Joe Rogan Experience #1888 - Michael Shermer

1. 0:00 – 2:08

   Why conspiracy beliefs can be rational: cost of false positives vs false negatives

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      (drumming music plays) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. MSMichael Shermer0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music plays)

   4. MSMichael Shermer0:13

      (laughs)

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:13

      ... Spears. Michael Shure.

   6. MSMichael Shermer0:15

      Icon-bearing signed gifts for you, sir.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:17

      Thank you very much.

   8. MSMichael Shermer0:17

      (laughs) I hope that's all right.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:19

      Why the Rational Believe the Irrational.

   10. MSMichael Shermer0:22

       Right.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:23

       Why is that?

   12. MSMichael Shermer0:24

       (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:24

       Is it simple? It wouldn't be this big of a book-

   14. MSMichael Shermer0:27

       N- no.

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:27

       ... if it was simple.

   16. MSMichael Shermer0:28

       Yeah, it's not that simple, but, uh ... Well, first of all, my argument is that it's not irrational to believe conspiracy theories, because enough of them are true that i- it pays to err on the side of assuming more of them are true than actually are than missing real conspiracy theories, and then that's a, a costlier err- error to make.

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:49

       That's a rational perspective.

   18. MSMichael Shermer0:51

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan0:51

       Uh, the, the term conspiracy theory got thrown about ... There was the first, the first introduction of it into the zeitgeist was during the Kennedy assassination, correct?

   20. MSMichael Shermer1:00

       Yeah. Well, uh, around that time, right? It, it, uh ... Before that, before World War II really, conspiracy theories were kind of common knowledge. Everybody knew that things were going on behind, uh, closed doors and it was just ki- commonly known and we just kind of tried to figure it out. It didn't become really fringey until right after the JFK thing that it, it, it kinda got a, as a meme that you're crazy to think these conspiracy theories are true. It became pathologized.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:27

       Yeah.

   22. MSMichael Shermer1:28

       You know, Richard Hofstadter's, you know, the Paranoid Style in American Politics kind of m- put that on the map as conspiracy theories are something delusional. You ... It's a, it's a pathology in your brain. Whereas, before that, it wasn't. It was just ... I mean, even the Declaration of Independence, it's a conspiracy theory. It's saying, "Look, the British are doing this whole train of abuses and usurpations, and here's what we think they're up to, and here's what we think they wanna do, and we're against that." That's printed right there in the Declaration.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:54

       Yeah.

   24. MSMichael Shermer1:54

       So it's not fringey, right? It was, it was kind of commonly known that these things happened.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:58

       The term as a pejorative, though, was ... It was introduced into, like, sort of the American m- m- culture around the Kennedy assassination.

2. 2:08 – 11:05

   JFK assassination debate: Oswald alone, withheld files, and the 'magic bullet' argument

   1. MSMichael Shermer2:08

      Yeah. Yeah, that's an interesting story, because, um, I'm, I'm convinced Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I'm not a-

   2. JRJoe Rogan2:14

      Really?

   3. MSMichael Shermer2:14

      Yes, I am. Yeah.

   4. JRJoe Rogan2:15

      What makes you convinced of that?

   5. MSMichael Shermer2:16

      (laughs) Uh, well, I have a whole chapter on it, and we can get into that in a second. But, uh, the, the, the twist about it where it seems like there was something up was that John ... President Johnson was worried that if it looks like there's a conspiracy afoot with the Cubans or the Russians, that that could lead to a nuclear exchange, so we don't want the American people to think that this is some kind of vast conspiracy of the, of the Russians so we can avoid war.

   6. JRJoe Rogan2:42

      Have you gone back and forth on that at all?

   7. MSMichael Shermer2:44

      Uh-

   8. JRJoe Rogan2:44

      Or is it just something you've always believed?

   9. MSMichael Shermer2:46

      No, no. I ... Well, uh, before the Oliver Stone film, I hadn't really given it that much thought. I thought, "Well, the, you know, Warren Report seems pretty, uh, thorough, but, you know, who knows? What do I know?" And then, you know, the Oliver Stone film, which floats every conspiracy theory there was in one package, and then I thought, "Well, you know, if 10% of this is true, seems like there was something else going on." Uh, but then, you know, there were web pages posted of like, "Here are all the mistakes in the film, and here are all the counterarguments." And then I read Gerald Posner's book, Case Closed, about the life of Lee Harvey Oswald and why all the evidence points to him, and then, uh, Vincent Bugliosi's book, uh, Reclaiming History, which is, like, 1,500 pages long, and it, it dissects every one of the hundreds of conspiracy theories. There are ... Something on the order of 140 people have been accused, and, you know, a couple hundred organizations have been a- affiliated with the JFK assassination. The problem is, is that there's no convergence of evidence to any other one than Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone, and all the evidence points to him. So it's not impossible, you know that-

   10. JRJoe Rogan3:48

       All the evidence points to him?

   11. MSMichael Shermer3:49

       Massive amounts of evidence, right?

   12. JRJoe Rogan3:51

       Mm-hmm.

   13. MSMichael Shermer3:51

       And so now, we're supposed to get a new, uh, uh, uh-

   14. JRJoe Rogan3:54

       Why do you think they-

   15. MSMichael Shermer3:55

       ... troch- tranches of documents.

   16. JRJoe Rogan3:55

       But they're not. They're, they won't release 'em. They keep stopping-

   17. MSMichael Shermer3:59

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan3:59

       ... the release of these documents.

   19. MSMichael Shermer4:00

       Uh, this worries me because that makes people suspicious, as it should. And, uh, so any, any ... But, but back, back to-

   20. JRJoe Rogan4:07

       But wait a minute. It worries you because it makes people suspicious, or it worries you-

   21. MSMichael Shermer4:11

       Yes. Yes.

   22. JRJoe Rogan4:11

       ... because it points to their withholding information because that information looks bad?

   23. MSMichael Shermer4:18

       Uh, I would love to see the information, and I would change my mind in a heartbeat. Uh-

   24. JRJoe Rogan4:21

       What are your, what are your thoughts on the magic bullet?

   25. MSMichael Shermer4:24

       Okay. The magic bullet is not a magic bullet. It's a single-bullet theory. That is ... What, what it's usually rendered as is Kennedy and Connally are sitting like this, si- uh, you know, back-

   26. JRJoe Rogan4:33

       Oh, I'm aware of all of it.

   27. MSMichael Shermer4:34

       Back to back. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan4:34

       Yeah.

   29. MSMichael Shermer4:34

       Right. So the bullet doesn't have to go left, right, and, and so forth.

   30. JRJoe Rogan4:37

       Kennedy was elevated.
3. 11:05 – 13:26

   From JFK to MKUltra and Manson: when conspiracies are documented

   1. JRJoe Rogan11:05

      ... there's this, there's a big conspiracy about that, about the Manson family and the, uh, the fact that Charles Manson was a part of MKUltra.

   2. MSMichael Shermer11:12

      Oh, yes, right. Yes, right, right. So we can go-

   3. JRJoe Rogan11:14

      Did you ever read Chaos by Tom O'Neill?

   4. MSMichael Shermer11:17

      No, I haven't read that one.

   5. JRJoe Rogan11:18

      It's a fantastic book. It's all about why Manson kept getting released.

   6. MSMichael Shermer11:23

      Mm-hmm.

   7. JRJoe Rogan11:23

      You know, M- Manson was in jail, right? And during the time he was in jail, he was visited by Jolly West, who was the head of the CIA's MKUltra LSD experiments. They most certainly did something to Manson while he was in jail, and they also supplied him... there's anecdotal evidence that shows that they supplied him with LSD when he got out of jail.

   8. MSMichael Shermer11:46

      Mm-hmm.

   9. JRJoe Rogan11:46

      Every time he got arrested for violating parole, these cops and these local sheriffs that had caught him were told that it was above their pay grade and they had to release him.

   10. MSMichael Shermer11:55

       Mm-hmm.

   11. JRJoe Rogan11:55

       ... Manson got out-

   12. MSMichael Shermer11:57

       Mm-hmm.

   13. JRJoe Rogan11:57

       ... for multiple offenses after he was on parole, things that should have kept him locked up.

   14. MSMichael Shermer12:03

       Mm-hmm.

   15. JRJoe Rogan12:03

       There's some real good evidence that, you know about M- MKUltra was a rare thing.

   16. MSMichael Shermer12:08

       Yep. Yep.

   17. JRJoe Rogan12:08

       And that's, that's an interesting conspiracy, right?

   18. MSMichael Shermer12:10

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan12:10

       'Cause it's a real one.

   20. MSMichael Shermer12:11

       It's a real one.

   21. JRJoe Rogan12:11

       Documented.

   22. MSMichael Shermer12:12

       Our own government was doing this.

   23. JRJoe Rogan12:13

       Yeah. Well, there's, there's Operation Midnight Climax that they were involved with, where they were ... Do you know about that one?

   24. MSMichael Shermer12:18

       Mm-hmm.

   25. JRJoe Rogan12:18

       That's where they were dosing up, um, johns when they would go to visit prostitutes-

   26. MSMichael Shermer12:22

       Mm-hmm.

   27. JRJoe Rogan12:22

       ... and they would film them through-

   28. MSMichael Shermer12:23

       Yes. (laughs)

   29. JRJoe Rogan12:23

       ... two-way mirrors.

   30. MSMichael Shermer12:24

       Right.
4. 13:26 – 23:17

   A framework for sorting conspiracies: the two-by-two grid and 'constructive conspiracism'

   1. MSMichael Shermer13:26

      Yeah. That's right. All right. So let's distinguish, uh, conspiracy theories from conspiracies. Conspiracies, by definition, are two or more people plotting in secret to gain an unfair, illegal, or immoral advantage over somebody else. That happens all the time, right?

   2. JRJoe Rogan13:39

      Sure.

   3. MSMichael Shermer13:39

      So how do we know ... So it's a signal detection problem. How do you know which conspiracy theories are correct? They-

   4. JRJoe Rogan13:44

      Right.

   5. MSMichael Shermer13:45

      They tag an actual conspiracy, right? So I, I draw this two-by-two grid. So h- up here you have real conspiracy th- theories that are real and you a- a- a- a- associate them with that correctly. You, you say, "Yeah, that's, that's what I, I agree." That's a hit.

   6. JRJoe Rogan14:01

      Mm-hmm.

   7. MSMichael Shermer14:01

      So conspiracy theories that are real and you go, "No, I don't believe it. I don't think there's a real conspiracy." That's a miss. So that's a big miss, right? That's a type two error. You don't wanna miss those 'cause those are real. They could harm you. Down here you have conspiracy theories that are not true and you think they are, so that's a false positive, a type one error. That's a low-cost error to make. Doesn't cost a lot. It's not risky to assume a conspiracy theory is real when it's not. And so this is my argument, is that we've evolved this cognition to be very suspicious and paranoid about other people and what they're doing because historically and evolutionarily wise, in these small bands and tribes of hunter-gatherers, anthropologists tell us there's a lot of conniving and, and, and cabals and-

   8. JRJoe Rogan14:42

      Right.

   9. MSMichael Shermer14:42

      ... and so on. This goes on. So I call this constructive conspiracism. It pays to be a little paranoid because sometimes they really are out to get you, right?

   10. JRJoe Rogan14:50

       But it also pays to be rational and recognize which ones are conspiracies and which ones are probably people just in the moment of chaos, like 9/11, adding a bunch of stuff to what they've experienced in just the chaos of the incident. "I, I've-"

   11. MSMichael Shermer15:07

       Right.

   12. JRJoe Rogan15:08

       "... heard explosions. I saw this."

   13. MSMichael Shermer15:09

       Hey, right?

   14. JRJoe Rogan15:09

       "I saw that." And you know that p- in times like that, of great distress, people and eyewitness testimonies are some of the most unreliable, because people are so blown away by the extreme moment that they can't-

   15. MSMichael Shermer15:23

       Right.

   16. JRJoe Rogan15:23

       ... really recall things correctly.

   17. MSMichael Shermer15:25

       Okay. Let's just do a counter, another counterfactual. Like, what would be true if this really was a conspiracy? Well, there should be some documentation somewhere.

   18. JRJoe Rogan15:33

       There is, and that's why they won't release it.

   19. MSMichael Shermer15:35

       Yeah. (laughs) Well, okay. So this is the problem. Release it, damn it. Right?

   20. JRJoe Rogan15:38

       Yeah. Well, why do you think ... But what possible reason-

   21. MSMichael Shermer15:42

       I thought Trump was-

   22. JRJoe Rogan15:43

       ... in, in good-

   23. MSMichael Shermer15:43

       I thought Trump was gonna release it.

   24. JRJoe Rogan15:44

       I don't think-

   25. MSMichael Shermer15:44

       I was quite surprised.

   26. JRJoe Rogan15:45

       I don't think they wanna let anybody release that stuff.

   27. MSMichael Shermer15:47

       If, if it's anyth- if I had to guess, it would be something like what the CIA was up to even more than what we know about, you know, over- overthrowing, rigging elections in South American-

   28. JRJoe Rogan15:56

       Mm-hmm.

   29. MSMichael Shermer15:56

       ... countries, assassinating communist dictators.

   30. JRJoe Rogan15:59

       Real conspiracies.
5. 23:17 – 24:30

   Scaling rules and secrecy: why big conspiracies are hard, but some secrets stay hidden

   1. MSMichael Shermer23:17

      Yeah. But I mean, again, how does, how do these systems really work? Um, you know, the, so this is my kind of, uh, conspiracy detection kit. You know, the grander the conspiracy theory, the less likely it is to be true. Like, s- say Volkswagen cheating the emission standards in, uh-

   2. JRJoe Rogan23:33

      Mm-hmm.

   3. MSMichael Shermer23:33

      ... Europe. That, you know, that's a very specific conspiracy theory. Turned out to be true. They really did do that, and for obvious reasons, profit motive, right? But, but, but, so if you scale up from that, "Well, they're trying to control the entire European, uh, um, uh, economy," or something like, well, no, that's too big. That's-

   4. JRJoe Rogan23:50

      They're just trying to make money.

   5. MSMichael Shermer23:51

      They're just trying to make money, right? So, um, you know, the, the more people that have to be involved, the more elements that have to come-

   6. JRJoe Rogan23:57

      Right.

   7. MSMichael Shermer23:57

      People are incompetent, people can't keep their mouths shut.

   8. JRJoe Rogan24:00

      ... for the most part.

   9. MSMichael Shermer24:00

      For the most part, yes. Now-

   10. JRJoe Rogan24:02

       Yeah.

   11. MSMichael Shermer24:02

       ... to be fair to, to the other side, um, you know, if you read about the development of the U-2 spy plane and the AR-71 Blackbird, you know, this was done in Burbank-

   12. JRJoe Rogan24:12

       Mm-hmm.

   13. MSMichael Shermer24:12

       ... in where, near where you used to live.

   14. JRJoe Rogan24:15

       Yeah, sure.

   15. MSMichael Shermer24:15

       And that's right in the heart of LA.

   16. JRJoe Rogan24:16

       Yep.

   17. MSMichael Shermer24:16

       How did they do this for all those years and nobody knew about it, right?

   18. JRJoe Rogan24:20

       Well, they were acting on th- the interests of the, the government. They were trying to be patriots. They kept their mouths shut-

   19. MSMichael Shermer24:26

       Right.

   20. JRJoe Rogan24:26

       ... because they were trying to win a war against the, the evil others.

6. 24:30 – 29:49

   UAPs/UFOs: drones, data quality, and the Galileo Project’s approach

   1. MSMichael Shermer24:30

      Right. So, um, again, like, with the recent UAP sightings, what I want ... my initial response is, the SR-71 Blackbird was, before it was declassified, there were commercial pilots going, "Oh my God, there's something-"

   2. JRJoe Rogan24:45

      Right.

   3. MSMichael Shermer24:45

      "... going 3,000 miles an hour, 50,000 feet above me at 30,000 feet. This is impossible. We don't have anything like that." Well, actually, we did have something like that.

   4. JRJoe Rogan24:53

      Yeah, so-

   5. MSMichael Shermer24:54

      So I suspect that the-

   6. JRJoe Rogan24:55

      That's what you think the UAPs are?

   7. MSMichael Shermer24:56

      ... some of these UAP, I think in, in a decade or two, we're gonna find out, oh, we had these incredible drones-

   8. JRJoe Rogan25:01

      Yeah.

   9. MSMichael Shermer25:01

      ... that could fly at these speeds and-

   10. JRJoe Rogan25:02

       I, I tend to lean towards that as well sometimes. I go back and forth with it. I had, uh, Ryan Graves on recently.

   11. MSMichael Shermer25:08

       Yeah, I saw that.

   12. JRJoe Rogan25:09

       It was a fascinating conversation because the way he was describing things, with no visible means of propulsion, um, no technology that we currently know is available could act in the way those things were acting. I wonder if that is what it is, if they have some sort of very advanced drones. And the fact that they seem to be trans-medium, they seem to be able to enter into the ocean and then leave the ocean, I wonder. I wonder if that's something that we have because these things, they're ... you know, one of the ones that he described is like a translucent circle with a black sphere inside of it.

   13. MSMichael Shermer25:42

       Yes, right.

   14. JRJoe Rogan25:42

       And that when they updated their radar systems in 2014, they started seeing them all over the place on their systems and that these people spotted them visually and that they were behaving in a way, like, uh, you know, 130 mile an hour winds were completely stationary. I wonder if those are super advanced drones.

   15. MSMichael Shermer26:01

       Yeah, a lot of pr- uh, another problem with these videos is that they're very grainy, uh, blurry, you can't quite make out what's going on, like the one that looks like it goes into the ocean and comes back out. It's not clear that it goes in the ocean 'cause it ... the, the, the horizon and the ocean is-

   16. JRJoe Rogan26:14

       Mm-hmm.

   17. MSMichael Shermer26:14

       ... is so blurry, right? So I'm a member of this, uh, Galileo Project at Harvard run by Avi Loeb, the head of the astronomy department there.

   18. JRJoe Rogan26:21

       I had Avi on.

   19. MSMichael Shermer26:21

       Yep. I know.

   20. JRJoe Rogan26:22

       Yeah.

   21. MSMichael Shermer26:22

       And, uh, you know, we're, we're g- he, he's raising money to put cameras, high resolution cameras all over the world.

   22. JRJoe Rogan26:28

       Right.

   23. MSMichael Shermer26:28

       Particularly in the places where people like Graves say they s- ... I mean, when Graves told you, "I ... we saw these things every day," it's like, "Every day?"

   24. JRJoe Rogan26:35

       Mm-hmm. Yeah.

   25. MSMichael Shermer26:36

       There, there surely must be high resolution photos of these things.

   26. JRJoe Rogan26:39

       But those things, those jets are not designed to take high resolution video. They're designed to fight against enemy jets.

   27. MSMichael Shermer26:45

       Right, right.

   28. JRJoe Rogan26:46

       That's what they're designed for. They're designed to recognize these enemy combatants and engage with them in the most effective way possible. That's not with high resolution digital video.

   29. MSMichael Shermer26:56

       Right. Well, that would be the, uh, that would be the solution. We just need better data. (laughs) Right?

   30. JRJoe Rogan27:01

       Well, I wonder if they want better data. Now, let's assume-
7. 29:49 – 40:03

   Are aliens out there vs are they here? SETI, Fermi paradox, and evidence standards

   1. MSMichael Shermer29:49

      Uh, well, because ... well, this is kind of gets into the argument of the SETI program.

   2. JRJoe Rogan29:52

      Yeah.

   3. MSMichael Shermer29:52

      There's so many ... there's so much empty space out there, the chances of them finding us are pretty slim. I th- so I separate-

   4. JRJoe Rogan29:58

      Really?

   5. MSMichael Shermer29:59

      I say, I say we have two questions-

   6. JRJoe Rogan29:59

      But we find planets all the time.

   7. MSMichael Shermer30:02

      Y- yeah, but through telescopes.

   8. JRJoe Rogan30:04

      We are aw-

   9. MSMichael Shermer30:04

      Not, not visiting.

   10. JRJoe Rogan30:04

       Right, telescopes and satellites-

   11. MSMichael Shermer30:06

       Right.

   12. JRJoe Rogan30:07

       ... and all sorts of, you know, things that we send into space. But we find planets all the time that are in the Goldilocks zone.

   13. MSMichael Shermer30:14

       Uh, I think.

   14. JRJoe Rogan30:14

       And we have a very relatively unsophisticated in terms of like what we'd expect from something that's capable of intergalactic travel, rel- relatively simple technology in comparison to what we would think if you-... took what we have today and you in- increased our capabilities, you know, a thousand years from now. Uh, you could imagine that-

   15. MSMichael Shermer30:36

       Yes.

   16. JRJoe Rogan30:36

       ... it would be quite easy for someone to at least send a drone from another planet to visit Earth and observe.

   17. MSMichael Shermer30:42

       This is the Fermi paradox-

   18. JRJoe Rogan30:43

       Yes.

   19. MSMichael Shermer30:44

       ... uh, that you know of. And, uh, where are they? Well, of course, m- most scientists like him d- don't think that they're here. So I separate two questions-

   20. JRJoe Rogan30:51

       Most scientists?

   21. MSMichael Shermer30:51

       Most scientists.

   22. JRJoe Rogan30:52

       Michio Kaku thinks they're here.

   23. MSMichael Shermer30:54

       Uh, he's been a little fuzzy about that. He's not totally committed to that. He- he- he-

   24. JRJoe Rogan30:58

       He's totally committed.

   25. MSMichael Shermer30:59

       ... you think so?

   26. JRJoe Rogan31:00

       He was here. He was here, and he talked about it on the podcast. He said for the longest time, he was a skeptic.

   27. MSMichael Shermer31:05

       Oh, yeah. That's right. Okay, he has kinda come down on that side a little bit.

   28. JRJoe Rogan31:08

       But why would you be firm on that? When you think about the fact that there's hundreds of billions-

   29. MSMichael Shermer31:13

       Okay, hang on, hang on.

   30. JRJoe Rogan31:13

       ... of galaxies in the known universe.
8. 40:03 – 46:20

   Why UFO stories feel religious: 'Shermer’s Last Law' and sci‑fi as modern theology

   1. MSMichael Shermer40:03

      Mm-hmm. I think it's a religious impulse.

   2. JRJoe Rogan40:05

      Ah.

   3. MSMichael Shermer40:05

      I think it's an idea that it feels like we're not alone, and when you think about the narratives from different religions, that there's something, an agent, a, a person, a being-

   4. JRJoe Rogan40:17

      Yeah.

   5. MSMichael Shermer40:17

      ... of some ... Not just matter, not just the laws of nature, you know, we're like-

   6. JRJoe Rogan40:21

      Space daddy.

   7. MSMichael Shermer40:22

      Yeah. (laughs) Like, when Einstein says, well, like, Spinoza's God, it's just the laws of nature are God. It's like that's not particularly comforting. It's like, well, th- they don't even know I'm here.

   8. JRJoe Rogan40:31

      Right.

   9. MSMichael Shermer40:31

      Right? But the idea that they're out there, they're super advanced, and they know we're here, maybe they're even coming. You know, it's like The Day the Earth Stood Still, right? That was a kind of a ...

   10. JRJoe Rogan40:39

       Yeah.

   11. MSMichael Shermer40:40

       That film? That was a Christ allegory. Remember?

   12. JRJoe Rogan40:41

       Mm-hmm.

   13. MSMichael Shermer40:42

       His, his earthly name was Mr. Carpenter in that film, in the first one, the 1951 film.

   14. JRJoe Rogan40:46

       Oh, right.

   15. MSMichael Shermer40:47

       Klaatu.

   16. JRJoe Rogan40:47

       Klaatu.

   17. MSMichael Shermer40:48

       Klaatu. But his earthly name was Mr.-

   18. JRJoe Rogan40:49

       Klaatu barada nikto, right?

   19. MSMichael Shermer40:50

       Yeah, yeah. Yeah, right. Exactly.

   20. JRJoe Rogan40:52

       Yeah.

   21. MSMichael Shermer40:53

       And, and that was really a reflection of, uh, i- and by the way, i- in the, uh, climax scene where the authorities kill him and they put him in the tomb, it's like, it's like the, uh-

   22. JRJoe Rogan41:03

       Mm-hmm.

   23. MSMichael Shermer41:03

       ... the crucifixion of Jesus. And they put him in the tomb and three days later he's resurrected. Well, and then, and then she goes to the, to the robot and says what you just said, Gort, Klaatu barada nikto, and he goes there, burns a hole into the morgue, takes the body, takes it back to the spaceship, lays it on that slab, does some stuff with the lights, and he comes back to life.

   24. JRJoe Rogan41:21

       Mm-hmm.

   25. MSMichael Shermer41:22

       Now in the original script, she, the Mary Magdalene character woman says, Patricia Neal, "You mean, this is the power that, you know, extraterrestrials have?" And, and in the original one he goes, "Yeah. We have t- the power of life and death." And the Breen Censorship Board in 1950 said, "No, no, no. You can't say that to the American public." That's-

   26. JRJoe Rogan41:39

       Really?

   27. MSMichael Shermer41:39

       Yeah. So if you watch-

   28. JRJoe Rogan41:40

       The censorship boards did that?

   29. MSMichael Shermer41:41

       Yeah. There was a Breen Censorship Board that censored films that said, you know, you can't defend religious people is one of their criteria.

   30. JRJoe Rogan41:47

       Offend.
9. 46:20 – 58:34

   Science self-correction under strain: replication crisis, fraud, and incentives

   1. MSMichael Shermer46:20

      So this is what, you know, s- uh, science has kind of developed, science and rationality over the centuries. Okay, so we know we're biased, we know we have to be careful about the confirmation bias and the hindsight bias and so on, so we have to set up some kind of system where it's not just me claiming it. You, you, you have, you can look at it too, you could run the experiment.

   2. JRJoe Rogan46:37

      Mm-hmm.

   3. MSMichael Shermer46:37

      Here's how I did it. You do it. Right? And when that's not done, we, we have all kinds of problems, like the replication crisis in psychology and, and medical science over the last decade or so. You know, the, some significant two-digit percentage of these experiments can't be replicated even though they went through peer-reviewed, um, professional journals and they were done by professional scientists at real universities and so on. And, uh, so this is a pro- it's a hard, it's hard to know what to believe, right?

   4. JRJoe Rogan47:03

      But there's also a problem of basing science on falsified studies, like the Alzheimer's issue that they're dealing with now.

   5. MSMichael Shermer47:09

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JRJoe Rogan47:10

      You know, the whole amyloid plaque thing, where they found out that a lot of... Like, what is the... I don't want to butcher this, 'cause obviously I'm not a scientist, but this, there's a series of Alzheimer's drugs that were based on research that was falsified.

   7. MSMichael Shermer47:26

      Mm-hmm.

   8. JRJoe Rogan47:26

      And they're finding this out now.

   9. MSMichael Shermer47:28

      Mm-hmm.

   10. JRJoe Rogan47:28

       And this is a, a terrible thing for people that have, you know, in- invested their health in these medications, people that have promoted these medications, that this was all based on falsified data.

   11. MSMichael Shermer47:41

       Or how about the, uh-

   12. JRJoe Rogan47:42

       Find that, 'cause tha- that's pretty fascinating, 'cause that, here it is. This is a legitimate conspiracy. "Neuroscience image sleuth finds signs of fabrication in scores of Alzheimer's articles threatening a reigning theory of the disease."

   13. MSMichael Shermer47:56

       Mm-hmm. Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan47:57

       That's terrifying-

   15. MSMichael Shermer47:58

       Yeah, yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan47:58

       ... to find out that the people that are responsible for doing these experiments falsified. "Matthew Schrag, a neuroscientist and physician at Vanderbilt University, got a call that would plunge him into a maelstrom of possible scientific misconduct. A colleague wanted to connect him with an attorney investigating an experimental drug for Alzheimer's disease called simofyllam. The drug's developer, Cassava Sciences, claimed it improved cognition partially, partly by repairing a protein that can block sticky brain deposits of the protein amyloid-beta, a hallmark of Alzheimer's. The attorney's clients, two prominent neuroscientists who are also short sellers who profit if the company's stock falls, believe some research related to simofyllam may have been fraudulent according to a petition later filed on the behalf of the US Food and Drug Administration." So this is, um...... this is a, a huge scandal-

   17. MSMichael Shermer48:55

       Mm-hmm.

   18. JRJoe Rogan48:55

       ... in medical science.

   19. MSMichael Shermer48:57

       Right. And this one appears to be more fraud than just error-

   20. JRJoe Rogan49:00

       Right. Yeah.

   21. MSMichael Shermer49:01

       ... or bias.

   22. JRJoe Rogan49:02

       Right.

   23. MSMichael Shermer49:02

       So, well, okay-

   24. JRJoe Rogan49:03

       That's horrible, right?

   25. MSMichael Shermer49:04

       ... this is what, yeah, this is what whistleblowers are for. Often, these things are exposed through insiders. I mean, almost always. Rare that a journalist from the outside discovers it. It's usually a grad student or something that's suspicious of what the mentor professor is doing. Uh, so that, yeah, that's a problem, right? (laughs) So, that's why you have to disclose any, um, you know, financial c- uh, connections you have to companies that might be affiliated with a drug that could treat the thing you're studying, that sort of thing, you're, um... and so there's more pressure to do that. There was another big meta-analysis on SSRIs, the antidepressants-

   26. JRJoe Rogan49:36

       Mm-hmm, yes.

   27. MSMichael Shermer49:37

       ... uh, showing, you know, big, massive meta-analysis. You know, 50 years we've been at, um, prescribing these SSRIs for depression, and they do no better than nothing or just chance or just, you know, talking to friends or whatever. Uh-

   28. JRJoe Rogan49:49

       Well, also that this idea that it's a, a chemical imbalance of the brain is not based on science.

   29. MSMichael Shermer49:57

       Yeah, well, it's based on (laughs) something, but it, it, probably incorrect science or-

   30. JRJoe Rogan50:00

       Yeah.
10. 58:34 – 1:18:47

    Memory and moral panics: satanic panic, recovered memories, and eyewitness unreliability

    1. MSMichael Shermer58:34

       ... then you get a moral panic. It's like the satanic panic of the, of the 1980s.

    2. JRJoe Rogan58:37

       Mm-hmm.

    3. MSMichael Shermer58:37

       Started with that McMartin Preschool, uh, case in Manhattan Beach.

    4. JRJoe Rogan58:41

       Yes, that's... We'll talk about that because that's pretty crazy.

    5. MSMichael Shermer58:44

       Totally crazy. So this was, um, k- kind of in the time in psychology where Freud- Freudianism, uh, sort of unconscious memories of things and, and, and so on were becoming popular. And there was this idea that, um, you know, there's a lot of molestation and it's... And, and secret satanic cults all over America and there's a lot of these kind of preschools. So the McMartin Preschool Case, um, was based on children telling these fantastic stories-

    6. JRJoe Rogan59:12

       Mm-hmm.

    7. MSMichael Shermer59:13

       ... about the stuff that was going on at the day school. Now you have kids, I have kids, it's like how this is impossible for parents not to know this. Oh, well, they're ta-... They have tunnels, underground tunnels where they have horses, they take them out to Catalina and they do these satanic things to them and what, the parents, did no one noticed this or...

    8. JRJoe Rogan59:28

       And they were kind of coaching the kids when they were asking the kids these questions-

    9. MSMichael Shermer59:32

       Right.

    10. JRJoe Rogan59:33

        ... like, what did they do? Did they do this? And the kids were like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah."

    11. MSMichael Shermer59:36

        Remember the anatomical dolls, anatomically correct dolls? Now-

    12. JRJoe Rogan59:39

        Show me where they touched you.

    13. MSMichael Shermer59:39

        ... show me where he touched you, right?

    14. JRJoe Rogan59:41

        Right, right.

    15. MSMichael Shermer59:41

        And worse, you know, they, they separate the kids from their parents, the-

    16. JRJoe Rogan59:44

        Right.

    17. MSMichael Shermer59:44

        ... mom, mom's outside and the little kid's scared to death in this room.

    18. JRJoe Rogan59:48

        Yeah.

    19. MSMichael Shermer59:48

        And then he's like, "Okay, he to- touched me there. Can I go back to my mommy now?" You know?

    20. JRJoe Rogan59:52

        Right.

    21. MSMichael Shermer59:52

        It's like...

    22. JRJoe Rogan59:52

        And then this ruined people's lives-

    23. MSMichael Shermer59:54

        Yeah, totally.

    24. JRJoe Rogan59:54

        ... and careers and these people were accused of these horrible things that turns out they did not do.

    25. MSMichael Shermer59:59

        They didn't do. Before the OJ trial, this was the longest, most expensive trial in California history, that McMartin Preschool Case, but it launched this kind of satanic panic around America. There's one of these cults in every city.

    26. JRJoe Rogan1:00:09

        Mm-hmm.

    27. MSMichael Shermer1:00:09

        And finally the FBI got involved and said, "All right, we better look into this." And they, you know, found nothing or... Okay, y- you can always find some weirdo who's a Satanist, right?

    28. JRJoe Rogan1:00:18

        Right.

    29. MSMichael Shermer1:00:18

        And maybe they do some weird things with a cat or something.

    30. JRJoe Rogan1:00:21

        Mm-hmm.

Episode duration: 2:49:12