It's Monday, October 23rd, 2017, and you're listening to Inquiring Minds.

I'm Indra Viscontas.

And I'm Kishore Hari.

Each week, we bring you a new, in-depth exploration of the space where science, politics, and society collide.

We endeavor to find out what's true, what's left to discover, and why it all matters.

You can find us online at inquiring.

Show, on Twitter, at Inquiring Show,

and on Facebook. And you can subscribe to the show on iTunes or any other podcasting app.

Inquiring Minds listeners probably know that I work at the University of California, San Francisco,

and one of the programs I run is I put on a giant party for science enthusiasts across the Bay Area

that I like to call the Bay Area Science Festival.

I mostly like to call it that because that's its actual name.

Yeah, it's a good name.

But it's basically two weeks of events across the area that put you in

direct contact with scientists and engineers, ranging from hands-on days for families that are free

to more ridiculous things in the evening, let's just say. And our guest this week is actually

putting on an event during the Science Festival.

Yeah, and I actually participated in one of his events. You participated in this event. So our guess

this week is Zach Wienersmith, who is the artist behind Saturday morning breakfast cereal, one of the more

successful web comics out there. And he started an event years ago called BaFest, the festival of bad

ad hoc hypotheses where

scientists get up on stage and give a total BS theory for anything they'd like.

...