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Unraveling misleading popular science · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

• 0:13
  Speaker 1: So you're listening to this podcast, which means you're a
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: curious person. You want to stay on top of the
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: science news. You want to be along for the ride
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  Speaker 1: when big discoveries are made, and you want to be
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: in the know when scientists reveal new insights into the
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: nature of the universe, about matter, about energy, space, time, fusion, parasites,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: maybe even the occasion will step forward in chemistry. But
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: it's hard sometimes to soar through all of the science
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: headlines competing for your attention. What should you believe is
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: this latest breakthrough infusion technology gonna finally move the needle
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  Speaker 1: to the James Webspace telescope, really discover a universe where
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: time goes backwards? How to know? Well? Today in the podcast,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: we're going to help you with all that. We'll sort
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: through some recent misleading popular physics articles and and by
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: giving you some advice about how to critically read this
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: stuff on your own. Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's responsibly
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: reported Extraordinary Universe.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Hello, this is Kelly Waiter Smith.
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: I study parasites and space, and boy do I get
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: frustrated with misleading titles.
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  Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Daniel, I'm a particle physicist and a professor
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: at UC Irvine. And the most frustrating thing for me
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  Speaker 1: about space news is that it's usually accompanied by an
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  Speaker 1: artist's impression rather than actual data from the paper.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, all right, time out, time out, Daniel. I think
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  Speaker 3: most of us want to see an artist impression and
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  Speaker 3: not like.
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  Speaker 2: A pile of data.
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  Speaker 3: Like you're a science communicator, clearly this is and we
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: like collaborating with artists. I married one. You do this
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: all the time. Why are artist conceptions bad?
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Artist inceptions aren't bad in and of themselves if you
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: know what you're seeing and you understand which part the
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  Speaker 1: artist has filled in and which part we actually know.
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  Speaker 1: But the crucial thing about science and these science articles
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: is understanding what we've learned and what remains unknown. And
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  Speaker 1: usually these artist conceptions go way too far. Like there's
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: a discovery of some new planet, and then you see
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: a drawing of the planet with like you know, edges
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  Speaker 1: of the continents and ice caps and whatever, adding all
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: this information that's just a guess and the reader has
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  Speaker 1: no idea which part has the artist invented and which
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  Speaker 1: part is the scientists actually learned about the universe. That's
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  Speaker 1: where the data tells you, but the artists often go
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  Speaker 1: too far. So I love artists. I'm pro artist artists
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  Speaker 1: should definitely be collaborating with scientists, but you have to
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: be very careful about showing the edge of knowledge.
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: So I feel like I don't want to see artist
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: renderings go away. But I see your point, and I
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: think this idea is probably never going to fly. But
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  Speaker 3: could we just have a box associated with every artistic
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: rendering of a finding that says, like, here's where the imagination,
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: the creativity was allowed to creep in, to like clarify
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  Speaker 3: these things somehow.
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  Speaker 1: It's not even always obvious that it is an artist's impression,
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  Speaker 1: especially when you just see the headline and the picture
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  Speaker 1: and you're like, ooh, look at that planet, and then
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: you scroll by, and then later you're telling your friend Al,
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  Speaker 1: we've totally seen pictures of continents and ice caps on
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  Speaker 1: other planets. And it's not your fault and it's not
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  Speaker 1: the artist's fault, but something about the way it's put
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  Speaker 1: together blurs the line between what we've learned and what
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: we haven't learned.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: What is that famous photo that I think was from
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  Speaker 3: James Web the Pillars of Creation or something like that
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  Speaker 3: and they're like pink. I didn't realize that they weren't
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: actually those colors. And I realize that now because I like,
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: I have them on my shoes, and I try to
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  Speaker 3: make sure that any fashion thing that I have on
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  Speaker 3: my body I can explain in case I get cornered.
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  Speaker 2: But you know what, like, how do you feel like
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  Speaker 2: that should have been portrayed?
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  Speaker 1: That's a great question and a slightly different one because
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  Speaker 1: that is real data, right, Like we're looking at actual
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: image from space from a telescope. The only thing that's
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: been changed is the frequency of light shifted into the
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: frequency we could see it, because otherwise, if you're looking
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: at the life from James Web, it's just going to
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: be black on your screen, right, because James Web only
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: sees in wavelengths that we can't see. So it's like
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: night vision goggles, right. Its job is to shift it
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  Speaker 1: into the visible spectrum so that we can see it
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  Speaker 1: and analyze it. I mean otherwise you could just analyze
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  Speaker 1: it on the computer. But yeah, this should be clarified
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  Speaker 1: somewhere that this is shifted into our visible spectrum. I
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  Speaker 1: don't think that needs to be printed on your shoes.
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  Speaker 3: That's good That's good because I really like my shoes,
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  Speaker 3: and I think I'd like them less if there was
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  Speaker 3: an explanation on them.
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  Speaker 1: But at least it's actual pictures of real data, right, Okay.
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  Speaker 3: So somebody just like slid the color knob over and
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  Speaker 3: so like the difference in the colors between everything is
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  Speaker 3: like the same. Like, I guess I'm wondering were there
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  Speaker 3: artistic choices made or it's just shifting it all over.
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  Speaker 1: One hundred percent. There are choices made, and there are
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  Speaker 1: different choices that could be made, and you'll sometimes see
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  Speaker 1: people reanalyze old data make new images and and they
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: may just pop better or they look more interesting, and
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  Speaker 1: that's because they're making different choices. Are they artistic choices
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  Speaker 1: scientific choices? I don't know where the line is there,
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  Speaker 1: but there's definitely an arbitrary mapping from one set of
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  Speaker 1: wavelengths to another, and there are different choices that you
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  Speaker 1: could make and reasonable ways to defend all of them.
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  Speaker 1: So the bottom line is like, know what you're looking
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  Speaker 1: at all?
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  Speaker 2: Right?
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  Speaker 3: Well, So I think a point that we are sort
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  Speaker 3: of skirting around here is that communicating science is hard.
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  Speaker 3: It is, and trying to visualize science in a way
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  Speaker 3: that makes sense to people who don't spend eight hours
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  Speaker 3: of every day for the last decade of their lives
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  Speaker 3: thinking about these sorts of things like how do you
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  Speaker 3: get that message across?
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  Speaker 2: Is difficult?
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  Speaker 3: And today we're going to talk about ways that it
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  Speaker 3: has been done spectacularly and correctly.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: That's right. Today, we're going to go through a few
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  Speaker 1: examples of science communication sent to us by listeners where
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: the headline and the picture are quite misleading, and they're
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  Speaker 1: going to dig into the science, what it actually means,
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  Speaker 1: what the scientists actually learned, what we know about the universe,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: and what we don't know after this study, And at
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: the end we're going to try to give you some
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  Speaker 1: tips for scientific literacy. How should you digest scientific information
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: on the internet when you don't have Daniel and Kelly
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: in your ear?
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  Speaker 2: Oh, I mean, that's a sad world to live in,
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: I think.
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  Speaker 3: And I'd just like to give a shout out to
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: the DKEU Discord community who helped us come up with
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: these topics to talk about today, and who always have
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: amazing insights and great questions and are just they're just
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: all lovely people.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: If you enjoy listening to this podcast, and wish you
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: could chat with other people who have listened and are
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: curious about the universe. Come join the discord. Check out
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: the link on our website Daniel and Kelly dot org.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: You'll find the invitation there. Everybody's friendly, everybody's interested in science,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: and we have a lot of nerdy jokes.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, so many nerdy jokes. Love those people.
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: All right, so let's go ahead, and our first headline
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  Speaker 3: today is is the Universe inside a black Hole?
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: No? No, no, that's not even the headline. That was my summary.
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  Speaker 1: Actual headline on the article is quote the scientist says
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  Speaker 1: he found evidence our entire universe is trapped inside a
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  Speaker 1: black hole. That's the literal title the headline on this article.
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  Speaker 3: All right, So I think that we should start by
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  Speaker 3: saying that often the titles are not created by the
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: science communicator themselves, and editors often have final say on
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: the titles.
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  Speaker 2: I've had a couple titles where I've been like, all right,
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  Speaker 2: I guess we're going with that.
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  Speaker 3: I hope they read the whole thing, but anyway, still,
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  Speaker 3: they can be quite misleading.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, And a lot of people don't read past
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  Speaker 1: the headline, right or the headlines is the thing that
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: gets them to read it, and so we understand this
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: is a marketplace for retention, and people got to ramp
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  Speaker 1: up the excitement level of the headline to get people
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  Speaker 1: to read it. But still this is quite misleading.
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  Speaker 2: So where do we start with the debunking Daniel.
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  Speaker 1: First, let's talk about the science that was actually done
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  Speaker 1: by the person who did the actual science that underline
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  Speaker 1: this article. Then we'll talk about the claims made in
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  Speaker 1: the article, and then clarify what we actually knew and
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: don't know because there is a lot of interesting science
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  Speaker 1: going on here. Okay, so what actually happened here, Well,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: there was a scientist who looked at a bunch of
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  Speaker 1: galaxies and tried to measure their spin. And this is
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  Speaker 1: a cool thing to do because we expect the galaxies
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  Speaker 1: to be evenly split. Some should spin clockwise and some
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  Speaker 1: should spin counterclockwise, and there's no reason why we should
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  Speaker 1: have more of one or the other. So if you
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  Speaker 1: look at a bunch of them, you can measure the
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  Speaker 1: clockwise versus counterclockwise and it should be close to fifty
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  Speaker 1: to fifty. And it's the standard thing to do in
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  Speaker 1: science to be like, well, this is what we expect.
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  Speaker 1: Let's go out and measure and maybe there's a discrepancy. Right.
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  Speaker 1: This happens all the time and usually comes up yet
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  Speaker 1: it's split evenly, yawn, move on, but sometimes it isn't.
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  Speaker 3: And am I remembering correctly that in so, we previously
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: did an episode something to the effect of does the
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  Speaker 3: universe show handedness? And I think you referenced a study
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  Speaker 3: that suggested that galaxies do show some evidence of handedness,
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  Speaker 3: So like a preference for in a certain direction.
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  Speaker 2: Is this related? And building on that finding.
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  Speaker 1: It's similar. That was a different study where they looked
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  Speaker 1: at quadruplets of galaxies. So you make like a little
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  Speaker 1: pyramid of galaxies and you order them by the biggest
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  Speaker 1: to smallest, and you ask, are there more left handed
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  Speaker 1: versus right handed? Where you define left and right handed
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  Speaker 1: in a certain way? Dig into that episode do you
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  Speaker 1: want more details? But the basic question was the same, like,
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  Speaker 1: if we define left handed and right handed in this way,
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  Speaker 1: we should still expect to see fifty to fifty. And
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  Speaker 1: they also didn't see fifty to fifty. They saw more
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  Speaker 1: left handed arrangements of galaxies than right handed, which was
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  Speaker 1: fascinating and connected to the question of that episode, which
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  Speaker 1: is is the universe left handed or right handed? In
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: this fascinating connections in biology and in particle physics that
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  Speaker 1: suggest a preference for left handedness. But here it's not
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  Speaker 1: about being left or right handed, because whether galaxy spins
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: clockwise or counterclockwise also depends on our view relative to
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: the galaxy. Like if you're looking at a galaxy and
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  Speaker 1: you see it spinning clockwise, then if you're looking from
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  Speaker 1: the other side, it would be counterclockwise. So in some
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: sense this also depends on your relationship to the galaxy.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: So it's not a fundamental thing in that sense, but
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: still it should be evenly split. People out there might
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: be asking, well, why should it be evenly split? You
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: know what's the argument there, So let's make it explicit.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: You know, why do galaxies spin at all? Galaxies spin
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: at all because the original blob of stuff that formed
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: the galaxy was spinning. So go way way back to
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: the very early universe. Imagine the universe filled with gas
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: and it's mostly smooth, but there's little lumpy bits. Right.
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  Speaker 1: This bit is a little denser, and that bit is
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: a little denser. The bits that are denser have more gravity.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: They pull in more stuff, so they get denser, so
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: they have more gravity, so they pull in more stuff.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Runaway effect, you get clumps. Right, So you go from
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  Speaker 1: smooth with very small clumps to a much more clumpy universe.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: And that's the formation of galaxies. And actually dark matter
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: plays a big role in that because it provides a
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: lot of the gravity. So that explains the clumps. But
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: where does the spin come from? Right, you have these
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: big clumps, why do they spin? Well, any of the
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: those individual clumps, if you measure their overall spin, it's
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: going to be closed to zero, but it's never exactly zero.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Like take a random scoop of gas. If a bunch
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: of particles flying around, this one's going this way, this
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  Speaker 1: one's going that way. They got up the effective spin
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  Speaker 1: contribution from all of those particles, it's going to be
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: close to zero, but not exactly zero. The big clump
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: of gas is going to have an overall slightly positive
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: or negative spin, and the one next to it is
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: going to have another spin overall positive and negative. On balance,
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  Speaker 1: it's all going to add up to nothing. But there
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: are little fluctuations, just like there were fluctuations that led
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: to the formation of galaxies, there are little fluctuations that
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  Speaker 1: make it very unlikely that it all adds up to zero.
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  Speaker 1: And so each clump of gas is a spin, and
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  Speaker 1: then as it collapses into a galaxy, it has to
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: keep spinning because of conservation of angular momentum, and as
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: it collapses it spins faster and faster. So that's where
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: the spin of the galaxy comes from. And the same
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  Speaker 1: story is true for spin of solar systems, which are
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: like little mini galaxies inside a galaxy.
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  Speaker 2: That's fascinating. I don't think i'd ever of that before.
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  Speaker 3: I guess I just kind of assumed that all of
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: the stuff that was in the universe was already kind
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: of spinning in the same direction, and maybe you would
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: expect it to all be spinning in the same direction,
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: at least within a small area.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, now I understand that was wrong. Okay. Thanks.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Another way to think about it is like, say you
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  Speaker 1: flip a million coins, right, you expect roughly fifty to fifty, right,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: fifty percent heads, fifty percent tails. But do you expect
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: exactly fifty to fifty That would be pretty unusual. Most
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: likely you're not going to get exactly fifty to fifty
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: and so you're going to get little imbalances. And each
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: clump of gas that forms a galaxy has all those
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: particles in it, some which contribute to its spinning clockwise,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: some contribute to its spinning counterclockwise, but never actually bouncing
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: out all right, anyway, So what did this scientist do.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: He looked at a bunch of galaxies and tried to measure
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: their spin. Turns out, this is hard because most of
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: the galaxies we know about, and there are lots of them,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: are too far away for us to measure their spin.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: To measure the spin of a galaxy, you have to
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: see different stars in the galaxy and measure, like blue
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: ship to this one and read shift to that one.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: You need to measure the relative velocity of stars inside
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: the galaxy. It's not something we can do for super
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: distant galaxies where we're barely observing them, or even with
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: ones that are not that distant, but we can't resolve
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: the individual stars inside them. So he was only able
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: to do this for two hundred and sixty three galaxies
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: that were like close enough and were arranged in the
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: right way, and so not a huge sample, not tiny,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: but like relatively small compared to the number of galaxies
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: in the universe, and what he saw is two thirds
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: of them are going clockwise, one third of them are
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: going counterclockwise. That's weird. That's a science that was actually done.
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: Okay, but it also seems easy to imagine there could
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: be a bias based on like stuff that's close by
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: doing something different than if you look at another part
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: of the Solar system or exactly.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: And the scientist in you is like looking for prosaic explanations. Right,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: You're not immediately jumping to maybe we live in a
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: black hole. Right, every time you see weird data, You're
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: not like, maybe I live in a black hole.
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: You know, that's my explanation for like everything, like oh
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: where did the apple go?
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: Maybe we live in a black hole? Why is the
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: house not clean?
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Exactly exactly, I put this piece of cake in the
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: fridge yesterday and now it's gone. You know, this frosting
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: on my husband's mustache. But maybe we live in a
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: black hole.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: That's right, that's right.
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: I think you're usually a zach who's like, no, no, no,
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: it's because we live in a black hole.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: No, wow, And you know this is a fine piece
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: of science, but you're right, there are questions about it,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Like number one, we don't know how accurate this measurement
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: is because there could be a bias. Like you start
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: with a huge nomber of galaxies, you filter for the
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: ones where you can make a measurement. That filter removes
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: most of the galaxies. You have to be very concerned
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: about whether that filter has introduced a bias. Maybe you're
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: somehow better at seeing galaxies that rotate clockwise relative to
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: you than counterclockwise. Right, there's lots of ways to introduce
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: a bias that you can't expect, and it could be
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: like third order effects. But if you're reducing from zillions
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: of galaxies to two hundred and fifty third fourth order effects,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: these can dominate. And it's not even that hard to
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: imagine mechanisms that could introduce that. Because you know our
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: galaxy is spinning, we're in a certain arm on that galaxy,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: and so it certainly could be easier to make measurements
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: of stars in a certain red shift or blue shift range,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: because otherwise they move out of our range to be
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: able to measure them. So anyway, it's not that hard
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: to imagine. But the claims in the articles are amazing.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: They suggest that this imbalanced the rotation means we live
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: inside a black hole? How do they get there?
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: And by claims in the article, do you mean in
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: the original scientific paper or in the futurism article.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: So both the actual scientific paper made these connections. So
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: it wasn't just like somebody to to study said what
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: this is interesting, and then futurism was like dot dot
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: dot black hole. The paper itself did the dot dot
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: dot black hole part, and you know it has more
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: qualified claims than the article itself. And this is a
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: paper done by a computer scientist and not a physicist.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: So you know, take this for a grain of salt.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: Not that people who don't have a physics speachd you
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: can't do physics, but you should be cautious when you
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: read a paper from somebody who's writing far outside their expertise.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Doesn't mean they're wrong, right, but be cautious about it.
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: Well, if I can just go on a very short tangent,
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: you know, I feel like in papers it's good to
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: like start by saying like, here are all of the
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: boring things that could explain these data, and boring could
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: be like a bias by looking at things that are nearby,
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: and I feel like you need to frontload the boring
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: things because quite often the boring things are what explains it.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: And there's nothing.
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: Wrong with saying like, also, it's consistent with living inside
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: of a black hole, but like, clearly we need more
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: data to be honest. The reason that I most frequently
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: reject papers that I review is because they pick the
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: most interesting interpretation and front load, like the introduction is
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: about how maybe we live inside a black hole or something,
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: and science has this problem where I think we try
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: to incentivize, like the most interesting interpretation is going to
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: get you in the best journal. Yeah, but it's so
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: important to be like, the most interesting interpretation is also
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: often the one that's least likely, and so you need
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: to like couch it appropriately. But anyway, so you're saying
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: that this article maybe couched things appropriately, but did mention
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: this black hole possibility and that's what got clung too
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: in the popular media.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: Is that right?
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah? I think the scientific article put it reasonably, but
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: the popular article stretched it out. So what are the
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: connections here? You know, this is a common concept, the
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: idea that we might live inside a black hole, and
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: it comes from two sort of ideas. One is there
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: are some superficial parallels between a black hole where you
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: think about a singularity and an event horizon, and the
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Big Bang. The Big Bang, people talk about a singularity
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: in the early universe, and we also talk about a
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: cosmic horizon, a region past which we cannot see, so
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: to hear singularity to hear horizon. They're like, that seems
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: black hole, right, and there is a superficial relationship there,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: Like people imagine maybe we're living inside a black hole
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: and the Big Bang. Singularity was sort of like the
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: singularity the start of a black hole. But it doesn't
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: really stand up to much scrutiny because the singularity at
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: the start of the universe, if there even was one.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: The Big Bang doesn't explicitly predict a singularity. It just
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: takes you back in time to when the universe was
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: super duper dense, not all the way to a singularity,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: because we can't extrapolate past a certain density. We need
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: quantum gravity for that.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: Can we define singularity? What is a singularity?
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: M Yeah, great question. So a singularity at the heart
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: of a black hole is a location in space with
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: infinite density, so you have finite mass and zero volume
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: infinite density, So that's a singularity the heart of a
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: black hole. The singularity in early universe theories before the
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Big Bang, right as an origin and Stephen Hawking had
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: these ideas, is a moment in time where the whole
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: universe had infinite density. So in the center of a
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: black hole you have a singularity which should last forever
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: and is a location in space right, a dot in
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: space that lasts forever. Singularity the beginning of the universe
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: is a moment in time. It doesn't last forever, and
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: it's everywhere. So black hole has a singularity in space.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Big bang has a singularity in time. Ok So they're
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: both infinite densities, but they're quite different or like fundamentally
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: really very very different. And the cosmic horizon is not
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: really like an event horizon. The cosmic horizon is how
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: far we can see, but that's growing, you know, as
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: time goes on, we can see further and further into
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: the universe. It's quite different from an event horizon.
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: Okay, and so the similarities kind of in these ideas
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: led I'm confused.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: So there's this trope out there that maybe we live
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: inside a black hole and black holes are often spinning.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Black Holes spin in the universe for the same reason
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: that galaxy spin. They start from a big chunk of
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: mass which then gets condensed down. If that mass was
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: originally spinning even slightly, then that spin gets exaggerated as
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: it collapses into a black hole. So black holes in
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: the universe often spinning. So the idea is, so, maybe
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: our universe is inside a black hole and that black
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: hole is spinning, and that spin somehow trickles down to
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: causes galaxies to spin, and therefore there's an imbalance in
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: the spin. And that's what he saw. That's the threat
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: of the connection.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: Shouldn't that make everything spin the same way?
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: Then?
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: Well, you still expect some sort of chaos inside of it, right,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: You still expect the distribution of spin from the galaxy.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: So what you would expect in that scenario is a
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: bias towards one direction rather than the other. Okay, so
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: it's not impossible that we live inside a black hole.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: But the theory that connects the Big Bang and black
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: holes has some issues. I mean, there's really just superficial
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: simulators there, and there are lots of other ways you
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: can explain galaxy spinning clockwise versus counterclockwise. You don't have
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: to go all the way to a black hole. And
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: there's no positive, definitive evidence at all that suggests a
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: black hole, just these sort of suggestive things, right, There's
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: nothing here which requires a black hole and eliminates other possibilities.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: So you know, it's a cool study, and I'm glad
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: that people didn't. I'm glad this paper was written. And
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: the paper itself is fine, but the science communication interpretation
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: of it is definitely way too heavy on the connections.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Remember the title was scientists found evidence our entire universe
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: is trapped in a black hole. Like that title is
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: definitely not true.
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: Yes, And was the article a bit better at describing
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: the nuances or was the article pretty much leading off
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: from the title as usual?
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: It's a gradation. The scientific paper behind it is fine,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: the article is a little bit too excited, and the
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: title is just flat out lying to you.
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: All right, let's take a break and get to another
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: flat out lion title when we get back.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: All right, welcome back today.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: We're talking about science articles that way oversell the results
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: they're talking about.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: And Daniel, can I read the next headline?
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Please do?
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: Okay, here we go gravity maybe key evidence that our
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: universe is a simulation, groundbreaking.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: New Search suggests, well, fun.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know this title is not nearly as
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: bad as the other one because they use the word
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: may and suggests okay, right, so gravity may be key evidence.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Research suggests like, kudos to this writer, this editor whoever
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: wrote this title for like keeping some of the qualifiers
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: in there, so you don't go running after your grandma saying, see,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: I told you scientists have proven we live in the matrix.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: That's right. I used to fight with my grandma about
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: that all the time.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: So what's the science here? What do people actually do? Well,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: you know, we don't understand gravity. For gravity, we have
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Einstein's theory of general relativity, which is awesome and suggests
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: that gravity isn't a force, but instead it's the curvature
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: of space time. Crucially, the invisible curvature of space time.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: You cannot see the curvature, You just notice its effects,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: and its effects mimic the effects of a force. Things
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: follow the curvature of space time. If you can't see
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: that curvature, it looks like something is applying a force
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: to it. But we don't fully understand gravity there's lots
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: of questions about it. We can't marry it with quantum mechanics.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: We know that Einstein's general relativity needs an upgrade. So
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: people are still working on gravity, and they should be,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: and they're exploring all sorts of crazy and fascinating ideas
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: string theory, loop, quantum gravity, gravitons, all sorts of stuff.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: And there's an idea in the last couple of decades
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: that's sort of out of left field, which is my
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: favorite kind of idea that suggests that gravity is not
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: the bending of space time, and it's not a force
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: like Newton, but it's some illusion that comes out of
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: entropy of information in a two dimensional universe, and our
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: three D universe is an illusion, a hologram from that
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: two D universe.
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: All right, So it sounds like you are portraying this
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: idea as something that isn't totally nuts, not totally nuts,
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: not totally nuts. Question Mark, Maybe we should have a
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: whole episode on why it's not totally nuts, because it
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: does kind of sound totally nuts.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: Well, you know what, the universe could be totally nuts, right,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: We have no guaranteed to the universe isn't insane or
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: isn't crazy. In fact, I kind of hope that it is.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: That's much more fun. And this is an idea that
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: cropped up in the last few decades. It's called holography,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: and the idea is that we seem to live in
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: a three dimensional space and we have gravity. But people
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: noticed that if you build a two dimensional universe, right,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: so like just X and Y no z, but then
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: you add quantum fuzziness to that universe, that that quantum
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: fuzziness can act like a third dimension. It's like enough
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: fuzziness there to encode what you would need to describe
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: a third dimension. And then you can build a map
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: from two D plus quantum information two three D. You
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: can make arrows back and forth, like this location in
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: my two D universe maps to that location in my
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: three D universe. Why would you want to do that?
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: This seems like, you know, something fun for a math
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: nerved on a Saturday afternoon, But why would anybody who
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: cares about the universe want to do this? Because remember,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: we don't have a quantum theory of gravity. We don't
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: understand quantum mechanics and gravity. So any way you can
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: connect quant theories with gravity is exciting. So people showed
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: that in a two D plus quantum stuff universe, you
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: can just do quantum theories and then you can map
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: them to the three D universe and you get gravity. Whoa,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: so there is some weird connection. There's some hint between
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: gravity and quantum mechanics. So that's holography. These guys are
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: doing something slightly different. They're saying, think about that two
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: D universe with quantum stuff, think about how energy flows
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: in that quantum universe, and think about entropy. Remember we
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: had a whole episode about entropy and talked about how
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: entropy is like the reason cold milk spreads out in
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: your hot coffee or the reason that ice melts on
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: a hot day is not just because energy flows. Energy
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: flows to increase entropy, to increase the number of available
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: microscopic states to a system. So people were thinking about
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: energy flowing in this weird two D universe and we
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: might actually be living in, and then map that back
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: to three dimensions and they discovered, oh, actually all you
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: need is entropy. If you map entropy in this two
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: D world two to three D world, you get gravity.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: So that's the entropic theory of gravity, which Eric Verlinda
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: and other folks are exploring and it's not totally insane.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: There's problems with it and unsolved issues, like with any
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Nissan theory, but it's totally a reasonable thing to be
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: exploring and a fascinating idea.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: Like with physics in general.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like with physics in general. Hey, the whole thing
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: is the work in progress, right, or like with your kitchen,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: who knows that's that ever gonna get finished?
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: Never gonna get finished.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: The entropic theory of Kelly's home improvement projects.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, probably never gonna get finished.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Let's have a race. Let's see if we figure out
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: quantum gravity before Kelly finishes her kitchen.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: Oh gosh, well my marriage is on the line. I
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: think we've got to We've got to get the kitchen
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: figured out sooner.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: So I started my career as an animal behaviorist, and
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: I'm really interested in the like culture of certain fields.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: Do the people who study whether or not the universe
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: is a simulation?
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: Like do those people act.
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: Differently in their day to day lives? Like does it
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: impact their behavior? Yeah?
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Good question. I'm not one of those people, right, So
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I wonder if it's really changes that.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: That's a great question because it measures whether they really
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: believe it. Does it impact the way you live your life?
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure?
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: All right, anyway, let's get back to the science.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: All right, So so far we've explained entropic gravity. Now
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: this paper is not about vanilla entropic gravity, which isn't
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: weird enough. There's a guy who's built a version of
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: entropic gravity, not using the normal entropy ideas, but information entropy.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: This is based on Shannon's theory of information and it
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: measures like how much information can be stored in a message, etc.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: And then the entropy of that information. And in this
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: paper he showed that if you think about the information
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: stored in that two D universe and then you try
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: to minimize the computational expense of simulating that universe, that
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: those requirements translate into gravity in the three D universe.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: So take your two D universe and say, boy, this
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: is complicated for me to simulate. What if I required
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: entropy to act in a certain way that minimize that computation.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: And what he discovered is doing that effectively requires things
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: to clump together, like as if matter was moving to
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: reduce the computational the informational cost in this universe. So
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: he's playing with his two D universe. He imposes some
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: computational constraints he discovers, and imposing those constraints requires gravity
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: in the three D version of that universe. And he says, ooh,
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: that's fascinating. Maybe our gravity is a consequence of people
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: who are programming the simulation having a limitation on their
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: computing and so they decided the only kind of the
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: universe they can simulate is one that has to have
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: this rule because they have a limit on their computers.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: And that's why we have gravity.
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: I'll admit that it sounds like we are like skipping
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: over some big black boxes, and I'm not quite following
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: all of the steps, but I see the general picture.
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: And so he published this and it was given a
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: lot more credit than it deserved.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so he publishes this, and this is a fine
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: thing to research, and the work is itself solid, and
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: it's cool that he shows the universe works in a
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: way that might make it easier to represent inside a computer.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Does that suggest we live in a simulation? M that's
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: a really big leap. I mean, even think about this question,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: I feel like there's a lot of coverage of this
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: in popular media that skips over a lot of important details,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: like remember that if our universe is a simulation, then
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: what is the computer it's running on. It's running on
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: a computer that's not in our universe. Our universe is
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: in that computer, And what are the rules of physics
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: that that universe has that that computer is following. We
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: have no idea any more than like super Mario can
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: do experiments to measure laws of physics in our universe. Right,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: he's living in an artificial universe. There's no way he
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: can measure anything or deduce anything about the computing platform
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: he is on. So, like, what is computationally expensive for
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: these folks encoding the universe simulation? We have no i
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: idea because we don't know how their computer works. Even
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: in our universe, we have different kinds of computers, right, analog,
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: digital quantum, on which different things are expensive and different
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: things are cheap. So how can we possibly speculate about
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: what could be cheap or expensive on a computer that
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: can simulate the universe following laws of physics from another
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: universe we have no access to. It's totally impossible. It's
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: really just popular science clickbait. And if you hear folks
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: on podcasts talking about how like it's more likely we
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: live in a simulation than not, then you know they're
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: saying exciting things to get you to listen to podcasts.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: They're not really digging into the details.
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: So lots of banana peels being smoked is what I'm coming.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Away with here, exactly, And really cool ideas, really fun
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: to think about. Don't want to be negative about exploring
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: crazy ideas, but like, let's be careful about what we've
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: actually learned and what's just like exciting to think about.
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so all right, so we've got this idea here
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: that's kind of out there but is totally reasonable to explore,
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: and you want to get people excited about it. Absolutely,
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: it feels almost inevitable to me that people are kind
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: of going to oversell it and get sort of hooked
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: on the like kind of you know, smoking banana peals
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: aspects of it. So do you think this result gets
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: shared with the general public in any other way than
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: like a kind of overblown way, Like.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: Do you think there's an appetite?
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, amongst the general public, I mean clearly there is
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: for our listeners, because like They ask very good, deep
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: in depth questions, but like, how would you present this
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: paper if you were writing the article?
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a great question, right, We can't just criticize here.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: We should give some positive constructive tips. I think the
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: options are either explain the caveats right like sure, pull
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: people in with the excitement of the possibility, and again
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: kudos to these writers are saying maybe suggests rather than
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: explicitly claiming, like in the previous article, but then also
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: be like, well that's exciting, but also you should know
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: or here's the work that needs to be done to
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: actually connect the dots between these ideas, or go deep
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: enough like we do, or like we try to do
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: to give people the understanding so that they can make
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: those connections themselves and they can be like, Okay, yeah,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: I mean I see that, but I don't buy this
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: step or that piece didn't really convince me or whatever,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: and like equip people with what they need to know
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: because I think, and I know you think, which is
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: why we're doing this project. That's possible for folks outside
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: of academia to understand this stuff. It can be explained
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: in a way that's deep and insightful and accessible and
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: so I'd like to see much more of that because
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: then people can draw their own conclusions rather than just
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: being told you should accept X or you should accept why.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: They'd be like, well, I think this, but I want
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: to wait for that study or whatever. So either you
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: got to do a deep dive or you got to
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: include the caveats. And I think this article is not
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: the worst, but it definitely didn't include enough caveats for
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: my taste.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean my personal strategy is I try to
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: include all the caveats, but then I try to, you know,
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: lean on Zach to tell jokes or something along the way,
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: like try to get people to stay with you, because
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: it's hard because when you start into the caveats, I
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: get that people lose interest, and there's so many of
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: us that have short attention spans. But I think those
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: caveats for the right audience is the fascinating thing. And
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: I feel like the hard job of a science communicator
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: is to make the caveats as interesting as they need
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: to be to get people to stick with the explanations,
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: because otherwise otherwise you get headlines like the first one
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: we talked about. All right, let's move on to our
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: last amazing headline, which we will get to after the break.
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: All right, Daniel, do we have free will? Quantum experiments
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: may soon reveal the answer? Or so says this physics
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: article that we are going to talk about, depending.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Of course, on what you mean by soon reveal answer
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: and quantum experiments.
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: Oh wow, Wow, that's a lot of caveat. So do
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: we need to define free will or is that straightforward?
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: Because that doesn't sound straightforward to me.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And the subtitle of this headline says whether or
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: not we have partial free will could soon be resolved
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: by experimenting quantum physics, with potential consequences for everything from
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: religion to quantum computers. Holy caw yeah, pay attention.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: Oh my god.
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: Although I'll note we've already downgraded from free will to
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: partial free will when you get to the subtitle.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: But okay, so what's the science here?
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so there is some really interesting stuff here in
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: quantum physics, on the edge of science and philosophy. It
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: has to do with something we talk about in the
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: podcast a lot, whether quantum mechanics really is random, weather,
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: the universe is deterministic, and so like brief history context,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: Newton and folks discover that the universe follows laws, and
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: the laws seem to be deterministic. Like you throw a
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: ball exactly the same way twice, it follows exactly the
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: same trajectory. You fire a cue ball at an eight ball,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: and you know exactly the angles and the masses. You
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: can predict exactly what's gonna happen. And this leads to
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: a view of the universe is like a clockwork universe.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: Like given a moment in time, a snapshot in time,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: you can predict everything that happens. Where is there room
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: in that universe for people making decisions? For Zach deciding
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna eat Kelly's piece of cake or I'm gonna
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: leave it in the fridge.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: Right, that's always a bad choice to eat my cake.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: But is he making a decision or is it just
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: a consequence of a clockwork husband that you married.
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: Right, everyone's always given him excuses. Man, he made a choice.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: Leave my cake alone.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: Quantum experiments may soon unravel Kelly's marriage.
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: I feel like I'm getting mad at him for a
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: cake he didn't even eat.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: I know, our hypothetical cake.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: So that's the pre quantum view of the universe. Quantum
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: mechanics comes along says, oh, hold on a second, Actually,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: things are fundamentally random. You can have exactly the same
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: experiment shooting an electron at a target twice with the
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: same initial conditions and get different outcomes because at the
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: quantum level, the microscopic level, things are not determined. Only
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: the probability is determined. So it's not like the universe
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: is totally random and chaotic, but like the universe predicts, oh,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: the electron has a seventy percent chance to do this
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: and a thirty percent chance to do that, and what
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: actually happens depends on a role that die when you
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: look right. So that's the quantum introduction of randomness, and
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: that gives people some relief because they imagine, Okay, the
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: universe is not totally deterministic. There's some fuzziness in there,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: and there that's where philosophically free will tries to creep in.
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: Okay, and you, just like living in a simulation, you
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: feel like this is a reasonable connection between physics and
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: free will.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't go that far, but there are interesting angles
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: about these experiments and loopholes that we should explore, and
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: some of them do have potential implications for a free will.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: So like, the reason that we think that quantum mechanics
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: is fundamentally random is because of a series of really incredible,
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: ingenious experiments that go by the name of Bell's inequality
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: or Bell's experiments, and these sought to answer the question,
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: which is really really difficult, how do we know that
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: the universe is actually fundamentally random? Things are not determined
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: until we measure, rather than things being determined before we
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: measure and just unknown to us. You know, say, for example,
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: Zack has two bags and he puts a red ball
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: in one and a blue ball in the other one,
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: and he gives you one of the bags, and you
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: haven't looked inside, and you go off and you run
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: a bunch of errands. Then Zack opens the bag and
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: he sees, oh, he's got the blue one. You know
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: instantly that Kelly has the red one, right, But it
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: was determined in advance, we just didn't know. So people
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: wanted to know that, Well, it is the universe like that,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: where it really was determined, we just didn't know about it.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: These are called hidden variables, or is the ball really uncertain?
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: Is it really red or blue? Until Zack opens it
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: and then it decides okay, And that seems like a
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: really hard thing to distinguish, right, Like, how could you
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: possibly know, because the only thing you can do is
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: look at it, and you can just see red or blue.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: So John Bell came up with this ingenious set of experiments,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: and the experiments you can't tell from an individual run
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: of the experiment. It's not like you see red, you
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: see blue. You know the answer, right, because both ideas
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: hidden variables or truly random predict the same thing. There.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: But he came up with a set of experiments that,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: of course don't use marbles in Kelly's kitchen. They use
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: particles and particle spin and it's not red or blue,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: but it's spin up or spin down. And these experiments
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: take advantage of the fact the particles have three directions
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: where you can measure the spin like three axes in space,
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: and the quantum version of the universe predicts a difference
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: in the correlations between the measurements in different directions than
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: the hidden variables version. So Zach and Kelly have their
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: bags and they randomly decide, Okay, I'm going to measure
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: the spin in this direction, and Kelly decides randomly, I'm
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: going to measure the spin in that direction. If we
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: look at the correlation between their measurements, quantum mechanics predicts
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: a different correlation than the hidden variables version, Like, if
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: they both predict the same axis, they should get the
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: same answer. If they predict different axes, there should be
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: correlations in when theory that are different from correlations in
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: the other theory. Crucial step there, they're randomly deciding which access.
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: To choose, and the answer that got was not consistent
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: with the idea that it was a hidden variable, so
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: that you could have known all along but you only
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: found out when you opened it, but that it actually
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: is being determined the moment you open.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: It exactly conclusively. Over and over these experiments. Mind blowing
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: conclusion is the universe really is fundamentally random, and these
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: things are not determined until you measure it, Like the
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: universe can maintain an uncertainty really incredible, requires like a
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: total upheaval of your understanding the natural reality. Really mind blowing.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: But there is a potential loophole here, and the loophole is,
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: how do we know that Zach and Kelly's choices really
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: are random?
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: What if there's some like correlation there, so that they're
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: making choices that are not random. They're determined by something
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: else that happened earlier. So they're correlated in a way
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: that confuses us, misleads us into thinking the quantum answer
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: is right, but really it's sooner determined.
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: The Wiener Smiths are entangled in some way.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: So this is a theory called super determinism that says,
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: like something that happened early early on in the universe,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: some structural formation or some super intelligent alien designed this
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: whole thing. So we would think that the universe is random,
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: but really it is deterministic, and we've been confused. And
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: the way they're controlling us is by influencing the random choices. Right,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: Those random choices are not really random. It's all downstream
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: of something wow, okay, And so people explore these ideas,
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: and this article discusses some papers in philosophy about how
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: you might be able to close these loopholes and figure
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: out is superdeterminism real? Can you test it? It's very
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: hard to test, And so it explores these concepts. It
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: doesn't suggest that we're going to learn the answer to
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: free will, right. It's like maybe we could try to
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: close this superdeterminism loophole. But dot dot dot free will
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: is a much bigger question, right, And if you read
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: the paper, philosophers don't even agree about what we mean
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: by free will, Like what does free will even mean?
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: Like let's start with defining that. You know, like some
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: people think you're gonna have free will even if the
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: universe is deterministic. You just like draw dotted line around
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: a certain set of processes and say, I'm calling this Daniel,
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: and these are Daniel's choices, and you know, we attribute
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: those to him. And other people think the free will
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: requires some like supernatural thing that's separate from the physical universe,
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: where you have like a mind realm that's influencing matter
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: somehow in the physical universe. It's a whole set of
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: ideas for what free will could even mean. So, yes,
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: this is a study in philosophy, not a set of
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: quantum experiments that touches on questions which are adjacent to
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: free will. But it certainly doesn't suggest a set of
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: experiments that are going to tell us conclusively do we
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: have free will or not?
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: So did the paper mention free will in passing? Like
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: how how did this all become about free will? Was
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: that completely on the part of the science communicator.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: Well, again, the paper is reasonable and talks about free
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: will because you know, these questions do brush up against
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: these issues of free will. But this article in the
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: New Scientist, not my favorite source, definitely over sells it
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: and the title is like totally irresponsible in my view.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: And you know, people have thought about this a lot already,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: Like people go to great lengths to make these bells
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: experiments not susceptible to super intelligent alien manipulation. Like the
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: lengths they go to to make these choices random is hilarious.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: There were experiments done in twenty fifteen where the decisions
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: were determined by taking a bunch of bits from three
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: independent sources. One of them is the digits of pie.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: Another are strings chosen at random from Mindy Python and
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: the Holy Grail. The Back to the Future trilogy episodes
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: of Doctor Who Saved by the Bell and Star Trek.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: How did Saved by the Bell get in there?
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: I think they were worried that they were only choosing
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: nerdy things, and they were like, uh, oh, what if
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: the aliens are only manipulating? You know, the nerd culture.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: So they're like, let's this is like the nerd view
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: of what popular culture is, like, let's do saved by
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: the Bell amazing.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: So if you.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: Want to affect these experiments and contrive some way to
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: make them non random, you have to manipulate the digits
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: of pie and somehow influence the people who wrote all
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: of those episodes of all of those shows, so that
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: you can end up with a set of experiments which
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: seemed like they were random, but they weren't really.
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: Okay, So we have gone to great lengths to back
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: up Bell's experiments to solve the superdeterminism problem, but we
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: have not yet weighed in on free will.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: That's right, And let's say that we close this loophole.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: We say, okay, superdeterminism, we've proven it's not true. We
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: know the universe is fundamentally quantum. That still does not
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: prove free will right. Randomness is not free will right.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: Even if we show the universe has some elements of randomness,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: that doesn't give you control over it, right. That just
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: means that there's some parts of that are probabilistic instead
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: of deterministic. It's not even clear to me that has
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: any relevant to free will. It's just like, seems intellectually
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: adjacent to it, but it's not actually a trapdoor in
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: which you can sneak in free will in my view.
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: So this is only an audio podcast, so the video
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: people can't see that Daniel is gesticulating wildly and getting
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: super worked.
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: Up and almost knocked his coffee mug off the table.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: So well, you know, one of the things I love
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: about physics is that it has philosophical implications that are exciting,
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: that are fascinating. You can learn about where the universe
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: comes from and how it works and all that kind
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: of stuff, and so yeah, it's disappointing to me when
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: people try to make those philosophical connections when they aren't
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: there yet, like, you know, let's reserve that f when
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: we really do learn something deep about the universe.
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: I also feel like every time a pop science article
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: over sells something and makes it sound like science is
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: about to answer a big question that it's really not
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: even close to answering, you hurt the ability to communicate
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: well with the public because they're like, oh, you guys
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: have been promising answers to all this stuff and it's
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: not happening. And I get that like, to get your
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: articles published, you need to convince an editor that you
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: have the most exciting idea. But I feel like maybe
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: it's the editor's job. Someone's job needs to be to
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: make sure that we're not over selling things and making
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: science feel like, you know, one, what are we even doing?
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: New? Breakthrough means fusion is just around the corner? How
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: many times you read that article?
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, that's right, yes, over and over again,
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: and so anyway, it's very important. But okay, so I
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: think the field needs to be doing a slightly better job.
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: But Daniel, you promised us at the beginning that you
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: were going to give us tips to make sure that
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: we could be critical readers so that our BS detectors
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: could go off when they needed to go off.
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: So what should we be looking for?
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I read a lot of science that's outside
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: of my field of expertise. I mean, if there's an
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: article on particle physics, I can read it and tell
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: what's nonsense and what isn't. But I can't always in
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: other areas. So I have to learn to be a
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: critical reader. So Number one, I go to trusted sources.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: I like the New York Times Science coverage. I like
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: Quantum Magazine, and there are very very few other places
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: that I really really trust were if I'm reading something
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: I don't understand, I'd be like, well, I think I'm
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: going to believe this. And so you need to build
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: up confidence with a source, like they need to repeatedly
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: cover things in a level headed way. You need to
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: see stuff that you understand covered wells that you can
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: trust it when you don't understand it. And if your
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: trusted source has not covered some big breakthrough in science,
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: there's probably a reason. So if you're only seeing this
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: in like sciencebuzz dot com, then it's probably overblown. That's
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: number one.
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: I had the opportunity to write for The New York
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: Times twice, and one thing that really impressed me about
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: that process was they had an independent fact checker go
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: through and I had to provide citations for everything. They
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: made sure all of my citations were good, and there
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: were a couple places where I had a citation that
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: was like twenty years old and they're like, we want
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: you to find a more more recent reference convince us
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: that this is still the case. And I was like,
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: oh nice. And I was able to do that, but
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: I loved that. They were like making me defend every
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: single line of my article. So anyway, Yeah, I've been
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: impressed with how The New York Times does their science.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And you know, I'm not going to speak
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: to their political coverage. And I know they've taken a
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: lot of hits, fairly or unfairly for all sorts of coverage.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: But their science section is good. You know, their science
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: writers know their science and do the work, and they're
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: not just like, hey, consumer, beware, it's up to you
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: to decide whether to believe this. They're doing the work
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: behind the scenes to try to make sure this stuff
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: is legit, just like we try to do. A second
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: piece of advice is ignore the headline. Usually the headline
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: is not written by the person who wrote the article, right.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: It's written by some editor trying to get clicks. And
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: often the author disagrees with the headline and was overruled, right,
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: And so it's not the author article's fault, And it
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: doesn't say that anywhere on the page. It's like, you know,
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: crazy claim by you know, reputable writer, and you're like, oh,
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: I feel bad for that guy, So be careful about that.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: Make sure you read the article, not the headline, and
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: also in the article, look for comments from uninvolved scientists.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: Some articles are just regurgitations of press releases from universities
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: who listen to scientists few claims about their work. I
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: discovered we all live in a black hole. Yay, reputable scientist.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: But did they go off and find somebody else in
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: the field who knows what they're talking about, who is
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: not involved and therefore has nothing at stake and can say, well, yeah,
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: I read Daniel's paper and I think it's pretty solid.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: This is seminal work, or you know, I read Daniel's
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: paper and I think these are big leaps and there's
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: still a lot of work to be done. Look for
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: those quotes, because number one, it means the journalists did
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: their job and consulted with experts and listen what those
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: other experts have to say. So I think that's an
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: important part of any responsible bit of science journalism, and
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: you should look for it.
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: Ed Young does such a great job with that. Often
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: when my research gets covered by popular press, I don't
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: read it, partly because I'm going to get frustrated if
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: it was wrong, or if my quote was taken out
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: of context or something. So I don't read it to
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: avoid the frustration, but I read the articles that Ed
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: Young writes because I want to see like, oh, who
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: did he ask? And what is like a serious critique
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: of the work. And every once in a while I
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: will see like, oh, that's such and such that I
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: oversold this a little bit, and yeah, maybe they're right.
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: And anyway, I feel like I learned something from his
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: science reporting because he digs so deep into everything and anyway,
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: that's yeah, it's just I just I never get tired
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: of saying great things about Ed Young's work.
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: Well, it's so admirable when people have built up a
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: brand of being reputable. It's hard work, right, Yeah, he's
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: done all that hard work that you know, boots on
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: the ground reporting to understand is this right? Is this wrong?
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: What is the nuance? What are the experts that say?
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: What are ways to disagree with this? And so he
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: deserves that credibility and it's rare and so yeah, I
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: read everything Ed Young writes also for that same reason.
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: And there are science writers I know and I follow,
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: and I will read whatever they write because it's good.
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yep, amen, all right, any other tips?
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: Keep reading? You know, the more you read, the more
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: you'll become literate in the topic, can you'll be able
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: to spot boloney on your own.
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: My last tip is you should join our Discord community,
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: where anytime you come across an article that lands on
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: your BS detector a little bit, you can pop it
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: up on there and we'd be happy to tell you
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: what we think.
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: And there's a whole.
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: Community of people willing to critically read the articles and
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: way in. So find us at Daniel and Kelly dot
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: org and there's a link to our Discord community there.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: And if you don't like Discord, you can just write
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: to us, send us an email to questions at Danielankelly
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: dot org and we will help you break it down
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: all right.
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: Until next time.
• 50:29
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