 It's Sunday, April 4th, and this is For Good Reason. Welcome to For Good Reason, I'm DJ Grothy. For Good Reason is the radio show and the podcast produced in association with the James Randy Educational Foundation, an international nonprofit whose mission is to advance critical thinking about the paranormal, about pseudoscience, and about the supernatural. Before we get to this week's guests, I want to invite our listeners. But if you listen to this show every week, let us know you enjoy it by becoming a member of the James Randy Educational Foundation. By becoming a member, you support our vital efforts to bring critical thinking education into the classrooms. Also our digital outreach through our YouTube channel and podcasts produced in association with the JRF, like For Good Reason and the notable skeptics guide to the universe. Our regional workshops program that we've just announced on randy.org, where we're providing day long seminars really in cities across the country that we're putting on with local grassroots skeptics groups. So there's a lot going on, we can't do this without your support. So yep, please become a member of the JRF. Now my guests this week, really happy to have them on Derrick and Swoopy. They will be strangers to no listeners of For Good Reason. They really single-handedly started this whole skeptic podcasting thing with their podcast, Widely Popular Successful Skepticality in 2005. Welcome to For Good Reason, Derrick and Swoopy, and happy Easter to you skeptics. Hey, have you gone and picked up all your dino eggs yet? No, I still have to hide eggs. I say that it sounds a little vulgar, but we still have some celebrating to do. I don't know if I should call this zombie Easter day and be real hip and skeptic about it or go to the family event and kind of just be quiet but happy in my skepticism. I was doing back and forth on Facebook with Donald Prothrow talking about since all eggs are dino eggs, they're not Easter eggs, they're dino eggs. I love Donald Prothrow. He's going to be at TAM this year. We'll talk about TAM maybe later in the discussion. How are you doing, Swoopy? I'm doing great. I'm kind of jealous right now because you just told me that you have an iPad, so I'm thinking maybe there's an app out there that you can do like virtual Easter egg searching and like you can use the touch thing on the screen and maybe like dig and try and find an egg. That's what I'd be doing if I was, you know, having an iPad for Easter. Well, I've been doing other things. I've been enjoying comic books on the iPad. You're right. I got an iPad yesterday and my gosh, nothing brought out the curmudgeonly, sour-puss nature of skeptics on Facebook than my announcing that I got an iPad. We actually got two iPads and we bought one as a gift for a relative and, you know, I joked that Apple is the only religion to which I'm still a convert. So maybe it's a faith commitment that I pick it up but I actually just read a post on my wall that said, Apple is evil, early adopters are stupid. Well, we've actually talked about that before. We took some blowback when we talked to one of our friends who has a podcast called Today an iPhone with Rob Walsh and when he stood in line to get the original iPhone and all of the hype that surrounded that, which was very similar to this iPad frenzy. We did a show about it trying to find out if the iPhone lived up to the hype and if people who were at early adopters and standing in line and everything, the media was making out of it, was actually, you know, just media hype or if the device was really as cool as everybody said. And his take on it was that the device really was doing just as much as the media was portraying it to do and that the excitement over it was real. And so we got a lot of blowback from people saying, you know, this is just commercialism and you're just buying into what Apple's trying to sell you. But honestly, as someone who just got an iPhone, I really think it is as great a device as they say and I would have no problem being critical of it. I don't have an iPad and I don't want an iPad because it doesn't have a camera and that's something I'm critical about Apple for. So I mean, as much as I love it, I'm not above criticizing it. So I think you're fine if it's exciting and you're talking about some of the things you're going to do with it and it's got a purpose in your life, then I think you should be excited about it and don't the comradions get you down. We were talking before we started recording about the JREF plans for the iPad and the iPhone. So one thing we're excited about is some iPad app development. Imagine a whole library of skeptics titles available for free or very inexpensively. That's a way to do some kind of digital educational outreach for skepticism. So there's potential there. But I also just love it because of the comic books now that, you know, all of my archive digital comic books, you just carry them around on your iPad. It's about the same size as a comic book. So I didn't invite you guys on the show to talk about iPads, but my gosh, I am enjoying it. So not only am I celebrating Easter in the way that I don't really celebrate it, but I'm celebrating my new iPad. You're right about that. I invited you on the show because both of you recently celebrated your fifth year hosting scepticality. Time flies when you're having fun, right? Is that the drill? You guys have been succeeding at this for five years. It's amazing. It really has been that long. Yeah. No, it has been. It's been five years. And it is surprising. And yeah, time does fly. In one sense, it does actually feel like it's been five years because so much has changed in those five years. You mean technologically? Oh, on every front. I mean, really, when podcasting began, if you asked somebody or told somebody that you did a podcast, they'd give you a look like you had two heads because they didn't know what a podcast was. They didn't know why you were doing it or, you know, what the purpose of it was. And now most people know what podcasts are, especially many, many mainstream media corporations now. All the big conglomerates have podcasts that either promote their material or as part of their material, I know that there are a lot of lost podcasts that go with that that ABC produces. And so it's not just something that nerds in their basement are doing anymore. It really is a mainstream thing. And so that's one of the big changes. And the other thing being that there really wasn't a lot of subject matter out there for people to choose from back at the end of 2004, beginning of 2005. And now there's everything. Yeah, there wasn't even a science category at all on iTunes when we started. When podcasting was announced in the summer of 2005 for the first time for iTunes, there was just one list. There was only one top 20 of all podcasts. And now there's all these different categories because there's that original list. You were in the top 20. I remember Steve Jobs speaking about Apple keynote address that he did. And, you know, he actually showed a slide that listed you guys as one of the top podcasts. That's how early in the game, you guys were number one. We were number one in the summer of 2005. And not only what was interesting was before our podcast was listed as number one on iTunes top 20 podcasts, we were number one in other countries first, which is really interesting. One of the nice things about skepticism and about podcasting being a global phenomenon, even though iTunes has different stores for different countries, you can still look and see what people are listening to in other countries. And a lot of the skeptic and science podcasts are really popular in places like Greece and Australia and the United Kingdom and Japan. And so when we look at our stats, we can see where people are listening from. And we actually started getting really popular in in Greece and Canada before we were popular in the United States. And so that was really interesting, too. Yeah, the funny part about that thing when Steve Jobs announced podcasting, they had the big picture of me and Sufi, our normal logo behind him when he made the announcement. And I think that was the same night I had my stroke. It was. Yeah. For our listeners who might not know, in the middle of producing Skepticality, Derek, you had a serious health scare, and it put Skepticality, would you say, out of commission for a little while? But you guys got back in the saddle and continued going with it. And now it's five years. I think it didn't really, really take go away, because I think Sufi just kept it going. Well, no, we did have a hiatus there. And I realized that this is foggy for you because you were really not functioning during this period. I was at a coma for a while. But but that's another great thing to point out about the podcasting community and even how it relates to skepticism in community building is, you know, we were fortunate in having a big buildup and having a lot of promotion through that keynote that you spoke about and being number one on iTunes. So we had lots and lots of listeners. And then when Derek had his stroke and I was able to announce to people this was what was going on, but that we would try and continue. I was able to get folks who came in and kind of pinch hit for me. Daniel Oxton was actually on our program for the first time when he was interviewed by somebody else for us. Michael Stackpole did an essay for us. We had lots of people fill in. And then when I was busy, people just said, you know, take the time you need to take because the quality of your programming is worth us waiting for. And that was really surprising to us. And so when after about six months, when we were able to kind of get back into doing it, our listeners came back and we were able to resume doing what we wanted to do. And and that's, you know, part of the strength of that community. And I think the growth of the skeptic community is seeing how tight in it we can be by all reaching out to one another and community building. I love hearing that about the skeptics community. We'll finish up maybe talking about the implications for the skeptics community of podcasting. But I just want to talk about podcasting in general and skeptics podcasting more specifically first, you know, since you guys started Skepticality, there have been a number of new skeptical and critical thinking podcasts point of inquiry, which I hosted for four years. It started in December of the same year. You guys started Skepticality, Skeptics Guide to the Universe, which is another show produced in association with the James Randi Educational Foundation. It rose to prominence. So the point is podcasting really grew as a way to do outreach for science and skepticism. And you guys in a sense started it all. Do you think there ever come a point where there are too many skeptics podcasts or is it just the more the merrier? Well, I've said I've been after this many times before and I keep saying this the same thing. Well, it's like this. Look at how many 24 hour news stations there are. There's like at least three or four of them. And they always have content all the time, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. And there's many of them and they stick around because they still have viewers and people that go and to them for their news. We just do podcasts one maybe once a week. These different podcasts sometimes twice a month like us. So I can't imagine that there be enough of them to fill even one 24 hour news station. And if there's enough people to fill up four or five of those, I'm not sure you ever get like too many. It might be more difficult to get quality guests because they might just get burnt out. That could be a problem. But in a way, it's kind of hard for me to say there's too many because it's kind of like saying I don't like the fact that too many people are fighting for our side in the battle. So interest, you think, will always outpace the amount of podcasts there. I mean, every one of these podcasts I mentioned have a lot of listeners. So the truth is the same people listen to many podcasts. It's not an either or one or the other type of thing. I think so. And I think what will be interesting to watch. I mean, this has been our first five years and obviously new media and online media just continues to grow. And so I think the next five years are going to be really interesting in terms of some of what you're asking about, because many of the programs that are still the most popular and maybe the ones that people are first to think of when they're thinking about skepticism and science programming. And that includes stuff like skeptic zone and Skeptoid and the Quackcast and SGU. Well, here, but an astronomy cast, all sorts of different programs. They all kind of come with their own set of topics that are important to them. They all kind of approach things in a different way. Some are more lighthearted roundtable discussion. Some are short essay and quick bits. Ours tend to be now kind of a we do a long interview format show. And so there's really something out there for everybody's taste. Not everybody, you know, has an hour to listen. So they might prefer to go to the programs that are maybe 20 minutes or 15 minutes versus an hour. But then lots of people say that they prefer being able to really get engrossed in something. So right now, I think really, as long as people are putting out a quality program and are trying to be diverse, I don't think we're going to have a problem with oversaturation. My concerns usually come from trying to make sure that we're not overlapping so much that people want to listen to all the different programs. And I would love it if someday in the future, all of us who are skeptic and science podcasters could create a network where we could offer all of our programs in one place for people to get and coordinate with each other to some degree to avoid overlap so that all of our programs can always be fresh and interesting. And so right, just like on the late night talk shows or the news shows, you don't always have the same guests right each week. And it's hard not to avoid some of that overlap. But even to that degree, if we have the same guests that as you may have on, chances are that the way that they're going to approach talking to that guest. And I've been told this is different than the way that we do it. And so that's great, too, that people can get different perspectives on the same thing. So so far, I think it's working out. I want to talk about the impact of skepticality on your lives. Yes, you went through this kind of dramatic life changing event, the stroke or the aneurysm, I guess, throughout all of your time at skepticality. But skepticality itself, did the success of it change your lives much? I mean, people actually ask you for your autographs for a picture with you. I know that. But has it changed stuff for you guys otherwise? Yeah, I think it has not in in the ways that I would think about because generally in terms of honestly, you know, fame and attention seeking. I'm a very shy person. Yeah, that's the thing. She's that part of it. She doesn't like. I don't I don't think about that. What I do enjoy, though, is the community. And I've met so many amazing people. So I mean, I get to meet people and they come up to me and talk to me about how much they love their work. But what's interesting is then I get to find out, you know, how they came to skepticism and what kind of impact it has on their life. Like if they're a parent and they're helping raise a critical thinking child or, you know, they were a skeptic living in a conservative area and they didn't know that there were other groups out there for people like them. And so just I have so many friends and being kind of a introverted person, I've begun to meet so many amazing people that I just can't imagine my life without all of these people that I talk to on Twitter and Facebook every day and that I get to meet at things like the amazing meeting. I think that's really enriched my life in ways that, you know, I can't think of anything else that would. And plus, I just had the opportunity to talk to so many amazing scientists that have really just set my my passion for science and for the natural world, just way above even, you know, what it was. I've always been a huge science geek, but now it just it's just tripled it. So, I mean, those are all the benefits that I've gotten from doing the program. Right. For skeptics, scientists are well, for a lot of us, scientists are our rock stars. They are rock stars. Yeah, that's the fun thing not only about the skeptics community, but you're saying doing the podcast has introduced you kind of open the door to you meeting so many of these superstars of science. Unbelievable that that when one of my favorite folks is Neil deGrasse Tyson. Talk about rock star and science. He's he's that and you guys got to know him through skepticality. Well, and it turns out what was funny is when we met him at yeah, it was at Tam six and we we were getting ready to interview him and he came over and Bart Farkas, who arranges the interviews and things that at the amazing meeting introduced him to us and he said, Oh, I know these guys. I love these guys. And Neil deGrasse Tyson said that to me and it turns out and it was true that he had sent us an email during the time that Derek had had his stroke. And so I hadn't seen it, but it was still in my Gmail. He asked us to be on our program back in in 2005. And and so to know that that Neil deGrasse Tyson has listened to our program, enjoys it and that I got to meet him. And so now when I watch him on Nova, you know, I can kind of get this special thrill that not only is he this amazing scientist who's doing so much for science, but I've met the man and it's just so mind blowing. So that's one of the little kind of rockstar perks that I have to say I do enjoy just because he's just such an amazing person. Tyson is such a mensch and he's also really cunning as regards, you know, getting the science message out. And so he was, you know, we were talking about early adopters earlier, you know, with iPads and iPhones. Well, he was as a spokesperson for science and early adopter of the new medium of podcasting. He saw its potential and he got in their guns of blazin and he he really, I think, introduced that wonder of astronomy, kind of the scientific outlook to a whole host of new folks that might not every week tune into a TV show, but we're getting their skepticism and science fixed through podcasts. Yep. Exactly. Do you think you were talking about the community and, you know, you mentioned Tam or the people you can't live without that you've become close to as a result of scepticality. Do you guys think that as a movement, we've been speaking to the same people like it's the same people coming to Tam, the same people we're talking to through the podcast, or are we reaching out to new people? Are we carving up the same little pie or are we expanding it? I think we're doing both. I would agree. I think I think it's improving. I think it's improving quite a lot. It's actually it's really one of my big activist topics that I like to talk about is that this skepticism is everywhere. Skepticism and science is every day. It touches everybody's life, whether they know it or not, and letting more people in more walks of life everywhere in every field of study in any kind of job in every race or creed or part of the country. They can all be involved in this to some degree. And and we need to reach out to all of those people. And I think we're getting there. It was kind of when I did my quick take at the last time that I was at. That was what I did. The talk about was that that you can find skeptics in places where you didn't think you would find skeptics. And so we discovered that when we decided to do a programming track and we're able to do a programming track at Dragon Con, starting in it was 2007 was the first year that that we did the skeptics track. And Dragon Con is sort of like Comic Con. It's an entire media. It's not just sci-fi, but a lot of it is sci-fi. And it's actually larger by some measures than Comic Con. It is strip out. You know, Comic Con also has Hollywood and the studios and stuff there. So if you don't include that, Dragon Con is actually larger by some measures. That's about 40,000 people come to Dragon Con every fall. And it's in now five different hotels with content running 24 hours a day. And there is a programming track that has panels and discussions and lectures and films for science. There's one for space. There's one for robotics. There's one for electronic frontiers. There's one for podcasting. And now there's one for skepticism where folks like James Randy and your friend Jamie Ian Swiss and you and Michael Shermer and Daniel Loxton and Phil Plates, they all come and Adam Savage and they come and they hang out with everybody. And so the people who came to see Star Trek or came to see, you know, Serenity or Firefly, who came to see William Shatner last year or came to see Felicia Day last year, learned that there are folks like Phil Plates talking about astronomy or talking about skepticism or folks talking about homeopathy or secular humanism and they they filled up that room with a capacity of almost 300 people for, you know, eight panels a day for four days and learned about something that they may had never heard about. And these are science geeks. These are sci-fi geeks. These are comic book nerds. And these are mostly kids aged maybe, you know, 15 to 25. And those are our next generation of skeptics. And so that's what's exciting. I think we can reach out to new audiences if you think about it. And people people are receptive. They're into it. I've actually spoken with people at JREF events or on our recent crews, you know, skeptics of the Caribbean, kind of like Pirates of the Caribbean, but skeptics going around having fun. You know, we we enjoyed putting the R in Randy, right? There was a woman on that cruise who first got involved with the skeptics movement because of Dragon Con. She had been to Dragon Con many, many years, but not plugged into skepticism and and as a movement, let's say. And she ambled in and plugged into one of the the meetings. And now she's kind of full fledged into skepticism. I think you guys might know her. She's Maria Murbeck. She actually does a blog called The Fledgling Skeptic. What was it like to be kind of on the other side of the fence and come into skepticism while she's blogging about that right now? Oh, very cool. That's so exciting. See, and so that's and probably she has friends who are just like her that maybe, you know, she attends other groups with or have other interests and they start wondering what the skepticism is that she's talking about or reading her blog. And I assume, you know, she lives here in the south. Where there is a lot of conservatism and many, many churches, but also a pretty good group of folks in the Atlanta skeptics and all of our other local groups that are really trying to branch out in this area of not perhaps as much tolerance or not as much free thought. And they're making a difference. And so while we do talk amongst ourselves a lot, I think we're pretty open and I think making people know that they're welcome. People come to our Atlanta skeptics in the pub who are interested in paranormal topics, but because they are believers in the paranormal. And they're always pleased when we're open to discussing with them what they think and then pointing them toward resources of evidence that we have and inviting them into the discussion, not to argue, but to show them that this is what we know. And, you know, you're welcome to our group, no matter what your thoughts are. And that's how you change people. Derek, I want to ask further on this point. And I guess the contrast is between broadcasting and narrow casting, right? Narrow casting, things like podcasts and blogs are a way for people to only flood themselves with the ideas, the perspectives they already hold. That's the concern. So, you know, that skeptics are going to get their weekly dose of skepticism through these great podcasts, Skepticality, the Skeptics Guide, for good reason, the podcast we've been talking about. And then on the other side, the paranormalists, the religionists, they're only going to listen to their own media that they're selecting, read their own blogs. In other words, I wonder if this new medium is just a thing that nourishes our community, you know, people get their weekly skepticism fixed, maybe helps build a sense of community. That's good. Is it actually changing minds? Is it actually dialoguing, engaging with, call it the cultural competition? I know it is, because we've had many people who've told us and we've had people come to the Lana Skeptics in the pub. People came to me at DragonCon last year and the year before and they've said, exactly, that's how they change their mind. I've had at least five or six people. One of them used to be a preacher who does not anymore. And because of skeptic stuff, and they told me directly that our show was the first thing they had to listen to, that was made them challenge what they thought. And so I know it does affect it, but you have to remember, I used to be a normal broadcast media in the past on radio stations in Vegas, and it's the same thing. It doesn't really matter if you have an FM dial station or broadcast. It's all the same. It'll just change the dial to something they like. So that part doesn't bother me too much because it's the same thing. All you have to do is make your stuff compelling. And we try, at least on Skepticality, I think on your show is pretty good this way as well. We try to nurture discussions about many different topics so that people don't feel like they're not getting something out of it if they're not a skeptic or not hardcore skeptic or big into science. You have to like vary your topic areas so that if somebody else hears it and they go, oh, that's interesting. And they might tune in the next time because if you don't, then you might get in that pigeonhole. But if you don't, if that happens, let's say we all listen to talk to each other. I don't think that's a bad thing. I mean, look at religion, they've been doing that for thousands of years and they're doing quite well. So I don't think that's much of a problem for me. Well, what's interesting is I think there are some podcasts in particular that probably part of what they try to do is to engage discussion between believers and non-believers or people who are advocates of the paranormal or people who are advocates of homeopathy or anti-vaxxers to present their side. But it often actually gets very difficult in order to engage those people in a discussion because they automatically feel like they're going to be attacked or they're just insecure about discussing their topic. One of the things that we do at DragonCon or try to do is have a skeptics versus believers debate, and we were able to successfully do it a couple of times. But we have a very difficult time actually getting people on the other side to come and sit down and debate skeptics. Right, that's a complex issue also because, frankly, a lot of skeptics. I'll let the skeptics community take its lumps on this. A lot of skeptics are, you know, they want to score points as much as the credulous the believers, you know, they want to win a debate and they kind of want to stick it to the opposition. And it takes a certain kind, I'd almost say it's a personality, not only a commitment to a certain kind of reasoning, but a certain personality type to have an open minded discussion with people who believe unlike you, right? You know, that's that's that. I think that's a challenge for a lot of folks. Constructive discussion versus having just debates and yelling and shouting matches, which is why many people say, why don't you take on this or take on that? And I'm not I'm not really one for a shouting match. So that's not something we've really done on our show. But we often say that, you know, we invite people who are experts in their field to discuss their fields of expertise. And what we really want people to do is think about what they hear and decide for themselves and then hopefully do more research and learn more. Right. I like I like the sound of that. And what you were talking about earlier, Derek, about people having what a skeptics conversion experience. You didn't use that terminology. But you know what I mean, people who change their minds on basic assumptions or beliefs because of being introduced to skepticism through Skepticality or other podcasts. It's only anecdotal, but I've had the same kind of response from some folks, you know, from the Muslim world. I've had ex-Muslims right in when I was hosting Point of Inquiry. We haven't gotten into Islam all that much on for good reason. But, you know, people saying this podcast changed my life. Or as you mentioned, you know, former religious believers in the States saying now I'm a skeptic or a person who believed in ghosts or the Loch Ness monster, whatever paranormal claim really changing the extent to which they have that strong faith in that claim. So they're more open-minded about being wrong. And that's I think that's about as much as we want. In other words, I don't think any of us want to indoctrinate anyone else in a certain set of claims for the science and skepticism side. Instead, we just want that open-mindedness where all of us can admit I could be wrong about X, Y and Z. Well, you know, I like how you said that because I think now and then and sometimes now. But sometimes the skeptics get bunched up in their own echo chamber and they actually start to sound just as bad as the people we fight against. And I think that's astute. It's something we want to resist or we should organize ourselves to resist. But I think you're spot on. I think more on the rationalist or atheism side than the skepticism side, right? So if we're all part of the same team, but there are different flavors of rationalism, right? And some of the atheist folks, you know, I've been to meetings where it feels a little churchy, not in terms of the ritual. You know, there's no one standing up making everybody sing songs or or pray, but in terms of like statements of beliefs, like you have to be this kind of skeptic and not that kind. Otherwise you're in the out group. That's to my lights. That's not what skepticism is all about. And swoopy, you were talking about community, building community, the skeptics in the pub, or you mentioned Atlanta skeptics, you were talking about both that has the vibe, the feel that I'm really comfortable with where it's not doctrinal, where you don't, you're not given a list that says as a skeptic, you must believe that these 13 things instead, it's freewheeling. It's kind of generous of spirit. Conversation is the key. People get along. People don't suffer from the know it all mentality of, well, I'm a skeptic and therefore how dare you disagree with me because skepticism means that I'm right about everything. I agree. And I've experienced it. I really enjoy. And we do get some of that also at TAM, especially because of some of the ancillary events in all of the community and the hanging out that goes on between all of the great talks and the workshops. But the nice thing too about skeptics in the pub is we try and have informational programs and anyone who wants to speak about any topic is invited to do so. And so if somebody has a topic that's personal to them or something that they've realized that they want to share with the group, everyone will politely listen. And it might be something that you hadn't even considered before. Many of the topics that are not necessarily traditional skeptic topics in terms of community or discussion or the paranormal or anything can be talked about. And it's not from the same voice as we hear over and over. It can be somebody from the community you've never heard from before. And that's really exciting. And that's speaking to a whole new group of people who may not be part of the skeptics group as a whole. And so they're just going to bring in more people. And our movement's going to grow. That's the thing that makes me most optimistic about the future of the skeptics movement, this network of local skeptical organizations in cities around the country, around the world really, these podcasts and blogs, things like Facebook and Twitter, they all feed this growing network of local groups, the skeptics and the pub stuff. And what you mentioned about new voices, that's what especially fills me with optimism, that it's not a group of eight or 10 unelected leaders of a movement who say thus sayeth, tell all these groups you must behave in this way. No, it's from the ground up. It's from the bottom up where these groups are cultivating and identifying new voices, new skeptical thinkers. And I guess my question is, do you think I'm drawing too much of a line connecting all of that? Is there really a direct line from the podcast and the new media and social networking to this burgeoning grassroots group that's giving new people a voice? Absolutely. I think you're right. I think there is a direct line. And I've talked to James Randi about it before. In fact, it's one of the things I like to ask any scientist or skeptic I talk to is how is new media and online contribution and social networking changing the way that you work, especially people who have been in the field as long as somebody as James Randi has, people who have been there since skepticism as a movement really came to be now say that it's so much easier for them to outreach and communicate with people all over the world, and not only the reach that's available, but that you can do it for almost nothing, that even sending out postal mailers and stuff like that is 10 times more expensive than maybe hosting an online video chat that everybody can connect to and watch. That's what really amazed me here locally in St. Louis a couple of summers ago. Thomas and I realized, hey, there's no skeptics group right downtown. We want to start one. So connected with the Skeptical Society of St. Louis, we started skeptics in the pub at the pub, coincidentally just right across the street from the high rise where we live. And with no mailing to subscribers of magazines spending no money to do postcards or other kinds of promotions, you know, we just used Facebook, other social networking for a few months now we've had over 100 people attend these events and that's the really the promise of social networking as a way to do outreach for these points of view. Yeah, same thing happened with our local line of skeptics. Well, they've really been growing and groups like grassroots skeptics online, they keep adding different groups so that there's all of these places online or meetup.com where you can go and find many, many types of groups and many, many places all over. I mean, if you're going to travel, say I was in Seattle recently to visit my family and it didn't quite work out, but I could have attended, you know, skeptics in the pub Seattle in another city, you know, from where I live. And so I could interface with people that I don't see. And so basically anywhere you go now, you can find a local group that is happy to have you. And skepticamp of course is another thing that you definitely have to mention with the unconference model. All of that stuff that has grown and fostered through social networking and now so many cities now are having skepticamp Atlanta is having theirs on the 15th of May. And when you say the unconference model, you mean the way that skepticamp gives everyone a voice. It's not flying in big name speakers. Nope. And I think there's a role for that. Hell, that's TAM. And we love that or it's something like Ted. But this unconference model is where everyone who attends, well, they have their spot to share their points of view with the people who come to the event. So I know firsthand how successful that model works, not just from skepticamps, but you know, this last cruise that I mentioned, the amazing Adventure 5, the skeptics of the Caribbean, the program was not of only big name skeptics who were brought in for the event, but really anyone who went on the cruise, they wanted on the program. They wanted to prepare a lecture or a presentation. Well, it was fair game and they did. And I'm telling you, I heard some of the best talks I've heard at any conference in the past 10, 12, 15 years, I heard during our cruise from people who aren't professional public speakers, who aren't column professional skeptics. They were just earnest, sincere, skeptical thinkers who had something to say. And I love, love, love that model. Well, yeah, I think that goes toward, you were saying earlier about, you know, are you worried that, you know, we end up sounding more like, you know, another form of religion or church. That model pervs it or not. Because a church doesn't do that. You don't, you go to, like, see the people who stand on the podium because they've been anointed to listen to what they say. Right. Well, I guess religion doesn't generally do that unless you're a fringe faith group like the shakers or something where everyone kind of speaks their own truth. But so you're right, it's less top down. And I guess that's what you're getting at. The growing grassroots skeptical movement is not as hierarchical. It's from the bottom up. It's really coming from the grassroots. And we argue internally. But I think what you're saying is not everybody will automatically, you know, nod their head in unison. And certainly we've seen plenty of people, as you mentioned, disagreeing about different things that different skeptics believe. But, you know, that's the great thing. Everybody's welcome. Everybody's ideas are welcome. And as long as we continue to foster, you know, respectful, growing, inclusive community, and I think we're doing that, we can only continue to grow and expand and become more and more diverse. Right. Well, and who wants to be part of a club where everyone agrees and, you know, one leader gets up and says, thus sayeth, and everyone nods their head. None of us, none of us. Exactamundo. I joined the skeptics groups because I like a good conversation. And heck, skeptics in the pub, I like a good conversation over a few drinks. That's my idea of a good time. So I think I think George Hrab said it best in one of his songs about, you know, heaven must be heaven must be boring. OK, finish up, guys. I know you have some other interviews today in celebration of your five year anniversary. You guys really started all of this. And so having you on for good reason is a way to acknowledge that. Thank you for all that you've done. I want to finish up by getting your thoughts about where you think all of this is headed. I'm not just asking you for your take on new media growth like iPhone and iPad apps. I mentioned just got my iPad yesterday. Even all the skeptic haters on Facebook didn't like it, but I'm enjoying it. They're just jealous. Yeah, that's what I like to say, you know, they're just jealous. Don't be jealous, haters. I'm really asking where you think the movement is headed. Where is this going to be in five years from now? You know, on your 10th year anniversary, is skepticality going to be on, should I say it this way? Maybe it's wrong to real radio. Are you going to be still doing podcasting? What, you know, what's the shape of all of this five years from now? Well, we actually are already on about 12 or 13 different real radio stations. They just repurpose our content and they play it on their normal radio station. So yes, same happened with Point of Inquiry. And though for good reason is really a brand new show, I'm gratified now that three or four stations are rebroadcasting. Basically, they just take the show and then put it on the air. That's what you're talking about. Well, that's, you know, that's very typical. That's not different to them. That's the normal system and they do that for other shows too. Like when you hear many of those pundit radio station shows, unless you live in the local area, usually they're just rebroadcasted and a lot of people don't realize that many times. So that's not much different. It's the only thing I could think of is that, you know, I would I would say just clock back five years and look at what's happened in the past five years. We've grown and that's a good thing. So I'm hoping that we continue our current climb because if we look at the past five years and other five years, we should be a bit bigger. Well, I think what we'd all hope to see is certainly and and it's again, something else that I talked with Neil deGrasse Tyson about. He's obviously published lots of successful books and bestselling science books are good, but bestselling science books don't reach even a quarter of the people that he reaches on television. And so obviously there are lots of skeptics who have been trying to move their brand and create better. There are so many paranormal shows and so many bad science shows on there to compete with the few that are really good. I know that Phil Plate is working on a television show, and I believe it's for Discovery Networks that he blogs for. We don't know, though. Well, but he can't talk about working on something exciting in television. And that's obviously what a lot of folks would like to do in order to be seen by as many people as possible. There are certainly people who are made to do television and people like Adam Savage, who are charismatic, who are somebody that somebody wants to watch. I don't think everybody who's producing a podcast right now would say, and I certainly wouldn't say that I am not a person for television. Right. What what did someone say? You know, I have the perfect face for radio. I have the face for radio. I do have a face for radio. You have the best part. You have a perfect personality for podcasting, someone says to me. I don't know what that means. Yeah. And that's fine. I'm good with that. I think mostly I think the things that we can do to help support our organizations in the way that you and SGU and many of the other programs help promote and support the James Randy Educational Foundation to do good work and do more outreach and the way that Monster Talk and Skepticali work for Skeptic Magazine and hoping that more people will purchase the magazine and help fund them as a nonprofit to do more good works and lectures to get more eyeballs on. Really, what people have discovered is that podcasts are a promotional tool for promoting another product that does sell or that does reach more people than maybe the podcast all by itself does. And so as I mentioned before, I think I think the more that we all work together as a community, the more that maybe the programs band together to do things that can create more outreach together than we can alone. I mean, I'm not unhappy with the number of people we reach. Surprisingly, I was looking at our statistics and we had over a hundred thousand downloads for the month of March. We've had, you know, over four million downloads all time of our programs. And that's that's individual listeners over five years. That's that's almost a million people a year. And that's amazing. So I don't have a problem with that. And I think if you combine all of those numbers, I know SGU has similar numbers. Just think of all of the people combined that we're reaching. So I think if we just continue to work together and as we find different ways to support those who are reaching bigger audiences like Phil and wherever he goes, Penn and Teller, Adam Savage. Yeah. Absolutely. And to continue to support that and creating better science and skepticism programs for bigger venues, then I think we're on the right track. And I think that's absolutely possible and feasible in the next five years. And that goes back to your thing about the echo chamber. We just talking to each other. Well, even if we are, if that million number that she talked about, even if like one half of a percentage of those people got turned on, that's a lot of people. And that's worthwhile. I'm absolutely happy with that. Yeah. Well, guys, I really enjoyed our discussion. Thank you for joining me on the show and for all of the work you guys have done with Skepticality. I've said it before. You guys have done Yeoman's work, not only with Skepticality, but with Skeptic Track. And it's basically two scrappy volunteer skeptics have done more by some measures than the big national organizations with budgets and professional staff and all of that. So you guys deserve the kudos. And I'm glad to have you on the show. Wow. Well, that's that's really, really nice. And if anything, if it just inspires other people to think that, you know, even even just one person doing any little thing, any blog showing up at a skeptics in the pub or or just contributing online through social networks, every little bit helps and everybody can do something. Thanks for joining me on the show. Thanks. Any time this week, the honest liar asks what's the harm? Here's Jamie Ian Swiss. So what's the harm anyway? What's the harm? You've heard that. And there's no single answer to the question. And I intend to try to answer the question in more ways than one in more attempts in the future. But for today, what is the harm in a little make believe in believing in something just because it feels good, even if it might not be true? What's the harm after all in believing in a psychic or an astrologer? Why not keep an open mind? Well, I not only have an open mind, I have a curious one. And in these days of TV psychics talking to the dead, advertising their slimy wares and bestselling books on CNN's Larry King Show. So you know, they're the real thing. Well, in such days, it can be useful to be curious, sometimes entertaining, sometimes unpleasant, but useful nonetheless. I once attended an event in Washington, D.C. that was advertised as a week of healing by a rather famous and successful traveling preacher. It was in a very large hall hired for the purpose. On the road, it was probably more often an attempt, and it was filled, absolutely filled with people, several thousand of them, and had no doubt been similarly filled each night of that entire week. After some singing and some prayer and some preaching, the healings began. Various people came to the stage and claimed to be healed. The crowd was energized and celebratory, and welcomed the miracles they saw of those that began to flood the stage, of those who claimed to see what they could not see before, hear what they could not hear before, walk where they could not even stand before. And I remained open-minded to many possibilities, including the possibility that these witnesses now testifying to wondrous deeds might have been on the Wonderworker's payroll. And I saw a man with one leg shorter than the other have his leg visibly lengthened so that they both matched under the healing hands of the preacher, one of the oldest carny tricks in the business. It would have been funny if it weren't for the preacher then extended his arms in benediction and announced that many, many people in the crowd were also now healed of their ailments and concerns. And he asked them to come forward, any of them who had felt the healing, to come forward and testify to their personal miracles, and in the midst of the applause and the cheers and the staff circulating with their buckets asking for money, asking for more donations that more of the sickness and suffering in the world could be relieved. Well, it would have been funny if it weren't for several people began to come forward to explain that they had felt the healing. There was little of anything that stood out at this point, frankly. Nothing struck me as particularly wondrous or inexplicable. It seemed more like these people simply wanted to step forward and be part of the excitement, to share in the joy and the attention. And why not? What harm! But then a woman came to the microphone. She was shy and awkward and spoke quietly, and with what was clearly great gratitude and an overwhelming sense of relief. She stepped up and began to speak, and she explained that recently she had detected a lump in her breast, and it had made her afraid. And she had eventually seen her doctor, who wanted to run some tests. But she was afraid of the tests, she said to us, through her tears, and she had waited, and she had not returned to the doctor because she was afraid. But now, she said, trembling with the release from the weight of her fear, she knew that on this very night she had felt it. She had come to be healed, and indeed now she knew that she had been healed, and that she knew this, with such certainty, praise be, that she knew that she did not now have to even return to her doctor again. And she was relieved and grateful, and she thanked the preacher, who embraced her. And perhaps before the evening was out, she dropped some money in those buckets. It would not surprise me at all. Few things do anymore, but what, after all, is the harm in it? This is Jamie Ian-Swiss, and I am the honest liar. Thanks for listening to this episode of For Good Reason. To get involved with an online conversation about my guests today, Derek and Scoopy, and the conversation, join the discussion on ForGoodReason.org. Views expressed on For Good Reason aren't necessarily the views of the James Randi Educational Foundation. Questions and comments on today's show can be sent to infoatforgoodreason.org. For Good Reason is produced by the workaholic Thomas Donnelly and recorded from St. Louis, Missouri. Our music is composed for us by MA Award-nominated Gary Stockdale. Contributors to today's show included Jamie Ian-Swiss and Christina Stevens. I'm your host, DJ Growthy.