The Scathing Atheist - 602: Hundredth Monkey Edition

Episode Date: August 29, 2024

In this week’s episode, we’ll stuff some atheists in your ballot box, the internet does some shitting on the dock of the Bayesian analysis, and it’ll turn out once again to be very bullshit. --- Come see us in Nashville: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/god-awful-movies-live-in-nashville-tennessee-tickets-997264413707?aff=oddtdtcreator --- To make a per episode donation at Patreon.com, click here: http://www.patreon.com/ScathingAtheist To buy our book, click here: https://www.amazon.com/Outbreak-Crisis-Religion-Ruined-Pandemic/dp/B08L2HSVS8/ If you see a news story you think we might be interested in, you can send it here: [e-mail] To check out our sister show, The Skepticrat, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/the-skepticrat To check out our sister show’s hot friend, God Awful Movies, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/god-awful-movies To check out our half-sister show, Citation Needed, click here: http://citationpod.com/ To check out our sister show’s sister show, D and D minus, click here: https://danddminus.libsyn.com/ --- Headlines: Hemant Mehta compiles another list of non-religious Americans running for state/federal office: https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/here-are-the-openly-non-religious Hemant’s spreadsheet of nonreligious candidates: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lqTy_GJ3-lRF_x29jNh2YqFZn4JYuNRUGfe8EdYiBIE/edit?gid=1535218144#gid=1535218144 Republicans are finally less popular than atheists: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/never-thought-id-see-it-theres-now-a-group-less-popular-than-atheists/ Kirk Cameron pushes for "great awakening" during story hour tour: https://www.christianpost.com/news/kirk-cameron-story-hour-pushes-for-great-awakening-in-america.html Kirk Cameron goes on insane rant about godless public schools: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kirk-cameron-school-atheists-strippers_n_66bc55c0e4b0b1dc53035847 Irish bigots can have a gay mail van or fuck themselves: https://www.irishcentral.com/news/burke-family-an-post-lgbt Ukraine bans Moscow-affiliated church: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/21/ukraine-adopts-historic-law-to-ban-moscow-linked-orthodox-church Billionaire yacht sinks and leads to insane conspiracy theories: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/23/mike-lynch-superyacht-bayesian-conspiracies/ --- This Week in Misogyny: Court enjoins effort to enforce false advertising laws on crisis pregnancy centers: https://religionclause.blogspot.com/2024/08/ny-ag-enjoined-from-enforcing-false.html Arkansas Supreme Court rejects abortion rights ballot measure: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/arkansas-supreme-court-upholds-rejection-abortion-rights-ballot-measur-rcna167819

Warning! We've got plenty of fucks left to give. This week's episode of The Skating Atheist is brought to you by BetterHelp, Factor, and by JD Vance's Fried Sugar Bagels, The Confections That Make Sense. And now, The Skating Atheist. I'm the parent of a student in Oklahoma. My child doesn't feel comfortable asking their teacher for an exemption from the Bible verse readings. We did in fact evolve from filthy monkey men.

FU- It's Thursday. It's August 29th. And it's International Day Against Nuclear Tests. You want a Godzilla? This is how you get a Godzilla. That's a bad point. I do want Godzilla's. I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Henwright. And from Carl the Pug of Pegacorns, New Jersey, Ann Arbor, Michigan and Waycross, Georgia, this

is the Skating Atheist. On this week's episode, we'll stuff some atheists in your ballot box. The internet does some shitting on the dock of the Bayesian analysis. Fantastic! And it'll turn out once again to be very bullshit. But first, the diatribe. I try not to build diatribes off of an I saw a stupid meme basis, but sometimes the meme is too stupid not to. So the meme in question here has three panels.

It's pulled from the movie Finding Neverland where the little kid is talking to the spouse abuser on a park bench. In panel one, the kid says, they said I needed empirical evidence for God. And in the second panel, the wife beater says, do you have empirical evidence that you need empirical evidence for every claim? And then in the third panel, having thus resolved their conundrum, they embrace. Now consider for a second how fucked your internal defense of your own worldview has to be before you arrive at, yeah, but who vouched for truth though?

And look, like I said, normally I don't bother to devote whole segments to dumb memes, especially when it's a dumb Christian meme that I only saw shared in atheist spaces, as this one was. Because very often those memes are just rage bait nonsense made and shared by atheists just to give us a good straw man to swing against. I don't think that was the case in this instance, but one way or the other, it wouldn't matter. Because I've heard this exact argument from plenty of Christians before. I have heard it in these words before.

But we've all encountered the basic structure of it, right? I can't empirically demonstrate my claim, so I'm going to go after empiricism itself. So let's examine the problems with this meme. First of all, has a wife beater in it? We should stop giving them their own memes. But setting that aside, there are two major problems. The first is that, yes, there is empirical evidence that you need empirical evidence for every claim.

Now, that's certainly disputable, right, but only because it's rendered as an absolute. Every claim is in there. But there is ample empirical evidence that, A, empirical evidence proves theories, and B, theories that can't be proven with empirical evidence should be discarded. Now to be clear here, we're talking about empirical evidence, not proof. Right? Like according to Newtonian physics, an object in motion will remain in motion until it's acted upon by an outside force, and we will never have empirical proof of that. Because, you know, to do that we would have to watch an object in motion for all of eternity without it ever being acted upon.

But we have just as much empirical evidence as you could ever fucking want in the eternity of observations having yet to render a counterpoint. And that distinction matters when you think about the meme, right? Because we also don't have empirical proof that theories that lack empirical evidence are wrong, right? Because we'll never have that. We can't have that. We'll never be able to examine can't have that. We'll never

be able to examine every possible unevidence theory, but we have evidence by the mountain-fold. History and experience are both replete with unevidence theories turning out to be a load of shit. Of course, the God-believers would argue that even a single true thing without an empirical basis would be enough to save the meme. And if we grant them that ridiculous standard, we will inevitably fall short, right? There are a few axiomatic beliefs that we have to start with that don't lend themselves to empirical observation.

I can't, after all, prove that I'm not a brain in a jar being fooled into believing that I'm observing all this shit that I'm observing. And Christian apologists, therefore, would very much like to treat this claim the way we would treat a Newtonian law. One single example of an object in motion deciding on its own to just go, ah, fuck it, and take a break.

That'd be enough to entirely disprove Newton's first law. But that's not the direction the absolute even goes in this case. We're not looking for empirical proof that you need empirical evidence. We're looking for evidence. And when we look at the long history of people making grandiose sweeping claims about the nature of the universe that don't have any empirical evidence, they always turn out to be wrong. And when those claims have other common characteristics, i.e. they tell people what they want to hear,

they fill in large gaps in currently obtainable knowledge, they grant power to the people telling them, they're all the more likely to turn out to be false later. That provides plenty of empirical evidence to reject claims made without empirical evidence. But the stupidity of the meme goes even deeper and it's the even deeper stupidity that earned in its own

diatribe. The second problem at the heart of this meme, and so much of Christian apologetics, is a rejection of the very concept of truth. If we accept the conclusion of this meme, that is, if we accept that it's okay to make truth claims without empirical evidence and treat them as true, we have no way left of determining true from false. Christian apologetics would rob us of the very concept of a knowable truth if it rescued

their unknowable lie. And by the way, that's why all this shit matters in the first place. Liberal believers are always trying to craft a less offensive version of the God claim, a version that conflicts with science the least and has few enough consequences not to interfere with our larger understanding of the world. All they want, after all, is plausible deniability when it comes to death. But we can't make singular exceptions to logic. Whatever road that belief takes is a path that we've left open for more malicious bullshit,

and when you think about what a torrent of bullshit the dam is holding back, you can see why every tiny crack matters. Joining me for headlines tonight are the going and going to my gone Heath Enright and Eli Bosnik. Fellas, are you ready to knock one out of the park? Okay, Eli always has the trots. I think he's right. Yeah, but sadly, I'm also kind of a bunt.

So you know, what do you do? All right. Well, Eli needs to check and see if he pulled something trying to make a sports joke. So we're gonna pause for a quick word from our first sponsor this week, BetterHelp. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. By the Red Planet Mars, I am out of ammo. But it looks like we're gonna have to take on the Flarblarians with just our laser swords. Damn right we are.

Hey guys, what's with the laser swords? Noah, thank goodness. We need you to go to therapy. Wait a minute, have you guys been reading my hate journals again? No, no, no, we're from the future. If you don't go to therapy, you overwork yourself and establish intergalactic communication through the sheer force of podcasting. That's right, until the Dark Order picks up the signal and smells a fresh new planet for conquering. Guys, none of that is real.

No, no, it's real. That's why you have to sign up for BetterHelp. What's BetterHelp? If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch

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The fate of the world depends on it. No, it doesn't. Can I come in yet? It's hot in this costume. No, he's not buying it. Is she dressed like a Florbarian? She is, yes. And now back to the headlines. In our lead story tonight, we have your annual reminder that there are more than zero non-religious

people running for office this year. And I know that number sounds a little high to most of you, what with every legislative session starting with a prayer and every political speech ending with God blessing America. But despite that, we do have atheists in politics. And friend of the show, Hemant Mehta has once again compiled a list over in his sub stack at friendlyatheist.com of every non-religious person running for office at a state or federal level, which will, of course, have linked in the show notes. I dream of a day when I'll be able to ask President Hemant Mehta. Oh, nice for pictures

of his feet. It started so good. Now to be clear, atheists still face a lot of discrimination when it comes to holding public office. Though unenforceable, a number of states still have constitutional requirements banning atheists from holding public office altogether. And according to the most recent numbers from Gallup, more than a third of Americans wouldn't even consider voting for a well-qualified atheist in their party.

But despite that, there are still atheist candidates, and they even win sometimes. Like founder of the Free Thought Caucus and only openly non-religious person in Congress, Jared Huffman. Yeah, one of my favorite shirts that I've seen at conventions is Atheist Voter or I Don't Believe in genocidal ghosts and I vote. I like both of those yeah important. So yeah so for years now Hemann has kept a public spreadsheet of all the openly non-religious candidates who are running for state or federal office. This year's list contains over a

hundred and fifty names at the time of this recording and will almost certainly have more before Election Day. And quick before you point out that technically the Tiger King was running for president, I should point out that nearly half the names on this list are people who are running for re-election. Right? That's right. Hemmings list contains 70 nuns who are running for re-election to state congresses, which sounds way more impressive before I point out that there are 7,575 state legislators in the country. So yeah, like, nones are over 30% of the population and less than 1% of the legislators. But we are there, damn it.

Yeah. And a bunch more of those elected officials are definitely nones, but they're liars. Yeah. Some of them are lying just to make it even remotely feasible to win so I get it but sure hopefully that's changing seems like we shouldn't have to say this but let's normalize not pretending to believe in ghosts to appease people who believe in ghosts if only If politicians could stop treating the electorate like a hot but dumb guy they want to bang at the bar. That would be awesome it like a hot but dumb guy. They want to bang at the bar. That would be awesome. You like Joe Rogan. That's cool.

But they never, never. Is it the boxing? Well, so, so by all means, check out the list. You may even have a nearby atheist you can vote for or donate to or volunteer for. The list also contains all the current members of Congress that are in the Congressional Freethought Caucus. Many of them are religious, but, but all of whom have publicly committed to church-state separation and secularism in government, and not coincidentally, all of whom are Democrats. It also has links to more information about each of the candidates provided by the Center

for Freethought Equality, which is an arm of the American Humanist Association. So not only can you find the candidate, but you can easily find out a lot about him. And be sure to check a few more times as we near November. There will be new names added to the list. And if you find the candidate, but you can easily find out a lot about him. And be sure to check a few more times as we near November, there will be new names added to the list. And if you find the resource useful, remember that Hemet is working on a donation basis the same as us. Right. But only if you're already donating to us.

Don't go crazy. Yeah. You wouldn't even have known about this list if it wasn't. He has those feet. We don't have those feet. Mine are okay. And in we're number two news. One of the odder statistical phenomenon

about being an atheist is how openly people feel entitled to hate us for our lack of religious belief. Whether it's a survey about who folks would rather live next to who they think is gonna be a serial killer or just straight up popularity rankings. For the time we've been doing this show, atheists have been coming dead last. Well, I'm proud to announce, thanks to a survey of 500 Washingtonians last week, that is no longer a perfect score because people in the evergreen state hate Republicans six

percent more than they hate us huh we're number two we're number two we have been upgraded to a euphemism for shit y'all we're number deuce that's us number deuce yes exactly that so first off a big thanks to Jake who we hate second least among all of our listeners. Thanks to him sending us atheist news to scathingnews at gmail.com. So this survey comes to us from the folks over at DHM. And while the survey was mostly like political stuff, it did include a feeling thermometer about various groups with a rating of zero degrees, meaning you feel as cold as possible

towards a group with a hundred, suggesting warmth and positivity. And as I teased at the beginning, the mean score for atheists was a whopping 50.1%. We're medium. Yeah, with Republicans bringing in a mean score of just 44.6%. Wow, that's great. Our willingness to accept reality is marginally more popular than their campaign to abrogate the rights of most Americans.

Cool. Nice. Right. Fun. Also, I feel like that zero that a bunch of people gave to Republicans was a pretty big gift in this set up. Yeah, it helped. It should have allowed them to go a little lower on the scale.

That doesn't capture my preferences if I have to give them zero. And look, whenever one of these studies comes out, I feel compelled to remind you just how fucked up that number is, right? Because in all the ways we measure how you should feel about a group of people, atheists should be on top, right? We're the least likely to be racist, trans and homophobic, but we also like give the most to charity and have the most sex, right? The reason we rank as low as we do is that we point out the harmful things that the people

being asked the question believe. And as long as that's the price for popularity, I will continue to be glad to pay it. And in GrowingSplains news, Kirk Cameron took some time away from being the lower body of Eli Bosnick on a poster for a podcast about terrible movies to continue his tour of America's Libraries where he's been delivering bigot themed story hours for kids. And by America's Libraries, I mean a select few that didn't tell him to go fuck himself when he asked for an event there. And by bigot themed, I mean Christian.

Yeah. And he's been reading from three children's books that he wrote that all sound like niche porn to me based on the titles. They're called As You Grow, The Fox, The Fair, and The Invention Scare, and Pride Comes Before the Fall. Yeah, that's because Pride isn't a generous lover.

Yeah. How is Kirk Cameron living the worst experience of a child actor when some of them are dead? Right, yeah, like he's jealous of River Phoenix at this point Yeah screech stabbed a guy and went to jail If you've never been to a story hour for kids The general idea is to read from a book that teaches basic lessons about right and wrong like how to share or

how to be considerate to other people or How to rise up as the master race and install Christian theocracy. That last one is the focus for Kirk Cameron. I had a hunch, yeah. Yeah. Before reading from his books, Cameron leads the crowd in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and then singing God Bless America. Hell yeah he does. And then he asks all the little kiddies if their parents have been disloyal to the state. Yeah. Estes Perkel standing at the back. Little much, don't you think?

Dirk just seems a little. Ed, just in case the mission of very clearly Christian nationalism wasn't perfectly clear, Cameron explained that his book tour is going to bring about the revival of American Christianity. During a recent stop in Virginia, he told the audience that his children's book tour is quote, a perfect tee up for another great awakening in America. Delusions of grandeur much? Yeah. He also added, these revivals have always taken place during times of moral decline,

spiritual apathy, economic collapse, and political corruption. We're seeing a bunch of that right now. We're so far off the rails the compass is no longer pointing north, it's pointing the opposite and wrong direction. So, so south I guess is what he's trying to explain. And then he added some more transphobic nonsense. There's no point off the rails at which the compass flips. Man, yeah. So, so, OK, Kirk, so either compasses themselves have stopped pointing north or you're wrong.

Those are the two possibilities. Either the concept of morality is incorrect or you are. See, as a parent, I'm just sitting there being like, okay, thank you for your weird screen. Are you going to read Very Hungry Caterpillar or am I going to throw my 84 pound diaper bag at your head? That's really the question. Also, just in case anyone listening to this atheist show is curious how atheism works. Oh, I am.

Kirk Cameron made sure to explain to us. Nice. During that same event in Virginia, Cameron got a question about, well, not that, but he made sure to address the religion called atheism. A plant in the audience that he clearly set up ahead of time asked him what he would say to critics who don't want his religious views

being spread in public libraries and Kirk responded quote Someone told me that a problem with my religious views I would say you have religious views too Even if you're an atheist and there are people who have problems with your religious views Yeah, if only there was some way of separating church and state altogether Also is is Kirk claiming that he'd be okay with an atheist story hour? Because I'm pretty sure that's a nightmare he woke up from in a cold sweat, like actively. Bottom line, Kirk Cameron is grooming our kids to be cishet religious people, and that

is a sex crime. That's official. And more importantly, it's fucking boring. We need more states making laws against this kind of indoctrination of our kids into boring people. Amen. Thank you. And in faith and begorah news, I feel bad for the Irish surrounded by pastoral beauty.

And with some of the hardest and most root and toot in history of the world. They're gritty people, salt of the earth, dirt beneath their fingernails and sweat on their brows. Let me finish. Let me finish building a moment. But they're also adorable. Okay. They share a burden, perhaps only with their distant prison cousins Australia

Which is that no matter what they do I'm gonna treat you like a cartoon bear that just came to life and is gonna grant me wishes Which is why I'm pleased as a pickle to present our story this week about Irish bigots Who have to go pick up their mail because the mail van is gay Okay, so you see as the list of people Eli's allowed to be prejudiced against grows shorter, his prejudices grow weirder. It's true they do. Yeah, we can grant wishes, though. That's true.

Even a few generations out of the homeland, we can do some wish granting. Hard to trap. Hard to trap. So the subject... Don't dump us in Central Park. Yeah, don't do not do that.

Yeah. So the subject of our tale is Ireland's off-brand Jordan Peterson Enoch Burke, who was fired from the school he worked for for yelling at his boss at a school dinner over respecting trans students' pronouns. Then he spent 400 days in jail for refusing to stay away from the school after he was fired. He just keeps losing.

If I may switch back to the states for a reference, he's the New York Mets of being a bigot. Don't the Mets have a winning record? Why would you try to do a sport? I know. You know what? The baseball at the beginning, I felt like I really got it with the bun thing. I only blame myself. Maybe next decade. The US men's soccer team. There you go. There you go. Exactly. Well, now Mr. Burke has a new complaint. Specifically, that his male is too gay,

and the gayness of his male is oppressing his Christian beliefs. So the mail trucks are like hybrid electric? Because those are gay. Even if you have a gun. Yeah. Yeah, we established that. We learned that. Now, you might be thinking, hey, fucking what? Great question. So in June of 2021, the Irish Post created stamps with

the Irish word for pride on them, as well as rainbow colors. Come on. The Postal Service then donated 2.5% of the sales to charities belong and LGBT Ireland and raised a total of £33,600. And with that success, the Post advertises those stamps on some of their vans, which also have the Irish word for pride and a rainbow. And that is oppressing Enoch Burke's beliefs. So the van pulls up to their house, right? And Enoch's dad does the same normal and chill thing and starts screaming at the postman about how his truck is Christian oppression. And the result is so beautiful, podcast listener, that if you could spread it on toast, I would eat it for breakfast every morning.

Ooh, ooh, does Enoch get turned gay by a laser that's on the side of the truck or are we waiting to roll that technology out until after the election? Do do be cool. Oh, sorry. Sorry. So less than a week later, the family receives a legal letter from Paul Crampsey, operations manager for AN Post on July 26th, informing them that for the following two weeks, the family could collect their mail at a postal depot five miles from their home and that

a post box must be installed at the entrance to their property on the side of the road within two weeks or their postal service would be withdrawn entirely. They got a timeout. That's awesome. Yep. within two weeks or their postal service would be withdrawn entirely. They got a timeout. That's awesome. In other words, you are in mail timeout for two weeks and then you can't make us talk to your bigot dad anymore or you just don't get mail. Suck it. Like a teacher confiscating a toy during class. Like they can have their mail at the end of the semester. This is great.

Okay. So I know this started off as a joke, but the they can have their mail at the end of the semester. This is great. Okay. So I know this started off as a joke, but the inevitable outcome of being mad at rainbows is going to be yelling at clouds, right? We are inches away from some bigot suing the sky for oppressing their Christian beliefs. Yeah. Put it on your vision board. It's coming.

And if you're wondering how the Birx took the news, the answer is not well. Badly. Yeah. They didn't strike me as the take it well coming. And if you're wondering how the Berks took the news, the answer is not well. Badly, yeah. They didn't strike me as the take it well type of thing. They don't. Now, the family issued a statement saying, quote, the letter received from Paul Cramsey is monstrous. What it meant is that because we objected to a public body, a and post forcing an LGBT campaign onto our property, we would be treated like second class citizens or worse. Okay, it's the worst of those two options. Second class is extremely generous.

Yeah, no, you're fourth class at best. Yeah. We would be required to pick up our post like a criminal in some depot miles away. And if we did not comply with the sanctions imposed, we simply would not receive our post. Sorry, do, do criminals get their mail at a depot? I don't know. So I Googled it.

Yeah, that seems like a, we remember from history in other places in times gone by where people were treated like second class citizens when they refused to bow down to what the government was forcing upon them. The treatment of Enoch Burke and this letter from AN Post shows that this treatment is no longer history. It is today. This sinister letter is the true face of the inclusiveness of the LGBT movement. Yeah, I know that sounds a little melodramatic, but you didn't hear it with the string quartet that they hired to slowly rise in the background as they said. It just changes the whole emotional

heft of the thing. First they came for the mail and saved it in a box like five miles away. But there's several traffic lights between our house and that. Got to wait in line. Very difficult. Schindler's mailing list. Yeah. Yeah.

So, sad bagots probably aren't going to get mail anymore, which is sad. They won't get any of the horse urine we should send them. But you could send it five minutes from their house to the prison post office for them to pick up and then they have to drive home with it. That's a great idea. The point is not a great idea. I was already in love with Ireland and just what I thought that love couldn't grow something like this comes up. You beautiful green island. My heart is yours. All right. Well, I guess while Eli applies for dual citizenship, we're going to take a quick break for a word from our other sponsor this week. Factor.

Dude, you're not supposed to press them after you flip. Of course you're supposed to press them. That's how you get the juices. Hey guys, burgers and dogs almost ready? They sure are. I've got soy dogs and tofu chunk burgers. Do you want oat cheese or no oat cheese? I'm good.

I'm actually, I'm going to fuel up this summer with Factor. Oh, what's Factor? And more importantly, how do I eat it instead of whatever it is Eli just said? Tofu chunk burgers with oat cheese. Factor's fresh, never frozen meals are dietician approved and ready to eat in just two minutes. So no matter how busy you are, you'll always have time to enjoy nutritious, great tasting meals.

I don't know Noah. Are they actually tasty? They're super tasty. Factor lets you treat yourself to restaurant quality meals that feature premium ingredients like filet mignon, shrimp, and blackened salmon. I like all those things. Where do I sign up? Head to factor meals dot com slash scathing 50 and use the code skating 50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% Off your next month that's code skating 50 at factor meals dot com slash scathing 50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% Off your next month while your subscription is active. All right, no, thanks So Eli, I guess I won't need any of this stuff after all. That's fine. The grill was never on anyways Cuz fire. Yeah, I'm not allowed fire The grill was never on anyways. Because fire?

Yeah, I'm not allowed fire. A man wrote in the Bible? A horse, which one? If it's a legitimate race. It is a slut, right? Cooking can be fun. Hey, I'm proud of a man. This week in misogyny.

Y'all, we're not just losing in court. We're pre-losing. I've got not one, but two stories this week about reproductive rights losing in court so bad that they didn't even get a chance to lose in court. The first one is in the deep red state of New York. See, New York Attorney General Letitia James tried to do something about the bullshit crisis pregnancy centers in her state, tricking pregnant people into thinking that they were getting objective counseling when they're really getting religious bullshit.

Specifically, she went after the groups that said they could do abortion pill reversals. Now we've talked about this before, but as a quick refresher, that's not a thing. Abortions can't be reversed. And telling people they can be might encourage them to make dangerous decisions, like failing to go through with the full medical regiment

involved in a self-administered abortion. And the idea that it can work is a dangerous lie promoted by religious groups trying to double up the guilt that they're trying to instill in people for having abortions in the first place. In other words, it's the exact kind of thing you want your attorney general stopping people from doing. But it looks like the liars are going to be safe in this instance specifically because their bullshit is religious. And lying is religion's whole fucking thing. See the statute that James charged them under applies to commercial transactions.

She was basically charging them with false advertising because they were advertising something falsely. But the only way to advertise religion is falsely. So they're exempt from that rule. And that's exactly what a federal district court told James when they threw out the case. But that's hardly the worst case of a court standing in the way of common sense abortion policy this week. For that title, we go to Arkansas, where the state Supreme Court just tossed out a ballot

measure that sought to protect reproductive rights in this year's election. The group got all the signatures necessary, jumped through all the necessary hoops, and had plenty of support among the populace to get the measure passed. And the Republicans running the state were damned if they were going to let that happen. So the Secretary of State came up with some bullshit about how they didn't file the paid canvasser training certificate, a barrier that, lo and behold, has never been enforced in the history of that fucking state. But no matter, it sounded good to the state Supreme Court, so they agreed. And they did so in a way that doesn't even allow the group to file that shit later or otherwise rescue the more than a hundred thousand signatures that they collected.

The measure just won't be on the ballot. Because the party that jerks off to the flag and sings my country tis of thee while they do it don't give one single fucking shit about democracy or freedom the second it doesn't give them what they want. And on that reminder, and with a quick thanks to Alan and Cody for sending these stories to scathingnews at gmail.com, I'll wrap things up and hand you back over to Noah, Heath, and Eli. Thank you, Lucinda.

And in Orthodox of the Bay News tonight, the Pope took some time on Sunday to condemn Ukraine's recent decision to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Now, the reasoning behind the ban was that the church was and always has been heavily affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church. So basically the decision facing Ukraine was the same as we would face if the US was at war with fucking Vatican City, right? And if Vatican City was way bigger and invading our country. But all Pope absolutely fabulous saw was a church losing power.

So he knew exactly where he should side. I feel like he had to put aside a bitter rivalry about who has the more fabulous, very silly hats. Oh, for sure. Yeah. I mean, keep in mind that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church regularly refers to the pope as a servant of the devil, like in their communications. So this is really him coming to bat for theocracy more than anything.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Now I'll admit that on the surface, the idea of banning an entire religion, especially one with historic roots as deep as the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, does feel a little sketchy on the surface. I'm open. I'm open. Yeah.

Well, yeah, right, right. I put the surface on there twice so you can kind of see where my loyalties lie too. But so, but all of the individual churches within the denomination claim that they're unaffiliated with the Mother Church in Russia as well. But that being said, the Ukrainian government says that they're a haven of spies, and they back that up with the fact that they've launched like criminal proceedings against at least 100 UOC clergy members since the outbreak of war, and they've already sentenced 26 of them.

And in my experience, when I'm being told one thing by a democratically elected government and a different opposite thing by a church it's gonna be the church one that's lying right honestly I'd be disappointed in Vladimir Putin if the UOC was not a bunch of spies at this point right really yeah why would that be the one thing from Russia that wasn't filled with Russian spies yeah that would be like a podcast without a fat bald guy. Exactly. Doesn't even make sense. Yeah. So quick lesson on Ukrainian religious history. Most of the country is Orthodox Christian and until very recently most of them belonged to the UOC. But after Putin invaded Crimea in 2014, the

overwhelming majority of religious leaders in the country decided to form a new denomination called the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. And that church was officially recognized by the head of the global Orthodox Church and and most Orthodox Ukrainians migrated over to that branch of the faith within like a year or two. And that's important, right? Because it's the exact same religion, right? But without the ties to Russia. Yeah, okay. It's the the people's front of Crimea. Exactly. Right. Right. Now, it's worth noting here that the decision to Russia. Yeah, okay, it's the people's front of Crimea. Exactly, right. Yeah, exactly. Right.

Now, it's worth noting here that the decision to split off from the church is part of Russia's internal justification for their larger invasion. And in the areas that Russia has invaded, one of the first things they've done is dismantled the OCU churches, the people's front of Crimea churches. And even with all that shit going on, the Ukrainian government still circled around this decision for over a year before acting on it. Yeah, so it's kind of a you can have them situation, I guess. Yeah. And look, there's a lot of nuance to this story. And it's the kind of thing that's hard to do justice to in the time that we normally reserve for headlines. But I think it's

important for us to talk about it because the maggots are thick with Russian propaganda already and the fact that Ukraine is banning Christian Churches is certainly gonna play into their talking points pretty heavily The next time like there's a funding bill for Ukraine trying to work its way through Congress or whatever So it's something that aunt Karen is bound to throw in your face sooner or later And I don't know about you, but I prefer to know what's being thrown in my face before it gets there. It's true. He does. He's told me several times. I have yelled it at you, Ethan. And finally tonight in Yacht Zee News.

Fantastic. We have a story about a billionaire's yacht sinking, a mysterious death, a long shot victory in court against the Department of Justice and the inability of almost everyone in the world to understand very simple probability. So here's what happened. Tech billionaire Mike Lynch died last week along with several other people when he was celebrating his acquittal in that court case on his yacht in the Mediterranean and the yacht was hit by a water spout and it sank. Also, his co-defendant, Stephen Chamberlain,

was killed in a car accident only two days earlier. Yeah, and what does it mean when two unexpected things happen relatively close to each other in the time dimension? Deep state murder, that's right. So, the internet went crazy with conspiracy theories. Okay, I'm not trying to feed that. And I know that the ocean isn't a communist, but if the ocean was a communist,

a lot of shit would make more sense over the recent news cycle, right? I'm just saying there's a point where Occam's razor would have us assume the ocean is a communist Yeah, exactly more like sees the means of production If you see it written out Works really fun. Well, it's got a read it like gotta read it And a big thanks to Marsh for telling me about the story last week. Marsh gets whatever

he wants. He's delightful. Wow. If Marsh wanted racism, Heath would give it to him. Everybody here first. Marsh would never want that. So I bet he wanted it. Here's the backstory. Some point in his life that led to the insanity grew up poor. Mike Lynch started a software company that was purchased by Hewlett Packard and HP ended up suing him regarding a misleading valuation of his company ahead of that deal and Eventually the DOJ also filed criminal charges for fraud That type of case against the DOJ rarely leads to an acquittal the estimate I saw was about 1 in 200 But this one did lead to acquittal to put that in perspective

Okay, you know how once in a while you can flip a coin and get eight tails in a row, for example? I don't know that and that's why I'm mad at Nate Silver. So many better reasons to be mad at Nate Silver now. But I choose this one. He kind of sucks, but he does know how to do stats. Well, the acquittal of Mike Lynch, here's the point. It was more likely than those eight tails, but it was less likely than seven tails in a row, therefore murder. So the claim is the US government was in a big snip after the acquittal. So they decided to kill a guy and they decided to do a sea tornado to attack Mike Lynch on his yacht along with

a bunch of other people including kids on that yacht. That's one of the main theories. Well, yeah. So I feel like a lot of them were just dying to find an operational use for the sea tornado machines, right? Because once you've got them, you're just, you want to use. You got a hammer, you're going to find a nail. Yeah.

And the plot thickens here because there were spies involved. Ooh. There weren't, but people love saying spies in all caps. There were former members of the intelligence community who were like mildly adjacent to Mike Lynch. Spies! Yeah, it's spies.

That's the entire extent of the spy connection. I'm going to do that a lot for the rest of your story. I'm sorry. Please don't. You've been doing it a lot for the rest of your story. I'm sorry. Please don't. You've been doing it a lot before. You can cut it. I'm far. Hahaha! So, after he sold his company to HP,

Mike Lynch started a new company that hired a handful of former employees from the UK's MI5. So, something with spies. Spies! There it is. Yeah. And that... I was shaking the entire time. I know. We all knew it was coming right there. Shrambling on the end of my microphone. And that with the... Eli?

Spies! Yeah. And that combined with the car accident two days before the yacht sinking means an elaborate plot by possibly the US government and the shadow people. Well, it's not elaborate by the shadow people standards, but yeah, like elaborate by your standards. Sure. And just one other detail that added to the craziness, but also added some humor for the

people who do know about math. The yacht was called Bayesian and it's named after the mathematician Thomas Bayes, who did some very important work in the field of probability and making predictions. When Marsh told me about the story, he described the yacht sinking as Bayesian Bob ability, which is excellent. So the moral of the story, rare events happen approximately rarely. And that doesn't mean anything profound or conspiratorial necessarily. No doing therefor's.

That needs to be the rule for most people. No therefor's based on anything like that. Just don't do your therefor's at all. You're probably going to get it wrong. When you hear about a car accident and a yacht sinking two days apart, leading to the deaths of two connected people, that seems like a big weird combination of events. But we also had those two things not happening during just about every single two-day span for your entire life. They just don't write news articles about like weird billionaire murder conspiracy with

cars and yachts fails to happen again this weekend because that would be crazy. Right. So for everyone out there debunking lunatics with a bit of basic math, cheers to you. You're fighting the good fight. Well done. And for the assassins that I know were in charge of this op, a very good Shabbos to you. Spies! And on that note I'm gonna check the mail for that George Soros check that they keep saying that we get, so we're going to wrap the headlines right there. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Espionage!

And when we come back, Heath will put on his gloves again. Hoo doggy! Barison. I have a cold. Hoooo doggy! Barison. I have a cold. Imagine if I had a cold. Yeah, well, the jamboree town doesn't care about colds. I know.

Hey guys, what's going on? What's with the overalls? We're getting ready for our live show in Nashville, Tennessee on December 7th. Wait, we have a live show in Nashville, Tennessee on December 7th? We sure do. We'll be doing a live God- Nashville, Tennessee on December 7th? We sure do. We'll be doing a live Godawful Movies and tickets are on sale now at GodawfulMoviesLive.com. Eli and I are just, you know, getting into spirit. Is that wheat in your mouth?

Yeah, and we're naked under these overalls. Completely naked. Yeah, no, I figured. Look, guys, nobody cares if you're in overalls or have a big straw hat. Folks who want to see us in Nashville can come to the live show on December 7th. That's true. We've got platinum and iridium nights, which are evenings of fun games with the cast of the show, plus dinner and drinks on us, plus VIP tickets, which get you a seat in the first few rows, as well as access to our VIP meet and greet after the show.

If tickets are still available, which they might not be. Yeah, those go quick over at godawfulmovieslive.com. Godawfulmovieslive.com. Hoo doggy. Awful, I hate it. Just truly deplorable. I'm working on it. Work harder.

I'm in a growth place. ["The Last Supper"] The question I'm most asked in life is, what? And the question Eli is most often asked is, dude, really? But when it comes to our friend Heath, that question is, what's that smell? Which we've incorporated into a segment called how bullshit is it a Lot the answer. It's like it's like Matt Walsh's am I racist? Yes. Yes Also, mostly it's pocket cheese everybody just in case you're worried he babe. Yeah. No it is. Yeah, right He just keeps hot cheese in the pockets way longer than he should the baby bells are good But the ones that don't have the wax coating yeah, you kind kind of need the wax coating. We keep telling you that. We've told you.

Lindy. So tell us, Heath, what fecal factoid do you have for us today? Today, we're going to be talking about the Global Consciousness Project. Oh, that sounds like something that has a dove on its logo. No logo, but yeah, good guess. OK, so what is the global consciousness project? It's a bunch of grown adults looking at the results of random number generators to see if Sad stuff makes them less random. I have a feeling I know how bullshit this is

Spoilers. Yeah. All right. So so where does this project start? Princeton University of all places. Oh, fuck off. In 1979, Princeton's then Dean of Engineering somehow convinced the otherwise very prestigious institution into funding a laboratory dedicated to researching psychokinesis and remote viewing. It was dubbed the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab or the Pear Lab and despite never producing anything even remotely like

science it would operate for almost 30 years. It didn't close until 2007. Okay so what did they do there for those 28 fucking years? Not quit like quitters, I'll tell you that for free. That that's true. And they did a bunch of very useless stuff. But the primary experiments they're known for are the ones that tried to influence random number generators using psychic powers. Hell yeah. They had what they called random event generators, which were mostly electronic, but in some cases were just like giant plinko boards. And they had

people sit there and try to use their psychic powers to make the randomly generated numbers higher or lower. Okay. So I'm going to ask you about the results, I promise. But first, I want to ask a less predictable question. Why the fuck would they think anybody could do that? Why would they ever think that was a thing to look at? Yeah. So, back in the 70s, there was a really popular concept on the fringes of science that said, all consciousness is somehow connected through an unknown unknown field often called field consciousness or global consciousness And this had what at least seemed like scientific backing at the time

Kind of like for example. Are you guys familiar with the hundredth monkey effect? Embarrassingly familiar. Yes. Yeah younger me used to use it to win arguments against people who were right. Sure. Got to remember who I'm talking to. So, for people unfamiliar, this is a story that begins its life as a secondary source. It was introduced in 1975 in a book, Forward, written by South African scientist Lyle Watson, and then later expanded in a book he wrote himself.

And the idea wasn't even based on his research. The first citation needed essay we found. So here's the story. In the early 1950s, some Japanese primatologists were studying macaques on the island of Kojima. And to coax the monkeys out, they would leave sweet potatoes on the beaches. Eventually, one monkey learned the sweet potatoes tasted better if you rinsed them in the ocean first. She started teaching that to all the other monkeys. The researchers paid a lot of attention to this because it was a previously unobserved behavior. This was the first time primatologists saw older

monkeys learning from younger ones. But that's not what made it interesting to Watson. What made it interesting to him was bullshit. According to his account, once a certain critical threshold of monkeys learned the behavior, all the rest just knew it without being taught. And this, as it turns out, was nowhere to be found in the actual research. In fact, the research showed the opposite. If monkeys were over a certain age, they just never learned the new behavior, no matter how ubiquitous it got among the younger monkeys. As far as I can tell, Watson just made the shit up for the sake of his forward.

Yeah, did they observe the older monkeys calling their kids to ask them which channel has the Roku? But one way or the other, this story and stories like it started to seep into the global consciousness for lack of a better term and they were often presented as evidence that there was some kind of unifying consciousness web that might explain reports of psychic powers. Okay, but isn't that motherfucker's lion also a pretty solid explanation for reports of psychic powers though? Yes it is. The best one.

But you got to keep in mind that A. You arrived at that conclusion using debunking experiments they didn't have back then. B. This was a time when a lot of stuff people used to think was impossible was being done. And C, if there was even the slightest chance in hell that psychic powers were a thing, the Cold War mentality wasn't about to allow for a, you know, psychic gap with the USSR.

So it was the kind of thing that even a reasonable experimenter might want to look into Okay, so the people doing the pair lab experiments were actual legitimate scientists. Well, no, I didn't say that. Okay All right. So what did they find? They found that under certain experimental conditions many test subjects could influence random number generators to a could influence random number generators to a statistically significant degree. Really? And what conditions were those? Bullshit ones. Okay. Yeah, I figured.

Yeah. Between this and Uri Keller, I'm pretty sure they were just winging it on rigor until like, I'm going to say 1991. Right. Yeah, honestly. Generous. So yeah, the researchers eventually published data suggesting there was an effect worth looking into. But this was long after they'd become the laughing stock of Princeton, and they'd already been accused of very poor research methods. So naturally, skeptical researchers tore into the data they published and found the exact kind of sloppy bullshit that those skeptical researchers expected.

Okay, so what kind of sloppy bullshit are we talking about here? Well, first of all, we need to start with the fact that the effect size we're talking about is, while statistically significant technically, very small. For the data they're working with, the p-value, meaning the number they have to reach to have an agreed upon significant result is 0.05%. Their effect size was as low as 0.1% and never above 1%. And sure, that could just mean their subjects were only a little psychic, but what it also means is that it wouldn't take a hell of a lot

of data manipulation to reach the numbers they reached. Right, and for those of you who have trouble picturing that, imagine asking 100 random Americans if Hillary Clinton eats babies in the basement of a pizza parlor, and then concluding that she does if one of those people says yes. Right, yeah.

Now, just because they could manipulate the data doesn't mean they did. But the fact that they did does, and they almost certainly did. When other scientists looked at the data, they noticed weird anomalies, like the fact that the baseline for chance behavior they used didn't vary as statistically appropriate. And I'm not exactly sure what that means, but according to the Wikipedia article, it calls into question whether the random number generators were really random. There was also

one single test subject who was apparently also on the lab staff who participated in 15% of the trials and was responsible for half of the total observed effect. So that guy was really psychic, right? Yeah. Okay, cause that's awesome, right? Because what that means is like Craig's Plinko machine

had a mistake on it it so it fell on three and these poor desperate scientists were like Craig we need you to stay all weekend but I'm so sorry. I'm sure that's the excuse they used. When Canadian researcher James Alcock looked into it, he found a myriad of problems including poor controls, poor documentation, and a lot of possible indicators of fraud, data selection, and optional stopping, which is ending the trial on a swing of good results. So there's always a little bit of a nudge towards the positive result you're looking for.

Same approach I have to love making. Yeah, there you go. All about the ending. The Wikipedia article about the pair experiments also references a thorough debugging of their procedures by psychologist C.E.M. Hansel, who said the experiments didn't have a satisfactory control, couldn't be independently replicated and lacked detail. He says, quote, very little information is provided about the design of the experiment,

the subjects or the procedure adopted. He also added, quote, details are not given about the subjects, the time they were tested, or the precise conditions under which they were tested, end quote. Wikipedia also mentions a Milton Rothman points out the critical fact that the experiments ignore the laws of physics and have no basis in reality. Yeah, that matters too. So it was they were lacking in science is what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah. And I should point out that other people actually did science around the ridiculous parameters the pair of labs had out and got nothing. Two German labs tried, a lab in New

York tried, and even pair tried under more rigorous observation. And in all instances, there was no observed effect at all. Yeah, this was a lot easier when we kept the Plinko machine upside down the whole time. Are you sure we can't keep doing that? Right, right. Okay, so at least they'd more or less disprove that hypothesis, right, and they could move on? Yeah, well, here's the thing. Up until then, it was just misguided research that was poorly executed.

I mean, sure, there were accusations of outright data manipulations, but it's still possible to explain away their errors as just, they scienced bad. But as you recall, this segment isn't about the Pear Lab. It's about the Global Consciousness Project. And that began as an outgrowth of this Pear Lab research in 1998. Well after all the debunking we've discussed was already freely available. Okay, so what was the Global Consciousness Project? It's the result of somebody looking at the existing Pear Lab research on random number

manipulation and thinking, well that's way too specific and measurable. And that person was Roger D. Nelson. What made his research different is that he didn't bother with test subjects at all. He just ran a bunch of random number generators in different places and then examined the numbers that were randomly generated during what they called highly focused or coherent group events. Such as? Events they've studied include

psychotherapy sessions, theater presentations, religious rituals, sports competitions, major television broadcasts, and major world events like Princess Di's funeral, and 9-11.

Okay, I will admit I've never seen those two examples show up on the same list in a thing that wasn't bullshit. Right, yeah. Again, I feel like I have a hint here. Really good hint. All right, so I'm sorry. I need to clarify in case anybody didn't realize how stupid what you just said was.

So what they did is they just ran a group of random number generators all the time and then they looked back over those numbers during whatever events they chose to look at to see if those numbers were what? Less random? Less random, yes. Well, okay. Less random how?

Higher than the baseline or lower than the baseline or more medium than the baseline. Okay. But for how? Okay. How long? For how long? Well, however long they decide is significant after examining the data. That could be hours or days. Okay, so literally any anomaly at whatever time

they chose to look for, however long they chose to look at. Exactly. And what have they found? They found whatever the fuck they wanted. Sure, yeah. Like, for example, there was a significant shift in randomness during and in the hours after Princess Di's funeral.

Oh, because, let me guess, let me guess, because the energy field was in chaos. Yeah, I'm sure. Okay, well then I guess the next step is to find some other funeral of a person as well known as Diana and see if the numbers move in the same way, right? Yeah, they don't do that. They actually tried exactly that with Mother Teresa's funeral and when they found no change, they explained it was probably because Diana died young and her death was unexpected. Oh, yes. Whereas Mother Teresa was old and everybody was more ready for her to die. Yeah. Psychically.

Predicting stuff way easier if you wait until it happens, right? Weird that more scientists don't just do that. Right? Yeah, that speed things up. Get on that. Yeah. They also noticed a statistically significant disturbance when they looked at 9-11. It also caused the numbers to change retroactively.

Wait, what? What now? Yeah, they noticed a statistically significant change, but it was before the events rather than after. Okay, well, so then it's meaningless. Or global consciousness is psychic, Noah. Oh, all right. So just, I guess it's weird that global consciousness didn't fucking warn us that.

Say something. Yeah. I don't know, Noah. I did hear that no psychic showed up for work at the Twin Towers that day. OK, no, actually, that is true. Yeah, so look, what's happening here is that they're just producing a lot of numbers.

And if you look at any random data set long enough, you'll find anomalies. This is called anomaly hunting. And it's the basis for whatever percentage of conspiracy theories can't be attributed to racism and anti-Semitism. Every legitimate statistician that's ever looked at their data has concluded that it was meaningless and that they'd wasted their time looking into it. It's basically the the Mike Lindell election fraud data of Yeah, but without a judge awarding the money from the pillow man, right? Yeah. All right. Well, I guess the only question left to ask is

How bullshit is it? it's Blurring out your inconvenient data like it's your fart during the movie that you made about fraudulent data, but you don't realize it levels of bullshit. All right. Well, with the promise of somehow still bullshittier bullshit to come, we're going to wrap the segment there. Heath, Eli, thanks again. Before we put the lid on this one, I wanted to remind you one more time to go to God awful movies live.com if you want tickets to see us in Nashville on December 7th or check the

show notes for a link and go sooner rather than later. We just announced the show on Tuesday and already a couple of the ticket types are sold out. Anyway, that's all the blast we've got for you tonight. But we'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be the lookout for a a brand new episode of our sister show's hot friend God of movies debuting at 7 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday and an even newer episode of our half-sister show Citation D to debut at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, I can't call this a show if I neglect to thank Heathen Wright for working through his birthday to make sure that you have

your requisite dose of weekly atheism. I need to thank Eli Bosnik who will actually have to work through his birthday next month, too, but only because it's right next to Lucinda's and I'm taking her on a trip for her birthday. Also speaking of which, I need to thank the lovely and talented Lucinda Lusens for letting me tag along on her birthday trip, among other things. I also want to thank the Oklahoma dad who provided this week's Farnsworth quote and expressed how we're all kind of feeling. We're doing what we can, man.

Stay strong. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's best bipeds, Spooky Eric, Talani, Jason, Brian, and Richard. Spooky Eric and and Talani who are so delicious ice cream craves them and Jason, Brian and Richard whose cocks could get those stranded astronauts back fireman's pole style if NASA would just ask. Together these six sexy secularists secured our sacrifice through a sacrifice of species this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the extreme atheist abilities it takes to give us money but if you've got what it takes you can make a per episode donation at patreon.com slash scathing atheist,

whereby you'll only access to an extended ad free version of every episode, or you can make a one time donation by clicking on the donate button on the right side of the homepage at scathingatheist.com. And if you'd like to help, but all your money is going to keep fashionists out of office, you can also help a ton by leaving us a five star review, telling a friend about the show, and following us on social media, and speaking of social media, Tim Robertson handles that for us on our audio engineer is Morton Clark who also wrote a music that was used in this episode which was used with permission. If you have questions comments or death threats you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at scathingalias.com

Intro. Sorry, I actually am not ready to record. Sorry. Give me two seconds. Wow. I know. So unprofessional. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm LLC copyright 2024 all rights reserved.