WEBVTT - Tea: The Splendid Elixir, Part 3 0:00:01.200 --> 0:00:06.040 Times for drinking tea in idle moments, when bored with poetry, 0:00:06.440 --> 0:00:12.040 thoughts confused, beating time to songs when music stops. Living 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:18.280 in seclusion, enjoying scholarly pastimes, conversing late at night, studying 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:23.880 on a sunny day in the bridal chamber, detaining favored guests, 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:28.880 playing host to scholars or pretty girls, visiting friends returned 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:33.440 from far away in perfect weather, when skies are overcast, 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:40.640 watching boats glide past on the canal, midst trees and bamboos, 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:45.520 when flowers bud and birds chat on hot days by 0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:50.720 a lotus pond, burning incense in the courtyard after tipsy 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:54.560 guests have left, when the youngsters have gone out on 0:00:54.720 --> 0:01:02.959 visits to secluded temples, when viewing springs and scenic rocks. 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:05.360 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production of My 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:14.960 Heart Radio. Hey you, welcome to stuff to blow your mind. 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:18.520 This is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and that 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:23.360 opening up the episode. There, that's the one last key poem. Uh. 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:25.880 This one is also collected in a History of t 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:28.480 The Life and Times of the World's Favorite Beverage by 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:30.319 Laura C. Martin, which is one of my sources for 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:34.720 these episodes. This is a poem by Sue see Shoe, 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:38.120 which I like it. You know, I guess it's kind 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:41.520 of simple format here, but yeah, it's basically saying you 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:43.920 can drink tea anytime. Anytime is a great time to 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:47.000 drink tea. But here are some specific examples. So yes, 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:52.120 pizza in the morning, pizza in the evening. Yeah. So 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:54.240 this is our third and I think this will be 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:57.360 our our final for now episode on T. I don't know. 0:01:57.400 --> 0:01:59.440 It's certainly a topic we could always come back to. 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:03.080 It's a topic we could keep doing. But then if 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:04.560 we did over to do that, we would be a 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:07.960 tea podcast. And we're not exclusively a T podcast, but 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:11.520 there are a lot of great looking, exclusively T related 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:15.360 podcasts out there. Uh so, certainly feel free to continue 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:18.280 your T journey with other shows. And if there's a 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:21.440 particular topic related to T that seems like something we 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:24.639 should cover, well we can always come back and do that. 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:27.120 But if you didn't listen to the first two episodes 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:29.480 on T, I highly recommend you go back and listen 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:33.160 to those. We talked about, Oh, the botany of tea. Um, 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:35.400 we talked about a lot of the history of tea. 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:40.120 We're going to conclude the basic Chinese and Japanese history 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:43.079 of te in this episode, with a few other bits 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:45.440 and pieces in there. We also talked about tea mythology 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:48.600 in the first episode. Now before we move on and 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:51.600 and also get into some of these uh these interesting tangents. 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:53.959 I wanted to clarify what we said in the last 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:56.760 section about the phases of tea because I think this 0:02:56.840 --> 0:02:59.800 can get confusing. So you have kind of like the 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:03.120 emitive tea level, where it would be tea leaves dropped 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:06.960 into boiling water, creating a bitter brew. Then you have 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:08.960 this phase one of tea. This is where you have 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:11.760 leaves dried and pressed into bricks, and then when you 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:13.839 go to make it, you cut some of that brick off, 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:16.480 you put it in water and it ends up being 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:18.280 kind of coarse in acidic. But this was kind of 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:22.040 like the first phase, the first uh era of tea. 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:24.720 Then comes phase two, where the leaves are steam dried 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:27.480 and ground into a fine powder whipped into hot water. 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:31.480 This is the Mancha style of tea. It's fresher as 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:34.200 a fresher grassy or flavor. And then eventually you get 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:38.160 to phase three, where you have steamed, cut, dried, oxidized, 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:43.080 and sorted and steeped tea that creates basically most of 0:03:43.120 --> 0:03:47.000 the modern flavors of tea that we think of today. Now, 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:49.400 there there are plenty of examples that kind of blur 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:52.240 the line. You can still certainly get brick or cake, etcetera. 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:56.880 Tease that are oxidized. Um Mancha teas are still used 0:03:56.880 --> 0:04:00.520 as well. Uh so it's um then look at this. 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:04.200 It's just like a strict evolution of form with past 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:07.320 forms completely falling away. But I think it is a 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:09.240 good structure to think of when we think about the 0:04:09.240 --> 0:04:11.760 evolution of tea. And as far as phase three goes, 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:15.320 we will be getting into that later in this episode. Now, Rob, 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:18.320 before we do that, you actually inspired me to go 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:22.000 on a couple of tangents about teapots in this episode, 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:24.600 because while I am not much of a tea drinker, 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:28.200 for many years I did have an intimate relationship with 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:32.120 a tea kettle that lived on my stovetop, and most 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:36.400 of that relationship was one of strife and agony. I 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:40.080 really disliked this tea kettle for a number of reasons, 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:44.279 and and one of them, uh, is as follows, Rob, 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:48.360 I'm sure you've had this experience a million times, whether 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:52.120 it's from a poorly designed or vintage tea pot, or 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:56.320 I guess from any vessel containing liquid. You fill it 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:58.599 up and you go to pour it out into a 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:01.520 cup or a bowl, but instead of pouring in a 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:04.600 steady arc where you aimed it, the liquid coming out 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:08.480 of the spout clings to the underside of the teapot 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:11.239 spout and then runs down the side of the pot 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:14.240 and dribbles all over the table or the floor or 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:18.280 your pants. I have certainly encountered this before. Fortunately, our 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:22.080 current teapot it doesn't do this, or at least doesn't 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:24.479 do this so much. But I have certainly encountered this before. 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:27.040 The one that I'm thinking of had a very kind 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:32.760 of wide, round, almost pipe like spout, and uh yeah, 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:36.400 it did this all the time. So this is a 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:39.880 phenomenon that is well known in physics. It actually has 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:43.520 a name. It's called the teapot effect. Though it doesn't 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:46.520 just happen in teapots, it occurs when pouring from all 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:49.680 kinds of containers. I think it is probably one of 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:52.680 the most common sources of spills and stains around the 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:56.000 kitchen when you know, when you're trying to pour out 0:05:56.040 --> 0:05:58.880 of one container and it just doesn't pour the way 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:01.120 you intended. It doesn't arc like you meant it too. 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:04.919 Instead it runs down the side mm hmm. Yeah, And 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:08.880 I think I have certainly encountered this even more with 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:13.520 with other pouring vessels. Uh. And the often it will 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:16.120 be something you know, bright and colorful or sticky that 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:18.919 I really don't want to get everywhere. I think I 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:21.159 was trying to think about situations where I encounter it 0:06:21.240 --> 0:06:25.839 the most, and before understanding all of the underlying physics, 0:06:25.880 --> 0:06:30.000 the things that occurred to me worre that it happens 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:34.040 when you're trying to pour a liquid slowly, especially out 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:38.720 of a container without a designated pouring lips. So like 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:41.120 if you're trying to pour liquid, say out of a 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:44.760 saucepan or out of a drinking glass, that's drible. City. 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:48.080 Yeah and yeah, especially this will occur, at least in 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:50.400 my experience, where you have to say, like you're gonna 0:06:50.400 --> 0:06:52.960 pour orange juice out of an orange juice container, and 0:06:53.080 --> 0:06:55.560 the orange juice container has just been opened, it's super 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:58.560 filled up, you know, so you have this impulse to 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:03.200 want to pour slowly in order to control the juice 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:06.920 which is already almost overflowing. But if you do so, yeah, 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:09.040 you're gonna get that dribble more often than not. You've 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:11.240 got to commit and really just swash it in there. 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:14.600 But why does the dribbling happen? Well, it turns out 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:16.880 the answer is not simple at all, and there have 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:21.440 been fluid dynamics and rayology papers. Reology is the study 0:07:21.480 --> 0:07:25.200 of how matter flows, so the flow of fluids or 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:30.440 plastic plastic solids um reyology and fluid dynamics papers on 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:33.520 this tricky subject going back at least as far as 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:37.400 the nineteen fifties. UH, there was an investigation of the 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:41.000 teapot effect that in fact even one an Ignobel Prize 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:44.200 in nine that you can see how that fits with 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:46.560 their kind of like a quaint, quirky sense of humor 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:51.280 like teapots. But it looks like a fairly definitive paper 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:55.280 on the UH. This question came out in one and 0:07:55.320 --> 0:08:01.080 it was by Bernhard Schickel, Robert I, Bowls and Georgios 0:08:01.120 --> 0:08:06.560 pass called developed liquid film passing a smooth and wedge 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:11.520 shaped trailing edge small scale analysis and the teapot effect 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:15.760 at large Reynolds numbers. This was published in the Journal 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:19.600 of Fluid Mechanics. Again, by the way, if you scroll 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:22.800 through this paper and check out the diagrams and equations, 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:26.600 it's almost hilarious, Like you would be shocked how complicated 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:29.280 this looks. I'm not even going to pretend that I 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:31.000 could make sense of it. Like I was trying to 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:33.040 look and hack through this paper. I'm like, oh, this 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:36.479 is hopeless. So instead I found a good article summarizing 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:38.680 the results that includes an interview with one of the 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:42.280 lead authors. Uh. The article was by Jennifer Woollett for 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:46.000 Ours Technica and UH this paper so it was a 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:50.560 collaboration between researchers at the Vienna University of Technology and 0:08:50.760 --> 0:08:54.480 University College London. And they say that their their paper 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:57.880 here is a complete theoretical description of the teapot effect, 0:08:58.120 --> 0:09:01.800 which has eluded these researchers for decades. Finally they've got 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:04.800 all the forces modeled here correctly, so they can fully 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:08.080 predict to what what happens with a with a tea 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:12.319 spout of various designs pouring in different ways. And they 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:16.760 say the teapot effect has to include inertial viscous and 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:21.000 capillary forces. So it turns out one of the major 0:09:21.040 --> 0:09:25.480 factors influencing whether the liquid dribbles or not is as 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:28.880 you and I both intuited from our experience flow rate. 0:09:29.800 --> 0:09:32.720 Uh two people who have like less experience in the kitchen. 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:35.760 I think this might sound counterintuitive because, as you know, 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:37.520 you you were saying rob a lot of times when 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:41.480 you're trying to be careful and not spill something, your 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:45.680 instinct is to pour slowly because pouring slowly seems like 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:50.439 it's the careful option, right. But as matches our experience, 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:53.480 at a higher flow rate, when liquid is coming out 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:57.000 of the teapot or container faster, this actually makes the 0:09:57.040 --> 0:10:00.440 pouring action less likely to end up dribbling. That is 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:03.439 how you are more likely to get the arc you're intending. 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:07.240 It's actually once you start trying to pour slowly, the 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:10.600 dribbling becomes more likely. Uh. So you know, you can 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:12.800 imagine all kinds of scenarios here, like if you're trying 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:16.960 to pour something out slowly to carefully measure a volume 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:20.280 of liquid into another container like a measuring cup, or 0:10:20.360 --> 0:10:23.480 maybe you're trying to pour something in a slow stream 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:26.680 to whisk and emulsify it. You've seen people doing that. 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:29.920 They dribble all the time. Oh yeah, and I'm thinking 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:33.959 especially like making cocktails and measuring out the various components. 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:36.560 This is why the sides of your bottles are sticky. Yeah, 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:41.880 so fast steady pouring dribbles less. Uh. The design of 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:45.280 the lip of the teapot or pouring container also matters. 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:47.840 There were some French physicists who wrote a paper on 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:51.440 this in two and they suggested that you could fight 0:10:51.480 --> 0:10:54.160 the teapot effect by making the lip of the spout 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:59.080 as thin and as sharp ended as possible, so like 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:02.840 round tips are more likely to dribble. And apparently it 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:05.400 also helped to coat the end of the spout in 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:08.760 water repellent material so that the liquid or water based 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:11.800 liquid doesn't want to cling to the underside of the lip. 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:15.480 And this seems to be because the dribbling is partially 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:20.040 the result of what the researchers call a hydro capillary effect. Basically, 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:23.319 whenever you start to pour water based liquid out of 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:28.600 a container, drops will form on the underside of the 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:31.200 lip of the edge you're pouring from the like the 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:33.600 spout of a teapot. So you know, the water is 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:36.040 coming out of the spout, but then on the underside 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:39.600 of that spout there's gonna be some droplet formation, and 0:11:39.640 --> 0:11:42.520 the rate at which you pour determines how big those 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:45.439 drops on the underside of the lip get. A high 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:49.320 flow rate keeps them small, but a slow pouring allows 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:52.480 the drops on the underside to become larger. And once 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:55.240 those drops reach a certain critical size, once they get 0:11:55.240 --> 0:11:58.560 big enough, they actually start to grab hold of the 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:01.040 water or tea or whatever that's coming out of the 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:04.280 spout and redirect its flow down the side of the 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:07.800 container instead of the arc that you're aiming for. Now, 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:09.480 there was a thing that I was thinking about. This 0:12:09.559 --> 0:12:13.160 is another design feature that I didn't see mentioned in UH, 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:15.200 in this summary, or in any of the papers I 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:17.280 was looking at. But it's one that I've seen in 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:21.040 some kettle designs, UH, and it's a teapot spout. They 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:25.920 can have an upward arcing curve right before the opening 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:28.280 of the spout. For example, you see this on some 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:30.720 goose neck kettles. Rob. I've got an example for you 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:33.080 to look at here if you scroll down, UH, if 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:34.720 you try to picture it, it's kind of a curving 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:37.719 swan neck shape. Um, I don't know why I said 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:40.520 swan neck. They're they're literally called goose neck. So that 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:44.720 the curving shape where if you imagine it in pouring 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:48.720 position and you're you're trying to think how the liquid 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:50.920 would have to travel to run down the bottom of 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:53.160 the spout, it would literally have to go sort of 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:56.320 uphill first before it would be able to run down 0:12:56.320 --> 0:12:58.959 the spout. And I think this also helps it, uh 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:02.199 not do that. One last thing that I thought was 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:05.199 pretty interesting, so they had to model all these forces 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:08.760 that determine whether or not liquid dribbles when it's coming 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:14.079 out again. Those forces include an inertial, viscous, and capillary forces, 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:18.120 but there was actually very little role for gravity. Gravity 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:22.079 does not play a major role in causing the teapot effect, 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:24.960 meaning that tea pots will still dribble on the Moon 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:30.360 or in other low gravity environments. That reminds me I 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:33.319 was looking around for this episode. I briefly looked into 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:36.280 drinking tea in orbit, and I didn't find anything that 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:38.959 I was really compelled to include here. But I did 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:42.640 see some footage of of of an astronaut having their 0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:48.440 tea with chopsticks, like eating the little floating globs of tea. Oh, 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:51.640 I see out of the atmosphere with with their chopsticks. Yeah, 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:54.280 just grabbing like so, I guess with the surface tension, 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:57.240 it's like a little blob of tea floating and then 0:13:57.280 --> 0:13:59.280 you like put the chopsticks in it and it sticks 0:13:59.320 --> 0:14:11.160 to them. Yeah, yeah, thank thank thank, Okay. So that's 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:15.400 the physical teapot tangent. What about the philosophical teapot tangent. Well, 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:17.839 I thought it would be interesting to very briefly talk 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:21.680 about Russell's teapot, one of the most famous teapots in 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:24.440 the world. It's not a physical artifact. It is a 0:14:24.520 --> 0:14:29.360 thought experiment used by Bertrand Russell to explain a certain 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:34.200 form of skeptical reasoning, specifically, in his case, to support 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:36.760 his lack of belief in God, though I think it 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:40.040 could be applied to other scenarios. Now, I want to 0:14:40.080 --> 0:14:43.560 front load a caveat and say that some theistic philosophers 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:47.600 think they have good arguments for why Russell's teapot analogy 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:50.640 does not or should not apply to beliefs about God. 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:53.880 But even if you're inclined to agree with those critics, 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:56.520 I think the teapot is useful to think about for 0:14:56.760 --> 0:15:00.480 a more general analogy for different types of leafs that 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:03.960 we hold and claims that we make. So very very 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:08.720 brief biographical background. Bertrand Russell lived from eighteen seventy two 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:12.400 to nineteen seventy He was a famous British philosopher and 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:16.040 public intellectual who was incredibly influential in a number of 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:18.800 different fields. So he was pre eminent in his academic 0:15:18.840 --> 0:15:22.920 fields of logic and analytic philosophy, but he was also 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:26.600 a big cultural figure in in Britain and an advocate 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:32.080 for political causes such as anti imperialism, socialism, and nuclear disarmament. 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:37.080 But Russell was also infamous for being non religious. Uh. 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:40.040 In nineteen fifty two he was asked to write an 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:43.640 essay for a London magazine called Illustrated, which came to 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:46.680 be called Is There a God? And Uh? I think 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:49.520 the essay was actually scrapped and not published in the 0:15:49.560 --> 0:15:53.280 originally intended venue, but Russell expanded upon it later and 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:57.520 released it. And in the essay, Russell uses the analogy 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:01.360 of a teapot floating in space to explain his doubts 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:03.800 about the existence of God. So I'm going to read 0:16:03.880 --> 0:16:06.040 from his essay here, and then we can uh, we 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:10.160 can analyze a little bit. So Russell says, many Orthodox 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:13.240 people speak as though it were the business of skeptics 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:19.120 to disprove received dogmas, rather than of dogmatists to prove them. 0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:21.520 This is, of course a mistake. If I were to 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:24.680 suggest that between Earth and Mars there is a China 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:29.120 teapot revolving around the Sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:32.200 would be able to disprove my assertion, provided I were 0:16:32.240 --> 0:16:35.240 careful to add that the teapot is too small to 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:39.360 be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if 0:16:39.360 --> 0:16:41.240 I were to go on to say that, since my 0:16:41.280 --> 0:16:46.000 assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the 0:16:46.040 --> 0:16:48.880 part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:52.520 be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:55.760 of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:59.000 as sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:02.520 of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence 0:17:02.560 --> 0:17:06.080 would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:09.520 to the attentions of the psychiatrist. In an enlightened age 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:13.439 or of the inquisitor at an earlier time. Now to 0:17:13.480 --> 0:17:16.240 take a moment to be fair to Russell's critics, I 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:18.439 think they make some I'm not sure what I think 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:21.840 about this, some potentially good points about the belief in 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:25.840 the teapot not actually being analogous to belief in an 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:30.240 omnipotent creator God, because they say, for example, the teapot 0:17:30.359 --> 0:17:33.879 is an object in the world that could only plausibly 0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:36.560 have come to orbit the Sun if humans had put 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:38.960 it there, which we would probably know about if it 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:42.159 had happened. Meanwhile, God would not be an object in 0:17:42.200 --> 0:17:45.000 the world, but like the creator of the world or 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:48.560 somehow standing outside the world. And therefore, according to these 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:52.400 theistic philosophers, the existence of God is like a proposition 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:55.960 that is just not analogous to the existence of any 0:17:55.960 --> 0:17:58.840 physical object or entity that you could search for in 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:02.360 physical space. So I think a good way of phrasing 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:05.320 this objection is that they're saying, well, belief in God 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:08.639 is not a claim about something that exists in the universe, 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:12.040 but rather a claim about the way the universe is. 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:15.720 I'm not going to try to adjudicate that particular dispute 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:18.040 about whether Russell is right that this is a good 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:20.800 analogy for religious beliefs in God, or whether the critics 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:22.960 are right that it is not. But either way, I 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:25.600 think it is a useful thought experiment in a more 0:18:25.640 --> 0:18:28.639 general sense because it reminds us not to be taken 0:18:28.640 --> 0:18:34.640 in easily by unfalsifiable claims. And uh, there's another thought 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:37.359 experiment right along these lines that we've talked about on 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:39.480 the show before. You might if you listen for a while, 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:42.560 you might remember it. The thought experiment by Carl Sagan, 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:47.000 The invisible Dragon in his garage. So Carl Sagan says, hey, 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:50.359 I've got a dragon that lives in my garage. And 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:52.879 if you doubt this, you you might say, well, okay, 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:54.720 take me to your garage. I want to see it. 0:18:55.200 --> 0:18:57.040 And then Sagan says, no, no, no, no, no, you 0:18:57.119 --> 0:19:00.119 got it all wrong. It's an invisible dragon, so you 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:02.000 shouldn't expect to be able to see it. I mean, 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:04.080 you can look, but you're not gonna see it. It 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:07.720 is there, though, And then you could say, well, okay, 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:10.240 then let's walk around in your garage, you know, with 0:19:10.280 --> 0:19:12.680 our hands out stretched and feel around for it until 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:16.719 we finally come upon this dragons invisible scaly back, and 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:19.679 once again Sagan can say, no, no, hold on, it 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:23.640 is also an incorporeal dragon. It is made of spirit matter, 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:26.680 not solid matter, So you shouldn't expect to be able 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:29.240 to touch it. You know that that wouldn't disprove it, 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:31.480 that you can't feel it, And then you could go 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:34.119 through more stages. I think he says that it's you 0:19:34.200 --> 0:19:36.400 might suggest, well, what if we use like an infrared 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:39.160 heat detector, uh, And then he could say no, no, 0:19:39.200 --> 0:19:41.520 it is a it's a dragon that does not produce 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:43.840 any heat, and so on and so on. You can 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:47.240 go moving the goal posts of detection always backwards, so 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:49.879 there's no way to really check and see if the 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:53.040 dragon is really there. I think the main point of 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:57.119 both of these analogies, Russell's teapot and Carl Sagan's invisible Dragon, 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:00.280 is that people can always try to get you to 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:04.880 believe things by shifting the obligation of evidence onto you 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:09.200 for doubting the existence, rather than assuming that obligation themselves 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:12.760 for for claiming the existence. So it's the the attitude 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:15.720 of if I say X is true and you can't 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:18.720 disprove it, you must accept it. And this is made 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:23.320 doubly dangerous by like the rebuke of all potential investigatory tests. 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:26.159 So in the case of Carl Sagan's dragon, that's like, 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:29.520 oh no, no, no, it's invisible and you can't touch it. Uh, 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:31.919 and it wouldn't show up on infrared. But in the 0:20:31.960 --> 0:20:34.680 case of Russell's teapot analogy, it's that, well, the teapot 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:36.920 is too small to see with any of our telescopes, 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:39.480 but but I tell you it is there. And the 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:42.919 point of both of these analogies is essentially I say X, 0:20:43.000 --> 0:20:45.919 if you can't disprove it, you must accept it. Is 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:48.919 not a legitimate way to reason, because that type of 0:20:49.040 --> 0:20:51.479 argument could be it could be used to force you 0:20:51.520 --> 0:20:54.479 to believe in a teapot orbiting the sun or an 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:58.720 invisible dragon in the garage. Reasonable claims are based on evidence, 0:20:58.800 --> 0:21:04.120 and most importantly, they are falsifiable. They entail certain physical predictions, 0:21:04.240 --> 0:21:06.720 like you should be able to see what I'm talking 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:09.440 about if you look here, or you should be able 0:21:09.480 --> 0:21:11.879 to detect, you know, the heat signature of the dragon 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:15.359 if you look here, And if those predictions turn up false, 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:19.600 the belief is probably false. Yeah, And so to your point, 0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:21.440 like that one of the big applications here, of course, 0:21:21.520 --> 0:21:24.840 is like conspiracy thinking today, where there are plenty of 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:27.679 examples of this where it will be some you know, 0:21:28.359 --> 0:21:32.720 ultimately kind of ridiculous or outrageous or perhaps supernatural claim 0:21:32.760 --> 0:21:35.440 and then it's presented as if it is on us 0:21:35.520 --> 0:21:39.359 to disprove this, when really that that's that's not the 0:21:39.359 --> 0:21:41.240 way it goes. And I think you see a more 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:44.119 or I tend to see a more rational approach to 0:21:44.200 --> 0:21:48.840 this with some of the impossible or currently impossible to 0:21:48.880 --> 0:21:51.640 prove hypotheses so that we've discussed on the show before, 0:21:51.680 --> 0:21:55.960 like say the bacameral mind hypothesis or the stone ape 0:21:56.040 --> 0:21:59.160 hypothesis like these are both I think examples of very 0:21:59.200 --> 0:22:04.600 thought provoking ideas that cannot be proved or disproved, at 0:22:04.640 --> 0:22:08.080 least not currently. And I also don't see the major 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:14.920 um advocates of these hypotheses demanding that scientists disproved them 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:17.959 like they seem to. They they understand how Russell's teapot 0:22:18.080 --> 0:22:20.199 or the invisible dragon works here, and they know that 0:22:20.240 --> 0:22:23.400 it's on them to to make the argument and provide 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:25.560 the proof if there is such a thing. Yes, I mean, 0:22:25.560 --> 0:22:29.120 I think it's fair to play around in speculative territory, 0:22:29.920 --> 0:22:33.720 but to always be hyper conscious to signal and and 0:22:33.800 --> 0:22:36.560 remind yourself and remind others that that's what you're doing. 0:22:36.600 --> 0:22:40.280 We're playing around in speculative territory, rather than getting too 0:22:40.359 --> 0:22:43.440 attached to like a fun and interesting idea that maybe 0:22:43.520 --> 0:22:45.919 doesn't have a lot of strong evidence for it and 0:22:45.960 --> 0:22:49.480 insisting that people should believe it. Yeah, and with time, 0:22:49.520 --> 0:22:53.400 who knows, with time and research, perhaps new evidence will 0:22:53.400 --> 0:22:57.840