Geek Counterpoint -- Your antidote to soundbite science!

Geek Counterpoint -- Your antidote to soundbite science!

Your own personal geek-to-English translator, in handy Podcast form! Equal parts topical science background, correction / explanation of poorly reported science & tech issues, and just plain interesting points to ponder. A 20 minute helping of critical thinking every week, presented in conversational style and with a dash of dry humor.

Episodes

GC061 So long, and thanks for all the fish...

September 12, 2007 • 1 min
Finis
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GC060 Climate Change Impacts

June 2, 2007 • 27 mins
Now that we've gone through the science behind climate change, and knocked down most of the kooks surrounding the issue, it's time to talk about what we're up against. In this episode, I spend a bit under 30 minutes laying out the most likely future impacts of climate change -- and while I wouldn't call it a catastrophe, things don't look too pretty. Since this is the eighth episode in a series, I'd recommend that before listenin...
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GC059 Climate Change Proponents

May 13, 2007 • 28 mins
Since the opponents of the climate change consensus have had their turn, now it's time to give the supporters of the consensus a little working over. Since this is the seventh episode in a series, I'd recommend that before listening to this episode, you first listen to episodes 45, 47, 54, 56, 57, and 58.
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GC058 Swindled!

March 24, 2007 • 23 mins
A couple of Geek Counterpoint listeners (thanks, Travis and Bill!) pointed me to a show recently aired on BBC channel 4 called "The Great Global Warming Swindle." It purports to be a documentary, and is uniformly critical of the science behind climate change and the global warming concensus. It's generated a lot of heat both in British papers and online, and has been accused of playing fast and loose with the truth. Since video ...
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GC057 Climate Change: the Skeptics (part 3)

March 12, 2007 • 27 mins
Now that we've simplified things by covering the more common arguments made by climate change skeptics, this episode is devoted to discussing some specific climate change skeptics and their arguments. Since this is the fifth episode in a series, I'd recommend that before listening to this episode, you first listen to episodes 45, 47, 54, and 56. In the next climate episode, it'll be time for some climate change proponents' turn i...
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GC056 Climate Change: the Skeptics (part 2)

February 21, 2007 • 25 mins
A continuation of episode 54's treatment of general points used by climate change skeptics. Since this is the fourth episode in a series, I'd recommend that before listening to this episode, you first listen to episodes 45, 47, and 54.
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GC055 Space Weapons

February 10, 2007 • 34 mins
When the Chinese government demolished one of its aging weather satellites a few weeks ago, they did more than just test out a potentially useful technology. They also cluttered up low Earth orbit with a huge amount of debris, and stirred up a comparable amount of controversy in the press. While nobody is yet quite sure what the motivation behind the test was (to send a message to the White House? to start discussions on a new s...
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GC054 Climate Change: the Skeptics (part 1)

January 22, 2007 • 37 mins
It's taken some time to do a reasonable level of fact checking, but my climate cats have now been successfully herded, so it's (finally!) time for another climate change episode. Since (at least in the media) the discussion over climate change has been boiled down to two "sides," I'll start with the case made by various parties skeptical of the mainstream view. Mind you, as in any argument, a given position is held by a variety o...
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GC053 Sergey Korolyov

January 12, 2007 • 16 mins
Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of a giant of space exploration -- Sergey Korolyov (sometimes also transliterated as Sergei Korolev). For much of the 20th century, Korolyov was the prime driving factor behind the Soviet space program. He led the efforts to launch Sputnik, put Yuri Gagarin into orbit, and hold up the USSR's end of the race to the moon. Yet during Korolyov's life, even his existence was a Soviet state ...
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GC052 Antikythera Mechanism

January 4, 2007 • 23 mins
Sure, it's not much to look at -- but this humble lump of corroded bronze completely demolished our previous understanding of the history of mechanical inventions. The Antikythera Mechanism was built late in the 2nd century BC, and is the earliest example ever found of a geared mechanism, but represents a level of mechanical technology not seen again for nearly 2000 years!
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GC051 Stardust Preliminary Results

December 21, 2006 • 24 mins
Yes, I know -- I just talked about Stardust in episode 50. But in the meantime, the first batch of preliminary science papers was released on the 15th of December in the journal Science. There's a full set of material available (currently, at least, freely available) on the Science website, but many folks could probably use a bit of help in interpreting the news, and putting it into some sort of context. Tune in this week, and I...
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GC050 News Grab Bag #5

December 8, 2006 • 34 mins
Yes, it's time for another "grab bag" episode to get everybody caught up on recent and semi-recent developments in topics I've covered in past episodes. This week's fodder includes updates on the following subjects: Mars -- see episode 41 (September 2006) Asteroids and comets and dinosaurs -- see episodes 16, 17 (January 2006), and 24 (April 2006) RFID -- see episode 13 (January 2006) "Intelligent Design" -- see episodes 4 (Octob...
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GC049 Reactionless Drives

November 29, 2006 • 17 mins
It's the holy grail of flight -- propulsion without the expenditure of reaction mass. A practical reactionless drive system would render wheeled vehicles (flying cars, anyone?), aircraft with wings, and rockets as we know them obsolete. But is it real? Can it ever be real? This episode covers the history of attempts at reactionless drives, and some recent news on a related controversy that "New Scientist" magazine unwittingly s...
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GC048 A Tale of Two Caves...

November 21, 2006 • 21 mins
I talked at length about the Neanderthals just a few months ago, and then as often seems to happen, a bunch of new Neanderthal news popped up shortly afterwards. Listen in this week, and you'll get caught up with some really interesting recent discoveries on our beetle-browed friends (and relatives?). Before you listen to this episode, I'd recommend you listen to the episodes on Piltdown (#9, 12/2005), Flores Man (#15, 1/2006), a...
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GC047 Climate Change and Logical Fallacies

November 13, 2006 • 28 mins
This episode, the second in a series on climate change, is intended to give everybody a little background in logical fallacies. In particular, a number of logical fallacies seem to be particularly prone to use in news reports, political debates, and various pundits' writings on climate change -- so this episode will cover my own "top 10" list of climate change fallacies. With both episode 45 and then this episode under our belt, ...
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GC046 Flying Aircraft Carriers

November 1, 2006 • 20 mins
A few weeks ago, researchers finished the first exhaustive study performed of the wreck of the USS Macon, a U.S. Navy airship. What's unique about this particular wreck is that the Macon isn't alone on its piece of ocean floor off the California coast -- it's debris also contains the wreckage of four fighter aircraft. The Macon was one of a handful of flying aircraft carriers to have been in operation over the years. In the proc...
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GC045 Climate Change 101

October 24, 2006 • 27 mins
At least in the U.S. (and judging by material on the net, increasingly in Canada and Australia as well), debate about climate change long ago left the scientific arena, and entered the world of politics. As a result, if you're trying to figure out for yourself where the truth lies, you're confronted with a confusing mess of information -- some of it is scientific, but much of it is pure garbage packaged as science. In the interes...
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GC044 The 2006 U.S. National Space Policy document

October 14, 2006 • 20 mins
A few days ago, the White House released an update to the United States' "National Space Policy" document. In a sense, an update is overdue as this document hasn't been tweaked since 1996, when Clinton was president. It's release got a number of folks spun up, labeling the document agressive and unilateral. Some commentators got even more excited, bringing North Korea into their commentary, and talking about the militarization o...
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GC043 Social Darwinism and Eugenics

October 7, 2006 • 23 mins
So-called social "Darwinism" and eugenics are two intertwined topics that always seem to come up whenever somebody wants to insult, or at least disparage, the scientific community in general. Realistically, though, neither one is really "Darwinian," and both represent the misuse and abuse of some basic biological concepts when applied in social and political contexts. Tune in this week, and you'll be prepared to fend off that ann...
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GC042 USAF Museum Tour

September 30, 2006 • 5 mins
We recently had a family reunion of sorts in Ohio, and after some pretty stiff negotiations, I managed to finagle some time at the "National Museum of the U.S. Air Force" in Dayton. Anybody who's even slightly interested in military aviation, or the history of aviation, could easily spend a whole day here just looking at all the airplanes (and a few spacecraft). Also note that I've put up stills from this tour in the Geek Counte...
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