TheESP – Ep. #482 – On the Highway of Misinformation

We have some listener feedback about the name of ‘Grok’ and a tip to sign a very important petition regarding NASA. In TWISH we hear how a timely letter kicked Darwin into action and made him finally publish ‘that book’. We then dig into the news:

• UK: ‘Notable increase’ in scammers tricking people into sending money abroad
• INTERNATIONAL: Retraction Watch’s ‘Sleuths in Residence’
• INTERNATIONAL: More than half of top 100 mental health TikToks contain misinformation
• EU: Gene editing should be allowed in the EU for sustainability
• DENMARK: Paper on ‘wokeness’ and mental health retracted
• GERMANY: Google’s wrong information reeks havoc on the Autobahns

The NHS will make a new gonorrhoea vaccine available in England and Wales and for that they are Really Right.

Enjoy!

Segments: Intro; Greetings; TWISH; News; Really Right; Quote; Outro; Outtakes
 
0:00:27 INTRO

0:00:51 GREETINGS

• Listener feedback: The meaning of ‘Grok’
• Petition to Save NASA Science (open for non-Americans too)
  • The Planetary Society: https://www.planetary.org/advocacy-action-center#/55

0:07:47 TWISH – THIS WEEK IN SKEPTICAL HISTORY

• 3 June 1858: Charles Darwin receives a letter from Alfred Russell Wallace
  • NUS: https://www.science.nus.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/THE.pdf

0:17:53 NEWS

• UK: ‘Notable increase’ in scammers tricking people into sending money abroad
  • the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/may/31/uk-banks-urged-beef-up-anti-fraud-systems-international-payments
• INTERNATIONAL: Retraction Watch’s ‘Sleuths in Residence’
  • Retraction Watch: https://retractionwatch.com/2025/05/27/meet-the-first-two-retraction-watch-sleuths-in-residence/
• INTERNATIONAL: More than half of top 100 mental health TikToks contain misinformation
  • the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/31/more-than-half-of-top-100-mental-health-tiktoks-contain-misinformation-study-finds
• EU: Gene editing should be allowed in the EU for sustainability
  • Science Daily: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/05/250530123818.htm
• DENMARK: Paper on ‘wokeness’ and mental health retracted
  • Retraction Watch: https://retractionwatch.com/2025/05/30/paper-on-wokeness-and-mental-health-retracted-for-political-reasons-authors-say/
  • Wiley: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/sjop.13109
• GERMANY: Google’s wrong information reeks havoc on the Autobahns
  • the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/30/chaos-on-german-autobahns-as-google-maps-wrongly-says-they-are-closed

0:52:05 REALLY RIGHT

• Really Right: NHS soon to make a gonorrhoea vaccine available in the UK
  • the Conversation: https://theconversation.com/a-gonorrhoea-vaccine-will-soon-be-available-in-the-uk-heres-how-it-works-to-protect-against-the-sti-257283

0:54:23 QUOTE AND FAREWELL

“It was just over thirty years ago that I had the dramatic out-of-body experience that convinced me of the reality of psychic phenomena and launched me on a crusade to show those closed-minded scientists that consciousness could reach beyond the body and that death was not the end. Just a few years of careful experiments changed all that. I found no psychic phenomena – only wishful thinking, self-deception, experimental error and, occasionally, fraud. I became a sceptic.”
/ Susan Blackmore (29 July 1951 – ), British writer, lecturer, skeptic, broadcaster, and a visiting professor at the University of Plymouth. /

0:58:38 OUTRO

1:00:01 OUT-TAKES