http://bit.ly/ScienceSalon146
Shermer and Prothero discuss:
• flat earth theories and how we know the earth is round,
• theories of the hollow earth and how we know it is not hollow,
• the return of Ptolemy and an Earth-centered model of the solar system (and how we know it's wrong),
• how science deals with anomalies, fringe claims and challenges to orthodoxy,
• if humans were present in the San Diego region 130,000 years ago,
• how to achieve scientific consensus (and the path strewn with pitfalls to achieve it),
• from Newton to Einstein and what ultimately determines whether a theory is true or not,
• myths about floods and why such stories arise in some cultures but not others,
• catastrophism versus uniformitarianism in geology,
• the age of the Earth and how geologists determined it,
• the myth of Atlantis and what Plato really meant by his story,
• the biblical stories of the world and how we should read the book as literature and not science,
• how science won the evolution-creation wars,
• scientific denial and how to deal with it, and
• the concrete consequences of refusing science.
Dr. Donald R. Prothero has been teaching geology for over 33 years as Professor of Geology at Occidental College in Los Angeles and Lecturer in Geobiology at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and currently at Pierce College in Woodland Hills, in California. He earned a master's degree, a master's degree in philosophy, and a doctorate. degrees in geological sciences from Columbia University in 1982. He is currently the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of 33 books and more than 250 scientific articles, including five leading geology textbooks and three specialist books as well as edited symposium volumes. and other technical works. He is on the editorial board of Skeptic magazine and has previously served as associate editor or technical editor for Geology, Paleobiology, and Journal of Paleontology. He is a member of the Geological Society of America, the Paleontological Society, and the Linnaean Society of London, and has also received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Science Foundation. In 1991, he received the Paleontological Society's Schuchert Prize for the outstanding paleontologist under 40 years of age. He has also featured in several television documentaries, including episodes of Paleoworld (BBC), Prehistoric Monsters Revealed (History Channel), Entelodon and Hyaenodon (National Geographic Channel), and Walking with Prehistoric Beasts (BBC).
This dialogue was recorded on October 28, 2020 as part of the Science Salon Podcast series hosted by Michael Shermer and presented by The Skeptics Society, California.
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