PODCAST · science
Exposing PseudoAstronomy
by Stuart Robbins
Listen to learn the real state of science behind astronomy-, physics-, and geology-related creationist claims, hoaxes, conspiracy theories, misconceptions, and bad or incomplete media reporting.
Episodes
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Episode 170 - Interlude, and Another Podcast Endeavor
After being gone for a bit of time, I return to discuss where I have been, what to expect for the future (when more episodes will air), and if you need your fix of Dr. Stu, there is a new podcast that I have released with two of the co-hosts of The Reality Check podcast, entitled: 5 Minutes with…
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Episode 169 - Modern Eclipse Lunacy, Part 3: Richard Hoagland's Claims
In the final regular episode in the three-part Solar Eclipse of August 2017 series, several of the claims made by Richard Hoagland are addressed. Three types of claims are examined: Whether shadow bands indicate there are glass structures on the Moon, whether the Accutron watch readings indicate...
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Episode 168 - Common (and False) Fine-Tuned Universe Beliefs, Discussed
An exploration into four groups of fine-tuning arguments used by some to say that we are special: Solar outbursts, habitable zone, lunar origin and effects, and giant planets and impacts on Earth.
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Episode 167 - Modern Eclipse Lunacy, Part 2: Flat Earth
The August 2017 total solar eclipse was seen by hundreds of millions of people, and yet some of them have tried to use it to promulgate pseudoscience. In this Part 2 episode, I discuss ideas about the eclipse promoted by proponents of the idea that Earth is flat.
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Episode 166 - Stellar Evolution, Age of the Universe, and Young-Earth Creationism
The half-truth and misconception addressed in this episode is whether the age of a star with error bars that overlap with the age of the universe means all of science is wrong and the universe was created 6000 years ago.
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Episode 165 - Little Things in Space
Three separate topics all tied together by a commonality: A little bit of something that you tend to only experience in space. First up is microgravity, then near-vacuum, and then what it means to have a temperature in space.
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Episode 164 - The World Didn't End on September 23, 2017
The world did not end, again, on September 23, 2017. However, the story behind this latest doomsday prognostication may surprise you -- it did me as I investigated it.
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Episode 163 - Modern Eclipse Lunacy, Part 1
This past eclipse on August 21, 2017, was perhaps one of the most-hyped and most-viewed solar eclipses in human history. As with any such mass-sighted event, pseudoscience is bound to rear its ugly head. In this episode, I address doom and gloom, earthquake predictions, astrologic predictions,...
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Episode 162 - Geocentrism, Take 2
Young-Earth creationists who are not geocentrists - those who accept the Copernican Revolution so far as Earth's place in the universe - have a vested interest in combatting some forms of pseudoscience, including geocentrism. In this episode, I lay out some of their more convincing arguments...
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Episode 161 - Water on Earth— Coriolis and Tides
Inspired by one of the longest-running primetime television shows in history, and frustration with late-night radio hosts pretending they can Science, this episode addresses two common misconceptions about the forces from and on water on our planet and their effects on human scales. I first…
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Episode 160 - Apollo Hoax: The US Flag Waving, and the Moon of No Return
A return to a tried-and-true subject of skepticism: the Apollo Moon Hoax. In this shorter episode, I discuss two of the most common claims that you may hear: Why does the US flag appear to be waving in photographs, and if we went to the moon, why haven't we been back?
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Episode 159 - A Proposal for the Geologic Definition of Planet, Interview with Kirby Runyon
In 2006, the International Astronomical Union sparked an uproar and furious debate among scientists and non-scientists alike when they voted for a definition of the word, planet. Numerous proposals since that time have been made for the definition of that term. Eleven years later, a new proposal...
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Episode 158 - Getting Beyond the Photograph: Image Tricks with Dr. Tod Lauer
In past episodes, I have talked about how you can't get any more information out of an image than what is in a single pixel. Dr. Tod Lauer is an astronomer who has worked on all kinds of telscopes and instrument data and has developed numerous image processing techniques over his career. In this...
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Episode 157 - Special Cross-Over Episode with The Reality Check, Astronomy Edition
In a special cross-over episode, the cast of The Reality Check (Cheque?) podcast come over and we all did short-ish segments on astronomy-related topics: Do we live in a black hole, the Drake equation, are aliens likely to be hostile, did Earth's magnetic field recently collapse, and lunacy. I…
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Episode 156 - The Scientific Method: How We Get to What We Know
The scientific method is the process through which most modern science is done. Whether done explicitly in its formalized steps or not, it underlies the very basics of how we know what we know, why science is inherently a self-correcting process, and why when there exists a long-standing…
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Episode 155 - New Science: Evidence for the Mandela Effect?
Magic mirror on the wall, when will reality shifts affect us all? A phenomenon known as the Mandela Effect has been making the rounds of paranormal shows for the last year or so, and it seems silly until they start to use real science to back it up. Then, I get mad, and you don't want to see me…
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Episode 154 - Impact Crater Pseudoscience Mishmash
Impact craters form the basis of, or fit into the claimed evidence for, several different kinds of pseudoscientific claims. In this episode, I review two of them and also discuss some sensational headlines and why those headlines were wrong.
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Episode 153 - What Is Radiation?
Radiation is a mechanism for a large array of pseudosciences out there today, almost on par with quantum mechanics. The purpose of this episode is to provide a primer of radiation - what it is, what it isn't, why some is scary, and why some isn't. In going through this discussion, I also address...
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Episode 152 - Modern Flat Earth Thought, Part 3 (Young-Earth Creationists Debunking Flat Earth)
This podcast show most often focuses on refuting pseudoscience with real science, but it rarely sets out to make a positive case for real science. This episode is one of those rarer ones where I have used an unlikely source - youn-Earth creationists - to explain the case for why Earth is round…
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Episode 151 - The Fake Story of Planet X, Part X - Nancy Leider Redux and Planet Nine Claims of 2016
Planet X is one of those topics that keeps coming up in pseudoscientific circles, in part because people who have been claiming it will come by and cause destruction continue to do so, making up new excuses as to why their last prediction failed. In this episode, I delve into the latest claims by...
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Episode 150 - Is Dark Matter Liberal Pseudoscience?
Moving away from the Earth-centric episodes since The Return of the podcast, this epsidoe addresses the concept of dark matter and claims that it is pseudoscience (and liberal pseudoscience at that!). Throughout the episode, we explore the history of the concept, how it arose, and why it arose…
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Episode 149 - Modern Flat Earth Thought, Part 2 (U.N. Flag and Airplane Flights)
Flat Earth proponents have numerous claims that they use to promote the concept that Earth is flat. In this episode, we examine two of the claims that are somewhat related: The world looks like the United Nations flag (therefore "they" are "giving it away"), and airplane flights somehow prove…
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Episode 148 - BONUS: X-Rays from Pluto
When a NASA press released announced that scientists had observed x-rays coming from Pluto, my knee-jerk reaction was that certain people would use this to claim that Pluto was built by aliens. A later thought was that some might use it to bolster their ideas of the electric universe.…
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Episode 147 - The Hollow Earth According to David Icke
After 139 episodes, a return to some of the claims that Earth is hollow, this time as presented by David Icke. An examination into how gravity works, the structure of comets, magnetic fields, icebergs, and muskox migration patterns wrapped in an atmosphere of conspiracy that everything in our…
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Episode 146 - BONUS: Tracking Failed Planet X Predictions of Marshall Masters
Sometimes, things just get to you. A Planet X proponent who has been preaching catastrophe for years, keeps saying the doom will happen in about a year, and yet is objecitvely proven wrong each time, got to me. This episode is a documentation proving that Marshall Masters' Planet X timeline is...
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Episode 145 - Modern Flat Earth Thought, Part 1
A beginning examination of some of the modern claims put forth by the very recent resurgeance of Flat Earth proponents. This episode focuses on common (or not-so-common) sense, Earth's curvature, and the overall shape of the planet. It has three additional segments past the main one: Logical...
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Update
A ten-minute update and apology for delay in new episodes, and an announcement that the podcast is now officially on hiatus for another few months.
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Episode 144 - Why We Know About Things Far Away but Not Nearby, and Lots of New News
A close examination of why astronomers claim that they know about things on the other side of the universe, but they can't figure out what's going on in our own backyard. Since this episode comes out two months after my previous, there are also three New News stories where I discuss a recent...
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Episode 143 - Round-Table Discussion with New Horizons Early Career Scientists
On July 7, 2015, one week before the New Horizons spacecraft made its closest approach to Pluto and Charon, I sat down with six other early career scientists and interviewed them about several different topics related to the mission and just being a planetary scientist or scientist in general.…
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Episode 142 - Who's on First? Origin of Ideas in Science
From an ego standpoint, it's nice to get credit if you're the first to do something or figure something out. But from a scientific standpoint, it's also important to remember what has been known so we don't waste resources rediscovering something. And, from a pseudoscientific standpoint, many...
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Episode 141 - The Physics of the A=440 Hz Conspiracy
A conspiracy idea is that part of Nazi Germany propaganda was to redefine the musical standard for the world, moving it up in pitch from a standard A4 note that vibrates at 432 Hz to the more jarring 440 Hz which allows mind control and agitates people to be more war-like. I look into this claim...
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Episode 140 - Doomsmonth: September 2015
There are a lot of rumors going around that September 2015 is going to result in doom and gloom, with the destruction of financial markets, or maybe the world will end in a Christian New Testiment way, or we'll just get whacked by an asteroid. I talk about five different rumors in this episode…
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Episode 139 - New Horizons Pluto Encounter Conspiracies, Part 2
A look at many of the conspiracies related to the New Horizons mission through the Pluto-Charon system. This Part 2 episode focuses on anomaly-hunting -based conspiracies, including the alleged secret space program and a lot of image analysis.
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Episode 138 - New Horizons Pluto Encounter Conspiracies, Part 1
A look at many of the conspiracies related to the New Horizons mission through the Pluto-Charon system. This Part 1 episode focuses on some of the more mundane conspiracies, such as those related to naming conventions, the data download plan, and young-Earth creationism.
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Episode 137 - Why Earth Is Old, Without Radiometric Dating
Most often when discussing the age of the Earth or the solar system, scientists refer to radiometric dating. In kind, young-Earth creationists will try almost exclusively to poke holes in radiometric dating. But, before radioactive decay was discovered over one century ago, scientists in many...
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Episode 136 (BONUS) - How Science Journalists Go from Scientists to the Public
I briefly spoke with two of the science journalists who are embedded within NASA's New Horizons team for the spacecraft's flyby of the Pluto-Charon system. I asked them how they work to convert the complicated and technical science into something the public can digest and get excited about.
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Episode 135 - How New Horizons Takes Photographs, Interview with Dr. John Spencer
I bring you an interview with Dr. John Spencer, head of the hazards search for NASA's New Horizons spacecraft to Pluto, and co-deputy of the Geology and Geophysics Investigation team for New Horizons. We discuss how spacecraft images are processed, unique challenges for New Horizons, and some of...
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Episode 134 - Big Bang Denial
The Big Bang is the model that is used to explain what happened just after the origin of the universe. No more, and no less. But there are different kinds of arguments that people make to argue that the Big Bang never happened. In this episode, we go through some of these arguments and the...
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Episode 133 - Element 115 and the Credibility of Bob Lazar's Claims
Bob Lazar is often credited - at least in part - with re-energizing the UFO field in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Unfortunately for the field, most who have looked into his claims have found them lacking in veracity. In this episode, I look specifically into his claims about ununpentium, also...
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Episode 132 - In Search Of Planet X (Live from Denver ComicCon)
On May 24, 2015, I presented a live talk at the Denver ComicCon modeled after Leonard Nimoy's "In Search Of" televsision series. The session title was, "Skeptical Science." The topic was Planet X, chosen because it has grown into a large class of different claims all under the moniker "Planet X,"...
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Episode 131 - Clip Show #3: Blood Moons, Ceres' Bright Spots, MESSENGER's Death, and Funding in Science Follow-Up
A lot of small threads are discussed in this episodes: The latest lunar eclipse and its relation to the Blood Moons phenomenon, the bright spots on Ceres and conspiracies surrounding them, MESSENGER's crash landing into Mercury, and a follow-up to the Pamela Gay interview about funding in…
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Episode 130 - Dealing with Pseudoscience at Scientific Conferences
Who can present at a scientific conference is often shrouded in mystery to non-scientists, and it is viewed as an Ivory Gate by pseudoscientists. In this episode, we hear from the program committee chair of the largest planetary science conference in the world, Dr. Dave Draper, about how…
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Episode 129 - The Saga of Comet Hale-Bopp and its Fugacious Companion, Part 3
Comet Hale-Bopp put on a fantastic display for Earth-bound skywatchers for over two years, often considered "the" comet of the 20th century. But, conspiracies and fear marred the event and led to the suicide of 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult. In this Part 3 of 3 episodes, I discuss the…
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Episode 128 - The Saga of Comet Hale-Bopp and its Fugacious Companion, Part 2
Comet Hale-Bopp put on a fantastic display for Earth-bound skywatchers for over two years, often considered "the" comet of the 20th century. But, conspiracies and fear marred the event and led to the suicide of 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult. In this Part 2 of 3 episodes, I discuss how...
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Episode 127 - The Saga of Comet Hale-Bopp and its Fugacious Companion, Part 1
Comet Hale-Bopp put on a fantastic display for Earth-bound skywatchers for over two years, often considered "the" comet of the 20th century. But, conspiracies and fear marred the event and led to the suicide of 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult. In this Part 1 of 3 episodes, I discuss the...
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Episode 126 - The Facts and Misconceptions Behind Funding in Science, with Dr. Pamela Gay
The issue of funding in science is near and dear to my heart ... or, perhaps to my grocery, rent, and utility bills. Most people who are not in science do not know - and have many misconceptions about - how research scientists get funding and what they do with it. In this episode, I interview and...
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Episode 125 - The Black Hole Conspiracy
Black holes seem like a given in popular culture: They exist, they have to, right? Well, some people claim they don't. In this episode, we go through the theoretical underpinnings for black holes, some of the observational evidence for their existence, and examine some of the claims made by...
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Episode 124 - The Astronomical Distance Ladder
Measuring distance in every-day life requires some basic tools like a ruler. But who holds the other end when we want to measure the distance to the next galaxy? In response to young-Earth creationist claims, this episode delves into some of the science of how we measure distances across the…
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Episode 123 - The Science and Pseudoscience of Communicating with Aliens
Lingust, Dr. Karen Stollznow, discusses some of the communication problems on our own planet and how that translates to the huge potential problems of communicating with any type of intelligent creature who originated off our planet. We used this information to discuss some claimed contactees and...
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Episode 122 - Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and Rosetta Conspiracies
The Rosetta mission with a destination of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko has faced numerous conspiracies circulating throughout the internet (and even more mispronunciations of its target). In this episode, I talk about a few of them.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Exposing PseudoAstronomy have?
Exposing PseudoAstronomy currently has 175 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Exposing PseudoAstronomy about?
Listen to learn the real state of science behind astronomy-, physics-, and geology-related creationist claims, hoaxes, conspiracy theories, misconceptions, and bad or incomplete media reporting.
How often does Exposing PseudoAstronomy release new episodes?
Exposing PseudoAstronomy publishes regularly with 175 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Exposing PseudoAstronomy?
You can listen to Exposing PseudoAstronomy on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Exposing PseudoAstronomy?
Exposing PseudoAstronomy is created and hosted by Stuart Robbins.
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