We are extremely happy to welcome the first ever ESP Skepti-baby! Annika and her newborn girl are doing very well and they send their regards to the listeners. Whoohoo!
We spend the episode to look back at the very strange year of 2020. Lots of bad news of course and not just pandemic related, we will for one thing always miss the grandfather of modern skepticism, James the Amazing Randi.
But there were good things too, like the many great people we had the fortune to interview and the 250th episode live stream with all our special friends. We are looking forward to seeing the new year and there are reasons to be cautiously optimistic, like the new vaccines. We hope all our listeners are ready to follow us into 2021, and who knows, we may even get to meet some of you at QED, because this year it has to happen, right?
And speaking of good news, we also hand out a Really Right Award for the Anti-vaxx Playbook.
Happy New Year!
Segments:
Intro; Greetings; Covid Update; Ups and Downs of 2020; Really Right; Quote and Farewell; Outro; Out-takes
Events Calendar: https://theesp.eu/events_in_europe
0:00:27 INTRO
0:00:51 GREETINGS
- Mini-poke: Francis likes another picture of a model (Business Today): https://www.businesstoday.in/latest/trends/pope-francis-comes-under-fire-again-likes-another-bikini-models-photo-on-instagram/story/425945.html
0:04:58 COVID UPDATE
0:13:58 UPS AND DOWNS OF 2020
- James “the Amazing” Randi (Ep #246): https://theesp.eu/podcast_archive/theesp-ep-246.html
0:37:35 REALLY RIGHT
- UK: THE ANTI-VAXX PLAYBOOK
0:48:59 QUOTE AND FAREWELL
“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day. Never lose a holy curiosity. … Don’t stop to marvel.”
/ Albert Einstein (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955), German-born theoretical physicist /
0:50:08 OUTRO
0:51:22 OUT-TAKES