ORLY-EP0110A - Interview with the creators of The First Adventures on Earth with Adam And Steve

ORLY-EP0110A - The First Adventures on Earth With Adam and Steve

Welcome to ORLYRADIO #110A for Friday MAY 20th, 2016 - where we dismantle the current events for your edutainment through mostly rational conversations that make you go ‘Oh Really’! I’m your host Andy Cowen, with my usual suspects, Michael Robinson, Fred Sims, Daniel Atherton and Special guests, Todd A. Davis and Caitlyn Guettler!

Audience Feedback From Previous Shows:

We make mistakes. Please, if you find one, pause the podcast, and send us a note. orlyradiopodcast@gmail.com or phone it in 470-222-6759

Guests:  

  1. http://highburn.com/adamsteve1.asp
    Todd’s Twitter @MrToddADavis

It Happened in History:

Sources: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/lincoln-signs-homestead-act

  1. May 20, 1862 - President Lincoln signs Homestead Act. Just a scant 150 years ago the Republican party would be as unrecognizable to conservatives today as the current party would be to those in Reagan’s time. Republican President Abraham Lincoln used the succession of the Southern states to push the Homestead Act through to law. The act itself was designed to help get lands west of the Mississippi into the hands of productive farmers. This act allowed an adult over the age of 21 - male or female - to claim up to 160 acres of land from the public domain. In order to make this claim the homesteader would have to cultivate the land, build a house or barn on the land, and live on the claim for 5 years at which time they could purchase the land for $10 (additional reports also state that the purchase price was $18). As an alternative to the 5 year plan homesteaders were offered the ability to purchase the land after 6 months at only $1.25 an acre. How did the civil war play into making the Homestead Act a reality? That’s a good question I just asked myself. Similar bills were attempted by the Republican party in 1852, 1854, 1859 but struck down each time due to interests of slave states too invested in the business of slavery to allow the west to settled by small farming families who would eventually be admitted to the union as free states. Democratic president James Buchanan vetoed the 1859 bill attempt succumbing to pressures from the southern slave-holding interests. When the southern states left the union, President Lincoln used that opportunity to get the act passed. The first Homestead Act claim was filed by a civil war veteran and doctor named Daniel Freeman on January 1, 1863. Although the act was officially repealed by Congress in 1976, one last title for 80 acres in Alaska was given to Kenneth Deardorff in 1979.

-BREAK- Logical Fallacy

http://www.logicalfallacies.info/presumption/arguing-from-ignorance/

Arguing from Ignorance

Explanation
Arguments from ignorance infer that a proposition is true from the fact that it is not known to be false. Not all arguments of this form are fallacious; if it is known that if the proposition were not true then it would have been disproven, then a valid argument from ignorance may be constructed. In other cases, though, arguments from ignorance are fallacious.
Example
(1) No one has been able to disprove the existence of God.
Therefore:
(2) God exists.
This argument is fallacious because the non-existence of God is perfectly consistent with no one having been able to prove God’s non-existence..

Science Bitches! Approx 30 minutes

  1. Google is already aiming at the Next Big Thing in computing - Artificial Intelligence:
    http://thenextweb.com/dd/2016/05/12/google-just-open-sourced-something-called-parsey-mcparseface-change-ai-forever/
    http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/19/11706274/walt-mossberg-google-home-artificial-intelligence-chatbot-io-2016

  2. And now for some successes in Medicine:
    http://theintellectualist.co/gene-therapy-has-officially-cured-its-first-disease-colloquially-known-as-bubble-boy-disease/
    http://www.popsci.com/macromolecule-developed-by-ibm-could-fight-multiple-viruses-at-once

  3. Good news, everyone! Science still works and scientists know what they’re talking about:
    http://www.iflscience.com/environment/april-smashed-temperature-records-putting-2016-track-hottest-year
    http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2016/05/17/gmos-safe-academies-of-science-report-genetically-modified-food/84458872/
    http://www.iflscience.com/portugal-powered-four-days-straight-entirely-renewable-energy

And finally, the reason I bring this all up - educate yourselves; not just on science, but history, as well. So much absolute garbage is out there about whether or not we can trust science, we as a culture have forgotten that the people that are telling you that global warming is fake or vaccines are evil have a vested interest in their argument, and a very simple one at that; It makes them money. How is it that we can decry the evils of Wal-Mart, McDonalds and their ilk in one moment and preach as gospel the message of corporate paid shills in the next?
I want to introduce you all to someone - those of you who watched Cosmos may be familiar with the man - Clair Cameron Patterson:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clair_Cameron_Patterson
We all know today that lead is bad. It’s toxic, in ANY amount, and we as a culture freak out whenever we find it in anything. We take it for granted that we won’t find this particular poison in our paint or children’s toys or our gasoline; but this was not the case a mere forty years ago. Starting in 1965, Patterson fought the lobbying power of huge corporations with a vested interest in selling lead to the public, and thanks to public ignorance he didn’t win that fight for twenty years. Then, as now, people whose profit margins are threatened by science paid massive amounts of money to confuse the issues. Then, just as now, they are still wrong, scientifically, ethically, and morally. They are LYING TO YOU to line your pockets. Stop believing them - EDUCATE YOURSELVES - and we won’t have to wait twenty years for a science victory this time; we can put a brake on climate change NOW, stop poisoning our environment with fossil fuels NOW, and feed millions more than before with genetically modified foods NOW.
The rich old men in charge of fighting progress don’t care about the harm they’re doing to our planet’s future; they’ll be dead. You and your children and your children’s children DO have to live in that future. Make it a good one; side with science.

Stay tuned for the second half.

ORLY-EP0109A - Workers Rights, Friday the 13th, OTC Empathy Blockers, Negative Power Bills, and more!

ORLY-EP0109A - Workers Rights, Friday the 13th, OTC Empathy Blockers, Negative Power Bills, and more!

Welcome to ORLYRADIO #109A for Friday MAY 13th, 2016 - where we dismantle the current events for your edutainment through mostly rational conversations that make you go ‘Oh Really’! I’m your host Andy Cowen, with my usual suspects, Fred Sims, Stephen Griffith, and Daniel Atherton.

Audience Feedback From Previous Shows:

We make mistakes. Please, if you find one, pause the podcast, and send us a note. orlyradiopodcast@gmail.com or phone it in 470-222-6759

RANT Segments & Headlines:

  1. http://www.snopes.com/2016/05/12/poultry-workers-diapers-oxfam/

  2. OSHA: Occupational Safety and Health Administration https://www.osha.gov/ Part of the Department of Labor and was founded by the Nixion Administration April 28th, 1971

    1. https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/poultryprocessing/ “Employers must also comply with OSHA’s sanitation standard 29 CFR 1910.141, that requires that toilet facilities must be made readily available and that employees are able to use toilet facilities when needed.”

  3. NIOSH: The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health www.cdc.gov/niosh Part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under the Department of Health and Human Services, formed Dec 29th, 1970.

  4. How do I find out about employer responsibilities and workers' rights?

    1. Workers have a right to a safe workplace. The law requires employers to provide their employees with safe and healthful workplaces. The OSHA law also prohibits employers from retaliating against employees for exercising their rights under the law (including the right to raise a health and safety concern or report an injury). For more information see www.whistleblowers.gov or Workers' rights under the OSH Act.

    2. OSHA can help answer questions or concerns from employers and workers. To reach your regional or area OSHA office, go to the OSHA Offices by State webpage or call 1-800-321-OSHA (6742).

    3. Small businesses may contact OSHA's free On-site Consultation services funded by OSHA to help determine whether there are hazards at their worksites. To contact free consultation services, go to OSHA's On-site Consultation webpage or call 1-800-321-OSHA (6742) and press number 4.

    4. Workers may file a complaint to have OSHA inspect their workplace if they believe that their employer is not following OSHA standards or that there are serious hazards. Workers can file a complaint with OSHA by calling 1-800-321-OSHA (6742), online via eComplaint Form, or by printing the complaint form and mailing or faxing it to the local OSHA area office. Complaints that are signed by a worker are more likely to result in an inspection.

    5. If you think your job is unsafe or if you have questions, contact OSHA at 1-800-321-OSHA (6742). Your contact will be kept confidential. We can help. For other valuable worker protection information, such as Workers' Rights, Employer Responsibilities, and other services OSHA offers, visit OSHA's Workers' page.

This Friday the 13th in History:

Sources: http://www.historynet.com/today-in-history http://news.discovery.com/human/psychology/friday-13-events-120713.htm

  1. Nov. 13, 1789 - Benjamin Franklin wrote "Everything appears to promise that it will last; but in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes," according to U.S. government documents.

  2. Sept. 13, 1940 – Five German bombs hit Buckingham Palace and destroyed the Palace Chapel, as part of Hitler's strategic "Blitz" bombing campaign, according to reports from U.K. newspaper The Guardian.

  3. June 13, 1952 – A Swedish military DC-3 plane carrying a crew of eight disappeared over international water in the Baltic Sea. This became known as the "Catalina affair" because one of two Catalina rescue planes sent to search for the plane was attacked by Soviet forces. In 1991, the Soviet air force admitted that it had shot down the DC-3 as well, according to the BBC.

  4. July 13, 1956 – The United States and Britain turned down Indian and Yugoslavian pleas to stop atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, according to The New York Times.

  5. Nov. 13, 1970 – A huge South Asian storm killed an estimated 300,000 people in Chittagong, Bangladesh, and created floods that killed as many as 1 million in the Ganges delta.

  6. Jan. 13, 1989 – The "Friday the 13th virus" infected hundreds of IBM computers across Great Britain, wiping out program files and causing considerable anxiety at a time when large-scale computer viruses were a relatively new threat.

  7. Oct. 13, 1989 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average underwent the second largest drop it had ever experienced at that time. Nicknamed the Friday-the-13th mini-crash, the Dow dropped 190.58 points that day. Today, that drop doesn't even make the top 10 list of largest drops.

  8. Aug. 13, 1999 – The day would have been Alfred Hitchcock's 100th birthday.

-BREAK- Logical Fallacy

http://www.logicalfallacies.info/relevance/appeals/appeal-to-consequences/  

Appeal to Consequences

Explanation
An appeal to consequences is an attempt to motivate belief with an appeal either to the good consequences of believing or the bad consequences of disbelieving. This may or may not involve an appeal to force. Such arguments are clearly fallacious. There is no guarantee, or even likelihood, that the world is the way that it is best for us for it to be. Belief that the world is the way that it is best for us for it to be, absent other evidence, is therefore just as likely to be false as true.
Pascal’s Wager Foundation Example
Appeal to Good Consequences:
(1) If believe in God then you’ll find a kind of fulfilment in life that you’ve never felt before.
Therefore:
(2) God exists.
Appeal to Bad Consequences:
(1’) If you don’t believe in God then you’ll be miserable, thinking that life doesn’t have any meaning.
Therefore:
(2) God exists.
Both of these arguments are fallacious because they provide no evidence for their conclusions; all they do is appeal to the consequences of belief in God. In the case of the first argument, the positive consequences of belief in God are cited as evidence that God exists. In the case of the second argument, the negative consequences of disbelief in God are cited as evidence that God exists. Neither argument, though, provides any evidence for Santa’s existence. The consequences of a belief are rarely a good guide to its truth. Both arguments are therefore fallacious.
Real-World Examples
Each of the arguments above features in real-world discussions of God’s existence. In fact, they have been developed into an argument called Pascal’s Wager, which openly advocates belief in God based on its good consequences, rather than on evidence that it is true.
Another example occurs in the film The Matrix. There Neo is asked whether he believes in fate; he says that he doesn’t. He is then asked why, and replies, “I don’t like the thought that I’m not in control.” This is not an appeal to evidence, but to the unpleasantness of believing in fate: Fate would imply that the world is a way that I don’t want it to be, therefore there is no such thing..

-BREAK- Voicemail

Science Bitches!

  1. I don’t know if it’s time to stop taking Tylenol, but it’s definitely worth thinking about; strange new side effects discovered about this popular painkiller - https://news.osu.edu/news/2016/05/10/empathy-reliever/

  2. Increasingly deadly wildfires definitely affected by… all together now… global warming!: who could have possibly guessed that longer, hotter summer seasons lead to drier forests and worse fires? - http://www.rdmag.com/news/2016/05/its-not-just-alberta-warming-fueled-fires-are-increasing-1

  3. But it’s not ALL bad news. Germany has jumped on the green train so hard that power cost the country NOTHING for a few hours on Sunday: anyone who tries to tell you that renewable energy just isn’t reliable enough for large scale power grids is LYING to you - http://qz.com/680661/germany-had-so-much-renewable-energy-on-sunday-that-it-had-to-pay-people-to-use-electricity/
    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/10/denmark-wind-windfarm-power-exceed-electricity-demand  

  4. Who says you can’t predict the outcome of a horse race? “Not us!” says swarm intelligence: Tech company Unanimous used a new AI to win a 540 to 1 odds Superfecta bet for the Kentucky Derby - http://www.hngn.com/articles/199167/20160511/ai-uses-swarm-intelligence-correctly-predict-winners-kentucky-derby.htm

  5. NASA Patent Vault open to the public!: We should ALL be excited about the wave of invention and innovation this windfall could bring - http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/Science-Notebook/2016/0509/Technology-transfer-NASA-opens-vault-of-space-age-patents

ORLY-EP0108A - GOP Tire Fire

ORLY-EP0108A - GOP Tire Fire

Welcome to ORLYRADIO #108A for Friday MAY 6th, 2016 - where we dismantle the current events for your edutainment through mostly rational conversations that make you go ‘Oh Really’! I’m your host Andy Cowen, with my usual suspects, Michael Robinson, Fred Sims, Stephen Griffith, and Daniel Atherton.

Audience Feedback From Previous Shows:

We make mistakes. Please, if you find one, pause the podcast, and send us a note. orlyradiopodcast@gmail.com or phone it in 470-222-6759

RANT Segments & Headlines:

  1. Holy Crap. Trump is the face of GOP for real.

This Week in History:

Sources: http://www.historynet.com/today-in-history

  1. May 1st, 1486- Christopher Columbus convinces Queen Isabella to fund expedition to West Indies. I think we all know how that turned out.

  2. May 1st, 2011- Osama Bin Laden killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan by US Navy SEALS in Operation Neptune Spear. Thanks Columbus! - see that leap I made?

  3. May 2nd, 1970- Student anti-war protesters at Ohio’s Kent State University burn down the campus ROTC building. The National Guard takes control of campus.

  4. May 3rd, 1952- The first airplane lands at the geographic north pole

  5. May 4th, 1626- American Indian sell Manhattan Island for $24 in cloth and buttons

  6. May 4th, 1970- Ohio National Guardsmen open fire on student protestors at Kent State, killing four and wounding 9 others.

  7. May 5th, 1494- Christopher Columbus lands on the island of Jamaica, which he names Santa Gloria. Oh, that’s how that turned out…ooops, so close.

  8. May 5th, 2000- The Sun, Earth, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn align – Earth’s moon is also almost in this alignment – leading to Doomsday predictions of massive natural disasters, although such a ‘grand confluence’ occurs about once in every century.

  9. May 5th also a banner day for philosophy as both Soren Kierkegaard and Karl Marx were born on this day just 5 years apart in 1813 and 1818

  10. May 6th, 1856- Sigmund Freud, Austrian neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis.

  11. May 6th, 1937- The dirigible Hindenburg explodes in flames at Lakehurst, New Jersey. [OH THE HUMANITY!]

-BREAK- Logical Fallacy-

http://www.logicalfallacies.info/relevance/fallacists/

Fallacist’s Fallacy

Explanation

The fallacist’s fallacy involves rejecting an idea as false simply because the argument offered for it is fallacious. Having examined the case for a particular point of view, and found it wanting, it can be tempting to conclude that the point of view is false. This, however, would be to go beyond the evidence.

It is possible to offer a fallacious argument for any proposition, including those that are true. One could argue that 2+2=4 on the basis of an appeal to authority: “Simon Singh says that 2+2=4”. Or one could argue that taking paracetamol relieves headaches using a post hoc: “I took the paracetamol and then my headache went away; it worked!”

Each of these bad arguments has a true conclusion. A proposition therefore should not be dismissed because one argument offered in its favour is faulty.

Example

“People argue that there must be an afterlife because they just can’t accept that when we die that’s it. This is an appeal to consequences; therefore there is no life after death.”

-BREAK- Voicemail-

Science Bitches! Approx 30 minutes

  1. AC - Are lab mice too cold? http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-04/cp-alm041216.php

  2. AC - Two separate papers published this week, one in Nature and one in Nature Cell Biology, have reported culturing human embryos for nearly two weeks, going well beyond previous efforts. There’s no reason to believe that the embryos couldn’t have survived beyond the two-week mark, but the experiment had to be halted to adhere to the internationally agreed 14-day limit on human embryo research. http://gizmodo.com/scientists-are-one-step-closer-to-building-artificial-w-1774890495

  3. AC - Elon Musk Madness:

    1. AC - http://gizmodo.com/spacex-just-made-its-fastest-succesful-rocket-landing-o-1775060445

    2. Tesla Model X Bioweapon Defense Mode is real, and really good. http://www.popsci.com/tesla-air-filter-works-against-airborne-bioweapons

  4. The Transit of Mercury! - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/05/06/mercury-is-about-to-pass-in-front-of-the-sun-and-it-should-be-incredible-to-watch/
    And, as always, I recommend watching with Slooh http://live.slooh.com/

  5. BoatyMcBoatface is dead; Long live BoatyMcBoatface? http://www.iflscience.com/environment/name-nercs-polar-search-ship-has-finally-be-announced

  6. Goodnight, sweet prince - discoverer of buckyballs passed away.  http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/05/science/harold-kroto-nobel-prize-winning-chemist-is-dead-at-76.html

ORLY-EP0107A - Poverty, History, and Science

ORLY-EP0107A - Poverty, History, and Science

Welcome to ORLYRADIO #107a for Friday April 29th, 2016 - where we dismantle the current events for your edutainment through mostly rational conversations that make you go ‘Oh Really’! I’m your host Andy Cowen, with my usual suspects, Michael Robinson, Fred Sims, Stephen Griffith, and Daniel Atherton.

Audience Feedback From Previous Shows:

We make mistakes. Please, if you find one, pause the podcast, and send us a note. orlyradiopodcast@gmail.com or phone it in 470-222-6759

From LissaP: I'm listening to your show and the lack of investment in Civics was just mentioned, so I'd like to clarify. It has been widely recognized that the deficit in people's understanding of the workings of the government has grown. In an effort to deal with that, in the state of Florida at least, Civics is a mandatory class in middle school, just like Government always has been in high school. (I didn't take Civics as a kid; it was expected to be embedded in various social studies courses, whether it actually was or wasn't.) Now,, the methods that are used to prioritize and emphasize a given subject area can be faulted, of course, but Civics has been given prominence recently. It has an EOC (end of course exam) that must be passed or the course needs to be retaken. This test score is given so much emphasis that it actually weighs pretty heavily in the calculation of school grades, proportionally speaking. This ensures that student mastery of the content is important to the school. And the test itself is quite rigorous. Now, it takes time to see the fruits of any educational initiative in the real world, but we're trying. My 2¢.

Thanks again for the help LissaP and keeping us up to date! You too can straighten us out, shoot a message and we’ll read it on the air. orlyradiopodcast@gmail.com or phone or text 470-222-6759

RANT Segments & Headlines:

  1. Poverty:  Talk is free. Ideas are free. Networking with people and collaboration is the right way to bootstrap. Even Donald Trump needed a loan from Daddy Warbucks to get started, so, my advice
    Make long term plans. It is damn hard to get out of the hand to mouth mindset without a plan. It can be meager, but start at retirement and work backwards. Start at like 70, then 60, then 50, 40, 35.... Each one must build to where you want to be at the next level.
    Once you have a plan, you can make informed incremental change.
    As an example. Tax time, you get a refund, what will you do with next year's return? Will you buy the better items that will help you save more day to day, like the boots? If you plan now, next year will be better and the year after that even better.
    Long term goal planning is the best advice I can give anyone from anywhere in any class. How do you eat a whale? One bite at a time, and it's going to take a while.

  2. 1 In 4 Americans Have PTSD-Like Symptoms From Financial Stress
    In an analysis of data from 2,011 survey respondents, researchers at Payoff discovered that 23% of respondents were experiencing symptoms commonly associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) related to their finances. Among Millennials, the number is 36%.
    Among other things, survey respondents were worried about being homeless or were routinely late on payments. Others denied the severity of their debt or the reality of paying it off. People’s behaviors were irrational and motivated by denial and avoidance, leaving them less able to plan or manage their financial lives. “It was just this cluster of negative financial behaviors and fear,” Buckwalter says. “And when you look at the diagnostic criteria for PTSD, it lines up with what we were seeing—the denial, the avoidance, the hypervigilance, the nightmares. It was all there.”

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/kateashford/2016/04/22/financial-stress/#6c352efd645c

This Week in History:

Sources: http://www.historynet.com/today-in-history

-BREAK- Logical Fallacy

http://www.logicalfallacies.info/relevance/appeals/appeal-to-wealth/

-BREAK- Voicemail

Science Bitches! Approx 30 minutes

  1. http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-04-29/semantic-atlas-shows-where-in-the-brain-words-are-processed

  2. http://www.newseveryday.com/articles/39471/20160429/single-celled-slime-mold-learn-remember.htm

  3. http://www.iflscience.com/environment/rising-atmospheric-co2-has-lead-greening-effect

  4. http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/human-eggs-spark-moment-fertilization

  5. http://gizmodo.com/the-oceans-are-running-low-on-oxygen-1773519808