skepticsMovement

We start with some listener feedback and ponder the wonders of European languages before we turn to TWISH, where we hear about Bertrand Russell and his teapot. Then we go into the news:

• INTERNATIONAL: Measles update
• SWITZERLAND: Homeopathy in Switzerland
• AUSTRIA: The Austrian Medical Academy exposed for peddling pseudomedicine
• INTERNATIONAL: Funding, not talent, is the problem in the skeptical sphere
• UK: Dragons’ Den: BBC defends show after ME criticism of Acu Seeds

Scotland keeps burning as much peat as ever despite the climate crises, and for that they receive this week’s Award for being Really Wrong.

Enjoy!

Segments: Intro; Greetings; TWISH; News; Really Wrong; Quote and Farewell; Outro; Out-Takes
 
0:00:27 INTRO

0:00:52 GREETINGS

• Listener feedback: Serdar has additional info (and pronunciation advice!) regarding Hüseyin Çaksen, mentioned in ep 410

0:07:00 TWISH – THIS WEEK IN SKEPTICAL HISTORY

• 2 February 1970: Death of Bertrand Russell
  • NobelPrize.org: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1950/russell/biographical/

0:12:15 NEWS

• INTERNATIONAL: Measles update
  • BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2qyy0q77ywo
  • Edzard Ernst: https://edzardernst.com/2024/01/measles-are-back-not-least-thanks-to-so-called-alternatibe-medicine-scam-i-fear/
• SWITZERLAND: Homeopathy in Switzerland
  • Edzard Ernst: https://edzardernst.com/2024/01/homeopathy-does-not-work-beyond-context-effects-not-even-in-switzerland/
• AUSTRIA: The Austrian Medical Academy exposed for peddling pseudomedicine
  • Initiative für Wissenschaftliche Medizin: https://www.initiative-wissenschaftliche-medizin.at/index.php?id=270
• INTERNATIONAL: Funding, not talent, is the problem in the skeptical sphere
  • Skeptic UK: https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2024/01/the-graveyard-of-skeptical-projects-suggests-its-funding-not-talent-that-were-lacking/
• UK: Dragons’ Den: BBC defends show after ME criticism of Acu Seeds
  • BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-68097756

0:35:10 REALLY WRONG

• Really Wrong: Scotland burning fossil fuel
  • the Conversation: https://theconversation.com/despite-the-climate-crisis-scotland-is-burning-as-much-carbon-rich-peatland-as-it-did-in-the-1980s-221243

0:40:17 QUOTE AND FAREWELL

“The scientific attitude of mind involves a sweeping away of all other desires in the interests of the desire to know—it involves suppression of hopes and fears, loves and hates, and the whole subjective emotional life, until we become subdued to the material, able to see it frankly, without preconceptions, without bias, without any wish except to see it as it is, and without any belief that what it is must be determined by some relation, positive or negative, to what we should like it to be, or to what we can easily imagine it to be.”
/ Bertrand Russell (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970), British mathematician, philosopher, and public intellectual. /

0:43:30 OUTRO

0:44:45 OUT-TAKES