SciShow Tangents - Spooky Month: Psychics with Dylan Marron!

Episode Date: October 15, 2024

There's a chill in the air and a shudder in our bones...it's Spooky Month! Come along with us on a treacherous journey full of mischief, mayhem, and many marvelously mysterious guests! Steady yourself, for who knows what frights lurk around the corner...Our next shocking mystery friend to join us is none other than Dylan Marron! Tread the floorboards of Tangents Manor with us in pursuit of the truth behind fortune-telling and future-predicting as we examine Psychics! SciShow Tangents is on YouTube! Go to www.youtube.com/scishowtangents to check out this episode with the added bonus of seeing our faces! Head to www.patreon.com/SciShowTangents to find out how you can help support SciShow Tangents, and see all the cool perks you’ll get in return, like bonus episodes and a monthly newsletter! A big thank you to Patreon subscribers Garth Riley and Glenn Trewitt for helping to make the show possible!And go to https://store.dftba.com/collections/scishow-tangents to buy some great Tangents merch!Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions! While you're at it, check out the Tangents crew on Twitter: Ceri: @ceriley Sam: @im_sam_schultz Hank: @hankgreen[This, That, or the Other: Crystal Ball]Weather forecast predictionshttps://www.noaa.gov/stories/6-tools-our-meteorologists-use-to-forecast-weatherhttps://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-you-trust-farmers-almanacs-weather-predictions/Flu shot planninghttps://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/vaccine-selection.htmShort-term volcanic eruption predictionhttps://volcano.si.edu/faq/index.cfm?question=eruptionforecasthttps://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/24650/chapter/6[The Scientific Definition]Spirit trumpethttps://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-SPR-TRUMPET/1https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/spirit-trumpets-dead-speakhttps://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/for-harry-houdini-seances-and-spiritualism-were-just-an-illusion-180978944/The Barnum effecthttp://apsychoserver.psych.arizona.edu/JJBAReprints/PSYC621/Forer_The%20fallacy%20of%20personal%20validation_1949.pdfhttps://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110810104425651https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.2044-8260.1978.tb00271.xhttps://psycnet.apa.org/record/1977-21271-001Table-turninghttps://fisherdigitus.library.utoronto.ca/exhibits/show/psychical-research-collection/tabletalkingandtableturning/tabletalkingandtableturningboohttps://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-52954-2_6https://www.ria.ie/blog/table-turning-a-victorian-fad/[Ask the Science Couch]Neuroscience or psychology explanations for deja vu https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00415-005-0677-3https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4251874/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053810012000049https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3420423/https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/the-psychology-of-deja-vu.htmlhttps://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/deja-vuPatreon bonus: Brain-computer interfaces and using technology to detect thoughtshttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3497935/https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/21/8639905/brain-control-robot-arm-paralyzed-quadriplegichttps://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aaa5417https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/5/4/23708162/neurotechnology-mind-reading-brain-neuralink-brain-computer-interfacehttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-023-01304-9[Butt One More Thing]Scatomancy pseudoscience vs. fecal tests run by gastroenterologistshttps://www.huffpost.com/entry/scatomancer_n_4309974https://medlineplus.gov/ency/patientinstructions/000704.htmhttps://www.columbiadoctors.org/news/how-know-your-colon-healthy

You're listening to a Complexly Podcast. Hello and welcome to SciShow Tangents, the frightly competitive science knowledge screen case. I'm your ghost Hank Gangrene. And joining me this week as always is our resident every Wolfman, Sam Skulls. I'm back baby. The old calendar on the wall says it's still Halloween time. And as you know, we here at SciShow Tangents love to get into the Halloween spirit.

October is spooky month, where we have invited some ghoulish guests over to Tangents Manor to join us. In fact, I hear another one approaching the door right now. Oh, hello, trick or treat. He's a writer for Ted Lasso and the author of Conversation with People Who Hate Me. Now in paperback, it's Dylan Maron. Hello. Hello. Hey. Wow, we're here, I exist.

You too exist, it's good to see you man. It's great to see you too. I really, that was so fun to be off camera and silent just watching you. I felt like I was. Creepy. I was spooking, I was the NSA for a moment there. It was really fun.

That's a different definition of spooking. It would the NSA for a moment there. It was really fun. There's a different definition of spooking. It would be scary if the NSA, when they were listening to you, was popped up in a little bubble. And they were like, here we are. Excuse me. I don't know if you need to Google man with sex that much. Yeah. But what I always tell them is I know I need to. I actually need to. And then they let me. so it's actually really nice. Yeah. If I have an FBI agent, he has a great time.

Yeah, oh my God, yeah. We're watching videos together, we're watching the new YouTube channel that I've just really been loving is the Detail Geek. He details cars, and so me and my NSA agent and my FBI agent, and probably the CIA, we're all watching that together, having a blast. It's a weirdly satisfying kind of situation.

Yeah, speaking of, I'm gonna make us all do something a little bit embarrassing. We're gonna go to youtube.com and you're gonna pick out one of the top five in the top row to tell me what YouTube thinks you should, I'm not gonna make you pick the first one. You could pick the least embarrassing of the top five. I mean, I have a very non-embarrassing one,

which is that the study hall video, Health, Psychology, and Chronic Disease, Does Stress Cause Disease, at youtube.com slash study hall, where you can learn and also get college credit. But I also have an embarrassing one. It's called, important intermittent fasting message from Dr. Brad Stanfield. How did that happen Hank? Look I watched Dr. Brad Stanfield he tells me how

to be healthier in evidence-based ways. Okay mine are pretty predictable one is chill video game music part three and it has a little Sonic the Hedgehog drinking a drink. And the thing, the other one is CBS This Morning at Home with Jim Henson. Those are two of mine. So. It's a very Sam Schultz. Yeah, that sounds about right.

YouTube.com. Yeah. Okay, I'm gonna be brave. And I'm gonna really tell you what's my second. First is a trailer and that's just that's commercialism getting in the way. I mean, getting a trailer just means you're super basic is all. Oh, and I actually, I want to come out more and more proudly as

basic. I think that's like a true part of who I am. But here is the real. The second video is Edina Menzel Defying Gravity Evolution, 2001 to 2006. I mean, I was gonna say, I was gonna claim that these videos have been served to me, but I need to take ownership. I need to be real, and I need to tell you all that I searched for these videos out. Someone recently just loaded the original Broadway cast

of Wicked with Norbert Leo Butz, who was only in it for the first few months. I like Wicked without Butz, is it even Wicked? Honey, and we'll never know, we will never know. No one has ever answered that question, anthropologists have tried. So that's my second video, and I want to let you know that it is an hour,

five minutes and 51 seconds. Wow. If I were not on this call, I would be shocked to find out that I would watch. Wait, what's the what's the whole title? Edina Menzel defying gravity evolution 2001 to 2006. Wow. So you just get to like watch her sing the same song and if they're saying 2001 hours There's rehearsals that means there's workshops. That means there's the Washington DC tryouts Yeah, some of us are in the know, you know, is there commentary or is it just is she just singing the whole time? Sorry, I know it's oh, okay. You just okay. You've inspired me to now click Yeah, not only how I click singing but the now now YouTube is like I think that you might be similar to Dylan and I'm The future please and you'll just get news bloopers and this only has four thousand views you are Wow

Well, yeah Yeah A thousand views. You are deep. Oh, wow. Well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Every week you're on Tangents, we get together to try to unnerve disgust and horrify each other with science facts while also trying to stay on topic

and sometimes talking about Idina Menzel's defying gravity transitions from 2001 to 2006. Our panelists are playing for Gori and for Candy, and we will be rewarding each as we play. And at the end of the episode, one of us will be crowned the King of Halloween. Now, as always, we introduce this week's topic with the traditional science poem this week from Dylan.

What, I wonder, will my life turn out to be? Will I have two kids, none, or maybe three? Is my current path the right one to follow? The more I think about it, the more I sit and wallow. I don't know what's next, tomorrow or after. No matter how hard I try, I can't read the next chapter. Maybe it all works out, I say in my head. Or maybe it doesn't, and then I'll be dead.

These questions, these questions, I need them to stop. I'll do anything, anything or else I might pop. Uncertainty sucks, answers do not. Whatever the method, I'll take what you've got. Thankfully, there are those who claim to know what's coming down the pike, fast or slow. Perhaps they are just faking it all, or maybe, just maybe, they're on a call

with the universe, with God, who knows what's true. Whatever they say, it'll make me less blue. Right? Is that right? Oh geez, I'm not sure. Okay, whatever, Nothing is pure. So if psychics are legit and how cool if they are, then I hope they can tell me what's near and what's far. If not, that's okay. We all have to pay rent. Whatever the truth, I will

be content. The topic for the day is psychics. But first first a quick break and then we'll be back to define psychics Welcome back. Sam, you're doing the Saree job today. Can you explain what a psychic is? That sounds like fun. I wasn't here last week because I was at MIT getting a degree. And now Saree's been let go.

And now I'm the swirly one. OK, so according to my notes and not Sari's notes, psychics can describe a range of people who do stuff under the same kind of umbrella of mind reading kind of things. So there's stage performers who practice specific techniques to entertain people, and there are people who believe in parapsychology, which is a pseudo-science, which means not a real science. Basically, mental powers is what parapsychology are that defy physical, biological, or social sciences.

We don't have any concrete evidence for my notes that lead me to believe that people believe in this kind of stuff because brains are wild and there's a lot of stuff going on up there. And we can't really figure some of it out still even with all of our technology. So there's lots of space to fill in the gaps with magical mystical powers. But the main difference between psychology, which is the science of studying the brain and parapsychology, which is the paranormal studying of the brain and parapsychology, which is the paranormal studying of the brain, is evidence.

So there's some patterns that are repeatable behaviors and experiences, like in psychology, you'll find those and others that don't have consistent or concrete evidence like parapsychology. So the first one, stage performers, there's lots of people out there, like magicians who are skilled at doing kind of like social manipulation so that they can do things like cold reading, which is making guesses based on things that you notice about a person. And then reinforcing those guesses with body language

and their responses and stuff like that. And just being vague in general. Just astrology your way to the, to like communicating with a dead relative. I've watched people like this before. It's very impressive. Yeah, you see a person, you say, I'm getting the letter W from you.

And then they say, wow, I know a guy named Wiley. William Walter. Yeah, poor Williams passed away. And then you go from there. Or there's hot reading, which is even sneakier, where you learn things about somebody ahead of time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like everybody sort of shows up and they like write on a little note

card like who I would like to talk to and then then like puts it in a basket. And the basket gets taken to the psychic. Yeah. One time at a retreat, you had somebody doing this kind of stuff. Remember that? Yeah, we had a guy who was he was a build to be a magician. Yes. But like like not didn't do like magic stuff, did a bunch of stuff to to like make you think he knew he was a mentalist. Yes. So those people, the magicians, they tend to admit what they're doing and tend to say that it's a learned thing and that they practice it and it's for

entertainment and even go so far as to like frown upon people who propose to have real psychic powers. Yeah, it's kind of a bad vibe to tell you if you're communicating with your dead relative even if you're not actually. Yeah, it's kind of icky I suppose. So like Harry Houdini spent a lot of time calling out mediums. I just got a very clear visual of Harry Houdini as a YouTuber doing a video. Wow. I want that. No, he would have been amazing.

Oh, he would have crushed. He would have had that plaque, you know, he would have had all the plaques. You have all the crystal, the one all of them. And then there's like James Randi, the amazing Randi, who offered a million dollars to anybody who could prove that they had paranormal abilities and nobody's ever proven it still. So yeah, then there's the parapsychology side of things where psychic is, I can read your mind and I'm telling you I can read your mind and I believe it. There's

things like ESP or extra century perception where your brain just gets some kind of energy that other people's brains don't pick up and you can see the future or hear people's thoughts. And there was even like a parapsychology lab at Duke University that studied this in the thirties. And yeah, they did like the Ghostbusters thing where they'd hold up the card and you'd be like, There's a fork on that card. That's the one that's what we know it from. Yeah. Yeah I think they're called. The hot girl gets them all right and Not the other guy gets shocked all the time. Well, hot girls are more psychic than guys. Yeah Okay, that's science, yeah

That's all my notes. That's really all of them that matter. There's the stage performers and then the people who say, I'm going to move this with my mind. I'm going to bend this spoon. I just want to say stage performers like Professor Marvel, who Dorothy encounters at the beginning of Wizard of Oz, which is related to Wicked, which is in my algorithm. And I wanted to tie it back. It's important to tie it back together. You're unofficially sponsored by Wicked, the concept.

Or is your algorithm psychic? That could be it. Okay, algorithms as the real psychics is a terrific piece, I would read. I swear YouTube knew I had cancer before anybody else in my life. Wait, can you say more about that? Well, I was like, you know, just like,

what I was searching for, I wasn't searching for, hey, cancer tips, but like I had a biopsy surgery, so I was like searching for like this, like care for this particular surgery. And it was like, and I didn't know if I had cancer at that point, but it was like, oh, you got a biopsy surgery? Cancer, cancer, cancer, cancer, cancer, cancer.

Yeah, yeah. That's so interesting. I also, I'm now realizing where the algorithm would fit into those definitions of psychics you gave, which is that would be a hot read, right? Because you are feeding information unknowingly, and then it's spitting it back to you. It's filling in the blanks.

Yeah, and what I didn't know at that point is that if you get the surgery, there's a very good chance you have cancer. They don't just give that one to anybody. That's not what they said to me at the doctor's office. They're like, it could be anything. Well, because they don't like, you know, there's still a great chance that you don't, like, you know, 30% chance that you don't have cancer. The algorithm knew.

It did. And yeah, the word psychic comes from the ancient Greek word, psychikos, which means of the soul. The root word of that is psyche, which also led to the word psychology. So they're related in that way too. And that was kind of like the opposite word of somaticos, which means of the body or corporeal. And

the first English use of the word to mean a person who is regarded as particularly susceptible to supernatural or paranormal influences was somewhere in the 1860s and 70s, according to the Oxford English Dictionary so pretty late, but that seems like the time when people were like Traveling around in their little wagons like tricking rich people and then giving them some money The wagons invented Wilds I know their animals are just out here being like I will either beat you up or not. And we're like, I have so many, I have a million different ways I can mess with you.

I can hurt you in every way conceivable. All right, I know what psychics are now. And that means that it's time to move on to the quiz portion of our show. Our first sinister game, it's called Crystal Ball. Ooh. Did you want the sound effects? Yes. Yes, please.

More. That's a. I'll just do that. Oh, God, I don't know what that was. Sorry. We're going to be censored now. Psychics, shysters and charlatans may claim to predict the future for reasons honest or otherwise, but I'd like to add to that list. Scientists, there are some things about the future that we can predict fairly reliably using this scientific method for today's game. I'm going to give you a way that we peer into the future and you're going to identify the thing that

does not help scientists do that. All right? Okay. So here is one. Weather forecasts. These are amazing. They're so much Okay. So here is one. Weather forecasts. These are amazing. They're so much better than they used to be. Meteorologists have gotten pretty good at producing short-term forecasts that you see on your phone's home screen. I guess it's how we do that now. To create those predictions, they draw from a large number of sources of data.

You could probably guess that satellite and radar information are among them, but which of these do they not use? A balloons, B the activity of the sun or C volunteer observers. They don't use one of those. They don't use one of those. I feel like I've launched a weather balloon. So you feel you have. I have watched someone do it at the university for you. Did they check to make sure there wasn't a child

inside of it? Inside of it. We were careful. We opened it up. Yeah. Great. You gotta look for balloon boys. Yeah. I think it gotta be balloons though.

I feel like that's, there must be some trick there that it's balloons and that's what you think it is. Okay, you're going for balloons? I'm going for whether balloons must be fake. Balloons, activity of the sun, volunteer observers are the three. I am going for the answer that seems most obvious, activity of the sun. Because, and this is where I'm either gonna out myself as actually smart or secretly very dumb, but isn't like it's more the, she's always going to be there

and the sun's activity we always know what she's up to. That's true. But it's the it's the atmosphere and it is other factors that contribute to weather and not the sun itself. So that is why that's my answer. I think you must be very smart. You sound smart to me. Okay. Well, we'll see. No. Sorry. So. No, that is perfect. We'll see if you're smart.

The thing is, you're right. So I don't know why I said that. I was back to Sam. Okay. Wow't know why I said that. I was back to Sam. OK, well, I'm hurt. As you say, she is always there, but she is consistent. Yes, we know what she's up to. So she's up to the pretty much the same stuff all of the time. They have lots of weather balloons still in use.

They also have volunteers who just like report to Noah. They're like, hey, what's up? This is what we saw, which is great. We're just using people. But solar activity, of course, can affect a number of things here on Earth, but typically does not affect the weather in a way that is going to like have an impact over the course of the next seven days. For people who are only listening to this, I'm dancing right now, dancing in my seat.

Absolutely, the success is strong. Wow, the success is strong. Number two, we're going to talk about flu shots. They take a while to manufacture, so public health experts have to make their best guess as to what strains will be the most problematic to put into any given year's jab. For the Northern Hemisphere, experts meet up in February to discuss the coming flu season what information is not part of that discussion. A. What flu strains are currently circulating in animals? B. What flu strains are currently circulating in humans?

Or C. How well they got it right last time? Well, obviously it's a very sciencey thing to talk about what you got right and wrong last time. So I'm pretty confident it's not that. Humans are animals. I'm trying to think back to that time we all love thinking about, which was March 2020. Oh wow, yeah. And we just love living in that time.

When we were, how surprising was the theory that it jumped from animals to humans? I believe surprising, therefore I'm going to say, flu strains in animals. Yeah, I think I agree. I'm gonna say that too. Is it even flu? Yeah, I'm just gonna leave it there. I'm going to say that, too. Is it even full?

Yeah, I'm just going to leave it there. I'm going to say it's also the animal one, because I went to MIT. Yeah, you did. Come on. Good job, you guys. That's right. I'm dancing again. We get flus from do we get flus from animals or is it different? We don't get so like the thing that we that we call the flu we don't get from animals. There are influenza strains that we don't get from animals, there are influenza

strains that we worry about jumping from animals, but that's sort of different from the seasonal flu. So, what flu strains are circulating in humans as well as how well we did last time, that all gives scientists clues about what's going to happen at the next flu season's peak. And if the last season's vaccines worked against the current viruses, that shows that we're on the right track. Flu strains in animals, especially wild birds, are more that's like more of like a future pandemic threat than a this is what seasonal flu is going to be. And same with pig flu.

Pig flu? Swine flu is what I think is a different name for it now. But yeah, I mean, we we just did a SciShow on bird flu and like, I'm upset. Oh, no. I know how like careful and like chill the SciShow team is about like not being inflammatory. And it's basically like, yeah, this is gonna happen. Oh God.

You know who could tell us if it's gonna happen or not? I know. SciPsychics, babe going to happen or not. I know. Psychics, babe. That guy from Wicked. Yeah. Yeah. Dr. Marvel. Wow. OK, now we're really doing a mashup. This is the Wicked Marvel MCU.

What was his name? Um, Professor Marvel. Oh, OK. Well, you can see how I might make that mistake. I could, but you'd be wrong. And I support you in all of your wrongness. But babe, honey, it's Professor. He did not get a doctorate. Well, I've never seen it.

So you just. Wow. Wow. He just had a wagon. I love that. You know, what if you just park a wagon in the Walmart parking lot and you start you start giving out? That I want to do yours and And and free advice and there's been some advice the guys in the wagons are kind of the YouTube stars of their time

I think yeah going from town to town. I'd say more Instagram honestly Oh, yeah, I would say more podcasts like that's very podcaster behavior to give out tinctures and hills that should help you. I will say, my video was the only one that was really from the sort of tincture side of the internet. The internet and fax to give links. That's true. You're in the tincture lifestyle. Sometimes they were coming around doing puppet shows and stuff too, though.

You could do anything out of a wagon. Yeah. Absolutely. Just punching Juliet right there at the Walmart. Yeah. All right. Number three, we're gonna talk about volcanoes. While volcanologists aren't as good at predicting eruptions as they would like to be, timely interventions can still save lives,

such as ahead of the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991. And they'll use almost everything they know about a volcano to try and get ahead of the next of Mount Pinatubo in 1991. And they'll use almost everything they know about a volcano to try and get ahead of the next Pompeii. But what do they not use for short-term eruption predictions? A. The composition of the atmosphere around the volcano. B. The movement of the ground around the volcano. Or C. The volcano's past history of eruption. I wouldn't think the atmosphere would matter that much, except, well, yeah, I don't know. No, I wouldn't think it would.

Unless it's like, the atmosphere is full of ash from the volcano shooting ash out, and that's like some kind of trick. Yeah. But is it? Well, I don't know. Oh, boy. Now I'm scared.

I don't want to interrupt your answer. I wanted you to answer first so that I could just steal yours. Okay, that's good, that's good, that's good. That's healthy for this game. I think it is the volcano's past behavior because aren't volcanoes famously doing whatever they want to do whenever they want to do it and therefore studying past behavior is not going to indicate future eruptions. I would think you'd be able to be like this guy's empty he's

not shooting anything else out. All they have to do is look inside and they have to say well. Take a little peek over. Nope. All empty. There's nothing in there. Can't puke if you didn't eat. It's true. I'm gonna stick with atmosphere even though I feel like it's a nasty trick. And I feel wrong with the reaction. Hank, I was trying to read your face. I feel wrong and I am going to stand strong in my wrong. I don't know what you mean. The past behavior answer.

Oh, you're going for past behavior. Okay, well, the answer was the past behavior. Oh, come on. Yeah. So the gravity. You're super smart. Yeah, yeah, the answer was the past behavior. Oh, come on. Yeah. So the gravity is super smart. Yeah, you're dancing. So as obviously is the case, the deformation of the ground, very important.

If like, if the ground is lifting up, that's a sign of a potential problem. Atmospheric composition can indicate stuff like volcanic gases leaking out. So if there's a bunch of new sulfur in the atmosphere, then you're going to be thinking that maybe something weird is going on there. But eruptive history is more useful for long-term monitoring and prediction, whether it's going to blow in the next five or 10 years, as opposed to whether you need to evacuate this week.

Hmm. Yeah. Okay. Next, we're going to take another short break. as opposed to whether you need to evacuate this week. Hmm. Hmm. Yeah. Okay. Next, we're gonna take another short break. Then, Ceri, who is sadly not here today, has made another game for us to play. And this time, Sam will be presenting,

and I get to play. And. And. And. And. And. And. And.

And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. All right, welcome back, everybody. If our players haven't been horrified enough already, our next game is even more awful. What do we got, Sam? It's the gauntlet.

No, I'm just kidding. Are you kidding? I'm just kidding. I heard you got mad. I heard Sam? It's the gauntlet. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I heard you got mad. I'm just getting mad about the gauntlet. There's this game called the gauntlet, Dylan, that you are just extraordinarily lucky we're not playing right now.

OK, well, thank goodness. It's the hardest game ever written by human hands. OK, so it's actually the scientific definition and as opposed to the gauntlet, the rules for this game are very simple. I'm going to tell you a word or phrase related to psychic trickery and then you're going to try to explain

what that is through your own psychic powers. You're gonna just try to guess what I'm thinking of. I love this, it's like an improv game. And whoever gets closer by my completely subjective judgment will win the round and get a point, a piece of candy, whatever we're saying. Thank you. And then because I know all of the answers,

I'll just tell you what it actually is. So, round one of three, the first word is spirit trumpet. Whoa, spirit trumpet. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Spirit trumpet is a device that amplifies the noises that ghosts make. And it's got a little bell like a trumpet has a bell. And and just like you have like an electromagnetic wave detector when you do a ghost hunt inside of a house. Yeah, this if it's a box, it's just a wooden box with a trumpet coming out of it. And if there is a ghost that that can't be heard, well, it's like a quiet little ghost, a quiet little ghost who's just like barely influenced the world. It's like, hello, excuse

me. If you could please avenge my death, I could probably move on to the next realm. I'd like to scare you now, please. if it's okay. It goes to ask for a mission. Okay so a thing that makes ghosts it's quiet ghost. I think a spirit trumpet is just a trumpet exactly as we know it. No, it's a trumpet you take to a graveyard. And only when the right person plays the right notes does it call out all this. Well, I love this. I want to read a short story about the spirit.

I want to play this. I want to go back to middle school and I want to learn the spirit. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The only time when you can learn the spirit trumpet is Nine middle school music yeah, yeah You guys ever seen the ghosts? I saw a ghost a couple days ago for crying Wow, did it make any little noises kiss me right on the cheek? Oh, yeah, it was like leave your wife for me And then it was like, leave your wife for me. But it was shy so it spoke through the spirit trumpet.

I couldn't hear it. You gotta speak up, babe. That's what I said to the ghost. And then you heard it pad over to the trumpet. And then it was like, hello, please. All right. Well, the answer is, accidentally what I said it was at the very beginning. It's a metal or cardboard cone that supposedly amplifies

dead people's voices during the seance. But it's also exactly what Hank said it was. Hank! When did you say that? That I miss it? I said it was like what cheerleaders have and it is literally just like what cheerleaders have. Wow. Wow! So, a spirit medium would put the spirit trumpet in the middle of the table, I think in the

dark so that nobody that they were doing the seance with could see that it was there. And then they would whisper into it and make some kind of ghostly voice. It would sound all weird. Or also there was maybe a version of it that would levitate around the room and make different noises that were attributed to ghosts. I have always thought I would love to be in one of these seances from the olden times. I gotta see if they were just like, if like nobody had seen fishing wire before or something

and you could just see like the strings, everything would be like, yeah, that's how they do it. Or if it was cooler than that. That sounds pretty cool, even if it's just fishing wire. Oh, I'm still get wowed by that effect. Yeah, somebody goes all the trouble to set up a creepy room for me to sit in. I would love that.

And Harry Houdini worked to debunk the spirit trumpet in particular. On YouTube. On YouTube, he got on YouTube. Hey guys, Harry here. Yeah, I just found a spirit trumpet, like an actual antique spirit trumpet for sale for $1,300. Oh wow.

So a hot commodity. Actually, it says also that he got up in front of the House of Representatives to debunk the spirit trumpet. So I mean, if there's anything I know about politics is that a bunch of those turds are into ghosts. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I've had a lot of words come to my mind before turds. All right. So I think got that point for sure round two is

the Barnum effect The Barnum effect, okay. I'm like woefully under Red on what PT Barnum did but I think it was bad things what P.T. Barnum did, but I think it was bad things. I think it was a lot of things. I think it was a lot of things. I'm sure he entertained some folks. And, okay, so the Barnum effect, I'm going to say, knowing very little about this man, is that after his circus passed through town,

all of the people who were in the audience or the people in the audience who were affected by the Barnum effect, they were desperate to put on a circus and or join a circus. And he was a circus influencer and the Barnum effect is his influence. I forgot what game we were playing for a second and I was like, wow.

Cool story. Just believing me. Yeah, and actually, that's right. I do get the point. You can jump to the next one. Thank you. I here's what here's what my brain did. I think the Barnum effect is that every time P.T.

Barnum showed up to like lend some credibility to some fake craze, it was within within like a short period of time debunked. So he like like him showing enthusiasm about some fake thing. Barnum's effect was that always somebody would then come along and then show that it was Houdini was always on his trail. Yeah. Houdini was just sniffing that boy's butt. He was always there. Yeah. I think that they were alive at the same time. Were they? I couldn't possibly tell you if they were. I think so.

I don't know. Harry, Houdini... I feel like there would be a, like a... 1874. A fanfic about them kissing or something if they were alive at the same time. And they did. Even if they weren't alive at the same time, they did hook up. They still kissed. And that's canon.

They overlapped, but they would have been a big age gap. Ah. Oh, then let's say not. Let's say not. Yeah. Just to really close the loop here, we know that it is now understood that Harry Houdini would have been a YouTuber,

PT Barnum would have been a YouTuber. Oh yeah. He would have been freaking Jimmy. He would have been Mr. Beast. Yes. Yeah. He would have been the big one. Totally.

Well, okay, the answer is, I don't know who to give this point to. A logical fallacy that shows that humans are gullible and regularly believe the vague descriptions of personality tests and horoscopes. I'm leaning Hank, I guess. But really, neither of them are like that good. Very close. So maybe neither of you get a point. I'm gonna say neither of you get a point.

We each get a half a point. Yeah, I like that. You each get half a point. It's more generally called the fallacy of personal validation. And it's a pattern across psychology research that we read vague descriptions, like personality tests and stuff like that, but then feel like they're really specific just to us. And there was, it's also called the Forer effect for a psychologist named Bertram Forer, who tested this on his, one of his psychology classes. He gave 39 students a personality test, and then one week later,

gave them all the exact same 13 statements printed out on a paper with their name on top of it. And it said stuff like, you have a great need for other people to like and admire you, or at times you have serious doubts as to whether you've made the right decision or done the right thing And then he had them all rate on a scale of zero to five how much they thought that that description Revealed their core characteristics and the mean was four point two six. So everybody just thought Yeah, everybody just saw themselves in every single one of them basically Wow, aren't we all just kind of the same as each other?

I guess we are. I guess that's nice in a way, except I know what it's like up here. I don't like that everybody else is going through the same thing. Yeah. Anyway, so table turning is the third one. Round three, table turning. Oh, how the turntables. Oh, how the turntables. Oh, how the turntables.

I'm gonna just jump in. Okay. And I'm gonna say, it's when someone goes to a psychic, sits for the whole reading, listens to everything they have to say, and then they say, nope, here's how you just did that, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Yeah. I'm turning the tables on you. Oh, kind of hoax, hoax, Jenner, like, yeah, yeah.

A debunker, an IRL debunking. Maybe it's like with the seance where there's, there's like a device in the table that like shudders and moves the table when the, when the medium wants it to. And so like they like push a little button and the table so they push a little button and the table starts to turn a little bit. Basically exactly what it is. Is it? I mean, it's about, yeah, you're very close.

You know a lot about seances, Hank. Have you been to a lot of seances? No. So it's a pre-Wijiborid practice for a group of people to communicate with spirits based on how a table moved. Basically they sit around the table and they chant an alphabet is what like the main type of it was. And when the table would move.

It's not scary. It's not creepy at all. A bunch of people just like, hey, B, C, D, R. You can't sing it. You can't sing it. You just have to chant it. You're ruining my seance. Stop singing it. You just have to chant it. You're ruining my seance.

Stop singing it. I will just say that is a similar technology to the Ouija board. Yeah, well, we hadn't invented it yet. But I'm just saying alphabet as me. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, the alphabet can be scary, Hank. Oh, for sure, especially when it's hung up on the wall

with a bunch of Christmas lights. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. That's true. And healthy. I love when I see that. And Michael Faraday, who is famous for electromagnetism stuff, he worked to debunk this, and he built test models to show that any table movements that were happening were caused by the conscious or unconscious hand muscle movements of the people sitting around the table. Or it's just like when you're at a cafe and it's like an uneven floor.

It's a wobbly table. It was too long ago. It's just a wobbly table. The tables weren't very good back then and the floors weren't very flat. We didn't know tables could even be wobbly in 1853. We thought if it's wobbling, that has to be some kind of spirit. A ghost. Every wobbly thing is a ghost.

Yeah. I just want to say my big takeaway is that there was a lot of debunking throughout time. People love hearing something and saying that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I'm going to get on my platform and make my own platform talking about how wrong you are. So, yeah. The people in the audience love to hear, there's ghosts and they go, oh, and then they love to hear somebody else say,

that's stupid. And then they go, yeah, that was really stupid. You're right. I also like that. Yeah. And you all along. And you all along. Even I, as the person who would be the one debunking

is also like, I wanna go to the show. But it also makes the person who would be the one debunking is also like I want to go to the show But it also makes the people who believe That much more rooted in what they believe, you know Because then they're like, well, I don't like that debunker then therefore I love what I'm seeing everything You know every yeah, yeah, we're all the same. Everything's fake and debunkers have been around forever. Well Hank one Okay. Well, we're all the same. Everything's fake and debunkers have been around forever. Well, Hank won. OK, well, we got that. You're really running it in now. But I bet if we add up the scores for all of the games, not that it was intended to be slanted this way.

Dylan is the winner. You guys, after bombing that second one, I really rested on my victory of the first. Congratulations to King of Halloween, Dylan Marin. And now it is time to ask the science couch where we ask a question to our couch of razor sharp, spooky tiffic minds. The question is, is there a scientific explanation

for deja vu when that was asked by It's Buzio on Twitter. Oh boy. Sam, do you have notes on this one? Cause like I think- Oh yeah, I have to answer the question. Let me think for a second. Well, I usually, I talk out of my butt for a second. So I'll do that while you open your notes.

Do that while I think. Yeah, it's a thing and it's a thing that happens in your brain, but I don't know, brains are a mess and we do not know them that well. So I don't know if we know. May I share an untested theory that is not at all based in science? science. I always, what I thought is that it was a harkening back to a dream we had that we forgot that we had. And that there's, so it like, it did happen in our brain, but it might not have happened in the physical plane. And we're like, Whoa, I recognize this,

but how do I recognize this? And that's what I always thought was going on. Again, haven't tested this. I'm talking out of my ass now, but wanted to share. How would you test it? I'm curious to know. You'd have to capture all of your dreams with a little dream hat. Yeah, yeah, a little dream hat. And that does work.

If you give everyone a dream hat, you have all of your dreams, and then you can tell what stage it was in. Store it in the hat. Yeah. Sam, do we have any idea what the heck deja vu is? I don't, but Sari does and she left a lot of notes about it. Oh no. So she explains how memory works here.

There's explicit memory and implicit memory and with explicit memory there's different categories. There's the one that we think about for like like the main one for Deja Vu is called recognition memory where you think, hey, I've seen that person or heard that song or been here before in a real way when you actually have been and you're like, hey, there's that person. So Deja Vu is when you get that feeling, but you know that couldn't be possible

or like you haven't been in the exact same situation before. So what the main thing it might just be is brain anatomy. It probably, I mean, obviously it has something to do with brain anatomy, but some researchers think that deja vu is linked to time perception. And this is what I was just talking to a friend about deja vu. So I was at a birthday party in the same exact place

I've been to the year before talking to the exact same person and I was like, I'm having deja vu, but also I know that I had the same exact place I've been to the year before talking to the exact same person. And I was like, I'm having deja vu, but also I know that I had this same exact conversation with you a year ago, because I see you once a year and we always have this conversation. Then they started talking about, it's something weird that happens

where what you are seeing right now, your brain is perceiving as you having had seen a long time ago. So it's like getting sent down the pathway weird where it's like many moons ago. It like ends up in memory land rather than in perception land. Yeah. Yeah.

A long time ago, I was sitting here at this exact moment talking to my friends. So that's one thing, then there's like certain factors. Like it starts around age five and peaks between age 15 and 25, but then it decreases when you get older. Yeah, I haven't had it that much. Right.

So it's okay, because I'm old. It might, she'll have to note that it maybe points less as a memory error and more as high activity in the brain. Does that mean that once you're over 25, your brain activity starts to go down? I could, that is how I feel. And they've also found that people who take medications that increase your dopamine

have more frequent deja vu sometimes, so that might also have something to do with it. But basically you're right, Hank, nobody really knows. But I don't think it has much, it doesn't seem like it has a lot to do with dreams. Because she didn't write the word dream down anywhere in this whole, or this whole, it's one there. She searched the document for it.

Not there. It's not here. I was just gonna say, I wanted to share publicly for the very first time, there was this wild experience I had as a kid where I was driving with my parents, I was in the back seat, and we were driving around a lake, and I saw an exact house and its position on the lake that I had dreamt of once before.

Is there an obvious explanation? I'm sure that we had actually driven down this road before, I didn't realize it, but I will tell you that was a chilling spooky moment when I saw them. And exciting, chilling spooky and the like exciting part of the chilling spooky spectrum. You know, not scary. Right. I love that. Like where it's maybe like, this is my destiny somehow. Yeah. To hold at home. I need to go to that.

That's where I was talking to you. Is that where you are right now? Right now I'm on the lake. Cool. I'm in the lake. You never know. Water starts cutting up my screen. None of the recording has worked.

I'm underwater. Oh, dang. That sucks. Blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub bl Transmitting thoughts between people if you want to hear the answer to that question as well as enjoy all new episodes Totally ad free head over to patreon that's patreon.com slash size show tangents that are eight dollars a month here You get new episodes ad free and extended shenanigans as we answer a bonus science couch question every episode and you get to hear me embarrass myself about whether I would want Technological implants he's a Rube, guys. Pitch him stuff. He'll buy it. You'll also get a link to our private Discord server,

maybe also some more goodies in the future, and all of our old stuff that we've made for our patrons. Our patrons are the best, and we are so grateful for their support of the show. If you wanna ask the Science Couch your questions, you can follow us on Twitter, at SciShow Tangents, or check out our YouTube community tab, where we'll send out topics for upcoming episodes every week.

You can join the SciShow Tangents Patreon and ask us on our Discord also. Thank you to at diananos9931 on YouTube, rcalloy on Discord, and everybody else who asked us your questions for this episode. Dylan, thank you so much for coming on the show. Where can we find your very smart brain on the internet today? Very smart brain on the internet.

You can find me at Dylan Marron on most social platforms. I have to say I'm not on social media that much. That's great. For mental health purposes, but also because I find I get more work done the less I'm on it. So you can stay abreast at dylanmarron.com or you can simply forget my name and never look me up again.

You know, all is possible, babe. And you guys have a previous podcast crossover also. We do. We do. I was on Dylan's show Conversations with People Who Hate Me, where I talked to a person who hated me, but then didn't really. They didn't. It was the closest that show has ever gotten to a verbatim hate tweet. They said, I hate Hank Green.

I hate Hank Green. Dang. I can't believe that that person agreed to be on the podcast. Totally agreed. But you were perfect on it. They were perfect and it was a heartwarming episode. Yeah. You can't stay mad at Hank.

Come on. No. Some people can. Yeah, but not us. Yeah, I'm okay with you. Not us. If you like the show and you want to help us out, first, you can go to patreon.com slash SciShow Tangents to become a patron.

Shout out to patron Les Aker for their support. Second, leave us a review wherever you listen. It's super helpful and it helps us know what you like about the show. And finally, if you want to show your love for SciShow Tangents, just tell people about us. Thank you for joining us. I've been Hank Green. I've been Sam Schultz.

And I've been Dylan Marron. Tune in next time for one last Spooky Dylan. Why does it say Spooky Dylan? No keep that, keep that, do not change it. One last Spooky Dylan is what has to be kept. Now we have to do a whole month of Dylan's. Yes. It's going to be some of these spooky Dylans. Yeah, I know Brian is coming next. I would suspect somebody found and replaced the word mystery

guest with Dylan. Keep it, keep it, keep it. Sideshow Tangents is created by all of us and produced by Jez Stimpert, except for Dylan. He didn't create it. Our associate producer is Usman. No, I like you. Come on.

Our editor is Seth Glicksman. Our social media organizer is Julia Buzz-Bazio, who also sent in the Science Couch question this week. Our editorial assistants are Deboki Chakravarti and Alex Billow. Our sound designer is Joseph Tuna-Medish. Our executive producers are Nicole Sweeney and me, Hank Green. And of course, we could not make any of this without our patrons on Patreon. Thank you, and remember, the mind is not a coffin to be filled, but a jack-o-lantern

to be lighted. Ooh, alola. But one more thing. There are lots of pseudo scientific ways that people try to predict the future, like chiromancy, which is palm reading, and pyromancy, which involves fire rituals. Wow. Kind of fun. Yeah, that sounds good. But there's also scatomancy, which is-

Oh no. As you might have guessed. I know exactly what that is. So do I. Involves looking at, feeling, and smelling someone's poop to reveal secrets about their personality or what choices they should make. They might tell you some choices they've already made.

And then you see it. You see it all. To be clear, doctors do look at the color, texture, and chemical content of poop samples to diagnose health issues and recommend treatment plans, which is legit. They just won't tell you that you're going to meet the love of your life in the next year based on your particularly stinky dump. Wow. If that was the right way to do it, would you do it like if that was real? Oh, if I could get my future told to me through my poop.

Yeah, like, look, I'm pushing that thing all over the place. Absolutely. Yeah. I sent it a fecal sample like three days ago. Hinge on it. To find out if I had, if I had Giardia, which I do not have. Oh no. Okay. Hank, I'm grateful for that.

Yeah. I would say if we were all doing this, like this was a common thing. We were all trying to find out what's next, we're all sending our poop in, I would do it. I think like if it's like a startup that is only advertised on select podcasts and I had to opt in,

I'm probably not gonna send my poop in to you in the future. Yeah. Okay, my question is not, would you send it in? My question is, would you reach in there and do it yourself? No What if you could know your whole day though there the whole just the day yeah every day I don't know my day. I know exactly what's gonna happen to me in any given day Yeah, but if I know if I could find out like though like stock price of Apple four years from now Absolutely, I'd shit it in my hand.

Also, if you, the confidence that you are saying this with Hank is truly inspiring. I will say if there's something like really, if that's how it works, and I'm really going with you here, but if that's how it works and there's something really big you need to know about your day, I bet you'd feel it on the way out.

Oh, that's a great point. That's something I'm going to avoid. I'm going to stay home today. Yeah, I'm staying home. Sometimes that happens when you're pooping anyway, though. Yeah. And you're like, oh, okay, today's not an outdoor day. Getting back in bed.

Today's not an outdoor day. Got to stick close.