International Skeptics United

Max Temkin is one of the creators of Cards Against Humanity, the “party game for horrible people.” What began as a game Max played with his friends soon became a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2011, and it has turned into one of the most popular, entertaining, and sometimes controversial card games today.

0:00:00 Introduction Richard Saunders   0:03:10 Maynard's Spooky Action... Maynard chats to Jay Novella from the SGU.   0:20:45 Homeopathy Plus! Court Decision Richard Saunders reports on the Federal Court of Australia's ruling.   0:39:36 Mystery Guest

SGU 2014 Year in Review; SGU in 2014, Best and Worst of 2014, 2014 Mashups, Year in Science, In Memoriam; Who's That Noisy; Science or Fiction

  The Reality Check panel delivers a morbidly merry episode this holiday season! Pat goes down under to see if Adelaide is worthy of its ‘murder capital’ rep, while Cristina presents the odds of dying on your birthday. Next, Adam relaxes into a segment about the dangers of sitting, and Darren investigates recent homicide rates in Canada.

In this quick holiday episode, we touch on how one would approach modeling the statistical distribution over the probability of belief in Santa Claus given age.

This week Derek decides to get a bit nostalgic and brings you a classic interview from the Skepticality archives. Back in 2005, our first year of the show, Swoopy and Derek had well known author, Tom Flynn, on the show for an interview about his book, 'The Trouble With Christmas'. Since it is the holiday time of year again, find out why so many people seem to find Christmas so troublesome as you unwrap your gifts this year.

Seasons Greetings from the Naked Scientists! We invite you to spend the next hour with us as we explore the Science of Christmas. We'll be looking at why crackers are, or aren't, all that funny, the chemistry of Christmas and what makes the ultimate roast dinner as well as whether wine really is the best medicine.

0:00:00 Introduction Richard Saunders   0:06:15 Maynard's Spooky Action... Maynard chats to the one and only George Hrab from the Geologic Podcast. (Please be advised that the interview contains adult themes.) Following that Maynard catches up with Dick Smith.   0:34:20 A Week in Science The Royal Institution of Australia (RiAus) is a national scientific not-for-profit organisation with a mission to bring science to people and people to science.   0:37:57 Evidence Please... with Jo Alabaster Australian Skeptics National Convention review part #2.   and...... an Easter Egg for Xmas?

TRC drops another informative show with some hilarious outtakes! Darren takes over the world show with an in-depth overview of Nick Bostrom’s book Superintelligence, Cristina gives us a sobering look at whether the Guinness Two-Pour is a must or a myth, and Adam brings us a purr-fectly delivered segment about Grumpy Cat that had us all in stitches.

Guest Rogue: George Hrab; This Day in Skepticism: First Electronic Instrument; Special Reports: Bertrand Russell's 10 Commandments; News Items: DNA Survives Spaceflight, Hong Kong Pillows, Discovering New Particles, Graphene Armor, Survey on Apathy; Science or Fiction

And once more we delve into the realm of crappy stop-motion animated holiday films with Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town, a Kris Kringle origin story that purports to explain the Santa mythos. That mythos, apparently, involves some suspicious lap-sitting, our own gay penguin, and lots of inappropriate scenes involving children. Yep, sounds like Santa […]

Rabia Chaudry is an attorney who specializes in immigration law, a National Security Fellow at the New America Foundation, and President of the Safe Nation Collaborative, an organization that, among other things, consults with federal agencies about how to counter violent extremism. She writes at SplitTheMoon.com. But you may know her best because she’s the person who brought the story of Adnan Syed to reporter Sarah Koenig, resulting in the Serial podcast phenomenon. Rabia’s little brother was Adnan’s best friend and their families were also close. (I should point out that we taped this episode the day before the final episode aired.) We spoke with Rabia about what she learned from Serial that she didn't know before, her relationship with Sarah Koenig, and whether she was compelled to respond to the misinformation about Adnan online.

Economist Peter Backus joins me in this episode to discuss a few interesting topics. You may recall Linhda and I previously discussed his paper "The Girlfriend Equation" on a recent mini-episode. We start by touching base on this fun paper and get a follow up on where Peter stands years after writing w.r.t. a successful romantic union. Additionally, we delve in to some fascinating economics topics. We touch on questions of the role models, for better or for worse, played a role in the ~2008 economic crash, statistics in economics and the difficulty of measurement, and some insightful discussion about the economics charities. Peter encourages listeners to be open to giving money to charities that are good at fundraising, and his arguement is a (for me) suprisingly insightful logic. Lastly, we have a teaser of some of Peter's upcoming work using unconventional data sources. For his benevolent recommendation, Peter recommended the book The Conquest of Happiness by Bertrand Russell, and for his self-serving recommendation, follow Peter on twitter at @Awesomnomics.

Tasting wine, cancer quacks, chiropractors and tannins.  Plus resonance, faux apologies, Big Baz the Kangaroo and brainwashing patients.  Merry Christmas from Skeptics with a K.

The last Little Atoms of 2014, recorded at QI headquarters in somewhere in Covent Garden, with QI Head of Research James Harkin and the QI Elves – Anne Miller, Andrew Hunter Murray, Anna Ptaszynski and Alex Bell. We’re mostly talking about the latest QI book, 1,411 QI Facts to Knock You Sideways, but are often […]