The Rational View podcast with Dr. Al Scott

This episode summarizes my investigations to date on nutrition and health. I will share what I have learned and what I remain skeptical about. In other podcast news I just had a major milestone for The Rational View! We broke 100,000 downloads! Thank you for continuing to listen and download, and helping us to get exposure. To support the podcast go to patron.podbean.com/TheRationalView Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational

In this episode I am interviewing an entrepreneur who is trying to play a big part in slowing the acceleration of climate change. She is co-founder of an Xprize team trying to capture CO2 from the air. Long story short their technology claims to be able to remove massive amounts of carbon from the atmosphere and convert it into hydrogen, biochar, and other environmentally friendly solutions. Beth McDaniel, JD is co-founder and President of the award-winning paint and coatings company, Reactive Surfaces where she also serves as legal counsel. She is also a partner in McDaniel and Associates, a law firm specializing in patent and trade secret law. As a serial entrepreneur, she has guided this bleeding-edge innovation company, operating in the paint and coatings and specialty chemicals industries, for the past 15 years. She has served in leadership roles for numerous organizations, including serving as a Pathways to Peace Fellow, a premier social justice organization. Her work in the area of human rights and social justice brings a level of experience and intention to ensure that any climate solution has at its heart environmental justice and enhancement of human rights and personal livelihood. She brings the same dedication to her family, including her two children and grandchildren. Support the podcast at patron.podbean.com/TheRationalView Join the Facebook conversation @TheRational View Twitter @AlScottRational #TheRationalView #podcast #carboncapture #algae #paint

In this episode I am continuing my investigations into the evidence linking nutrition and health. What does the science say? My previous guest, Dr. Valter Longo discussed the data on intermittent fasting and cellular regeneration. I’ve also spoken with Dr. Traci Mann regarding the observation that fad diets don’t work. Today I’m going to be interviewing another dietary guru who believes that his diet can extend lifespan and reverse the course of diseases. Joel Fuhrman, M.D. is a board-certified family physician, seven-time New York Times best-selling author and internationally recognized expert on nutrition and natural healing. He specializes in preventing and reversing disease through nutritional methods. Dr Fuhrman is the President of the Nutritional Research Foundation and on the faculty of Northern Arizona University, Health Sciences division. He coined the term “Nutritarian” to describe a nutrient-dense eating style, designed to prevent cancer, slow aging, and extend lifespan. For over 30 years, Dr. Fuhrman has shown that it is possible to achieve sustainable weight loss and reverse heart disease, diabetes and many other illnesses using smart nutrition. In his medical practice, and through his books and television specials, he continues to bring this life-saving message to hundreds of thousands of people around the world. Dr. Fuhrman also operates the Eat To Live Retreat in San Diego. At this residential facility, people from all over the world come to stay for 1-3 months weeks to recover from conditions ranging from cardiovascular disease to autoimmune disease, food addiction and more. They also gain the skills and knowledge to make these changes permanent when they leave the retreat. Support the podcast at patron.podbean.com/TheRationalView Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational #TheRationalView #podcast #nutritarian #diet #health #nutrition #disease #diabetes #food

In this episode I’m continuing my investigations into the science of nutrition and health. Today I’m looking at the effect that diet has on longevity. We know that eating poorly can kill you in any number of ways, but is there a fountain of youth out there? Can we extend lifespan merely by choosing the right foods? My guest today will have something to say on this topic. Dr. Valter Longo has thirty years of experience in the field of longevity and healthy eating. He is the Director of the Longevity Institute at the University of Southern California – Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, Los Angeles, and the Director of the Longevity and Cancer Program at the The Italian Foundation for Cancer Research Institute of Molecular Oncology in Milan, Italy. He is the author of the best seller “The Longevity Diet” and the 2 Italian books “Alla tavola della longevità” (“At the Table of Longevity”), and “La longevità inizia da bambini” (“Longevity Begins in Childhood”). Professor Longo is also the scientific director of the Create Cures Foundation and the Valter Longo Foundation. In 2018, TIME Magazine named Professor Longo as one of the 50 most influential people in health care for his research on fasting-mimicking diets as a way to improve health and prevent diseases. Please help me to spread the Rational View at patron.podbean.com/TheRationalView Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational #TheRationalView #podcast #fasting #health #longevity #ProLon

In this episode I am returning to a core topic to The Rational View, the communication of science. My guest has experience communicating science to the public during environmental crises, and has shared his experience and advice for other scientists in a newly published book. What are the mistakes that scientists make in outreach, and how can we do a better job without endangering our careers? Christopher Reddy is a leader in the study of marine pollution and the development of environmentally friendly industrial chemicals. A senior scientist in the Department of Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry at Wood Hole Oceanographic Institution and faculty member of the MIT/WHOI joint program in oceanography, Reddy has led numerous field operations along coastlines, in the open ocean, and at the bottom of the sea to conduct transformative research that crosses disciplines and guides policy decisions worldwide. As an author, Dr. Reddy has recently published ‘Science Communication in a Crisis’ Support the podcast at patron.podbean.com/TheRationalView Discuss the ideas on Facebook @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational #TheRationalView #podcast #science #communication #crisis #outreach #evidence #politics

I have been recently exploring the impacts of what I call the AI revolution we are currently experiencing surrounding the release of ChatGPT and its rapidly expanding progeny. Today I want to explore the economic impacts of ChatGPT gobbling up white collar jobs the same way that robotics has devastated blue collar jobs and salaries. I originally discussed this issue in one of my first podcasts on "Income Inequality: We botched it", where I point out that blue collar workers are no longer able to afford the same lifestyle of previous generations due to robotics taking over their jobs and the proceeds being gobbled up by business owners. We are on track for another crash unless we smarten up and fix the system. To explore the impacts of this revolution I have a distinguished economist who has recently published in Nature, a paper called Robots, Labor Markets and Universal Basic Income. Antonio Cabrales has a Ph.D. in Economics from University of California, San Diego, and is a professor at Universidad Carlos III. He has been a professor at University College London, and at Universitat Pompeu Fabra. He is Executive Vice President of the European Economic Association, fellow of the Econometric Society, former President of the Spanish Economic Association and recipient of the King Rei Jaume I prize in Economics 2021. He has worked in a wide range of topics: game theory, the economics of networks, mechanism design, economics of education, experimental and behavioral economics. He is associate editor of the Journal of Economic Theory and has edited and published in several economic journals and Physical Review Letters. Join the Facebook conversation @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational www.therationalview.ca #TheRationalView #podcast #AI #artificialintelligence #UBI #universalbasicincome #jobs #economics

I think this episode is very pertinent and deserves to be re-released now that we are starting to experience what seems to be a revolution in artificial intelligence. The job market is about to be shaken up considerably. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did! The global economy is in a shambles due to CoVid-19 and millions of workers are suffering with no safety net. The last time the economy tanked like this in 2008 it was due to unregulated greed run amok in the mortgage financing industry. That time, Investment Bankers got a juicy handout to the tune of several trillion dollars approved within hours of the crash. Unemployed Canadian workers have received $2,000 per month since March. In the US today, however, desperate folks who have lost their jobs and health care have received a one-time cheque of $1,200. This leaves many people calling for a re-assessment of Universal Basic Income. Can our modern economy afford to provide a minimum standard of living to the poor? Will it disincentivize labour? What are the pros and cons? On this episode I interview Mr. Floyd Marinescu to ask tough questions about Universal Basic Income. Mr. Marinescu is CEO and co-founder of C4Media which provides software development news and learning events serving 1.2M online on InfoQ.com, and 8000 attendees annually via QCon conferences in SF, NY, London, Beijing, Shanghai, and Sao Paulo. Floyd is an angel investor in over a dozen startups, and has built teams and businesses in the US, Canada, China, Brazil, Europe. Floyd is also a CEO activist for universal basic income. He is the founder of CEOs for Basic Income and UBI Works. Go to https://UBIWorks.ca for more info. Follow me at https://therationalview.podbean.com/ Comment at https://facebook.com/groups/therationalview Instagram at https://instagram.com/the_rational_view Twitter at https://twitter.com/AlScottRational #therationalview #newpodcast #universalbasicincome #basicincome #ubi #automation #covid #socialism #capitalism #economy #income #evidencebased

In this episode I demonstrate my research process by focusing on some controversy that came to light following my interview of Dr. Peter Butt, chairman of the group responsible for Canada's new tightened guidelines on healthy drinking. The International Scientific Forum on Alcohol Research (ISFAR) has just published a stinging critique of the newly released Canadian guidance on Alcohol and Health. In the critique, Forum chair R. Curtis Ellison stated: “I am appalled by the conclusions of the authors of this paper. They present a pseudo-scientific amalgamation of selected studies of low scientific validity that fit their preconceived notions and ignore many high-quality studies whose results may not support their own views”. This was widely publicized in the National Post in an article by Chris Selley entitled “A scorching new critique of Canada’s alcohol guidelines’. I want to believe them, so I need to be careful about my confirmation bias. What’s the truth and how do we find out? Support the podcast at patron.podbean.com/therationalview Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational #TheRationalView #podcast #alcohol #health #science #controversy #J-curve #heart #cancer

This episode follows up with my thoughts on my last interview with mens' coach Kevin Scott, “Can we Manifest our Future? Similar to many life coaches these days, Kevin believes that if we can put our minds into the proper emotional state that the universe will bend to your wishes. Here on The Rational View we understand that extreme claims require extreme evidence. After our discussion, it was clear that it would be very difficult to scientifically test the claims of manifestation gurus, because they explain away any failures as being the fault of the manifester in not having properly arranged their emotional state. The belief in manifestation seems harmless at first blush, but I want to dig into this magical thinking a bit and question the impacts on society. This is a job for The Rational View. If you want to hear more of this content your support is appreciated at patron.podbean.com/therationalview Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational #TheRationalView #podcast #magicalthinking #manifestation #attraction #debunking #echinacea #science

Today I’m going to tackle a topic you may have heard about in popular society these days, if you’ve ever listened to a motivational speaker or a life coach. They call it manifestation. What is it? What does it mean? What does science have to say about it? To get to the bottom of this, I’m interviewing Kevin Scott, personal coach and leader of the Effortless Alpha mens’ program. I will provide a skeptical scientific viewpoint on the topic. When Kevin Bruce Scott speaks, his messages connect people to their hearts as well as the minds. He has lived many different lives – as an artist, businessman, salesman, even a farmer! - and that helps him relate to all kinds of people. Kevin strives to give his dedicated clients a feeling of potential possibility in their life, something one tends to forget they have hidden all along. He is a leader of leaders, a leader of men, and works hard to be an example for men of all walks of life. The motto for the Effortless Alpha brotherhood he created is “To inspire, and create space for, men to access their own potential through the bond of brotherhood where no man feels alone.” His life-transforming work with men in groups and one-on-one has sparked the Masculine Expansion, creating a space for men to lead themselves and their communities with power, honour, discipline, and respect. Follow me at www.therationalview.ca Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Support the podcast: https://patron.podbean.com/therationalview Twitter @AlScottRational #TheRationalView #podcast #manifesting #quantum #quantummechanics #observer #consciousness

It seems we are fated to live in interesting times. We stand balanced on the precipice of a new revolution in society. Advanced artificial intelligence systems have crossed a threshold that many thought impossible. What are the implications? The Future of Life institute just released an open letter signed by over 1,000 thought leaders including Elon Musk, and Steve Wosniak, calling on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4. Why are they asking for this now? Can the genie be put back into the bottle? In this episode I will review what is going on and why it is important. Support the podcast at patron.podbean.com/TheRationalView Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational #TheRationalView #podcast #artificialintelligence #chatgpt #AGI #singularity

This is another cool science episode. Today I'm interviewing successful science outreach personality, cosmologist, and podcaster Dr. Paul Sutter. Paul M. Sutter is a theoretical cosmologist at the Institute for Advanced Computational Science at Stony Brook University and a guest researcher at the Center for Computational Astrophysics at the Flatiron Institute in NYC. He is an award-winning science communicator, having authored two books, Your Place in the Universe and How to Die in Space, and hosting several TV shows, including How the Universe Works, Space Out, and The Edge of Knowledge. He also writes and hosts his own Ask a Spaceman podcast, which has been downloaded over 7 million times. Lastly, Paul is a globally-recognized leader in the intersection of art and science. His latest collaboration is a production with Syren Modern Dance that explores the nature of time, which he recently performed as a United States Cultural Ambassador at the World Expo in Dubai. Support the podcast at patron.podbean.com/TheRationalView Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational #TheRationalView #podcast #cosmology #outreach #art #moderndance #askaspaceman

In this episode I am returning to explore the truth about the Chernobyl disaster. I have the great fortune to interview one of the doctors who treated the exposed workers in Moscow following the explosion. Let’s see what he thinks of the health risks of nuclear power. Robert Peter Gale was born in New York in 1945. He received his MD from the State University of New York at Buffalo and PhD in microbiology and immunology from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). After that Gale was on the faculty of the UCLA School of Medicine, and served as Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research, and later chaired the Scientific Advisory Board of the Center for Advanced Studies in Leukemia. He was President of the Armand Hammer Center for Advanced Studies in Nuclear Energy and Health. Gale is currently Visiting Professor of Haematology at Sun Yat-sen Cancer Centre, Guangzhou, China and Honorary Professor of Hematology at the Institute of Hematology at Peking Union Medical College. He is the Editor-in-Chief of LEUKEMIA, Associate Editor of CLINICAL TRANSPLANTATION, Executive Editor of BONE MARROW TRANSPLANTATION and a reviewer for many scientific journals in hematology, oncology, immunology, transplantation, radiation biology and internal medicine. Prof. Gale is also an expert on the medical response to nuclear and radiation accidents. From 2007-2019 he was executive director of clinical research and development at Celgene Corp and an honorary member of the Russian and Chinese Academies of Medical Science. He is the recipient of several distinguished awards and honorary degrees including the Presidential Award, and an Emmy award. Gale has published over 1,350 scientific articles and 25 books on medical topics, nuclear energy and weapons and politics of US-Russian relations and received an Emmy award. His latest book is “Radiation: What it is, What you need to Know”. Support the podcast at patron.podbean.com/TheRationalView Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Watch the video version on YouTube! #TheRationalView #podcast #chernobyl #nuclearenergy #radiation #health

In this episode I continue my exploration of the science of nutrition and food by exploring one of the most controversial money-making phenomena to exist. Diets. Body image is a central problem to a large fraction of the population, and people are willing to spend a lot of money trying to get thin and be more attractive. In this episode I interview a leading expert on the science of dieting to cut through the flab and get to the firm core of this issue. Traci Mann is Professor of Psychology at the University of Minnesota. She received her PhD in 1995 from Stanford University, spent ten years on the faculty at UCLA, then moved to the University of Minnesota and started the Health and Eating Lab. She is interested in basic science questions about cognitive mechanisms of self-control, in applying social psychology research to promoting healthy behavior, and in busting commonly accepted myths about eating. Her research has been funded by NIH, NASA, and the USDA. Her book, Secrets from the Eating Lab, was the 2016 winner of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology Book Prize. Support The Rational View at patron.podbean.com/TheRationalView Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational TikTok @TheRationalView #TheRationalView #podcast #dieting #health #food #bodyimage #willpower

In this episode I want to dig into the impacts of alcohol on health. Many of us have heard news stories saying that a glass of red wine every day can help you live longer. This was used to explain why people with a Mediterranean diet seem to live longer than people on a North American diet, for example. The Resveratrol in the red wine is an anti-oxidant that supposedly helps to prevent cell damage. One can search the literature to find examples of studies that show people who drink a moderate amount of alcohol have longer lives. Until recently, Canadian health guidelines have suggested that one or two alcoholic beverages a day are not dangerous. New advice now suggests one or two drinks a week should be the goal. My guest today has been directly involved with the evolving health guidelines associated with alcohol consumption. Dr. Peter Butt is a Certificant and Fellow with the College of Family Physicians of Canada, with Special Competency in Addiction Medicine. He is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan and served as a consultant in Addiction Medicine in the Saskatchewan Health Authority. His research has included guideline development and knowledge translation. He chaired the original development of Canada’s Low Risk Drinking Guidelines (2011), co-chaired the Canadian Guidelines on Alcohol Use Disorder Among Older Adults (2019) and co-chaired the 2023 Canadian Guidance on Alcohol and Health with the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction. Support the podcast at patron.podbean.com/TheRationalView Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational TikTok @TheRationalView before it is outlawed #TheRationalView #podcast #alcohol #health #risk

In this episode I continue my investigation into the science of nutrition and food. Today I’m interviewing a physician who has been focusing on a critical evaluation of so-called alternative medicine or SCAM. I want to investigate with him the science behind various detox diets and claims made by nutrition specialists. I expect to receive a very skeptical viewpoint based on his many blog posts suggesting that claims of detoxing are a scam. Edzard Ernst studied psychology and medicine at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich. In 1977, he qualified as a physician and completed his MD and PhD theses. He was Professor in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PMR) at Hannover Medical School and Head of the PMR Department at the University of Vienna (Austria). He established the world’s first Chair in complementary medicine at Exeter University in 1993. Since 2012, he is Emeritus Professor at the University of Exeter and now lives in Cambridge, UK as well as in Brittany, France. Professor Ernst is/was founder/Editor-in-Chief of three medical journals and has been a columnist for many publications. His work has been awarded 17 scientific awards and two Visiting Professorships. He served on the ‘Medicines Commission’ of the British ‘Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency’. During the last 25 years, Prof Ernst’s research focused on the critical evaluation of most aspects of so-called alternative medicine or SCAM. Become a patron at patron.podbean.com/TheRationalView Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #alternativemedicine #detox #diets #SCAM

In this episode I’d like to explore the impacts of the precautionary principle in public policy. Many people think that the precautionary principle is the safest way forward. We shouldn’t use a tool until we’re sure that it won’t harm us. This just makes sense, doesn’t it? The application of the precautionary principle in European energy policy, for example, has lead to the shut down of Germany’s nuclear fleet, strong labelling laws for GMO products, and many other decisions of which I am not yet aware. Today I’ll be interviewing an economist who has a unique interdisciplinary perspective on the environment, health, and labor economics to get an expert opinion on this topic. I came across his insightful work as references in a Freakonomics podcast episode titled, “nuclear energy isn't perfect. Is it good enough?’. Matthew Neidell is an economics professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. He is also a faculty member with the Earth Institute and the Columbia Population Research Center. Neidell received his PhD in economics from UCLA and has performed policy work for various organizations, including the Environmental Protection Agency, Institute of Medicine, Rockefeller Foundation, and World Bank He specializes in environmental, health, and labor economics, applying the latest empirical methods to examine the relationship between the environment and a wide range of measures of well-being, including worker productivity and human capital, and how human behavior affects these relationships. Support more penetrating public policy perspectives at patron.podbean.com/therationalview Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #precautionaryprinciple #nuclearpower #publicpolicy #environment #energytransition #greenenergy #atomicenergy

In this episode I’m starting my series of interviews on the science of nutrition at the top with an interview with a leading authority on the politics of food and nutrition, Dr. Marion Nestle. In 2011 author Michael Pollan ranked her as the #2 most powerful foodie in America (after Michelle Obama), and American food journalist Mark Bittman ranked her #1 in his list of foodies to be thankful for. Marion Nestle is Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, Emerita, at New York University. She is also Visiting Professor of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell. She earned a Ph.D. in molecular biology and an M.P.H. in public health nutrition from the University of California, Berkeley. Previous faculty positions were at Brandeis University and the UCSF School of Medicine. She was senior nutrition policy advisor in the Department of Health and Human Services and editor of the 1988 Surgeon General’s Report on Nutrition and Health. Her research and writing examine scientific and socioeconomic influences on food choice and its consequences, emphasizing the role of food industry marketing. She is the author, co-author, or co-editor of fifteen books focusing on the politics and science of food. Her most recent book is a memoir, Slow Cooked: An Unexpected Life in Food Politics (2022). She has won numerous awards for her public outreach, and has been recognized as one of the most influential foodies in America. The University of California School of Public Health at Berkeley named her as Public Health Hero. My apologies for the sound quality in this one. Support the podcast at patron.podbean.com/TheRationalView Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Find TheRationalView on YouTube! Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #nutrition #politics #health #food

In this episode I’m hoping to start a new investigation into the science behind nutrition and food science. Many of us have heard the messages from our doctors that we need to cut back on our high sodium diets and we need to avoid fat and red meat to prevent heart disease. We’ve been told that sugar is bad for us. Processed foods are bad for us. Alcohol is bad for us. We need to eat more fruit and vegetables. We need to eat more fiber. Western society is now in the midst of an obesity epidemic. Are we getting good nutritional advice? What does the science say? Tell me what you want to hear about in my Facebook group @TheRationalView Support the podcast at patron.podbean.com/therationalview Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #nutrition #science #evidencebased

In this episode I return to the hard problem of consciousness with a distinguished neuroscientist, Dr. Anil Seth. In the finest traditions of science, Dr. Seth is willing to test his ground-breaking theories of mind on himself by exploring the impacts of psychedelic drugs on the conscious experience. Anil Seth is a neuroscientist, author, and public speaker who has pioneered research into the brain basis of consciousness for more than twenty years. His mission is to advance the science of consciousness, and to use its insights for the benefits of society, technology, and medicine. He is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, Co-Director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Program on Brain, Mind and Consciousness, and Editor-in-Chief of the academic journal Neuroscience of Consciousness. His two TED talks have been viewed more than thirteen million times, he has appeared in several films, and he is lead scientist on the Dreamachine project. His new book Being You: A New Science of Consciousness was an instant Sunday Times Bestseller and a 2021 Book of the Year. Support the Rational View at patron.podbean.com/therationalview Visit my website at therationalview.ca Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational #TheRationalView #podcast #consciousness #psychedelics #mind #dreammachine

In this episode I talk about how nuclear energy is being framed in Germany, the environmental laggard currently mining lignite coal for heat. I review some of the blatant anti-nuclear rhetoric being broadcast internationally and expose the flaws in the arguments. On social media I have been heavily critical of Germany’s Energiewende. This is their national program to shut down their clean nuclear fleet and attempt to replace it with hundreds of billions of euros worth of variable wind and solar generating equipment. As a result of this ideologically driven strategy the country has been unable to keep the lights on without burning vast amounts of heavily polluting lignite coal, and bankrolling Putin's invasion of the Ukraine by buying up all available Russian natural gas. The death toll associated with anti-nuclear ideology is the true danger society should be talking about. Support The Rational View at patron.podbean.com/TheRationalView Follow me at www.therationalview.ca Join the Facebook discussion group @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Insta @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #energiewende #cleanenergy #greenenergy #nuclearenergy #atomicenergy #renewableenergy #sustainable #energytransition

In this episode I am bringing you my 2022 Rational View year in review, followed by a cool Pecha Kucha presentation that I made last year to a group of football alumni, put on by my public school friend Andy Vasily host of the Run Your Life podcast. The presentation is called ‘Why we need a Rational View’, and it defines much of what I have learned about communicating science, and the need for a rational discussion in a polarized world. Pecha Kucha is, I believe, a Japanese term meaning chit-chat. The format is unique as it includes a timed slide presentation that you need to present alongside with a strict 20 second clock on each slide. So if you like it, I urge you to watch The Rational View Youtube channel for this presentation. Support The Rational View at patron.podbean.com/TheRationalView Follow me at www.therationalview.ca Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #pechakucha #polarization #science #tribalism #live

Dr. Alexander Wong rejoins the Rational View to review the new and exciting advance in Artificial Intelligence, ChatGPT. ChatGPT is a variant of GPT-3 (Generative Pretrained Transformer 3) that is specifically designed to be used in chat applications. It is a large language model that has been trained on a huge amount of text data in order to generate human-like responses to various types of inputs. Some key features of ChatGPT include its ability to generate responses in a conversational style, understand context, and continue a conversation based on previous exchanges. It is commonly used in chatbots, virtual assistants, and other applications where it is important to generate human-like responses in real time. Professor Wong is currently the Canada Research Chair in Artificial Intelligence and Medical Imaging, Member of the College of the Royal Society of Canada, Director of the Vision and Image Processing Research Group, and a Professor in the Department of Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo. Together we assess the impact of this amazing new AI release, and question what it means for the future. Support The Rational View at patron.podbean.com/TheRationalView Visit my website at TheRationalView.ca Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational #TheRationalView #podcast #chatgpt #artificialintelligence #generalAI #gpt3

In this episode I’m continuing to provide a free public service to educate the world about cognitive bias. You’re welcome. Today we’ll be exploring how the multi-billion dollar global marketing industry is implicitly given moral licence to exploit our cognitive biases, and how to prevent falling victim to this ethically questionable practice. Marko Kovic, PhD, has a background in political science and communication science. He's a lecturer, researcher, author and activist in the areas of decision-making, cyberpsychology, misinformation and conspiracy theories. Follow me at therationalview.podbean.com Join the Facebook conversation @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #consuming #bias #cognitivebias #marketing #haloeffect #advice

In this episode I describe several cognitive biases that we commonly fall victim to. Can you identify any of these from your own experiences? If you have been following the controversy over social media you are aware of the problems with confirmation bias that leads us to believe dodgy sources when they agree with our preconceived opinions, but to hold other opinions to a much higher standard of evidence. In this episode I’m going to explore a few lesser-known types of cognitive bias that could be impacting your judgement. If you had a chance to listen to my interview with Nobel Laureate Dr. Daniel Kahneman you would understand that our brains do not naturally follow the formal laws of logic and inference. We use several shortcuts that work well for us in everyday life. In a more recent interview, happiness guru Valerie Alexander pointed out that we need to shine a light on these biases to recognize their impacts on our mental processes and to address them. Here is my crash course on how to recognize a few more insidious biases and eliminate them in our quest for the ultimate Vulcan rationality. Follow me at www.therationalview.ca Find The Rational View on YouTube! Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #cognitivebias #biases #rationality

In this episode I’m continuing my investigation of cognitive bias by interviewing an expert who has thought about this topic a lot. Committed to expanding happiness and inclusion in all communities, Valerie Alexander is a globally-recognized speaker on the topics of happiness in the workplace, the advancement of women, and unconscious bias. Her TED Talk, “How to Outsmart Your Own Unconscious Bias” has been viewed over half a million times and is used in boardrooms and classrooms around the world to enlighten leaders and future leaders about the brain science behind bias and how we can work together to create more equitable outcomes for everyone. Valerie’s books include: Happiness as a Second Language, Success as a Second Language, and How Women Can Succeed in the Workplace (Despite Having “Female Brains”) Valerie has had a varied and successful career as a corporate securities lawyer, investment banker and Internet executive in the Silicon Valley, and more recently as a Hollywood screenwriter and director. Follow me at therationalview.podbean.com Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #cognitivebias #bias #equity #workplace

In this episode I have the honour to interview a Nobel Laureate who has devoted his life to understanding the way we think. His work has interesting links, not only to my new research topic of cognitive biases, but also on humanity’s continuing self examination of consciousness and the mysteries of the mind. Berkely-trained psychologist Daniel Kahneman was corecipient of the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2002 for his integration of psychological research into economic science. His pioneering work examined human judgment and decision making under uncertainty. He was a lecturer (1961–70) and a professor (1970–78) of psychology at the Hebrew University, University of British Columbia, University of California Berkeley, and Princeton University where he was the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology and a professor of public affairs at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Kahneman’s groundbreaking nobel research showed that people’s inferences of future probabilities are not strictly rational, but show various biases. In 2011 Kahneman received the Talcott Parsons Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for his contributions to the social sciences. Also that year he published the best-selling book Thinking, Fast and Slow, which highlights two different ways in which people make decisions. His other books included Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment. In 2013 Kahneman was awarded the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom. Follow me at www.therationalview.ca Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #consciousness #cognitivebias #mind #economics #rationality

In this episode I am interviewing the lead author of a recent paper describing a new theory of how consciousness works. It is based on evolutionary principles, and it posits that we mostly go about our lives unconsciously acting and reacting with no free will in the present moment. Their theory is that the conscious mind has evolved to enable reasoning and goal-driven behaviour through manipulation of memories. In this theory, we have no direct control over our actions in the present, as our observations are always a few milliseconds behind. This idea has interesting things to say about free will and first person experiences. Educated at Haverford College and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Andrew Budson is Chief of Cognitive Behavioral Neurology at the Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System, Associate Director of the Boston University Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Professor of Neurology at Boston University School of Medicine, and Lecturer in Neurology at Harvard Medical School. Follow me at therationalview.podbean.com Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #consciousness #memory #awareness #sentience #qualia

I’ve had several good interviews on the topics of hot and cold fusion. Omar Hurricane and Alex Zylstra from NIF in the US, Fulvio Millitelo of MAST-U in the UK, Edmund Storms LANL and Lutz Jaitner on cold fusion & LENR. What have we learned? Cold Fusion has not yet been reliably harnessed despite decades of study, but I don’t think we should shame them for this—hot fusion has been working for much longer and they haven’t commercialized yet either. Fusion is not coming to our rescue in the next decade, and maybe not the one after that. The largest government fusion progams in the world are the US NIF facility based on over one hundred high power lasers, and the planned International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) based on confining ionized plasma in a toroidal Tokamak with huge electromagnets. But this isn’t the whole story, because there are also billions of dollars being invested in commercial ventures. If you are interested, and want to look into these companies, some of the largest are Helion, General Fusion, and TAE technologies. Each of the fusion companies out there has a unique idea that they believe gives them an edge. The coolest thing I read was about Helion technology harnessing the back reaction of the high pressure fusing plasma on the magnetic coils to directly generate electricity. Follow me at therationaview.podbean.com Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #fusion #cleanenergy #greenenergy

In this episode I want to address what I’ve come to realize is an asymmetry in society’s approach to energy technologies, and most specifically nuclear energy, after decades of mostly unopposed anti-nuclear lobbying. Nuclear energy must struggle on an uneven playing field with other energy technologies. This asymmetry is one of the leading reasons that new nuclear reactors have struggled to be built in regions that have been dominated by anti-nuclear ideologies for the past several decades and it is this situation that has catalyzed the climate crisis. Nuclear is the only energy source to which humanity applies the precautionary principle. Other power sources are allowed to operate with a certain level of known risk that in some cases translates into a rather significant body count. But since we are used to it, and the effects are typically distributed over large areas and not concentrated in one area, the asymmetry with nuclear policy is lost on the general public. Of all these energy sources, nuclear energy seems to be the only one that elicits a visceral fear reaction in a significant fraction of the populace. Follow me at www.therationalview.ca Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #nuclearenergy #risk #overtonwindow #assymetry #fossilfuel #renewables #greenenergy #energytransition #atomicenergy

In this episode I am interviewing someone deeply involved with advising Canadian institutions on the energy policy, especially sustainable energy transitions. As this has also been a focus of the podcast, I’m looking forward to discussing the best approaches for the country. Mark Winfield is a Professor of Environmental and Urban Change at York University. He is also Co-Chair of the Faculty's Sustainable Energy Initiative, and Coordinator of the Joint Master of Environmental Studies/Juris Doctor program offered in conjunction with Osgoode Hall Law School. He has published articles, book chapters and reports on a wide range of climate change, environment and energy law and policy topics. Professor Winfield has acted as an advisor to the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario and federal Commissioner for Environment and Development. From 2017-2020 he served as a member of the Conseil d'administration (board of directors) of Transitions energetique Quebec, a Crown corporation established to implement a low-carbon energy transition strategy for Quebec. He is currently co-editing a volume on Sustainable Energy Transitions for Canada: Opportunities and Challenges for UBC Press. Follow me at TheRationalView.Podbean.com Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #sustainableenergy #greenenergy #hydrogen #CCUS #carboncapture #nuclearenergy

This episode is the digitally enhanced re-release of 'Nuclear Power-is it rational to worry?' episodes 21 and 22 from October 2020 where I interviewed D.J. LeClear, 'The Rad Guy', before he started his successful YouTube channel dealing out short educational videos on nuclear radiation, and before he grew that magnificent handlebar moustache. If you've been with me since 2020, please enjoy this blast from the past. If you are new to The Rational View, you will love this coherent and incisive discussion about the myths surrounding nuclear radiation, initially released in two parts. D.J. has been in nuclear power and radiation health physics since his enlistment in the Naval Nuclear Program where he did radiochemistry and radiation protection aboard the USS Harry S. Truman. Currently, he works in health emergency preparedness as a technical expert for radiation hazards. He has a bachelor of science in Nuclear Engineering Technology and he is enrolled in the Health Physics Master's program at Illinois Institute of Technology. In his spare time, he practices science communication by running the Facebook page "The Pragmatic Environmentalist" and his new YouTube channel "The Rad Guy". Register for my newsletter at TheRationalView.ca Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #nuclearenergy #radiation #myths #greenenergy #atomicenergy

In this episode I am interviewing a new-space entrepreneur who is using optical remote sensing to provide important data on localized greenhouse gas emissions. The NordStream fossil gas pipelines ruptured a few days before this podcast was taped. My guest’s company has the hardware in place to measure these emissions from space and determine the impacts of this apparent sabotage on the climate. Stéphane Germain is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of GHGSat whose technology provides actionable greenhouse gas emissions data and insights to various industries. Stéphane founded GHGSat in 2011 to answer a market need for consistent, high-quality measurements of greenhouse gas emissions from industrial facilities worldwide. Mr. Germain has been passionate about applying space technology for the good of the Earth for over 30 years. Register for my newsletters at www.therationalview.ca Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #ghgsat #methane #flaring #climatechange #greenhousegas #satellite

In this episode I am continuing my exploration of the state of nuclear fusion research. I will be interviewing a leader in the MAST fusion experiment. MAST is an acronym for Mega Ampere Spherical Tokamak. A Tokamak is a device that typically uses extremely strong magnetic fields to confine an energetic plasma and ram hydrogen nuclei together at high energies, essentially trying to replicate the processes occurring at the core of the sun, to create fusion energy. This process takes tremendous energy inputs and has been explored in the lab for decades without successfully transitioning to commercial power. Experiments are getting larger and larger, and researchers have been making incremental progress towards the goal of break-even. Join me as I explore the high pressure science of fusion energy. Fulvio Militello is a fusion scientist with twenty years of experience. Following a career as a theoretical plasma physicist and science manager, he is currently the Director of Tokamak Science and MAST-U at United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA). Before joining UKAEA, he worked in Italy, France, and United States, in National Laboratories and Universities, authoring 100 scientific papers. Fulvio is also Adjunct Professor of Physics at Chalmers University (Sweden) and Visiting Reader at the Imperial College London. While his heart is still in Italy, he lives in Didcot, UK, with his Swedish wife (met in France) and two daughters (born in the UK). In his free time, he likes to cook, practice martial arts, read philosophy books, play games, look at the stars and learn as much as he can about everything that stimulates his curiosity Follow me at therationalview.podbean.com Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #fusion #greenenergy #MAST #ITER #tokamak

Over the past couple weeks the COVID virus has gone through my household, and I’ve been too busy to put together a well researched podcast. But I wanted to share a story with you that I think some of you might be able to relate to. It is a story about where all of our time has gone. In the modern era we’ve traded customer service for convenience. This is my saga. We think that we're saving time by online shopping, but sometimes that turns out to be the opposite of the truth. Join me while I take you through my personal saga in which I discovered that in the modern era we may have mistakenly traded good customer service for "convenience." Follow me at www.therationalview.ca Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #convenience #customerservice #online #rant

In this episode I am continuing my investigation into cold fusion, looking into potential scientific explanations of the excess heat and fusion products hinted at by Dr. Edmund Storms in my last podcast. There seems to be a dedicated research group that is working on these theories and I am eager to find out whether or not their hypothesis about condensed plasmoids can stand up to skepticism. Lutz Jaitner from Hamburg Germany is the father of three adult daughters. He holds a Master of Science degree in physics from the University of Hamburg. Lutz started his career as a designer and developer of multiprocessor hardware. After which he worked as a consulting engineer. Lutz is the programmer and operator of a public cloud service for neighborly help groups: Obelio eLETS Service Around 2006 Lutz started to evaluate the available literature about LENR research. By 2015 he found an explanation, how the reaction is facilitated by an ultra-dense plasmoid state of matter. It took him until 2019 to work out a quantum-mechanical model of this state, to program a simulation tool for it, perform the simulation runs and document this theory on this web site. Follow me at www.therationalview.ca Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #coldfusion #LENR #condensedplasmoids #science #skepticism

In this episode I start my investigation into the Cold Fusion controversy. In 1989 Pons & Fleischmann announced in a hastily convened press conference, the discovery of a new clean energy source that would revolutionize power grids and save humanity from climate change. They had measured the production of excess heat and neutrons in a room temperature electrolytic reaction using heavy water and a palladium cathode. It shortly became evident that their claims were not entirely correct. After many attempts it was discovered that their experiment could not be replicated and mainstream science dismissed Cold Fusion as a pathological science. Despite this lack of acceptance, many have continued to try to replicate their work and strike it rich. Now after more than 30 years, a pattern of unexplained anomalous results has emerged from the rubble. Is there something to the newly renamed Low Energy Nuclear Reactions field? I’m interviewing an expert who has been involved in reviewing the work in this field since the very beginning. Edmund Storms obtained a Ph.D. in radiochemistry from Washington University (St. Louis) and is retired from the Los Alamos National Laboratory after thirty-four years of service. His work involved basic research in the field of high temperature chemistry as applied to materials used in nuclear power and propulsion reactors. He presently lives in Santa Fe where he is investigating the "cold fusion" effect in his own laboratory. An authority in the field he has published 2 books, over 100 papers and four complete scientific reviews of the field over the years. In May 1993, he was invited to testify before a congressional committee about the "cold fusion" effect. In 1998, Wired magazine honored him as one of the 25 people in the US who is making a significant contribution to new ideas. He was awarded the Preparata Medal by the International Society of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science and honored as Distinguished Scientist by University of Missouri. His large collection of literature about LENR was used to create the website www.LENR.org where information about the phenomenon is available. His recent work has focused on understanding LENR and making the effect reproducible. Follow me at www.therationalview.ca Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #coldfusion #LENR #science #electrolysis #palladium #nuclear #nuclearpower

In this episode I’m reviewing the fine line between science, pathological science, and pseudo-science. In most cases the line is not fine at all. There are, of course, many pseudo-scientific practices that are clearly not based on the principles of honest scientific investigations including things like Creationism, Homeopathy, Astrology, and Flat-Earthism. Some of these pretend to be scientific, but it is pretty clear in all cases that they exist not because of evidence, but instead are based on faith, profit, or other motives. There are several beliefs or ideas, however, that are not so clear-cut, and actually have some non-biased scientific support, although they are verboten for members of the scientific community. I have looked at electromagnetic hypersensitivity, for example, in a past episode. I came away unconvinced that EM is causing the health problems of sufferers, but there is something unexplained going on. In this episode I want to explore the scientific community’s response to a couple different radical ideas and ask if it was rational, and what the evidence tells us. Follow me at therationalview.podbean.com Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #pathologicalscience #coldfusion #lenr #EMdrive

In this episode I’m starting to explore another interesting scientific topic that has recently made a big media splash—nuclear fusion. For decades the promise of nuclear fusion has been held out as the ultimate in clean energy sources—the same energy as the sun, with no transuranic radioactive waste stream. Just fusing hydrogen together to make helium and boundless energy. The problem is that it is very difficult to simulate the sun. Even in the core of the sun where temperatures are measured in millions of degrees, and the pressure is higher than anywhere in the solar system, fusion is not a fast or efficient process. I guess that’s good for us. If it were the sun would rapidly burn out in a huge supernova. As it is, the sun will happily burn hydrogen for about 10 billion years before it starts running short. A proton in the core of the sun can bounce around freely for billions of years without ever getting fused to another proton. It is this challenge that researchers on earth have been trying to solve for the past 50 years, without much success. Today I’m going to be interviewing a team of researchers working on this problem to find out just how close we are to practical fusion. Omar Hurricane is a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories. Omar received a Ph.D. in Physics from UCLA in 1994, staying on as post-doc until 1998. Omar is a Designer at LLNL, working on topics of stockpile stewardship and High Energy Density Physics, and became Chief Scientist for the Inertial Confinement Fusion Program. In 2009, Omar was awarded the U.S. Department of Energy Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award for National Security and Nonproliferation. Omar became a Fellow of the American Physical Society Division of Plasma Physics in 2016 and in 2021 was awarded the Edward Teller award and medal from the American Nuclear Society for leading efforts to obtain fuel gain, alpha heating, and a burning plasma in the laboratory. Dr. Alex Zylstra received his bachelor’s degree from Pomona College in 2009 and his Ph.D. in plasma physics from MIT in 2015. From there he joined the Los Alamos National Laboratory as a Reines Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow working on developing novel inertial fusion concepts. He joined Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 2018 as the experimental lead for the “Hybrid E” campaign, which subsequently produced the first laboratory burning and ignited plasmas. Follow me at www.therationalview.ca Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #fusion #ignition #laserfusion

I’ve recently begun to suspect that we, as a society, favour competition over cooperation to our detriment. As children we are trained to compete. We play competitive board games like Sorry, and Monopoly where you win by sabotaging the other players. We fetishize competitive sports, spending 100’s of billions of dollars watching athletes violently punish each other. It would seem that these attitudes carry over into the political arena. States and religions and corporations all compete for power, leaving a trail of bloody conflict in their wake. And yet it can be argued that competition brings out the best in people. The dominant capitalist economic system is based on the concept of a group of self-interested players who collectively and competitively comprise the market where the success of the top players advances by exploiting those less successful. Some of our most significant scientific and engineering advances came as a result of intense development work motivated by man’s most deadly competitive endeavour, war. Radar, jet planes, Nuclear technology, and the Apollo program to go to the moon were essentially the result of this competition between nations. But cooperation also has its value. The Space Station was a cold war cooperation between the US and Soviet Union. The Megatonnes to Megawatts program that used soviet nuclear warheads to power US nuclear reactors was a successful cooperation. The EU is a huge cooperative governance model. Universal Healthcare is a cooperative program to share the burdens of treating the sick. I want to ask the question: can we envision a world where negative competition becomes socially unacceptable? One in which we compete without sabotaging others, or perhaps even one where nations cooperate? Should we work to bring this about? An award-winning developer and producer of interactive multimedia applications, Dr. Larry Katz is Professor Emeritus, Adjunct Professor, Head of the innovative pedagogy and Sport Performance program, and Director of the Sports Technology Research Laboratory, Faculty of Kinesiology, University of Calgary. An Educational Psychologist, he is interested in how people learn and how they can improve their performance using innovation and technology. His research interests include, performance analysis, educational technology, data analytics, virtual environments, multimedia design, collaborative online learning, pedagogy, and health and wellness education. A former competitive athlete, coach, coaching instructor, referee, and volunteer leader, Dr. Katz has first-hand experience with intense competition and the impact of competing when cooperation is mutually beneficial. For over 20 years, he worked on and recently patented his trademarked Move Improve ® mobile platform for peer-to-peer, self-directed, and consensus learning. Follow me at https://www.therationalview.ca Join the Facebook group @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Insta @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #competition #cooperation

In this episode I’m exploring the story of the father of atomic power, Admiral Hyman Rickover. This was based on a suggestion from a listener. Thanks Loki! Rickover is best known for his role in developing the US nuclear submarine program in the 1950’s. His ground-breaking work demonstrates that Small Modular Reactors are a safe and effective method of generating clean carbon-free energy. Today I will be interviewing an author who has recently published a biography of Rickover. Marc Wortman received a doctorate in Comparative Literature from Princeton University. Dr. Wortman is an independent historian and freelance journalist living in New Haven. He is the author of four book on American military and social history, most recently Admiral Hyman Rickover: Engineer of Power (Yale University Press, 2022). As an award-winning freelance journalist, Marc has written for many publications, including Vanity Fair, Smithsonian, Time, Air & Space, and The Daily Beast. He has spoken to audiences around the country and has appeared on CNN, NPR, C-SPAN BookTV, History Channel, and other broadcast outlets. He has taught at Princeton, Quinnipiac Universities and a college program at a maximum security prison. He was the recipient of a New York Public Library Research Fellowship and was the 2014 Jalonick Memorial Distinguished Lecturer at the University of Texas Dallas. Follow me at https://therationalview.podbean.com Facebook @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #nuclearpower #SMR #atomicpower #greenenergy #nuclearnavy

This is a fun joint podcast with co-host Andy Vasily of the successful ‘Run your life’ podcast. Andy is a friend from way back. We went to public school together. Andy helped me set up my podcast a couple years ago and get started with a few helpful hints. His Run Your Life podcast is focused on physical fitness and self realization. In this episode we reminisce a bit and share the wisdom we have gathered over the forty or so years since our last meeting. We chat about how we both ended up in podcasting, and how we each are on a quest to find meaning in our lives. Andy's podcast can be found at www.runyourlifepodcast.com Follow me at www.therationalview.ca Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #podcasting #selfrealization #pechakucha

In this episode I book-end my two episode investigation on the impacts of bullying with someone who has interviewed victims of bullying to attempt to characterize the impacts. I recently did a podcast that reviewed my experiences with bullying as a child and how it seemed to have impacted my personality and my life. From a high level, Dr. deLara’s results resonated with me. It felt good to identify an external reason for why I found it hard to interact with others. But let’s be careful and question our assumptions. Life is difficult and challenging for everyone. Can victims blame their entire life experience on bullying? No. We need to be careful about confirmation bias. It is difficult to guess how life altering these events really were. Perhaps I would have turned out shy and socially awkward anyways. Any good science includes a control group to contrast. Let’s find out what the evidence says. Dr. Ellen Walser deLara is an associate professor emerita in the School of Social Work at Syracuse University. She is also a practicing family therapist. Dr. deLara received her doctorate from Cornell University in educational psychology and was a post-doctoral fellow at Cornell focused on child maltreatment. Her areas of research address adolescent development, child maltreatment, school and community violence, and bullying from systemic and developmental perspectives. Currently, Dr. deLara is investigating the long-term consequences of childhood bullying on adult relationships and mental health. She has presented widely at national and international conferences and speaks frequently to the media on bullying and school violence. Dr. deLara’s books include: Bullying Scars: The impact on adult life and relationships (Oxford University Press), And Words Can Hurt Forever: How to protect adolescents from bullying, harassment, and emotional violence (Simon & Schuster) and School-based Intervention Programs (Houghton-Mifflin) co-authored with Dr. James Garbarino. Subscribe at https://therationalview.podbean.com Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #bullying #mentalhealth

In this episode I want to share something personal about my life. This episode is about bullying and its lifelong effects. My bully made me who I am today. I hope if you are experiencing bullying that you take the time to listen. I learned a lot in school, and most of it in the schoolyard. I learned to run fast, and dodge. I learned that there is no justice in the world. I learned the world is a harsh place and the good guys lose. I learned to be self sufficient. I learned to escape into fantasy. My life was shaped by a series of bullies. I’m only now learning to stick up for myself. To value myself. To not run from conflict when it is necessary. To speak up for my rights. Do I have regrets? Sure. Today I like who I’ve become and I wouldn’t change a thing now that I have worked through the pain. Do we need adversity to make good strong people willing to stand up and take a risk for others? Check out transcripts at www.therationalview.ca Facebook @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #therationalview #podcast #bullying #mentalhealth #adversity #personalgrowth

In this episode I summarize my investigation of consciousness. I’ve been interviewing several experts and there is a huge diversity of thought on the topic of thought. It is called ‘the hard problem of consciousness’ to explain why we have a subjective experience of existence. What have I learned? The problem is hard because people don’t agree on an objective set of criteria about what consciousness entails. If there is no clear definition, it is no surprise it is hard to explain. Philosophers fall back on the word ‘Qualia’ meaning those set of 1st person experiences which evade any objective definition. Www.TheRationalView.ca Facebook @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #consciousness #sentience #thought

In this episode I am interviewing a fellow supporter of nuclear energy who, although not a Canadian, she posted an article on Canada Day singing the praises of the CANDU reactor. I think CANDU is an underappreciated technological wonder, similar to the Avro Arrow. It is also at risk of going down that same path unless Canadians rise up and tell their MPs and MPPs that we need more of them. Angelica Oung is a journalist specializing in Asia and energy matters living in Taipei, Taiwan. In her spare time she is a nuclear energy enthusiast and advocate known as the Manic Nuclear Scheme Girl on her substack https://elementalenergy.substack.com/ Go to www.therationalview.ca for transcripts Join the Facebook discuss @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #nuclearenergy #atomicenergy #savePickering #CANDU #cleanenergy #greenenergy

In this episode I return to my investigation of the physical and philosophical bases of consciousness. Today I will be taking on a new perspective from a leading expert in both philosophy and artificial intelligence. Bernardo Kastrup is the executive director of Essentia Foundation. His work has been leading the modern renaissance of metaphysical idealism, the notion that reality is essentially mental. He has a Ph.D. in philosophy and another Ph.D. in computer engineering specializing in artificial intelligence. As a scientist, Bernardo has worked for the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and the Philips Research Laboratories. Find The Rational View on YouTube! Join the Facebook Discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #Podcast #mind #panpsychism #consciousness #idealism #solipsism #metaphysics

In this episode I am returning to one of my favourite topics—the clean energy transition. Today I wanted to explore the life cycle greenhouse gas footprint of the shift to electric vehicles. Many governments are using a transition to electrified transportation as the foundation of their GHG emissions reduction programs. Today I’m going to an expert to find out how effective this transition will be on our society’s GHG emissions profile. Dr. Gerfried Jungmeier holds a Master’s degree in mechanical engineering and received a PhD studying the Greenhouse Gas Balance of Bioenergy Systems. He is an future energy systems researcher at Joanneum Research Forschungsgesellschaft mbH. He lectures at Vienna University of Technology, Danube University Krems, and University of Applied Science Kapfenberg. He is an expert in the life cycle assessment of energy and mobility systems. My podcast is hosted at https://therationalview.podbean.com Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #therationalview #podcast #electricvehicles #energytransition #netzero

On my episode today I will be exploring a fun topic—science fiction, with a friend an colleague who is also an up and coming science fiction author. We will discuss themes of communicating science and our shared love of science fiction. Eric Choi is a writer, editor, and aerospace engineer in Toronto. He has twice won the Prix Aurora Award – Canada’s national prize for excellence in science fiction and fantasy – for his short story “Crimson Sky” and for the anthology The Dragon and the Stars, and he was the first recipient of the Isaac Asimov Award (now the Dell Magazines Award) for his novelette “Dedication”. His short fiction has appeared in more than two dozen publications in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Hungary, and Japan. He holds a B.A.Sc in engineering science and an M.A.Sc in aerospace engineering, both from the University of Toronto, and an MBA from York University. In 2009, he was one of the Top 40 finalists (out of 5,351 applicants) in the Canadian Space Agency’s astronaut recruitment campaign. Podcast transcripts at www.therationalview.ca Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #science #sciencefiction #communication

In this episode I am continuing my investigation into the so-called hard problem of consciousness. I’ve spoken to several people who believe that consciousness arose in single celled organisms and is somehow integrated at higher levels through electrical synchronization or intercellular molecular transport into a unified experience. Hindus and Buddhists believe that there is a Universal consciousness of which we all partake. This is similar in some ways to Sir Roger Penrose’ theory of consciousness called Orchestrated Objective Reduction, where microtubule organelles in the brain’s neurons have evolved to concentrate the diffuse universal consciousness present in the collapse of quantum superpositions. Some of these folks believe that the randomness at the heart of quantum mechanics is necessary for free will and volition. Others like Bertrand Russel believe that we act in accordance with our will even if our actions have past causes and the future is pre-determined. Today I’m honoured to be interviewing an expert who pushes the limits of human knowledge in terms of our understanding of the implications of quantum computing in regards to artificial intelligence. Scott Aaronson is David J. Bruton Centennial Professor of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin, and previously at MIT. He received his bachelor's from Cornell University and his PhD from UC Berkeley. Aaronson's research in theoretical computer science has focused mainly on the capabilities and limits of quantum computers. His first book, Quantum Computing Since Democritus, was published in 2013 by Cambridge University Press. He's received the National Science Foundation’s Alan T. Waterman Award, the United States PECASE Award, the Tomassoni-Chisesi Prize in Physics, and the ACM Prize in Computing, and is a Fellow of the ACM. I'm publishing transcripts of some podcasts at www.therationalview.ca Join the Facebook discussion @TheRationalView Twitter @AlScottRational Instagram @The_Rational_View #TheRationalView #podcast #consciousness #sentience #artificialintelligence #quantum computing