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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. This is

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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's time for

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Speaker 1: a vault episode. This one originally aired on October. It

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Speaker 1: was the fourth one of our Anthology of Horror episodes. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this this has become a tradition, and uh, this one

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Speaker 1: was a lot of fun. I think we talked about

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Speaker 1: an episode of the Outer Limits revival, Hammer House of Horror,

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Speaker 1: the Simpsons Tree House of Horror, creep show and are

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Speaker 1: You Afraid of the Dark? You know what, we actually

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Speaker 1: never got around to the Hammer House of Horror segment,

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Speaker 1: we did? We not? We that maybe that one will

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Speaker 1: be brand new this year. That's right, that's right, because

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Speaker 1: this is publishing I believe October, uh my birthday, and

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Speaker 1: we are probably doing a um an Anthology of Horror

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Speaker 1: episode later in this month. So yeah, maybe it'll be

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Speaker 1: time for Hammer House of Horror to to uh to

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Speaker 1: hit the airwaves. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind,

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Speaker 1: the production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and

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Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick. And it's still Halloween season, so we're

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Speaker 1: going into the anthology territory. That's right. We have a

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Speaker 1: long tradition here on stuff to blow your mind of

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Speaker 1: taking short spooky stories around this time of year, uh,

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Speaker 1: snipping them out of their host, drying them, and then

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Speaker 1: stuffing them with science to create an informative and entertaining

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Speaker 1: Halloween sausage. We did this for a few years based

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Speaker 1: on creepy pasta stories, and then we kind of felt

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Speaker 1: like that well was running a little dry, so we

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Speaker 1: turned to an even richer and deeper treasure trove of

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Speaker 1: horror fiction, and that is horror and sci fi anthology series. Uh.

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Speaker 1: A lot of these are shows that aired on TV.

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Speaker 1: A lot of them are also films that feature, you know,

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Speaker 1: several different stories in an anthology format, and there's just

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Speaker 1: a tremendous amount out there. We're We're talking the likes

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Speaker 1: of The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Tales from the

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Speaker 1: Dark Side, Tales from the Crypt, Monsters, Black Mirror, and

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Speaker 1: just so many many more. Uh. Plus there's the highly

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Speaker 1: popular Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episodes, as well as various

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Speaker 1: against cinematic horror anthology such as The Vault of Horror.

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Speaker 1: So this is gonna be volume four and then we're

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Speaker 1: gonna do volume five this year. We did volume one

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Speaker 1: in two thousand eighteen, minted volumes two and three and

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Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, so we're continuing the tradition. And uh and

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Speaker 1: again yeah, I just have to say, there's just so

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Speaker 1: much out there in terms of horror and sci fi

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Speaker 1: anthology television. Uh, and then there's this an additional ton

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Speaker 1: of horror and sci fi anthology cinema. So once again

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Speaker 1: this year I found myself just combing through contenders that

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Speaker 1: I'd either forgotten about, was half aware of, or just

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Speaker 1: had flat never heard of. Like like a lot in

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Speaker 1: horror especially, I feel like the horror anthology genre tends

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Speaker 1: to feel like low hanging fruit. But but the kicker

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Speaker 1: is that when well done, there's nothing else quite like it. Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think that's true. I mean there's almost an ancient

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Speaker 1: memory aspect to a horror anthology because it feels like

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Speaker 1: people sitting around a campfire, going around the circle, each

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Speaker 1: taking a turn to tell a story. Yeah, and the like,

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Speaker 1: the literary short story provides wonderful opportunities that full length

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Speaker 1: or episodic mediums don't provide. Like a lot of times

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Speaker 1: you can really put a particular idea in the forefront.

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Speaker 1: You can put a particular twist in the forefront. Uh

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Speaker 1: And it can work better than it would if you

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Speaker 1: tried to build an entire you know, uh TV series

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Speaker 1: around this, or an entire feature leath length film around us.

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Speaker 1: I was actually just thinking the other day about the

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Speaker 1: good things about having a short format for horror, because

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Speaker 1: we watched a new horror movie that came out this year.

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Speaker 1: It was a Shutter original film called Host. It was

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Speaker 1: like a Zoom horror movie. It takes place entirely on Zoom,

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Speaker 1: but the characters do a say on and there's demonic shenanigans,

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Speaker 1: and the movie is about an hour long. And I

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Speaker 1: thought that worked fantastically because it's, you know, it's not

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Speaker 1: a super deep film. It's not especially like thoughtful or interesting,

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Speaker 1: but just for an excellent little boo frolic, an hour

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Speaker 1: is a perfect length. Uh And, And I wish more

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Speaker 1: horror movies would just kind of embrace that and say, no,

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Speaker 1: we're not going to be as long as it's supposed

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Speaker 1: to be. We're not gonna pad this out to eighty

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Speaker 1: six minutes. We're gonna be an hour long. I mean,

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Speaker 1: if it's good enough for Attack of the Crab Monsters.

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Speaker 1: An hour run time is good enough for you. Yes, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I definitely thought about that when I watch when I

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Speaker 1: will watch for the first time Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein,

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Speaker 1: like just shorter format, but then they got everything in.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, if you're a horror director out there, don't

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Speaker 1: worry about patting it out. I mean, if your movie

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Speaker 1: is only fifty four minutes long, I think that's great. Now.

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Speaker 1: You mentioned zoom based horror earlier. In a bit later

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Speaker 1: on in the episode we're gonna discuss episode of the

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Speaker 1: nine nineties revival of the Outer Limits, I want to

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Speaker 1: mention that there this is not the episode we're gonna

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Speaker 1: be talking about, but there is an episode called dead

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Speaker 1: Man Switch that's that's extremely good, and it has to

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Speaker 1: do with individuals humans that are put into uh separate

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Speaker 1: bunkers during an alien invasion and each one is functioning

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Speaker 1: as a dead man switch for the planetary defense system.

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Speaker 1: But the fun thing about it is all these people

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Speaker 1: are solely communicating with each other via this like you know,

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Speaker 1: closed network television, basically a zoom scenario. Uh So it's

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Speaker 1: a it's a very interesting piece to watch during this

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Speaker 1: time of increased zoom meetings, etcetera. All right, well let's

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Speaker 1: just jump right in here to our first selection. This

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Speaker 1: is from the Night two horror anthology film Creep Show. Uh,

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Speaker 1: this is the Lonesome Death of Jordi Verrel. Alright, so

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Speaker 1: sidebar before we get started on the plot. This segment

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Speaker 1: stars Stephen King in the flesh. He's the actor in it.

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Speaker 1: So I've got to ask what are your favorite Stephen

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Speaker 1: King acting spots? And and I'll announce mine. He's got

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Speaker 1: a cameo in a movie called Sleepwalkers. If you've never

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Speaker 1: seen it, I think it came out in the eighties

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Speaker 1: or early nineties, and it is about shape shifting cat

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Speaker 1: demon things that suck the life essence out of young women.

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Speaker 1: And then I think they can turn invisible, they can

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Speaker 1: like look like different things, and their weaknesses that if

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Speaker 1: they're attacked by cats they die. But anyway, in Sleepwalkers,

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Speaker 1: there is an amazing scene that features a cameo by

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Speaker 1: Stephen King as a perturbed cemetery caretaker who is angry

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Speaker 1: that that perverts keep coming into his cemetery at night.

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Speaker 1: But it also contains cameos by Toby Hooper and Clive Barker. Oh,

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Speaker 1: I love it when we have scenes like that, and

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Speaker 1: that's a fitting like is Lee cameo for for Stephen King? Um,

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Speaker 1: because I remember, probably during like the height of my

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Speaker 1: my my young obsession with Stephen King novels. Uh, the

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Speaker 1: TV series Golden Years came out, which I don't think

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Speaker 1: is anybody's favorite of Stephen King project. I don't think

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Speaker 1: they ever finished it. You know, it went maybe a season,

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Speaker 1: maybe less in a season, but I remember there being oh,

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Speaker 1: it's like a goodness, I'm having a hard time he

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Speaker 1: remembering what the gist of it was a man aging

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Speaker 1: rapidly I think, or aging backwards, one of the two. Um.

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Speaker 1: It had. One of the best things about it was

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Speaker 1: it had David Bowie's Golden Years as the theme music.

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Speaker 1: But there's a scene where Stephen King shows up as

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Speaker 1: a as a bus driver and at the time I

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Speaker 1: was like, this is amazing. That's Stephen He's the author

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Speaker 1: and he's the bus driver. Um. Of course he would

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Speaker 1: go on to have so many more interesting cameos and things. Um.

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Speaker 1: For instance, I never saw this, but he has a

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Speaker 1: pretty whacky one in the TV version of the shining.

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Speaker 1: He's this band leader, like this really um energetic band,

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Speaker 1: big band leader with a pencil thin mustache. He looks

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Speaker 1: fabulously greased back hair, got a pencil mustache that that

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Speaker 1: is not a good look for Stephen King. I don't know,

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Speaker 1: you know, he's he kind of has the like the

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Speaker 1: face for for facial hair. Though he can make most

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Speaker 1: of it work. I feel it kind of works. He

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Speaker 1: does better full beard, I mean full beard. He looks

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Speaker 1: appropriately shaggy and kind of right early with the pencil mustache.

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Speaker 1: He looks like maybe he would be the guy who

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Speaker 1: would be discovered in the cemetery. Now in terms of

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Speaker 1: just his acting roles, go like things where he's not

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Speaker 1: just a cameo but he's actually playing a bit part.

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Speaker 1: He had a really fun one in the biker drama

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Speaker 1: Sons of Anarchy. Uh several years back. He played a

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Speaker 1: guy who makes bodies disappear. So he's, you know, just

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Speaker 1: kind of this stern but creepy guy in a in

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Speaker 1: a basement that will uh you know, make that make

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Speaker 1: that body disappear when you need it to, and he

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Speaker 1: insists on listening to eighties music while it happens. Well,

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Speaker 1: I've never seen that either, but but I'll have to

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Speaker 1: look it up. All right, Well, let's get into two

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Speaker 1: creep show here, So creep show for anyone who's not

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Speaker 1: familiar with it, with Stephen King and George Ramiro's tribute

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Speaker 1: to pre code horror comics of old. I think I

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Speaker 1: may have covered the crate in a in a previous episode.

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but it has some wonderful segments, but

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Speaker 1: they're all like sort of mean, uh grizzly uh segments

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Speaker 1: that are you know, very much in the vein of

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Speaker 1: classic tales from the Crypt and so forth, where uh

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Speaker 1: there are bad people that do bad things and get

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Speaker 1: their come up. It's usually in grizzly ways with a

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Speaker 1: little bit of gallows humor thrown in. And like we said,

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Speaker 1: not only is this written by Stephen King, but this

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Speaker 1: segment also stars the author as well. Again, it's the

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Speaker 1: Lonesome Death of Jordy veryl And it's a little bit

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Speaker 1: the Color out of Space and a little bit the Blob.

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Speaker 1: It's about a redneck who comes in contact with space goo. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Then after coming in contact with space goo, some sort

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Speaker 1: of alien plant or plant like organism takes over his

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Speaker 1: body and then he makes the terrible mistake of climbing

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Speaker 1: into a hot bath to ease his discomfort. The alien

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Speaker 1: plant infection overtakes him and he ends up following papahanming

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Speaker 1: Way into the sunset. Then we hear on the t

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Speaker 1: V that rainy weather is moving in which will spread,

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Speaker 1: no doubt, spread the alien plants even wider across the earth.

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Speaker 1: You know, this connects to several other horror stories, uh,

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Speaker 1: in interesting ways. One that I didn't think of until

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Speaker 1: just now is the way that it connects to, especially

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Speaker 1: the late nineteen seventies remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers,

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Speaker 1: which is very good and which characterizes the spores that

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Speaker 1: come down and possess the humans and turn them into

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Speaker 1: the replicants. Uh, they're very plant like. I mean, obviously

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Speaker 1: they're not from Earth, so they're not exactly of the

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Speaker 1: Kingdom of the Plants, but there's clearly a similarity with

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Speaker 1: plants and an affinity for plants among the aliens. And

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Speaker 1: the ending of the Jordy Viril segment makes me think

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Speaker 1: very much of the beginning of the Invasion of the

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Speaker 1: Body Snatchers remake because in the opening credits to the

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Speaker 1: Body Snatchers remake. There is this sequence that just kind

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Speaker 1: of shows these filaments almost blowing in the wind, and

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Speaker 1: it accomplishes a very sinister visual connotation without any words

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Speaker 1: or any explanation, just of the idea of biological material

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Speaker 1: kind of drifting and through through the air, through space

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Speaker 1: carried on currents of various kinds. Yeah, and of course

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Speaker 1: the cans instantly think to other sort of plant based

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Speaker 1: horror properties, such as the Day of the Triffids, which

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Speaker 1: we've mentioned on here before. That's a big one about

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Speaker 1: plant plant like aliens overtaking the earth or troll too.

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Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. So this Jordy viral episode, it

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Speaker 1: raised the question for me, are there any plants that

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Speaker 1: can grow on or in the human body under you know,

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Speaker 1: sort of normal circumstances, because obviously like a dead body

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Speaker 1: filled with dirt, you could grow some some plants, and

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Speaker 1: that if you had some sort of somehow had an

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Speaker 1: outfit that had like lots of dirt pockets, you could

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Speaker 1: grow grow that way. Also wanted to, you know, avoid

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Speaker 1: discussing bacteria and fungi, sticking to just good old plants,

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Speaker 1: which again seems more in line with the plant like

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Speaker 1: organisms that we're dealing with in this short um, and

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Speaker 1: we're not counting things that might look like plants but

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Speaker 1: are in fact tumors or what have you. So for

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Speaker 1: the most part, plants don't want to be on us

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Speaker 1: or inside us, unless, of course, their seeds are traveling

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Speaker 1: on our hair or garments, or if their seeds are

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Speaker 1: traveling through our digestive systems. Otherwise, there's just not much

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Speaker 1: of an in game going on with the inside of

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Speaker 1: the human body or even like on the exterior of

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Speaker 1: the human body. Uh. You know, seeds need to get

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Speaker 1: in the dirt. But sometimes things go wrong, as horribly wrong.

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Speaker 1: As reported in by the BBC and various other outlets,

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Speaker 1: a man named Ron vet and I believe uh had

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Speaker 1: been battling emphysema, and he underwent an X ray as

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Speaker 1: his condition worsened. The doctors then discovered that a p

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Speaker 1: had gone down the wrong um, you know, the wrong

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Speaker 1: pipe and sprouted in the warm, moist environment of the

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Speaker 1: patient's lung. It had only grown a half an inch long,

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Speaker 1: but you know, still it was enough to cause some concern.

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Speaker 1: Surgeons removed it. Uh and UH, we should stress here

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Speaker 1: that what was happening is that the P was sprouting

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Speaker 1: as if it were under the soil, reaching up for sunlight.

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Speaker 1: Thus it grew in the darkness of a human body

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Speaker 1: as if it were going to sprout out of the

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Speaker 1: body and find the sun. Now an energy terms, it

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Speaker 1: couldn't keep growing like that forever, right, because eventually it

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Speaker 1: would need sunlight in order to supply new energy. But

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Speaker 1: of course, a P like any other uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: like the yolk of an egg or something, has some

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Speaker 1: chemical energy built into it that can propel that initial

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Speaker 1: sprouting from the dark place. Uh. Fortunately, it would probably

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Speaker 1: eventually not be able to find sunlight, but it still

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Speaker 1: would I guess, be some kind of gross thing in

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Speaker 1: your lung. So it's a good thing they took it out.

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Speaker 1: But in the spirit of of making the familiar strange,

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Speaker 1: I think we should dwell for a minute on the

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Speaker 1: idea of seeds using bodies, such as human bodies for dispersal.

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Speaker 1: We don't dwell on this as a parallel to any

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Speaker 1: kind of botanical body horror because it just seems so normal. Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, sometimes you just eat fruit with seeds in it.

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Speaker 1: But this is really kind of strange. The more you

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Speaker 1: think about it. So of course there are evolutionary pressures

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Speaker 1: on plants that caused them to find methods of seed dispersal,

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Speaker 1: not just to produce seeds of for a new generation

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Speaker 1: of plants, but to try to get them physically away

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Speaker 1: from the parent and uh. And this is because, like

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Speaker 1: the kin shared genes of the parent and offspring, plants

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Speaker 1: to want to be forced to compete directly with one

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Speaker 1: another for resources, and these resources would include soil space, water,

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Speaker 1: nutrients in the soil, access to sunlight. If you can

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Speaker 1: get the kids out of the house, that's good because

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Speaker 1: then you're not fighting over food. And competition of this

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Speaker 1: kind can be reduced by dispersing seeds, and nature of

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Speaker 1: course has lots of ingenious solutions for this. We've talked

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Speaker 1: about some on the show before. For example, you know

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Speaker 1: all the different structures the parachute or wing like structures

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Speaker 1: that seeds sometimes sprout in order to ride on the

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Speaker 1: wind to or to drift like the like the filaments

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Speaker 1: in in invasion to the body snatchers. Then there were

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Speaker 1: even exploding seed pods like you would find on the

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Speaker 1: sandbox tree or Hera crepitans. And so this is a

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Speaker 1: tree that has thorns all over its trunk. I think

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Speaker 1: I've read somewhere that it's called the Monkey Can't Climate tree,

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Speaker 1: and it produces seed pods that look kind of like

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Speaker 1: tiny pumpkins, and they explode when they're right, literally explode,

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Speaker 1: sending a ballistic propulsion of seeds up to distances of

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Speaker 1: like a hundred meters away according to some reports. But also,

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Speaker 1: as you mentioned earlier, a lot of seeds rely on

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Speaker 1: animals to be dispersed, and this is known as zoo cory.

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Speaker 1: So there's epizoo cory, which is the transport of seeds

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Speaker 1: on the outside of the animal, so you think of

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Speaker 1: like the burrs that get stuck on a dog's fur,

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Speaker 1: stuck to your socks. One example of this is the

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Speaker 1: burdock plant, which was apparently the inspiration behind the invention

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Speaker 1: of velcrow, invention of the loop and fastener system. But

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Speaker 1: then there's also, of course what's known as indo zoo corey,

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Speaker 1: the transport of seeds inside of the animal, and this

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Speaker 1: usually involves creating a tasty fruiting body containing the seed

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Speaker 1: waiting to get eaten, traveling around inside an animal's digestive system,

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Speaker 1: then being released in the animals species to grow in

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Speaker 1: a new place. And so if you eat some tasty blackberries,

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Speaker 1: you are, in a way, Jordi Varrel, you are the

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Speaker 1: host of this plant that is using your digestive system,

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Speaker 1: using and your your legs, your mobile body in the

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Speaker 1: dispersal of seeds as part of its reproductive cycle. In fact,

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Speaker 1: there are even some seeds that are somewhat obligate in

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Speaker 1: this way. They need to be primed to grow inside

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Speaker 1: an animal's digestive system. Blackberries would be an example, which

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Speaker 1: I think usually needs some time in a bird's gizzard

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Speaker 1: before they will grow. But all the stories you read

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Speaker 1: of like okay, well you know my cousin knows a

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Speaker 1: guy who swallowed a watermelon seed and it grew a

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Speaker 1: watermelon inside his stomach. That that's not true. I could

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Speaker 1: not find any evidence that anything like that ever happens.

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Speaker 1: But while it's unlikely that you would grow a plant

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Speaker 1: from a seed in your body while you are alive,

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Speaker 1: could it happen after you're dead? Again, you mentioned earlier,

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Speaker 1: Rob that if a seed was maybe in your pockets,

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Speaker 1: in your pockets were full of soil, it could grow

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Speaker 1: out of that. But could it actually grow from inside

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Speaker 1: your body? Well, I could not find a verified example

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Speaker 1: of this. I found a disputed claim about a fig

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Speaker 1: tree that grew out of a murdered man's stomach in

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Speaker 1: a cave in Cyprus, But it looks like that that

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Speaker 1: account is has has generally been refuted. But I was

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Speaker 1: reading an article that talks about that that rumored story

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Speaker 1: in Life Science by Laura Geigel, and the author here

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Speaker 1: consulted a soil science professor from Oregon State University named j. Knohler,

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Speaker 1: and it was Nhler's opinion that such a thing is

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Speaker 1: actually plausible. He said that seeds can sometimes emerge from

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Speaker 1: dead animals, so he imagines they could likewise emerge out

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Speaker 1: of a dead human um. But he said it wouldn't

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Speaker 1: have to be in their stomach. It could actually grow

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Speaker 1: from any part of the dead person's digestive tract. It

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Speaker 1: could be in their large intestine, small intestine. And the

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Speaker 1: way it breaks down would work like this, So you

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Speaker 1: have a dead, decaying body all around the plant seed

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Speaker 1: that would sort of help it out with nutrients, very

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Speaker 1: possibly with the third party of fung us involved. So

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Speaker 1: microscopic fungi in the soil would help decompose the dead

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Speaker 1: body breakdown. You know, the fungus would break down fats

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Speaker 1: and proteins into simpler constituent nutrients, and then the fungus

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Speaker 1: would share these nutrients with nearby plants, possibly even seeds

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Speaker 1: that are among the decaying organic material of the body

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Speaker 1: in a symbiotic relationship. So they would exchange simple sugars

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Speaker 1: that the plant produces for these nutrients that they're getting

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Speaker 1: from decomposing the body. But I wanted to think about

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Speaker 1: another way of possibly framing infection by an alien plant,

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Speaker 1: apart from directly becoming the host or substrate of the

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Speaker 1: plant itself, And that's the idea of infection via a

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Speaker 1: plant vector. Or to put it as a question, would

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Speaker 1: you let a zucchini flower cough in your mouth? And

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Speaker 1: I was looking around for for answers to this question

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Speaker 1: can you get infected from a plant? And I found

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Speaker 1: an article by a plant pathologist and diagnostician at Iowa

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Speaker 1: State University named Dr Lena Rodriguez Salamanca, and she said

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Speaker 1: that sometimes her lab receives questions from the public, including

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Speaker 1: the question of can I catch and infectious disease from

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Speaker 1: a plant? The answer is in most cases no. You know,

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Speaker 1: pathogens that are specialized to infect plants, and of course

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Speaker 1: there are many of these. Plants can be infected by fungi,

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Speaker 1: by viruses, by bacteria, just like animals can. But usually

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Speaker 1: a pathogen that is specialized for one kingdom of life

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Speaker 1: is not just going to jump, you know, from that

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Speaker 1: one into another kingdom of life and infected. It is

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Speaker 1: not adapted to that. But there are cases of a

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Speaker 1: few known opportunistic pathogens that will make this jump, and

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Speaker 1: this is especially true for people with compromised immune systems.

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Speaker 1: So one example is an infectious bacterium known as a

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Speaker 1: pseudominous erugenosa and Rodriguez Salamanca says that it can cause

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Speaker 1: a weak soft rot on plants such as lettuce, and

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Speaker 1: this bacterium has been known to jump the kingdom barrier

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Speaker 1: and sometimes infect people with compromised immune systems. This can

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Speaker 1: lead to infections of the urinary tract, of the lungs,

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Speaker 1: the blood, and wounds including burns, but for most people

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Speaker 1: it does not represent a threat. But then there are

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Speaker 1: other ones. For example, there is a fungal infection caused

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Speaker 1: by the fungus Sporothrix shanky i, which thrives on the

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Speaker 1: dead thorns of a rose stem, and this has given

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Speaker 1: rise to the name rose pickers disease or rose handler's disease.

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Speaker 1: So if you're handling a rose and you, you know,

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Speaker 1: get pricked by one of these dead thorns that has

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Speaker 1: the fungal infection, or get a scratch, this way, the

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Speaker 1: fungus can get into your scan, potentially into your lymph system.

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Speaker 1: And apparently you can also inhale spores of this fungus

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Speaker 1: and this can cause all kinds of problems infections of

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Speaker 1: the skin, of course, but of the eyes, the lungs,

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Speaker 1: the nervous system, bones, and joints. And then finally she

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Speaker 1: mentions that there are infectious agents of plants that can

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Speaker 1: produce secondary byproducts that are harmful to humans, and she

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00:22:02,800 --> 00:22:06,919
Speaker 1: gives the example of fungi that attack corn. The phrase

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Speaker 1: she used specifically is ear rots, which is a new

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Speaker 1: sort of words quick for me. But this includes the

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Speaker 1: genus Fusarium, and these fungi produced secondary microtoxins including quote

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Speaker 1: few Monison's z r alinone and the aptly named vomitoxin,

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00:22:26,600 --> 00:22:29,399
Speaker 1: which yes, that that is what it sounds like. And

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Speaker 1: of course these are byproducts that can affect you in

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Speaker 1: all kinds of ways. She talks about how most of

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Speaker 1: the things like this, like like Aspergillis flavius also is

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Speaker 1: a is a contaminant that you could find in grains

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Speaker 1: that produces secondary micotoxins. A lot of these things that

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Speaker 1: produce these secondary microtoxins that can harm you would be

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Speaker 1: found specifically, not in like leafy plants like let us,

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Speaker 1: but on grains. And she she mentions, you know, you

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Speaker 1: don't need to be too worried because they're like grain

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00:22:56,200 --> 00:23:00,920
Speaker 1: producers monitor for the presence of these organisms. So yes,

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Speaker 1: it is in fact possible for a human to catch

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Speaker 1: a disease from a plant, much in the same way

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Speaker 1: that we could catch a disease from a mosquito or

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Speaker 1: a bat, but fortunately it's not very common. All Right

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Speaker 1: with that, we're gonna go ahead close the book on

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Speaker 1: Ajority Veril and I think we're gonna go and take

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Speaker 1: our first break. But when we come back, we will

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Speaker 1: unlock another entry in horror anthology history. Thank thank Alright,

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Speaker 1: we're back. Is it time to go to the Outer Limits? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: let's go to the Outer Limits. Uh So, I mentioned

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Speaker 1: that we would be looking at an episode from the

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Speaker 1: nineties revival of the Outer Limits UM. Not to be

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Speaker 1: confused with the original series from the from the nineteen sixties. Uh.

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Speaker 1: This is a series that ran through two thousand and two. Now,

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Speaker 1: I watched a few of these on TV back in

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Speaker 1: the day, but via Amazon Prime watch Party, we've been

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Speaker 1: watching an episode a week with a couple of friends,

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Speaker 1: and I have to say, the nineties Our or Limits

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Speaker 1: has everything I love. You've got really cool sci fi concepts,

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Speaker 1: you have great monster makeup, a little nineties cheesiness, uh

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Speaker 1: sprinkled in there, and some really fun performances as well,

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Speaker 1: sometimes by people you've you've never heard of, but oftentimes

427
00:24:15,080 --> 00:24:17,919
Speaker 1: by people that went on to have uh you know,

428
00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:21,639
Speaker 1: key roles in um in various sci fi properties or

429
00:24:21,880 --> 00:24:24,399
Speaker 1: uh you know they did they did additional television work,

430
00:24:24,800 --> 00:24:27,000
Speaker 1: So you never know who you're gonna get. Like, for instance,

431
00:24:27,240 --> 00:24:29,800
Speaker 1: I haven't watched this yet, but there's an episode where

432
00:24:30,000 --> 00:24:34,320
Speaker 1: Gary Busey shows up playing a televangelist. There's a one

433
00:24:34,359 --> 00:24:37,640
Speaker 1: where Michael Ironside shows up playing a mutant. Uh, it's

434
00:24:37,720 --> 00:24:40,160
Speaker 1: is you just never know who's going to be in there. Yeah,

435
00:24:40,240 --> 00:24:42,720
Speaker 1: there's a lot of oh that guy in it. Yeah.

436
00:24:42,840 --> 00:24:46,200
Speaker 1: Basically name an actor who is doing TV during this

437
00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:48,840
Speaker 1: period of time, and there's a great chance that they

438
00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:51,600
Speaker 1: were on an episode of The Outer Limits. So during

439
00:24:51,640 --> 00:24:53,720
Speaker 1: the Outer the nineties Outer Limits run they did a

440
00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:56,400
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty two episodes. That's compared to forty nine

441
00:24:56,440 --> 00:24:59,720
Speaker 1: episodes from the original nineteen sixties series. And again, I

442
00:24:59,720 --> 00:25:03,119
Speaker 1: certain I haven't watched them all, but this is a

443
00:25:03,200 --> 00:25:05,040
Speaker 1: really good one we're gonna be talking about. It's an

444
00:25:05,040 --> 00:25:07,960
Speaker 1: episode that is probably a bit heavy handed, as these

445
00:25:07,960 --> 00:25:11,080
Speaker 1: sort of things tend to be. UM, but this is

446
00:25:11,119 --> 00:25:15,320
Speaker 1: also rather pronounced as it was essentially a n commentary

447
00:25:15,480 --> 00:25:20,240
Speaker 1: about climate change denialism. That's very early. Yeah, yeah, you know,

448
00:25:20,520 --> 00:25:23,879
Speaker 1: earlier than say an Inconvenient Truth and um and the like.

449
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:25,840
Speaker 1: But we'll get into something like the basic where it

450
00:25:25,840 --> 00:25:29,960
Speaker 1: fits into the basic timeline of of climate change understanding

451
00:25:30,200 --> 00:25:33,000
Speaker 1: here shortly. But but first of all, just so everyone

452
00:25:33,040 --> 00:25:34,720
Speaker 1: can find it if you're interested in watching it, it's

453
00:25:34,720 --> 00:25:37,720
Speaker 1: titled to Tell the Truth, and it was written by

454
00:25:37,800 --> 00:25:43,160
Speaker 1: Lawrence Myers and directed by Neil Fernley. It stars Gregory

455
00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:46,760
Speaker 1: Harrison as Dr Larry Chambers. You may remember Gregory Harrison

456
00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:49,359
Speaker 1: from various TV shows. I think he's like like on

457
00:25:49,440 --> 00:25:52,800
Speaker 1: Trapper John m D or something. Um and uh, you

458
00:25:52,840 --> 00:25:56,120
Speaker 1: know various other shows. Uh, a kind of a soap

459
00:25:56,160 --> 00:26:00,280
Speaker 1: opera vibe. Yeah, yeah, definitely and uh and in this

460
00:26:00,440 --> 00:26:04,160
Speaker 1: he plays a terraforming botanist on the off world colony

461
00:26:04,400 --> 00:26:07,000
Speaker 1: of Janice five. And I love how perfectly on the

462
00:26:07,040 --> 00:26:10,080
Speaker 1: nose that the title is, I mean the name of

463
00:26:10,119 --> 00:26:12,760
Speaker 1: the colony and or planet is because this is an

464
00:26:12,800 --> 00:26:16,240
Speaker 1: episode that is concerned with truth, denial and the mistrust

465
00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:20,359
Speaker 1: of information. Yes, and it has characters whose faces change

466
00:26:20,400 --> 00:26:22,920
Speaker 1: and who are not what they seem. Yeah. So here's

467
00:26:22,960 --> 00:26:25,600
Speaker 1: the deal. The Janice five colony is going pretty well.

468
00:26:25,640 --> 00:26:29,040
Speaker 1: It has a bright future, but doctor Chambers is concerned

469
00:26:29,080 --> 00:26:32,600
Speaker 1: by some of the geologic evidence. Geologic evidence that includes

470
00:26:32,720 --> 00:26:37,159
Speaker 1: the remnants of an extinct shape shifting alien civilization. But

471
00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:39,680
Speaker 1: five years ago he got it really wrong. He predicted

472
00:26:40,160 --> 00:26:43,520
Speaker 1: CycL cyclical catastrophe. Uh, and he thought it was gonna

473
00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:47,040
Speaker 1: be a volcanic catastrophe, but then this didn't come to fruition.

474
00:26:47,400 --> 00:26:50,400
Speaker 1: Now he's come to believe that the cyclical threat that

475
00:26:50,800 --> 00:26:53,480
Speaker 1: is facing this planet is actually solar and that in

476
00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:56,439
Speaker 1: another and then another devastating solar storm is just on

477
00:26:56,480 --> 00:26:59,680
Speaker 1: the horizon. So he urges that the colony be moved

478
00:26:59,880 --> 00:27:02,920
Speaker 1: or even evacuated. Yeah, there's a great fake out beginning

479
00:27:02,960 --> 00:27:04,920
Speaker 1: where a couple of characters appear to be looking out

480
00:27:04,920 --> 00:27:07,439
Speaker 1: a window and then they see the sky it fills

481
00:27:07,520 --> 00:27:11,399
Speaker 1: with these shimmering auroras and that turns into fire everywhere,

482
00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:14,720
Speaker 1: and you you think, oh, no, are our main character

483
00:27:14,800 --> 00:27:16,439
Speaker 1: is going to be killed right at the beginning. But

484
00:27:16,600 --> 00:27:19,560
Speaker 1: though it turns out it is a simulation they're looking at.

485
00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:24,720
Speaker 1: But I was wondering, why, why if they're simulating the

486
00:27:24,760 --> 00:27:28,840
Speaker 1: future of the climate, or they're simulating solar activity, does

487
00:27:28,880 --> 00:27:33,159
Speaker 1: it create a video display of what is simulating would happen?

488
00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:36,359
Speaker 1: I don't. I guess it's just a robust simulation um

489
00:27:36,359 --> 00:27:39,240
Speaker 1: package they have there. Yeah, that's a really good simulation.

490
00:27:39,560 --> 00:27:44,080
Speaker 1: Usually simulation spit out like some numbers. Yeah, this one

491
00:27:44,119 --> 00:27:45,919
Speaker 1: does it full like I'll give you, I'll give you

492
00:27:45,960 --> 00:27:50,160
Speaker 1: a movie. So I mean, I guess it's all about,

493
00:27:50,200 --> 00:27:52,320
Speaker 1: you know, creating something you know, visual that of course

494
00:27:52,320 --> 00:27:55,560
Speaker 1: the audience can get into. But also these colonists, because

495
00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:59,440
Speaker 1: even sympathetic members of the colony have their doubts about

496
00:27:59,560 --> 00:28:02,439
Speaker 1: Dr Ambers. After all, he got it wrong once before

497
00:28:02,880 --> 00:28:05,320
Speaker 1: and then there's this added detail that he recently lost

498
00:28:05,400 --> 00:28:07,920
Speaker 1: his wife and then even went missing for a couple

499
00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:10,359
Speaker 1: of weeks in the in the wilderness. So this there's

500
00:28:10,359 --> 00:28:13,199
Speaker 1: this lingering question can he be trusted? Is he acting

501
00:28:13,240 --> 00:28:17,680
Speaker 1: out of sort of just nihilistic hatred for the colony?

502
00:28:18,200 --> 00:28:20,520
Speaker 1: Plenty of and also just plenty of the colonists don't

503
00:28:20,520 --> 00:28:23,159
Speaker 1: want to go through all of this again, and the

504
00:28:23,280 --> 00:28:26,560
Speaker 1: higher ups also have a lot invested in the situation.

505
00:28:26,880 --> 00:28:30,000
Speaker 1: One thing I think this episode models extremely well is

506
00:28:30,119 --> 00:28:33,760
Speaker 1: that when the care so Dr. Chambers is trying to

507
00:28:33,800 --> 00:28:37,680
Speaker 1: convince these characters that his simulation is correct, and when

508
00:28:37,760 --> 00:28:41,760
Speaker 1: characters find the implications of his conclusions unpalatable, like well,

509
00:28:41,800 --> 00:28:44,080
Speaker 1: they don't want to have to move or you know whatever,

510
00:28:44,120 --> 00:28:47,360
Speaker 1: it's not in their interests to try to evacuate. Most

511
00:28:47,360 --> 00:28:50,040
Speaker 1: of the substance of their disagreement is not really about

512
00:28:50,080 --> 00:28:52,640
Speaker 1: what he's saying, but it's about him as a person.

513
00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:56,120
Speaker 1: So they say, like, you've got a psychological reason that

514
00:28:56,240 --> 00:28:58,120
Speaker 1: you would make all this stuff up? You know that

515
00:28:58,240 --> 00:29:01,160
Speaker 1: They start like talking about his person history and attacking

516
00:29:01,320 --> 00:29:03,920
Speaker 1: his character and saying, who is this guy? Can we

517
00:29:03,960 --> 00:29:07,280
Speaker 1: really trust him? Very reminiscent of how similar debates in

518
00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:10,960
Speaker 1: reality play out. But also I've just got to say

519
00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:14,160
Speaker 1: one of my favorite parts of this episode was the

520
00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:19,120
Speaker 1: repeated threatening visits from this guy named Fenton, who has

521
00:29:19,200 --> 00:29:21,440
Speaker 1: just really got it out for Dr Chambers. He seems

522
00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:23,760
Speaker 1: to be a neighbor of his who is some kind

523
00:29:23,760 --> 00:29:27,920
Speaker 1: of security employee. Uh but he he looks basically like

524
00:29:27,960 --> 00:29:33,000
Speaker 1: a diminutive evil ken bone. Yeah. I love Finton in

525
00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:35,200
Speaker 1: this because he's I mean, he he works, he's a

526
00:29:35,240 --> 00:29:37,480
Speaker 1: gain a character, but he also you know, he's not

527
00:29:37,520 --> 00:29:40,360
Speaker 1: particularly threatening, and he does he also has a great

528
00:29:40,400 --> 00:29:43,240
Speaker 1: toady vibe to him, Like, I'm totally buying that in

529
00:29:43,320 --> 00:29:47,920
Speaker 1: this off world colony where where it's later explained that

530
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:49,720
Speaker 1: you know a lot of people go here that didn't

531
00:29:49,760 --> 00:29:53,040
Speaker 1: have a shot at ascending uh into the you know,

532
00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:56,960
Speaker 1: into into higher levels back on Earth, like this is

533
00:29:57,120 --> 00:29:59,600
Speaker 1: their shot, And you totally buy Finton as a guy

534
00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:01,720
Speaker 1: who you know, probably wouldn't be head of security or

535
00:30:01,760 --> 00:30:05,200
Speaker 1: a major security player anywhere else, but here on on

536
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:08,200
Speaker 1: Janice five, he's got a shot. Well, even on Janice five,

537
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:10,080
Speaker 1: he's not the head of security. He answers to the

538
00:30:10,080 --> 00:30:12,080
Speaker 1: guy with the beard, I can't remember what that guy's

539
00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:15,520
Speaker 1: name is but yeah, he's he's some kind of cop

540
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:18,360
Speaker 1: or something. But it was just really funny how he

541
00:30:18,520 --> 00:30:21,880
Speaker 1: repeatedly shows up to be like this threatening figure, but

542
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:28,320
Speaker 1: he's this cute little nerd. Now, um, the key individual here,

543
00:30:28,400 --> 00:30:31,840
Speaker 1: like the key antagonist I guess you would would call him,

544
00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:35,840
Speaker 1: is the head of the colony, Franklin Murdoch, and he's

545
00:30:35,880 --> 00:30:40,880
Speaker 1: played by the terrific William Atherton. Now Atherton is best

546
00:30:40,920 --> 00:30:43,840
Speaker 1: known for playing Uh. First, there was a character in

547
00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:48,400
Speaker 1: die Hard named Thornburgh, but most famously I think he

548
00:30:48,480 --> 00:30:54,040
Speaker 1: played Walter Peck in four's Ghostbusters. He he was just

549
00:30:54,080 --> 00:30:58,440
Speaker 1: a perfect nineteen eighties weasel. Yeah, he has a special

550
00:30:58,520 --> 00:31:02,560
Speaker 1: knack I think for playing arrogant bureaucrats. So in die

551
00:31:02,600 --> 00:31:07,120
Speaker 1: Hard he's a sleazy, opportunistic reporter and in uh in

552
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:12,720
Speaker 1: Ghostbusters he plays the villainous e P A agent. Yeah, yeah,

553
00:31:12,720 --> 00:31:16,000
Speaker 1: which is which is is always weird now when I

554
00:31:16,200 --> 00:31:19,320
Speaker 1: rewatch Ghostbusters to think about Ghostbusters, because yeah, he has

555
00:31:19,400 --> 00:31:22,560
Speaker 1: just played as like a straight villain, or at least

556
00:31:22,560 --> 00:31:25,880
Speaker 1: a sub villain in the film despite representing the you

557
00:31:25,920 --> 00:31:30,000
Speaker 1: know now in battled US Environmental Protection Agency, which is

558
00:31:30,400 --> 00:31:33,680
Speaker 1: there too, Especially in the film, like he's acting to

559
00:31:33,720 --> 00:31:39,080
Speaker 1: protect New York City from environmental damage from from things

560
00:31:39,160 --> 00:31:44,080
Speaker 1: like unlicensed nuclear accelerators and and this containment system that

561
00:31:44,160 --> 00:31:47,240
Speaker 1: even Egon describes as something that can't be turned off

562
00:31:47,280 --> 00:31:50,960
Speaker 1: without quote dropping a bomb on the city. I mean,

563
00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:52,400
Speaker 1: I think there are a couple of ways you could read.

564
00:31:52,520 --> 00:31:55,920
Speaker 1: Of course, I love Ghostbusters and the character is very funny.

565
00:31:56,200 --> 00:31:58,120
Speaker 1: You could read it as that the politics of the

566
00:31:58,160 --> 00:32:01,800
Speaker 1: movie are conservative. That's another way of reading it is

567
00:32:01,840 --> 00:32:05,080
Speaker 1: just that like this is a comedy where the protagonists

568
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:10,560
Speaker 1: are are dangerously irresponsible people, and that that's sort of true. Yeah, yeah,

569
00:32:10,560 --> 00:32:13,760
Speaker 1: I mean certainly, like if you really analyze the character

570
00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:17,280
Speaker 1: of Peter Bankman, um, you know, how how likable is

571
00:32:17,320 --> 00:32:20,760
Speaker 1: he really? Uh but you know, Bill Murray, he makes

572
00:32:20,760 --> 00:32:25,120
Speaker 1: it work, Yeah he does. He does now again now

573
00:32:25,200 --> 00:32:28,160
Speaker 1: now Peck and Ghostbusters is definitely an arrogant jerk. I

574
00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:31,520
Speaker 1: don't want to get past that point. And Atherton brings

575
00:32:31,600 --> 00:32:34,560
Speaker 1: some of that same energy to this performance, but this

576
00:32:34,640 --> 00:32:40,120
Speaker 1: time he is definitely the face of anti environmental forces. Uh.

577
00:32:40,160 --> 00:32:43,080
Speaker 1: And I think he's he's actually well presented here instead

578
00:32:43,080 --> 00:32:46,840
Speaker 1: of being just a pure money grubbing heel Murdoch is

579
00:32:46,880 --> 00:32:52,120
Speaker 1: presented as being someone who opposes Chambers for several reasons. So,

580
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:54,680
Speaker 1: first of all, Murdoch has a position of power and

581
00:32:54,760 --> 00:32:57,800
Speaker 1: importance here on the colony that he would never have

582
00:32:57,880 --> 00:33:00,719
Speaker 1: achieved on Earth. He has this this really little monologu

583
00:33:00,720 --> 00:33:02,640
Speaker 1: where he talks about it. I think he's talking is

584
00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:04,720
Speaker 1: he He's not talking to Fenton, He's talking to another

585
00:33:04,800 --> 00:33:09,280
Speaker 1: character Will mention in a little bit. Also, Murdoch, like

586
00:33:09,400 --> 00:33:12,120
Speaker 1: all the other colonists, has in an economic stake in

587
00:33:12,160 --> 00:33:15,800
Speaker 1: the colony's success, but he also stresses that this does

588
00:33:15,840 --> 00:33:19,000
Speaker 1: not rank above the importance of his own life. Murdoch,

589
00:33:19,080 --> 00:33:22,440
Speaker 1: seemingly quite authentically in one of these things, proclaims that

590
00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:25,640
Speaker 1: also Janice five is his home and he doesn't want

591
00:33:25,640 --> 00:33:27,920
Speaker 1: to leave it, So he has that, um, you know,

592
00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:32,000
Speaker 1: tying him to the current situation. And then finally he

593
00:33:32,240 --> 00:33:36,640
Speaker 1: is concerned that is convincing his Chambers. Maybe he has

594
00:33:36,680 --> 00:33:40,400
Speaker 1: been wrong before and he might be wrong again for

595
00:33:40,600 --> 00:33:45,240
Speaker 1: very human reasons. I mean, this episode, actually, like you're suggesting,

596
00:33:45,320 --> 00:33:49,480
Speaker 1: raises a lot of very interesting and legitimate real life

597
00:33:49,480 --> 00:33:53,200
Speaker 1: concerns about saying how to communicate scientific conclusions that would

598
00:33:53,280 --> 00:33:56,800
Speaker 1: motivate action in the real world, because there are a

599
00:33:56,840 --> 00:33:58,840
Speaker 1: lot of difficulties there. But I mean one of the

600
00:33:58,840 --> 00:34:04,720
Speaker 1: difficulties I think is that science, unlike most other epistemological methods,

601
00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:08,960
Speaker 1: is very upfront about uncertainty, so like it builds in

602
00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:11,680
Speaker 1: the fact that, like, you know, I'm trying to tell

603
00:34:11,719 --> 00:34:15,080
Speaker 1: you that this is a conclusion with x probability instead

604
00:34:15,120 --> 00:34:17,759
Speaker 1: of just saying, like, here's how it is. And it

605
00:34:17,800 --> 00:34:20,720
Speaker 1: turns out that even though that is probably the best

606
00:34:20,840 --> 00:34:23,960
Speaker 1: method that you can use for actually figuring out what's true,

607
00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:28,359
Speaker 1: it is not particularly convincing to motivate people to do

608
00:34:28,480 --> 00:34:31,960
Speaker 1: things that they don't want to do otherwise because it's like, oh,

609
00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:35,080
Speaker 1: wait a minute, you're acknowledging you're not certain. Then you know,

610
00:34:35,160 --> 00:34:37,960
Speaker 1: how can how can we make all these costly decisions

611
00:34:37,960 --> 00:34:40,319
Speaker 1: on the basis of your conclusion? Yeah? Yeah, I mean,

612
00:34:40,360 --> 00:34:42,440
Speaker 1: like there's a there's a line in there where one

613
00:34:42,480 --> 00:34:44,879
Speaker 1: of the columns is saying, you're asking us to ruin

614
00:34:44,920 --> 00:34:47,200
Speaker 1: our lives again, like you've already done it once before,

615
00:34:47,560 --> 00:34:50,280
Speaker 1: and now you're asking to do it again and and

616
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:52,840
Speaker 1: and we can't even be certain about it. As a

617
00:34:52,880 --> 00:34:56,800
Speaker 1: brief aside about the scientific premise of the episode. I

618
00:34:57,120 --> 00:35:02,200
Speaker 1: was interested in chambers suggestion that, so what happens on

619
00:35:02,200 --> 00:35:05,440
Speaker 1: on Janice five on the planet is that Chambers believes

620
00:35:05,480 --> 00:35:09,759
Speaker 1: every one thousand years, basically the planet is sterilized and

621
00:35:09,800 --> 00:35:14,000
Speaker 1: nearly all life is wiped out by solar activity. That

622
00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:16,640
Speaker 1: that just bombards the surface of the planet with radiation

623
00:35:17,400 --> 00:35:20,480
Speaker 1: and uh and and you know, wipes everything clean and

624
00:35:20,520 --> 00:35:23,000
Speaker 1: then life has to bounce back. And I was wondering,

625
00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:26,239
Speaker 1: wait a minute, how would it be possible for complex

626
00:35:26,280 --> 00:35:29,160
Speaker 1: life to even evolve on such a planet? And I

627
00:35:29,239 --> 00:35:30,680
Speaker 1: was trying to I was trying to make it work.

628
00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:33,239
Speaker 1: One way I thought of is well, maybe years are

629
00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:36,319
Speaker 1: longer on Janice five than they are on Earth. So

630
00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:39,560
Speaker 1: a thousand years is actually a much longer period. Uh.

631
00:35:39,600 --> 00:35:41,640
Speaker 1: So I was looking at, you know, what, what's a

632
00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:44,520
Speaker 1: what's a planet that has a really long orbital period?

633
00:35:44,560 --> 00:35:47,880
Speaker 1: In our Solar system? Neptune takes a hundred and sixty

634
00:35:47,920 --> 00:35:50,920
Speaker 1: five years to orbit the Sun. So if Janice is

635
00:35:50,960 --> 00:35:54,400
Speaker 1: like Neptune, then a thousand Janie years would be a

636
00:35:54,480 --> 00:35:57,960
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty five thousand Earth years. But the crazy

637
00:35:58,000 --> 00:36:00,120
Speaker 1: thing is that's still the blink of an eye in

638
00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:03,080
Speaker 1: evolutionary time. Uh. And sometimes it can be hard to

639
00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:07,240
Speaker 1: put that in perspective. But if you consider it like this, so, uh,

640
00:36:07,320 --> 00:36:10,360
Speaker 1: the if the evolution of life on Earth fits into

641
00:36:10,440 --> 00:36:12,280
Speaker 1: you know, we don't know exactly when the first cells

642
00:36:12,320 --> 00:36:15,600
Speaker 1: arose or or the chemical evolution that gave rise to

643
00:36:15,640 --> 00:36:17,799
Speaker 1: the first cells happened, but if you put it in

644
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:21,720
Speaker 1: basically the last four billion years, more than twenty four

645
00:36:22,040 --> 00:36:26,240
Speaker 1: thousand periods of a hundred and sixty five thousand years

646
00:36:26,239 --> 00:36:29,640
Speaker 1: could fit into that. So it makes you think, well,

647
00:36:29,719 --> 00:36:32,360
Speaker 1: if you're going to take this premise seriously that somehow

648
00:36:32,440 --> 00:36:36,959
Speaker 1: complex life evolves on a planet that is sterilized every

649
00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:41,440
Speaker 1: thousand years or so, either that sterilization has to be

650
00:36:41,480 --> 00:36:44,280
Speaker 1: taken into account in the biology of the life that evolves,

651
00:36:44,280 --> 00:36:48,000
Speaker 1: like it goes dormant somehow to avoid the sterilization. Uh,

652
00:36:48,040 --> 00:36:50,960
Speaker 1: And that possibility, I think is raised in the episode,

653
00:36:51,560 --> 00:36:55,359
Speaker 1: or it evolves at rates that are that are unthinkable

654
00:36:55,440 --> 00:36:58,839
Speaker 1: given the kind of evolution we understand here on Earth. Yeah,

655
00:36:58,920 --> 00:37:02,160
Speaker 1: that's interesting, you know, it's it's a very thoughtful show,

656
00:37:02,320 --> 00:37:05,920
Speaker 1: even with its occasional hokiness, you know, and and necessary

657
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:09,839
Speaker 1: leaps in you know, in the fantastic um. But but yeah,

658
00:37:09,880 --> 00:37:12,320
Speaker 1: it's interesting to think about the idea of say comparing

659
00:37:12,320 --> 00:37:16,080
Speaker 1: it to for the organisms that that depend on cyclical

660
00:37:16,160 --> 00:37:20,360
Speaker 1: forest fires. Uh, it's just part of the environment that

661
00:37:20,440 --> 00:37:22,640
Speaker 1: they live in. That's a very good point of comparison.

662
00:37:22,640 --> 00:37:25,040
Speaker 1: And actually a similar idea comes up in the three

663
00:37:25,040 --> 00:37:27,839
Speaker 1: Body Problem by c Chin Lou. Oh. Yeah, that's right,

664
00:37:28,239 --> 00:37:31,480
Speaker 1: in the simulation that they're working with, right, with the

665
00:37:32,920 --> 00:37:36,359
Speaker 1: world with multiple suns, right, the ideas that they're they're

666
00:37:36,480 --> 00:37:40,960
Speaker 1: unpredictable times when the environmental conditions of their home planet

667
00:37:41,040 --> 00:37:46,440
Speaker 1: become basically unsurvivable and the aliens have to disappear, have

668
00:37:46,560 --> 00:37:49,480
Speaker 1: to sort of like go into a hibernation or dehydration

669
00:37:49,600 --> 00:37:52,880
Speaker 1: state in order to just like ride out the uninhabitable

670
00:37:52,920 --> 00:37:56,600
Speaker 1: period and then re emerge once the planet becomes less hostile.

671
00:37:56,960 --> 00:37:59,320
Speaker 1: So this is the basic set up for the the episode.

672
00:37:59,320 --> 00:38:01,120
Speaker 1: And I want to dress here by the way, when

673
00:38:01,200 --> 00:38:04,680
Speaker 1: this is where the audio realm uh Janice five the

674
00:38:04,760 --> 00:38:07,200
Speaker 1: name of the colony this is. This is not Janice

675
00:38:07,520 --> 00:38:10,799
Speaker 1: like the uh as in Janet or anything. This is

676
00:38:10,840 --> 00:38:13,080
Speaker 1: the two faced got And so that's the sort of

677
00:38:13,120 --> 00:38:19,080
Speaker 1: the Yeah, So from anyway, anyway, from here, the episode,

678
00:38:19,160 --> 00:38:21,279
Speaker 1: you know, takes a couple of I thought really satisfying

679
00:38:21,280 --> 00:38:23,760
Speaker 1: twists and turns. I don't want to spoil too much

680
00:38:23,880 --> 00:38:25,520
Speaker 1: in this episode in case you want to want to

681
00:38:25,520 --> 00:38:27,560
Speaker 1: see it for yourself, and I recommend you do. But

682
00:38:27,680 --> 00:38:30,000
Speaker 1: let's just say that some folks are accused of being

683
00:38:30,040 --> 00:38:33,840
Speaker 1: shaped shifting aliens that survived, uh, you know, like they

684
00:38:34,120 --> 00:38:36,959
Speaker 1: living in the depths of the earth or something um.

685
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:39,960
Speaker 1: And we're forced to wonder if Chambers will be proven

686
00:38:40,080 --> 00:38:42,360
Speaker 1: right or wrong and what it will mean for the

687
00:38:42,400 --> 00:38:45,600
Speaker 1: people of the colony. Now again, this episode is an

688
00:38:45,600 --> 00:38:48,320
Speaker 1: obvious treatment on the of the dangers of climate change

689
00:38:48,320 --> 00:38:51,719
Speaker 1: and the role that climate change denialism plays in our society.

690
00:38:52,440 --> 00:38:56,640
Speaker 1: To put everything in an historical framework, the greenhouse effect

691
00:38:56,760 --> 00:39:01,480
Speaker 1: was described by French physicist Joseph Fourier in eighteen twenty four.

692
00:39:02,080 --> 00:39:05,279
Speaker 1: BBC has a nice breakdown of key moments after that

693
00:39:05,480 --> 00:39:09,600
Speaker 1: in a Brief History of climate Change, which brings up everything.

694
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:12,200
Speaker 1: It brings up everything through because you know, that's that's

695
00:39:12,200 --> 00:39:14,600
Speaker 1: when the timeline came out. But it's a nice handy

696
00:39:14,840 --> 00:39:18,600
Speaker 1: reference point for some of the stuff we're talking about here.

697
00:39:18,960 --> 00:39:21,000
Speaker 1: But they hit a few key points from the later

698
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:26,000
Speaker 1: twentieth century. U. S. Scientist Wallace Brocker put the term

699
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:29,480
Speaker 1: global warming in the title of a science paper, popularizing

700
00:39:29,480 --> 00:39:33,279
Speaker 1: the term, and in nineteen eighty seven the Montreal Protocol

701
00:39:33,360 --> 00:39:36,160
Speaker 1: came into effect to protect the ozone layer, and in

702
00:39:36,239 --> 00:39:40,680
Speaker 1: night the inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change formed to

703
00:39:40,920 --> 00:39:44,120
Speaker 1: colate and assess the evidence. And of course the i

704
00:39:44,200 --> 00:39:48,520
Speaker 1: p c C continues to collect and assess the evidence

705
00:39:48,600 --> 00:39:51,759
Speaker 1: on on the state of climate change even today. I

706
00:39:51,760 --> 00:39:57,000
Speaker 1: think their most recent major update and report was in furteen.

707
00:39:57,040 --> 00:40:00,359
Speaker 1: It was the fifth Assessment Report, and it it paints

708
00:40:00,360 --> 00:40:03,040
Speaker 1: a pretty dire picture. Now. One thing that this BBC

709
00:40:03,160 --> 00:40:05,479
Speaker 1: timeline also points out, and this is something that Carl

710
00:40:05,480 --> 00:40:08,200
Speaker 1: Sagan wrote about in The demon Haunted World as well.

711
00:40:08,800 --> 00:40:11,120
Speaker 1: Margaret Thatcher gave a speech to the u N in

712
00:40:11,239 --> 00:40:15,719
Speaker 1: nine and urged a global treaty, stating, quote, we are

713
00:40:15,760 --> 00:40:18,560
Speaker 1: seeing a vast increase in the amount of carbon dioxide

714
00:40:18,560 --> 00:40:21,360
Speaker 1: reaching the atmosphere. And then she goes on to to

715
00:40:21,520 --> 00:40:24,840
Speaker 1: point out that the future changes will quote likely be

716
00:40:25,040 --> 00:40:29,480
Speaker 1: more fundamental and more widespread than anything we have known hitherto.

717
00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:33,040
Speaker 1: And as Sagan pointed out, Thatcher, no matter what else

718
00:40:33,400 --> 00:40:36,680
Speaker 1: you know think about her in her politics, was is

719
00:40:36,960 --> 00:40:39,280
Speaker 1: one of the few heads of state we can point

720
00:40:39,280 --> 00:40:41,840
Speaker 1: to that had a science background. She was a research

721
00:40:41,920 --> 00:40:45,319
Speaker 1: chemist with a chemistry degree from Oxford. A weird thing

722
00:40:45,320 --> 00:40:49,240
Speaker 1: to remember. Yeah, in in the demon Haunted World, Sagan

723
00:40:49,360 --> 00:40:52,400
Speaker 1: brings us up because he's talking about science and politics

724
00:40:52,800 --> 00:40:56,320
Speaker 1: where they meet, and the idea here is that Margaret Thatcher,

725
00:40:56,719 --> 00:40:59,799
Speaker 1: you know, whatever else her her politics might mean, or

726
00:40:59,840 --> 00:41:02,000
Speaker 1: what you know, other details regarding her place in history,

727
00:41:02,560 --> 00:41:07,320
Speaker 1: she perhaps had an advantage in understanding these dire warnings

728
00:41:07,360 --> 00:41:11,799
Speaker 1: coming from the scientific community because of her own scientific background. Yeah,

729
00:41:11,840 --> 00:41:15,000
Speaker 1: that's interesting. I mean, it is not all that common

730
00:41:15,120 --> 00:41:19,319
Speaker 1: to see world leaders, major political leaders coming from a

731
00:41:19,360 --> 00:41:23,480
Speaker 1: scientific background, I think, doesn't I think Angela Merkel has

732
00:41:23,520 --> 00:41:26,200
Speaker 1: a scientific one of the few other ones you can

733
00:41:26,239 --> 00:41:28,279
Speaker 1: easily point to. Yeah, But I was trying to think

734
00:41:28,280 --> 00:41:30,920
Speaker 1: of other examples, and it come up very very short.

735
00:41:31,760 --> 00:41:35,000
Speaker 1: I mean, that is interesting. And I'm not saying necessarily

736
00:41:35,040 --> 00:41:37,520
Speaker 1: that one needs to be a scientist to be a

737
00:41:37,560 --> 00:41:40,160
Speaker 1: political leader. I mean that that also seems like a

738
00:41:40,600 --> 00:41:45,240
Speaker 1: unreasonable demand, and it's not necessarily true that scientific careers

739
00:41:45,239 --> 00:41:47,120
Speaker 1: would provide all of the kind of skills you need

740
00:41:47,160 --> 00:41:49,600
Speaker 1: to be a good political leader. But it seems like

741
00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:51,760
Speaker 1: it would be good to have at least a higher

742
00:41:51,760 --> 00:41:55,759
Speaker 1: proportion of people with scientific backgrounds involved in politics. I mean,

743
00:41:56,480 --> 00:41:59,560
Speaker 1: it's strange to just like look at the professional backgrounds

744
00:41:59,560 --> 00:42:03,520
Speaker 1: of people who become politicians and notice how uniform it

745
00:42:03,640 --> 00:42:05,239
Speaker 1: is most of the time. I mean, at least in

746
00:42:05,239 --> 00:42:09,560
Speaker 1: the United States, politics is overwhelmingly dominated by lawyers and

747
00:42:09,640 --> 00:42:13,640
Speaker 1: people from business. You kind of wonder how different our

748
00:42:13,680 --> 00:42:17,000
Speaker 1: politics might be if there was a more representative sample

749
00:42:17,040 --> 00:42:19,640
Speaker 1: of people from other fields, of people from the sciences,

750
00:42:19,680 --> 00:42:23,080
Speaker 1: of teachers of labor leader. Isn't so forth that all

751
00:42:23,280 --> 00:42:26,440
Speaker 1: like became political leaders. Also, Yeah, I mean, at the

752
00:42:26,520 --> 00:42:30,520
Speaker 1: very least, you want leaders who listen to trusted scientists.

753
00:42:31,120 --> 00:42:33,759
Speaker 1: You you know, you want scientists to um and uh

754
00:42:33,800 --> 00:42:36,680
Speaker 1: and scientifically minded people to be in positions to speak

755
00:42:36,719 --> 00:42:39,439
Speaker 1: to scientific topics and then have that be a part

756
00:42:39,800 --> 00:42:43,000
Speaker 1: of the you know, the upper political consideration. And I

757
00:42:43,000 --> 00:42:45,279
Speaker 1: don't think that's a controversial statement to make on of

758
00:42:45,320 --> 00:42:49,120
Speaker 1: science podcast. Um. But let's come back to this Outer

759
00:42:49,200 --> 00:42:53,120
Speaker 1: Limits episode. So this came out in which curiously and

760
00:42:53,160 --> 00:42:55,600
Speaker 1: this you know, I don't know what degree this is, uh,

761
00:42:55,800 --> 00:42:59,520
Speaker 1: this is actually um, you know, essential, but it's curiously

762
00:42:59,640 --> 00:43:03,360
Speaker 1: the same year that the rate of average global surface

763
00:43:03,360 --> 00:43:07,719
Speaker 1: warming began a slowing trend that lasted till now. As

764
00:43:07,760 --> 00:43:11,279
Speaker 1: Rebecca Lindsay points out on climate dot Gov, this really

765
00:43:11,320 --> 00:43:14,200
Speaker 1: just meant that quote the rate of average global surface

766
00:43:14,200 --> 00:43:18,279
Speaker 1: warming from through two thousand and twelve was slower than

767
00:43:18,320 --> 00:43:21,000
Speaker 1: it had been for two to three decades leading up

768
00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:24,480
Speaker 1: to it, but the big picture of long term warming

769
00:43:24,680 --> 00:43:29,040
Speaker 1: continued unchanged. Still, climate change deniers at the time took

770
00:43:29,280 --> 00:43:32,680
Speaker 1: took what climate scientists described as a temporary pause or

771
00:43:32,760 --> 00:43:37,879
Speaker 1: hiatus as proof that quote global warming stopped in Oh yeah,

772
00:43:37,880 --> 00:43:40,239
Speaker 1: I remember seeing that claim a lot floating around on

773
00:43:40,280 --> 00:43:42,959
Speaker 1: the internet. Yeah, so again, that might just be pure

774
00:43:43,000 --> 00:43:46,759
Speaker 1: you know, obviously this this episode was probably written uh

775
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:49,000
Speaker 1: prior to ninety eight, and I don't know what the

776
00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:51,719
Speaker 1: exact production history on on the script was. That it

777
00:43:51,800 --> 00:43:54,480
Speaker 1: might just be you know, pure coincidence that had happened

778
00:43:54,480 --> 00:43:57,239
Speaker 1: exactly that year, but maybe not, who knows. I would

779
00:43:57,280 --> 00:44:01,080
Speaker 1: tend to think coincidence because I doubt that people, I mean,

780
00:44:01,080 --> 00:44:03,440
Speaker 1: climate change was not as much of a salient issue

781
00:44:03,560 --> 00:44:06,520
Speaker 1: or political controversy at the time, and there wasn't the

782
00:44:06,600 --> 00:44:09,759
Speaker 1: same like period data to latch onto and denying it

783
00:44:09,880 --> 00:44:12,520
Speaker 1: yet Yeah, but the idea of calling it a pause

784
00:44:12,640 --> 00:44:15,480
Speaker 1: or hiatus could be really kind of misleading. I mean

785
00:44:15,680 --> 00:44:17,279
Speaker 1: it seems like actually, what I was just talking about

786
00:44:17,280 --> 00:44:19,920
Speaker 1: goes both ways. It would be good, I think, to

787
00:44:20,000 --> 00:44:23,600
Speaker 1: have more scientists involved in political leadership, but it would

788
00:44:23,640 --> 00:44:26,680
Speaker 1: also probably be good to have more people who are

789
00:44:26,719 --> 00:44:31,160
Speaker 1: experienced with rhetoric and messaging involved in science. Yeah, because

790
00:44:31,160 --> 00:44:33,840
Speaker 1: I mean that honestly. Yeah, that that's kind of confusing

791
00:44:33,920 --> 00:44:36,480
Speaker 1: terminology to throw out there. And and even if you

792
00:44:36,520 --> 00:44:38,880
Speaker 1: don't have an agenda, if you don't have, uh, you know,

793
00:44:39,280 --> 00:44:40,920
Speaker 1: a dog in the hunt, and of course this will

794
00:44:40,920 --> 00:44:43,680
Speaker 1: discuss everybody has a dog in this particular hunt. Um,

795
00:44:43,960 --> 00:44:45,759
Speaker 1: you know, you can see how you might misinterpret that.

796
00:44:46,480 --> 00:44:50,960
Speaker 1: But anyway, Yeah, this was the idea was pushed by

797
00:44:50,960 --> 00:44:53,120
Speaker 1: some that this means, oh well, global warming has stopped,

798
00:44:53,200 --> 00:44:56,040
Speaker 1: like it's over. Uh, you were freaking out over nothing. This.

799
00:44:56,160 --> 00:44:59,680
Speaker 1: Despite that global warming is a human cause, condition still

800
00:44:59,719 --> 00:45:03,840
Speaker 1: saw two thousand twelve as the warmest fifteen year period

801
00:45:03,920 --> 00:45:07,200
Speaker 1: on record at that time, with greenhouse gases climbing to

802
00:45:07,320 --> 00:45:11,080
Speaker 1: new record highs. The oceans were warming, sea levels were rising,

803
00:45:11,280 --> 00:45:14,000
Speaker 1: ice was melting. Now, as we've discussed on the show before.

804
00:45:14,960 --> 00:45:18,759
Speaker 1: Part of this comes down to a misunderstanding, willful or otherwise,

805
00:45:19,120 --> 00:45:22,880
Speaker 1: on how science functions. Science is not a tool that

806
00:45:23,000 --> 00:45:25,840
Speaker 1: works or doesn't work, and then maybe cast aside like

807
00:45:25,880 --> 00:45:28,480
Speaker 1: a crooked drill bit or something that needs to be replaced.

808
00:45:29,480 --> 00:45:32,239
Speaker 1: The part in to tell the truth about Chambers having

809
00:45:32,280 --> 00:45:36,280
Speaker 1: gotten it wrong before certainly smacks of the common climate

810
00:45:36,560 --> 00:45:39,840
Speaker 1: denialism mantra of but what about the warnings of the

811
00:45:39,840 --> 00:45:42,680
Speaker 1: new ice Age and other such criticism, right, you know,

812
00:45:43,080 --> 00:45:46,880
Speaker 1: there's a lot wrong with with that approach, obviously, ranging

813
00:45:46,920 --> 00:45:50,560
Speaker 1: from the treating uh you know, of all science and scientists,

814
00:45:50,960 --> 00:45:53,879
Speaker 1: regardless of area focus is kind of a monolith like, oh,

815
00:45:54,040 --> 00:45:56,160
Speaker 1: you know, this is what science is doing. Is what

816
00:45:56,200 --> 00:45:58,640
Speaker 1: the scientists are doing. And I found a scientist that

817
00:45:58,680 --> 00:46:02,520
Speaker 1: says otherwise because also gets into the cherry picking and

818
00:46:02,680 --> 00:46:06,040
Speaker 1: uh you know, assuming that air and recalibration are not

819
00:46:06,200 --> 00:46:09,440
Speaker 1: part of the scientific process. One of the real difficulties

820
00:46:09,440 --> 00:46:12,600
Speaker 1: with scientific communication is that you can always make a

821
00:46:12,680 --> 00:46:15,720
Speaker 1: kind of confusing reference to the past, like you can

822
00:46:15,760 --> 00:46:20,799
Speaker 1: find controversy on essentially any issue. Uh you know, there's

823
00:46:21,320 --> 00:46:25,359
Speaker 1: no scientific issue I can think of where through through

824
00:46:25,400 --> 00:46:28,280
Speaker 1: the entire history of the awareness of the issue. All

825
00:46:28,280 --> 00:46:30,919
Speaker 1: scientists have had it right and been on the same

826
00:46:30,960 --> 00:46:34,600
Speaker 1: page about it. So if you're interested in generating the

827
00:46:34,600 --> 00:46:39,400
Speaker 1: the idea of confusion or controversy about any particular scientific conclusion,

828
00:46:39,880 --> 00:46:42,080
Speaker 1: and you want to make references to, well, when have

829
00:46:42,200 --> 00:46:44,640
Speaker 1: people said different things about this issue in the past,

830
00:46:44,960 --> 00:46:46,920
Speaker 1: you can always find something like that. And in some

831
00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:52,480
Speaker 1: cases issue scientific consensus about issues develops and changes very rapidly.

832
00:46:52,480 --> 00:46:56,000
Speaker 1: I mean, I think about the ways that um for example,

833
00:46:56,320 --> 00:46:59,839
Speaker 1: current recommendations about how best to battle the coronavirus, about

834
00:47:00,440 --> 00:47:03,880
Speaker 1: UH masks and social distancing and all that stuff. People

835
00:47:03,920 --> 00:47:07,360
Speaker 1: who are kind of people who are opposed to following

836
00:47:07,600 --> 00:47:11,080
Speaker 1: the current best guidelines about those things will make reference

837
00:47:11,120 --> 00:47:14,240
Speaker 1: to what people were saying in the earliest weeks of

838
00:47:14,280 --> 00:47:17,400
Speaker 1: the of the pandemic. You remember this, right, like, like

839
00:47:17,440 --> 00:47:21,560
Speaker 1: initially scientific guidelines were not recommending people wear masks. That

840
00:47:21,719 --> 00:47:25,359
Speaker 1: changed very quickly. We did a very early episode where

841
00:47:25,440 --> 00:47:28,799
Speaker 1: we about the coronavirus, where we we we mentioned that,

842
00:47:29,160 --> 00:47:31,320
Speaker 1: though I should also point out that we also drove

843
00:47:31,360 --> 00:47:33,840
Speaker 1: home that you know we're recording this on such and

844
00:47:33,880 --> 00:47:37,239
Speaker 1: such date, at such and such point in this pandemic.

845
00:47:37,840 --> 00:47:41,319
Speaker 1: Be aware that that you know, everything may change as

846
00:47:41,360 --> 00:47:43,960
Speaker 1: this story develops. It can be a really frustrating thing.

847
00:47:44,000 --> 00:47:46,600
Speaker 1: I mean, the evidence now for the effectiveness of mask

848
00:47:46,680 --> 00:47:49,000
Speaker 1: wearing too slow the spread of the virus is very good.

849
00:47:49,080 --> 00:47:51,799
Speaker 1: It comes from multiple kinds of studies. Studies looking at

850
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:55,240
Speaker 1: the effects of mask mandates at the population level, studies

851
00:47:55,280 --> 00:47:57,960
Speaker 1: looking at the effects of physical barriers on the propagation

852
00:47:57,960 --> 00:48:01,280
Speaker 1: of droplets and aerosols, and control environments, how it spreads

853
00:48:01,280 --> 00:48:04,040
Speaker 1: between hamsters and things like that. The bottom line from

854
00:48:04,080 --> 00:48:05,919
Speaker 1: all of this research up to now is that there's

855
00:48:06,040 --> 00:48:07,840
Speaker 1: very good reason to wear a mask if you go

856
00:48:07,880 --> 00:48:10,280
Speaker 1: out in the public setting or anywhere near people outside

857
00:48:10,280 --> 00:48:13,759
Speaker 1: your household. But no matter how much evidence accumulates in

858
00:48:13,760 --> 00:48:16,600
Speaker 1: that column, there's always going to be this historical reference

859
00:48:16,680 --> 00:48:19,160
Speaker 1: point where people can say, hey, wait a minute, Like,

860
00:48:19,400 --> 00:48:21,719
Speaker 1: the experts weren't saying that at the beginning of March,

861
00:48:22,880 --> 00:48:25,680
Speaker 1: so how can we be sure that they're right now?

862
00:48:25,760 --> 00:48:28,400
Speaker 1: Why is what scientists are saying about the coronavirus, or

863
00:48:28,400 --> 00:48:31,040
Speaker 1: about climate or anything now better than what they were

864
00:48:31,040 --> 00:48:33,759
Speaker 1: saying in the past. And it can seem confusing, But

865
00:48:33,920 --> 00:48:36,320
Speaker 1: for the most part, the answer is actually pretty simple,

866
00:48:36,640 --> 00:48:39,640
Speaker 1: and it's that now we have better evidence. There's more evidence,

867
00:48:39,680 --> 00:48:43,799
Speaker 1: more relevant evidence, better quality evidence. That's the difference. Yeah,

868
00:48:43,800 --> 00:48:47,120
Speaker 1: this makes me think about the fact that science can

869
00:48:47,160 --> 00:48:51,680
Speaker 1: be very susceptible to political weapons when those weapons are

870
00:48:51,760 --> 00:48:55,080
Speaker 1: leveled at it, because science, science is ultimately this thing

871
00:48:55,160 --> 00:48:58,840
Speaker 1: that is that is taking place and analyzing, you know,

872
00:48:58,920 --> 00:49:03,320
Speaker 1: the fundamental aspects of the larger world, the cosmos, whereas

873
00:49:03,360 --> 00:49:07,879
Speaker 1: politics is very much a condition of of social dynamics.

874
00:49:08,200 --> 00:49:11,480
Speaker 1: And so you know, these political weapons, these singers and

875
00:49:11,480 --> 00:49:14,560
Speaker 1: and got your points and basically anything that might be

876
00:49:14,719 --> 00:49:18,279
Speaker 1: used from by one political opponent against another, like, those

877
00:49:18,320 --> 00:49:20,200
Speaker 1: are things that are designed to work within a social

878
00:49:20,239 --> 00:49:22,600
Speaker 1: context for the most part, into a certain extent, within

879
00:49:22,640 --> 00:49:27,360
Speaker 1: illegal context. But but sciences is like the world beyond

880
00:49:27,920 --> 00:49:32,200
Speaker 1: this domed colony of of law and society. And I wonder,

881
00:49:32,280 --> 00:49:34,000
Speaker 1: now that I've said that out loud, I wonder if

882
00:49:34,000 --> 00:49:36,800
Speaker 1: that's kind of the the beauty of this, uh, this setting,

883
00:49:36,800 --> 00:49:39,920
Speaker 1: in this outer limits of episode, because the people in

884
00:49:40,040 --> 00:49:42,680
Speaker 1: the colonists are literally living inside a bubble of their

885
00:49:42,719 --> 00:49:46,080
Speaker 1: own construction, uh, you know, of their own design, and

886
00:49:46,280 --> 00:49:51,360
Speaker 1: trying to evaluate threats that exist outside, like literally outside

887
00:49:51,680 --> 00:49:55,399
Speaker 1: the sphere of their immediate domain. All right, we're gonna

888
00:49:55,400 --> 00:49:57,239
Speaker 1: take a quick break. We'll be right back with more

889
00:50:00,800 --> 00:50:04,240
Speaker 1: and we're back now, of course in this Outer Limits episode. Um,

890
00:50:04,280 --> 00:50:06,960
Speaker 1: you know, as as as we we've pointed out before,

891
00:50:07,520 --> 00:50:09,560
Speaker 1: there's this stark difference between what's going on with Dr

892
00:50:09,640 --> 00:50:12,920
Speaker 1: Chambers and what's going on with us, because well, it's

893
00:50:12,960 --> 00:50:15,560
Speaker 1: just in the show, it's just Dr Chambers preaching to

894
00:50:15,640 --> 00:50:18,600
Speaker 1: a crowded room and making a case with difficult evidence.

895
00:50:18,640 --> 00:50:21,680
Speaker 1: Though climate change data is certainly complex, but but in

896
00:50:21,680 --> 00:50:25,839
Speaker 1: our world it is a case of overwhelming scientific consensus. Um,

897
00:50:26,480 --> 00:50:30,000
Speaker 1: it's especially as far as climate scientists are concerned. Yeah,

898
00:50:30,000 --> 00:50:32,000
Speaker 1: there's no doubt about that. I mean, we've talked about

899
00:50:32,040 --> 00:50:35,120
Speaker 1: the consensus on this issue and and the studies measuring

900
00:50:35,160 --> 00:50:37,560
Speaker 1: it in previous episodes. I think we talked about that

901
00:50:37,600 --> 00:50:40,040
Speaker 1: in one of the episodes we recorded after you came

902
00:50:40,080 --> 00:50:42,680
Speaker 1: back from the World Science Festival in the previous year,

903
00:50:42,719 --> 00:50:46,759
Speaker 1: and we discussed one of the panels about science communication

904
00:50:46,800 --> 00:50:49,319
Speaker 1: and about climate change. But yeah, there's no doubt at

905
00:50:49,320 --> 00:50:52,719
Speaker 1: all that almost all climate scientists are people with expertise

906
00:50:52,719 --> 00:50:55,360
Speaker 1: in the relevant fields, are on the same page with

907
00:50:55,440 --> 00:50:58,600
Speaker 1: the broad strokes of climate change. It is a problem

908
00:50:58,840 --> 00:51:01,560
Speaker 1: it is majorly through thing. It is caused in large

909
00:51:01,600 --> 00:51:04,640
Speaker 1: part by the products of human industry, and yet it

910
00:51:04,680 --> 00:51:07,279
Speaker 1: can certainly feel at times like it's just one doctor

911
00:51:07,360 --> 00:51:09,480
Speaker 1: Chambers pleading with the rest of the colony because there

912
00:51:09,560 --> 00:51:13,400
Speaker 1: is significant and UH and and dangerous lack of commitment

913
00:51:13,440 --> 00:51:16,400
Speaker 1: to combating the problem, especially in the United States, and

914
00:51:16,560 --> 00:51:19,640
Speaker 1: a great deal of anti science and anti climate science

915
00:51:19,719 --> 00:51:23,560
Speaker 1: worldview UH is often found here, especially in places of

916
00:51:23,600 --> 00:51:29,280
Speaker 1: significant political power. Yeah, the anti science sentiment is extremely dangerous,

917
00:51:29,560 --> 00:51:33,040
Speaker 1: like just this year in we've seen the results in

918
00:51:33,160 --> 00:51:37,880
Speaker 1: real time um UH with the coronavirus as failure to

919
00:51:37,880 --> 00:51:40,800
Speaker 1: listen to scientists and take advisory is about mask wearing

920
00:51:40,800 --> 00:51:44,080
Speaker 1: and social distance thing seriously have led to outbreaks and

921
00:51:44,160 --> 00:51:47,759
Speaker 1: surges that have cost human lives first and foremost, but

922
00:51:47,840 --> 00:51:50,799
Speaker 1: also cost time and money. Uh. You know, it can

923
00:51:50,840 --> 00:51:53,840
Speaker 1: still be difficult to gauge such threats, but it's certainly

924
00:51:54,040 --> 00:51:58,080
Speaker 1: a more i think, readily understandable situation compared to climate change,

925
00:51:58,080 --> 00:52:00,000
Speaker 1: which you know, one of the issues there is again

926
00:52:00,320 --> 00:52:05,319
Speaker 1: complex climate science dealing with you know, longer periods of

927
00:52:05,360 --> 00:52:09,080
Speaker 1: time UH, as opposed to everything happening within the space

928
00:52:09,080 --> 00:52:11,440
Speaker 1: of a few months. Though at the same time, we

929
00:52:11,520 --> 00:52:15,239
Speaker 1: are also living in a time of dangerous climate alteration,

930
00:52:15,719 --> 00:52:19,960
Speaker 1: as we endure rising seas, intense hurricanes, and increased droughts

931
00:52:19,960 --> 00:52:24,160
Speaker 1: and heat waves. It's perhaps more pronounced now than ever before,

932
00:52:24,719 --> 00:52:27,760
Speaker 1: and and not everyone has their head in the stand. Certainly,

933
00:52:27,800 --> 00:52:30,960
Speaker 1: according to a report from the Yale Program on Climate

934
00:52:31,000 --> 00:52:35,400
Speaker 1: Change Communication and George Mason University's Center for Climate Change Communication,

935
00:52:35,760 --> 00:52:39,480
Speaker 1: almost six and ten Americans are either alarmed or concerned

936
00:52:39,600 --> 00:52:42,160
Speaker 1: by global warming, which the authors pointed out as being

937
00:52:42,160 --> 00:52:46,279
Speaker 1: a major shift. As for the rest, though well, researchers

938
00:52:46,280 --> 00:52:48,759
Speaker 1: and thinkers have been exploring these questions for years. Again,

939
00:52:48,800 --> 00:52:50,560
Speaker 1: we have a we have we have passed episodes to

940
00:52:50,600 --> 00:52:53,520
Speaker 1: get into this a bit. Why do we deny the evidence?

941
00:52:53,880 --> 00:52:58,120
Speaker 1: You know? Why? Why deny um climate change? Now? Certainly

942
00:52:58,160 --> 00:53:00,880
Speaker 1: there's much to be said for just how unpleasant the

943
00:53:00,920 --> 00:53:04,400
Speaker 1: reality is. No one wants to be a part of

944
00:53:04,400 --> 00:53:06,480
Speaker 1: a problem like this, or to dwell on a future

945
00:53:06,520 --> 00:53:11,960
Speaker 1: of massy stabilization, relocation, and extinction. We as humans are

946
00:53:12,000 --> 00:53:14,800
Speaker 1: in many ways just poorly wired to deal with threats

947
00:53:14,800 --> 00:53:19,000
Speaker 1: of this magnitude and scale. We're better with the short term, uh,

948
00:53:19,040 --> 00:53:20,560
Speaker 1: you know, but but but what are what are we

949
00:53:20,640 --> 00:53:23,200
Speaker 1: ultimately to do. I mean, one of the things we've

950
00:53:23,200 --> 00:53:26,080
Speaker 1: talked about in previous episodes about this is the idea

951
00:53:26,239 --> 00:53:31,840
Speaker 1: that identity protective cognition plays in why people respond negatively

952
00:53:31,960 --> 00:53:34,480
Speaker 1: to to climate science. And this is the thing that

953
00:53:34,520 --> 00:53:37,080
Speaker 1: we should be sympathetic about. I mean, everybody engages in

954
00:53:37,200 --> 00:53:41,560
Speaker 1: identity protective cognition. Everybody engages in forms of motivated reasoning

955
00:53:41,600 --> 00:53:45,240
Speaker 1: on various issues to try to protect their their picture

956
00:53:45,360 --> 00:53:47,799
Speaker 1: of the integrity of their self and how they fit

957
00:53:47,880 --> 00:53:51,520
Speaker 1: into a social system. So uh. And this is one

958
00:53:51,560 --> 00:53:55,640
Speaker 1: of the dangers of scientific issues becoming politicized, is that

959
00:53:55,680 --> 00:54:00,319
Speaker 1: once an issue becomes politicized, the social and idea they

960
00:54:00,480 --> 00:54:05,080
Speaker 1: connotations of the sides of that issue become more relevant

961
00:54:05,120 --> 00:54:08,160
Speaker 1: than the evidence does. And unfortunately, this can happen really

962
00:54:08,239 --> 00:54:11,200
Speaker 1: rapidly with issues that don't happen to have any particular

963
00:54:11,320 --> 00:54:15,839
Speaker 1: like political values or implications attached to them inherently. I mean,

964
00:54:16,040 --> 00:54:18,680
Speaker 1: there are examples. I was just thinking about, how do

965
00:54:18,719 --> 00:54:22,160
Speaker 1: you remember how at some point this year suddenly it

966
00:54:22,200 --> 00:54:27,160
Speaker 1: became a political issue with a political valence. Whether or

967
00:54:27,280 --> 00:54:32,360
Speaker 1: not hydroxy chlora quinn was an effective therapeutic for COVID nineteen,

968
00:54:32,880 --> 00:54:34,759
Speaker 1: which when you step back and think about that, that's

969
00:54:35,160 --> 00:54:37,520
Speaker 1: it's like crazy that that is not an issue that

970
00:54:37,600 --> 00:54:42,000
Speaker 1: really has any particular political implications. It doesn't implicate any

971
00:54:42,040 --> 00:54:46,799
Speaker 1: fundamental values. It just happened to get politicized because of

972
00:54:46,840 --> 00:54:49,759
Speaker 1: who was talking about it, what ways, and you know

973
00:54:49,800 --> 00:54:52,400
Speaker 1: how that was appearing in the media. You know, if

974
00:54:52,480 --> 00:54:55,120
Speaker 1: Donald Trump had come out and said it, said that

975
00:54:55,200 --> 00:54:57,759
Speaker 1: it was not effective, it could have been politicized in

976
00:54:57,800 --> 00:55:01,200
Speaker 1: exactly the opposite way. You know. It's like weird, how

977
00:55:01,280 --> 00:55:05,320
Speaker 1: how totally contingent things like this can be. But unfortunately,

978
00:55:05,480 --> 00:55:09,560
Speaker 1: once a scientific question gains political connotations, it can be

979
00:55:09,680 --> 00:55:12,799
Speaker 1: very hard to take them off, just kind of stuck there.

980
00:55:13,280 --> 00:55:15,680
Speaker 1: And people don't want to believe in things that they

981
00:55:15,719 --> 00:55:19,719
Speaker 1: think of as beliefs inappropriate for a person such as themselves,

982
00:55:20,280 --> 00:55:22,640
Speaker 1: you know, and and so that that's one of the

983
00:55:22,640 --> 00:55:25,240
Speaker 1: real dangers. I mean, the best thing to do about

984
00:55:25,280 --> 00:55:29,680
Speaker 1: science is to try to prevent scientific questions from acquiring

985
00:55:29,719 --> 00:55:32,719
Speaker 1: a political connotation. To begin with, you have to do

986
00:55:32,800 --> 00:55:35,840
Speaker 1: your best to try to make sure that, uh that

987
00:55:36,080 --> 00:55:39,120
Speaker 1: a a scientific message or the communication of a scientific

988
00:55:39,120 --> 00:55:44,560
Speaker 1: conclusion is not associated with anybody of any particular political affiliation.

989
00:55:45,239 --> 00:55:47,960
Speaker 1: But that can be very hard to do. Yeah, absolutely,

990
00:55:48,080 --> 00:55:52,000
Speaker 1: I mean it like issues can be asymmetrically politicized, right.

991
00:55:52,080 --> 00:55:55,160
Speaker 1: All all it takes is basically one major political figure

992
00:55:55,760 --> 00:55:59,799
Speaker 1: to to decide to make a scientific question a politicized

993
00:56:00,080 --> 00:56:02,879
Speaker 1: you and you know they can usually do it. But again,

994
00:56:02,920 --> 00:56:06,480
Speaker 1: in all this communication is key, you know. And uh

995
00:56:06,680 --> 00:56:08,279
Speaker 1: and and a lot of this episode of the Outer

996
00:56:08,320 --> 00:56:12,040
Speaker 1: Limits is about like trying to communicate um uh, the

997
00:56:12,120 --> 00:56:15,000
Speaker 1: nature of science to people that have their doubts, uh,

998
00:56:15,080 --> 00:56:18,759
Speaker 1: that are denying what's going on. Uh. So I looked

999
00:56:18,760 --> 00:56:22,160
Speaker 1: at a paper for a little more in this titled

1000
00:56:22,200 --> 00:56:25,640
Speaker 1: Understanding and Countering the Motivated Roots of Climate Change Denial,

1001
00:56:26,080 --> 00:56:31,120
Speaker 1: is by Gabriel Long Parodi and uh Irena Fagina, published

1002
00:56:31,120 --> 00:56:35,400
Speaker 1: earlier this year in Current Opinion and Environmental Sustainability. The

1003
00:56:35,400 --> 00:56:39,600
Speaker 1: paper focuses on communication approaches to reach climate change deniers

1004
00:56:40,200 --> 00:56:42,360
Speaker 1: in peer viewed studies from the past two years, with

1005
00:56:42,360 --> 00:56:44,680
Speaker 1: a special focus on what the authors described as people

1006
00:56:44,719 --> 00:56:47,960
Speaker 1: engaged in quote motivated denial. This means the people in

1007
00:56:48,040 --> 00:56:51,200
Speaker 1: question have access to the facts, but they still deny

1008
00:56:51,320 --> 00:56:54,560
Speaker 1: them on some level. They make a choice to deny

1009
00:56:54,680 --> 00:56:57,560
Speaker 1: the science and cling to another view of reality that

1010
00:56:57,640 --> 00:57:00,560
Speaker 1: flies in the face of scientific consensus, but he's easier

1011
00:57:00,600 --> 00:57:02,840
Speaker 1: to accept. Yeah, And again, to be fair, I mean,

1012
00:57:02,920 --> 00:57:05,680
Speaker 1: obviously I think people should accept the scientific consensus on

1013
00:57:05,760 --> 00:57:08,120
Speaker 1: climate change, but I think a lot of the people

1014
00:57:08,200 --> 00:57:10,640
Speaker 1: who deny it are not doing so, like out of

1015
00:57:10,680 --> 00:57:14,240
Speaker 1: a conscious perversity, thinking like I won't accept the facts.

1016
00:57:14,520 --> 00:57:17,680
Speaker 1: I mean, the fact is that motivated reasoning changes how

1017
00:57:17,880 --> 00:57:21,680
Speaker 1: facts appear to us. Things that are perfectly reasonable to

1018
00:57:21,720 --> 00:57:25,640
Speaker 1: believe just suddenly don't seem plausible to you because of

1019
00:57:25,840 --> 00:57:29,000
Speaker 1: motivations you have. Yeah, Yeah, because I mean, in one hand,

1020
00:57:29,040 --> 00:57:34,560
Speaker 1: there's the responsibility of what human U invoke. Climate change means.

1021
00:57:34,600 --> 00:57:37,400
Speaker 1: It means accepting your part of the problem, and then

1022
00:57:37,440 --> 00:57:39,920
Speaker 1: it also means accepting that the problem threatens much of

1023
00:57:40,040 --> 00:57:43,720
Speaker 1: the stability and normalcy that you hold dear. And furthermore,

1024
00:57:44,040 --> 00:57:46,160
Speaker 1: you may feel the need to speak out and act

1025
00:57:46,240 --> 00:57:49,480
Speaker 1: and so forth. And it can be easier, you know,

1026
00:57:49,680 --> 00:57:52,800
Speaker 1: on on some level, to simply live in denial like

1027
00:57:52,880 --> 00:57:56,600
Speaker 1: that is an easier mental construct, uh to to erect

1028
00:57:56,640 --> 00:57:58,840
Speaker 1: in the mind as opposed to dealing with all of

1029
00:57:58,880 --> 00:58:02,560
Speaker 1: these additional change is uh to the the world you've

1030
00:58:02,560 --> 00:58:06,200
Speaker 1: grown accustomed to now Chambers does end up being accused

1031
00:58:06,200 --> 00:58:08,600
Speaker 1: of being an alien shape shifter at one point in

1032
00:58:08,600 --> 00:58:12,920
Speaker 1: this Outer Limits episode, but he never reverses this charge

1033
00:58:12,920 --> 00:58:16,080
Speaker 1: on the colonists, which is which which is worth worth noting,

1034
00:58:16,160 --> 00:58:17,880
Speaker 1: especially because it ties in a little bit into what

1035
00:58:18,280 --> 00:58:20,800
Speaker 1: um the authors here in the study discussed that I

1036
00:58:20,840 --> 00:58:22,520
Speaker 1: think they would agree that this was the right move.

1037
00:58:22,920 --> 00:58:27,400
Speaker 1: One of the key points to say the aliens right, well, yeah,

1038
00:58:27,480 --> 00:58:30,400
Speaker 1: essentially not to say say, oh, climate change denire is

1039
00:58:30,400 --> 00:58:32,600
Speaker 1: you're a bunch of aliens. There's something wrong with you.

1040
00:58:32,600 --> 00:58:34,480
Speaker 1: You're you're you're broken in some way. You know that

1041
00:58:34,480 --> 00:58:38,160
Speaker 1: that That's one of the key points and climate change communication, uh,

1042
00:58:38,360 --> 00:58:42,960
Speaker 1: they point out is to is not to dismiss deniers outright,

1043
00:58:43,280 --> 00:58:47,720
Speaker 1: but to acknowledge their opinions and beliefs. And they they

1044
00:58:47,800 --> 00:58:50,920
Speaker 1: acknowledge that this can be difficult obviously, but they point

1045
00:58:50,960 --> 00:58:54,560
Speaker 1: to four different strategies that that seem to show promise

1046
00:58:54,720 --> 00:58:57,960
Speaker 1: and or seem to work. Okay, what are the strategies

1047
00:58:58,320 --> 00:59:01,600
Speaker 1: all right? The first is reframing solutions to climate change

1048
00:59:01,720 --> 00:59:04,960
Speaker 1: as ways to uphold the social system and work towards

1049
00:59:05,000 --> 00:59:08,600
Speaker 1: its stability and longevity. Now, in the Outer Limits, Chambers

1050
00:59:08,600 --> 00:59:10,240
Speaker 1: does this, of course by pointing out that if they

1051
00:59:10,280 --> 00:59:14,200
Speaker 1: don't act, the stability of the colony will be threatened. Um.

1052
00:59:14,280 --> 00:59:16,880
Speaker 1: If if he could have, you know, actually had an

1053
00:59:16,880 --> 00:59:19,880
Speaker 1: honest discussion with Murdoch, he might have told him, Look,

1054
00:59:19,960 --> 00:59:23,240
Speaker 1: this will ruin your prospects of profits from the colony.

1055
00:59:23,480 --> 00:59:26,280
Speaker 1: It will endanger your power. It's going to threaten this

1056
00:59:26,360 --> 00:59:29,080
Speaker 1: home that you hold. Dear. Uh, you know this is

1057
00:59:29,160 --> 00:59:32,400
Speaker 1: this is a threat to all the things we we

1058
00:59:32,560 --> 00:59:35,360
Speaker 1: value here. Yeah. So I think this is saying, like,

1059
00:59:35,800 --> 00:59:39,400
Speaker 1: you know, to be factual in representing what the threats are,

1060
00:59:39,440 --> 00:59:42,800
Speaker 1: but to emphasize the kinds of threats that are particularly

1061
00:59:42,880 --> 00:59:46,000
Speaker 1: salient to people with the political identity who are more

1062
00:59:46,040 --> 00:59:50,200
Speaker 1: likely to deny climate change. So, to use a Simpsons example,

1063
00:59:50,200 --> 00:59:52,560
Speaker 1: if you were trying to convince members of the Simpsons

1064
00:59:52,560 --> 00:59:56,040
Speaker 1: family not to make a foolish investment in a tobacco farm,

1065
00:59:56,080 --> 00:59:58,520
Speaker 1: you might appeal to Homer in particular by saying, if

1066
00:59:58,560 --> 01:00:00,160
Speaker 1: you do that, you're not going to have of a

1067
01:00:00,240 --> 01:00:03,080
Speaker 1: budget for beer or to pay the cable bill, right,

1068
01:00:03,200 --> 01:00:05,720
Speaker 1: you know, like you you single out the issues that

1069
01:00:05,760 --> 01:00:09,840
Speaker 1: are actually most salient people. Yeah. I think a good

1070
01:00:09,840 --> 01:00:12,280
Speaker 1: example of this is we we we we see this

1071
01:00:12,320 --> 01:00:15,040
Speaker 1: in the realization, for instance, that climate change is a

1072
01:00:15,160 --> 01:00:20,040
Speaker 1: national security issue as well as a purely environmental one. Yeah. Yeah,

1073
01:00:20,040 --> 01:00:22,520
Speaker 1: it's not just about saving the earth or saving the environment,

1074
01:00:22,640 --> 01:00:26,360
Speaker 1: but safeguarding things like our supply chains, etcetera. So um

1075
01:00:26,360 --> 01:00:28,160
Speaker 1: so yeah. One of the ideas here is don't just

1076
01:00:29,240 --> 01:00:30,960
Speaker 1: the idea of like, we need to save the planet,

1077
01:00:31,040 --> 01:00:33,800
Speaker 1: like you know, that's going to carry with it. I mean,

1078
01:00:33,800 --> 01:00:36,800
Speaker 1: that's true, uh, you know, but but but that how

1079
01:00:36,840 --> 01:00:40,200
Speaker 1: does it need to be tweaked to to to meet

1080
01:00:40,240 --> 01:00:42,600
Speaker 1: the world view of the person on the other side.

1081
01:00:42,920 --> 01:00:45,880
Speaker 1: And that gets into the second piece of advice they have,

1082
01:00:46,160 --> 01:00:50,160
Speaker 1: and that's reducing the ideological divide by incorporating the purity

1083
01:00:50,160 --> 01:00:52,800
Speaker 1: of the earth rather than how we harm or care

1084
01:00:52,880 --> 01:00:55,080
Speaker 1: for it. So this is more about putting I guess

1085
01:00:55,120 --> 01:00:57,680
Speaker 1: you could say, the hopeful spin on it and emphasizing

1086
01:00:57,680 --> 01:01:01,880
Speaker 1: our ability to make changes and perhaps even our responsibility

1087
01:01:02,040 --> 01:01:05,320
Speaker 1: to to look after the earth. That is going to

1088
01:01:05,400 --> 01:01:08,880
Speaker 1: fall in line with various religious world views rather than

1089
01:01:08,920 --> 01:01:12,320
Speaker 1: just the shame point of realizing that we've done a

1090
01:01:12,320 --> 01:01:14,800
Speaker 1: lot of harm and that we need to change our ways.

1091
01:01:15,280 --> 01:01:17,200
Speaker 1: Now the author is going to point out to other

1092
01:01:17,240 --> 01:01:21,360
Speaker 1: areas one number three, Rather having conversations about the scientific

1093
01:01:21,400 --> 01:01:25,400
Speaker 1: consensus around climate change with trusted individuals. Now, I think

1094
01:01:25,440 --> 01:01:29,080
Speaker 1: that's easier said than done. Um Uh. Take outer limits

1095
01:01:29,080 --> 01:01:32,840
Speaker 1: for example, Chambers is mistrusted. Uh. And you know who

1096
01:01:32,840 --> 01:01:34,280
Speaker 1: who else are you going to talk to here? If

1097
01:01:34,280 --> 01:01:38,400
Speaker 1: you cherry pick you're trusted individuals? Um? You know that

1098
01:01:38,480 --> 01:01:41,760
Speaker 1: can Those trusted individuals can include climate deniers or people

1099
01:01:41,800 --> 01:01:45,960
Speaker 1: with without perhaps with sometimes with a scientific background, but

1100
01:01:46,040 --> 01:01:49,880
Speaker 1: not a scientific background in climate science. I mean, I

1101
01:01:49,920 --> 01:01:51,600
Speaker 1: think this ties in very much to what I was

1102
01:01:51,640 --> 01:01:55,360
Speaker 1: just talking about with identity protective cognition, Like you don't

1103
01:01:55,400 --> 01:01:57,960
Speaker 1: want to embrace the belief that you see as antithetical

1104
01:01:58,000 --> 01:02:00,720
Speaker 1: to people in your social group who have the kind

1105
01:02:00,760 --> 01:02:03,240
Speaker 1: of integrity that you value, and so yeah, I think

1106
01:02:03,240 --> 01:02:05,520
Speaker 1: one of the best and most important ways to get

1107
01:02:05,520 --> 01:02:08,480
Speaker 1: around this is to show, hey, people like you, people

1108
01:02:08,520 --> 01:02:12,760
Speaker 1: who you socially identify with, they they also agree with

1109
01:02:12,800 --> 01:02:16,040
Speaker 1: the scientific consensus here. And then the fourth point they

1110
01:02:16,040 --> 01:02:19,160
Speaker 1: bring up is encouraging people to explosively discuss their values

1111
01:02:19,200 --> 01:02:22,960
Speaker 1: and stance on climate change prior to engaging with climate information.

1112
01:02:23,320 --> 01:02:26,000
Speaker 1: So the idea with this one is that quote self

1113
01:02:26,040 --> 01:02:30,400
Speaker 1: affirmation is challenged when people face climate change because it

1114
01:02:30,440 --> 01:02:33,520
Speaker 1: requires them to consider their contribution to the problem, which

1115
01:02:33,560 --> 01:02:36,680
Speaker 1: can threaten their sense of integrity and trigger self defense.

1116
01:02:37,240 --> 01:02:39,400
Speaker 1: And finally, you know, they say, you want to stress

1117
01:02:39,520 --> 01:02:42,120
Speaker 1: solutions that match in individual's values and don't threaten their

1118
01:02:42,120 --> 01:02:44,280
Speaker 1: sense of identity or their way of life. And now,

1119
01:02:44,280 --> 01:02:46,160
Speaker 1: of course, if we as we've discussed before, this also

1120
01:02:46,400 --> 01:02:49,560
Speaker 1: underlines the horror of politicization of climate change and the

1121
01:02:49,600 --> 01:02:52,479
Speaker 1: attempt to try and uh and bake in climate change

1122
01:02:52,520 --> 01:02:56,400
Speaker 1: denial into a political worldview. Once something like this becomes politicized,

1123
01:02:56,600 --> 01:03:01,080
Speaker 1: it's difficult to unpoliticize it. Lisa Freeman wrote an excellent

1124
01:03:01,120 --> 01:03:03,840
Speaker 1: piece on COVID and climate denialism for The New York

1125
01:03:03,840 --> 01:03:06,560
Speaker 1: Times earlier this month that touches on the work of

1126
01:03:06,680 --> 01:03:10,640
Speaker 1: John Cook, research assistant professor at the Center for Climate

1127
01:03:10,680 --> 01:03:13,840
Speaker 1: Change Communication at George Mason University and founder of the

1128
01:03:13,840 --> 01:03:20,320
Speaker 1: website Skeptical Science Um. Cook argues that ideology and tribalism

1129
01:03:20,400 --> 01:03:23,720
Speaker 1: tend to come before facts and people's beliefs about climate change,

1130
01:03:24,000 --> 01:03:26,040
Speaker 1: and that means a lot of the power here falls

1131
01:03:26,080 --> 01:03:29,800
Speaker 1: two people of influence within an ideology, and that means

1132
01:03:30,160 --> 01:03:34,960
Speaker 1: that leadership is crucial to overcoming climate change denialism, And again,

1133
01:03:35,040 --> 01:03:37,600
Speaker 1: isn't that what we see in this Outer Limits episode.

1134
01:03:37,720 --> 01:03:40,560
Speaker 1: Murdoch is the leader of the colony, and while he

1135
01:03:40,600 --> 01:03:44,000
Speaker 1: admits that he actually briefly you believes Chambers, or at

1136
01:03:44,040 --> 01:03:47,160
Speaker 1: least entertains the idea that Chambers may be correct, he

1137
01:03:47,400 --> 01:03:50,400
Speaker 1: otherwise works against him at every turn, and the people

1138
01:03:50,560 --> 01:03:54,000
Speaker 1: look to Murdoch. Uh. Furthermore, Murdoch is a sort of

1139
01:03:54,000 --> 01:03:56,680
Speaker 1: head of state in the off Roll Colony doesn't only

1140
01:03:56,800 --> 01:04:01,080
Speaker 1: argue against rationally against Chambers, he also ultimately engages in

1141
01:04:01,120 --> 01:04:05,200
Speaker 1: more underhanded tactics, including the use of disinformation. Yeah, they

1142
01:04:05,280 --> 01:04:09,080
Speaker 1: try to personally discredit Chambers with with attacks on his

1143
01:04:10,000 --> 01:04:13,960
Speaker 1: what I would say, his character, but attacks on his biology. Yeah,

1144
01:04:14,200 --> 01:04:16,880
Speaker 1: I would say character and biology the first character and

1145
01:04:16,920 --> 01:04:21,680
Speaker 1: then ultimately biology itself. Um. If we look to our

1146
01:04:21,680 --> 01:04:25,560
Speaker 1: current situation in October twenty with with COVID and climate change,

1147
01:04:25,760 --> 01:04:27,920
Speaker 1: it it's kind of interesting how to tell the truth

1148
01:04:28,000 --> 01:04:33,560
Speaker 1: forecast our current leadership situation. Um so so so Again,

1149
01:04:33,800 --> 01:04:35,200
Speaker 1: this is one of those episodes. Even though it came

1150
01:04:35,200 --> 01:04:38,480
Speaker 1: out in the nineties, it's still is very relevant today.

1151
01:04:39,120 --> 01:04:42,720
Speaker 1: According to cook Um, however, only ten percent of Americans

1152
01:04:42,720 --> 01:04:46,040
Speaker 1: are outright dismissive of the science on climate change, and

1153
01:04:46,040 --> 01:04:48,560
Speaker 1: that seems to correl correlate well with the twelve percent

1154
01:04:48,600 --> 01:04:52,120
Speaker 1: of Americans who are not concerned about COVID. Friedman writes,

1155
01:04:52,200 --> 01:04:56,320
Speaker 1: quote this means, he said, referring to Cook, the solution lies, uh,

1156
01:04:56,440 --> 01:04:59,360
Speaker 1: not in persuading those already steeped in science denial, but

1157
01:04:59,400 --> 01:05:03,400
Speaker 1: innocula sing the other nine of the public from scientific disinformation.

1158
01:05:03,800 --> 01:05:07,800
Speaker 1: He likened the challenge to eradicating polio, an incurable disease

1159
01:05:07,840 --> 01:05:10,960
Speaker 1: that was all but eliminated in the United States through vaccinations.

1160
01:05:11,400 --> 01:05:14,080
Speaker 1: In the case of climate and COVID, he said, that

1161
01:05:14,120 --> 01:05:17,960
Speaker 1: means using facts and research combined with vivid analogies to

1162
01:05:18,040 --> 01:05:21,920
Speaker 1: explain the techniques used to mislead the public. And this

1163
01:05:22,000 --> 01:05:24,840
Speaker 1: is one of the things that Cook does through Skeptical Science,

1164
01:05:24,840 --> 01:05:26,640
Speaker 1: which if you want to check out the website, it's

1165
01:05:26,640 --> 01:05:30,640
Speaker 1: just Skeptical Science dot com. Uh. He provides useful, real

1166
01:05:30,680 --> 01:05:34,760
Speaker 1: world analogies to counter climate denial arguments. And he also

1167
01:05:34,800 --> 01:05:38,680
Speaker 1: wrote an illustrated book titled Cranky Uncle Versus Climate Change.

1168
01:05:39,000 --> 01:05:42,920
Speaker 1: How to Understand and respond to Climate science Deniers. You know,

1169
01:05:42,960 --> 01:05:44,880
Speaker 1: I don't want to end on too dark a note here,

1170
01:05:44,920 --> 01:05:48,400
Speaker 1: But but I do seriously worry about because as as

1171
01:05:48,440 --> 01:05:51,920
Speaker 1: difficult as it is to prevent scientific issues from becoming

1172
01:05:52,000 --> 01:05:55,280
Speaker 1: politicized in the first place, when you're just dealing with leaders,

1173
01:05:55,320 --> 01:05:58,000
Speaker 1: you know, trying to make sure that like major media

1174
01:05:58,040 --> 01:06:03,920
Speaker 1: figures and politicians don't start injecting political valences and trying

1175
01:06:03,920 --> 01:06:06,680
Speaker 1: to get people to align politically around something that's not

1176
01:06:06,720 --> 01:06:09,160
Speaker 1: really a political issue. It's just a scientific question with

1177
01:06:09,200 --> 01:06:14,240
Speaker 1: a factual answer. Um, that's hard enough. It seems like

1178
01:06:14,400 --> 01:06:17,240
Speaker 1: nowadays things are going to be even harder than that,

1179
01:06:17,320 --> 01:06:22,240
Speaker 1: because you essentially have the distributed capability through the Internet

1180
01:06:22,280 --> 01:06:25,520
Speaker 1: and virality and social media to do the same thing

1181
01:06:25,560 --> 01:06:28,640
Speaker 1: to politicize issues. I mean, I already see worrying signs

1182
01:06:28,680 --> 01:06:31,920
Speaker 1: of how sort of like emerging out of the depths

1183
01:06:32,000 --> 01:06:35,840
Speaker 1: of the Internet, you'll get weird conspiracy theories politicizing whatever

1184
01:06:35,960 --> 01:06:40,600
Speaker 1: vaccine we end up with, for for COVID nineteen, Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um,

1185
01:06:40,880 --> 01:06:43,440
Speaker 1: you know, and to a wonderful extent, like one of

1186
01:06:43,480 --> 01:06:45,680
Speaker 1: the great things about a show like The Outer Limits

1187
01:06:46,200 --> 01:06:51,479
Speaker 1: is that essentially it's always about people having conversations about uh,

1188
01:06:51,520 --> 01:06:55,440
Speaker 1: you know, science, fictional threats, and and and and and

1189
01:06:55,480 --> 01:06:58,240
Speaker 1: given the you know, short format, you have to boil

1190
01:06:58,280 --> 01:07:01,600
Speaker 1: everything down to a simple scenario like two people trapped

1191
01:07:01,600 --> 01:07:03,600
Speaker 1: in a room or in this case, uh, you know,

1192
01:07:03,640 --> 01:07:07,840
Speaker 1: one scientist speaking to the community in this colony. But

1193
01:07:07,880 --> 01:07:10,720
Speaker 1: of course, in reality, we have a far more complicated

1194
01:07:10,760 --> 01:07:14,080
Speaker 1: communication system. There's a greater number of players involved, there

1195
01:07:14,080 --> 01:07:18,200
Speaker 1: are different communications systems involved, uh networks though, the way

1196
01:07:18,240 --> 01:07:22,080
Speaker 1: that different voices become um uh you know, more pronounced

1197
01:07:22,080 --> 01:07:24,640
Speaker 1: in our culture, it's it's it's it's far more complicated

1198
01:07:24,640 --> 01:07:28,680
Speaker 1: than what we have in the Jan's five example. But

1199
01:07:28,680 --> 01:07:32,320
Speaker 1: but I think it works nicely to still as as

1200
01:07:32,320 --> 01:07:35,080
Speaker 1: an example of the the sorts of problems that we

1201
01:07:35,160 --> 01:07:37,480
Speaker 1: encounter as humans. I mean, I guess we've sort of

1202
01:07:37,480 --> 01:07:40,000
Speaker 1: been saying that one of the best outcomes, if we

1203
01:07:40,000 --> 01:07:43,400
Speaker 1: could enact it with scientific issues that have political ramifications,

1204
01:07:43,480 --> 01:07:45,840
Speaker 1: is to not allow them to become politicized in the

1205
01:07:45,880 --> 01:07:48,880
Speaker 1: first place. But if that's not really possible, you know,

1206
01:07:48,920 --> 01:07:52,800
Speaker 1: if you can't prevent issue people from trying to politicize issues,

1207
01:07:53,560 --> 01:07:56,720
Speaker 1: I think the question is what does the mental vaccine

1208
01:07:57,000 --> 01:08:01,120
Speaker 1: against the politicization of scientific issues, Like, how do you

1209
01:08:01,200 --> 01:08:05,120
Speaker 1: best plant that sort of like, uh, that meme or

1210
01:08:05,160 --> 01:08:08,440
Speaker 1: that seed in somebody's brain that will grow into, uh,

1211
01:08:08,720 --> 01:08:11,600
Speaker 1: grow into a sort of mental immune system that rejects

1212
01:08:11,680 --> 01:08:15,160
Speaker 1: these politicizations of scientific issues when it encounters them. That,

1213
01:08:15,440 --> 01:08:18,120
Speaker 1: you know, so people know how to recognize when it's

1214
01:08:18,160 --> 01:08:21,519
Speaker 1: happening and stop it before it infects them. Yeah, that

1215
01:08:21,680 --> 01:08:24,400
Speaker 1: is the that is the the ongoing problem that we're

1216
01:08:24,400 --> 01:08:26,960
Speaker 1: continuing to struggle with. And this is the point where

1217
01:08:26,960 --> 01:08:30,040
Speaker 1: we would have the narrator of the Outer Limits jump

1218
01:08:30,080 --> 01:08:33,280
Speaker 1: back in and nicely summarized the struggle that we've just

1219
01:08:33,320 --> 01:08:36,360
Speaker 1: witnessed on the screen. But of course, the fallible humans

1220
01:08:36,439 --> 01:08:41,639
Speaker 1: failed in their attempt. Yeah, alright, we're gonna go ahead

1221
01:08:41,680 --> 01:08:46,639
Speaker 1: and close out this volume of the Anthology of Horror,

1222
01:08:46,880 --> 01:08:51,320
Speaker 1: but we will be back with part five, Volume five,

1223
01:08:51,840 --> 01:08:56,320
Speaker 1: when we will explore even more episodes from TV and

1224
01:08:56,479 --> 01:09:00,680
Speaker 1: film horror sci fi anthology history and discussed some of

1225
01:09:00,720 --> 01:09:04,000
Speaker 1: the science and culture surrounding them. In the meantime, if

1226
01:09:04,000 --> 01:09:05,559
Speaker 1: you would like to check out other episodes of Stuff

1227
01:09:05,560 --> 01:09:07,360
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind, you can find us wherever you

1228
01:09:07,400 --> 01:09:09,640
Speaker 1: get your podcast, wherever that happens to be. We just

1229
01:09:09,680 --> 01:09:11,760
Speaker 1: asked that you rate, review, and subscribe if you have

1230
01:09:11,840 --> 01:09:13,600
Speaker 1: the power to do so. And if you want to

1231
01:09:13,600 --> 01:09:15,760
Speaker 1: find us just really quickly, you can just go to

1232
01:09:15,800 --> 01:09:17,400
Speaker 1: stuff to Blow your Mind dot com that will shoot

1233
01:09:17,439 --> 01:09:19,880
Speaker 1: you over to the I Heart page for our website,

1234
01:09:20,000 --> 01:09:22,920
Speaker 1: and if you so desire, there's a toggle there for

1235
01:09:23,000 --> 01:09:25,200
Speaker 1: our store and just takes you to a T shirt

1236
01:09:25,240 --> 01:09:27,280
Speaker 1: store where you can buy a shirt with a monster

1237
01:09:27,439 --> 01:09:29,439
Speaker 1: or our logo on it. I think they're trying to

1238
01:09:29,479 --> 01:09:33,160
Speaker 1: move those petrifying Gaze shirts which have a wonderful design.

1239
01:09:33,560 --> 01:09:35,559
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, my my son, my son did that one.

1240
01:09:35,600 --> 01:09:38,760
Speaker 1: I know, I know he bought one, so yeah, we're

1241
01:09:38,800 --> 01:09:40,840
Speaker 1: well I bought one for him. So somebody bought one,

1242
01:09:41,120 --> 01:09:43,160
Speaker 1: but it's me. Uh. If you want to buy one too,

1243
01:09:43,760 --> 01:09:47,040
Speaker 1: you can get it on everything. A sticker, you know what,

1244
01:09:47,160 --> 01:09:50,800
Speaker 1: a shirt bags, there's no tellent, it's good stuff. Face mask,

1245
01:09:50,880 --> 01:09:52,600
Speaker 1: you can get a face mask with our logo on it.

1246
01:09:52,720 --> 01:09:55,600
Speaker 1: We're in a monster renaissance. Huge things. As always to

1247
01:09:55,640 --> 01:09:58,719
Speaker 1: our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would

1248
01:09:58,720 --> 01:10:00,600
Speaker 1: like to get in touch with us with feedback on

1249
01:10:00,640 --> 01:10:03,240
Speaker 1: this episode or any other to suggest topic for the future,

1250
01:10:03,400 --> 01:10:05,880
Speaker 1: just to say hello, you can email us at contact

1251
01:10:05,920 --> 01:10:15,720
Speaker 1: and Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to

1252
01:10:15,720 --> 01:10:18,280
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind is production of I heart Radio. For

1253
01:10:18,360 --> 01:10:20,559
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1255
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Speaker 1: favorite shows. B