Welcome to Interesting If True, the podcast that makes do with what it can find.

I’m your host this week, Aaron, and with me is Steve!

I’m Steve, and I’m what you have to deal with this week since Shea is still unwell and well, I’m available. Also, I was reminded today why I don’t get beer drunk anymore.

This Week’s Beer

This week’s beer is… whatever we’ve got on hand cause it’s another remote record!

Round Table

You might have noticed this is a remote record again, and that the yeti is, as is his cryptid way, missing. Aaaaand that’s because the rona got him. Not to worry, he does seem to be doing as well as one can with a breakthrough case. If all goes well, he’ll be back in a few weeks.

We have a correct of sorts from friend-of-the-show Kevin who says that “the Toronto Maple Leafs are the arch-enemy of the Montreal Canadians” so that’s something, apparently, they’re called the Montreal Canadians… makes me wonder how the rest of Canada feels about that but ok. Concluding with, what I assume to be the battle-cry of the correct team, “Go Habs Go!”

Headlines

HL1: Science Says It’s Not The Science.

Our first headline comes from Hemant Mehta, The Friendly Atheist, whose reporting on secular issues has provided this, and several other secular podcasts, headlines for years. Make sure you visit his new blog on OnlySky — as it, only sky up above. Music! — where he writes about religious issues, well, issues with religion, now with 1000% fewer sewer ads. Because Pathos has long been a dumpster fire of terrible.

Anyway, despite the fervent argumentation of American Evangelicals, it’s not exposure to science that leads kids away from religion. I’d go so far as to say it’s all the bigotry and rape, but according to Sociology of Religion by Professor John H. Evans of the University of California, San Diego, it’s exactly what we always thought it was: teaching kids how to ask good questions and encouraging them to ask those questions of people who don’t want to answer them — like priests.

From his paper… long quote:

The traditional literature on the secularizing effect of the natural sciences assumes that any religious belief is incompatible with science, and therefore all science will be secularizing for all religious students… I find no effect of the distinction between science and non-science disciplines for religious students in general or conservative Protestants in particular. On the other hand, pure fields lead to more secularization than do applied fields, particularly for white conservative Protestants. This suggests that when science, social science or the humanities secularizes, it is the result of inquiry itself, not the content of that inquiry. This new way of looking at the impact of science explains the typical outlier in such studies — engineering — a field that has many of the trappings of physics, but with a much more religious constituency.

So basically, it’s not that becoming scientifically literate necessarily pushes religion out of your life — though if you’re honest about the scientific process it should — rather it’s teaching kids how to ask questions, evaluate the information they get back in an intellectually honest way, and support their conclusions with vetted information.

Basically, once you’ve taught people how to think, it’s a lot harder to sell them on the idea of letting your cabal of tax-free zealots do their thinking for them.

• https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/study-science-classes-arent-the-main-reason-many-college-students-ditch-faith/


• https://academic.oup.com/socrel/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/socrel/srab005/6258789?redirectedFrom=fulltext

HL2: Maybe it is the Wifi…

The number of satellites around Earth has been skyrocketing lately (hehe) to the tune of, as of this writing, a little over 5000. In 2019, it was about 2200. The jump is due in large part to Space X’s Starlink — or global mesh internet service. Anyone who’s ever tried to set up a wifi extender (which, btw, they’re bullshit, don’t buy wifi repeaters) knows how much of a pain it can be getting good wifi to cover your area… now image the area you’re attempting to cover is Earth. Like, all of it. Yeah, you’re gonna need thousands of satellites, luckily, Elon is up for footing the bill.

The downside to all of this — ok, one downside anyway — is that with so many more satellites in orbit, ground-based astronomy has become rather difficult.

As most telescopes that peer into the void are set to capture as much light as possible — think Uber-long exposure — they will capture the lights and reflected light from satellites as they pass over. Because of the exposure time, these show up as streaks of light in basically the same way you wind up with a super long dog as he wanders through your panorama…

So, IAU, the International Astronomical Union, announced the establishment of a new center to fight the problem. The group, whose name reminds you that Space X is good at marketing and scientists aren’t, is called The IAU Centre for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky from Satellite Constellation Interference, or IAUCftPotDaQSfSCI, also or ICPDQSSCI for short.

“I think it’s really important, because it’s projected that there are going to be 100,000 new satellites by the end of the decade,”

Flinders University space archeologist Alice Gorman told ScienceAlert.

“The IAU center is critical because it will be able to coordinate information and international responses, and it will provide a strong single voice for the astronomy community.”

Needless to say that 100,000 more satellites will cause some serious light noise, never mind inching us that much closer to a Kessler Syndrome space wall forever isolating us from the stars.

And if that weren’t bad enough, a Starlink constellation would also be loud.

While no one can hear you rev the engine of your space-car, radio telescopes can kinda hear wifi.

When you think about massive radio telescope arrays you probably envision something like that “cool satellite action stuff” clip from action sci-fi movies where there are rows of dishes that all kind of move together… yeah, welp, places like that, like the Square Kilometer Array, listens for a wide range of radio frequencies… including those that Starlink is crop dusting all over orbit.

According to what Swinburne University astronomer Alan Duffy told ScienceAlert back in 2019 when the first Starlink satellites were launched:

“A full constellation of Starlink satellites will likely mean the end of Earth-based microwave-radio telescopes able to scan the heavens for faint radio objects,”

And that was then.

Now, there are others like OneWeb, which I didn’t know about until writing this story, and of course, Amazon’s Project Kuiper, which I guess just launched its first satellites. Because of course, Amazon wants to enclose the world in a blanket of its own Orwellian horror.

For their part, scientists so far seem to still think that they can co-exist with corporate space interests.

“It’s not a question of satellites versus astronomy, but rather how to mediate the different needs and interests and values that coalesce in outer space, including those that are less powerful,”

Jessica West, a senior researcher on space security at Project Ploughshares, told Gizmodo.

Here’s to hoping the more powerful develop a sense of altruism before capitalism completely consumes space-based innovation.

• https://www.sciencealert.com/the-international-astronomical-union-launches-new-center-to-fight-back-against-starlink-and-other-mega-constellations?fbclid=IwAR1–_m4AgB5c7xbLUehZerlV_YAcv99hw-CqavuyJLX6K_uNuL_qJAqQe4

HL3: From The Dept. of Duuhhhhhh

Finally, what could be the shortest headline we’ve ever featured: homophobes are stupid.

Researchers from the University of Queensland, Australia looked a the link between intelligence and attitudes like racism and homophobia.

11,564 Australians were asked, among other things, “Homosexual couples should have the same rights as heterosexual couples do.” Respondents were asked to indicate on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) their views.

The results found that, basically, the stupider you are the more likely you are to be a homophobe.

“There are well-known correlations between low cognitive ability and support of prejudicial or non-egalitarian attitudes,”

the authors write in the study.

“This paper adds to existing knowledge by providing the first analyses of the associations between cognitive ability and attitudes towards LGBT issues. Individuals with low cognitive ability are less likely to support equal rights for same-sex couples.”

This follows a 2012 study published in Sage that found essentially the same thing in the UK, oh, and about a million American studies…

So yeah, bigots are dumb-dumbs. I’d say “who knew” but literally everyone who isn’t them knows this.

• https://www.iflscience.com/brain/researchers-find-link-between-low-intelligence-and-homophobia/?fbclid=IwAR2PJxPq1LLbsjP