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Ben Radford: Welcome to Squaring the Strange, where we apply critical thinking and evidence-based analysis to well, everything from the simple to the strange, the mysterious to the mundane.

Pascual Romero: Welcome to Squaring the Strange, I’m Pascual Romero and with me as always is…

BR: Ben Radford.

PR: And we are here on the first episode, the maiden voyage of Squaring the Strange. So I figure the best thing we can do right now is introduce ourselves. So Ben, who are you? Who is Ben Radford? What makes you tick?

BR: Why are you in my house in my studio? You weirdo. Yeah, I’m Ben Radford. I’m a writer. I’m also the deputy editor for Skeptical Inquirer science magazine, which is of course published by the Center for Inquiry. I’ve probably best known for doing investigations into all manner of weirdness ranging from chupacabras to crop circles and ghosts, evil clowns. Oddly enough, I’ve become an expert world expert on evil clowns over the past year. So actually one year ago today, my book Bad Clowns came out.

PR: Congratulations.

BR: Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, so I do a variety of things. I have degrees in education and psychology. But again, I’m probably best known for doing investigations into sort of weird things. You know, I’m known for doing the paranormal stuff, but I really apply my skepticism pretty broadly. My position is that we don’t just need evidence-based analysis of bigfoot sightings and ghosts reports. We need evidence-based analysis of everything across the board. Public policy, political claims, social claims, really I see skepticism as the prison through which we should evaluate everything. So again, I’m probably best known for looking into so-called weird things, but I really apply it much more broadly than that.

So that’s basically what I do. I’ve written about a dozen or so books. I’m a member of the American Folklore Society. I often write on urban legends and folklore things and things like that. So I was also the co-founder and co-host of the podcast Monster Talk for several years.

PR: Parsec award-winning podcast Monster Talk. So and about me, so I am, my name’s Pascual Romero. I’m a former recording artist. I guess still current recording artist. I’m always recording.

BR: You’re recording right now, I can tell. It’s a matter of fact.

PR: Was it the microphone?

BR: That’s what it was. That gave it away. The bouncy things with the screens and the thing.

PR: Well anyway, so that’s, yeah, most of my career was in music. Also film. Worked in a lot of television. Did some reality TV. Even did a little bit of science television. And now I pretty much am full-time working for myself. Have a production company and still doing music as much as I can. Mostly for fun because there is no money in it anymore unless you’re Katy Perry.

BR: And you’re not.

PR: No, not at all. Anyway, I’m an armchair skeptic. Brought up in a family with scholars and definitely have had that in my life for a long time. I hold a high regard for critical thinking and I really enjoy digging into the mysteries of the world and the universe at large and trying to take a really even-handed approach in discovering these things. And so that’s kind of what brought us together because you are the right guy to ask about these things. And I’m the right guy to ask all the dumb questions about these things. So with that, I figure, we kind of just describe what we’re doing here and what we kind of necessarily are goals.

0:04:26
I mean, we just really want to have fun and kind of put something interesting out there. But I’ll let you kind of describe what we’re doing.

BR: Yeah, I think it’s just part of, you know, we’re both experts in some ways. But we don’t know everything. No one knows everything. And so, you know, we’re just trying to figure out what makes the world tick. And we happen to have, you know, between the two of us, a fair amount of experience and applying critical thinking and skepticism to all manner of claims. It doesn’t, you know, always right. I’m often wrong, of course, to say that. But, you know, but it’s a matter of really looking into it. And that’s what I enjoy most about. And that’s one reason I love digging into things and looking below the surface. And questioning assumptions. I enjoy that. It’s fun for me. It’s intellectually challenging for me. And I like, you know, if I question someone’s, someone’s claims or their evidence, it doesn’t mean that I disagree with them. It just means that that’s cool. Where’s your evidence? And I may agree with them and be like, you’re totally right. Where’s your evidence? To me, that’s not an oxymoron. That’s like, that’s how you learn about the world. So I love that sort of thing. And I’m hoping to do a lot of that in the show. Yeah, I agree.

PR: And I think that, you know, that that is probably one of the most important lessons in being a, you know, a person who applies critical thinking is, is demanding the evidence for everything, not just the things you disagree with. But, you know, because I think I know I’m paraphrasing and I don’t even remember who originally said it, but it was something to the effect of a faulty argument in favor of my position is worse than a good argument against it. And, and I think that’s something that I always look forward to in discovering things about my own beliefs and my own thoughts. So, like, let’s make sure I’m not using faulty arguments. And then, you know, we all have done it on Facebook. I don’t think anyone has not done it by accident. At least once, posting something that you just strongly agree with and you want it to be true. And it isn’t or it’s not true in the way you want it to be true.

BR: Absolutely.

PR: So, I think that’s a great thing to get into and a reason that I think this podcast is going to be a lot of fun.

BR: As a teenager and before that, I was of course always interested in mysteries and fascinating things, you know, I would go by, I used books I used to live about to half mile from the used bookstore. So, I, you know, I take my allowance money and go out and, you know, plunk down some, wrinkly $5 bills and buy a bunch of books and I would come home. And I get books on, you know, the Bermuda Triangle and, you know, and Russian mysteries and what’s in Loch Ness, and this and that.

0:07:32
And all books by Edwards, I’ve forgotten his name, first name, and he would write these, you know, these really sensational mystery books, you know, like Stranger than Science, you know, 20 mysteries that science can’t explain. And I’d read these books and I’d think this really cool, really fascinating. I’m reading all this stuff. And, you know, I mean, this is the same time, you know, the same time those TV shows, like That’s Incredible. Yeah. It was on and real people and just sort of this really weird stuff. And, you know, and of course, In Search Of. And, and it was, you know, they weren’t always that skeptical from, from, you know, retroactively.

PR: Oh, yeah.

BR: Yeah. But, but at the time, it was like, this is interesting. And I remember, there’s one time, I think it was around 12 or 13. And I had, it was the winter time. And I was living in, in, in Corrales, New Mexico, not far from where we are now. And I went outside and it was, it had just snowed. I saw outside my window what appeared to be mysterious footprints. And I was looking at them and they kind of looked like, like, hoof prints, like devil hoof prints. So that’s a, that’s one that sort of really struck me one of the earliest times when I can remember just sort of being, you know, creeped out that this, this mystery had landed right, right in, right on my, back porch.

0:09:04

PR: So, so I actually had a, so I grew up in the house. It was an old family house is built in the, I think the 1860s. And it’s downtown Santa Fe, just very old place. And, and there’s a lot of ghost stories there. And there’s a lot of, you know, I mean, La Llorona was a very, very believed story in my neighborhood because the Santa Fe River ran right behind all the kind of our houses. And, but, and we’ll get back to that later in at a future podcast. But the, the house I grew up in my great grandmother passed away. I think when I was a couple years old and the house we were in was originally, well, not originally, but was her house for most of her life. And we had her old rocking chair in the living room. And it was probably, I think I was about five or six years old. This is as early as I can remember it at least. There was always this thing that would happen in the living room, the rocking chair would kind of slowly start rocking just every once in a while. Very, just suddenly, just a very subtle rocking motion. Sometimes almost imperceivable. Other times it kind of looked like it was going pretty well.

BR: But it wasn’t imagination. It was the real deal, right?

PR: No, It’s definitely moving. And you know, you could bring people into the room. Like, look, look, look. And sometimes when people came in, it would move more. And that made it even scarier. And, and that was kind of our first, you know, at least in my head. It’s kind of the first time I really remember experiencing just seen something and just taking it in and being like, it can’t be anything else. I mean, this is obviously happening. You know, and, and of course, my, my father kind of, you know, I think, you know, almost kind of having fun with us, like sort of hinted at it being our great grandmother. And maybe to make us feel a little better about it. I don’t know. But, but then that sort of became the belief in the household was our great grandmother was just like in the house as a presence. And she rocked the chair. And it was really, I mean, it was just something that I learned to accept pretty fast. And, and not necessarily that it was like the existence of spirits or, you know, it didn’t really encompass.

BR: It was like a separate belief.

PR: It was just, I guess my grandma left an impression on this house. Like, we don’t know what it was. And no one ever really talked about what it was if it was their spirit or, you know, right. But, but just kind of, kind of this thing that like we accepted. And it was not, you know, I kind of just eventually dismissed it without evidence. I just, I was like, I don’t have evidence to refute it.

0:11:52
But I also don’t have evidence to prove what it was. So I’m just going to, I’m going to have to say it was probably nothing. But about the time we were moving out of the house in 1998, it was about, you know, that would have been about 14 years later or something. I, it just, my entire life had not occurred to me, but as we were moving out, I, a friend of mine, had kind of, and this is like when the house is real empty so there was nothing like, like holding anything down on the floors or anything. And the chair was still there and a few things on that side of the living room were still there. And as he walked through the middle of the living room. As the floor was creaking under his feet, I realized that the floor was just kind of sagging a little bit. Just enough to where the rocking chair would start moving not immediately either. It would like he walked through and then the chair kind of went. Because that was kind of as the floor rose back up as the joints kind of relieved from that. And I was like, it’s just the floor. Like the floor was making the chair rock because it was sitting kind of on a hump. And the floor would kind of sink and rise as people walked through. And so when bigger people walk through or someone ran through it would go a little more. And if a bunch of people walked in like, hey, come look at this five people standing there, you know, the weight of the floor just sinks down and the chair starts rocking more. And it was just like such a funny, I mean, I really just like it like made me laugh. I was like because I was like, it’s so simple. And such a thing that it would have taken, you know, someone who was truly investigating it would have taken them 30 seconds to figure it out. But because it was just such an easy to, you know, very palatable story and such a palatable idea. And you know, our desire to want to be around our dead relatives and so we just didn’t, you know, it never occurred to me to really figure it out. I just kind of accepted it until one day. The chair moves.

0:13:54
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s that story. And I think that’s one of the most kind of one of the more important stories of my life when it comes to having learned how to see things a little more skeptically. And how to, you know, accept that, you know, you will believe things that aren’t true. Even when you become the most hardcore, die hard professional skeptic, there will be times. And, you know, Facebook is the ultimate tattle-tale that we all share something dumb once in a while.

BR: Oh, yeah.

PR: And, but yeah, so that’s that was kind of my first big one. Yeah, what about you any other interesting stories?

BR: Yeah, I got a couple. I had the one that jumps to my mind is we’re recording this on April Fool’s day. And I remember I was the victim of a, of a, in retrospect, it was somewhat amusing prank, but I was, I was mid teens and I had gone to visit my grandfather out in, out in Mill Valley, California. He was a reporter for Voice of America and a long time journalist and a hard-headed skeptic and very cool. And, and he had this beautiful house up in Mill Valley just behind where Huey Lewis used to live in fact.

0:15:08
BR: And anyway I was out there and, and as, you know, grandparents sometimes do for kids, we went, we went, we went shoe shopping and he bought me some shoes. And, and he says, okay, now, you know, here’s your shoes enjoy them. It says, you know, keep in mind these are, you know, these are rare shoes. These are, you know, these are, this is made from the, from the endangered animal. And I was like, oh, this is, oh, I’m a, oh, the endangered animal. And they, so I’m the, they crocodile. I mean, they just build a greater tennis shoe. And he says, you know, it’s something, but he says, no, no, it’s, it’s the Velcro animal. And he says, you see the, it leaps over there because he wasn’t, it wasn’t shoe-aaces, it was Velcro. And he’s like, yeah, they’re raised in, in Brazil and they have whole Velcro farms. He’s like, oh, okay. So I went back home and I was showing, I was in the playground and Corallis Elementary showing everybody my, my, my, my shoes and talking about it. Well, yeah, these are cool shoes. They’re made from the Velcro animal. And the kids like, oh, okay. And then one point when the kids like, really? I was like, yeah, this is before the internet, right? So I couldn’t Google, you know, Velcro animal. So finally, I’m embarrassed to tell you how long it took me to realize that I’d been had by my grandfather. But for several months there, I was, I was, I was very proud of my, my Velcro animal shoes. And it was, it was good lesson in don’t trust everything everyone tells you, including your grandfather!

0:16:43
And then in terms of like the psychology of, of, of like experience, because you know, a lot of times, you know, when I’m doing investigations, it does come down to experience because, you know, whether you’re talking about evidence for bigfoot, evidence for ghosts, evidence for, for what have you, you know, almost, almost always, you know, the evidence itself can be interpreted in different ways. But all the times that the bulk of the evidence is anecdote and experience. Someone had something. And so, and so I remember one, one time that that were that really jumped out at me as I was traveling in, in South Africa, I was in 1990, I think, 96 or 97. And I was in a, I was just outside of, of Johannesburg. And I was in a sort of a rural area. And I was crossing a road. And there were, the way I remember it. And the, the way you remember things is not always the way you were. And one thing I certainly learned from personal experience, but the way I remember it was, there was, there was basically a flat area. And, and there was, there was some low hills, but it was, it was essentially a rural area in the lonely road. And there was a road going by. And so, so I was like, I’m going to go ahead and cross the road. And I looked right, I looked left. And then I began through jogging across the road. I think it was maybe a, a two lane road or something. And, and I was, I was jogging and as I jogged, a mini bus zoomed right in front of me. And had I been any faster, I would have been hit. And probably just going pretty fast. I, I don’t know if I would have been killed by what had been pretty seriously injured. And again, if it had been any, if it had been any slower, I would have been fine. If that had been jogging any faster. And, and it freaked me out because I just just went right by me just a flash. And I, I like got to side of the road. I was just freaking out. I sat on the ground. And I couldn’t figure out what happened because it seemed like it came out of nowhere. I mean, I was like, I know I looked in both directions. Like I know for a fact I did. I remember doing it. Yeah. And yet there it was. It did not appear out of nowhere. It wasn’t an alternate reality. That minibus was there whether I saw it or not. And that was sort of a lesson to me that you can’t always trust your, your perceptions. Yeah. You know, and I can’t, I mean, everybody, you know, there’s a whole, we could do a show on that. But it’s I come across this over and over again. Or someone says me, I know for a fact what I saw. I know what I experienced. You weren’t there. My answer is, you’re right. I wasn’t there. But I’m telling you just because and you know, people don’t like to hear that. Like, well, you know, you don’t know anymore about me. It’s like, well, I’ll find the fact is that we all miss perceived things. Big things, small things across the board. And that was just a very vivid like, wow, I was very nearly, you know, front bumper fodder.

0:20:03
And I know for a fact, and there was nothing there. Yeah. And in what this was not a blind hill. I just didn’t see it. And just and and it’s where again just reinforces to me. Just, just because you don’t see it, does not mean it’s not there. And that was, you know, I was in my 20s at the time. But that was just, there’s always, that was a very crystal lesson that I’ve learned. I’m never going to forget that.

PR: Yeah. That sounds, I mean, that that is a really good. And then it’s a good, it also, it kind of serves as a good example for for the framework of skeptical thinking because I think a lot of people tend to confuse skeptic with cynic. And, and they, you know, when I say I’m skeptical, you know, they think I’m automatically just dismissing them. You know, and yeah, you know, we, there’s obviously a definition of that word. That does mean, you know, you’re, you are denying something. But, but in the way we use it, it really just means that you’ve got, you have to approach a claim from the zero position. And, and you know, you, you need to just allow for any side no matter what your inclination is, you have to allow for those sides to, to present themselves and to be, you know, for that information to come in and, and, and, you know, when you have a case where. You know, especially a person who is a skeptical thinker and can really understand what happened to them, you know, in that situation. It, you know, it’s, it’s pretty interesting because you still, you know, you have to admit that I just didn’t perceive it and, and it was there.

BR: It was not magical. It was, it was nothing at a Harry Potter. It was really there. Yeah. And they didn’t, they didn’t care what they ran over me or not.

PR: Yeah. That’s exactly, you know, why it’s such a, it’s, you know, maybe a bit of a scary lesson and well, thankfully you came out of it on the other end. But, but, you know, being able to look back on it with that, it’s really good because, you know, most of us don’t get a chance to, to see our, our ingrained biases or, or our, our moments of, of confusion or moments of blindness to something. And, and, if it ever gets called out is, you know, it ends up feeling very personal.

BR: No, you know, you’re, you’re exactly right. I mean, that’s, you’re exactly right because a lot of times, you know, when part of the reason that, that we tend to be overconfident about our own perceptions or beliefs is because usually they’re not challenged, right? If we, if we misunderstand something, you know, misperceive something, unless someone else challenges, and I don’t mean challenge in, in a, like, negative way, but just says, yeah, yeah, I was there that, that didn’t happen or you know, I remember something different. Unless, unless that’s, unless that particular point is challenged or, or disputed in some way by facts or somebody else’s experience, we don’t know, we don’t think about that.

0:23:03
And so, there’s no, there’s no sort of natural, you know, counterpoint to that. Of course, and then in that case, I mean, there was no one else needs to be there. I was there. And so I, so I don’t, I don’t need someone else to say, no, dude, there was, there was a minibus there. Yeah, there was. So, yeah, so that, that’s, that makes it all the more, but no, you’re exactly right. And that’s, and I think that that’s really one of the lessons that I’ve, that I often see embraced by skeptics. And, and really one of the, one of the differences I find between skeptics and the believers is that I find the skeptics tend to, I mean, no one’s perfect. I, I, I make cognitive errors. We all do. Well, maybe not you, but across the board, I mean, we all do it. But I think one, one differences that it leads in my experience is that skeptics tend to be more cognitive of those errors. We say we’re fallible. Yeah, the, the, if you’re in room of skeptics and lay people, the skeptics of the first people say, you know what, we miss perceived things, we miss understanding, including me. This is, this is not a point of finger thing like we all do this. Yeah. And their psychology can point to that all sorts of different studies and research. And, and it’s that admission of fallibility that I think really distinguishes a critical thinker. And I’m not, you know, look at me. I’m talking. Yeah. I’m just saying that it, it really is true. And, and that’s one of the first things I see. When you, when you talk to people who, who talk about their, their, their Bigfootsighting, their ghost sighting or their UFO sighting or their, you know, their, their, their aunt who has psychic abilities. There’s like, you know, I know what I saw. I know this for a fact. And it’s like, okay, yeah. It’s like. And whereas skeptics like, well, you know, I, I don’t know exactly what I saw. And, you know, unless there’s some sort of, you know, objective, third, you know, objective, third party, you know, evidence to bounce it off of, then we may not be able to know.

PR: So Ben it’s, it’s April 1st and the episode will be out probably a week after this. But I figured we’d, you know, talk about something that is very relevant today and that’s hoaxes.

BR: Yeah, I’ve always loved hoaxes. I, find them fascinating as a topic, right? The idea that, that person A tries to fool other people and why? What, what are the motivation for techniques? Right? I mean, there’s so many things in the world that that are self evident, right? We know where a tree is. We know where a car is. But there, but there’s, there’s a whole sort of level at which we take things at face value. Yeah. And so, so I’ve always, I just, I just, I’m always fascinated whenever when I read about some new hoax, like, what were they trying to do? And, and so I, I just the idea of a hoax fascinates me. And I, I don’t really pull hoaxes myself as an investigator. It pisses me off. Yeah. When I spend a lot of time and effort, like debunking something is obviously a hoax. Yeah. Because like, yeah, dude, you wasted my time. It’s like, it’s like, there, there’s a satisfaction. There’s a satisfaction to debunking a hoax and exposing a hoax. But there’s also an irritation. Because, you know, when you’re dealing with, you know, ghost claims and Bigfoot stuff and like, there’s certainly not all the claims are hoaxes, but many of them are. Yeah. And it’s like, dude, it’s like, that’s not, that’s not funny. It’s not it. It’s like as someone who like, if you’re going to try to understand a topic, you know, it’s not, that’s not cool. Yeah. Because it’s like, you’re, you’re wasting other people’s time that could have been spent with their families with, you know, doing something important.

0:27:10

Just to debunk your super little thing. So, right. So I have this sort of love hate relationship. Where, where, when, when someone else is the victim of them, and I have to waste my time debunking it, that, that, on the other hand, again, it’s, if I can be the person that, that, that exposed a hoax that nobody else did, that’s kind of cool. But yeah, I mean, I just, the range of hoaxes, you know, there’s the, one of my favorite hoaxes was the Mary Toft case, which you, we may not know, is the woman that gave birth to rabbits.

PR: Oh, wow. I actually not familiar with that one.

BR: Or did she? Yeah. It was a woman. I don’t have the details in front of me, but there’s a woman in, in England, and she, she claimed to have given birth to rabbits, you know, as one does. And, and yeah, this is a celebrated story, and she would, she would pop out some rabbits, and, and it became a thing, right? People, doctors would go say, this is odd, you know, of course, it brings up questions of what she’s doing, you know, otherwise. But, yeah. But it was like, yeah, this whole big mystery thing, and, and, and, of course, this was a, you know, a somewhat simpler time. And, and things were a bit more modest, shall we say? Yeah. But it was eventually exposed to the hoax, and sure enough, she was hiding rabbits in various nether regions, and suddenly producing them. But, but for a while there, I mean, it was taken very seriously, like, wow, this is amazing. Come, come see the woman who’s giving birth the rabbits. Yeah. Um, there’s, there’s the, the hoax by Alan Sokol, the famous Sokal hoax, where he, he submitted gibberish to a journal called social text. And it was just, and this happened, I think I’ve forgotten the year, about 10 years ago, 15 years ago. And, it was this postmodern hoax, and he’s like, he’s like, well, you know, because a lot of postmodern, you know, jargon, and, you know, there’s, lots of postmodern stuff. And, as is really looked down upon as just being impenetrable and just weird. And he’s like, he’s like, I wonder if I could publish gibberish. And sure enough, he puts a, he was a well known academic, and he’s like, he just wrote this total gibberish thing, and, and they accepted it and said, thank you very much. And they, and they, and they, and they printed it. And the course he later said, by the way, this was gibberish. They’re like, and it was passing because they, because at first, it was just like, no, we understood it. He’s like, no, you did not understand it. It was literally gibberish. Like, there’s not, it’s like, there’s no, there’s no sense to meet from it. I was like, I know that you think it’s brilliant, but it’s, I wrote it. Yeah, there’s nothing there. And it was this really interesting sort of, you know, Emperor’s New Clothes aspect, which it was essentially exposing the, the pretensions of postmodernism and, and, and the publishing. So there’s that case. There’s, there’s, there’s, of course, the famous hoax by James Randi in which he did the, the, the, the Carlos hoax. Oh, yeah, sure. And when he took, he was a fascinating, fascinating story. You know, Randi, the many years ago, he toured Australia and he, he, he took, took a friend of his along and who pretend to be this big healer and he did these really simple magician’s tricks.

0:30:40
And, and he laid it out for anybody who wanted to fact check. I said, look, you know, here’s, you know, here’s this, here’s this healer Carlos, he does amazing things. And, and if anybody had bothered to do any research at all, they would realize, in fact, there, there’s, now granted this before the internet. Yeah. So it’s easier these days to, to both promote and, and debunk hoaxes. Yeah. But, you know, it lasted a while and he, he fooled, he fooled, you know, people in Australia and elsewhere. And so, so there, there’s just such a wide variety of them. So I, it’s cool to be able to talk about hoaxes here on April Fool’s Day, It’s just, anyway, I don’t think we’re prepared to do a whole show just on hoaxes, but it’s, it’s a fun topic and we’re going to keep coming back to. What, what are some of your favorites?

PR: Boy, there, I think one that it’s, it’s kind of a, it’s a favorite kind of begrudgingly because I remember, the Balloon Boy, I think it was 2009. It had to fall 2009. I was on tour at the time and, and we were staying in, in a house in Atlanta. And we were all eating breakfast and this, this image of a weather balloon or some type of, you know, big UFO shaped shiny disc-shaped balloon, you know, floating. It, a pretty significant altitude. And then underneath it, it was like, you know, said something about a young child being in the balloon. And it was just, I was like, you know, I mean, everything, you know, you get all those things like, my God, that’s so scary. You know, it’s, terrifying! And then, but then you also have like, not just, you know, you know, someone playing a prank in the cops show up, but this is like the FAA’s involved in the military is, you know, they’re, they’re starting to get involved and everyone’s like, you know, the news choppers trying to follow it and it’s getting too high to even film from a news chopper and, and, you know, and the thing was we had to leave at that time that, you know, we just, I wasn’t going to be able to see the resolution of it. So we take off and, you know, go to the next town and I kind of had it on my mind for a couple days. I was like, man, what happened to that poor kid and finally a couple days later, you know, I caught a news piece on it being a, being a complete fabrication by father. And, and just the feeling I got was, you know, you know, initially relief that the poor kid was not just flying and freezing to death, yeah. Yeah. So, but it was, it was so, but at the same time I was like, man, you really did it. You know, it’s the one thing to like, you know, piss off your dad or, or get the cops called on you, but it’s another thing to get like federal agencies that have to deal with how we, you know, bring down objects from the sky. And, you know, I believe they did catch a pretty good amount of legal trouble for that one. But, but that was a hoax that, you know, not to say favorite for a positive reason that I encourage it. But I, I favor it in the sense that it was just fascinating and it, you know, it really got, it just really impacted me. And I, it was a really, you know, thankfully in hindsight, a funny story.

BR: One thing I remember about that story was, was there was one element to it that was often overlooked was that there was an eyewitness to the boy climbing the balloon. And that was the kid’s brother. And, and so it was an interesting case where, where, you know, again, obviously it all turned out to be a hoax. Yeah. But there was presumably a sincere legitimate eyewitness who said he saw it.

0:34:28
And that was one of the things that gave a credibility. Yeah. It wasn’t just a dad saying it’s like, you know, they go to the brother like, yeah, he climbed in there. And, and the kid lied. Well, either the kid lied or he was mistaken. Yeah. Well, one of the two, but in either event, you had, again, that that sort of to me, the fact that there was an eyewitness that was a child. That gave this sort of a lot of credibility. Yeah. Because people like, oh, well, maybe they, maybe the parent did for attention. But the kid’s brother said he saw the kid and the kid and the balloon. And, and yeah. And then it’s just the whole thing just, you know, spinning out of control.

PR: I can imagine kind of the, you know, to be a fly on the wall in that house when that, when that slipped out of their hands, you know, just the amount of pure terror. And, you know, parents must have been, you know, like, okay, this got way away from us. Some hoaxes are not for entertainment. Some hoaxes have, you know, various goals that, you know, maybe, you know, pretty negative. And, you know, I think a lot of that is where you kind of get into some of the more, you know, the healers and the, you know, and I don’t know maybe to do those even qualifies hoaxes. And that’s kind of a gray area.

 

BR: Yeah. Well, that’s what makes you think interesting things about hoaxes is that it easily bleeds over into, you know, fakes and frauds and hoaxes and intent to deceive. And, and yeah, I mean, so certainly it can be, it can be something a hoax doesn’t necessarily have to start out as a hoax. It could be just be sort of a lie that sort of snowballs. And you see this over and over again where, where, you know, someone will, will say something that is inherently innocuous. It’s not that big a deal. It’s, you know, whatever I fudge, whatever else. But then it’s sort of, it builds on itself. And all of a sudden you have to tell lies to cover other lies. And then all of a sudden it turns this big thing. And I mean, the case that jumps to my mind was the runway bride case. Oh, yeah. Sure. The Jennifer Wilbanks case. And I follow that one from start to finish. And I was just fascinated by that. This is so interesting. And it happened while I was living in Buffalo at the time.

0:36:45
And, I’m sure many people remember the case, but the rough outline was this, the woman named Jennifer Wilbanks was supposed to get married. And of course, they later turned, it was later a Richard gear, Julie Roberts film. They turned the premise into that. But anyway, she, she was going to marry this guy and she just vanished, just disappeared. And no one knew where she was. Everyone was freaking out. Thought maybe she’d been abducted or worse. And she ended up here in Albuquerque, in fact, at a gas station in Albuquerque. And she said that she’d been abducted by a man and woman, actually in a van. And there’s a whole story. And it was in that case of where again, it wasn’t, she didn’t, you know, it spun out of control. I’m sure that when this whole thing began, she didn’t think, oh, this is going to end with me in Albuquerque telling the story. It was just sort of like, why are you, oh, we’ve been looking for you for, you know, a week, where are you like, oh, yeah, I was abducted by a man or woman in a van. And so it just sort of spun these things out. And so, but it was just fascinating to sort of see, you know, how, how people react to it. Because you go from being the victim to being the bad guy. And in the public’s minds, oh my god this poor, this poor woman. Oh, my God. What’s happened to her? You’re suspecting the worst. You know, this beautiful bride. And then when she’s recovered, there’s this huge relief. But then the question started coming up. Well, hold on here. Your credit card was used. And, you know, there’s, and people start piecing it together. And that’s one thing I find fascinating is the unraveling of it. Yeah. But in the case here, it’s interesting that she was actually treated very well. She was given teddy bears by the police department. She was protected and, you know, very, very coddled, if you will. Even after they found out that she lied, I mean, it was entirely made up manufactured. And it’s, anyway, it’s always fascinating to sort of see the reaction, even when these things are exposed.

0:38:56
Oftentimes, it’s very sympathetic. Like, oh, well, you know, yeah, it was a hoax. But, you know, there’s underlying problems or whatever else. And there’s a little sort of excuse. Anyway, it was just fascinating. And one sort of darker element of that one was that, and I don’t want to take, take this into dark area. But there was another case of where a white lady was blaming a minority. And that happens over and over again. In fact, I wrote about that recently where, unfortunately, a lot of times, you know, who is that gets accused of these, these hoax abductions and assaults? Yeah. It’s the minority. It’s the blacks, the Hispanics, whoever else. And it’s just, it’s a shame. But, you know, you go back to the Susan Smith case, the woman that drowned her children in the lake. Who is she blame? Blame the black guy. Yeah. And so, so there really is a darker side of this. And, you know, we can all sort of, you know, be relieved that some of these things turned out okay. But, you know, it’s there, there really is danger and harm that are that are done by some of these. Yeah, I agree. I think that, you know, there are quite a few, you know, situations where, you know, in the short term, it doesn’t seem like it would do much. But then you look at kind of the, the influence it has on things at large and it becomes a problem, I think that sort of does play a lot into something that we see nowadays, you know, which is, which is satire and especially satire news and fake news and not to use. Not to call outfake news, not the air quote fake news, but, you know, when you had the satire, you know, and it was interesting and that’s a, that one actually, I think really plays well into the idea of a hoax because on one hand, you have like publications like The Onion where sure there are a few kind of dense people who might take it at face value and somehow believe, you know, maybe because they don’t read the article. But, but for the most part, like we’re all kind of, you know, if I see something from the onion and usually the headlines so silly, you know, you pick it up right away, but, you know, that I’ve noticed, you know, especially in the last couple of years, more and more, these, these fake news sites aren’t trying to be funny. And, you know, some of them were just literally publishing complete fabrications that have no like, there’s no satire, you know, it’s, it’s very dry and it just tells the story and the, you know, comments like, you know, half of them are just people taking it at face value and the other half of people being like, who are these people, you know, posting this information where to like get it from and, and I kind of think I can lump that a little bit into hoaxes because it seems like there’s a person with it that very obviously is deciding to mislead people.

BR: Yeah, it’s not, it’s not something that was was written with good intentions. It was, it was written for the express intent to mislead. Yeah. And often for a political purpose or a political day. And yeah, I mean, that’s, that’s, you know, that’s, that’s, you know, it’s, that can be dangerous. I mean, you know, I think back to the case that happened not too long ago with the pizza gate case.

0:42:30
Right where there were these rumors going around that, that there was a pizza parlor in Washington DC, the Hillary Clinton was somehow involved in, there was involved in sex trafficking and else. And, and, you know, that sort of that story got shared widely, particularly among conservatives, but don’t swear. Yeah. And, you know, it actually led a guy to go in there armed, trying to rescue the children. Yeah. And I think that that’s really one of the lessons in terms of skepticism and critical thinking is that people need to remember that that there’s an altruism there. Everybody wants to protect kids. There’s nobody that doesn’t want to protect kids like we’re all for that. That’s not the question. The question is, is this real? Is this a genuine threat? And, you know, good intentions aren’t enough. You have to check your facts. And so, and, and I think that’s one of the big problems that I see in terms of hoaxing and fake news, particularly on social media, is you have, you have people who like and share stories. Oftentimes, which they haven’t read, they’ve literally not read it.

0:43:35
They’ve seen, they’ve seen, they’ve seen a couple of words that they’re fit their preconceived biases. Yeah. And they hit like and share and it goes everywhere. And so, sometimes they literally have not read. They don’t know what the content is, so they can’t be personally endorsing it. But, but what often happens, of course, is that is that we assume, and often the news media assume, that liking or sharing doesn’t, doesn’t in factapply endorsement. And it doesn’t necessarily. Yeah. And they’ve done research and studies for, you know, like I’ve forgotten that, that the statistics is confirming. But, you know, a lot of times, again, people share and like stuff, they, they, they have no idea what it’s, they, they, they get the gist. They, they, they know, they know that it came from somebody and was shared by somebody who they, they like.

0:44:23
Who have a similar ideology, you know, literal concern, what have you. But, they’re not personally vouching for it. And, you know, and of course, Trump has done the same thing. I mean, not, not to get political, but he’s, he’s done the same thing where he was, he was, you know, on the podium, citing news stories. And then, when called on said, well, look, that wasn’t true. Like, well, I’m just, I’m just, I’m just, I’m just, I’m not endorsing it. I’m just saying these are like, well, I’m the President! And it’s like, well, you have what people do, right?

PR: Yeah. So, and I mean, you’re, you’re repeating it. So whether or not you want to say you’re endorsing it, you know, it’s, it’s out there now. And it came from your mouth.

BR: Right. And, and so, you know, the, the case of where, anyway, I mean, I’m just pointing out that, that oftentimes, I think that, that dubious stories get a pass. Because, because we feel, we feel like we’re doing something good. Right? Oh, here’s the, here’s this outrage, right? Right? There’s this, here’s this video of this guy, you know, getting kicked off a Delta flight because he’s saying something in Arabic, you know, aren’t we outraged about this is now? Share like tell everybody boycott Delta. And then of course, it turns out, then fact, that what that wasn’t true. It was other people on the planes that it was all, it was all viral video hooks.

0:45:35
And, you know, it’s one thing to complain to the news media and social media are sharing fake news and bogus stories. But, at the end of the day, you have the power. Right? It’s, it’s, we’ve all become sort of microcosms of the news media. Yeah. And so, instead of bitching about how well, you know, they’re, they’re putting out this fake news and they’re saying this, they’re saying, yeah, but you’re sharing it. Yeah. You, you know, you individually, I’m shaking my finger at you, Pascual but you know what I mean? You know, it’s like people, I don’t know, it just, it annoys me when, when people sort of abdicate the responsibility for sharing this stuff. And it’s like, you know, okay, fine, blame, blame Breitbart News, blame, CNN, that’s fine. But then the day, if you’re liking and sharing stuff on, on, on, in your circle, you’re the problem. You are the problem because you are sharing it. So, so instead of bitching about it, think before you share it. Okay, I’ll come down. Sorry.

PR: I didn’t think we get so intense so fast.

BR: Sorry about that.

PR: Episode one, it only gets crazier from here.

BR: That’s right. Buckle in folks, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

PR: But yeah, yeah, that’s absolutely true. And, and, you know, the, the social media is an interesting place that I think, you know, has brought a lot of good into the world in the sense of, you know, the exchange of ideas and information is, is easier and freer than ever.

0:47:06
And, you know being able to keep people in your lives more easily and know what they’re doing and be able to share that stuff with them. I think that’s a positive thing about it. But, you know, there is, you have to, you know, there, there are the negatives that come with the positives, which is, you know, misinformation gets spread or misunderstandings. I mean, that, you know, I, this, if, again, not to get too political, but if nothing is, has, has really shined a light on how bad misunderstandings have gotten, you know, it’s been the last year or two. In how, you know, people just can’t even stay affiliated with each other. You know, people who otherwise be perfectly fine friends out in the real world, you know, person person, but because the filter is off, you know, they, they just can’t be in each other’s lives, because of disagreements and I’m not saying that’s necessarily the right or wrong thing. I mean, there are probably plenty of situations where it’s probably better not to have certain people in your life. But, but it’s interesting. But, you know, and I think that’s, that’s a little bit of the dark side that comes with social medias that, you know, you have to, you have a lot of information, not necessarily true information.

BR: Right. Yeah. And you’re, and you’re curating your information and that’s, that’s one of the problems that you see is, is, you know, people, people self select not only the news media that they, that they watch, you know, Fox News, MSNBC, whatever else. And of course, the, the, the corollary of that is that is that they ignore news media that doesn’t fit their preconceived bias.

0:48:44
And, and so, and then the same thing happens when, when people start, you know, blocking and defriending people on social media on Twitter, Instagram and, and Facebook, et cetera, is that you tend to sort of create this echo chamber. Where, you know, pretty soon, the only people that you’re talking to, people who are just echoing back your opinions beliefs, and so I think that’s one of the, the dangers of it. And I’m proud and happy to have a wide variety of friends in real life and on social media, who I often disagree with. I, I enjoy that. I, I’m not threatened by that. I like having diversity in opinions and diversity in people. And I, I think that’s valuable. And, and so I, I have rarely, if ever, blocked anybody or defriended somebody based on something that they, some disagreement. I mean, if it’s, if they’re being obnoxious or harassing, that’s one thing. But if they’re just, if they’re just, if there’s merely disagreeing with me, that’s great.  Let’s talk about this. I, I enjoy that.

PR: No, I think that’s important. And I think, you know, and, and I’m, you know, I certainly wouldn’t tell someone how to experience the internet, you know, and how to experience their social network. And I can definitely see, you know, if, I think I tend to be a little more selective in keeping my friend list, you know, kind of trimmed down to more like-minded people than not. And it’s not because I don’t want to hear the other side of the argument. It’s because the way I use social media tends to be, you know, less for the, I, I don’t really care to talk about that stuff with people who disagree with me that much.

0:50:26
I’d rather engage them in a more impartial area, like a message board or a comment section on an article or something, which if you, that is a black hole that I do not condone, but if you have the stomach for it, just jump in there. But yeah, just jump in and see who you can, you know, piss off. It’s really easy. But, yeah, so- but I think that, you know, but the, at the core of everything you’re experiencing at large in the world with other people, you always should be welcoming to your ideas being challenged and to exchanging differences of opinion, because, you know, you can’t be right 100% of the time, even though I know we all think we are. But, you know, it’s, it’s, you know, whether or not, you know, you, and you may be right and you probably are on a lot of things, but you need that challenge anyway to make sure you’re right.

BR: Absolutely. And if you, if you cultivate your, your, the people that interact with to only be people who are like minded, then all you’re going to hear are yes men. And, you know, and then it’s no wonder you have this sort of, you know, self-fulfilling prophecy and sort of self-reinforcing belief system.

PR: Yep. And then that’s why hoaxes continue to deceive people because they surround yourself with people who don’t challenge those. And, and again, Randi’s, you know, Carlos was probably the most brilliant example of that because it was so, so perfectly… You know, the way it was presented and the way the media got involved and the way people were, were so, you know, swayed by it. It was like, just, it showed that, you know, if there weren’t enough people challenging these ideas or at least challenging it head on, they probably were people who are like, that’s a bunch of crap, but they go into it and challenge it.

0:52:30
Of course, in the day and age without the internet, we didn’t, I mean, I, you know, I think people, I’m just, I’m old enough to have started high school before there was the World Wide Web. And, you know, the internet existed, but it was a, you know, it was BBSs and these… in these school networks and brands that just only existed on text and, you know, but, when we were kids, like, you know, you were saying about the books and stuff about Loch Ness and Bigfoot. I mean, that’s like, I took in my information that way. I went to the library. I very distinctly remember those, that series of books with the, you know, they’re kind of thin and hardcover and they were full of pictures. And, and if you really broke the text down, it was like two pages of text and just lots and lots of pictures. And, you know, and I, and it was that and it was I’ve watched, you know, In Search Of andUnsolved Mysteries, you know, shows that would touch in on these topics. And, and it was really hard to, there wasn’t a great source for skepticism, you know, at all. I mean, I, I think the only people that really did anything in, at least in my experience, in my childhood. You know, where people like Mr. Wizard or even Mr. Rogers, you know, people who kind of like tried to instill, like, you know, just think for yourself. Like, think, think, you know, take, take in information and weigh it. Don’t just, you know, and for various reasons, Mr. Wizard obviously was just a science guy. And he was like, you know, this stuff, you know, this works because of this. And so you know, you always had a path to, to an explanation with that. And, you know, with people in Mr. Rogers, it was like, you need to be yourself. And you need to think for yourself. And I think those, but that’s about the extent of critical thinking in raising kids and in popular culture. I mean, what did we have other than that? I don’t know. You know, mystery shows and Murder, She Wrote.

BR: Yeah. I mean, not, not not much. I mean, you make a good point. I mean, I remember when I was in my teen years and, you know, buying all these books and mystery, you know, magazines and books and stuff it was, that was really, you know, I was really into it for several years. But I sort of, I got disillusioned because I would buy these books. And, you know, I was really, there’s no, there’s no investigation. Yeah. It’s just sort of like, they say stories. It’s like, you know, well, it is said that, you know, London Dungeon in 1782 four young men were found half eaten. And who said that? Hold on here. Yes. Like, you know, come on, Mr. I mean, you know, you flip through the book. She’s like, but as a teen, I’m like, well, that’s a published author. That’s a person’s name is printed. That’s that means they can’t be wrong. This is like paper. It’s a book. How can a book be wrong? And so, and so that was one of this, you know, you know, talking about hoaxes was that was one of the things that that sort of disillusioned me about some of those books and magazines and TV shows was that there was no real effort to weed out the hoaxes. And, you know, I mean, some of the, some of the stories were maybe dubious. Some of them were maybe, you know, maybe true, and some were clearly bullshit. And I’m like, well, hold on here. Like this isn’t your, you’re, you know, I’m, you know, yelling at the book. You know, like, oh, what’s Ben doing, he’s yelling at books again. Okay.

0:56:14
But I’m like, look man, you want me to take you seriously as an author. And yet you’re giving me 12 chapters of worldwide mysteries it’s clear that you haven’t personally investigated any of them. And furthermore, anybody with more than two brain cells to rub together can tell that at least a couple of these are completely wrong. And you’re lumping the altogether and so I would have much more respect for the author if he said, you know what? I’ve looked into this, this is my best guess, I think these are right, they’re wrong, but there was none of that. Until I saw the work by James Randi and Massimo Polidoro and others like that. And so that was really what inspired me. Like wow, people can actually use science and use critical thinking to come to these things. So that’s what I try to do in my books is bring science to it and say look, this is my research.

0:57:09
This is what I’ve done. These are my references. If you think I’m wrong, check for yourself. And again, if I’m wrong, then great, what do you got? Right? And I’ve said this over and over again, if someone challenges a book chapter I did or some investigation, if they think I’m wrong, that’s fine. Show me where I’m wrong. I’ll be happy. I’ll be, I’ll thank you. I will fix it in my next edition. I want people to see the work that I do and say, wow, there’s credibility to it. I may not always be right, but I make an effort and I show my work instead of just sort of like, well, it is a bad story because anybody can do that. So that’s really what I try to do is have some credibility for the reader to say, look, you know, I think this is a hoax and I think this is true and this is why.

0:57:59
And if someone else has better information, great.

PR: Yeah, I definitely appreciate that. And I feel like, you know, well, and I think my experience is not uncommon in that, you know, I was kind of late to skepticism and debunking hoaxes. Maybe partially because I never was, you know, I grew up pretty, you know, with a pretty good dose of critical thinking. And I had my doubts pretty early on with things like Loch Ness and Bigfoot. But so I think, you know, part of that was that I just didn’t, I wasn’t being challenged much anyway. But, you know, it took a while and I feel like, you know, a lot of it was, you know, pop culture needed to start wedging that in a little bit and it started showing up a little more and you’d see more, you know, skeptics being interviewed in, you know, obviously, very biased shows, but at least there’s like, you know, also, who’s this Michael Shermer guy?

0:59:09
And I remember, you know, it was kind of, it was like that, I think that’s kind of the biggest problem is that the visibility just wasn’t there for so long and there was hardly ever a voice to challenge this stuff. And it became such a tough thing to crack and a very difficult world to sort of like expose, you know, it was just very insulated, and again, it was like, I mean, and, you know, shows like Unsolved Mysteries, for example, you know, because that show wasn’t really just a, you know, it was really very, only very occasionally they did these big like ghost mystery episodes, which I always loved. But most of the time it was like, you know, unsolved crimes and so there was a lot of credibility to the show because a lot of what it was doing was like, here’s this crime that happened and here’s Robert Stax, you know, very stoic, gravely voice in the trench coat. It’s very authoritative. Obviously, he knows what he’s talking about.

1:00:09
And so, you know, it was like they had the runway of credible, you know, information and then they just do ghost episodes or, you know, the Taos Hum, which is something I’m sure we’ll talk about at some point or these very paranormal and unidentifiable mysteries and, but they never cast even, it’s really a shred of skepticism on it. They were just like, you know, nobody knows. You know, it’s like, well, but nobody’s questioning it. And, you know, so I feel like, you know, the last probably 18 or so years have been kind of the renaissance for that. And now you have very high profile skeptics and, you know, people like, I think, you know, Penn and Teller and then, you know, people who…

BR: Mythbusters.

PR: You know, probably my favorite guys in that world just because I think they are the most, they kind of, to me, are kind of the perfect example of how you should present it in a manner that doesn’t, you know, come from a, you know, denialist kind of, you know, as much as I love Penn and Teller, you know, they, they, and, you know, Penn Jillette wouldbe the first person to say, I have a bias, you know, and, you know, and he, you know it’s right there.

1:01:26
Yeah. And, you know, so, you know, to his credit, he wears it on his sleeve. But, you know, that, that tends to be more of the preaching to the choir kind of stuff when, when you’re going to do that. And I think Mythbusters did a fantastic job of just really appealing to the masses while still applying a lot of critical thinking and science to everything they did. And they were smart to never dig too deep into the super controversial stuff. They just would test claims, you know, and, and especially because they have so much crossover into the, the era of the viral video, it was just, it stayed so relevant. And, and I really enjoy the work that they did, you know, kind of creating pop skepticism

BR: And, well, we’re at it. I mean, South Park, you know, Matt and Trey. I mean, that’s, you know, the, you look at, you know, the famous, the Biggest Douche in the Universe.

1:02:17
Yeah. I mean, episodes, I mean, just, you know, a good sort of undercover stealth skepticism with a skeptical message is just, you know, if you’re not expecting it, I have talked to people who, who, you know, their, their entry into understanding, you know, some of the techniques that psychic conventions use was that show.

PR: Yeah. I think a job of, of, of exposing, you know, that, thinking like that, and, you know, and, I mean, they’ve touched on, on, uh, Scientology and Mormonism, you know, did some pretty, some pretty severe attacks on them and, and, uh, which, you know, is their style. So, you know, for better or worse, but I mean, they did a great job of, of, you know, taking the literal facts, well, the literal texts of these religions and putting them on camera and, you know, and making them as absurd as possible.

1:03:17
And, you know, and, and a lot of people didn’t know that about Mormonism. They didn’t know that about Scientology. They believe in, you know, the ancient space aliens in, in, in modern looking aircraft and, and dropping souls into volcanoes and, you know, and, and a guy that looked at stones and, you know, translated something and when it got thrown away, he just did a whole other translation because God was mad. You know.And, uh, you know, so yeah, I think they did, that’s definitely true. Like, you know, they’ve been able to inject it into pop culture almost even when it’s really blatant like that in a way that people don’t realize as being as, as, uh, critical and, and as straightforwardin terms of breaking it down. I mean, they make fun of things and so there is again a bias, but, but, uh, they do a pretty great job of, uh, you know, tearing those, those subjects apart and looking, casting a critical eye without, you know, and it, you can’t call them out.

1:04:15
Like, uh, not on that sort of stuff, yeah.

BR: Well, and, and the same as the Simpsons. I mean, Simpsons has done some, there’s, although, you know, uh, as I recall, they have, they’ve never tackled Scientology. I mean, because I think Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart Simpson, is a Scientologist. I believe that’s right. But, uh, but, uh, other than that, they’ve done some pretty good, uh, with skeptical stuff with Lisa. So that’s cool.

1:04:44
PR: That’s absolutely true. And they’ve done a lot of, uh, there’s been a long standing, um, kind of just thread of, of comedy with, with the church and the, the Simpsons family, I think has been always brilliant with Homers like constant dismissal of, of religion and then pleading to God when things go bad. And, you know, just like, you know, it’s, it’s just really funny. And, uh, you know, definitely one of the more, um, you know, positive, like, you know, they, that, that shows written in a way that it’s not trying to, like, hurt anyone. It’s just trying to,

BR: And even Ned Flanders is so gosh-drawn great.

PR: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And, you know, it’s just like, we’re all familiar with that trope.

1:05:33
And, but at the same time, like, they treat him with a certain respect that, you know, it takes a lot of talent to, to be able to make fun of someone that much and still love them, you know.

PR: Yeah. So, you’re involved with the committee for skeptical inquiry, a division of Center For Inquiry, right? Yes. Okay. And, uh, and, of course, these are, these are our sponsors or CFI is our sponsor. And, uh, you know, I’d like to get an idea of how you got involved with them and what kind of brought you to, you know, really where we are right now, you know.

 

1:06:22
BR: Sure. It is a, it is a strange organization. And I mean that in, in so far as it’s, uh, it’s an odd duck, you know, it’s a skeptical organization, of course, the Center for Inquiry is broader. It’s a nonprofit education organization, which was founded in 1976 by, uh, philosopher Paul Kurtz, of the University of Buffalo and others as well. Isaac Asimov, Carl Sagan, uh, James Randi, the amazing Randi, uh, debunker skeptic and amazing, amazing, amazing man. Amazing man all around. Uh, and many others as well. And so it’s, it’s been, you know, going strong for, you know, 40 years now and, you know, I am the deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer Science Magazine and have been contributing for there for, you know, 17 years now.

1:07:20
So been there for a long time. I’ve spent probably most of my adult life there. And, uh, and yeah, we do, it’s an interesting organization that I, I’m one on the skeptical side of things. There is also another side, which is the secular humanist side. So it’s the Council of Secular Humanism. The more deal with church, the separation, atheism, humanism, all that. That’s all well and good. I, I support all that stuff. That’s fine. That’s just not what I do.

1:07:50
So yeah, I mean, my, my journey to it, um, sort of began in, um, in college, uh, you know, I talked a little bit about, um, I shouldn’t say I talked about because I don’t know if we’regoing to cut it. Um, you know, I, I had sort of moments of, or, you know, glimpses of skepticism in my, in my, in my youth. Um, but it didn’t really, uh, coagulate or crystallize until I was in college. And I had, I was going to the University of New Mexico, uh, and, uh, I was in the general honors program. And the honors program, uh, was a, a sort of separate track that you could go to when it was, it was focused on, on seminars. And so you had eight or 12, maybe 15 people in a room, this big round table and just lots of critical thinking. I loved it.

1:08:42
I learned more in the, in my honors program than I did, basically all through the rest of college. It was just, you know, the teacher came in and we had different ideas and, you know, challenging people’s beliefs. And it was, you know, just different perspectives, diversity was, it was great. I just, I just loved it. And, uh, and one of the, uh, one of the seminars I took was called managing technology. And, uh, we examined technology through various prisms in terms of what, what it’s done for society, both good and bad, et cetera. Anyway I ended up writing an essay called, Perilous Perceptions: Human Fallibility in Technological Endeavor and it basically examined the Chernobyl and the Challenger accidents. And, uh, the, the ways in which those accidents came about, right, what, what were the, what were the steps that, you know, where did it, where did each one go wrong? Uh, cause these are both, you know, very high profile, global, catastrophes, and, you know, Chernobyl and Challenger, I mean, those, those are the big to the assters of the 80s.

1:09:56
Yeah. Uh, and it was really interesting looking at each one. So we, we examined, uh, the, the lead up to the Chernobyl accident and the, the, the steps that they took and people actually turned off many safety features like, oh, shut that off. We don’t need that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just up in that light, just you, you, you go, you go back and you look at this like, you just, you’re just astonished that, that people were just turning these things off in order to test this turbine. And then, uh, similar thing happened with the, the Challenger accident. Uh, you had engineers at Morton Thiokol who were, who were doing these, these tests on, of course, in the Chernobyl, in, in, in Challenger, I mean, there’s so many moving parts.

1:10:34
I mean, it’s a space hub. Yeah. It’s like, lots of moving parts here. And in this case, uh, the, the, the thing that failed was, was a, um, was an O-ring and there was, there was blow-by and it was a, it was a certain temperature at which the, the O-ring would seal. And a certain temperature at which it would not. And, uh, the, the physicist Richard Feynman was on, was actually on the, on the committee to investigate what went wrong with it. And it was fascinating reading his stuff. Anyway. So I, I, I written this, this essay, the, you know, comparing the, the, the two accidents and what led up to them.

1:11:08
And I ended up, uh, winning, uh, and, and a prize for that essay. And the prize was to go to a town, uh, called Provo, Utah. Which is, you know, no offense to Provo, Utah. That was not what I was. That was a, and this is, this is, this is my prize. Welcome to Provo, Utah. So I’m like, all right. So anyway, apparently Provo was where we were, uh, that’s where, that’s where we were going to go present our, our papers. Uh-huh. So, uh, me and, I think, five or six other people from UNM, University of New Mexico, uh, we all went to Provo. Uh, and we were there, like two nights or something.

1:11:50
And along with you was the, the poetry winner. There were other people who had, who had won different things. Anyway. So, uh, as we’re wandering around, we, we land and we’re like, I need a beer. Because, you know, who doesn’t, right? So we’re walking around and we, we, we hadn’t realized this is, this is dry county. There’s no, alcohol. Did not think that through. Right. So, and apparently no one else did either. So we’re, we’re wandering around, uh, the college campus, uh, and, and, and the environs looking for, looking for a beer and not finding anything at all. Uh, later realizing, of course, you know, our, our, our, our problem. But, uh, in the process of that, we came across a, a, a used bookstore.

1:12:33
And, uh, we went in there and there’s all sorts of, uh, all sorts of, you know, interesting books on, you know, how to live in your basement for many years, uh, canning. Um, this is Utah, right? So there’s, so I, again, I was in an odd situation like, The books on Mormonism and, uh, Latter-day Saints and just things that I would not have expected to see there. Uh-huh. And among those was a back issue of Skeptical Inquire magazine. Um, yeah. I would live in your basement. Yeah. The, the, you know, the, the, the book of Mormon. And by the way, here’s a back issue of Skeptical Inquirer. And it was, uh, I remember very clearly, in fact, I have it.

1:13:16
It’s, it’s, it’s autographed by James Randi. Uh, and it, it’s, uh, it’s a, uh, uh, purple cover and it was, uh, Randi’s take on, um, on Nostradamus. Oh, okay. And I see him and I was like, was this isn’t, and I’d never, I’d, of course, heard of Nostradamus and I’d seen shows, but I’d never… I open it up. You know, at this time, it was a small format. It was like, you held it in your hand or like a little small, maybe four inches by eight or something. And I flipped through it and it was this just really astonishingly thorough, amazingly thorough, uh, debunking of Nostradamus. I had never seen that before in my life. Here I am, I’m 20 something and I was just like, wow, this, this guy has, is like really sticking it to Nostradamus. You know, this, he’s not like, oh, this amazing series.

1:14:04
Like, okay, you know, well, in fact, you know, here’s, here’s a, you know, I’m, uh, here’s the, the early translations of the Quatrains and here’s how ambiguous they are and here’s the old, the old archaic version of French that is, so it all laid it out perfectly and like, wow, this is amazing. I’ve never, I’ve never seen this before. So I bought the back issue ofSkeptical Inquirer magazine, took it with you back home. And the, the cover articles written by James Randi, uh, who I later came to befriend as a colleague in, of mine, I’m pleased to know. Um, and I went back to my, my, what came back to New Mexico and I showed it to my dad. He said, yeah, I think the editor of that magazine lives here here in Albuquerque. Wow. Like, okay, I did not know that, but sure enough, I, I look in the inside cover and there’s Ken Frazier and he’s, he is in fact here in Albuquerque and like, what a coincidence. So I later subscribed to the magazine. I’m like, well, I’d never heard this magazine.

1:15:02
This is, and I was like, wow, this is so cool. Like, you know, every, every two months, I would get this magazine and it has all this really skeptical stuff and a whole different perspective. I’d never heard, right? I’d seen all this stuff on, you know, Bigfoot and Loch Ness monster UFOs and Bermuda Triangle and all sorts of weird things. But I had never seen the other side of it. I’m like, oh, this, this exists. This is a thing. This is cool. So, uh, so I, I was like, I became a avid reader and a subscriber to it and I contacted um, I ended up contacting Ken Frazier, the editor and I said, hey, my name’s Ben Radford. I like your magazine sir. Can I write for it?

And he wrote back, he said, yeah, you know, we have this, this news and comment section where you’ll see a small thing like, oh my god, he wrote back. I was like, this is socool. So I, I wrote a piece, uh, I wrote a couple short articles. In fact, I think one of the first ones I wrote was on, on gender-based beliefs. Like, you know, like men, for example, more likely to believe in bigfoot and women more likely to believe in psychic powers. Oh, yeah, it’s really interesting. Yeah. So anyway, long story short, I ended up, um, ended up subscribing, writing for the magazine and then one day I got a call from Ken Frazier asking me if I’d be willing to move to Buffalo where the CFI is based to be the, uh, the manager and I was like, oh, I guess, sure. So, so that’s sort of what happened. So I moved to Buffalo and I started on the magazine and, um, doing editing and that sort of thing.

1:16:39
And then eventually I got to know Joe Nickell who was the senior research fellow there and thought he was doing some really amazing investigations into crop circles and all manner of weirdness and, and I was, you know, he could tell I had an aptitude for it and I was, I was, I was willing to stick with it. I was like, oh, that’s really cool. There’s some shiny thing over there. I was like, no, this is, you know, I genuinely want to learn these things. And, you know, so I, I learned from him and others as well and, and Randi and Alcock and Jim Alcock and many others. And so I, I just sort of ended up being one of their investigators there and here I’ve been there for 18 years now or something. And it’s, I’ve become sort of by default one of the top skeptical investigators in the world. Um, for a good or ill, you know, it’s, I’m not bragging. It’s just, it’s a small pool.

1:17:33
Yeah. And so, you know, it’s, it’s not that I’m so brilliant. It’s just that, yeah, I’ve been doing it for this long and I ended up, you know, doing investigations and solving some high profile mysteries and, uh, and here I am.

BR: All right. Thanks for listening to squaring the strange and we hope it will be back next time and thanks to the Center for Inquiry for their support.

PR: Be sure to find us on Facebook at squaring the strange and also on Twitter, same at squaring the strange. Follow us and our, various shenanigans and, uh, keep up with us and you will find all of our, uh, back episodes that way once we have them. So from, uh, strange studios, this is Pascual Romero, bidding you a fond farewell.

BR: And this is Ben Radford, Goodbye.

PR: See you next time.