Welcome to the You Are Not So Smart Podcast.

Episode 258.

Let me ask you a question here.

How many of you here today used to believe in something, used to past tense, whether

it was flying saucers, psychic powers, religion, anything like that, you can raise your hand

if you want to.

I mean, I imagine, yeah, not everybody's born a skeptic, right?

A lot of you were raising your hand.

I'd even say most of you from what I can tell.

Now, let me ask you a second question.

Second question is, how many of you no longer believe in those things and you became a skeptic?

Because somebody got in your face screaming and called you an idiot.

That is the voice of astronomer and science communicator Phil Plate, who is our guest

in this episode.

We're going to talk about his new book, Under Alien Skies, a sightseer's guide to the

universe.

I want you to know that that's what this episode is mostly about, but first, I would like

to go on a tangent to tell you a little bit more about that audio where it came from.

It's a lecture that Plate gave more than a decade ago at a gathering, a yearly convention

called The Amazing Meeting.

So where does this leave us?

How do we attain that goal of a rational, reasonable, enlightened society?

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