0:00:00
Ben Radford: Welcome to Squaring the Strange, the podcast that examines all manner of the mysterious and the mundane through a critical lens. So let’s square the strange.

Pascual Romero: Welcome back to Squaring The Strange. I’m Pascual Romero and with me as always is…

BR: Ben Radford.

PR: And this week we’ve got some pretty cool stuff going on. We are going to be talking about the utility of pedantry or being a pedant, being pedantic. The thing that we notice a lot on the internet is that we both get accused of that and…

BR: Routinely.

PR: And I accused plenty of people of it too, because sometimes it can be really frustrating, but we’re going to talk about the utility in it and when it’s important to actually be pedantic and why there is a strong positive side to it.

0:01:11
Also for our patrons this week, we’re going to have a bonus segment at the end of this episode on the Amelia Earhart controversy and the picture that an entire History Channel special was based on. You guys on Patreon, stick around for that one. If you’re not a subscriber, just go on over to patreon.com forward slash squaringstrange and you can subscribe for as little as a dollar.

BR: Only a dollar?

PR: One dollar.

BR: That’s a hundred pennies or something.

PR: Yeah, yeah.

BR: Twenty nickels? Yeah, twenty nickels. I think two fifty cent pieces.

BR: Oh, good luck finding those.

PR: I feel like if you have any grandmothers or aunts, ask them. I almost guarantee they’ll give you them.

BR: They’re like, you know, when I was a girl I had you know, you could buy a dinner for a quarter. Yeah. Alright, thanks grand.

PR: You can’t buy anything for a quarter now, but for four of Yeah Thank you buy anything for a quarter now, but for four of them you can listen to the patreon only content So anyway, what are you skeptical about this week Benjamin?

0:02:18
BR: So this week it’s a bit of a callback to a previous episode in which I discussed the the blue whale game.

PR: Oh, yes the the game of ever-increasing dangerous challenges eventually leading to suicide. And we basically determined that was Mostly urban legend and there was very little reference to an actual thing.

BR: Yes. Yes It’s a fascinating story with a lot of angles into it skeptical angles everything from urban legends to folklore to mass hysteria to Moral panic, you know kids today. Fear of technology things like that. And since that time, there’s been a couple new deaths. Yeah. So what happened was that after the show aired, and this always happens, right? Right after I write something.

0:03:07
Folks, don’t worry about this. This is not true. The next day, just like clockwork, it happens again. So sure enough, within I think a couple days, I was sent a couple stories by two or three different people who said, well, you know, and they weren’t necessarily challenging me, but they’re just like, hey, what about this? Hey, Mr. Skeptic, you know, you said, blah, blah, blah.

PR: Being pedantic

BR: Exactly, so I’m like all right fine. Whatever so so here’s here’s the here’s the update and the the rejoinder to the update okay, so what I was sent was an article dated July 11th the title is Texas family says teen killed himself – Blue whale online challenge that’s alarming schools.

0:04:02
Yes. So, and this is a true story. I mean, it’s not fake news. It’s an actual case. It’s a sad case, but so, again, if you just read the headline, it’s like, well, there you go. Ben was wrong. Again, what do you expect, right?

0:04:12
But if you read a little bit beyond the headlines, it’s not so clear. So, this is a story about a 15 year old in San Antonio named Isaiah Gonzalez, and he was found dead by his his father Jorge And he was hanging from the closet and an apparent suicide next to his body was a cell phone propped up on a shoe that was apparently broadcasting the suicide. Yeah, so you know creepy stuff, you know, apparently, you know killed himself and and there was he was he was broadcasting it live now. I want to point out that Livestreaming your suicide is actually unfortunately not that uncommon. This is not unique to to Isaiah Gonzales.

PR: No, I’ve and blue whale game definitely Seen reference to several of those happening, you know in recent times especially now that they they have live broadcast on social media

BR: Exactly exact and it’s a troubling trend But I mean there’s been there’s been suicides on on Facebook on periscope I did a quick search of live stream suicides and got a million seven hundred thousand hits I mean it now it is of course a lot of those duplicate stories, but the fact is that my point here is that…

PR: It happens.

0:05:42
BR: It happens, and the fact that it happened in this particular case is not necessarily emblematic of any sort of blue whale game or anything like that. But on the other hand, let me just go to the story. So I was sent this story, and there are actually a couple of versions that are essentially the same. And what’s interesting is that when you read through the story to the journalist’s credit, there’s lots of caveats. Possibly tied to, appear to be, appears to be, if true, big if true. So the journalist recognizing that maybe there’s some holes in this, did their due diligence as journalists and said, okay, we’re not saying this is true, appears to be, is claimed to, etc.

0:06:28
Now, as is often the case, when these things get shared on social media, the caveats drop out. Appears to be becomes is. You know, is said to be becomes verified fact.

0:06:42
So, as I was looking at this case, which its significance is that if it is indeed an example of the Blue Whale Suicide Game, which I don’t think it is, but if it is, it would be one of the first, if not the first, case here in America. So there have been other reports, alleged cases, primarily in Russia, I think Germany, Brazil, places like that. But in the case of Isaiah Gonzalez, this would be the first one here in the States. So that’s significant, if for another reason than that was tied to it. So I’m reading through the story trying to figure out why is someone assuming that it is connected to the Blue Whale Game? Because as I mentioned, you know, live streaming a suicide is unfortunately not uncommon and it does happen. And in most cases, and perhaps in all cases, there’s no connection to the suicide -to the Blue Whale Game. And so, as I was reading the story, it said that Isaiah Gonzales’ family said their son was definitely involved in it. And he was sending friends of pictures of the completed tasks. So as you recall, there was a whole series of 50 tasks. That you were supposed to do weird things, maybe cut yourself, maybe torture an animal, watch a scary movie at 3 a.m. sort of escalating in in terribleness and weirdness until the final day when you are commanded by unseen evil doers on the internet to kill yourself.

0:08:11
And so as I’m reading through this, through the articles, the news articles, I found basically no evidence that it was tied to the Blue Whale Game.

PR: Shocking.

BR: Yes. It was interesting, right? And so I’m thinking, well, how did this come about? And so, you know, if you look at the report on the boy’s death by the San Antonio Police Department, it doesn’t mention the Blue Whale suicide game. No mention whatsoever.

0:08:41
Now this by itself is a red flag. Because, you know, people can be, and people have been, convicted of murder for encouraging others to kill themselves. There was the case of Michelle Carter who in June was convicted of ordering her boyfriend to kill himself.

0:09:00
Right? I mean, so this is…

PR: It’s not taken lightly when suicide involves outside influences, especially people or organizations with any kind of purpose driven towards that. I mean it because suicide becomes you know manslaughter and murder when you start involving other people in that sort of way. So that’s important and that distinction is obviously very important from a legal standpoint.

BR: Absolutely and there would be no reason why the San Antonio police would not mention that. Unless there’s some conspiracy cover-up. Why aren’t they mentioning it? Probably because they found no evidence of it.

0:09:38
That would be my guess. And so what I think happened, and with all due respect to Jorge Gonzalez, who I’m sure is a grief-stricken man, you know, his 15-year-old son is dead. My heart goes out to him. But my guess is that what happened is that he, like many parents, got in their heads that there is this Blue Whale Suicide game going on, and he believed that his son was the latest victim of it. He thinks that there’s, again, the old stranger danger, right? Evil doers lurking behind every tree and through our portable devices and these sorts of things. I think that his family recognized that he live streamed this and saw, well, there’s a smartphone there and they talked to his friends and they asked his friends, have you heard about the Blue Whale Game?

0:10:25
They’re like, yeah. He’s like, well there you go. And of course they’ve heard about it because it’s all over their schools. Yeah. Police departments are getting worried about it, schools are getting worried about it, parents are getting worried about it. Not because there’s not any truth to it, but because that’s what they do. They warn kids. The Baldwin County Public School System in Alabama sent out warnings to parents saying that they should be watching their teenagers’ habits and monitoring their online socials. So again, at the end of the day, there’s no good evidence that Isengard Gonzalez’s suicide had anything to do with the Blue Whale Game.

0:11:11
There’s just no evidence whatsoever. What was interesting was that in that story that I was sent by several different people, there was corroborating it, and I use corroborating in a very specific way, corroborating it was a reference to not only in the case of Gonzales, but there was another case, a teen girl who died from playing the Blue Whale Suicide Game. And so I’m like, that’s interesting. This would seem to be, again, we talked on a previous podcast, the illusion of corroboration. This is what I’m talking about. So in order to bolster the idea that Isaiah Gonzalez’s suicide was connected to the Blue Whale, there was this other case too. I’m like, interesting. So let me look that up.

0:11:56
So I have here in my hand a piece from CNN that says, teen girl died from playing Blue Whale Suicide game, family says. Published on July 10th by CNN News Source. It’s a very strange piece. I’ll just read you the first few sentences because it’s, I think you’ll see the red flags. It says, Atlanta, Georgia, one family believes an online game led a 16 year old to commit suicide. The game is called the Blue Whale and it reportedly incites players to take their own lives. It is still not clear if the game really exists or not. She was young, beautiful, and playful. Her family wants to share the teen’s story but asked CNN to conceal her identity. A funny girl, her mom said, let me rephrase it, a funny girl, her anonymous mom said, she liked to make silly faces or how we say the puppy face when she wanted something.

0:12:52
She was a talented artist as well. It goes on like this. So, so just let’s be very clear about this. So in order to bolster the credibility of the story that Isaiah Gonzalez died in the suicide game, they’re citing a story that is, has nothing to it. There’s the, the family is not named. No one is named and nor anywhere in the story, because I read it several times and looked for other cases, is there any connection to the Blue Whale Game? It’s just an anonymous family in Georgia says their daughter, their 16-year-old daughter died playing this game. They don’t say why they thought that. They don’t say if the family exists. This is, I mean, come on, folks.

0:13:37
PR: This sort of situation really illuminates the confusion and the desperation of experiencing something like losing a child. And I can completely sympathize with a parent looking for answers and jumping to conclusions because that is just, it’s such a horrifying thing to go through. And I think it’s incredibly important for people to get as much clarity as they can in these situations because I think a lot of people get some very bad ideas about why someone kills themselves and parents start blaming themselves and strained relationships over it and everything. And I think adding to that noise is not helpful and that boy’s father was looking for answers, but you know, I think he’s not being helped by jumping to conclusions that maybe his friends are corroborating because they’ve heard of this rumor.

BR: And again, I, I, you know, I have all the sympathy, I mean as you said, I’m not knocking the family, I believe they’re sincere in their belief.

0:14:32
And as you said, when parents are emotional in the loss of a child, you’re looking for reasons, you’re looking for someone to blame, you’re looking for how did this happen. And it’s easy for some people to sort of fall into this conspiratorial, some evil person commanded him to do 50 things a day until he’d kill himself. And at the end of the day, there should be good evidence of this. If that was the culmination of 50 things, there should be a clear list of 49 other things that are well-documented. I just don’t believe there’s anything there. The other thing to keep in mind is that with most urban legends, there’s a plausibility to them.

0:15:08
Sometimes I have people ask me about urban legends and say, well, couldn’t they be true? So, for example, there’s an urban legend about the little old lady who microwaves her poodle. She thought that was the best way to dry it off and she didn’t realize what she was doing and she microwaved the poodle now, or baby in some versions. Now, could that happen? Absolutely. Yes. It’s possible. It is absolutely possible. That’s not the question. The question is, has it happened as part of the narrative that’s told? The answer is no. The silver lining is that, the big silver lining is that there almost certainly is no Blue Whale Game. Parents should be reassured about that.

0:15:49
Even if every now and then you see some news story that is attributing it to the Blue Whale Game, approach it with some skepticism. Take a good look at it and see if it’s really true and where’s the sources? Who’s saying this? Where’s the evidence?

PR: Parents, definitely talk to your kids. If you think your kids are going through something, talk to them because these situations aren’t usually caused by some outside force and it’s something you’ve got to try your best to get in front of.

0:16:14
BR: No, and in fact, that’s one other point that I’m glad you raised, is blaming the blue whale game distracts from the real causes of suicide. So if you’re focusing on some mythical internet predator, commanding kids to do 50 things in some bizarre folkloric legend, then you’re not paying attention to the actual dangers to children.

PR: Absolutely, absolutely.

BR: So what’s been on your skeptical Pascualian radar?

PR: This week I was on Facebook as usual and my friends, they really deliver when it comes to the headlines.

BR: You never wrote that material for something to get on your ear, didn’t scare the radar.

PR: This week was great. I love this headline, scientists blow the lid on cancer sunscreen myth.

BR: I don’t know the story.

0:17:01
We have not collaborated on this. I’m guessing that that story is about scientists who did control testing of different sunscreens to determine whether or not they actually contained the the SPF that’s on the label. Is that right?

PR: No. No.

BR: Okay.

PR: Not at all. No, this one’s great though. This one’s great. Again, another very long-winded article with a lot of flowery language. This guy, Paul Fassa or Fossa, wrote this article. I want to make sure to credit him because he is, should win a Pulitzer for this one. And he actually sourced it from naturalnews.com.

BR: Oh, Natural News, everyone’s favorite news source. That truth with a capital T, if you want it. For those who think that David Avocado Wolf is a little too credible, natural news is your place.

0:17:57
PR: The bullet points here are that sunscreen is bad and causes cancer.

BR: So the claim is that sunscreen is a carcinogen?

PR: Yes. They basically are saying it’s a cancer-causing biohazard, as they say in the article. And then they go on to promote the idea of exposing yourself to more sunlight. Now, I wouldn’t take issue with this if they were saying, doing it in a responsible way, but they’re basically using half the article to say sunscreen is bad and the other half to say expose yourself to the sun.

BR: Keep in mind that in New Mexico where we live, the sun is very strong.

PR: It is significantly stronger than most places. The elevation is very high here and the atmosphere is somewhat thin. The sun, the UV just blasts us.

0:18:49
BR: So that may be somewhat dubious advice if you live in a place that’s always overcast, Seattle maybe, but here in New Mexico, not good advice.

PR: No, not good. And so the comment section kind of blew up with a lot of people claiming they don’t wear sunscreen and they’re fine, which is fine.

BR: Hasn’t killed me yet.

PR: What the article claims is that researchers concluded that the conventional dogma, which advises avoiding the sun and slathering on sunscreen, is doing more harm than actual good. I read the study. No, I didn’t say that.

0:19:26
The research that they are talking about. It was an epidemiological study that followed 30,000 women for over 20 years. So this is actually credible science. It was published in 2014 and it was the Karolinska Institute in Sweden that did it. So 30,000 women over 20 years is a pretty good sample size and a great amount of time. They said that mortality was about double in women who avoided sun exposure compared to the highest exposure group. Now, avoided sun exposure is a tricky phrase. What they’re talking about is women who wore sunscreen. Basically it goes through a bunch of claims. It says that sun avoidance combined with wearing sunscreen effectively blocks the body’s ability to produce vitamin D3 from the sun’s UVB rays. That is not from the study. This is a claim just being made by this article. And I’ll get to where these claims come from in just a second, it’s great actually.

0:20:26
In the USA, vitamin D deficiency is at epidemic levels. I couldn’t really find a source on that.

BR: I don’t think that’s actually true.

PR: Yeah, I don’t either. I Googled it with their wording. I Googled it with just vitamin D deficiency geographically. It tends to be more significant in places with less sun, go from here. But in shorter days, things like that. But that’s about all I could come up with.

0:20:52
Anyway, it also says it protects the body from diseases like multiple sclerosis, rickets, tuberculosis..

BR: consumption and gout as well, I say!

PR: And a bunch of other things. But I don’t know who leads with rickets and tuberculosis in this day and age. But that’s what they led with, that and MS, which there is, you know, something to that, but it’s hugely simplified here. Oh, and then they also add a lack of sun exposure, mainly to cognitive decline over time. That’s based on a shred of evidence, but the study talked to 30,000 women and also paid attention to their habits and how they were exposed to the sun and those that were and weren’t.

0:21:33
What they were looking for was the skin cancer rate overall, I believe. With mortality, when they were saying that it was double in women that avoided sun exposure, the real tricky part, and it took me a little while to piece this out of the actual study because I couldn’t find a complete version of the study. I kind of had to take some references to it to figure it out. But what they determined was that it was about double in women who wore sunscreen. And it was over these 20 years, they were trying to figure out exactly why. Now, it does kind of look weird for sunscreen when you put it that way. But maybe it’s the study’s fault, maybe it’s this article’s fault. I’m going to say it’s probably the article’s fault. But by misinterpreting this information, they make it sound like the sunscreen is causing the cancer, which it’s not. It didn’t lead to higher mortality.

0:22:26
They didn’t look for that in the study to begin with, so the study does not determine that.

BR: You would assume that the increase would be in skin cancer, for example, not pancreatic cancer or brain cancer. I know it mentioned a couple bad things such as rickets and consumption. Did it specify what exactly? So it was just a higher incidence of death across all?

PR: So it was, yeah, as far as any information I could get, it just said mortality was double. Now, this is where it gets tricky, because what the study itself actually put in there is sort of, you know, they’re like, hey, here’s what appears to be the issue.

0:23:09
And that’s that the people who were wearing the sunscreen the most were exposed to the sun the most. And over 20 years, they’re talking about, I believe this concluded, I think this actually went from the 80s to the late 2000s. We’re talking about a group of women who self-reported sunscreen use.

BR: Over two decades.

PR: Over two decades, starting in a decade where sunscreen technology was not where it is now.

0:23:37
So to begin with, these are people who are already more exposed to the sun using sunscreen that at the time was not as powerful as it is today.

BR: Yeah, look, when I was a kid, I mean in my teens, I didn’t wear sunscreen. I mean, during the summer times, I ran around in shorts, you know, for months on end.

PR: Yeah. The biggest point and the biggest hole in this whole argument is that they’re attributing it to sunscreen when the part of the group that used the most sunscreen was also the most exposed to the sun. There’s a number of reasons that this is pretty problematic and it’s actually expected because yes, you wear sunscreen, but you have the question of application, the frequency, coverage. I mean, you know, if you’re wearing a bathing suit all the time, are you really covering every inch of your body? Are there areas that you keep missing that get burned once in a while? Your scalp, are you swimming? Is it washing it off?

0:24:33
BR: And there’s no way they could control for that.

PR: They don’t. And I mean, because yeah, it’s self-reporting. So, and again, with that huge sample size and that significant amount of time, you can get a good rate in terms of mortality, but there’s no way to pin it on anything specific. So it’s not the study’s fault. It’s the interpretation. Now let’s move on to where they are getting their corroborating information. These cancer-causing biohazards in sunscreens, there’s this Dr. Elizabeth Plourd and her titles are CLS, NCMP, and PhD. So she’s using doctor and she’s a PhD. Now, when you’re being skeptical about doctors, it’s important when they’re talking about medical advice, whether their doctor title comes from an MD or a PhD. It’s very important.

0:25:18
Not because you should just automatically shrug off a PhD. They may be very much experts in a certain field, but PhD means that they’re not a medical doctor.

BR: They may be doctors in English. Medieval history. Take your pick.

PR: I will tell you. So the CLS in her title, this is probably the most relevant one. She is a clinical laboratory scientist. Now, that sounds like a really important title. It actually is an important title in the health world. What it is, is a person who does diagnostic testing on body fluids. So, her laboratory work is in diagnostic testing.

BR: Not entirely irrelevant, but the connection is not crystal clear at the moment.

0:26:03
PR: But she seems to be leaning on that title as a quote-unquote scientist because it does use the word scientist. These people are about at the level, medical training level, as a nurse probably, which is not for nothing. And she is familiar with science, but this is a diagnostic lab. This isn’t a lab that does research. So again, CLS, not a doctor. NCMP is a NAMS certified menopause practitioner. NAMS is North American Menopause Society. I researched them a little bit.

0:26:31
There’s no reason to think there’s anything wrong with them. They just deal in the study and support of menopause treatment.

BR: Now menopause is connected to sunscreen?

PR: So every time you see her name, these three titles are always on it. That’s fine. So, but again, not a scientist. So according to her website, she does have a Bachelor’s of Science in Biological Science from CSU, which is actually a really good school. And then she also has a an MA in Psychology from Pepperdine, which is also a pretty reputable school. So her PhD is from a school called the San Diego University for Integrative Studies.

BR: Oh, I have a red flag.

PR: The school, San Diego University for Integrative Studies, is an unaccredited school.

0:27:23
They say that on their website. They creatively work their way around that by saying, we are not necessarily seeking accreditation. Which, good, because you probably won’t get it.

BR: We’re not saying we’ve applied to it. Our sister college, the University of American Samoa…

PR: Yeah. So she does have a real education and does have a legitimate title, but her PhD, which is what gives her the title doctor, is from a questionable, unaccredited school. So anyway, she also believes that Wi-Fi causes cancer. Actually, right now, her current thing, she has a YouTube channel, her big thing is that.

0:28:04
BR: Because of course she does.

PR: Right, of course. She’s found a correlation between Wi-Fi and Alzheimer’s. I could not bring myself to start watching these videos to figure out what she, it’s irrelevant to this, but just to give you a little bit of background. So she’s the one pushing the idea that sunscreen causes cancer.

BR: She was the main source for this piece.

PR: Yeah, so the study is where they get their wording, but she’s the one suggesting that sunscreen causes cancer. She has a lot of videos about that and about Wi-Fi causing cancer and all kinds of other problems. The kind of point I’m trying to get to here is that as usual, a misunderstood study, and we tack on an argument from authority, which is a person who doesn’t really seem to hold much authority in that area. And she calls what she does research, but I don’t see methods, I don’t see papers.

0:29:00
So I don’t have any idea where she gets this information from. I’m sure she uses other stuff that backs up her argument, but it’s just never…

BR: She probably uses scientific words. She probably pronounces some of them correctly.

PR: She does a lot of sciencing. But that’s pretty much where it’s at. So I think the problem for me is that it’s a really sensationalistic article. It plays to confirmation bias, doesn’t cite credible research from this doctor. She’s a bit of a tinfoil hat wearing person. And she’s not a medical doctor. She’s a lab technician.

0:29:35
That aside, I think that articles like this and professionals like her promote misinformation that can lead people to do risky things like not wearing sunscreen.

BR: So, Pascual, word around the campfire is there’s something called a skeptic crate. Do you know anything about that?

BR: I do, as a matter of fact. We are going to be putting out a monthly crate.

BR: A monthly crate?

PR: A monthly crate.

BR: I’m intrigued.

PR: Called the skeptic crate.

0:30:09
It will be a crate with a few goodies relating to our show, relating to science, skepticism, show topics, maybe some little bonus items that have to do with us as individuals relating to our own work or things that Celestia has done.

BR: I like it. I like it. Tell me more.

PR: So any patron above $5 an episode.

BR: Five bucks? Seriously?

PR: Yeah, five bucks.

0:30:33
BR: Five measly bucks? That’s like 500 pennies or something.

PR: Yeah, exactly. Who can’t afford that? Precisely 500 pennies. And you will get a Skeptic Crate once every month. We ship them on the 15th of every month. So once you are within a month of good standing at the $5 or more per episode level, you’ll be receiving a Skeptic Crate every month as a regular thank you for your continued support.

BR: Ah, it’s a bargain at twice the price.

0:31:13
Awesome, awesome. And where do we find out more about that?

PR: What you want to do is go over to patreon.com forward slash scoring the strange and you can see all the bonuses, you can see how to sign up, and you can see all the different perks because not only do you get the skeptic rate, but $5 and up have their own bonus VIP level content and episodes that we put out every month.

BR: Love it, love it!

PR: So, the other day you brought up the idea of being pedantic. I’ve heard that word plenty of times. I’ve had that word thrown at me plenty of times and I know you have too, but in the the common social media vernacular these days there’s kind of a negative tone to that word and people call people pedantic because they’re being nitpicky about an idea or they’re they’re trying to trip you up on technicalities and a lot of the time it’s because they’re focusing on a minor detail of a larger picture that you’re trying to convey.

0:32:29
And that can definitely be annoying, but there’s also some utility to it. And I think that’s what we should definitely dig into today.

BR: Yeah, yeah. I think that’d be interesting to sort of put forth a defense of pedantry. You know, people who are pedantic often get, they get sort of, you know, slighted, you know, like, well, you’re just, like you’re just being petty and dismissive and you’re being contrarian.

0:32:59
And to the person that’s pointing out, it’s like, no, I’m being right. Like, maybe I’m being contrarian, but I’m trying to help you get this right and stuff. And I’m sure we’ve all been on both sides of this. I mean, I’m sure I’ve been pedantic and I’m sure I’ve complained about being pedantic with my stuff. You know, I try, if I’m gonna give someone else the benefit of the doubt, I try to do the same.

0:33:22
But I think that what’s interesting is that oftentimes, again, it’s like, it’s not that you’re wrong. They admit that you’re right, usually. It’s just that, yeah, technically you’re right, but you shouldn’t correct me. I’m making a larger overall point that you’re detracting from. And the problem that I see with that idea is that it is essentially an end justifies the means argument.

0:33:48
They’re saying, it doesn’t matter that I’m wrong about this particular thing, I’m right about the bigger thing. And that’s, I’m not sure I agree with that. Because I think that you should be right, if you can, about everything. And look at it this way. If I put forth an argument and I give three or four pieces of evidence for that argument, or examples or whatever else, and if someone says, okay, well, I agree with you in general but one of these examples you gave is wrong or doesn’t quite fit, I wanna know that.

0:34:26
I’m like, thank you. You’ve improved my argument, you know?

PR: Certainly.

BR: And so to my mind, we should value people being pedantic to some extent. And of course it depends on what your goal is, right? Because sometimes the goal is like a gotcha moment. It’s like, you know, I’m smarter than you are.

0:34:45
You didn’t seem to know. So, you know, so there’s definitely an element of, you know, being one-upsmanship and being smarter than the other person. So if that’s your goal, then you’re just being an ass.

PR: Petty is really the better word for that. Because sure, you’re being pedantic and you are being technically correct, but if you’re being petty about it, well, that’s obviously not useful. And I think, you know, you see it a lot in discourse about, especially things where you’ve got like science versus non-science or something like that, and you’ve got the standard apologetics of the denier coming at you, and they’ll try to catch you on a technicality where it’s like, well, the person you quoted here was also a bad guy, or, you know, so those kinds of details, that’s just pettiness, you know, and that’s not necessarily pointing out technical flaws that are important to the situation.

0:35:36
BR: Yeah, and it’s not constructive. I mean so I sort of see it I said there’s really the difference as being between criticism and constructive criticism. There’s an attempt to to correct someone in a very petty malicious way. And there’s an attempt to genuinely try to prevent misinformation. And as somebody who values correct information, both personally and professionally in other ways, you know, I mean, I can’t tell you that there aren’t times when, I mean, I’m sure there’s been times when I have, there’s been an element of, you know, something that I happen to know about, and you know, it’s not me trying to get a dig in, it’s just, you know, this is wrong.

0:36:20
But I think for the most part, I really, if I correct you on something, I’m not trying to be mean I’m not this is not a personal insult I’m trying to like yes I agree with almost everything you say but this this one part is wrong yeah that doesn’t I’m not I’m not invalidating your argument I’m not saying that everything about this wrong I’m just saying this one thing you know maybe it’s not a good example overall center I remember I did a short blog about this a couple years back. It was an example of a girl at a school who was talking about why recycling is important. I’m all for recycling. I’m a big, you know, save the earth, that’s all I’m good.

0:37:06
So I’m listening to it. I was a guest speaker at the school. I think she was maybe fifth or sixth grade or something. So I’m listening to the thing and then at one point she says that the reason that we need to recycle aluminum is because aluminum is a scarce resource. Well, aluminum is not a scarce resource. In fact, I think there’s more aluminum than I think any other metal in the world.

PR: That makes sense. Yeah.

0:37:32
BR: So, I mean, so she says this and I just, you know, and she just let it go. But she’s telling this to like her peers and teachers and everyone else. And she’s telling them that the reason we need to recycle aluminum cans is because there’s not enough aluminum. No, that’s wrong. The real reason to recycle aluminum cans is the energy you save. Because you have to mine, you have to refine it. I mean, there’s lots of stuff that goes into producing aluminum in the first place. So you’re saving, it’s an energy savings. And you know, I thought, you know, it’s like, should I correct her?

0:38:09
And I thought the better of it. You’ll be pleased to know. But it was an ethical thing. It’s like, you know, I don’t want to be mean. And I mean, I wouldn’t have called her out in front of everybody. I would have just, after her talk, I would have just sort of taken her aside and said, actually, that one part, like I agree recycling is wonderful, everyone should recycle, yes, just this one example that you used, it’s not accurate.

0:38:34
And I’m not being mean to you, I’m just, because the problem is, number one, it misinforms people. And it’s not a big deal, I mean no one’s gonna lose their job over not knowing that. But if you can correct somebody politely and gently and nudge them into being correct, why not do that? So there was sort of a little back and forth, and in the end I just let it go, and it was probably for the best.

0:38:58
But it’s things like that, or for example, there was a map that was circulating on the internet, I know, on the internet, there you go, and it was about Ebola. And it was a map of countries that were Ebola free. Maybe you saw this. This circulated about maybe nine months or a year ago.

PR: Yeah, I think I remember that.

BR: And there was a map of Africa, and it highlighted, I think, I’m forgetting them, I think it was like maybe three or four countries that had Ebola, and it depicted the rest of Africa as being Ebola free.

0:39:33
And again, it was another case of where I knew that map was not correct because I actually follow the Ebola stories and I’ve written about it. And so that map was wrong. I think it said there were three or four countries. In fact, I think there were five or six that it had some. And in some cases it was like there was Ebola there, but there may not be. And of course it changes. I mean, the Ebola can get wiped out within a couple months. So the map may be accurate in March, but not in May. But again, it was a case of where I knew what they were trying to get at.

0:40:11
I understood their point. Their point was, don’t think of the entirety of Africa as being ridden with Ebola, because it’s not. I’m like, that’s correct. You’re right. It’s not. But I made a conscious decision not to share that map on Twitter and on Facebook because I felt uncomfortable with sharing something that I knew for a fact was not entirely correct. And you can make the argument that I should have just like, come on, it’s for a good cause.

0:40:48
We all need to just… but there’s just a couple of cases where I just, I remember having a little minor ethical twinge of, should I share this? Should I not share this? Uh, and again, I agreed with a larger point in both the cases. It was just, I just, I was like, if I’m going to put my name on it, if I’m going to, if, if someone sees something on my, on my social media, I want people to know that it may not be 100% correct, but I did not share that lightly. I make a conscious effort to at least go one step further and check stuff on Snopes and wherever else if it’s at all dubious.

0:41:24
PR: Right, yeah, yeah. Sharing things with errors also opens you up to people being pedantic. And that’s one of the things I think of, even just in kind of the lightest sense, like sharing a meme or something, you know, and they use the wrong spelling of there or something, you know, and it’s like, everyone knows I didn’t write this, but by sharing it, it’s gonna seem like I’m endorsing this misspelling, and the first comment on it is gonna be correcting the use of that word, and you know, and so I just know better, I’m like, you know what, I thought this was really funny, but I can’t pass it along knowing that the first thing that’s going to happen is someone’s going to…

0:42:06
BR: You and me both, man. There you go. Absolutely.

PR: The sound of a high five in the background.

BR: That’s right. That’s right. But no, I think it’s a… I’m sure a lot of people struggle with this, either being called pedants or not. And to my mind, it’s not a matter of trying to be smarter than somebody else. It’s a matter of precision and accuracy.

0:42:29
Because I think as skeptics and as science-minded, critical people, critically thinking people, at least ideally, we should value precision. We should value accuracy. If somebody in my capacity working for Skeptic Inquirer Magazine, if you send me an article article that’s mostly right and I fact check it, I’m going to send it back to you. Mostly is not good enough. That’s not going to fly. That’s how it works in publishing where I may totally agree with your overall point, but if your logic isn’t there, I’m going to politely send it back to you and say, look, you have to put more research on it.

0:43:15
PR: Totally.

Celestia Ward: Hey Squares and hey strangers. Celestia here with some crunchy words of wisdom in this week’s Skeptical Fortune Cookie. Everyone you ever meet will know something you don’t. Now, it may not sound very skeptical on the surface, but this emphasizes the importance of being thorough, open-minded, and having respect for your fellow human beings. The best skeptical investigators don’t bill themselves as debunkers per se, but as inquisitive people who want all the information they can gather. Treating people like they are sources of knowledge, which they are, can be the difference between really making a connection, really cooperating to figure out some mystery, or simply being dismissed yourself as a smug know-it-all.

0:44:18
There’s a world of understanding between telling someone, you couldn’t have seen that, and asking someone, please describe what you remember seeing and let’s look for explanations together. Everyone you meet will know something you don’t. As many of you probably guessed already, this quote comes from Bill Nye the Science Guy. It really captures his philosophy on outreach, discovery, and joining together to, dare I say it, change the world! Bill Nye’s geeky excitement is really infectious. He’s a mechanical engineer, a beloved TV host, and CEO of the Planetary Society. He’s debated creationists like Ken Ham, danced with the stars, and written two best-selling books, one of which he revised after the first printing in a real show of integrity. After agricultural scientists showed him evidence that reversed his position on GMO, he said he simply needed write that chapter. This saying is one of Bill’s favorites. He typed it up in a 2012 Reddit AMA, which stands for Ask Me Anything, and it really seemed to resonate with fans. The quote went pretty viral afterwards, showing up in lists and memes, and Nye has repeated it in commencement speeches and interviews.

0:45:30
Recently in Men’s Journal, Nye mentioned where he first picked up these words of wisdom, and the original source kind of blew my mind. In a full circle sort of meta way, Bill Nye said that he got this advice from a cab driver 30 years ago, and he says it’s the best advice he’s ever gotten. So that cab driver knew something Bill Nye, the science guy, didn’t know. His words became a lesson for many educators, activists, and fans of science. So remember that everyone you ever meet will know something you don’t. Let’s meet up with Ben and Pascual now and see what they know.

PR: So yeah, you seem to be making a pretty good argument for being clear and precise with things and with your language and things like that especially, right?

BR: Yeah, and I mean, George Orwell wrote about this, the author of 1984.

0:46:37
In fact, I have a book of his essays and I’ll just read you a quick section because he talks about this very clearly and he says, he says, “modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly and to think clearly it is a necessary first step towards political regeneration so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers”. He says “the writer either has a meaning and cannot express it or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not. This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose”. By the way, this is written in 1946.

PR: Yeah, he would have died of a brain hemorrhage if he saw Facebook.

BR: Yeah, this is Orwellian.

0:47:31
It says, “this mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose. As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the abstract, and no one seems able to think of terms of speech that are not hackneyed. Prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of meaning, and more and more phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen house.” So that to me is call to arms to ask people to think clearly, speak clearly, and double check your facts. And if you want me to share your meme, if you want me to endorse your blog post, if you want me to accept your magazine article, then put in the extra time, as I do, to double check it.

0:48:29
And if someone calls you on it and says, you know, by the way, there’s something wrong here, this quote is wrong whatever else, don’t fire back saying, well, you’re just being pedantic. Say, thanks, let me fix that.

PR: I have a number of friends who are editors, and I’m sure you do too. It can be kind of funny on Facebook, my buddy Ryan is usually the first person to correct me on a wording.

0:48:51
I still won’t use a serial comma for the record. I know everyone, it just explodes editor’s heads when I do that. But anyway, he always is the first one to jump in on my use of language, especially if it comes to wording of something. And usually my first reaction is to be like, ah, what do you know? But then I’m like, well, he is an editor and he spends all day doing this. But I think that having people like that in my life have improved me, so I think that knowing better, it is really good to say something, and it is good to bring that up with people like me who occasionally aren’t entirely perfect on their grammar and their clarity. I know we talk about grammar Nazis and stuff like that, and there’s certainly a point that you can take that way beyond what would be acceptable.

0:49:37
But for the most part, I think it is good to point out technicalities and make sure people are clear because conveying a message, especially these days in the days of social media, clarity and accuracy are incredibly important and not something to take lightly. And Orwell writing something that long ago that sounds so incredibly relevant to this very moment in time, it says something about that.

BR: Yeah, again, just as skeptics and as critical thinkers, we should value truth and accuracy and we should want what we say to be clear. And oftentimes, what I found, at least in the cases in which I’m offering the people, my opinion from on high, no, oftentimes I am giving them specificity. I’m not saying they’re wrong, I’m saying this could be more specific, this could be more precise, this would be clearer if you said this.

0:50:52
And that can be taken two ways. It can either be like, you’re being obnoxious petty, or you’re like, okay, you’re trying to help me be clear. And in most cases, I mean, I’m sure someone can find some time when I was being nasty, but in most cases, I sincerely am trying to help you be clear. I’m an editor. That’s what I do.

0:51:10
And I think it’s important to touch on the specificity aspect, because demanding specificity is important. Science progresses through specific claims and evidence, not vague theories or ambiguous evidence. If there’s a study being done and the results of the study, either a drug worked in 30% more people or it didn’t. It’s not like the drug worked in more people. How many more people? Lot more.

0:51:39
Information is most useful when it’s precise and clear and specific. And you know this is this is why a good way to cut through pseudoscience is to ask for clarity and definitions.

PR: Right. Absolutely.

BR: We’ve both seen this, right? So you’re in a room with somebody who is telling you about the auras around the human body and the energies. And I’m like, excuse me, what energy are you talking about? I’m not being mean, I’m just, I’m seeking clarification.

0:52:13
Well, you know, the energy, like, okay, I’ll ask you again, which energy is like when you’re feeling tired or like, you know, heat energy, cause I happen to know something about this. And so oftentimes, you know, the enemy of truth is ambiguity and obfuscation. And so this is why clarity and precision of language really benefits truth. And so, you know, I see this with Trump. You know, not to get political here, but, you know, Trump, and ambiguity. He’s always trying to be as opaque as possible. He’s always trying to have it both ways. And this has been a hallmark. This is not a direct attack on Trump. This is just a fact. And this is crystal clear. He’ll say something, then he’ll say the opposite, and then he’ll deny he said the opposite.

0:53:08
And this over and over again. You ask him, does he think Obama was born in America. For years he he flogged the Obama the whole birther thing. For years he did this yeah and then and then when that when during during the candidacy he hedged like well we don’t really know he went back and forth you know eventually eventually he he he said no eventually he he admitted that yes, Obama was in fact American. After years of saying yes and no, who knows, right? We saw the same thing in the question about whether he taped James Comey, the former FBI director. Did he do it? I don’t know. Maybe I did. Maybe I didn’t. It was this back and forth, yes or no. And he did the same thing with the you know did the Russians interfere with the election. Sometimes he said yes, sometimes he said no sometimes says we don’t know we think it may be the Russians It was some fat guy living in his parent’s basement, right?

0:54:14
We really he was he he’s he’s given literally like six or seven different answers to that question Yeah, and he doesn’t want to be he doesn’t want to be nailed down. Yeah, and And you know he I know what he’s doing. This is this is pretty transparent. Yeah, see right through you Donald He wants to have it both ways right so that no matter no matter what he says on a given topic He’d say well. I was right right. you said the other you said the opposite, too, and and you know and again. This is a case of where where you know the the attempt to use vague language and not be clear. I mean he’s intentionally Not being clear. Yeah, and that’s dangerous in a world leader. Think about right., I want to know what you think. What do you believe? What are you going to do now? It’s one thing to not Want to tip your hand I get that right sure reader, you know, leaders should not always say what’s off the top of their heads.

0:55:16
But in Trump, I see someone who is repeatedly and deliberately as a career, as a matter of course, being evasive and ambiguous and ignoring contradictions and pretending there’s no contradictions. And I’m, that’s concerning to me.

PR: You know, I’ve heard him respond to his vague language sometimes when when he does this nod and a wink thing where he’s like, I think you know what I mean. It’s so vague. It’s like well, no, I don’t know. I really I honestly truly do not know what you mean. I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to believe and when you were vague in the first place, you can’t just follow up with that. I mean you can, obviously gets away with it all the time, but right now eventually it’s gonna catch up and who are the people that are gonna figure this out but those who are being pedantic and catching him on technicalities right?

BR: I think that that’s a great point I mean I think that you know it is precisely the people that are pedantic right and who demand clarity yeah and demand solid answers. These are the people that if Trump does end up being impeached that’s these people are gonna get him. Because they’re gonna they’re gonna say all right Mr. Trump you know under oath under penalty of perjury you said X yeah you’re now saying something else. He’s like well yeah but like no no that’s that’s impeachable. We saw that for example with with Trump’s immigration ban. Perfect example. Right? Where where you know it is. The reason that Trump’s immigration ban has been largely stopped with a couple of exceptions is because it went to various courts and the courts said OK well you know because Trump’s lawyer said we’re not we’re not banning Muslims. And they’re like, really? Because Trump said he called a Muslim ban.

0:57:14
Like, oh, you’re just being pedantic. That’s, he didn’t mean that. He was being vague. He was playing around. It’s like, no, no, that’s what he said. This is a direct quote from Trump. And now you’re arguing before the court that that wasn’t what he said.

0:57:31
But that is what he said. And we’re going to be pedantic and apply the rule of law and Demand specificity whether Trump wants to or not and that is precisely why why it’s been stopped to this extent

PR: The law in general deals in pedantry. I’ve been a musician, you know as a career most of my adult life and signing contracts requires extremely precise extremely careful language. You need a lawyer to look these things over because there’s a lot of legalese.

0:58:04
But everything is a technicality. Everything has to be clearly understood. I mean, granted…

BR: For everyone’s benefit.

PR: Yeah, granted, musicians do sign contracts all the time without understanding half of what they’re reading. I’m one who does not do that. And I think I’ve, you know, done better because of it. But, you know, when you go into these legal situations and legally binding contracts, the devil is in the details. And if someone’s gonna screw you in a contract, it’s gonna be somewhere in that hard to understand technical stuff that you have to be very clear on. And that’s why you have a lawyer to clarify that for you. A person whose entire job is to be pedantic on your behalf.

0:58:49

And a lawyer will pick out things that sound so utterly pedantic when they’re like, we don’t like this word “perpetuity”. We don’t like this one number. The word “and” can be argued for days on a contract because they’re talking about how encompassing the contract can be. So it’s rather important from a legal standpoint. And I think that’s, again, to double back on to Trump it’s… it all relates to that because it’s the details that are going to bring this all down because he’s managed to get away with a lot of vagueness and things like that, but at the end of the day he’s going to have to answer questions that are yes-no questions.

0:59:36
And he’s going to have to answer them under oath in a way that the provably wrong answer will get him in a lot more trouble than admitting to something. So it’s pretty important.

BR: No, I agree. I would go so far as to say that in every area where it matters, being pedantic is essential. Science, law, medicine. These are all fields that are vitally important to people’s health, to people’s freedoms, to people’s livelihood and well-being. And in all these cases, being pedantic, it’s a virtue.

1:00:13
And I would humbly suggest that to the extent that people can be more pedantic, in a polite way, of course, that that would increase critical thinking and just overall benefit humanity because it’s more clear language, better thinking. There’s no downside to being more accurate.

PR: Absolutely. Absolutely.

PR: So that about does it for us this week. Thank you guys for tuning in.

1:00:55
We’d like to thank our sponsors, Dr. Angela Mattke and Amy Freshour-Kelly. We are going to be sending out a skeptic crate to the two of you for being sponsor-level patrons. Also, we’re going to be sending a crate to Randy Montoya, Ted Dahlberg, Susan Gerbic from the Gorilla Skeptics on Wikipedia, and Patricia Butchek.

BR: What is this skeptic crate you speak of?

PR: Well, skeptic crate is for our patrons of five dollars or more per episode. It’s a bushel of goodies or a puffy envelope of goodies sent to you once a month as a regular thank-you for your generous patronage. Each crate or puffy envelope will contain at least three items. They might be bits of squaring the strange swag, uh, objects that relate to skepticism and science or things tied to a recent episode or something that you and I just decided we want to throw in there.

1:01:51
I promise there’ll be no dirty undergarments,

BR: Or beard clipping.

PR: A lock of my beard. But, uh, yeah, so it’s always going to be a little bit of a surprise, but you’re always going to get a little something. It’s very much in the spirit of the crate subscriptions that you see around the internet. But there’s not a skeptic crate out there, so we thought we’d provide a lot of added value to the show if we can help it.

BR: Squaring the Strange, pioneering skeptic crates since 2017.

PR: So what’s on the burner for next week?

BR: Next week I thought we might talk about one of the more mysterious American monsters.

1:02:42
PR: Oh Donald Trump?

BR: No no no, more mysterious than that. Scaly, slimy, well…

PR: Still Donald Trump.

BR: Yeah. No, no. Well, here’s the thing is there’s actually relatively few uniquely American monsters, right?. You’ve got Bigfoot, but then you have its cousin Sasquatch in Canada, and you have the Yowie.

1:03:04
Yowie and the Yeti, sure. Right, right. So you have sort of in that family. And then you have, for example, Tahoe, Tessie, and Champ, the lake monsters. But then you have parallels on the place. Yeah, sure, sure. But in this case, I thought we would talk about the lizard man.

PR: So Donald Trump.

BR: No, different one.

1:03:22
PR: Okay, what is the lizard man? It’s actually really cool. I love monsters, so I have not even really come across a lizard man in all my cryptozoological experiences.

BR: Most people haven’t. It’s actually a story that I was first asked to investigate for a television show. It was William Shatner’s Weird or What? So I investigated the case for Bill Shatner. I had done some research on it previous to that, so I had some background on it. But it’s called the lizard man of scape or swamp. Scape or used to be escaped whore was the derivation of that. Just a little FYI. So I investigated the case and I’m not the only person investigated the case. There’s a since been a book that’s come out about it. But it’s not a very well-known case but in the books of cryptozoology it’s one of the more interesting ones.

PR: Very cool, very cool. I’m really looking forward to that. For those of you listening through Patreon, stay tuned for a little bit of bonus content on the Amelia Earhart controversy. If you are not a patron, go ahead and head over to patreon.com forward slash squaringthestrange and become a patron.

1:04:46
You can hear the bonus content at the end of the episode. But for everyone content at the end of the episode. But for everyone else, we’ll see you next week.

BR: Bye-bye.