Skeptoid is a weekly science podcast dedicated to furthering knowledge by blasting away the widespread pseudosciences that infect popular culture.
Each weekly episode focuses on a single phenomenon — an urban legend, a paranormal claim, alternative therapy, or something just plain stupid — that you've heard of, and that you probably believe in. Skeptoid attempts to expose the folly of belief in non-evidence based phenomena, and more importantly, explains the factual scientific reality.
From the sublime to the startling, no topic is sacred, politically incorrect though that may be. 62,000 weekly downloads. Read what people are saying.
Latest Skeptoid Episodes...
6/23/2009 - Many people believe that whenever the Mothman appears, disaster soon follows and people die. But where did this belief come from? Has it happened more than once? What are the real connections between the Mothman's alleged appearances, and the collapse of the Silver Bridge? Is our flying friend truly predicting the future? Read more
6/16/2009 - It's time for more student questions. This week: Will wearing a facemask protect you from the swine flu? Do depleted uranium munitions cause cancer? Can expensive audio cables improve the sound of music? Is there anything to the New Age treatments "Family Constellations" or "Functional Medicine"? Read more
6/9/2009 - Has a friend recommended you go on a 30-day high fructose corn syrup free diet? Has Oprah told you to stop buying anything that contains it? A lot of people are spreading all kinds of hype and paranoia about this common sweetener, charging it with being largely responsible for obesity, diabetes, and just about anything else. Do they know what they're talking about, or is it just another sugar, no worse than any other? Read more
6/2/2009 - In eastern Washington state is said to be a mysterious bottomless pit called Mel's Hole. Mel Waters announced his strange pit to the world on the Coast to Coast AM radio show, and ever since, believers have been scouring the countryside looking for it. Will they find it? Read more
5/26/2009 - When NLP (Neuro-linguistic Programming) was invented in the 1970s, its creators called it a scientific breakthrough in psychotherapy (even though neither of them was a psychotherapist). More than 30 years later it's still marketed as science, but is it science? Or, is it just another New Age self-help scheme peddled to business managers, sports coaches, and sales professionals? Read more
5/19/2009 - We all know that Chuck Yeager was the first to break the sound barrier in 1947, flying the Bell X-1 Glamorous Glennis. But did you know that there are a number of other plausible claims from others who may have beaten him to the punch? Namely, Heini Dittmar flying the Messerschmidt 163 Komet; Hans Guido Muttke flying the Messerschmitt 262; and George Welch flying the XP-86. Read more
5/16/2009 - Enjoy this video of some behind-the-scenes footage of the production and recording of Skeptoid episode #150, Screwed! A lampoon of a meeting of the Illuminati, planning their assault on mankind:
5/12/2009 - This week we open our listener feedback mailbag again to see what vitriol and craziness has come our way, so that we may publicly humiliate them. Some of it's good, some of it's asylum-grade insanity, some of it's confused, and some of it's just plain wrong. But it's all fun, and it's all an education. Read more
5/5/2009 - Don't laugh. When a giant blob of unidentifiable flesh washes up on the beach, cryptozoologists spring for ridiculous explanations, and skeptics just laugh it off. Not so fast, please. Some of these so-called "globsters" really do defy any explanation you can think of, and are worthy of skeptical examination. Read more
5/3/2009 - James Randi has some Big News that I think you're really going to like! Give a listen
4/28/2009 - We all know what placebos can't do, but nobody ever talks much about what they can do. Did you know that placebos have many different characteristics that dramatically affect what they can do? Did you know that they can even be used as a medical treatment themselves? Read more
4/21/2009 - For the 150th episode of Skeptoid, I thought we'd try something special. We sent a team of Skeptoid investigators to the headquarters of the New World Order of Masonic Illuminati to inflitrate and secretly record one of their meetings to see whether the rumors are true: Are they really planning global domination? Listen and find out. Read more
4/14/2009 - Coral Castle is a rock park in southern Florida that was built over 28 years by one man, Ed Leedskalnin. How did he do it? We point our skeptical eye at the claims that it could have only been possible if Ed had unlocked the secrets of magnetism, electricity, and the magnetic nature of life to somehow levitate the blocks into place. Read more
4/7/2009 - Skeptoid answers more student questions: menthol cigarettes, antibacterial cleansers, missing time reported by UFO believers, zero point energy, and the ability to sense when you're being watched! Extra credit if you can tell whether I'm watching you when you listen to the episode. Read more
4/5/2009 - My main man Daniel Loxton of Skeptic Magazine has published a highly recommended magnum opus - "What Do I Do Next?" - a free 68-page PDF that is, simply put, a list of things anyone can do to help promote critical thinking. With the help of 12 other contributors (including yours truly) Daniel complied this volume, which I'm going to recommend from now on whenever anyone asks me that FAQ "What can I do to help?" Just imagine if everyone did only one thing from this list...
4/5/2009 - I *love* this video, made by a gentlemen named Doug out of the UK. Brilliant job of graphically explaining the concept of open-mindedness, in a friendly and approachable way that I can't imagine anyone disagreeing with, or being offended by. (Oh, I know plenty of believers will manage to be offended.)
3/31/2009 - Today we give a listen to some binaural beats. These computer generated audio files are sold with all sorts of fantastic claims, centered around the idea that they can induce a desired EEG pattern, and that doing so will result in a desired brain state. Some call them digital drugs, some call them nonsense. Read more
3/29/2009 - I heard from astronomer Ian Ridpath, who was a principal investigator of the Rendlesham Forest UFO incident. Ian has posted part of his original report from the BBC on the incident which dramatically displays how the Ordfordness lighthouse was the actual culprit, easily capable of fooling a handful of green, teenaged airmen:
3/24/2009 - In 1992, a Young Earth Creationist geologist, Dr. Steven Austin, took a sample of six-year-old rock from Mount St. Helens and had it dated via potassium-argon radiometric dating. It came back with an age of 350,000 years. Was this actually proof that science fails to prove that the Earth is older than the Bible says, or was it a disingenuous propaganda stunt? Read more
3/17/2009 - Some conspiracy theorists - the variety who call themselves "Patriots" - believe that FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is building and beginning to actually use as many as 800 prison camps inside the United States, for the purpose of detaining and executing as many as 10,000,000 American citizens. What's so patriotic about this I'm not certain. Read more
3/10/2009 - A number of stories of strange skulls have emerged from around the world. Are they alien? Are they mutations? Are they missing links? They're certainly creepy... Read more
3/3/2009 - The Lucifer Project is what some conspiracy theorists believe NASA is really up to with all these suspicious probes being sent to the outer planets. They take Arthur C. Clarke's book 2010: Odyssey Two seriously, and believe that Jupiter or Saturn are going to be turned into small suns as a way to terraform their moons, for some evil purpose. Read more
2/24/2009 - Another student questions episode takes aim at sugar and children's behavior, the real risks of secondhand smoke, the popular hatred of Wal-Mart, omega-3 fatty acid supplementation, and whether radiometric dating is actually useful for determining the age of an object. Read more
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