Exposing PseudoAstronomy
175 episodes - English - Latest episode: almost 6 years ago - ★★★★★ - 186 ratingsListen to learn the real state of science behind astronomy-, physics-, and geology-related creationist claims, hoaxes, conspiracy theories, misconceptions, and bad or incomplete media reporting.
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Episodes
Episode 170 - Interlude, and Another Podcast Endeavor
July 14, 2018 12:00 - 41 minutes - 30.9 MBAfter being gone for a bit of time, I return to discuss where I have been, what to expect for the future (when more episodes will air), and if you need your fix of Dr. Stu, there is a new podcast that I have released with two of the co-hosts of The Reality Check podcast, entitled: 5 Minutes with an Astronomer. In this episode, I play four of the twenty-eight shows we have released so far.
Episode 169 - Modern Eclipse Lunacy, Part 3: Richard Hoagland's Claims
December 22, 2017 12:00 - 49 minutes - 40 MBIn the final regular episode in the three-part Solar Eclipse of August 2017 series, several of the claims made by Richard Hoagland are addressed. Three types of claims are examined: Whether shadow bands indicate there are glass structures on the Moon, whether the Accutron watch readings indicate there is a hyperdimensional physics, and alleged disinformation.
Episode 168 - Common (and False) Fine-Tuned Universe Beliefs, Discussed
November 27, 2017 12:00 - 21 minutes - 20.7 MBAn exploration into four groups of fine-tuning arguments used by some to say that we are special: Solar outbursts, habitable zone, lunar origin and effects, and giant planets and impacts on Earth.
Episode 167 - Modern Eclipse Lunacy, Part 2: Flat Earth
November 14, 2017 12:00 - 30 minutes - 28.3 MBThe August 2017 total solar eclipse was seen by hundreds of millions of people, and yet some of them have tried to use it to promulgate pseudoscience. In this Part 2 episode, I discuss ideas about the eclipse promoted by proponents of the idea that Earth is flat.
Episode 166 - Stellar Evolution, Age of the Universe, and Young-Earth Creationism
October 18, 2017 12:00 - 24 minutes - 24.2 MBThe half-truth and misconception addressed in this episode is whether the age of a star with error bars that overlap with the age of the universe means all of science is wrong and the universe was created 6000 years ago.
Episode 165 - Little Things in Space
October 01, 2017 12:00 - 30 minutes - 29.6 MBThree separate topics all tied together by a commonality: A little bit of something that you tend to only experience in space. First up is microgravity, then near-vacuum, and then what it means to have a temperature in space.
Episode 164 - The World Didn't End on September 23, 2017
September 24, 2017 12:00 - 11 minutes - 11.7 MBThe world did not end, again, on September 23, 2017. However, the story behind this latest doomsday prognostication may surprise you -- it did me as I investigated it.
Episode 163 - Modern Eclipse Lunacy, Part 1
September 01, 2017 12:00 - 42 minutes - 39.5 MBThis past eclipse on August 21, 2017, was perhaps one of the most-hyped and most-viewed solar eclipses in human history. As with any such mass-sighted event, pseudoscience is bound to rear its ugly head. In this episode, I address doom and gloom, earthquake predictions, astrologic predictions, Planet X predictions, and other topics related to the eclipse.
Episode 162 - Geocentrism, Take 2
April 16, 2017 12:00 - 33 minutes - 32.8 MBYoung-Earth creationists who are not geocentrists - those who accept the Copernican Revolution so far as Earth's place in the universe - have a vested interest in combatting some forms of pseudoscience, including geocentrism. In this episode, I lay out some of their more convincing arguments against geocentrism and point out that their methods of argument are very similar to scientists, which leads one to wonder about hoe much cognitive dissonance one mind can hold.
Episode 161 - Water on Earth— Coriolis and Tides
April 01, 2017 12:00 - 33 minutes - 32.1 MBInspired by one of the longest-running primetime television shows in history, and frustration with late-night radio hosts pretending they can Science, this episode addresses two common misconceptions about the forces from and on water on our planet and their effects on human scales. I first discuss whether Coriols makes toilet bowls swirl in opposite directions in opposite hemispheres, and then whether the moon's tides are strong enough to affect the water in your body.
Episode 160 - Apollo Hoax: The US Flag Waving, and the Moon of No Return
March 16, 2017 12:00 - 18 minutes - 12.8 MBA return to a tried-and-true subject of skepticism: the Apollo Moon Hoax. In this shorter episode, I discuss two of the most common claims that you may hear: Why does the US flag appear to be waving in photographs, and if we went to the moon, why haven't we been back?
Episode 159 - A Proposal for the Geologic Definition of Planet, Interview with Kirby Runyon
March 01, 2017 12:00 - 51 minutes - 30.7 MBIn 2006, the International Astronomical Union sparked an uproar and furious debate among scientists and non-scientists alike when they voted for a definition of the word, planet. Numerous proposals since that time have been made for the definition of that term. Eleven years later, a new proposal has gotten a lot of media attention and in this episode, we discuss that new proposed definition. This is closer to a friendly debate style because the host of this podcast and the guest have differen...
Episode 158 - Getting Beyond the Photograph: Image Tricks with Dr. Tod Lauer
February 16, 2017 12:00 - 1 hour - 60.8 MBIn past episodes, I have talked about how you can't get any more information out of an image than what is in a single pixel. Dr. Tod Lauer is an astronomer who has worked on all kinds of telscopes and instrument data and has developed numerous image processing techniques over his career. In this episode, we discuss some of those and how to correctly - versus incorrectly - apply them to image data to get to the best representation of the original object, or what the image was trying to capture.
Episode 157 - Special Cross-Over Episode with The Reality Check, Astronomy Edition
February 04, 2017 12:00 - 1 hour - 68.2 MBIn a special cross-over episode, the cast of The Reality Check (Cheque?) podcast come over and we all did short-ish segments on astronomy-related topics: Do we live in a black hole, the Drake equation, are aliens likely to be hostile, did Earth's magnetic field recently collapse, and lunacy. I also did a quiz and learned how difficult it is to make quiz questions that work over a podcast.
Episode 156 - The Scientific Method: How We Get to What We Know
January 28, 2017 12:00 - 34 minutes - 33.4 MBThe scientific method is the process through which most modern science is done. Whether done explicitly in its formalized steps or not, it underlies the very basics of how we know what we know, why science is inherently a self-correcting process, and why when there exists a long-standing scientific consensus with broad support, it should not be taken as a political whim by a few motivated people.
Episode 155 - New Science: Evidence for the Mandela Effect?
January 01, 2017 12:00 - 26 minutes - 25.1 MBMagic mirror on the wall, when will reality shifts affect us all? A phenomenon known as the Mandela Effect has been making the rounds of paranormal shows for the last year or so, and it seems silly until they start to use real science to back it up. Then, I get mad, and you don't want to see me get mad. In this episode, we learn about our changing knowledge about the structure of the Milky Way Galaxy.
Episode 154 - Impact Crater Pseudoscience Mishmash
December 16, 2016 12:00 - 47 minutes - 44.7 MBImpact craters form the basis of, or fit into the claimed evidence for, several different kinds of pseudoscientific claims. In this episode, I review two of them and also discuss some sensational headlines and why those headlines were wrong.
Episode 153 - What Is Radiation?
December 01, 2016 12:00 - 50 minutes - 47.5 MBRadiation is a mechanism for a large array of pseudosciences out there today, almost on par with quantum mechanics. The purpose of this episode is to provide a primer of radiation - what it is, what it isn't, why some is scary, and why some isn't. In going through this discussion, I also address numerous pseudosciences, including claims by proponents that the Apollo missions were hoaxed, that granite countertops are deadly, that microwave ovens are irradiating your food, and that cell phone a...
Episode 152 - Modern Flat Earth Thought, Part 3 (Young-Earth Creationists Debunking Flat Earth)
November 16, 2016 12:00 - 28 minutes - 27.3 MBThis podcast show most often focuses on refuting pseudoscience with real science, but it rarely sets out to make a positive case for real science. This episode is one of those rarer ones where I have used an unlikely source - youn-Earth creationists - to explain the case for why Earth is round and not flat.
Episode 151 - The Fake Story of Planet X, Part X - Nancy Leider Redux and Planet Nine Claims of 2016
November 01, 2016 12:00 - 33 minutes - 29.9 MBPlanet X is one of those topics that keeps coming up in pseudoscientific circles, in part because people who have been claiming it will come by and cause destruction continue to do so, making up new excuses as to why their last prediction failed. In this episode, I delve into the latest claims by Nancy Leider, one of the originators of the Planet X causes doom mythology, and I discuss some of the supposed discoveries and announcements in 2016 in the scientific community about a real extra, as...
Episode 150 - Is Dark Matter Liberal Pseudoscience?
October 16, 2016 12:00 - 32 minutes - 27.8 MBMoving away from the Earth-centric episodes since The Return of the podcast, this epsidoe addresses the concept of dark matter and claims that it is pseudoscience (and liberal pseudoscience at that!). Throughout the episode, we explore the history of the concept, how it arose, and why it arose, and then some alternative explanations. I make the case that it is not pseudoscience at all, but real, genuine, Grade-A science.
Episode 149 - Modern Flat Earth Thought, Part 2 (U.N. Flag and Airplane Flights)
October 01, 2016 12:00 - 58 minutes - 35.1 MBFlat Earth proponents have numerous claims that they use to promote the concept that Earth is flat. In this episode, we examine two of the claims that are somewhat related: The world looks like the United Nations flag (therefore "they" are "giving it away"), and airplane flights somehow prove Earth is flat.
Episode 148 - BONUS: X-Rays from Pluto
September 26, 2016 12:00 - 47 minutes - 45 MBWhen a NASA press released announced that scientists had observed x-rays coming from Pluto, my knee-jerk reaction was that certain people would use this to claim that Pluto was built by aliens. A later thought was that some might use it to bolster their ideas of the electric universe. Conveniently, I was going to be seeing one of the main study authors, Dr. Casey Lisse, just a day later at a conference, so I interviewed him about the find to really figure out what was going on, what was expec...
Episode 147 - The Hollow Earth According to David Icke
September 16, 2016 12:00 - 40 minutes - 37.6 MBAfter 139 episodes, a return to some of the claims that Earth is hollow, this time as presented by David Icke. An examination into how gravity works, the structure of comets, magnetic fields, icebergs, and muskox migration patterns wrapped in an atmosphere of conspiracy that everything in our lives is run by fourth-dimensional reptilian aliens from Planet X.
Episode 146 - BONUS: Tracking Failed Planet X Predictions of Marshall Masters
September 14, 2016 12:00 - 18 minutes - 14.7 MBSometimes, things just get to you. A Planet X proponent who has been preaching catastrophe for years, keeps saying the doom will happen in about a year, and yet is objecitvely proven wrong each time, got to me. This episode is a documentation proving that Marshall Masters' Planet X timeline is wrong, that for years he's been saying it's about a year away and will be obvious to everyone, and that his latest statements for December 2017 will just be more of the same: NOTHING.
Episode 145 - Modern Flat Earth Thought, Part 1
September 05, 2016 12:00 - 44 minutes - 38.4 MBA beginning examination of some of the modern claims put forth by the very recent resurgeance of Flat Earth proponents. This episode focuses on common (or not-so-common) sense, Earth's curvature, and the overall shape of the planet. It has three additional segments past the main one: Logical Fallacy, Feedback, and Announcements.
Update
April 04, 2016 12:00 - 10 minutes - 6.36 MBA ten-minute update and apology for delay in new episodes, and an announcement that the podcast is now officially on hiatus for another few months.
Episode 144 - Why We Know About Things Far Away but Not Nearby, and Lots of New News
December 01, 2015 12:00 - 27 minutes - 25.7 MBA close examination of why astronomers claim that they know about things on the other side of the universe, but they can't figure out what's going on in our own backyard. Since this episode comes out two months after my previous, there are also three New News stories where I discuss a recent exosystem mystery, space law, and, conveniently, the new most-distant known object in our solar system.
Episode 143 - Round-Table Discussion with New Horizons Early Career Scientists
November 01, 2015 12:00 - 1 hour - 64.7 MBOn July 7, 2015, one week before the New Horizons spacecraft made its closest approach to Pluto and Charon, I sat down with six other early career scientists and interviewed them about several different topics related to the mission and just being a planetary scientist or scientist in general. And, for those listeners who stay to the end, there is a bonus of over 3 minutes of outtakes!
Episode 142 - Who's on First? Origin of Ideas in Science
October 01, 2015 12:00 - 27 minutes - 24.4 MBFrom an ego standpoint, it's nice to get credit if you're the first to do something or figure something out. But from a scientific standpoint, it's also important to remember what has been known so we don't waste resources rediscovering something. And, from a pseudoscientific standpoint, many people like to take credit for imaginary claims about discovering something before scientists. On this episode, I explore all of these.
Episode 141 - The Physics of the A=440 Hz Conspiracy
September 16, 2015 12:00 - 34 minutes - 32.8 MBA conspiracy idea is that part of Nazi Germany propaganda was to redefine the musical standard for the world, moving it up in pitch from a standard A4 note that vibrates at 432 Hz to the more jarring 440 Hz which allows mind control and agitates people to be more war-like. I look into this claim from a physics and physical standpoint to determe if it could have any validity.
Episode 140 - Doomsmonth: September 2015
September 01, 2015 12:00 - 36 minutes - 32.7 MBThere are a lot of rumors going around that September 2015 is going to result in doom and gloom, with the destruction of financial markets, or maybe the world will end in a Christian New Testiment way, or we'll just get whacked by an asteroid. I talk about five different rumors in this episode and I put them in context with other, past claims, and other, past claims of the exact same thing that (obviously) did not result in doomsday.
Episode 139 - New Horizons Pluto Encounter Conspiracies, Part 2
August 16, 2015 12:00 - 44 minutes - 40.4 MBA look at many of the conspiracies related to the New Horizons mission through the Pluto-Charon system. This Part 2 episode focuses on anomaly-hunting -based conspiracies, including the alleged secret space program and a lot of image analysis.
Episode 138 - New Horizons Pluto Encounter Conspiracies, Part 1
August 01, 2015 12:00 - 51 minutes - 46.8 MBA look at many of the conspiracies related to the New Horizons mission through the Pluto-Charon system. This Part 1 episode focuses on some of the more mundane conspiracies, such as those related to naming conventions, the data download plan, and young-Earth creationism.
Episode 137 - Why Earth Is Old, Without Radiometric Dating
July 16, 2015 12:00 - 29 minutes - 18 MBMost often when discussing the age of the Earth or the solar system, scientists refer to radiometric dating. In kind, young-Earth creationists will try almost exclusively to poke holes in radiometric dating. But, before radioactive decay was discovered over one century ago, scientists in many different fields had already concluded that Earth was at least millions, if not hundreds of millions of years old. This episode discusses the reasoning they used.
Episode 136 (BONUS) - How Science Journalists Go from Scientists to the Public
July 09, 2015 12:00 - 12 minutes - 8.8 MBI briefly spoke with two of the science journalists who are embedded within NASA's New Horizons team for the spacecraft's flyby of the Pluto-Charon system. I asked them how they work to convert the complicated and technical science into something the public can digest and get excited about.
Episode 135 - How New Horizons Takes Photographs, Interview with Dr. John Spencer
July 01, 2015 12:00 - 42 minutes - 35.9 MBI bring you an interview with Dr. John Spencer, head of the hazards search for NASA's New Horizons spacecraft to Pluto, and co-deputy of the Geology and Geophysics Investigation team for New Horizons. We discuss how spacecraft images are processed, unique challenges for New Horizons, and some of the things we're doing to try to avoid creation of anomalies that some people might try to claim are evidence for a conspiracy.
Episode 134 - Big Bang Denial
June 16, 2015 12:00 - 32 minutes - 29.9 MBThe Big Bang is the model that is used to explain what happened just after the origin of the universe. No more, and no less. But there are different kinds of arguments that people make to argue that the Big Bang never happened. In this episode, we go through some of these arguments and the arguments made by scientists to support Big Bang cosmology.
Episode 133 - Element 115 and the Credibility of Bob Lazar's Claims
June 01, 2015 12:00 - 28 minutes - 27 MBBob Lazar is often credited - at least in part - with re-energizing the UFO field in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Unfortunately for the field, most who have looked into his claims have found them lacking in veracity. In this episode, I look specifically into his claims about ununpentium, also known as Element 115, which is supposed to be the source of propulsion for UFOs and work in their energy production.
Episode 132 - In Search Of Planet X (Live from Denver ComicCon)
May 16, 2015 12:00 - 46 minutes - 42.6 MBOn May 24, 2015, I presented a live talk at the Denver ComicCon modeled after Leonard Nimoy's "In Search Of" televsision series. The session title was, "Skeptical Science." The topic was Planet X, chosen because it has grown into a large class of different claims all under the moniker "Planet X," and so an exploration of it can explore a wide variety of critical thinking -based concepts.
Episode 131 - Clip Show #3: Blood Moons, Ceres' Bright Spots, MESSENGER's Death, and Funding in Science Follow-Up
May 01, 2015 12:00 - 49 minutes - 44.3 MBA lot of small threads are discussed in this episodes: The latest lunar eclipse and its relation to the Blood Moons phenomenon, the bright spots on Ceres and conspiracies surrounding them, MESSENGER's crash landing into Mercury, and a follow-up to the Pamela Gay interview about funding in science. Also in this episode is my - and listeners' - tribute to Leonard Nimoy.
Episode 130 - Dealing with Pseudoscience at Scientific Conferences
April 16, 2015 12:00 - 59 minutes - 48.5 MBWho can present at a scientific conference is often shrouded in mystery to non-scientists, and it is viewed as an Ivory Gate by pseudoscientists. In this episode, we hear from the program committee chair of the largest planetary science conference in the world, Dr. Dave Draper, about how selections are made and what happens when ideas against the mainstream are submitted for presentations at these meetings.
Episode 129 - The Saga of Comet Hale-Bopp and its Fugacious Companion, Part 3
April 01, 2015 12:00 - 38 minutes - 34.8 MBComet Hale-Bopp put on a fantastic display for Earth-bound skywatchers for over two years, often considered "the" comet of the 20th century. But, conspiracies and fear marred the event and led to the suicide of 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult. In this Part 3 of 3 episodes, I discuss the cult's belief system, their suicide, and the continued pseudoscience about Comet Hale-Bopp after their deaths.
Episode 128 - The Saga of Comet Hale-Bopp and its Fugacious Companion, Part 2
March 16, 2015 12:00 - 40 minutes - 34.6 MBComet Hale-Bopp put on a fantastic display for Earth-bound skywatchers for over two years, often considered "the" comet of the 20th century. But, conspiracies and fear marred the event and led to the suicide of 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult. In this Part 2 of 3 episodes, I discuss how decidedly unceientific claims and methods were used to divine information that became a key component of the mythology.
Episode 127 - The Saga of Comet Hale-Bopp and its Fugacious Companion, Part 1
March 01, 2015 12:00 - 1 hour - 53.9 MBComet Hale-Bopp put on a fantastic display for Earth-bound skywatchers for over two years, often considered "the" comet of the 20th century. But, conspiracies and fear marred the event and led to the suicide of 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult. In this Part 1 of 3 episodes, I discuss the photographic claims of a companion object and their eventual reveal as a misunderstanding and fraud.
Episode 126 - The Facts and Misconceptions Behind Funding in Science, with Dr. Pamela Gay
February 16, 2015 12:00 - 54 minutes - 48.3 MBThe issue of funding in science is near and dear to my heart ... or, perhaps to my grocery, rent, and utility bills. Most people who are not in science do not know - and have many misconceptions about - how research scientists get funding and what they do with it. In this episode, I interview and discuss with Dr. Pamela Gay this significant issue and why it is a larger issue than many realize.
Episode 125 - The Black Hole Conspiracy
February 01, 2015 12:00 - 44 minutes - 39 MBBlack holes seem like a given in popular culture: They exist, they have to, right? Well, some people claim they don't. In this episode, we go through the theoretical underpinnings for black holes, some of the observational evidence for their existence, and examine some of the claims made by credentialed and practicing physicists who state that black holes cannot exist.
Episode 124 - The Astronomical Distance Ladder
January 16, 2015 12:00 - 56 minutes - 49.3 MBMeasuring distance in every-day life requires some basic tools like a ruler. But who holds the other end when we want to measure the distance to the next galaxy? In response to young-Earth creationist claims, this episode delves into some of the science of how we measure distances across the cosmos and how all those different measurements fit together in what we call the Astronomical Distance Ladder.
Episode 123 - The Science and Pseudoscience of Communicating with Aliens
January 01, 2015 12:00 - 1 hour - 57.2 MBLingust, Dr. Karen Stollznow, discusses some of the communication problems on our own planet and how that translates to the huge potential problems of communicating with any type of intelligent creature who originated off our planet. We used this information to discuss some claimed contactees and how linguists have debunked their claimed communication with aliens.
Episode 122 - Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and Rosetta Conspiracies
December 16, 2014 12:00 - 31 minutes - 29.5 MBThe Rosetta mission with a destination of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko has faced numerous conspiracies circulating throughout the internet (and even more mispronunciations of its target). In this episode, I talk about a few of them.