50 y.o generally healthy person with similar cholesterol numbers as Steve and Cara stated in the segment and I’m on a statin drug. Imagine my embarrassment when my doctor told me that Cardiac Calcuim Scans are basically a scam and whoever told me about them was most likely a paid spokesperson for a testing corporation. She went on to explain pseudoscience to me and how to recognize when I’m being duped. This was doubly embarrassing because I’ve been involved in the skeptic community for almost 2 decades and considered you guys to be a solid source for legit medical science. A case can be made that I should have researched CCS before mentioning it to my doctor rather than just trusting your word. Lesson learned. Your book is in my recycle bin and I will not repeat this mistake. Thank you for reminding me to never be complacent and never trust any experts without evidence. Ryan Boddy Segment #4. 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: Researchers find that small mechanical mice were effective deterrents to keep elephants away from crops in Botswana. Item 2: A recent systematic review finds that 20-30% of the world’s population have “biophobia”, which is a general aversion to nature. Item 3: A new study finds that plants and phytoplankton have an internal mechanism to detoxify methymercury and convert it back into atmospheric mercury, providing a potential pathway to reduce mercury in the food supply. Segment #5. Skeptical Quote of the Week "There is, of course, another sort of disagreement, which is owing merely to inequalities of knowledge. The relatively ignorant often wrongly disagree with the relatively learned about matters exceeding their knowledge. The more learned, however, have a right to be critical of errors made by those who lack relevant knowledge. Disagreement of this sort can also be corrected. Inequality of knowledge is always curable by instruction." from "How to read a book" by Mortimer J Adler and Charles Van Doren