TheESP – Ep. #257 – “No! YOU’RE stupid!”

This week Annika is back! We hear that Pontus apparently is the new Confounderer of the Year and that UK Skeptics in the Pub Online is back after the holidays. Check out the calendar for the new events! We congratulate renowned skeptic and philosopher Massimo Pigliucci on his birthday, note that the Pope has misplaced billions of dollars and then we have a look at the news:

• College of Medicine and Integrated Health launches the Integrated Medicine Alliance
• Natalie Grams honoured with Prize for Civil Courage
• Update on warmest year contest
• Vaccine hesitancy among medical staff
• Polio update
• PSA suspends accreditation of Society of Homeopaths
• Guitar pedal circuit shared as COVID 5G chip diagram.
• Radiation protection stickers are useless, study finds

We finish with a Really Wrong Award going to the German health care system for using tax money to fund anthroposophical nonsense against Covid-19.

Enjoy!

Segments:
Intro; Greetings; This Week; Pontus Pokes the Pope; Covid Update; News; Really Wrong; Quote and Farewell; Outro; Out-takes

Events Calendar: https://theesp.eu/events_in_europe

0:00:26 INTRO

0:00:52 GREETINGS

• UK Skeptics in the Pub
  • SITP: https://sitp.online/

0:12:12 THIS WEEK IN SKEPTICISM

• On 16 January 1964 Massimo Pigliucci was born, prominent skeptic and philosopher
  • Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massimo_Pigliucci

0:14:30 PONTUS POKES THE POPE

• BILLIONS OF DOLLARS MISSING, AND ABORTION IS MURDER
  • Sydney Morning Herald: https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/austrac-reviewing-data-on-vatican-money-transfers-20210108-p56skx.html
  • Crux: https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2021/01/pope-talks-leadership-amid-covid-abortion-and-iraq-in-new-interview/

0:21:08 COVID UPDATE

• What’s new?
  • Snopes: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/portuguese-nurse-dies-vaccine/
  • MedRxiv: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.31.20248236v1.full-text
  • WHO: https://www.euro.who.int/en/media-centre/sections/statements/2021/statement-covid-19-a-challenging-start-to-2021,-new-covid-19-variants-and-promising-vaccine-progress
  • BioRxiv: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.07.425740v1.full
  • the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/06/facebook-instagram-urged-fight-deluge-anti-covid-vaccine-falsehoods
  • the Conversation: https://theconversation.com/delaying-the-second-covid-vaccine-dose-a-medical-expert-answers-key-questions-152771
  • Hungarian Academy of Sciences: https://mta.hu/mta_hirei/a-magyar-tudomanyos-akademia-orvosi-tudomanyok-osztalyanak-felhivasa-sars-cov-2-elleni-vedooltasrol-111156

0:32:47 NEWS

• GERMANY: Natalie Grams honoured with Prize for Civil Courage
  • GWUP: https://blog.gwup.net/2021/01/07/natalie-grams-mit-dem-preis-fuer-civil-courage-geehrt/
• INTERNATIONAL: Update on warmest year contest
  • BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55576736
  • AGU: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019RG000678
• GERMANY: Vaccine hesitancy among medical staff
  • GWUP: https://blog.gwup.net/2021/01/09/verschwoerungsmythen-und-fake-news-reduzieren-die-impfbereitschaft-von-pflegekraeften/
• INTERNATIONAL: Polio update
  • Le Monde: https://www.lemonde.fr/sciences/article/2021/01/10/michel-zaffran-eradiquer-la-poliomyelite-est-plus-dur-que-prevu_6065803_1650684.html
• UK: College of Medicine and Integrated Health launches the Integrated Medicine Alliance
  • Edzard Ernst: https://edzardernst.com/2021/01/the-integrated-medicine-alliance-a-large-corpus-of-evidence-for-homeopathy-has-accumulated-which-stands-the-most-robust-tests-of-modern-science-oh-really/
• UK: PSA suspends accreditation of Society of Homeopaths
  • Good Thinking: https://goodthinkingsociety.org/professional-standards-authority-suspends-the-society-of-homeopaths/
• ITALY: Guitar pedal circuit shared as COVID 5G chip diagram.
  • Snopes: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/covid-5g-chip-diagram/
• UK: Radiation protection stickers are useless, study finds
  • BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-55613452
  • Skeptoid: https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4761

0:56:35 REALLY WRONG

• GERMANY: HOSPITALS USE ANTHROPOSOPHICAL NONSENSE AGAINST COVID-19 – USING TAX MONEY!
  • the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/10/ginger-root-and-meteorite-dust-the-steiner-covid-cures-offered-in-germany

1:01:57 QUOTE AND FAREWELL
“Given the power and influence that science increasingly has in our daily lives, it is important that we as citizens of an open and democratic society learn to separate good science from bunk. This is not just a matter of intellectual curiosity, as it affects where large portions of our tax money go – and in some cases whether people’s lives are lost as a result of nonsense.”
/ Massimo Pigliucci (16 January 1964 – ), Italian Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York /

1:03:17 OUTRO

1:04:32 OUT-TAKES