The Skeptics Guide #1100 - Aug 8 2026
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Who are the hosts and guests and what event are they covering at the start of the episode?
You're listening to The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Your escape to reality.
Hello and welcome to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Today is Saturday, August first, and we are here in Christchurch New Zealand at the fortieth uh anniversary, I guess, conference of the New Zealand Skeptics. This is your host, Steven Novella. You don't have to appoint for that one. I know you were about to. As always, I am joined by Bob Novella. Hey everybody. Kara Santa Maria. Jay Novella. Hey guys. And we have three guests with us. This is our Nauticon crew. We have Brian Wecht. Hi folks. Andrea Jones Roy. Hello. And George Rubb. So, as I said, you know, this is the 40th uh conference for the New Zealand Skeptics. That's quite a record of continuous skeptical organization, self-sustaining for 40 years.
That's quite impressive. But you know what? I learned the other day, and it's surprising that I didn't already know this. But the Skeptics Guide to the Universe, we've been doing this for 21 years, not quite 40 years, but we are the longest-running science podcast. Yeah.
Yeah.
The world, Steve, the world. The world. It's amazing. Yeah. We're the we're we're the the first one that has can continued without a break.
So yeah, some were before, but but they've sort of
Ver very I mean, we got we were right at the beginning of podcasting and the podcasts weren't even in category and iTunes yet. And you really you there was like maybe a six month window where you might have beaten us and there were a couple in there, but they have since stopped. The next closest one that we could find was the naked scientist, which didn't start for about six months after us. Wow. That's amazing. That's like a big deal. That's like a big, big It's a Well, I was being interviewed yesterday by Andy. Andy I think was here somewhere. Raise your hand, Andy, if you're there he is. And he said it and I'm like, shit, is that true? I never I never verified that so we verified it as best we could. It's like yeah okay, that's true.
We're gonna we're gonna blast that everywhere.
We've been having a great time in New Zealand. It's really been a fantastic trip trip. And I have one question for everybody in the audience here. Why is your moon upside down? Yeah. What is going on here?
Seriously.
It is amazing. I mean, you know, we talked about flat earthers occasionally. It is like the craziest conspiracy theory out there, but it just always strikes me. It is so so trivially easy to prove it absolutely one hundred percent wrong. Right? I mean, just Orion, like the constellation Orion, also upside down. Like it's undeniable. Right there.
Based on whose perspective, Steve.
Well it doesn't relative relatively doesn't matter which one the point is they're flipped and the only way that could possibly happen is on a spherical earth.
Well and the cool thing is when we showed up in the southern hemisphere, the moon was a really nice crescent. So we went from this to this and it was like hell yeah. You could just really see it. You know, it's pretty much full right now, or it was full yesterday or something. Steve, you're forgetting that's less impressive.
You're forgetting a very obvious argument, which is it could be a flat Earth that's surrounded by a whole bunch of mirrors. Mm-hmm. Oh, that's true. Yeah, yeah.
They're not making that argument though. Space mirror.
Don't give them any ideas. Yeah, fair.
But there was a lovely moment in Australia where you and Iran, our friend, were debating as to what we were actually seeing wise.
Yeah, because it's not a it's not a mirror image flipped, it's like eighty degrees flipped. And we were I we were just trying to get our language aligned 'cause I'm like, it's not flipped this way. He's like, I know it's flipped this way. That's v eventually we figured out but what we were talking about.
It was curious 'cause like two sort of astronomy experts on a certain level were just talking past each other. And we were watching it in the street as it occurred and I thought, you know, it's it can be confusing as to what's like, you know, is what's the shadow and what's the thing and how does it work?
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
Who are the hosts and guests and what event are they covering at the start of the episode?
0:03–6:49
2
What is the ‘Telescope Ranch’ story and how does it illustrate remote‑controlled astronomy?
6:49–14:12
3
How do social‑science concepts like social capital and cohesion relate to mental‑health benefits of community?
14:12–30:48
4
Is terraforming Mars technologically feasible and what are the biggest obstacles?
30:48–1:58:22