Be warned, I had issues mixing with Audacity - there are some “off air” sections that I should have edited out, and some other “crapping on” that normally I would have trimmed for the sake of brevity. By the time I realised this (on “proof listening”) it would have meant almost starting from scratch, which I couldn’t be arsed to do.

Dawkins on homeopathy from the Enemies of Reason Part 2

Dawkins on the scientific ideal from The Root of All Evil? Part 1

WTF? Fallacy of the year Spooked 911 – Moon landing faked Mad Madonna A rapturous WTF?

From the show, we have the Crazy Rainbow Lady

We have a clip from Richard Dawkins’ The Enemies of Reason (Part 2) And the winner of our, “Oy! Give us a review on iTunes” competition was Zach Nereim. Shoot me an email with your mailing address Zach, and a copy of Humbug! will be on its way shortly. And thanks to all of you who’ve written reviews. I cry as much as Roger Federer losing or winning the Australian Open every time I read them. It hurts so good.

We discuss “The Art of Humbug Detection”. I.e. how to get better at spotting the flaws in arguments (your own, and the arguments of others).

I also used a clip from RIchard Dawkins‘ The Eneimies of Reason (Part 1). And here’s the Peter Ellerton clip I used:

Show notes:

Here’s the queen of egoism, Opera Winfrey, on “The Secret”

The Chaser’s satirical take on it – nut job of the week

The Derren Brown show I mentioned is called “The System” – youtube part 1 here:

My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-625da8140ab06083d994a44076efd3f0}

Here’s the email we are responding to:

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As an American, I got a dose of culture shock at about 2 minutes in, when reading from your book. You give an example of someone saying that the government has no business censoring anything, and that any censorship is oppressive. You seem to claim that the argument should be about how much censorship to have, not whether to scrap it entirely. As someone who basically agrees with your \”Margo Blarneypickle\”, I take issue with this. More censorship is more oppressive, but any amount of censorship is, indeed, oppressive. This is not an unusual view around here: heck, it\’s written into the US constitution that the government isn\’t allowed to censor anything.

You then go on to suggest that \”Margo\” be ridiculed with straw men. \”Are you in favor of live broadcasts of executions?\” Well, I\’m not in favor of executions. But if you\’ve got the film, it shouldn\’t be illegal to show it. I mean, are you going to outlaw everything that\’s in bad taste? \”Do you favor the removal of doors from public toilets?\” WTF? Of course not. That\’s a false analogy. Censorship isn\’t allowing toilets to have doors, it\’s legally requiring every toilet to have a door. If I want to build a doorless toilet, it shouldn\’t be illegal. I probably shouldn\’t expect many people to buy one, or to use one, but censorship is making it /illegal/ to have or use one.

When the worst that could happen is that someone is discomfited or offended, there is no reason to hand a potentially abusable power to a government that can\’t (http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/12/why-defend-freedom-of-icky-speech.html) and won\’t (http://www.theage.com.au/news/home/technology/police-defend-baby-swinging-video-charge/2008/12/11/1228584982919.html) confine itself to banning just the bad stuff.

Give to your local free speech organizations. http://www.go.to/aclu http://www.efa.org.au/

P.S. The email in your profile doesn\’t seem to work. P.P.S. I have been enjoying your podcast, excepting this one bit which pushed a button for me. Keep up the good work.