We’re back home after QED and boy was it great! Last one, we know, but next year will see the European Skeptics Congress in Liverpool and it will largely be following the template of QED. Save the dates, 16-18 October 2026!
We note the lessons learned from hurricane Melissa and in TWISH we hear about two milestones of European history, the ECDC and the European Convention om Human Rights. Then, we catch up on the news:
- UK: The Ockham awards for 2025
- AUSTRIA: The Golden Board for 2025
- SWEDEN: Populistic repatriation support meets local pushback
- ITALY: Senate hosts presentation of bogus device
- GERMANY: Student at the Free University of Berlin develops useful tool for spotting fake references
- HUNGARY: Over a hundred political ads financed by Orbán’s Digital Citizen Circles slip through Facebooks filters
In Finland the nonsense of DISC personality tests are inexplicably popular and the company MLP gets the Really Wrong Award for promoting it, while philosopher of science Inkeri Koskinen gets the Really Right Award for speaking up about it.
Enjoy!
Segments: Intro; Greetings; TWISH; News; Really Wrong / Really Right; Quote; Outro; Outtakes
0:00:27 INTRO
0:00:51 GREETINGS
- QED was great! Thank you all who joined us there!
- ESC 2026 dates and location announced! 16-18 October in Liverpool!
- ESC Liverpool: https://escliverpool.org/
- ECSO: https://www.ecso.org/
- Hurricane Melissa and the debate over climate change
- Skeptical Science: https://skepticalscience.com/strengthened-hurricane-melissa.html
- Science Daily: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/10/251029002920.htm
0:15:12 TWISH – THIS WEEK IN SKEPTICAL HISTORY
- 4 November 1950 / 2005: Europe’s Twin Milestones: 75 Years of the ECHR, 20 Years of the ECDC
0:24:02 NEWS
- UK: The Ockham awards for 2025
- AUSTRIA: The Golden Board for 2025
- SWEDEN: Populistic repatriation support meets local pushback
- ITALY: Senate hosts presentation of bogus device
- GERMANY: Student at the Free University of Berlin develops useful tool for spotting fake references
- HUNGARY: Over a hundred political ads financed by Orbán’s Digital Citizen Circles slip through Facebooks filters
0:56:51 REALLY WRONG / REALLY RIGHT
- Really Wrong: MLP Modular Learning Process Oy promotes debunked DISC personality test
- Really Right: University of Helsinki researcher Inkeri Koskinen for publicly ctriticizing DISC.
1:01:48 QUOTE AND FAREWELL
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“
Rationalism is an attitude of readiness to listen to contrary arguments and to learn from experience… of admitting that “I may be wrong and you may be right and, by an effort, we may get nearer the truth.”
/ Karl Popper (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austrian–British philosopher, academic and social commentator. The quote is from his 1945 book ‘The Open Society and its Enemies’. /
1:03:20 OUTRO
1:04:43 OUT-TAKES