Summary:
What is a sceptic?
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Ruby: So, Dr Michael Shermer, you're the founding publisher of the 'Skeptic magazine, and the Executive Director of the Skeptics Society.
Can you explain to us what a sceptic actually is?
Michael Shermer: Well, a sceptic is not a position to take, it's not a thing to be, in fact it's just an approach to claims.
You can be a sceptic of global warming, you can be a sceptic of the global warming sceptics, you know.
It isn't like a territory we stake out, like, 'We're the sceptics'. Really what we're doing is we're just promoting good science and scientific thinking, critical thinking,
how to think about claims, that sort of thing.
It's just a sort of a provocative name. I should point out by the way there is a 'Skeptic' magazine in Australia published by the Australian Skeptics.
I'd encourage people to Google them and join the local sceptics here as well.
All of our mission is to basically debunk pseudoscience and also to promote good science.
And so you have to know the difference between science and pseudoscience and that's what we're all about.
Summary:
What spurred Michael on into the area of scepticism?
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Ruby: So what spurred you into the area of scepticism?
Michael Shermer: Well, I ... mainly through just scientific training but I was always interested in the paranormal and the possibilities of
aliens coming and is there a Bigfoot out there?
When I was in college, in graduate school in the 1970s, I remember Uri Geller was all the rage.
He was that Israeli spoon-bending psychic that said he could bend spoons with his mind alone.
And he was touring America, he was going to all these television shows, but he was also being tested by professional scientists,
experimental psychologists, and that's what I was training to become.
I was getting a PhD in experimental psychology and I thought, okay, those guys are smarter than me and they say there might be something to it.
And then I remember seeing on television The Amazing Randi, the magician, able to replicate all the things that Geller was able to do,
with spoons and moving objects and things like that. I thought 'Ah, right, trickery'.
People can do things with trickery, right.
So I mean you can appear to, you know, sort of bend things, so I brought some cutlery here in honour of Uri Geller and, you know, you
can sort of see one of these ... it looks like the powers have been already at work here.
You know, there's different ways to bend spoons and bend cutlery, right?
So if I can have you, like, just hold, you know, hold like that, hold the two ends of it and we'll see if we can get some, you know, get some action going here.
We'll just stroke it ever so gently maybe we can just sort of see it, move the camera there so we can see it going there nicely, and now so
you're kind of sceptical but I'm kind of sensing that we're getting some action there.
Ooh, can you feel it kind of starting to heat up, and starting to get a little bit loose?
Ruby: Oh yeah.
Michael: Okay, now let go of it and let's just see if we can sort of see it starting to go just a little bit.
I don't know if you can see that.
It's getting softer and softer. Look at it, it seems to be bending, just a little bit like that.
Now we have to think 'Bend, bend, bend, bend'.
Alright, now hold your hands out. Let's see if we can, just hold them like this, like you're going to ... look at that.
It's starting to go.
Look at that, look at that, look at that.
Ruby: Whoa.
Michael: Of course, you have to ask, if psychics are bending spoons with their minds, why do they always have to touch them?
Ruby: Yeah.
Michael: Right, I mean, you can do it with a fork, so let's say we want to see if we can bend ... boy, got to get that psychic power going.
So what I'm going to do, let's see if we can concentrate on bending the tines of a fork.
We want to make the tines bend.
Think of that left tine: 'Bend, bend, bend, bend'.
Look at that, look at that ... it's starting to go, look, look, look, look.
It's not an optical illusion. It's really bending.
Look, look, look, look, look.
Ruby: Whoa.
Michael: Look at that, whoa.
Now that's an interesting effect.
Ruby: Yeah.
Michael: Designed by a guy named Banachek who's the best spoon bender in the world.
So, I can't tell you how he did it but let's just say he did not use psychic power.
Summary:
Michael talks about how he became interested in science.
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Mohammed: Was there someone or something that shifted your world view and got you interested into science?
Michael Shermer: Yes, when I was in high school I was a big 'Star Trek' fan and I loved astronomy.
And so, that was the first class I signed up for in college, which was astronomy.
And I discovered, wow, there's a science behind all this stuff and so, I just got into it.
And for me, you know, I was religious for a while and I liked theology but I was more interested in science.
And that's what really got me going.
Summary:
Why is scientific thinking such an important skill?
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Mohammed: Why do you believe scientific thinking is such an important skill?
Michael Shermer: Well, we live in the age of science.
So if you want to know how the world works you've got to know something about science.
Of course in terms of careers, I couldn't recommend a better career for students like you guys, to go into the sciences and technologies.
It's where all the action is. But even if you're not interested in that, today, to be considered a literate person, you have to know
something about science, you have to at least have Steven Hawking's book on your coffee table.
Even if you haven't read it, you've got to at least look like you're interested in it.
And what could be cooler than studying that sort of thing?
Summary:
Why is the current climate change so different from the climate changes that have occurred previously?
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Ruby: Now we'll see if there are any further questions from the Heathcote group.
Heathcote High: There have been major climate changes in the past. Why is this climate change so different from those that occurred previously?
Michael: Fair question, I think. I'm not a climate scientist but my climate scientist friends at Caltech, where I hang out, tell me that, it's the rising levels of carbon dioxide levels in
the atmosphere in lockstep with the temperature changes that go up or down in correlation with it.
And although there are natural forces that can cause that, so if you look at the ice core drillings from Antarctica over the last four hundred thousand years,
you see that same lockstep between carbon dioxide and atmospheric temperatures going just as high as they are today. The differences, is that, we're supposed to be going down.
We're supposed to be going to a new Ice Age, when in fact the curve is going up. Why is it going up?
Because since the Industrial Revolution, we've been pouring carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Actually you can go back even further than that, since the beginning of farming.
So ten thousand years ago, we probably should have been in an inter-glacial period in which we would ultimately by now be getting colder.
In fact its getting warmer because of farming, manipulation of the environment, clear cutting of trees and so forth but especially now the Industrial Revolution.
And we're going to see huge changes with China and India becoming industrialised, pouring more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
So the evidence is fairly overwhelming that global warming is real and human-caused.
Summary:
Michael has said that 'science' is a verb. What does he mean by that?
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Ruby: Any more questions from Homebush?
Student: You have said that science is a verb.
Can you tell us what you mean by this?
Michael Shermer: Oh, that science is a verb?
Well, I mean technically it's not but I guess what I mean is that science and scepticism is not a position you take, it's not a thing to be.
It's more of an approach to claims, it's a way of testing claims, it's a way of ... well, I'll give you an example, the global warming sceptics I mentioned.
Well there you can be sceptical of global warming or you can be sceptical of the global warming sceptics which I guess makes you, what, a true believer, right?
So, it depends on the particular claim.
There's people that claim the Holocaust didn't happen and they call themselves sceptics, well I'm not one of them, I'm sceptical of those sceptics, so.
See science begins as I said with the null hypothesis.
Whatever it is you think is true, it isn't true unless you prove otherwise.
The burden of proof is on you to prove it and so scepticism is the default position and then let's build from there.
So science is just a way of answering claims.
It's not like, I mean people say, 'Oh, you have faith in science,
like people have faith in religion'. No.
I mean, religions consist of a set of tenets that you adhere to, you believe:
'I believe this, I believe this, I believe this'.
Science isn't like that.
It's just, the only thing we believe in science is testing hypotheses.
Any of them can go, any of them could be wrong. Darwin could be wrong: who knows? We'll see.
Summary:
How can our senses be fooled by a 'magic' trick?
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Michael: The reason sceptics are interested in magic is because the problem is our senses are easily deceived and you can be fooled by things.
This is the sort of thing that somebody who believed in psychic powers might pretend that there was something going on.
You know about chi power, in which there's, like, energies in the universe, and you would think that ball would just roll down the ramp but we're going to cause it to slowly go.
And just in case you think I've got a magnet in my ring, I'll pull that away and use the other hand. And just in case you think my watch has a magnet, we'll get rid of that.
There is nothing up my sleeve, at no time will my fingers leave my hands and we'll just sort of guide it gently down.
And that kind of use of the hands is something psychics do, its just part of the misdirection because of course at this point, you're probably thinking, that's probably not a normal ball.
Ruby: Yeah.
Michael: So, what do you think?
Mohammed: How does it move slowly down?
Ruby: Like heat, or something?
Michael: That's the question. How does it move slowly down?
Mohammed: Vibrations?
Michael: No.
Ruby: So your hands aren't actually doing anything.
Michael: No, doesn't matter. The hands is pure misdirection.
Ruby: It's just the weighting of the ball, somehow.
Michael: Yes, let's imagine what could be inside there.
Ruby: A smaller ball, maybe?
Michael: It appears that the person that makes this doesn't give away the secret.
Ruby: Ah, okay.
Michael: But as near as I can tell, from talking to my magician friends, is that there's probably two balls, one inside there with an asymmetrical structure with maybe some mercury in there.
So as it rolls, the shifting centre, the centre of gravity inside the ball, shifts and causes it to move in a halty ... you can kinda see it if I roll it.
Mohammed: Oh.
Ruby: Yeah.
Michael: Yeah.
Summary:
Michael demonstrates the concept of misdirection to perform another 'magic' trick.
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Michael: I was looking at your Australian funny money, as we call it in America. So it looks like there's a queen, I don't know who this is.
Mohammed: Queen Elizabeth.
Michael: Is that Queen Elizabeth? Is that who it is? Yeah, okay. So that's right, you're a monarchy, you're a constitutional monarchy.
So there's heads, there's heads right? Is that the tails? What is that? Is that the country?
Ruby: Hey, I think that's just a picture of Australia.
Michael: Okay, heads and tails, I can flip that just by touching it but of course, I've got a little stickiness just on my finger and that's easy to do.
The real challenge would be to see if we could flip it without touching it. Genuine telekinesis.
Ruby: Oh, no way.
Michael: Okay, so we'll see if we can give that a try here. So we'll put a ... doesn't matter if it's heads, tails, we'll do something like that, however it comes out.
That looks like a heads, alright. So now what we want to do is, we want to see if we can flip it over to a tails without touching it. Okay, so it's heads.
We're really going to make this hard on me and see if we can make this happen here. I do a double cover-up action and really make it a challenge for us.
Okay, now we said it was heads, right. We wanna flip it over. It was heads, right, yep. So, let's try it again, okay, so, let's try again.
Okay, let's make it flip: one, two, three.
Mohammed: Whoa.
Ruby: Oh my gosh.
Mohammed: Where did it go?
Michael: Where did it go? I don't know. Now that is what magicians call misdirection.
So all that of course is set-up. We're not trying to flip the coin and so on, but we just made the thing disappear.
Summary:
How can students be encouraged to consider a career in science? What are the benefits of a scientific career?
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Ruby: How would you encourage students like me and Mohammed to consider a career in science? What do you think the benefits are?
Michael: Well, I think the future of the industrial Western world is in science and technology, that's where the money is, that's where the action is, where's all the cool stuff is going to be.
I mentioned all those nanotech things, changes in medical technologies, computers of course, space exploration.
Really, if you want to be where the action is, science and technology is the place to be.
And I think that there is nothing cooler than that. I mean, if you want a transcendent experience, look at a Hubble Space Telescope photograph of the expanding universe.
Wow, galaxies, incredible, amazing. Black holes at the centre of galaxies sucking up everything around them. Amazing.
Ruby: Yeah, okay, so that is very interesting. Thank you so much for coming in today and showing us your magic tricks.
Michael: Well, I'll tell you just one more. This one is a little harder to do, I don't know if I can make it happen.
But what we want to do is see if we can get it to bend, not in the usual way but in a very twisted, twisted way. There.
Ruby: Whoa, that's gorgeous, look at that.
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