International Skeptics United

This episode features a live recording of Derek and James Randi on stage at Skeptrack 2015 this past Labor Day weekend at Dragon Con in Atlanta, GA. Derek and Randi discuss the origins of The Amazing Randi and his work exposing fakers and other harmful charlatans over the years.

0:00:00

Introduction

Richard Saunders

0:04:50

Fly me to the moon... or Pluto... or Mars!

We chat to Dr Pamela Gay who gives us her perspective on the recent misson to Pluto. Also what's happening on Mars and what's all this about a blood moon? 

0:29:00

A Week in Science

The Royal Institution of Australia (RiAus) is a national scientific not-for-profit organisation with a mission to bring science to people and people to science.

0:31:30

Irresponsible breast cancer alternative cure

Ross Balch from the Brisbane Skeptics Society reads an open letter to the Sunshine Coast Daily after it published an uncritical report dealing with cancer. (With a voice over from Jo Alabaster.)

0:39:25

Maynard's Spooky Action.. 

Maynard chats to more people doing outreach at the recent Science Week Festival at the Australian Museum.

An action packed show this week!  Susan Gerbic joins the crew to discuss Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia.   Next, Cristina tells us about an industry funded study on butter with surprising results. Lastly, Darren looks into facts and stats about deaths from heat and cold.  

There are several factors that are important to selecting an appropriate sample size and dealing with small samples. The most important questions are around representativeness - how well does your sample represent the total population and capture all it's variance?

Linhda and Kyle talk through a few examples including elections, picking an Airbnb, produce selection, and home shopping as examples of cases in which the amount of observations one has are more or less important depending on how complex the underlying system one is observing is.