Rationally Speaking #116 - Jim Baggott and Massimo on Farewell to Reality

Rationally Speaking Podcast

New York City Skeptics

Society & Culture, Skepticism, Science, Philosophy

4.6 • 787 Ratings

🗓️ 7 September 2014

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As part of our special mini-interviews series, Massimo talks to Jim Baggott, author of “Farewell to Reality: How Modern Physics Has Betrayed the Search for Scientific Truth.” Jim is one of an increasingly vocal number of critics of some directions taken lately by research in fundamental theoretical physics, and particularly of string theory. Massimo and Jim explore what it means for some physicists to call for a new era of “post-empirical” science.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there, rationally speaking listeners. Come join me and Massimo for a live podcast taping in New York City on Sunday, September 28th at 2 p.m. Our special guest will be Steve Novella, and we'll all be talking about the scope of scientific skepticism. Basically, what's the state of the skeptic movement? What topics should we be focusing our energies on and what topics, if any, should we consider off limits to skeptical inquiry or activism?
0:24.6	The taping is free and open to the public and there will be a Q&A with the audience afterwards.
0:29.2	You can find out more information on the New York City Skeptics website, nycceptics.org.
0:33.9	Hope to see you all there.
0:35.5	What you're about to hear is a new format for the podcast that we're
0:38.4	experimenting with, a mini episode in which either I or Massimo will interview a guest one-on-one
0:44.3	in a shorter version of the podcast. We'll be interspersing these mini episodes occasionally
0:48.7	with our regular format of the podcast. Hope you enjoy and keep on tuning in to the Rationally speaking is a presentation of New York City Skeptics
1:13.8	dedicated to promoting critical thinking,
1:16.4	skeptical inquiry, and science education.
1:19.0	For more information, please visit us at n.ycptics.org. Welcome to the rationally speaking interviews.
1:34.9	I'm your host, Massimo P. Luchin.
1:36.6	With me today is Jim Bagot, the author of Farewell to Reality,
1:40.9	How Modern Physics Has Betrayed the Search for Scientific Truth.
1:44.8	Welcome, Jim.
1:49.9	Hey, good to see you. So what's this betrayal of reality you're talking about here?
1:58.3	The idea for this book really came from an infuriating sense of helplessness.
2:03.8	Watching a BBC science documentary back in January 2011.
2:07.5	The title of this documentary was What Is Reality?
2:10.5	Of course, that's an interesting subject in itself.
2:17.2	And the first ten minutes of this documentary was a perfectly reasonable discussion of the search for the top quark at Fermilab and some of the more
2:20.9	bizarre but experimentally verified aspects of quantum physics. But after 10 minutes, the program
	...

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