StarTalk Radio - Magic, Illusion, and Skepticism, with Bill Nye – StarTalk All-Stars

Episode Date: September 27, 2016

In this week’s StarTalk All-Stars, host Bill Nye applies his scientific mind and skeptical nature to fan-submitted Cosmic Queries chosen by co-host Chuck Nice, on subjects from miracles and levitation to conspiracy theories and climate change denial. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

This is StarTalk. Greetings. Welcome to StarTalk Radio. I'm your guest host this week, Bill Nye, and I'm joined by none other than the inimitable, the remarkable, the thoughtful Chuck Nice. Chuck, it's great to see you. Hey, man. It's good to be seen. I'm not sure if I believe you, though. Chuck Nice. Chuck, it's great to see you. Hey, man.

It's good to be seen. I'm not sure if I believe you, though. Yeah, sure. It's good. It's radio. It's fine. I can see you well enough. Well enough.

So we have cosmic queries. Yes, we do. About skeptical points of view, about magic, and about illusion. Magic and illusion are very closely related. And for me, so is skepticism. Is skepticism closely related for you? It is indeed. Skepticism is the basis of my entire life.

Really? I try not to believe anything. You know, I'm serious. You know what's funny is my... What is funny? Well, it's probably not funny. What's not even strange. My mother used to say... Chuck?

I would ask her. Yes, she would say Chuck, I would ask her, yes, she would say, Chuck, I would ask her anything. And she would tell me, go find out, find different sources and compare those sources and find out for yourself. Just because I say it doesn't make it true. What are you going to do? Walk around just believing stuff that people tell you? My mother was an educator. So of course, this led to me having a very healthy sense of skepticism about anything. And, you know, unless I see some kind of reference that allows me to engage in critical thought, I really don't believe you. What if I were the Internet?

Then you'd believe everything. Right? Well, because it's true. If it's on the Internet, it's true. Well, speaking of which, we're StarTalk Radio, and we're on the internet and on the air. That's right. So let's take a cosmic query from one of our participating listeners. Yes, that's right.

We've got one from Christopher Wise. Christopher on Facebook says, isn't all technology just a highly engineered version of a magic trick in which the magicians have shared their secrets. Sort of. But for me, engineering is where you're trying to solve problems and make things, not fool people. But see, that's because you, my friend, are an earnest individual. Because there were engineers like Bill Nye back in the day who figured out some stuff and could build some stuff and went, yo, we can get paid.

Well, and we can grow food and have carts with wheels and steam engines and telegraphic communication. We can have flags, for crying out loud. We could make textiles and clothing from skins of other animals. We could do all kinds of extraordinary things. But it is to, I will say that in my view, the really cool magic tricks are based on the skill of the presenter. Where he induces you to believe one thing, or she induces you to believe one thing, and then you see something else. They often use extraordinary engineering.

This is to say this object looks like it's one thing, but it's actually something else. They often use extraordinary engineering. This is to say this object looks like it's one thing, but it's actually something else. Hence the expression, it's all done with mirrors. But in science, you know what we say, it's not all done with mirrors. It's done with molecules. Whoa, get it? It's brilliant. Give me another query cosmically. Here we go. Let's move on to Christine Pierce Hoffman. And Christine wants to know this, Bill. Do you have any insight as to how we could better teach skepticism and, more importantly, critical thinking to the next generation? I love you for this question, Christine.

I say teach people magic tricks. And I'm not even kidding. Are you for this question, Christine. I say teach people magic tricks, and I'm not even kidding. Are you for real? I don't mean spend three semesters on it. I mean, have kids try to fool each other, and you'll see how easy it is to make you believe something, especially something you're afraid of. Ghosts, spirits, cars coming right at you with a horn blaring. Unemployment. Maybe that was a bad example. Yeah, unemployment. So you can really fool people.

And if you learn to do that, learn to recognize that, I think it will help you think critically about all sorts of things. Yeah, you're right, because fear alters your perception on everything. It sure does. And one of the things they say is never make a decision when you are emotional in any way or afraid. Always take the time to stop and then get back to a rational. When you say a decision, I mean, it's good to decide to apply the brakes. Yes.

Or to run because you heard a loud boom. Oh, yeah. Or the flood coming towards you. Or the flood. Right. I know what you're saying. Like buy a car. And she asked me for a specific thing.

And I think it's important to show people how easy it is to fool each other. Gotcha. So actually, magic tricks can be used to inspire critical thinking. Absolutely. Wow, man. That's a great answer. And the other one that everybody loves is forensics. You come to a crime scene and some teachers create crime scenes to fool you.

There you go. Get you to draw wrong conclusions. All right. So there you go, Christine. Kill your teacher. Wait. Erase. No, but if you're- Er're kidding without a chuck put that down

believe me chuck better i better say it because the way people come after me on twitter when i say certain things i'm i was joking all right man this is great let's move on to um john hughes John Hughes and John says this Bill what is your favorite magic trick and what would you do to make it better or more scientifically plausible

huh do you have a favorite magic trick well no but I do respect I really respect the work of Penn and Teller yeah

and Robert Teller oh yeah man they do this thing where they show you the magic trick then they show you I really respect the work of Penn and Teller, Angela and Robert Teller. Oh, yeah. Man, they do this thing where they show you the magic trick, then they show you how they did it separately. They show you how they did it. Yes. It is a beautiful thing. And it is still equally as entertaining and fascinating.

The fact that you know how it's done does nothing to you in terms of you being absolutely enthralled by the whole thing. Because they picked the tricks that are spectacular. So I guess the first thing is to really fool the person and then to show them how you did it. So there's two things. So that's your favorite trick. Really fool the person and then show them how you did it.

Yeah. I like to be satisfied. Or I like to wonder what happened. The trick has to be good enough that I wonder what happened. So now I'm interested to know, and I hope I'm not stepping on anybody's question, but I'm just shooting from the hip here because of John's question. What do you think a guy's like, what's the guy's name who sits on ice for a week? Oh, God, somebody help me out here.

Wait, you're the only one in the room. I'm looking around for help. We're by ourselves. What's his name? The guy, he's, oh. Yeah, that's cool. I mean, they're literally cool. Yeah, but there's got to be, it's not, he doesn't have superpowers.

No, he doesn't. He can do something really well. Okay. But there are guys who can walk on tight ropes without falling off. I can't do that. Right. But I can imagine putting in an hour where you could. Right.

Yeah. David Blaine. That's the guy. That's David Blaine. David Blaine. Okay, cool. All right., that's the guy. That's David Blaine. David Blaine. Okay, cool. All right, just wanted to know. Hey, let's move on.

Let's go to Lenore Hernandez. Okay. I imagine it looks like ice, but it's not really. Oh, are we giving away David Blaine's secrets right now? Go ahead, take it. Oh, I'm tantalized. Okay, Lenore Hernandez wants to know this. Why are spheres the most represented shape in our universe?

Could there be a universe in which that is seen more often? Spheres are the most represented shape? Is that documented? That's what she's saying, that spheres are the most represented shape in our universe. But they put them in square picture frames. Wait a minute. Just if you're a planet, or rather if you're cosmic dust, let's say, and you actually, we are cosmic dust. Whoa, dude.

We are. We are made of star dust. There you go. Anyway, if you have enough of it, its mutual gravity constrains it to form a sphere. Gotcha. We got a spherical Earth. We have pretty much spherical moons, spherical suns, spherical Jupiter. Not big enough, an asteroid out there, then you oftentimes don't become spherical.

Pluto, icy world, is spherical. Right. Okay. Yeah. So now she said, so basically it's gravity. In this one case. That's one case. Now, could there be a universe in which that is not the case could there be a universe where something forms a box or a pyramid instead of instead of a

sphere so on the right scale you know if you're an atom uh if you're um lithium hydrogen lithium ion battery okay your oxygen atoms form octahedra, which are pyramids back to, or base to base. But when you get macro, you get big enough, you apparently,

you form, like a bubble, forms a sphere. So if you had another universe that had different rules, I guess you'd get different shapes. And it's another way

of expressing this sentiment, which I'm so fond of. Which is? If things were any other way, things would be different. So if you had a universe that had played by different rules, I guess you'd get different shapes. But I, right now, cannot conceive of those rules. Okay, there you go. But I'm watching for them.

I'm watching. I'm watching you molecules. Nice. Hey, Lenore, great question. All right. I'm watching you, molecules. Nice. Hey, Lenore, great question. All right, let's check out Dex Jones, what he has to ask. And Dex is also coming to us from Facebook. Dex says, Bill, is the human mind programmed to want to believe what we cannot discern to be fact?

If so, do you think this is why magic or similar illusions are so popular? No. No. Not exactly. Okay. I think what we're actually programmed to look for are patterns. Okay.

What makes you, I think, successful as a hunter-gatherer scavenger is you're looking for patterns. Patterns. When the crops are going to be here, when the bananas are going to come off that tree, when I can grow my ground nuts, when I can go looking for this carcass

that the lion left behind. Right. By the way, I've been looking for a time to grow my ground nuts for a very long time. Well, you got to have some ground for your nuts. That's first of all. If you're living in an apartment in Manhattan, Chuck, your ground's going to be limited, nut-wise. I'm getting a bumper sticker that says you've got to get some ground to grow your nuts.

All right. I would call that a fact, but I whimsically refer to it as a true fact as opposed to a false fact. A true fact. So with that said, I think it's the patterns that we look for. And the reason magicians are able to fool us is the pattern. It looks one way, but your expectation is not met. The pattern is not fulfilled. So our expectation of a pattern coupled with misdirection basically gives us magic.

Yeah. That's what I think. Okay. And I know books are written about this very subject, but it's the patterns that make our ability to memorize, learn, and extrapolate or take the patterns the next step beyond what we've already seen or experienced is what makes humans such planetary butt kickers. Sweet. All right.

That is very cool. Hey, let's take a Patreon question. Yes. Let's do that. These are patrons who are on. That's right. These are patrons who go to patreon.com and support StarTalk. Support.

I think you all know what we're saying. Out of their substance. They freely give to StarTalk out of their substance so that we can continue to bring you the quality programming that we- They're substance to my cash. Yes, I am, indeed. You're not talking about baking powder. No, not baking powder.

It's cash. Okay. So this is Joel Cherico, and Joel from Minnesota says this. Does knowing more science make magic less impressive for you, Bill? As a scientist, do magicians even impress you at all since you know that there is indeed a logical explanation for every single trick? No, my relationship to it is, I guess, different. I know that I'm being fooled. Right.

But I enjoy it. It's art. Gotcha. I mean, I know why a ballerina is able to remain on point in some sense. Right. But I still think in some sense. Right. But I still think it's great. Right, yeah. So I know the guy's going to do a card trick.

He's going to make me think that I have the card, but he's got the card. But actually, he forced me to think of the three of clubs when I wasn't even thinking about the three of clubs, I thought. That's cool. That is cool. Gives us insight into ourselves and our pattern seeking. I mean, I mentioned them earlier, but I very much enjoy the Penn and Seller show. Right. Because they're going to show you how they did it after they messed with your mind.

I love that. Very cool. All right. So there you go, Joel. I think I appreciate it on an even higher level than just being scared. Oh, look at that. So being a scientist actually allows you to appreciate magic even the more. Perhaps. Okay. Perhaps. All right. Very cool. You'd have to wire our

brains to the appreciation meter, which might be out there. I was going to say, I need to know where that is. I saw one, man, and the needle moved. I saw it. Then I put a quarter in it. I wished that I would be big. Then I lost a quarter in it. I wished that I would be big. And then I lost a quarter somehow. Lead on. Here we go. Christopher Harold Miller wants to know this. He first states this. I am skeptical of everything.

Right. Sure you are. That's what he says. This is Christopher. Word's not mine. I'm skeptical of everything. I believe half of what I see and nothing I hear. Naturally,

I don't get along with conspiracy theorists. I thought he was going to the grapevine. Okay. Yes. Do you feel like conspiracy theorists and theories deliver a quantifiable blow to science? If, for example, enough people believe in things like the moon landing was faked, does

it not slow the progress of humanity? You know, I thought this was going to be a BS question when I started, like, where is this guy going? But now I get what he's saying. He went a long way to go down the block. But basically- Yes, it holds us back. Yeah.

Conspiracy theories are lazy. Ooh. They're for people who don't think critically. Now, wait a minute. Go back on that one, Bill, because that's a good point you make, but- What point did I make? You said conspiracy theorists are lazy.

If only there were 60 people who were screwing everything up. All we'd have to do is find those 60 people and unscrew it. But that's not what it is. It's 7.3 billion people running around trying to make a living and things just get messed up because they just do. And if you're skeptical of the moon landing being fake, I just, as always, I tell everybody, just look how much paperwork was generated to land on the moon. There's no

faking company who could afford to create those warehouses of manuals. Right. And to what end? So now let me ask you this, because I think Christopher has hit on something, and I want you to talk about this very quickly. There are some conspiracy theorists, Mr. Nye, Dr. Nye, who make a very convincing case that scientists such as yourself are pushing the whole climate change agenda because it brings attention to them and gets them grant money for work and crap. And there are a lot of people who believe this.

So how do you answer somebody like that? Well, when it comes to climate change, we remind us that people have been worried about climate change for decades. And you may remember June 23rd, 1988, when James Hansen testified in front of Congress. I consider that the beginning of the climate generation. And 97% of the world's scientists are worried about it. Consider how much the fossil fuel industry invests in creating this myth that there's not a scientific consensus. It's a factor of 100. If something like the Environmental Defense Fund spends $3 million, the coal industry spends $700 million. Oh, wow. To promote these myths.

And so, by the way, along with the four things, electricity for everybody, clean water for everybody, improved electrical storage, improved transmission lines, and top-down or regulatory system that discourages the production of carbon dioxide and fugitive methane. And along with that, we need to skate these climate deniers off the play. They are causing trouble, in my opinion. They are holding the earth, they're holding humankind back. They're leaving the world worse than they found it. And I say to conservative politicians, if you're out there, you could be like the guy who quit smoking. Who is the most anti-smoking person you're ever going to meet?

The guy who just quit. That's right. He's a zealot. Politician, we got 15 months. We got 13 months. You could change. You could say, hey, I've looked at the evidence. Hey, 97% of the world's scientists are concerned about this.

Every other government in the world is begging the United States to lead on climate change issues. And you could change. And then you'd have all the millennials with the potential to vote for you. This would be a fantastic thing. Chuck, I should pull back on StarTalk Radio. Chuck Nice here is taking your cosmic queries about skepticism, magic, and delusion. And I'm your guest host. Bill Nye will be back right after this

welcome back ladies and gentlemen to star talk radio i'm your guest host bill nye and our cosmic queries this week uh are with respect to skepticism magic and illusion yes that's correct so chuck you've got a stack of uh queries from the Yes, that's correct. So Chuck, you've got a stack of queries from the cosmos. Yes, that's right. Regarding, I'm skeptical. No, I'm not. I believe you. Lead on, give me one. Alright, let's go to Eddie Rogers Kubrick.

And Eddie wants to know this. Would you say all eyewitness accounts of miracles are either lies or the product of an illusion or hallucination. Well, I think there are people looking for patterns that aren't really there. Okay. So we all get confused.

Eyewitness accounts are the least reliable evidence you're going to come across, perhaps. That's true. And so if you haven't done this in psychology class where the red car hits the green car, no, wait, it was a white car. You get it all confused. And so eyewitness accounts aren't especially reliable. And what we say in the skeptical community is you have to have high quality evidence, extraordinary evidence to prove an extraordinary claim. And the classic example, which I did on a television show back in 1995, was the earth is round. When you stand on the earth, it looks flat.

Yes. But you can show, I'm pretty solidly convinced the earth is round. So it was an extraordinary claim with an extraordinary evidence. I can predict the outcome of horse races. If you could do that, why aren't you crazy rich? Well, probably. Well, I can almost do it. Okay.

Then you're almost crazy rich. Right. Okay, cool. Give me another one. Okay. So what do you think about when, okay, so he says. No, what do I think about? These are eyewitness accounts.

I think they're not especially reliable. All right. So now, what do you think about the people who believe in miracles because of personal experience when it comes to, say, for instance, an inexplicable cure of cancer? See, it has to be so. In the case of an extraordinary claim like that. Yes. And you say it's inexplicable. We'd have to look at the specific case and see how explicable it was.

We'd have to look at the specific case and see how splicable it was. Because it's easy to make broad statements. And somebody says the doctors gave him six months to live and he lived five years. Okay, good. I'm glad he did. Right. But I'm not sure that it's any more proof that the doctors didn't have it quite right rather than it was a miracle with the divine intervention of an entity that we cannot see or speak with. You say you can speak with,

that I cannot see or speak with, that caused this. So it really depends on the specific claim. As we say in the community, it depends on the claim. The claim is the key. Okay. That's a damn good answer, man.

All right. I'm so surprised, Chuck. I put my heart and soul into the show, man. Help a fellow out. All right. All right. All right. This is Andy Brooks. Andy wants to know this, Bill. As a scientifically minded person what do you consider to be magic what sparks that childlike sense of awe within you bill nye okay oh i like that question sparking childlike sense of awe that happens to me all the time okay that's not the same as magic for me i mean we're talking about definition of words perhaps but magic is something done with supernatural phenomena that I cannot explain. What a magician does that might be magical, having the characteristics of or pertaining to supernatural phenomena, is art and science and often engineering.

Right. Where you have to open the book and it catches on fire. Somebody engineered a cigarette lighter that fit in the book. Right. Where you have to open the book and it catches on fire. Somebody engineered a cigarette lighter that fit in the book. Right. Okay. So I am in awe every day of my place in the cosmos.

Really? Yes. That I can somehow be made of stardust and understand that I'm made of stardust to me is astonishing. Astonishing. Cool. Okay.

But I don't consider that magic. I got you. But that is what sparks the childlike awe within Bill Nye. Science, for me, really starts with, whoa, what happened? Did you see that? That's how science starts for me. Gotcha. And magic has that in common with it.

Wow. How did that happen? But cosmic phenomena are different from people trying to fool you. All right. Well, then I need to grow up because that was a very good answer. And my answer was boobies. Well, I think I have a fascination with those as well. And they certainly are magical.

I think it was Katy Perry who remarked, we girls are so magical, so kissable. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I say remarked. Look at you with the Katy Perry reference. The term magical is not the same as supernatural, unexplained by anything we know in all of science. There you go. All right.

There you have it. All right, Andy. Good question. We appreciate it. All right. Let you have it. All right, Andy. Good question. We appreciate it. All right. Let's go to Tom Ricks. R-I-X. What a cool name.

That is a cool name. Tom Ricks. Tom Ricks wants to know this. First, he states, to me, magic is simply a word to describe an occurrence that you didn't fully understand. Then he gives an example. For example, I imagine my dog Duke is completely bewildered by my ability to change images on the TV without touching it. I think he'd give your

dog a lot of credit there, man. But anyway, he doesn't know about the invisible signal sent from the remote. So to him, it's complete magic. Would a technologically superior civilization be able to compete completely bewilder our scientists with their technology to the point where our scientists would believe it's magic or is our understanding of physics sound enough that we would know what's up even if we couldn't replicate it ourselves that was a long way to go to say this, Bill Nye. You as a scientist, you encounter an alien race. They are able to perform what looks like magic by violating the laws of physics. Would you say it's magic or would you say, no, I got to find out how they violated the laws of physics? I'd go with the second one. And what I'd probably say is there's

some law of physics we don't fully understand. This manifestation, this effect, this phenomenon is described by some aspect of nature that we do not yet grasp. Gotcha. To say that the dog thinks it's magic when you change the channel, I'm open-minded but skeptical. Yeah, so am I. I think Duke, the dog, just kind of takes it for granted. Yeah. Human shows up.

He's got food. Right. Once in a while, he smells like a dog. Are we going for a walk? Yeah. Are you another dog? Right. Are we going for a walk?

Exactly. I'm tired. Do you have any food? Right. I don't think the claim that a dog thinks it's magic, that a dog believes in supernatural phenomena, I'm open-minded but skeptical. That's a bit anthropomorphic. It is.

It's projecting. You're projecting. It's projecting your human perceptions. So it was Arthur C. Clarke who remarked that any sufficiently sophisticated technology would be indistinguishable from magic. Right. But it's a charming turn of phrase or quotation. But you start getting into the semantics of what is magic, and you can knock yourself out.

I just think with 85% of the observable universe being dark matter, which means you can't see it, there's a lot we don't understand, peoples. There you go. That's all I'm saying. To claim that that is magic, supernatural, and that certain people can control this dark matter, dark energy with their minds. I am your father. I'm open-minded,

but skeptical. Yeah, there you go, Tom. So no, that's not the way it would work. And so scientists would still say, nope, we just don't understand how they're doing it, but it doesn't mean that it's magic. And two, any animal that licks its own testicles really doesn't care what's on TV. So there's your answers. Oh, I don't know. I've seen dogs. There's definitely certain programs dogs prefer. I mean, there's no doubt.

Oh, really? As an assessment of animal behavior. Okay. All right. It's not on my business card, animal behaviorist. Maybe now I'm projecting because maybe me as a dog wouldn't care what's on the TV. Well, I think we're all dogs. I feel a little Parliament Funkadelic

coming on right now. In a certain situation. I'm a dog. But as you are the reader of the queries, you demand now, dog. There you go. That's right, my dog. Alright, here we go. Ray Marin. Ray Marin wants to know this, Bill.

Why can't mathematics and physics explain what happened before the Big Bang? Do we need a newer math or a newer version of physics? Bring it on. Wow. I mean, hold it. When you say, why can't math do this or physics do that? Humans discovered math. Humans made up physics.

It doesn't only come from the sky. These are human endeavors, mathematics and physics. Right. And it was very recently that humans discovered the Big Bang. I mean, people didn't even know about the Big Bang. Who knows what else we have not discovered? The pursuit of whatever it is or was before the Big Bang is a reason for astrophysicists to get up in the morning and stay up all night. It drives us.

It makes us want to know more about nature. It drives us. It makes us want to know more about nature. So there is no question that our physics, our mathematics is incomplete. Otherwise, we would know the answer to your question. We would have the answer. Yeah. And if that is unknowable, we'd prove that it's unknowable somehow. Okay.

And if I'm wrong about that, then I will be enlightened. And that will be the process that we call science. Cool, man. Well, there you have it, Ray Maron. Not to go tautological on you, but our belief in science is that we can know, there is a process by which we can know nature. And so if we say there's this phenomenon in nature we call the Big Bang, we expect to be able to know a lot about it and certainly more than we know now. I'll give you that. Right. All right, man.

What if it's like unknowable and we're like, you know, living on a ping pong ball and like a cosmic game of ping pong played by cosmissions of the cosmos? Could be. But much more reasonable is that we just haven't figured it out yet. And at the end of that impression, let me just do this. There you go. Yeah. Okay. We covered that on an earlier StarTalk. Yes, we did.

No, just some disclosure there. So let's go to Brian Holmes. Brian's got a quick little question. He wants. No, just some disclosure there. So let's go to Brian Holmes. Brian's got a quick little question. He wants to know this, short and simple. Is it possible for a human, or human, sorry. I saw a person and I said human. You thought human and it might be my old boss. Let me do it again, Brian.

Sorry for butchering your question. Brian wants to know this. Is it possible for a person to levitate like the trick done by David Blaine? And under what circumstances would that be possible? Well, if you're doing it like the trick done by David Blaine, yes, it's a trick. If you're saying, can he do it as an illusion? Yes. Can he really have superpowers

and fly around like Superman and some other guys? Green Lantern, I think, can fly. Yes, Green Lantern. Wonder Woman. No, she's in a plane. She's in a plane. She's got an invisible plane.

She's got a plane. Looks like she flies. It's invisible. It's invisible. A rookie mistake, yeah. So, no. I would say no. And if you find a way to do it,

more power to you. The guy who did claim to levitate, this guy who had a mystic quality from the region of India. Yes. From Asia. I forget his name. Yogi something. It had a yogi, I think, in it. But he was an athlete who could flex his thighs in such a way that it looked like he was flying. He was just bouncing. He was bouncing off the ground. In an athletic fashion, but he wasn't really levitating.

So I'm very skeptical. However, can somebody like David Blaine make it look like it? Absolutely. Cool. And would there be a way to, I don't know, using, like, okay, for instance, trains hover over top of an electromagnetic bed. Yes, with magnetism. With magnetism. They're levitating. So that's a form of electromagnetic bed. Yes, with magnetism. With magnetism.

They're levitating. So that's a form of levitation. There you go. Right. Could you have enough magnets on a person to levitate? I should think so. Okay. But his clothing or her clothing would have an unusual appearance.

But I wonder if, and by the way, you don't levitate that high. The magnetic field generally falls off as the cube of the distance. you don't levitate that high. You know, the magnetic field generally falls off as the cube of the distance. Okay. So you have to have a very strong magnetic field even to, to move things even a little bit. Just a little bit.

Yeah. Okay. Well, there you go, man. Hey, a great question there, Brian.

All right. Let's move to Jeff Norbury. Jeff says, what's the biggest illusion you ever fell for? Fell for? So, now see, I don't know if that would be the right term. Well, when I was in the Boy Scouts, I was instructed to get a smoke shifter. I don't know what that is. Well, it was a thing to shift smoke away from the campfire and the tents to some other part of the forest.

Okay. So your eyes wouldn't be watering continually. Your clothing wouldn't just be soaked with smoke and have that smell. Turned out to be no such thing. Okay. I was going to say. I was about to say. But I walked around.

I was fooled. I was badly fooled. I was a young person. I don't think I was yet to say, my God. But I walked around. I was fooled. I was badly fooled. I was a young person. I don't think I was yet 12 years old. And I was badly fooled. So that was a very good illusion. And what the key to it was, these other guys who I respected, camp counselors, who had shown me how to keep from drowning, how to rescue others who might be drowning, how to operate a canoe. Right. how to keep from drowning, how to rescue others who might be drowning, how to operate a canoe,

how to identify 15 or 25 different species or genuses of forest plants. These same people were all in on this deception. Blah! That's awesome. And I fell for it hook, line, and smoke shifter

for about an hour. Listen, I just fell for it right now. Are and smoke shifter for about an hour. Listen, I just fell for it right now. Are you kidding me? For about an hour. And then I was tired of literally running. And I was afraid I was going to be derided or penalized or subjected to further kitchen cleanup if I did not come back with this mythic device. And so I was motivated, which made it all the more frustrating. For those of you out there for whom the beans of the smoke shifter can have been spilled,

I'm sorry, but it was part of my critical thinking and it was induced by this thoughtful question here on the Cosmic Queries StarTalk. And once again, here's the great thing. Once again, you just illustrated your own point. Here's a pattern. These guys you trusted because they had done so many great things for you. No way they would ever subject you to that type of— They're trustworthy.

Right. Of course they are. Sweet. Yeah, sweet. It was quite bitter, really. I'm still a little shaken up. This is Cosmic Queries, Skeptics, Magic, and Illusion. We'll be back with your questions with Chuck Nice and myself, Bill Nye, right after this.

Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. I'm your guest host, Bill Nye. But I think more importantly and more impressive and just really something that I hope inspires our audience, I'm here with Chuck Nice. Oh, wow. Chuck Nice is going to read your queries, your cosmic queries. Yes. This week's episode features cosmic queries

that involve skepticism, magic, and illusion. Yes. Cue the music. But these have been cool questions because these are about, for me, Chuck. Right. These are about how we know nature. They're about how we know our places, how we know the natural world.

And that, for me, is the process of science. Nice. But it's very easy to draw incorrect conclusions or what are provably incorrect conclusions about the natural world. And magic and illusionists are people that try to induce you to draw incorrect conclusions. Right. Oh, the humanity. That's where their bread is buttered, so to speak. There you go.

And I'm sure it's gluten-free and it's a vegetable-based bread. It's all good. Chuck, you have some queries. Yes, we do. Let's go with Adam Rammer from Facebook. And Adam would like to know this. How do you know if your standard of proof is too high? How do you know you're not being too skeptical?

I need an example. That was going to say, I don't really understand. It depends on the claim. If you're like, Bill, just like roll with it and like, you know, let it like happen. You're not going to, there's a very good chance that you won't draw correct conclusions. Gotcha. Where you're so skeptical that you don't even get anything done and you don't enjoy a magic show, for example. That's a little different deal.

But can you be too skeptical? You can certainly reject too many data that seem too far off your nominal or what you're hoping for. Okay. So- What you expected. All right. So with that in mind, let's talk about experimentation as a scientist. You're trying to- You're walking down the street. Right. But no, no, you're just trying to prove something in the lab.

Give me an example. Is the lab a street? Then you could be walking through it. You could be walking through it. Sorry. But no, let's just say you're trying to prove, I don't know. That hydrogen atoms have resonant frequencies that have dark bands where the electrons fall from one quantum level to another. That's exactly what I was going to say. Okay. Then you shine light through the hydrogen and see

if you get the bands. Alright, now let's say you do that, I don't know, 2,000 times and it happens all 2,000 times and you go, I don't know. We got to find out. We still don't know for sure. So I think that's what he's saying is where does it happen

in experimentation where you say, alright, good enough. We know this happens. Let's move on. Oh, let's talk where does it where does it happen in experimentation where you say all right good enough we know this happens let's move on oh let's talk sigma shall we okay so imagine the bell curve of anything okay hydrogen spectral line measurements so there's a hump right in the middle then it goes out to the left is on the right, the positives and the negatives, and it tapers down. Down, down, down. Right. Smooching the horizontal axis. Bell fashion.

Well, where it changes from curving down to curving up. Okay. That's the standard deviation. Right. Left and right of the center. So we ran in mathematics, they run out of Roman letters, so they start using Greek ones. And for standard deviation, they use sigma. Right.

Lowercase sigma, usually. Okay, so then if you're one standard deviation width from the middle, that's one sigma. Okay. Then you can go out two sigma, then three sigma. Okay. Then you can go out two sigma, then three sigma. When you're three of those distances from the center, you're at 97.3% of the data are between the plus, minus,

plus three sigma, minus three sigma. Okay. But now you can go out to five sigma and six sigma, way out where the bell curve is just about touching. It's almost touching the axis. Nice. But it's not quite touching. Show me on the axis where the bad bell curve touched you. Yeah, yeah.

So you get to a place where you're good for all practical purposes. And the practical purpose might be manufacturing an automobile engine. Okay. Some of them are going to mess up. Right. But almost all of them are going to work just fine. Gotcha. And so there's a case where you can be too skeptical and spend too much money.

Too much money and time. Trying to get it even better, but it doesn't do any good. Right. Because even if you do, it's a diminishing return because- Diminishing return. Yeah. It's so negligible what difference does it really make so this is a case where mathematical modeling of nature is quite

instructive when we go to make things but there are other things that are absolutely provably true okay and if you got somebody says well you can't prove the sun's not going to come up tomorrow i can prove it to beyond any reasonable doubt i can call somebody in australia prove the sun's not going to come up tomorrow. I can prove it beyond any reasonable doubt. I can call somebody in Australia where the sun is rising right now. Right. And they, yep, there's still, yep, sure enough. It's still happening. Yeah.

Gotcha. What if the earth blows up? Okay. Probably won't. Probably won't. If you're a betting guy. Right. Right.

Okay. Hey, there you go. Great question, man. Way to go. Way to go, Adam. We love it. All right. Let us move on to Dean. Yes, let you go. Great question, man. Way to go. Way to go, Adam. We love it. All right. Let us move on to Dean.

Yes, let us. Dean Hiller or Hyler. H-I-L-E-R. Dean. H-I-L-E-R. Dean. I love that you just turned him into an advertisement for himself. Well, it was Jell-O back in the day.

Oh, my God. I totally missed that. J-E-L-L-O. There we go. That's right. And now we can't have any of it. There's going to the day. Oh my God, I totally missed that. J-E-L-L-O. There we go. That's right, and now we can't have any of it. There's going to be lawsuits. Oh God, there's going to be. Please, don't eat the Jell-O and take a nap.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. A reference from a discredited comedian. This is all I'm saying. You want to keep the Jell-O. Wow, wow. I'm just asking you to. Not too much of that. Please, just stay awake.

The man is in trouble. No, don't go to sleep is what I'm saying. Please, just. The man's in trouble. Oh my God, wow. I'm just asking you to... Not too much of that. Please, just stay awake. The man is in trouble. No, don't go to sleep is what I'm saying. Please, just... The man's in trouble. Oh, my God, please. Lighten up on him. Wake up. Okay.

Dean wants to know this, Bill. Children are highly suggestible. They believe just about any idea or concept... Depends on the kid. I gotta stop you right there. I know, you're right about that. But go ahead. Prove it.

No, you prove it. Prove it. You can't prove that. It depends on the kid. So do you have any tips for instilling a good sense of skepticism into children to prepare them for a world

full of incredible claims from credulous people? Show them how easy it is to fool each other. Do card tricks. Right. I'm a huge fan of Pepper's Ghost, where you have a piece of glass.

You light an object on one side of the glass. Mm-hmm. The viewer sees that object. Okay. Then you change the lighting so you no longer light that object. You light an object at a right angle to that. And the glass is at a 45-degree angle to the viewer.

And now the viewer sees the other object. Okay. By changing the lighting, you can make the viewer think he's seeing this or that. It's done with mirrors. It's done with mirrors. And it's a charming effect. And I can't say enough good things. And just to promote me, you could watch the Bill Nye show about pseudoscience. Turn it up loud.

There you go. All right. So there you have it, man. Do some experimentation at home. Have your kids learn magic tricks and see how easy it is to fool people. Okay. And the better you are at the trick, the more people you will fool. You'll see it's an art as well as an engineering problem.

Excellent. All right, this is Marco Darko. I don't think that's his real name. It's good enough for me. You'll take it. Yeah. Marco Darko, he says this. I'm from Canada, eh?

I put the eh in there. Oh, man. And curious about future exploration. Is the team with various countries a type of space race, or can we legitimately join together and pool resources so that we can be the best that we can be? Oh, that's a great question. Canada, you know, the Canadian Space Agency, although its funding is cut way back from what it was even a few years ago, participates in so many missions around the world because Canada made a cool decision not to build rockets, just to build instruments. Right. Their space agency.

And they've been very successful, and they built the Canadarm, which is on the space station and so on. And so, yes, we can all pull together, but we're not there yet, everybody. Believe me, or not. Run your own test. If China were sending people to Mars, every other country would be interested in a mission to Mars. So the space race aspect, that sense of competition, actually inspires governments to get their asses get their asses moving yeah yeah that's what the cold war was all about the race to the moon and and it was declared informally and pursued formally so uh but people who study the history of space cannot help but notice the space race and how much it did to get people on the moon but because after that was done and the moon is lifeless not a lot of stuff going on

right brought back some cool rocks it hasn't become a big destination and it was really what people in history call the nixon doctrine yeah richard nixon yes yes decided that Yes. Richard Nixon. Yes. Yes. Decided that NASA or the space agencies had to compete for money like any other domestic program. That's right. That's right. He was a crook. But that aside, he made NASA a domestic issue rather than an international relations or international issue. Wow. And this has had a much bigger effect on the space programs of the world than the famous Nixon, Kennedy was, the famous Kennedy moment.

The famous Kennedy moment when Kennedy said we're going to go to the moon. We chose to go to the moon because. That's right. And do this, that, and the other thing. Because it's hard, not easy. It sounds like you're kind of caribbean i don't know a new english thing which brings me of course caribbean new english as always brings us to the lightning round so in the lightning round we read these questions fast and i give you answers quickly that's right this is orlando lonzo who says

evolutionarily speaking isn't it refining our species to be skeptical of new things, good and bad alike? Well, I claim that the better our ancestors are at understanding nature through the scientific method, the better their offspring will be. And the humans that do draw correct or provable conclusions about nature will have a much better survival rate than those who do not. Boom. Christopher Allen says this. I'm a teacher and I would like to know what is the possibility and physical science of telekinesis? So that would be either thought transfer or moving stuff with your mind.

There's no evidence for it. Period. I love you. So brain uses about 30 watts, just turned up to 11, just going working as hard as you can, 30 watts. Okay. You can't do a lot of telekinesifying of tables and lamps and cars with that. And plus, how do you get it out of your head into the space around you? Prove it, and we'll be excited.

Mark Miller. Mark Miller was today. Chuck's in tears. Chuck Miller wants to know. Chucks and tears. Chuck, bring it on. Spin it out, man. Mark Miller wants to know, what would the world be like without skepticism? Where would we be? Well, take my word for it.

We'd be really well off, and we'd all be rich, and all have superpowers, and no one would ever be unhappy ever again. Nice. Hey, Bill, that was really good. Okay, Kelly Elizabeth Claus wants to know this. Can you explain the quote-unquote illusion behind what makes stars in the night sky, such as Sirius, appear to twinkle? Yeah, the atmosphere. as serious appear to twinkle.

Yeah, the atmosphere. The atmosphere is swirling like clouds in your coffee, clouds in your coffee, and the swirling atmosphere makes the objects appear to change brightness. Nice. Lenny, Ancrieri wants to know this. Is there anything that you would accept as being permanently outside the realm of science to explain things and therefore be magical? Can something exist outside the realm of science, Bill?

Well, then we would just say our science is incomplete. It's tautological. I mean, show me the thing and we'll take a meeting. Wow. Here is somebody I just can't even. Stefan Kraljic. Hey, guys, my question is, where do we draw the line between skepticism and absolute truth? Well, it's seven sigma way out there.

We just did kind of go through that, right? Well, but I mean, so you got to decide if you're, is the sun going to come up tomorrow for me? Yes. I'm counting on it. Will the world end in 2017? The people who issue my credit cards don't think so. So it's up to you.

But for most of us in science, there are absolute truths. And the Big Bang is one of them. And you and I are made of cosmic dust is another. And this has been another wonderful and exciting Cosmic Query episode of StarTalk. Chuck Nice has been your reader and commentator. I have been your host, Bill Nye, and we'll see you next time on StarTalk. In the meanwhile, everyone, please keep looking up. This is StarTalk.