Serious Inquiries Only

Thomas is joined by David O'Brien, a higher education policy scholar who works for the California Community Colleges system, to pick apart Trump's new rules threatening to cut off student loans and Pell grants from "low-earning" degree programs, and to fact-check The Daily's recent take on the same story. The real history runs through Reagan, Prop 13, and decades of quiet austerity nobody on that podcast wants to mention.

Mentioned:

• The Daily college episode

• Reagan 1966 campaign clip

• Prop 13

• CUNY tuition history

• California Master Plan for Higher Education

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Thanks so much to the folks at SkeptiCal for inviting me! Though the talk does deal with the Butler shooting, I thought some way different stuff for this including a ridiculously overwrought hypothetical, my favorite kind! And, I found a Young Turks video where they are apparently Joe Rogan now!

The "nice guy" is the villain. We watched Obsession and cannot stop thinking about it. It has so much to say about gender, consent, "nice guys" and more. And it scarred Lydia for life.

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS.

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Thomas is joined by Dr. Eric Jaffe, biologist, dinosaur enthusiast, and high school biology teacher, for a conversation that starts with a deceptively simple question: what are biological definitions actually doing?

It turns out that biology is far more like history than math, and that difference has enormous consequences for anyone trying to weaponize phrases like "the biological definition of sex." Dr. Jaffe walks through why definitions in inductive sciences are descriptive, not prescriptive, and what that means for species, chromosomes, fungi, LeBron James, and trans people.

"Exceptions aren't the exceptions in biology. They are built into what we call biological systems."

Plus: Patreon Q&A questions on alien DNA, how new chromosomes evolve, the 97% chimp figure, CRISPR vs. what came before, and Trump's research budget cuts.

• Cells at Work (anime recommended by Dr. Jaffe)

• Project Hail Mary (film referenced)

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Thomas is joined by Dr. Jenessa Seymour to dig into the brain science behind a surprisingly strange phenomenon: why do astronauts who spent just nine days in space need weeks of physical therapy to walk normally again?

The answer turns out to involve ancient calcium carbonate ear stones, the same material crabs use for shells, a multi-layered sensory system your brain is constantly running without your knowledge, and a wild evolutionary theory about why motion sickness exists at all. Also: why pilots fly perfectly good planes directly into the ground, and what deaf NASA research participants revealed about how proprioception actually works.

Come see me at SkeptiCal!

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The history of disability rights is often treated as a modern story, but what if that framing misses centuries of earlier, more complicated history? This week, Thomas is joined by Professor Sari Altschuler, Associate Professor of English at Northeastern University, to explore her new book Before Disability: A History of American Citizenship.

In the book, Professor Altschuler traces how disability and citizenship have been intertwined since the founding of the United States, and what that reveals about who America decided belonged and who didn't. In the early Republic, many physical and mental differences were accommodated within the framework of citizenship; by the antebellum era, however, those same differences had been weaponized as tools of racial exclusion, and eventually as justification for eugenics.

Thomas and Professor Altschuler dig into the intersections of race, disability, and civic belonging, and what early American history can teach us about the fights happening today.

• Be sure to buy Before Disability: A History of American Citizenship (release date: 6/16/2026)!

• Touch This Page! Making Sense of the Ways We Read

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Continuing the discussion of the CNN Rape Academy article. It gets even worse. And also, how our information environment is ruined and getting ruineder.

You might have seen the CNN article from a while back entitled Exposing a global 'rape academy'. While most of the article is technically true, the broad takeaway that virtually everyone had (including me) was wildly, irresponsibly false. Even if you came across debunks of this, there's a good chance that I'm debunking this even more than you've seen. I don't think people have fully grasped how misleading it was.

We continue the pruning of idiotic Butler Shooting conspiracy theories. Once we establish the facts using actual sources, what room is there left for a conspiracy or staging theory?

It wasn't staged. None of them were staged. Yes Trump was shot in the ear. I thought you all were doing a bit, but apparently you weren't. This isn't good and you should stop doing it, please. In discussing this current shooting, I found that way too many of you think that it was a hoax and even more think that Trump wasn't shot in the ear. So, let's go through the Butler shooting and see why YES HE F-CKING WAS.