Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. This is
Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's time for
Speaker 1: a vault episode. This one originally aired on October. It
Speaker 1: was the fourth one of our Anthology of Horror episodes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this this has become a tradition, and uh, this one
Speaker 1: was a lot of fun. I think we talked about
Speaker 1: an episode of the Outer Limits revival, Hammer House of Horror,
Speaker 1: the Simpsons Tree House of Horror, creep show and are
Speaker 1: You Afraid of the Dark? You know what, we actually
Speaker 1: never got around to the Hammer House of Horror segment,
Speaker 1: we did? We not? We that maybe that one will
Speaker 1: be brand new this year. That's right, that's right, because
Speaker 1: this is publishing I believe October, uh my birthday, and
Speaker 1: we are probably doing a um an Anthology of Horror
Speaker 1: episode later in this month. So yeah, maybe it'll be
Speaker 1: time for Hammer House of Horror to to uh to
Speaker 1: hit the airwaves. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind,
Speaker 1: the production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and
Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick. And it's still Halloween season, so we're
Speaker 1: going into the anthology territory. That's right. We have a
Speaker 1: long tradition here on stuff to blow your mind of
Speaker 1: taking short spooky stories around this time of year, uh,
Speaker 1: snipping them out of their host, drying them, and then
Speaker 1: stuffing them with science to create an informative and entertaining
Speaker 1: Halloween sausage. We did this for a few years based
Speaker 1: on creepy pasta stories, and then we kind of felt
Speaker 1: like that well was running a little dry, so we
Speaker 1: turned to an even richer and deeper treasure trove of
Speaker 1: horror fiction, and that is horror and sci fi anthology series. Uh.
Speaker 1: A lot of these are shows that aired on TV.
Speaker 1: A lot of them are also films that feature, you know,
Speaker 1: several different stories in an anthology format, and there's just
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount out there. We're We're talking the likes
Speaker 1: of The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Tales from the
Speaker 1: Dark Side, Tales from the Crypt, Monsters, Black Mirror, and
Speaker 1: just so many many more. Uh. Plus there's the highly
Speaker 1: popular Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episodes, as well as various
Speaker 1: against cinematic horror anthology such as The Vault of Horror.
Speaker 1: So this is gonna be volume four and then we're
Speaker 1: gonna do volume five this year. We did volume one
Speaker 1: in two thousand eighteen, minted volumes two and three and
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, so we're continuing the tradition. And uh and
Speaker 1: again yeah, I just have to say, there's just so
Speaker 1: much out there in terms of horror and sci fi
Speaker 1: anthology television. Uh, and then there's this an additional ton
Speaker 1: of horror and sci fi anthology cinema. So once again
Speaker 1: this year I found myself just combing through contenders that
Speaker 1: I'd either forgotten about, was half aware of, or just
Speaker 1: had flat never heard of. Like like a lot in
Speaker 1: horror especially, I feel like the horror anthology genre tends
Speaker 1: to feel like low hanging fruit. But but the kicker
Speaker 1: is that when well done, there's nothing else quite like it. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's true. I mean there's almost an ancient
Speaker 1: memory aspect to a horror anthology because it feels like
Speaker 1: people sitting around a campfire, going around the circle, each
Speaker 1: taking a turn to tell a story. Yeah, and the like,
Speaker 1: the literary short story provides wonderful opportunities that full length
Speaker 1: or episodic mediums don't provide. Like a lot of times
Speaker 1: you can really put a particular idea in the forefront.
Speaker 1: You can put a particular twist in the forefront. Uh
Speaker 1: And it can work better than it would if you
Speaker 1: tried to build an entire you know, uh TV series
Speaker 1: around this, or an entire feature leath length film around us.
Speaker 1: I was actually just thinking the other day about the
Speaker 1: good things about having a short format for horror, because
Speaker 1: we watched a new horror movie that came out this year.
Speaker 1: It was a Shutter original film called Host. It was
Speaker 1: like a Zoom horror movie. It takes place entirely on Zoom,
Speaker 1: but the characters do a say on and there's demonic shenanigans,
Speaker 1: and the movie is about an hour long. And I
Speaker 1: thought that worked fantastically because it's, you know, it's not
Speaker 1: a super deep film. It's not especially like thoughtful or interesting,
Speaker 1: but just for an excellent little boo frolic, an hour
Speaker 1: is a perfect length. Uh And, And I wish more
Speaker 1: horror movies would just kind of embrace that and say, no,
Speaker 1: we're not going to be as long as it's supposed
Speaker 1: to be. We're not gonna pad this out to eighty
Speaker 1: six minutes. We're gonna be an hour long. I mean,
Speaker 1: if it's good enough for Attack of the Crab Monsters.
Speaker 1: An hour run time is good enough for you. Yes, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I definitely thought about that when I watch when I
Speaker 1: will watch for the first time Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein,
Speaker 1: like just shorter format, but then they got everything in.
Speaker 1: So yeah, if you're a horror director out there, don't
Speaker 1: worry about patting it out. I mean, if your movie
Speaker 1: is only fifty four minutes long, I think that's great. Now.
Speaker 1: You mentioned zoom based horror earlier. In a bit later
Speaker 1: on in the episode we're gonna discuss episode of the
Speaker 1: nine nineties revival of the Outer Limits, I want to
Speaker 1: mention that there this is not the episode we're gonna
Speaker 1: be talking about, but there is an episode called dead
Speaker 1: Man Switch that's that's extremely good, and it has to
Speaker 1: do with individuals humans that are put into uh separate
Speaker 1: bunkers during an alien invasion and each one is functioning
Speaker 1: as a dead man switch for the planetary defense system.
Speaker 1: But the fun thing about it is all these people
Speaker 1: are solely communicating with each other via this like you know,
Speaker 1: closed network television, basically a zoom scenario. Uh So it's
Speaker 1: a it's a very interesting piece to watch during this
Speaker 1: time of increased zoom meetings, etcetera. All right, well let's
Speaker 1: just jump right in here to our first selection. This
Speaker 1: is from the Night two horror anthology film Creep Show. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is the Lonesome Death of Jordi Verrel. Alright, so
Speaker 1: sidebar before we get started on the plot. This segment
Speaker 1: stars Stephen King in the flesh. He's the actor in it.
Speaker 1: So I've got to ask what are your favorite Stephen
Speaker 1: King acting spots? And and I'll announce mine. He's got
Speaker 1: a cameo in a movie called Sleepwalkers. If you've never
Speaker 1: seen it, I think it came out in the eighties
Speaker 1: or early nineties, and it is about shape shifting cat
Speaker 1: demon things that suck the life essence out of young women.
Speaker 1: And then I think they can turn invisible, they can
Speaker 1: like look like different things, and their weaknesses that if
Speaker 1: they're attacked by cats they die. But anyway, in Sleepwalkers,
Speaker 1: there is an amazing scene that features a cameo by
Speaker 1: Stephen King as a perturbed cemetery caretaker who is angry
Speaker 1: that that perverts keep coming into his cemetery at night.
Speaker 1: But it also contains cameos by Toby Hooper and Clive Barker. Oh,
Speaker 1: I love it when we have scenes like that, and
Speaker 1: that's a fitting like is Lee cameo for for Stephen King? Um,
Speaker 1: because I remember, probably during like the height of my
Speaker 1: my my young obsession with Stephen King novels. Uh, the
Speaker 1: TV series Golden Years came out, which I don't think
Speaker 1: is anybody's favorite of Stephen King project. I don't think
Speaker 1: they ever finished it. You know, it went maybe a season,
Speaker 1: maybe less in a season, but I remember there being oh,
Speaker 1: it's like a goodness, I'm having a hard time he
Speaker 1: remembering what the gist of it was a man aging
Speaker 1: rapidly I think, or aging backwards, one of the two. Um.
Speaker 1: It had. One of the best things about it was
Speaker 1: it had David Bowie's Golden Years as the theme music.
Speaker 1: But there's a scene where Stephen King shows up as
Speaker 1: a as a bus driver and at the time I
Speaker 1: was like, this is amazing. That's Stephen He's the author
Speaker 1: and he's the bus driver. Um. Of course he would
Speaker 1: go on to have so many more interesting cameos and things. Um.
Speaker 1: For instance, I never saw this, but he has a
Speaker 1: pretty whacky one in the TV version of the shining.
Speaker 1: He's this band leader, like this really um energetic band,
Speaker 1: big band leader with a pencil thin mustache. He looks
Speaker 1: fabulously greased back hair, got a pencil mustache that that
Speaker 1: is not a good look for Stephen King. I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know, he's he kind of has the like the
Speaker 1: face for for facial hair. Though he can make most
Speaker 1: of it work. I feel it kind of works. He
Speaker 1: does better full beard, I mean full beard. He looks
Speaker 1: appropriately shaggy and kind of right early with the pencil mustache.
Speaker 1: He looks like maybe he would be the guy who
Speaker 1: would be discovered in the cemetery. Now in terms of
Speaker 1: just his acting roles, go like things where he's not
Speaker 1: just a cameo but he's actually playing a bit part.
Speaker 1: He had a really fun one in the biker drama
Speaker 1: Sons of Anarchy. Uh several years back. He played a
Speaker 1: guy who makes bodies disappear. So he's, you know, just
Speaker 1: kind of this stern but creepy guy in a in
Speaker 1: a basement that will uh you know, make that make
Speaker 1: that body disappear when you need it to, and he
Speaker 1: insists on listening to eighties music while it happens. Well,
Speaker 1: I've never seen that either, but but I'll have to
Speaker 1: look it up. All right, Well, let's get into two
Speaker 1: creep show here, So creep show for anyone who's not
Speaker 1: familiar with it, with Stephen King and George Ramiro's tribute
Speaker 1: to pre code horror comics of old. I think I
Speaker 1: may have covered the crate in a in a previous episode.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but it has some wonderful segments, but
Speaker 1: they're all like sort of mean, uh grizzly uh segments
Speaker 1: that are you know, very much in the vein of
Speaker 1: classic tales from the Crypt and so forth, where uh
Speaker 1: there are bad people that do bad things and get
Speaker 1: their come up. It's usually in grizzly ways with a
Speaker 1: little bit of gallows humor thrown in. And like we said,
Speaker 1: not only is this written by Stephen King, but this
Speaker 1: segment also stars the author as well. Again, it's the
Speaker 1: Lonesome Death of Jordy veryl And it's a little bit
Speaker 1: the Color out of Space and a little bit the Blob.
Speaker 1: It's about a redneck who comes in contact with space goo. Uh.
Speaker 1: Then after coming in contact with space goo, some sort
Speaker 1: of alien plant or plant like organism takes over his
Speaker 1: body and then he makes the terrible mistake of climbing
Speaker 1: into a hot bath to ease his discomfort. The alien
Speaker 1: plant infection overtakes him and he ends up following papahanming
Speaker 1: Way into the sunset. Then we hear on the t
Speaker 1: V that rainy weather is moving in which will spread,
Speaker 1: no doubt, spread the alien plants even wider across the earth.
Speaker 1: You know, this connects to several other horror stories, uh,
Speaker 1: in interesting ways. One that I didn't think of until
Speaker 1: just now is the way that it connects to, especially
Speaker 1: the late nineteen seventies remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers,
Speaker 1: which is very good and which characterizes the spores that
Speaker 1: come down and possess the humans and turn them into
Speaker 1: the replicants. Uh, they're very plant like. I mean, obviously
Speaker 1: they're not from Earth, so they're not exactly of the
Speaker 1: Kingdom of the Plants, but there's clearly a similarity with
Speaker 1: plants and an affinity for plants among the aliens. And
Speaker 1: the ending of the Jordy Viril segment makes me think
Speaker 1: very much of the beginning of the Invasion of the
Speaker 1: Body Snatchers remake because in the opening credits to the
Speaker 1: Body Snatchers remake. There is this sequence that just kind
Speaker 1: of shows these filaments almost blowing in the wind, and
Speaker 1: it accomplishes a very sinister visual connotation without any words
Speaker 1: or any explanation, just of the idea of biological material
Speaker 1: kind of drifting and through through the air, through space
Speaker 1: carried on currents of various kinds. Yeah, and of course
Speaker 1: the cans instantly think to other sort of plant based
Speaker 1: horror properties, such as the Day of the Triffids, which
Speaker 1: we've mentioned on here before. That's a big one about
Speaker 1: plant plant like aliens overtaking the earth or troll too.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. So this Jordy viral episode, it
Speaker 1: raised the question for me, are there any plants that
Speaker 1: can grow on or in the human body under you know,
Speaker 1: sort of normal circumstances, because obviously like a dead body
Speaker 1: filled with dirt, you could grow some some plants, and
Speaker 1: that if you had some sort of somehow had an
Speaker 1: outfit that had like lots of dirt pockets, you could
Speaker 1: grow grow that way. Also wanted to, you know, avoid
Speaker 1: discussing bacteria and fungi, sticking to just good old plants,
Speaker 1: which again seems more in line with the plant like
Speaker 1: organisms that we're dealing with in this short um, and
Speaker 1: we're not counting things that might look like plants but
Speaker 1: are in fact tumors or what have you. So for
Speaker 1: the most part, plants don't want to be on us
Speaker 1: or inside us, unless, of course, their seeds are traveling
Speaker 1: on our hair or garments, or if their seeds are
Speaker 1: traveling through our digestive systems. Otherwise, there's just not much
Speaker 1: of an in game going on with the inside of
Speaker 1: the human body or even like on the exterior of
Speaker 1: the human body. Uh. You know, seeds need to get
Speaker 1: in the dirt. But sometimes things go wrong, as horribly wrong.
Speaker 1: As reported in by the BBC and various other outlets,
Speaker 1: a man named Ron vet and I believe uh had
Speaker 1: been battling emphysema, and he underwent an X ray as
Speaker 1: his condition worsened. The doctors then discovered that a p
Speaker 1: had gone down the wrong um, you know, the wrong
Speaker 1: pipe and sprouted in the warm, moist environment of the
Speaker 1: patient's lung. It had only grown a half an inch long,
Speaker 1: but you know, still it was enough to cause some concern.
Speaker 1: Surgeons removed it. Uh and UH, we should stress here
Speaker 1: that what was happening is that the P was sprouting
Speaker 1: as if it were under the soil, reaching up for sunlight.
Speaker 1: Thus it grew in the darkness of a human body
Speaker 1: as if it were going to sprout out of the
Speaker 1: body and find the sun. Now an energy terms, it
Speaker 1: couldn't keep growing like that forever, right, because eventually it
Speaker 1: would need sunlight in order to supply new energy. But
Speaker 1: of course, a P like any other uh, you know,
Speaker 1: like the yolk of an egg or something, has some
Speaker 1: chemical energy built into it that can propel that initial
Speaker 1: sprouting from the dark place. Uh. Fortunately, it would probably
Speaker 1: eventually not be able to find sunlight, but it still
Speaker 1: would I guess, be some kind of gross thing in
Speaker 1: your lung. So it's a good thing they took it out.
Speaker 1: But in the spirit of of making the familiar strange,
Speaker 1: I think we should dwell for a minute on the
Speaker 1: idea of seeds using bodies, such as human bodies for dispersal.
Speaker 1: We don't dwell on this as a parallel to any
Speaker 1: kind of botanical body horror because it just seems so normal. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes you just eat fruit with seeds in it.
Speaker 1: But this is really kind of strange. The more you
Speaker 1: think about it. So of course there are evolutionary pressures
Speaker 1: on plants that caused them to find methods of seed dispersal,
Speaker 1: not just to produce seeds of for a new generation
Speaker 1: of plants, but to try to get them physically away
Speaker 1: from the parent and uh. And this is because, like
Speaker 1: the kin shared genes of the parent and offspring, plants
Speaker 1: to want to be forced to compete directly with one
Speaker 1: another for resources, and these resources would include soil space, water,
Speaker 1: nutrients in the soil, access to sunlight. If you can
Speaker 1: get the kids out of the house, that's good because
Speaker 1: then you're not fighting over food. And competition of this
Speaker 1: kind can be reduced by dispersing seeds, and nature of
Speaker 1: course has lots of ingenious solutions for this. We've talked
Speaker 1: about some on the show before. For example, you know
Speaker 1: all the different structures the parachute or wing like structures
Speaker 1: that seeds sometimes sprout in order to ride on the
Speaker 1: wind to or to drift like the like the filaments
Speaker 1: in in invasion to the body snatchers. Then there were
Speaker 1: even exploding seed pods like you would find on the
Speaker 1: sandbox tree or Hera crepitans. And so this is a
Speaker 1: tree that has thorns all over its trunk. I think
Speaker 1: I've read somewhere that it's called the Monkey Can't Climate tree,
Speaker 1: and it produces seed pods that look kind of like
Speaker 1: tiny pumpkins, and they explode when they're right, literally explode,
Speaker 1: sending a ballistic propulsion of seeds up to distances of
Speaker 1: like a hundred meters away according to some reports. But also,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned earlier, a lot of seeds rely on
Speaker 1: animals to be dispersed, and this is known as zoo cory.
Speaker 1: So there's epizoo cory, which is the transport of seeds
Speaker 1: on the outside of the animal, so you think of
Speaker 1: like the burrs that get stuck on a dog's fur,
Speaker 1: stuck to your socks. One example of this is the
Speaker 1: burdock plant, which was apparently the inspiration behind the invention
Speaker 1: of velcrow, invention of the loop and fastener system. But
Speaker 1: then there's also, of course what's known as indo zoo corey,
Speaker 1: the transport of seeds inside of the animal, and this
Speaker 1: usually involves creating a tasty fruiting body containing the seed
Speaker 1: waiting to get eaten, traveling around inside an animal's digestive system,
Speaker 1: then being released in the animals species to grow in
Speaker 1: a new place. And so if you eat some tasty blackberries,
Speaker 1: you are, in a way, Jordi Varrel, you are the
Speaker 1: host of this plant that is using your digestive system,
Speaker 1: using and your your legs, your mobile body in the
Speaker 1: dispersal of seeds as part of its reproductive cycle. In fact,
Speaker 1: there are even some seeds that are somewhat obligate in
Speaker 1: this way. They need to be primed to grow inside
Speaker 1: an animal's digestive system. Blackberries would be an example, which
Speaker 1: I think usually needs some time in a bird's gizzard
Speaker 1: before they will grow. But all the stories you read
Speaker 1: of like okay, well you know my cousin knows a
Speaker 1: guy who swallowed a watermelon seed and it grew a
Speaker 1: watermelon inside his stomach. That that's not true. I could
Speaker 1: not find any evidence that anything like that ever happens.
Speaker 1: But while it's unlikely that you would grow a plant
Speaker 1: from a seed in your body while you are alive,
Speaker 1: could it happen after you're dead? Again, you mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: Rob that if a seed was maybe in your pockets,
Speaker 1: in your pockets were full of soil, it could grow
Speaker 1: out of that. But could it actually grow from inside
Speaker 1: your body? Well, I could not find a verified example
Speaker 1: of this. I found a disputed claim about a fig
Speaker 1: tree that grew out of a murdered man's stomach in
Speaker 1: a cave in Cyprus, But it looks like that that
Speaker 1: account is has has generally been refuted. But I was
Speaker 1: reading an article that talks about that that rumored story
Speaker 1: in Life Science by Laura Geigel, and the author here
Speaker 1: consulted a soil science professor from Oregon State University named j. Knohler,
Speaker 1: and it was Nhler's opinion that such a thing is
Speaker 1: actually plausible. He said that seeds can sometimes emerge from
Speaker 1: dead animals, so he imagines they could likewise emerge out
Speaker 1: of a dead human um. But he said it wouldn't
Speaker 1: have to be in their stomach. It could actually grow
Speaker 1: from any part of the dead person's digestive tract. It
Speaker 1: could be in their large intestine, small intestine. And the
Speaker 1: way it breaks down would work like this, So you
Speaker 1: have a dead, decaying body all around the plant seed
Speaker 1: that would sort of help it out with nutrients, very
Speaker 1: possibly with the third party of fung us involved. So
Speaker 1: microscopic fungi in the soil would help decompose the dead
Speaker 1: body breakdown. You know, the fungus would break down fats
Speaker 1: and proteins into simpler constituent nutrients, and then the fungus
Speaker 1: would share these nutrients with nearby plants, possibly even seeds
Speaker 1: that are among the decaying organic material of the body
Speaker 1: in a symbiotic relationship. So they would exchange simple sugars
Speaker 1: that the plant produces for these nutrients that they're getting
Speaker 1: from decomposing the body. But I wanted to think about
Speaker 1: another way of possibly framing infection by an alien plant,
Speaker 1: apart from directly becoming the host or substrate of the
Speaker 1: plant itself, And that's the idea of infection via a
Speaker 1: plant vector. Or to put it as a question, would
Speaker 1: you let a zucchini flower cough in your mouth? And
Speaker 1: I was looking around for for answers to this question
Speaker 1: can you get infected from a plant? And I found
Speaker 1: an article by a plant pathologist and diagnostician at Iowa
Speaker 1: State University named Dr Lena Rodriguez Salamanca, and she said
Speaker 1: that sometimes her lab receives questions from the public, including
Speaker 1: the question of can I catch and infectious disease from
Speaker 1: a plant? The answer is in most cases no. You know,
Speaker 1: pathogens that are specialized to infect plants, and of course
Speaker 1: there are many of these. Plants can be infected by fungi,
Speaker 1: by viruses, by bacteria, just like animals can. But usually
Speaker 1: a pathogen that is specialized for one kingdom of life
Speaker 1: is not just going to jump, you know, from that
Speaker 1: one into another kingdom of life and infected. It is
Speaker 1: not adapted to that. But there are cases of a
Speaker 1: few known opportunistic pathogens that will make this jump, and
Speaker 1: this is especially true for people with compromised immune systems.
Speaker 1: So one example is an infectious bacterium known as a
Speaker 1: pseudominous erugenosa and Rodriguez Salamanca says that it can cause
Speaker 1: a weak soft rot on plants such as lettuce, and
Speaker 1: this bacterium has been known to jump the kingdom barrier
Speaker 1: and sometimes infect people with compromised immune systems. This can
Speaker 1: lead to infections of the urinary tract, of the lungs,
Speaker 1: the blood, and wounds including burns, but for most people
Speaker 1: it does not represent a threat. But then there are
Speaker 1: other ones. For example, there is a fungal infection caused
Speaker 1: by the fungus Sporothrix shanky i, which thrives on the
Speaker 1: dead thorns of a rose stem, and this has given
Speaker 1: rise to the name rose pickers disease or rose handler's disease.
Speaker 1: So if you're handling a rose and you, you know,
Speaker 1: get pricked by one of these dead thorns that has
Speaker 1: the fungal infection, or get a scratch, this way, the
Speaker 1: fungus can get into your scan, potentially into your lymph system.
Speaker 1: And apparently you can also inhale spores of this fungus
Speaker 1: and this can cause all kinds of problems infections of
Speaker 1: the skin, of course, but of the eyes, the lungs,
Speaker 1: the nervous system, bones, and joints. And then finally she
Speaker 1: mentions that there are infectious agents of plants that can
Speaker 1: produce secondary byproducts that are harmful to humans, and she
Speaker 1: gives the example of fungi that attack corn. The phrase
Speaker 1: she used specifically is ear rots, which is a new
Speaker 1: sort of words quick for me. But this includes the
Speaker 1: genus Fusarium, and these fungi produced secondary microtoxins including quote
Speaker 1: few Monison's z r alinone and the aptly named vomitoxin,
Speaker 1: which yes, that that is what it sounds like. And
Speaker 1: of course these are byproducts that can affect you in
Speaker 1: all kinds of ways. She talks about how most of
Speaker 1: the things like this, like like Aspergillis flavius also is
Speaker 1: a is a contaminant that you could find in grains
Speaker 1: that produces secondary micotoxins. A lot of these things that
Speaker 1: produce these secondary microtoxins that can harm you would be
Speaker 1: found specifically, not in like leafy plants like let us,
Speaker 1: but on grains. And she she mentions, you know, you
Speaker 1: don't need to be too worried because they're like grain
Speaker 1: producers monitor for the presence of these organisms. So yes,
Speaker 1: it is in fact possible for a human to catch
Speaker 1: a disease from a plant, much in the same way
Speaker 1: that we could catch a disease from a mosquito or
Speaker 1: a bat, but fortunately it's not very common. All Right
Speaker 1: with that, we're gonna go ahead close the book on
Speaker 1: Ajority Veril and I think we're gonna go and take
Speaker 1: our first break. But when we come back, we will
Speaker 1: unlock another entry in horror anthology history. Thank thank Alright,
Speaker 1: we're back. Is it time to go to the Outer Limits? Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's go to the Outer Limits. Uh So, I mentioned
Speaker 1: that we would be looking at an episode from the
Speaker 1: nineties revival of the Outer Limits UM. Not to be
Speaker 1: confused with the original series from the from the nineteen sixties. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is a series that ran through two thousand and two. Now,
Speaker 1: I watched a few of these on TV back in
Speaker 1: the day, but via Amazon Prime watch Party, we've been
Speaker 1: watching an episode a week with a couple of friends,
Speaker 1: and I have to say, the nineties Our or Limits
Speaker 1: has everything I love. You've got really cool sci fi concepts,
Speaker 1: you have great monster makeup, a little nineties cheesiness, uh
Speaker 1: sprinkled in there, and some really fun performances as well,
Speaker 1: sometimes by people you've you've never heard of, but oftentimes
Speaker 1: by people that went on to have uh you know,
Speaker 1: key roles in um in various sci fi properties or
Speaker 1: uh you know they did they did additional television work,
Speaker 1: So you never know who you're gonna get. Like, for instance,
Speaker 1: I haven't watched this yet, but there's an episode where
Speaker 1: Gary Busey shows up playing a televangelist. There's a one
Speaker 1: where Michael Ironside shows up playing a mutant. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: is you just never know who's going to be in there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of oh that guy in it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Basically name an actor who is doing TV during this
Speaker 1: period of time, and there's a great chance that they
Speaker 1: were on an episode of The Outer Limits. So during
Speaker 1: the Outer the nineties Outer Limits run they did a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty two episodes. That's compared to forty nine
Speaker 1: episodes from the original nineteen sixties series. And again, I
Speaker 1: certain I haven't watched them all, but this is a
Speaker 1: really good one we're gonna be talking about. It's an
Speaker 1: episode that is probably a bit heavy handed, as these
Speaker 1: sort of things tend to be. UM, but this is
Speaker 1: also rather pronounced as it was essentially a n commentary
Speaker 1: about climate change denialism. That's very early. Yeah, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: earlier than say an Inconvenient Truth and um and the like.
Speaker 1: But we'll get into something like the basic where it
Speaker 1: fits into the basic timeline of of climate change understanding
Speaker 1: here shortly. But but first of all, just so everyone
Speaker 1: can find it if you're interested in watching it, it's
Speaker 1: titled to Tell the Truth, and it was written by
Speaker 1: Lawrence Myers and directed by Neil Fernley. It stars Gregory
Speaker 1: Harrison as Dr Larry Chambers. You may remember Gregory Harrison
Speaker 1: from various TV shows. I think he's like like on
Speaker 1: Trapper John m D or something. Um and uh, you
Speaker 1: know various other shows. Uh, a kind of a soap
Speaker 1: opera vibe. Yeah, yeah, definitely and uh and in this
Speaker 1: he plays a terraforming botanist on the off world colony
Speaker 1: of Janice five. And I love how perfectly on the
Speaker 1: nose that the title is, I mean the name of
Speaker 1: the colony and or planet is because this is an
Speaker 1: episode that is concerned with truth, denial and the mistrust
Speaker 1: of information. Yes, and it has characters whose faces change
Speaker 1: and who are not what they seem. Yeah. So here's
Speaker 1: the deal. The Janice five colony is going pretty well.
Speaker 1: It has a bright future, but doctor Chambers is concerned
Speaker 1: by some of the geologic evidence. Geologic evidence that includes
Speaker 1: the remnants of an extinct shape shifting alien civilization. But
Speaker 1: five years ago he got it really wrong. He predicted
Speaker 1: CycL cyclical catastrophe. Uh, and he thought it was gonna
Speaker 1: be a volcanic catastrophe, but then this didn't come to fruition.
Speaker 1: Now he's come to believe that the cyclical threat that
Speaker 1: is facing this planet is actually solar and that in
Speaker 1: another and then another devastating solar storm is just on
Speaker 1: the horizon. So he urges that the colony be moved
Speaker 1: or even evacuated. Yeah, there's a great fake out beginning
Speaker 1: where a couple of characters appear to be looking out
Speaker 1: a window and then they see the sky it fills
Speaker 1: with these shimmering auroras and that turns into fire everywhere,
Speaker 1: and you you think, oh, no, are our main character
Speaker 1: is going to be killed right at the beginning. But
Speaker 1: though it turns out it is a simulation they're looking at.
Speaker 1: But I was wondering, why, why if they're simulating the
Speaker 1: future of the climate, or they're simulating solar activity, does
Speaker 1: it create a video display of what is simulating would happen?
Speaker 1: I don't. I guess it's just a robust simulation um
Speaker 1: package they have there. Yeah, that's a really good simulation.
Speaker 1: Usually simulation spit out like some numbers. Yeah, this one
Speaker 1: does it full like I'll give you, I'll give you
Speaker 1: a movie. So I mean, I guess it's all about,
Speaker 1: you know, creating something you know, visual that of course
Speaker 1: the audience can get into. But also these colonists, because
Speaker 1: even sympathetic members of the colony have their doubts about
Speaker 1: Dr Ambers. After all, he got it wrong once before
Speaker 1: and then there's this added detail that he recently lost
Speaker 1: his wife and then even went missing for a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks in the in the wilderness. So this there's
Speaker 1: this lingering question can he be trusted? Is he acting
Speaker 1: out of sort of just nihilistic hatred for the colony?
Speaker 1: Plenty of and also just plenty of the colonists don't
Speaker 1: want to go through all of this again, and the
Speaker 1: higher ups also have a lot invested in the situation.
Speaker 1: One thing I think this episode models extremely well is
Speaker 1: that when the care so Dr. Chambers is trying to
Speaker 1: convince these characters that his simulation is correct, and when
Speaker 1: characters find the implications of his conclusions unpalatable, like well,
Speaker 1: they don't want to have to move or you know whatever,
Speaker 1: it's not in their interests to try to evacuate. Most
Speaker 1: of the substance of their disagreement is not really about
Speaker 1: what he's saying, but it's about him as a person.
Speaker 1: So they say, like, you've got a psychological reason that
Speaker 1: you would make all this stuff up? You know that
Speaker 1: They start like talking about his person history and attacking
Speaker 1: his character and saying, who is this guy? Can we
Speaker 1: really trust him? Very reminiscent of how similar debates in
Speaker 1: reality play out. But also I've just got to say
Speaker 1: one of my favorite parts of this episode was the
Speaker 1: repeated threatening visits from this guy named Fenton, who has
Speaker 1: just really got it out for Dr Chambers. He seems
Speaker 1: to be a neighbor of his who is some kind
Speaker 1: of security employee. Uh but he he looks basically like
Speaker 1: a diminutive evil ken bone. Yeah. I love Finton in
Speaker 1: this because he's I mean, he he works, he's a
Speaker 1: gain a character, but he also you know, he's not
Speaker 1: particularly threatening, and he does he also has a great
Speaker 1: toady vibe to him, Like, I'm totally buying that in
Speaker 1: this off world colony where where it's later explained that
Speaker 1: you know a lot of people go here that didn't
Speaker 1: have a shot at ascending uh into the you know,
Speaker 1: into into higher levels back on Earth, like this is
Speaker 1: their shot, And you totally buy Finton as a guy
Speaker 1: who you know, probably wouldn't be head of security or
Speaker 1: a major security player anywhere else, but here on on
Speaker 1: Janice five, he's got a shot. Well, even on Janice five,
Speaker 1: he's not the head of security. He answers to the
Speaker 1: guy with the beard, I can't remember what that guy's
Speaker 1: name is but yeah, he's he's some kind of cop
Speaker 1: or something. But it was just really funny how he
Speaker 1: repeatedly shows up to be like this threatening figure, but
Speaker 1: he's this cute little nerd. Now, um, the key individual here,
Speaker 1: like the key antagonist I guess you would would call him,
Speaker 1: is the head of the colony, Franklin Murdoch, and he's
Speaker 1: played by the terrific William Atherton. Now Atherton is best
Speaker 1: known for playing Uh. First, there was a character in
Speaker 1: die Hard named Thornburgh, but most famously I think he
Speaker 1: played Walter Peck in four's Ghostbusters. He he was just
Speaker 1: a perfect nineteen eighties weasel. Yeah, he has a special
Speaker 1: knack I think for playing arrogant bureaucrats. So in die
Speaker 1: Hard he's a sleazy, opportunistic reporter and in uh in
Speaker 1: Ghostbusters he plays the villainous e P A agent. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: which is which is is always weird now when I
Speaker 1: rewatch Ghostbusters to think about Ghostbusters, because yeah, he has
Speaker 1: just played as like a straight villain, or at least
Speaker 1: a sub villain in the film despite representing the you
Speaker 1: know now in battled US Environmental Protection Agency, which is
Speaker 1: there too, Especially in the film, like he's acting to
Speaker 1: protect New York City from environmental damage from from things
Speaker 1: like unlicensed nuclear accelerators and and this containment system that
Speaker 1: even Egon describes as something that can't be turned off
Speaker 1: without quote dropping a bomb on the city. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think there are a couple of ways you could read.
Speaker 1: Of course, I love Ghostbusters and the character is very funny.
Speaker 1: You could read it as that the politics of the
Speaker 1: movie are conservative. That's another way of reading it is
Speaker 1: just that like this is a comedy where the protagonists
Speaker 1: are are dangerously irresponsible people, and that that's sort of true. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean certainly, like if you really analyze the character
Speaker 1: of Peter Bankman, um, you know, how how likable is
Speaker 1: he really? Uh but you know, Bill Murray, he makes
Speaker 1: it work, Yeah he does. He does now again now
Speaker 1: now Peck and Ghostbusters is definitely an arrogant jerk. I
Speaker 1: don't want to get past that point. And Atherton brings
Speaker 1: some of that same energy to this performance, but this
Speaker 1: time he is definitely the face of anti environmental forces. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I think he's he's actually well presented here instead
Speaker 1: of being just a pure money grubbing heel Murdoch is
Speaker 1: presented as being someone who opposes Chambers for several reasons. So,
Speaker 1: first of all, Murdoch has a position of power and
Speaker 1: importance here on the colony that he would never have
Speaker 1: achieved on Earth. He has this this really little monologu
Speaker 1: where he talks about it. I think he's talking is
Speaker 1: he He's not talking to Fenton, He's talking to another
Speaker 1: character Will mention in a little bit. Also, Murdoch, like
Speaker 1: all the other colonists, has in an economic stake in
Speaker 1: the colony's success, but he also stresses that this does
Speaker 1: not rank above the importance of his own life. Murdoch,
Speaker 1: seemingly quite authentically in one of these things, proclaims that
Speaker 1: also Janice five is his home and he doesn't want
Speaker 1: to leave it, So he has that, um, you know,
Speaker 1: tying him to the current situation. And then finally he
Speaker 1: is concerned that is convincing his Chambers. Maybe he has
Speaker 1: been wrong before and he might be wrong again for
Speaker 1: very human reasons. I mean, this episode, actually, like you're suggesting,
Speaker 1: raises a lot of very interesting and legitimate real life
Speaker 1: concerns about saying how to communicate scientific conclusions that would
Speaker 1: motivate action in the real world, because there are a
Speaker 1: lot of difficulties there. But I mean one of the
Speaker 1: difficulties I think is that science, unlike most other epistemological methods,
Speaker 1: is very upfront about uncertainty, so like it builds in
Speaker 1: the fact that, like, you know, I'm trying to tell
Speaker 1: you that this is a conclusion with x probability instead
Speaker 1: of just saying, like, here's how it is. And it
Speaker 1: turns out that even though that is probably the best
Speaker 1: method that you can use for actually figuring out what's true,
Speaker 1: it is not particularly convincing to motivate people to do
Speaker 1: things that they don't want to do otherwise because it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, you're acknowledging you're not certain. Then you know,
Speaker 1: how can how can we make all these costly decisions
Speaker 1: on the basis of your conclusion? Yeah? Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: like there's a there's a line in there where one
Speaker 1: of the columns is saying, you're asking us to ruin
Speaker 1: our lives again, like you've already done it once before,
Speaker 1: and now you're asking to do it again and and
Speaker 1: and we can't even be certain about it. As a
Speaker 1: brief aside about the scientific premise of the episode. I
Speaker 1: was interested in chambers suggestion that, so what happens on
Speaker 1: on Janice five on the planet is that Chambers believes
Speaker 1: every one thousand years, basically the planet is sterilized and
Speaker 1: nearly all life is wiped out by solar activity. That
Speaker 1: that just bombards the surface of the planet with radiation
Speaker 1: and uh and and you know, wipes everything clean and
Speaker 1: then life has to bounce back. And I was wondering,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, how would it be possible for complex
Speaker 1: life to even evolve on such a planet? And I
Speaker 1: was trying to I was trying to make it work.
Speaker 1: One way I thought of is well, maybe years are
Speaker 1: longer on Janice five than they are on Earth. So
Speaker 1: a thousand years is actually a much longer period. Uh.
Speaker 1: So I was looking at, you know, what, what's a
Speaker 1: what's a planet that has a really long orbital period?
Speaker 1: In our Solar system? Neptune takes a hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: five years to orbit the Sun. So if Janice is
Speaker 1: like Neptune, then a thousand Janie years would be a
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty five thousand Earth years. But the crazy
Speaker 1: thing is that's still the blink of an eye in
Speaker 1: evolutionary time. Uh. And sometimes it can be hard to
Speaker 1: put that in perspective. But if you consider it like this, so, uh,
Speaker 1: the if the evolution of life on Earth fits into
Speaker 1: you know, we don't know exactly when the first cells
Speaker 1: arose or or the chemical evolution that gave rise to
Speaker 1: the first cells happened, but if you put it in
Speaker 1: basically the last four billion years, more than twenty four
Speaker 1: thousand periods of a hundred and sixty five thousand years
Speaker 1: could fit into that. So it makes you think, well,
Speaker 1: if you're going to take this premise seriously that somehow
Speaker 1: complex life evolves on a planet that is sterilized every
Speaker 1: thousand years or so, either that sterilization has to be
Speaker 1: taken into account in the biology of the life that evolves,
Speaker 1: like it goes dormant somehow to avoid the sterilization. Uh,
Speaker 1: And that possibility, I think is raised in the episode,
Speaker 1: or it evolves at rates that are that are unthinkable
Speaker 1: given the kind of evolution we understand here on Earth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's interesting, you know, it's it's a very thoughtful show,
Speaker 1: even with its occasional hokiness, you know, and and necessary
Speaker 1: leaps in you know, in the fantastic um. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's interesting to think about the idea of say comparing
Speaker 1: it to for the organisms that that depend on cyclical
Speaker 1: forest fires. Uh, it's just part of the environment that
Speaker 1: they live in. That's a very good point of comparison.
Speaker 1: And actually a similar idea comes up in the three
Speaker 1: Body Problem by c Chin Lou. Oh. Yeah, that's right,
Speaker 1: in the simulation that they're working with, right, with the
Speaker 1: world with multiple suns, right, the ideas that they're they're
Speaker 1: unpredictable times when the environmental conditions of their home planet
Speaker 1: become basically unsurvivable and the aliens have to disappear, have
Speaker 1: to sort of like go into a hibernation or dehydration
Speaker 1: state in order to just like ride out the uninhabitable
Speaker 1: period and then re emerge once the planet becomes less hostile.
Speaker 1: So this is the basic set up for the the episode.
Speaker 1: And I want to dress here by the way, when
Speaker 1: this is where the audio realm uh Janice five the
Speaker 1: name of the colony this is. This is not Janice
Speaker 1: like the uh as in Janet or anything. This is
Speaker 1: the two faced got And so that's the sort of
Speaker 1: the Yeah, So from anyway, anyway, from here, the episode,
Speaker 1: you know, takes a couple of I thought really satisfying
Speaker 1: twists and turns. I don't want to spoil too much
Speaker 1: in this episode in case you want to want to
Speaker 1: see it for yourself, and I recommend you do. But
Speaker 1: let's just say that some folks are accused of being
Speaker 1: shaped shifting aliens that survived, uh, you know, like they
Speaker 1: living in the depths of the earth or something um.
Speaker 1: And we're forced to wonder if Chambers will be proven
Speaker 1: right or wrong and what it will mean for the
Speaker 1: people of the colony. Now again, this episode is an
Speaker 1: obvious treatment on the of the dangers of climate change
Speaker 1: and the role that climate change denialism plays in our society.
Speaker 1: To put everything in an historical framework, the greenhouse effect
Speaker 1: was described by French physicist Joseph Fourier in eighteen twenty four.
Speaker 1: BBC has a nice breakdown of key moments after that
Speaker 1: in a Brief History of climate Change, which brings up everything.
Speaker 1: It brings up everything through because you know, that's that's
Speaker 1: when the timeline came out. But it's a nice handy
Speaker 1: reference point for some of the stuff we're talking about here.
Speaker 1: But they hit a few key points from the later
Speaker 1: twentieth century. U. S. Scientist Wallace Brocker put the term
Speaker 1: global warming in the title of a science paper, popularizing
Speaker 1: the term, and in nineteen eighty seven the Montreal Protocol
Speaker 1: came into effect to protect the ozone layer, and in
Speaker 1: night the inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change formed to
Speaker 1: colate and assess the evidence. And of course the i
Speaker 1: p c C continues to collect and assess the evidence
Speaker 1: on on the state of climate change even today. I
Speaker 1: think their most recent major update and report was in furteen.
Speaker 1: It was the fifth Assessment Report, and it it paints
Speaker 1: a pretty dire picture. Now. One thing that this BBC
Speaker 1: timeline also points out, and this is something that Carl
Speaker 1: Sagan wrote about in The demon Haunted World as well.
Speaker 1: Margaret Thatcher gave a speech to the u N in
Speaker 1: nine and urged a global treaty, stating, quote, we are
Speaker 1: seeing a vast increase in the amount of carbon dioxide
Speaker 1: reaching the atmosphere. And then she goes on to to
Speaker 1: point out that the future changes will quote likely be
Speaker 1: more fundamental and more widespread than anything we have known hitherto.
Speaker 1: And as Sagan pointed out, Thatcher, no matter what else
Speaker 1: you know think about her in her politics, was is
Speaker 1: one of the few heads of state we can point
Speaker 1: to that had a science background. She was a research
Speaker 1: chemist with a chemistry degree from Oxford. A weird thing
Speaker 1: to remember. Yeah, in in the demon Haunted World, Sagan
Speaker 1: brings us up because he's talking about science and politics
Speaker 1: where they meet, and the idea here is that Margaret Thatcher,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever else her her politics might mean, or
Speaker 1: what you know, other details regarding her place in history,
Speaker 1: she perhaps had an advantage in understanding these dire warnings
Speaker 1: coming from the scientific community because of her own scientific background. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's interesting. I mean, it is not all that common
Speaker 1: to see world leaders, major political leaders coming from a
Speaker 1: scientific background, I think, doesn't I think Angela Merkel has
Speaker 1: a scientific one of the few other ones you can
Speaker 1: easily point to. Yeah, But I was trying to think
Speaker 1: of other examples, and it come up very very short.
Speaker 1: I mean, that is interesting. And I'm not saying necessarily
Speaker 1: that one needs to be a scientist to be a
Speaker 1: political leader. I mean that that also seems like a
Speaker 1: unreasonable demand, and it's not necessarily true that scientific careers
Speaker 1: would provide all of the kind of skills you need
Speaker 1: to be a good political leader. But it seems like
Speaker 1: it would be good to have at least a higher
Speaker 1: proportion of people with scientific backgrounds involved in politics. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's strange to just like look at the professional backgrounds
Speaker 1: of people who become politicians and notice how uniform it
Speaker 1: is most of the time. I mean, at least in
Speaker 1: the United States, politics is overwhelmingly dominated by lawyers and
Speaker 1: people from business. You kind of wonder how different our
Speaker 1: politics might be if there was a more representative sample
Speaker 1: of people from other fields, of people from the sciences,
Speaker 1: of teachers of labor leader. Isn't so forth that all
Speaker 1: like became political leaders. Also, Yeah, I mean, at the
Speaker 1: very least, you want leaders who listen to trusted scientists.
Speaker 1: You you know, you want scientists to um and uh
Speaker 1: and scientifically minded people to be in positions to speak
Speaker 1: to scientific topics and then have that be a part
Speaker 1: of the you know, the upper political consideration. And I
Speaker 1: don't think that's a controversial statement to make on of
Speaker 1: science podcast. Um. But let's come back to this Outer
Speaker 1: Limits episode. So this came out in which curiously and
Speaker 1: this you know, I don't know what degree this is, uh,
Speaker 1: this is actually um, you know, essential, but it's curiously
Speaker 1: the same year that the rate of average global surface
Speaker 1: warming began a slowing trend that lasted till now. As
Speaker 1: Rebecca Lindsay points out on climate dot Gov, this really
Speaker 1: just meant that quote the rate of average global surface
Speaker 1: warming from through two thousand and twelve was slower than
Speaker 1: it had been for two to three decades leading up
Speaker 1: to it, but the big picture of long term warming
Speaker 1: continued unchanged. Still, climate change deniers at the time took
Speaker 1: took what climate scientists described as a temporary pause or
Speaker 1: hiatus as proof that quote global warming stopped in Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember seeing that claim a lot floating around on
Speaker 1: the internet. Yeah, so again, that might just be pure
Speaker 1: you know, obviously this this episode was probably written uh
Speaker 1: prior to ninety eight, and I don't know what the
Speaker 1: exact production history on on the script was. That it
Speaker 1: might just be you know, pure coincidence that had happened
Speaker 1: exactly that year, but maybe not, who knows. I would
Speaker 1: tend to think coincidence because I doubt that people, I mean,
Speaker 1: climate change was not as much of a salient issue
Speaker 1: or political controversy at the time, and there wasn't the
Speaker 1: same like period data to latch onto and denying it
Speaker 1: yet Yeah, but the idea of calling it a pause
Speaker 1: or hiatus could be really kind of misleading. I mean
Speaker 1: it seems like actually, what I was just talking about
Speaker 1: goes both ways. It would be good, I think, to
Speaker 1: have more scientists involved in political leadership, but it would
Speaker 1: also probably be good to have more people who are
Speaker 1: experienced with rhetoric and messaging involved in science. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: I mean that honestly. Yeah, that that's kind of confusing
Speaker 1: terminology to throw out there. And and even if you
Speaker 1: don't have an agenda, if you don't have, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: a dog in the hunt, and of course this will
Speaker 1: discuss everybody has a dog in this particular hunt. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, you can see how you might misinterpret that.
Speaker 1: But anyway, Yeah, this was the idea was pushed by
Speaker 1: some that this means, oh well, global warming has stopped,
Speaker 1: like it's over. Uh, you were freaking out over nothing. This.
Speaker 1: Despite that global warming is a human cause, condition still
Speaker 1: saw two thousand twelve as the warmest fifteen year period
Speaker 1: on record at that time, with greenhouse gases climbing to
Speaker 1: new record highs. The oceans were warming, sea levels were rising,
Speaker 1: ice was melting. Now, as we've discussed on the show before.
Speaker 1: Part of this comes down to a misunderstanding, willful or otherwise,
Speaker 1: on how science functions. Science is not a tool that
Speaker 1: works or doesn't work, and then maybe cast aside like
Speaker 1: a crooked drill bit or something that needs to be replaced.
Speaker 1: The part in to tell the truth about Chambers having
Speaker 1: gotten it wrong before certainly smacks of the common climate
Speaker 1: denialism mantra of but what about the warnings of the
Speaker 1: new ice Age and other such criticism, right, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot wrong with with that approach, obviously, ranging
Speaker 1: from the treating uh you know, of all science and scientists,
Speaker 1: regardless of area focus is kind of a monolith like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, this is what science is doing. Is what
Speaker 1: the scientists are doing. And I found a scientist that
Speaker 1: says otherwise because also gets into the cherry picking and
Speaker 1: uh you know, assuming that air and recalibration are not
Speaker 1: part of the scientific process. One of the real difficulties
Speaker 1: with scientific communication is that you can always make a
Speaker 1: kind of confusing reference to the past, like you can
Speaker 1: find controversy on essentially any issue. Uh you know, there's
Speaker 1: no scientific issue I can think of where through through
Speaker 1: the entire history of the awareness of the issue. All
Speaker 1: scientists have had it right and been on the same
Speaker 1: page about it. So if you're interested in generating the
Speaker 1: the idea of confusion or controversy about any particular scientific conclusion,
Speaker 1: and you want to make references to, well, when have
Speaker 1: people said different things about this issue in the past,
Speaker 1: you can always find something like that. And in some
Speaker 1: cases issue scientific consensus about issues develops and changes very rapidly.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think about the ways that um for example,
Speaker 1: current recommendations about how best to battle the coronavirus, about
Speaker 1: UH masks and social distancing and all that stuff. People
Speaker 1: who are kind of people who are opposed to following
Speaker 1: the current best guidelines about those things will make reference
Speaker 1: to what people were saying in the earliest weeks of
Speaker 1: the of the pandemic. You remember this, right, like, like
Speaker 1: initially scientific guidelines were not recommending people wear masks. That
Speaker 1: changed very quickly. We did a very early episode where
Speaker 1: we about the coronavirus, where we we we mentioned that,
Speaker 1: though I should also point out that we also drove
Speaker 1: home that you know we're recording this on such and
Speaker 1: such date, at such and such point in this pandemic.
Speaker 1: Be aware that that you know, everything may change as
Speaker 1: this story develops. It can be a really frustrating thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, the evidence now for the effectiveness of mask
Speaker 1: wearing too slow the spread of the virus is very good.
Speaker 1: It comes from multiple kinds of studies. Studies looking at
Speaker 1: the effects of mask mandates at the population level, studies
Speaker 1: looking at the effects of physical barriers on the propagation
Speaker 1: of droplets and aerosols, and control environments, how it spreads
Speaker 1: between hamsters and things like that. The bottom line from
Speaker 1: all of this research up to now is that there's
Speaker 1: very good reason to wear a mask if you go
Speaker 1: out in the public setting or anywhere near people outside
Speaker 1: your household. But no matter how much evidence accumulates in
Speaker 1: that column, there's always going to be this historical reference
Speaker 1: point where people can say, hey, wait a minute, Like,
Speaker 1: the experts weren't saying that at the beginning of March,
Speaker 1: so how can we be sure that they're right now?
Speaker 1: Why is what scientists are saying about the coronavirus, or
Speaker 1: about climate or anything now better than what they were
Speaker 1: saying in the past. And it can seem confusing, But
Speaker 1: for the most part, the answer is actually pretty simple,
Speaker 1: and it's that now we have better evidence. There's more evidence,
Speaker 1: more relevant evidence, better quality evidence. That's the difference. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this makes me think about the fact that science can
Speaker 1: be very susceptible to political weapons when those weapons are
Speaker 1: leveled at it, because science, science is ultimately this thing
Speaker 1: that is that is taking place and analyzing, you know,
Speaker 1: the fundamental aspects of the larger world, the cosmos, whereas
Speaker 1: politics is very much a condition of of social dynamics.
Speaker 1: And so you know, these political weapons, these singers and
Speaker 1: and got your points and basically anything that might be
Speaker 1: used from by one political opponent against another, like, those
Speaker 1: are things that are designed to work within a social
Speaker 1: context for the most part, into a certain extent, within
Speaker 1: illegal context. But but sciences is like the world beyond
Speaker 1: this domed colony of of law and society. And I wonder,
Speaker 1: now that I've said that out loud, I wonder if
Speaker 1: that's kind of the the beauty of this, uh, this setting,
Speaker 1: in this outer limits of episode, because the people in
Speaker 1: the colonists are literally living inside a bubble of their
Speaker 1: own construction, uh, you know, of their own design, and
Speaker 1: trying to evaluate threats that exist outside, like literally outside
Speaker 1: the sphere of their immediate domain. All right, we're gonna
Speaker 1: take a quick break. We'll be right back with more
Speaker 1: and we're back now, of course in this Outer Limits episode. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, as as as we we've pointed out before,
Speaker 1: there's this stark difference between what's going on with Dr
Speaker 1: Chambers and what's going on with us, because well, it's
Speaker 1: just in the show, it's just Dr Chambers preaching to
Speaker 1: a crowded room and making a case with difficult evidence.
Speaker 1: Though climate change data is certainly complex, but but in
Speaker 1: our world it is a case of overwhelming scientific consensus. Um,
Speaker 1: it's especially as far as climate scientists are concerned. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's no doubt about that. I mean, we've talked about
Speaker 1: the consensus on this issue and and the studies measuring
Speaker 1: it in previous episodes. I think we talked about that
Speaker 1: in one of the episodes we recorded after you came
Speaker 1: back from the World Science Festival in the previous year,
Speaker 1: and we discussed one of the panels about science communication
Speaker 1: and about climate change. But yeah, there's no doubt at
Speaker 1: all that almost all climate scientists are people with expertise
Speaker 1: in the relevant fields, are on the same page with
Speaker 1: the broad strokes of climate change. It is a problem
Speaker 1: it is majorly through thing. It is caused in large
Speaker 1: part by the products of human industry, and yet it
Speaker 1: can certainly feel at times like it's just one doctor
Speaker 1: Chambers pleading with the rest of the colony because there
Speaker 1: is significant and UH and and dangerous lack of commitment
Speaker 1: to combating the problem, especially in the United States, and
Speaker 1: a great deal of anti science and anti climate science
Speaker 1: worldview UH is often found here, especially in places of
Speaker 1: significant political power. Yeah, the anti science sentiment is extremely dangerous,
Speaker 1: like just this year in we've seen the results in
Speaker 1: real time um UH with the coronavirus as failure to
Speaker 1: listen to scientists and take advisory is about mask wearing
Speaker 1: and social distance thing seriously have led to outbreaks and
Speaker 1: surges that have cost human lives first and foremost, but
Speaker 1: also cost time and money. Uh. You know, it can
Speaker 1: still be difficult to gauge such threats, but it's certainly
Speaker 1: a more i think, readily understandable situation compared to climate change,
Speaker 1: which you know, one of the issues there is again
Speaker 1: complex climate science dealing with you know, longer periods of
Speaker 1: time UH, as opposed to everything happening within the space
Speaker 1: of a few months. Though at the same time, we
Speaker 1: are also living in a time of dangerous climate alteration,
Speaker 1: as we endure rising seas, intense hurricanes, and increased droughts
Speaker 1: and heat waves. It's perhaps more pronounced now than ever before,
Speaker 1: and and not everyone has their head in the stand. Certainly,
Speaker 1: according to a report from the Yale Program on Climate
Speaker 1: Change Communication and George Mason University's Center for Climate Change Communication,
Speaker 1: almost six and ten Americans are either alarmed or concerned
Speaker 1: by global warming, which the authors pointed out as being
Speaker 1: a major shift. As for the rest, though well, researchers
Speaker 1: and thinkers have been exploring these questions for years. Again,
Speaker 1: we have a we have we have passed episodes to
Speaker 1: get into this a bit. Why do we deny the evidence?
Speaker 1: You know? Why? Why deny um climate change? Now? Certainly
Speaker 1: there's much to be said for just how unpleasant the
Speaker 1: reality is. No one wants to be a part of
Speaker 1: a problem like this, or to dwell on a future
Speaker 1: of massy stabilization, relocation, and extinction. We as humans are
Speaker 1: in many ways just poorly wired to deal with threats
Speaker 1: of this magnitude and scale. We're better with the short term, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, but but but what are what are we
Speaker 1: ultimately to do. I mean, one of the things we've
Speaker 1: talked about in previous episodes about this is the idea
Speaker 1: that identity protective cognition plays in why people respond negatively
Speaker 1: to to climate science. And this is the thing that
Speaker 1: we should be sympathetic about. I mean, everybody engages in
Speaker 1: identity protective cognition. Everybody engages in forms of motivated reasoning
Speaker 1: on various issues to try to protect their their picture
Speaker 1: of the integrity of their self and how they fit
Speaker 1: into a social system. So uh. And this is one
Speaker 1: of the dangers of scientific issues becoming politicized, is that
Speaker 1: once an issue becomes politicized, the social and idea they
Speaker 1: connotations of the sides of that issue become more relevant
Speaker 1: than the evidence does. And unfortunately, this can happen really
Speaker 1: rapidly with issues that don't happen to have any particular
Speaker 1: like political values or implications attached to them inherently. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are examples. I was just thinking about, how do
Speaker 1: you remember how at some point this year suddenly it
Speaker 1: became a political issue with a political valence. Whether or
Speaker 1: not hydroxy chlora quinn was an effective therapeutic for COVID nineteen,
Speaker 1: which when you step back and think about that, that's
Speaker 1: it's like crazy that that is not an issue that
Speaker 1: really has any particular political implications. It doesn't implicate any
Speaker 1: fundamental values. It just happened to get politicized because of
Speaker 1: who was talking about it, what ways, and you know
Speaker 1: how that was appearing in the media. You know, if
Speaker 1: Donald Trump had come out and said it, said that
Speaker 1: it was not effective, it could have been politicized in
Speaker 1: exactly the opposite way. You know. It's like weird, how
Speaker 1: how totally contingent things like this can be. But unfortunately,
Speaker 1: once a scientific question gains political connotations, it can be
Speaker 1: very hard to take them off, just kind of stuck there.
Speaker 1: And people don't want to believe in things that they
Speaker 1: think of as beliefs inappropriate for a person such as themselves,
Speaker 1: you know, and and so that that's one of the
Speaker 1: real dangers. I mean, the best thing to do about
Speaker 1: science is to try to prevent scientific questions from acquiring
Speaker 1: a political connotation. To begin with, you have to do
Speaker 1: your best to try to make sure that, uh that
Speaker 1: a a scientific message or the communication of a scientific
Speaker 1: conclusion is not associated with anybody of any particular political affiliation.
Speaker 1: But that can be very hard to do. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean it like issues can be asymmetrically politicized, right.
Speaker 1: All all it takes is basically one major political figure
Speaker 1: to to decide to make a scientific question a politicized
Speaker 1: you and you know they can usually do it. But again,
Speaker 1: in all this communication is key, you know. And uh
Speaker 1: and and a lot of this episode of the Outer
Speaker 1: Limits is about like trying to communicate um uh, the
Speaker 1: nature of science to people that have their doubts, uh,
Speaker 1: that are denying what's going on. Uh. So I looked
Speaker 1: at a paper for a little more in this titled
Speaker 1: Understanding and Countering the Motivated Roots of Climate Change Denial,
Speaker 1: is by Gabriel Long Parodi and uh Irena Fagina, published
Speaker 1: earlier this year in Current Opinion and Environmental Sustainability. The
Speaker 1: paper focuses on communication approaches to reach climate change deniers
Speaker 1: in peer viewed studies from the past two years, with
Speaker 1: a special focus on what the authors described as people
Speaker 1: engaged in quote motivated denial. This means the people in
Speaker 1: question have access to the facts, but they still deny
Speaker 1: them on some level. They make a choice to deny
Speaker 1: the science and cling to another view of reality that
Speaker 1: flies in the face of scientific consensus, but he's easier
Speaker 1: to accept. Yeah, And again, to be fair, I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously I think people should accept the scientific consensus on
Speaker 1: climate change, but I think a lot of the people
Speaker 1: who deny it are not doing so, like out of
Speaker 1: a conscious perversity, thinking like I won't accept the facts.
Speaker 1: I mean, the fact is that motivated reasoning changes how
Speaker 1: facts appear to us. Things that are perfectly reasonable to
Speaker 1: believe just suddenly don't seem plausible to you because of
Speaker 1: motivations you have. Yeah, Yeah, because I mean, in one hand,
Speaker 1: there's the responsibility of what human U invoke. Climate change means.
Speaker 1: It means accepting your part of the problem, and then
Speaker 1: it also means accepting that the problem threatens much of
Speaker 1: the stability and normalcy that you hold dear. And furthermore,
Speaker 1: you may feel the need to speak out and act
Speaker 1: and so forth. And it can be easier, you know,
Speaker 1: on on some level, to simply live in denial like
Speaker 1: that is an easier mental construct, uh to to erect
Speaker 1: in the mind as opposed to dealing with all of
Speaker 1: these additional change is uh to the the world you've
Speaker 1: grown accustomed to now Chambers does end up being accused
Speaker 1: of being an alien shape shifter at one point in
Speaker 1: this Outer Limits episode, but he never reverses this charge
Speaker 1: on the colonists, which is which which is worth worth noting,
Speaker 1: especially because it ties in a little bit into what
Speaker 1: um the authors here in the study discussed that I
Speaker 1: think they would agree that this was the right move.
Speaker 1: One of the key points to say the aliens right, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: essentially not to say say, oh, climate change denire is
Speaker 1: you're a bunch of aliens. There's something wrong with you.
Speaker 1: You're you're you're broken in some way. You know that
Speaker 1: that That's one of the key points and climate change communication, uh,
Speaker 1: they point out is to is not to dismiss deniers outright,
Speaker 1: but to acknowledge their opinions and beliefs. And they they
Speaker 1: acknowledge that this can be difficult obviously, but they point
Speaker 1: to four different strategies that that seem to show promise
Speaker 1: and or seem to work. Okay, what are the strategies
Speaker 1: all right? The first is reframing solutions to climate change
Speaker 1: as ways to uphold the social system and work towards
Speaker 1: its stability and longevity. Now, in the Outer Limits, Chambers
Speaker 1: does this, of course by pointing out that if they
Speaker 1: don't act, the stability of the colony will be threatened. Um.
Speaker 1: If if he could have, you know, actually had an
Speaker 1: honest discussion with Murdoch, he might have told him, Look,
Speaker 1: this will ruin your prospects of profits from the colony.
Speaker 1: It will endanger your power. It's going to threaten this
Speaker 1: home that you hold. Dear. Uh, you know this is
Speaker 1: this is a threat to all the things we we
Speaker 1: value here. Yeah. So I think this is saying, like,
Speaker 1: you know, to be factual in representing what the threats are,
Speaker 1: but to emphasize the kinds of threats that are particularly
Speaker 1: salient to people with the political identity who are more
Speaker 1: likely to deny climate change. So, to use a Simpsons example,
Speaker 1: if you were trying to convince members of the Simpsons
Speaker 1: family not to make a foolish investment in a tobacco farm,
Speaker 1: you might appeal to Homer in particular by saying, if
Speaker 1: you do that, you're not going to have of a
Speaker 1: budget for beer or to pay the cable bill, right,
Speaker 1: you know, like you you single out the issues that
Speaker 1: are actually most salient people. Yeah. I think a good
Speaker 1: example of this is we we we we see this
Speaker 1: in the realization, for instance, that climate change is a
Speaker 1: national security issue as well as a purely environmental one. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not just about saving the earth or saving the environment,
Speaker 1: but safeguarding things like our supply chains, etcetera. So um
Speaker 1: so yeah. One of the ideas here is don't just
Speaker 1: the idea of like, we need to save the planet,
Speaker 1: like you know, that's going to carry with it. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's true, uh, you know, but but but that how
Speaker 1: does it need to be tweaked to to to meet
Speaker 1: the world view of the person on the other side.
Speaker 1: And that gets into the second piece of advice they have,
Speaker 1: and that's reducing the ideological divide by incorporating the purity
Speaker 1: of the earth rather than how we harm or care
Speaker 1: for it. So this is more about putting I guess
Speaker 1: you could say, the hopeful spin on it and emphasizing
Speaker 1: our ability to make changes and perhaps even our responsibility
Speaker 1: to to look after the earth. That is going to
Speaker 1: fall in line with various religious world views rather than
Speaker 1: just the shame point of realizing that we've done a
Speaker 1: lot of harm and that we need to change our ways.
Speaker 1: Now the author is going to point out to other
Speaker 1: areas one number three, Rather having conversations about the scientific
Speaker 1: consensus around climate change with trusted individuals. Now, I think
Speaker 1: that's easier said than done. Um Uh. Take outer limits
Speaker 1: for example, Chambers is mistrusted. Uh. And you know who
Speaker 1: who else are you going to talk to here? If
Speaker 1: you cherry pick you're trusted individuals? Um? You know that
Speaker 1: can Those trusted individuals can include climate deniers or people
Speaker 1: with without perhaps with sometimes with a scientific background, but
Speaker 1: not a scientific background in climate science. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think this ties in very much to what I was
Speaker 1: just talking about with identity protective cognition, Like you don't
Speaker 1: want to embrace the belief that you see as antithetical
Speaker 1: to people in your social group who have the kind
Speaker 1: of integrity that you value, and so yeah, I think
Speaker 1: one of the best and most important ways to get
Speaker 1: around this is to show, hey, people like you, people
Speaker 1: who you socially identify with, they they also agree with
Speaker 1: the scientific consensus here. And then the fourth point they
Speaker 1: bring up is encouraging people to explosively discuss their values
Speaker 1: and stance on climate change prior to engaging with climate information.
Speaker 1: So the idea with this one is that quote self
Speaker 1: affirmation is challenged when people face climate change because it
Speaker 1: requires them to consider their contribution to the problem, which
Speaker 1: can threaten their sense of integrity and trigger self defense.
Speaker 1: And finally, you know, they say, you want to stress
Speaker 1: solutions that match in individual's values and don't threaten their
Speaker 1: sense of identity or their way of life. And now,
Speaker 1: of course, if we as we've discussed before, this also
Speaker 1: underlines the horror of politicization of climate change and the
Speaker 1: attempt to try and uh and bake in climate change
Speaker 1: denial into a political worldview. Once something like this becomes politicized,
Speaker 1: it's difficult to unpoliticize it. Lisa Freeman wrote an excellent
Speaker 1: piece on COVID and climate denialism for The New York
Speaker 1: Times earlier this month that touches on the work of
Speaker 1: John Cook, research assistant professor at the Center for Climate
Speaker 1: Change Communication at George Mason University and founder of the
Speaker 1: website Skeptical Science Um. Cook argues that ideology and tribalism
Speaker 1: tend to come before facts and people's beliefs about climate change,
Speaker 1: and that means a lot of the power here falls
Speaker 1: two people of influence within an ideology, and that means
Speaker 1: that leadership is crucial to overcoming climate change denialism, And again,
Speaker 1: isn't that what we see in this Outer Limits episode.
Speaker 1: Murdoch is the leader of the colony, and while he
Speaker 1: admits that he actually briefly you believes Chambers, or at
Speaker 1: least entertains the idea that Chambers may be correct, he
Speaker 1: otherwise works against him at every turn, and the people
Speaker 1: look to Murdoch. Uh. Furthermore, Murdoch is a sort of
Speaker 1: head of state in the off Roll Colony doesn't only
Speaker 1: argue against rationally against Chambers, he also ultimately engages in
Speaker 1: more underhanded tactics, including the use of disinformation. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: try to personally discredit Chambers with with attacks on his
Speaker 1: what I would say, his character, but attacks on his biology. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say character and biology the first character and
Speaker 1: then ultimately biology itself. Um. If we look to our
Speaker 1: current situation in October twenty with with COVID and climate change,
Speaker 1: it it's kind of interesting how to tell the truth
Speaker 1: forecast our current leadership situation. Um so so so Again,
Speaker 1: this is one of those episodes. Even though it came
Speaker 1: out in the nineties, it's still is very relevant today.
Speaker 1: According to cook Um, however, only ten percent of Americans
Speaker 1: are outright dismissive of the science on climate change, and
Speaker 1: that seems to correl correlate well with the twelve percent
Speaker 1: of Americans who are not concerned about COVID. Friedman writes,
Speaker 1: quote this means, he said, referring to Cook, the solution lies, uh,
Speaker 1: not in persuading those already steeped in science denial, but
Speaker 1: innocula sing the other nine of the public from scientific disinformation.
Speaker 1: He likened the challenge to eradicating polio, an incurable disease
Speaker 1: that was all but eliminated in the United States through vaccinations.
Speaker 1: In the case of climate and COVID, he said, that
Speaker 1: means using facts and research combined with vivid analogies to
Speaker 1: explain the techniques used to mislead the public. And this
Speaker 1: is one of the things that Cook does through Skeptical Science,
Speaker 1: which if you want to check out the website, it's
Speaker 1: just Skeptical Science dot com. Uh. He provides useful, real
Speaker 1: world analogies to counter climate denial arguments. And he also
Speaker 1: wrote an illustrated book titled Cranky Uncle Versus Climate Change.
Speaker 1: How to Understand and respond to Climate science Deniers. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to end on too dark a note here,
Speaker 1: But but I do seriously worry about because as as
Speaker 1: difficult as it is to prevent scientific issues from becoming
Speaker 1: politicized in the first place, when you're just dealing with leaders,
Speaker 1: you know, trying to make sure that like major media
Speaker 1: figures and politicians don't start injecting political valences and trying
Speaker 1: to get people to align politically around something that's not
Speaker 1: really a political issue. It's just a scientific question with
Speaker 1: a factual answer. Um, that's hard enough. It seems like
Speaker 1: nowadays things are going to be even harder than that,
Speaker 1: because you essentially have the distributed capability through the Internet
Speaker 1: and virality and social media to do the same thing
Speaker 1: to politicize issues. I mean, I already see worrying signs
Speaker 1: of how sort of like emerging out of the depths
Speaker 1: of the Internet, you'll get weird conspiracy theories politicizing whatever
Speaker 1: vaccine we end up with, for for COVID nineteen, Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, and to a wonderful extent, like one of
Speaker 1: the great things about a show like The Outer Limits
Speaker 1: is that essentially it's always about people having conversations about uh,
Speaker 1: you know, science, fictional threats, and and and and and
Speaker 1: given the you know, short format, you have to boil
Speaker 1: everything down to a simple scenario like two people trapped
Speaker 1: in a room or in this case, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: one scientist speaking to the community in this colony. But
Speaker 1: of course, in reality, we have a far more complicated
Speaker 1: communication system. There's a greater number of players involved, there
Speaker 1: are different communications systems involved, uh networks though, the way
Speaker 1: that different voices become um uh you know, more pronounced
Speaker 1: in our culture, it's it's it's it's far more complicated
Speaker 1: than what we have in the Jan's five example. But
Speaker 1: but I think it works nicely to still as as
Speaker 1: an example of the the sorts of problems that we
Speaker 1: encounter as humans. I mean, I guess we've sort of
Speaker 1: been saying that one of the best outcomes, if we
Speaker 1: could enact it with scientific issues that have political ramifications,
Speaker 1: is to not allow them to become politicized in the
Speaker 1: first place. But if that's not really possible, you know,
Speaker 1: if you can't prevent issue people from trying to politicize issues,
Speaker 1: I think the question is what does the mental vaccine
Speaker 1: against the politicization of scientific issues, Like, how do you
Speaker 1: best plant that sort of like, uh, that meme or
Speaker 1: that seed in somebody's brain that will grow into, uh,
Speaker 1: grow into a sort of mental immune system that rejects
Speaker 1: these politicizations of scientific issues when it encounters them. That,
Speaker 1: you know, so people know how to recognize when it's
Speaker 1: happening and stop it before it infects them. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: is the that is the the ongoing problem that we're
Speaker 1: continuing to struggle with. And this is the point where
Speaker 1: we would have the narrator of the Outer Limits jump
Speaker 1: back in and nicely summarized the struggle that we've just
Speaker 1: witnessed on the screen. But of course, the fallible humans
Speaker 1: failed in their attempt. Yeah, alright, we're gonna go ahead
Speaker 1: and close out this volume of the Anthology of Horror,
Speaker 1: but we will be back with part five, Volume five,
Speaker 1: when we will explore even more episodes from TV and
Speaker 1: film horror sci fi anthology history and discussed some of
Speaker 1: the science and culture surrounding them. In the meantime, if
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