March 31, 2011 • 33 mins
The human brain strives to organize and classify sensory information. But what happens when new information conflicts with pre-existing data? Tune in as Julie and guest host Ben explore the fascinating phenomenon known as cognitive dissonance.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
I'm Julie Douglas and my name is Ben Bowlen. I
host car Stuff Stuff Then Want you to Know, and
today I am guest hosting with you, Julie. That's right.
(00:24):
Today Robert is not here, but in his stead is
Mr Ben Boleyn and Robert will be back um for
April five and infinity beyond that. But so thank you
very much for hanging out with us today. Oh, thank you.
I'm actually a big time fan, longtime listener, first time
co host. Yeah, yeah, I know. It's very nice to
(00:46):
have you here because today's topic, we think is going
to lend itself nicely to April Fool's Day and a
bit of what you do with stuff they don't want
you to know because you deal with conspiracy theories of time, right, Yes, yes,
it is in a lot of ways. I would say
it's it's the focus of stuff then want you to know.
(01:07):
We also cover some paranormal things. But if we're talking
about conspiracy theories, uh, let's let's go ahead and take
it all the way to the top. Let's let's take
it to the Moon to the Moon. All right, you're
you're speaking of the conspiracy theory that the moon landing
was just a hoax perpetrated by the United States government. Yes,
(01:30):
and this is uh, that's that's great. You've encapsulated it
in a sentence. This if if conspiracy theories were like
a band and they had a discography, this would be
on the greatest hits because this is one of the
classic conspiracies and it ranges. The reasons that people believe
the moon landing was faked can can change depending on
(01:53):
the circumstances and the conversation. But you know, we've got
an excellent uh, we've got an excellent article for our
own John Fuller, Right, that's right, and wonderful editor, John.
And it's a great article, and it's about why some
people believe the moon landings were a hoax. And you know,
there's some reasons that you'll typically here. Oh yeah, I
(02:14):
mean they're really really um. Typical things are that if
you look at the photographs, there are no stars in
the background, right and um, and they say, well, if
there's no there are no stars, obviously this was done
on a set, right. And now, so it's like you
know what that's not actually why, it's because the sun's
rays are hitting the surface and it's way too bright
(02:35):
for any camera to capture something in the distance. Right, So,
you know, there are these reasons that seem kind of
logical that that you can see in conspiracy theory, you know,
starting to weave them their way in. But then you
can refute it just as easily with well science and
an empirical objective observation. Um, there's also you know, it's funny,
(02:57):
there's a sidebar this conspiracy theory. One of the furthest
reaches of it is the idea that Stanley Kubrick, no
one other than Stanley Kubrick himself, actually participated and was
the one who filmed the fake landing on the Moon.
Of course, I know it all makes sense now the
pieces come together. I got it, totally makes sense because
(03:18):
he's got skin in the game with one. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
And it sounds sort of reasonable. Of course, these explanations
people would have, if they don't, uh, if they don't
seem to quite jibe with what you already know, then
there must be a reason for that. And the reason,
of course can't be that we were wrong. Oh no, no,
(03:40):
what's it was? Another really good one from that. Okay,
let's go with the infamous sea rock. A lot of
people who believe the moon landing was faked will tell
you that it was a prop that was that actually
dentally was shown on film with the letters C on
it like someone some uh foolish proper person forgot to
(04:01):
turn the rock around because you know whatever, like maybe
the company's logo was emblazoned on it and the sea
was showing right, And never mind that, NASA says, this
is most likely a stray hair that got onto the
film and the developing process, because of course that's just
smoke and mirrors, right right, that's just of course you have.
NASA would say that that seems really logical, and that's
(04:23):
that's not the only one, of course, you you know,
I'm sure we have a list of these here somewhere.
Um shadow links. Oh yeah, the different shadow links. They
were saying, okay, here's here's a photo of two astronauts
are standing together, and yet their photo is showing these
lengths that are disproportionate, and why is that? Why is that? Yeah? Yeah,
(04:45):
and so NASA says, okay, again, it's not some sort
of faulty lighting system that we used on our set
that you think we built. It's actually that the terrain
is rough and it's hilly and it produces variance. Is
just like if you were to take a picture on
a snow covered right and that you know, of course
that makes sense again if you have taken photographs on
(05:06):
a snow covered hill. But of course, if you believe
that this is all some sort of large attempt to
cover up quote unquote the truth, then of course NASA
is gonna come up with explanations that may even seem clever,
but but they don't jive again with what you're thinking.
Another example, the American flag flapping in the breeze. Uh.
(05:29):
As we know, one of the reasons that there's not
a resort on the Moon yet is that the atmosphere
is not conducive to human beings or wind, and so
the idea is, how could how could the wind uh
show a flag or how could the film show a
flag flapping in the breeze. And that's that's one of
(05:49):
the other points. I mean, we you know, we could
go on about this, uh, we go on about this forever,
and um, Robert I apologize if people write mean things
about moon landings to you. Please please guys forward the
email to me. Um, you know you have other accusations
slow motion films and wires. And for a long time,
these groups, the people who believed in that the moon
(06:10):
landing was faked for some reason, and the people who
believe that those people were crazy, were understandably contentious and
and um right, right, yes, And it was difficult for
them to have a dialogue about that until Julian Assange
of wiki leaks released some very interesting cables regarding the
(06:32):
moon landing. Yeah, it turns out it's conclusively proven, due
to the or from these diplomatic cables, uh, that the
moon landing was faked with the assistance Stanley Kubrick, this
just hit the news. Go ahead and google it. You're kidding,
Oh yeah, Well to make sure you get right to
(06:52):
the story, go ahead and google Happy April Fool's Day
been fallen. I'm sorry, yeah, it's but you see how
easy that was. I started, I was like, what wiki leaks, Wait,
this is a new source, because it sounds reasonable if
something like that was going to come from somewhere right right,
Our new source in the sense that we're starting obviously
(07:14):
to get a flood of information we haven't gotten before,
sure new sensory information, right, And my brain was starting
to take that in and I have to say, like
I was like, Okay, no, and he's he's not he's
not actually telling the truth that were there. But a
little part of my brain was going, but Wiki leaks
telling us stuff we haven't known before. And I think
that's what's so fascinating about just the whole is the
(07:37):
man the moon landings, where they a hoax, but the
fact that you know, we have this sort of logic
that can't help but assemble itself on its own. It's
almost like its own emergence in our brain cells try
and put all this together for us. And I was
thinking about it. You know, we can't help but detect patterns,
(07:57):
and especially when we look at path examples um that
have eroded our faith and information and government in the corporations.
And a really good example is the cigarette industry. Oh
that's a great example, you know. I mean, you know,
for years, you know, decades long foot see playing with
the government in terms of the information that they released
(08:19):
about cigarettes and how harmful they are. So you've got
an example like that in the public, well knows now
that that was information that was kept from them. We've
got Watergate, You've got Milli Vanilli, you know. I mean,
these are things that you can start to point to
and say, you know, if it happened before, you know,
why couldn't happen again. This presentation is brought to you
(08:46):
by Intel Sponsors of Tomorrow because human beings depend The
way that the human species has survived for so long
is really based on the ability to detect patterns and
to think critically and abstractly about the future, or to
(09:06):
let the precedent set from those past experiences influence our
attitudes and behaviors when confronted with information that seems similar
or seems to again coincide with what we had believed before.
And this can lead to a funny little thing. And
(09:26):
by funny little thing, I mean one an enormously influential
theory of psychology, uh that we call cognitive dissonance. Yeah,
it's the bread to the butter when it comes to
conspiracy theories and how we try to explain to ourselves, um,
how this could happen? And I will you know, I
do want to say, like I'm not making fun of
(09:48):
conspiracy theorists. And I'm not making light of UM any
of this, but I do think that we all have
a little bit of a conspiracy theorists inside of ourselves. Sure,
And it doesn't necessary really have to be UM for
something like it doesn't necessarily have to be for something
like the idea that the world is ruled by freemasons
(10:08):
or reptilian aliens or anything. It can be, it can
it can be a small sort of theory as uh.
I think we talked about a little bit before on
the air where you say, you know, uh, that person
is after me, Yeah, yeah, or my cat, My cat
is purposely you know, perpetrating this crime against me. I
just know it. I just need to get that camera
(10:30):
in my house hooked up and then I'll have evidence. Well,
cats are are actually vengeful creatures. So I don't know
that example, right, But I mean, basically, when you bring
up cognitive dissonance, what we're talking about, and in more
high salutent terms, is that when actions conflict with our beliefs,
they can produce a phenomenon called cognitive distance, and it's
(10:52):
essentially a way of dealing with a discomfort that arises
when your brain is trying to parse out two different
cognitions which can and be manifested in our beliefs or
our actions. And uh, here's the if if I could
take us with a historical sidebar real quicks. Okay, So
this term cognitive dissonance. We we get this from the
(11:12):
nineteen fifties by a social psychologist named Leon Festinger. And uh,
the interesting thing is his his research came about because
he was trying to understand why a UFO doomsday cult
uh increased trying to proselytize new believers when their prophecy failed.
(11:33):
So this actually does come from a study of conspiracy theory. Okay.
So and so his he kind of sat there and went, hey,
now that that, um, it's obvious that the UFOs maybe
didn't have the evidence that that this group thought there
was why in the world where they continue with their beliefs, Right,
he was like, what's going on here? Excellent question for
(11:56):
for the we'll do the reader's digest version of this.
So basically, there's, uh, this person, this cult leader who
begins receiving messages of course, uh, intangible messages from a
UFO telling her about the end of the world, gathering
up followers. These she forms a cult. These people are
(12:19):
um together, united in their preparation for a coming apocalypse
with a definite date. And the date comes and it
goes and nothing. The world surprisingly does not end. But
the cult leader, uh strangely enough, gets a new message
that says, due to their the good works of the
(12:41):
cult and the good intentions or whatnot, um, they have
saved the world, which means that their religion is now
not disproven but further validated, which means that they have
somehow um. This this kind of attempt to even out
(13:03):
or balance the gap between the knowledge that they have,
which is that the world is not ended, and the
actions that they took, you know, um, and to make themselves,
I don't want to say, feel better, but to sort
of rationalize the distance between those two. I don't know though,
I think that's the crux of it. I mean, because
that is the discomfort they're feeling, right, Yes, that's the
(13:25):
cognitive distance. Okay, they're like that is not matching up.
And and all of a sudden, the cult leader, in
automatic writing, right, which is like so eighties, um, you know,
gets this message and then they're all relieved of that
discomfort and that relief outweighs the chance I suppose for
(13:47):
true knowledge in this case. And so they're they're going
to be tied to that because at least they're feeling better,
and it's all squared to their logic and life is
normal again, at least for them, whatever normal is. And
and then with as Fastener was exploring this, you know,
he said that there are that this dissonance produces a discomfort,
(14:10):
and correspondingly, there will arise pressures to reduce or eliminate
this dissonance. And you know, he goes on to analyze
the ways in which this dissonance occurs and how it resolves,
and he found that there are several ways to to
find this. Uh, there are several ways to deal with
(14:32):
this cognitive dissonance, and I'll tell you what they are. Um,
a person may try to change one or more of
their behaviors or beliefs. That's the first way. The second
is that a person may try to acquire new information
or beliefs to increase the consonants, which will lessen the
overall dissonance. I mean, that's that's obvious in the case
(14:54):
of the UFOL cult. And then the third is that
a person may try to forget or play down the
importan the cognition that butting up against the contradictory cognition.
And there's our smoking example again, right, there's a there's
a great example of smoking. Um. And this is from passenger. Again,
I'm quoting a passenger. Uh. He says, for example, a
(15:14):
cigarette smoker who believes that smoking is bad for his
health has an opinion that is dissonant with the knowledge
that he is continuing to smoke. He may have many
other opinions, beliefs, or items of knowledge that are consonant
with continuing to smoke, but the dissonance still exists too,
and because of that come because of that discomfort, you know,
because humans want patterns. We want all the pieces of
(15:36):
a puzzle to fit. Because of that, this smoker in
this question may try to change a behavior belief, may
try to quit smoking, for instance, UH, may try to
learn new things that will increase the consonants, something that says, well,
smoking might be bad for other people, but for me,
it's actually genius, um, you know. Or may just try
(15:57):
to forget it or play it down, you know, never
mind them young, or I'm under a last stress. Yeah, yeah,
and the forgetting part right, I may have to say,
I have to admit that when I was a smoker,
I oftentimes, you know, sort of willfully forgot the fact
that I was doing all sorts of crazy things to
my poor cells in my body. Um. So, I mean
it happens, right, And that's why I say it's it's
(16:18):
really this. This is so fascinating because there is a
little bit of cognitive dissonance going on with us, all
of us at some level, every day with with the
things that we're dealing with. And then you just see
it in really extreme forms and stuff like conspiracy theories
revolving around the moon. Sure sure, or we we could
(16:39):
also see at times, um, cognitive dissonance can really come
out in uh decision points, you know. Uh. For for instance,
you will often hear that people will say a a
public figure or a politician or a large, um, very
influential business owner is saying things that seem to be hypocritical.
(17:01):
But how much of that is actually how much of
that is um malevolent or calculated? And how much of
that is just these poor folks functioning under cognitive dissonances. Yeah,
so and basically funneling those perceptions through right, so this
is really interesting. There is a neuroscientist named Cameron Carter
at the University of California Davis and UM. This is
(17:24):
actually information pulled from a Newsweek article titled Wired for
Hypocrisy by Sharon Bagley UM. Carter used volunteers to study
their brains basically during cognitive dissonance UH, and he did
that with fl MARI and the volunteer spent forty five
minutes doing a really rope task inside fm R I
(17:45):
tube and then afterward they were asked to answer questions
about their experience, which, of course the board across the
board they did not like, which seems obvious, right, You're
stuck in a tiny little tube doing something boring and
you're really gonna probably so I would highly dislike it.
That's what I would check highly disliked UM. But they
were asked to answer the questions again that they had
(18:09):
answered after their first experience, and this time half of
the volunteers were told that their answers were going to
be read by a nervous patient who needed reassurance about
undergoing an fm R. The other half were told that
they were going to get a dollar each time they
answered the questions as though they were enjoying the scanner kitching.
So as though, so that's the that's the important part,
(18:31):
to answer the questions um with two sort of present
an opinion publicly that does not match with their personal
opinion or experience. Yeah, and of course I'm just gonna
ask which do you think which narra do you think
was more effective? Hmmm, that's you know, that's a question
for me. That's tricky because it seems, you know, on
(18:54):
the offset, just with this information, it seems like there
may be a difference between the people who am angst
us are profiteers and who amongst us are nurturing people. Okay,
but you know what, for just just for guessing, just
for the sake of guessing, I would say that the
people who are the people who are motivated by the
(19:18):
money probably think that the probably actually think that this
might be a better thing. No, no, no, no, wait,
oh I don't know, I don't know. Oh, I don't know.
I think you just revealed your your black capitalist heart.
I did. I'm a profiteer, yeah, you're a profitier. Actually,
it was the people who were most concerned about a
nervous patient and the exciting thing about this whole thing,
(19:42):
UM wasn't necessarily that they could see the neural correlations
what was going on inside of their brain when they
were lying, because they also took f M R I
when they were UM, when they were essentially lying on
those tests to see what was going on, all of
those brains, All the areas in the brain were active,
all those areas that are trying to square two different
(20:04):
pieces of information. Yes, yeah, that was definitely happening, and
that is interesting in and of itself. But the really again,
the really interesting thing was that it was the people
who um who were trying to yeah that this this
phony patient that it was okay. Those were the people
who have the most activity. And then those were also
(20:26):
the people who afterward continued to say that they had
a good experience and that they changed their brain essentially,
like they changed their actually their actions and their beliefs
based on this. Julie, there is there is a fan
of Orwell somewhere out there on the internet listening to
show right now, and they're waiting for us to say
it you win, double think. It's it's almost it's it's
(20:49):
kind of similar to that, and it sort of makes sense,
because if you think about it, your cognitive dissonance is
sort of your brain asking why is this happening? Why
am I doing this? Um? And now that I have
that answer wrong, it makes sense that the people who
are receiving an external reward or an external justification for
their line will find themselves uh less uh, you know,
(21:15):
with less of a desire to internally retrofit their ideas.
So they can say they can say, you know, well,
of course I'm lying to these people. I'm getting a
dollar every time. Let me lie to some more people. Yeah, sure, yeah,
they don't really have any skin in the game emotionally. Yeah,
that's a good point. But when you're trying to be involved,
um and motivate someone, I guess in a in a
(21:39):
in a qualified way, whether when your reward is something
that is qualitative rather than quantitative. In this case, right,
they're trying to make somebody feel better, and in the
process of saying all these it's not that bad, it's
not that boring, you're gonna have fun. In the process
of that, they're starting to um. So sort of pull
(22:00):
the move that Merlin pulls in a Connecticut Yankee King
Arthur's court. The Mark Twain book, Merlin makes the mistake
of a lot of magicians and believes that his stuff
is actual magic. And uh so you start to believe
yourself as you sell these days. Well, I will tell you.
I'll give you a personal example, and it'll be a
short one. But when we were at south By Southwest,
(22:22):
I was at the Austin Airport and I was coming home,
and it was overbooked, of course, and I had not
had a seat confirmed yet, even though you know, I've
had my um my arrangements made well in advance. And
so what happened is I got bumped from that plane
and I was rerouted to St. Paul, Minnesota, and then
back down to Atlanta. St. Paul. Yeah, it was mad.
(22:46):
It was steaming mad, understandable. It was like a love
ster that had crawled out of the pot and I
was seeking revenge. Um And they said, okay, well, and
I'm not gonna tell you how much they paid me
for my inconveniences, but they paid me a considerable sum.
And at the time I was like, yeah, whatever, money
doesn't matter. You're awful. But I can't tell them are
(23:08):
awful because it's the principle of the things right, I did.
I didn't actually say it's the principal thing, and thanks
a lot and whatever, um, And I have to say
that ever since then, I applied that money to a
mini vacation and the experience feels a lot less awful
than it was, because it was it was like then
it was, you know, another eight hours of travel, um,
(23:29):
and so I want and so forth. But I'm going
to tell you that that sort of cognitive dissonance was
dispelled by the folks at Delta. So I know that
they're studying this, and you're now you're reaching the state
of consonants where things are starting to fit together. Things
are fine, but kind a mini vacation. But here's the question.
Oh and and just for the just for the goodies,
(23:50):
for the people who love the love the specifics and
the anatomical Yeah, yeah, we should. We should talk about
the parts of the brain that that are letting up
during that from R I, So, cognitive dissonance engages the
dorsal anterior singulate cortex and anterior insula. Yes, these are
the parts that These are the parts that light up.
If you want to look on a map of the brain,
(24:11):
will not light up. I don't mean like someone's brain
is made of LEDs. Right, but this is the blood
is rushing to those parts of the rain. Sure the
activity increases there during these cognitive dissonance things. And Julie,
I have to ask you, um, do you think that
this experience uh in your personal life has given you
(24:32):
a confirmation bias? Uh. I don't know that it's given
me a confirmation bias, but I can tell you that
I've certainly felt or or have my own confirmation biases
in my own life. And when we talk about confirmation bias,
it's really similar to cognitive dissonance, and that again we
can't help but create patterns out of random randomness. Yes,
(24:55):
like the like the Supreme Court of the United States,
the the human species. The human brain places a great
value on precedent and on expectations that the past should
match the president in the future. Right. And there is
a really interesting book, uh, Leonard Metal metalon though excuse me,
(25:17):
only try that a gang, because I'm sure that at
least his his family would appreciate that I pronounced it correctly.
But Leonard Mallette. Now it's called Drunkard's Walk, and it's
a book about randomness, and it turns chaos theory UM
and Medlow is also the co writer of A Brief
History Time with Stephen Hawking and for those of you
that are interested in this, he's also the victor of
(25:39):
a YouTube face off with Depac Chopra on quantum entanglement
and spirituality. And I know some people are going to
love to check out that way. It's really it's actually
pretty great. Um. I definitely recommend it. But he talks
about the confirmation bias UM and he says that when
we are in the grasp of an illusion, or for
that matter, whenever we have a new idea, instead of
searching for waste prove our ideas wrong, we usually attempt
(26:03):
to prove them correct. Psychologists call this confirmation bias, and
it presents a major impediment to our ability to break
free of the misinterpretation of randomness. Uh. And it goes
on with to make matters worse. Not only do we
preferentially seek evidence to confirm our preconceived notions, but we
also interpret ambiguous evidence in favor of our ideas. This
(26:24):
can be a big problem because data are often ambiguous,
so by ignoring some patterns and emphasizing others, our clever
brains can reinforce their belief even in the absence of
convincing data. Yeah. So, I mean that's what I think
is interesting about confirmation confirmation biases. It is like cognitive dissonance,
but this is more behavioral. I suppose um and and
(26:44):
again stems from our experiences and pointing back to what
our expectations are. And I thought that was so fascinating
about the not looking at the ways that we're wrong,
because we always assume that we're right. Yeah, and and
a lot of and a lot of people, myself included,
at times. You know, it's nobody's favorite thing to be wrong. No,
no's just around saying like, how are how am I
(27:06):
wrong in the following ways at this very moment. You know, Now,
I I tried to do that when I'm working on
something really important right before I put it out, because
you know, that's just but that's just sort of a
way to proof read or cross check yourself. And in
the natural world, in informal situations that doesn't really happen.
(27:27):
People want to know if you if you, for instance,
believe that the moon landing is faked. When you're reading things,
you're reading things science proves that you are reading things
that will tend to reinforce your beliefs rather than denigratee
or erode those beliefs. Right, You're often going to seek
out information that that corroberates what you're thinking. Essentially. Yeah, um,
(27:52):
but I wanted to give you an example actually of
confirmation bias. I think that we have year perpetuated by me.
And this is from a listener emails from Russ Smith
and he says, hey, guys, Russ and Alliance, ohio here,
I love the show. I'm a college student and listen
to your podcast all the time walking to and from class.
(28:14):
But as a side note, you should always be aware
of your surroundings, especially when you're walking by yourself or
in the dark. That's true. Just a small correction though.
In one of your recent podcast you mentioned the lorax
cutting down needs. The lorax was speaking for the excuse me,
I flew up that, I'm sorry, um, cutting down trees,
(28:34):
not needs and causing the environmental change. In fact, it
was the onceler who cut down the trees to make
the needs. The Lorax was speaking for the trees against
the onesler all the best, Russ. Okay, so that was
me Um, and I do this all the time. Always
when I mean to talk about the on Sler, I
always talk about the Lorax because in my mind it's
(28:57):
acts cutting down or and I cannot square it. And
it drives me nuts because honestly, I read this book
at least once a week to my two year old,
not just my own personal reading. So anyway, so confirmation bias,
confirmation bias right there. Well, actually that's not conformation, that's
cognitive dissonance. Excuse me. So yeah, I mean there, that's
(29:18):
in action right there. My brain is trying to square it.
So myth mufford move on my part. Oh, but that's
just part of the human conditions. So now we have
a final proof, Um, as some of the conspiracy fans
of asked me, we have final proof that at least
one of the people who works at ausup works is
not a robot or an android. Yes, that is a
real letter that I received. Yeah, but I mean you're
(29:43):
kind of shimmering a little bit. I mean, how do
I know that you're not, you know, a Hall of
Graham like beamed in here by the illuminati. That's a
that's a great question, and that might be that might
be a podcast that goes uh more more on my end.
Uh we have we have you guys. So, um, well,
some people would say that, uh. Some people say, A,
(30:05):
that's that's ridiculous because the technology doesn't exist. But people
who already believe that, of course, would say, no, person a,
you're being ridiculous because that technology does exist, and it's
obviously been suppressed for thousands of years. Insert various building
blocks of existing thought or existing school thought there. Um,
(30:25):
people will uh in almost you know, it's easier to
describe this in terms of conspiracy theories, but this is
a common phenomenon in the human brain, both cognitive distance
and confirmation bias. I don't know, I just you're shimmering again.
And now I'm starting to think maybe you've just been
(30:46):
sent to talk about this and maybe make me think
that the moon landing actually was not a hoax and
you were sent here, weren't you. Well, that is a
very interesting question that we cannot answer completely. I am
not at liberty to divulge that. And all right, fine,
well you're confirming or denying it. I have some uh,
(31:10):
some great news, which is that our own science guru,
Robert Lamb, will be returning uh very soon. That's right,
that's right, and we'll be talking about what should be
talking about Flange's next week and why we have five
on each hand, which is such a good question. It
is it Actually, it's really fascinating, so we'll explore that.
(31:30):
But before we wrap up today, I just wanted to
give a really quick shout out to Rich Miles. It
is your birthday. Happy birthday, birthday, March one. Um. He
is in Laramie, Wyoming, and Nicole and his uh girlfriend
Mica actually wanted to to give you a shout out, so, um,
(31:52):
it's your birthday, your birthday. We won't do that too much,
but really, I hope you have a wonderful birthday. And
thank you so much for listening. And I would love
to know Ben Bullen. Yes, Julie, can you tell us
where people can reach you, how they can find you
and your various forms holographic forms. Oh yes, yes, you
(32:12):
can find you can find car stuff stuff then want
you to know um and stuff of genus on Facebook, Twitter,
We've got got blogs. Um. Also, let me pass the
shout out baton to our own John Fuller, of course,
who has written this excellent article about the moon landings.
Now you can. You can find John's article, along with
(32:35):
several other interesting, fascinating articles, on the website how stuff
works dot com. You've probably heard about our handy search bar.
That's right, just pop it in there, and you can
also find stuff to blow your mind at blow the
mind at Facebook and Twitter, and you can also drop
us note let us know what your favorite conspiracy theory
is at and blow the mind at how stuff works
(32:56):
dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
visit how stuff works dot com. To learn more about
the podcast, click on the podcast icon in the upper
right corner of our homepage. The how stuff Works iPhone
app has a ride. Download it today on iTunes
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
I'm Julie Douglas and my name is Ben Bowlen. I
host car Stuff Stuff Then Want you to Know, and
today I am guest hosting with you, Julie. That's right.
(00:24):
Today Robert is not here, but in his stead is
Mr Ben Boleyn and Robert will be back um for
April five and infinity beyond that. But so thank you
very much for hanging out with us today. Oh, thank you.
I'm actually a big time fan, longtime listener, first time
co host. Yeah, yeah, I know. It's very nice to
(00:46):
have you here because today's topic, we think is going
to lend itself nicely to April Fool's Day and a
bit of what you do with stuff they don't want
you to know because you deal with conspiracy theories of time, right, Yes, yes,
it is in a lot of ways. I would say
it's it's the focus of stuff then want you to know.
(01:07):
We also cover some paranormal things. But if we're talking
about conspiracy theories, uh, let's let's go ahead and take
it all the way to the top. Let's let's take
it to the Moon to the Moon. All right, you're
you're speaking of the conspiracy theory that the moon landing
was just a hoax perpetrated by the United States government. Yes,
(01:30):
and this is uh, that's that's great. You've encapsulated it
in a sentence. This if if conspiracy theories were like
a band and they had a discography, this would be
on the greatest hits because this is one of the
classic conspiracies and it ranges. The reasons that people believe
the moon landing was faked can can change depending on
(01:53):
the circumstances and the conversation. But you know, we've got
an excellent uh, we've got an excellent article for our
own John Fuller, Right, that's right, and wonderful editor, John.
And it's a great article, and it's about why some
people believe the moon landings were a hoax. And you know,
there's some reasons that you'll typically here. Oh yeah, I
(02:14):
mean they're really really um. Typical things are that if
you look at the photographs, there are no stars in
the background, right and um, and they say, well, if
there's no there are no stars, obviously this was done
on a set, right. And now, so it's like you
know what that's not actually why, it's because the sun's
rays are hitting the surface and it's way too bright
(02:35):
for any camera to capture something in the distance. Right, So,
you know, there are these reasons that seem kind of
logical that that you can see in conspiracy theory, you know,
starting to weave them their way in. But then you
can refute it just as easily with well science and
an empirical objective observation. Um, there's also you know, it's funny,
(02:57):
there's a sidebar this conspiracy theory. One of the furthest
reaches of it is the idea that Stanley Kubrick, no
one other than Stanley Kubrick himself, actually participated and was
the one who filmed the fake landing on the Moon.
Of course, I know it all makes sense now the
pieces come together. I got it, totally makes sense because
(03:18):
he's got skin in the game with one. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
And it sounds sort of reasonable. Of course, these explanations
people would have, if they don't, uh, if they don't
seem to quite jibe with what you already know, then
there must be a reason for that. And the reason,
of course can't be that we were wrong. Oh no, no,
(03:40):
what's it was? Another really good one from that. Okay,
let's go with the infamous sea rock. A lot of
people who believe the moon landing was faked will tell
you that it was a prop that was that actually
dentally was shown on film with the letters C on
it like someone some uh foolish proper person forgot to
(04:01):
turn the rock around because you know whatever, like maybe
the company's logo was emblazoned on it and the sea
was showing right, And never mind that, NASA says, this
is most likely a stray hair that got onto the
film and the developing process, because of course that's just
smoke and mirrors, right right, that's just of course you have.
NASA would say that that seems really logical, and that's
(04:23):
that's not the only one, of course, you you know,
I'm sure we have a list of these here somewhere.
Um shadow links. Oh yeah, the different shadow links. They
were saying, okay, here's here's a photo of two astronauts
are standing together, and yet their photo is showing these
lengths that are disproportionate, and why is that? Why is that? Yeah? Yeah,
(04:45):
and so NASA says, okay, again, it's not some sort
of faulty lighting system that we used on our set
that you think we built. It's actually that the terrain
is rough and it's hilly and it produces variance. Is
just like if you were to take a picture on
a snow covered right and that you know, of course
that makes sense again if you have taken photographs on
(05:06):
a snow covered hill. But of course, if you believe
that this is all some sort of large attempt to
cover up quote unquote the truth, then of course NASA
is gonna come up with explanations that may even seem clever,
but but they don't jive again with what you're thinking.
Another example, the American flag flapping in the breeze. Uh.
(05:29):
As we know, one of the reasons that there's not
a resort on the Moon yet is that the atmosphere
is not conducive to human beings or wind, and so
the idea is, how could how could the wind uh
show a flag or how could the film show a
flag flapping in the breeze. And that's that's one of
(05:49):
the other points. I mean, we you know, we could
go on about this, uh, we go on about this forever,
and um, Robert I apologize if people write mean things
about moon landings to you. Please please guys forward the
email to me. Um, you know you have other accusations
slow motion films and wires. And for a long time,
these groups, the people who believed in that the moon
(06:10):
landing was faked for some reason, and the people who
believe that those people were crazy, were understandably contentious and
and um right, right, yes, And it was difficult for
them to have a dialogue about that until Julian Assange
of wiki leaks released some very interesting cables regarding the
(06:32):
moon landing. Yeah, it turns out it's conclusively proven, due
to the or from these diplomatic cables, uh, that the
moon landing was faked with the assistance Stanley Kubrick, this
just hit the news. Go ahead and google it. You're kidding,
Oh yeah, Well to make sure you get right to
(06:52):
the story, go ahead and google Happy April Fool's Day
been fallen. I'm sorry, yeah, it's but you see how
easy that was. I started, I was like, what wiki leaks, Wait,
this is a new source, because it sounds reasonable if
something like that was going to come from somewhere right right,
Our new source in the sense that we're starting obviously
(07:14):
to get a flood of information we haven't gotten before,
sure new sensory information, right, And my brain was starting
to take that in and I have to say, like
I was like, Okay, no, and he's he's not he's
not actually telling the truth that were there. But a
little part of my brain was going, but Wiki leaks
telling us stuff we haven't known before. And I think
that's what's so fascinating about just the whole is the
(07:37):
man the moon landings, where they a hoax, but the
fact that you know, we have this sort of logic
that can't help but assemble itself on its own. It's
almost like its own emergence in our brain cells try
and put all this together for us. And I was
thinking about it. You know, we can't help but detect patterns,
(07:57):
and especially when we look at path examples um that
have eroded our faith and information and government in the corporations.
And a really good example is the cigarette industry. Oh
that's a great example, you know. I mean, you know,
for years, you know, decades long foot see playing with
the government in terms of the information that they released
(08:19):
about cigarettes and how harmful they are. So you've got
an example like that in the public, well knows now
that that was information that was kept from them. We've
got Watergate, You've got Milli Vanilli, you know. I mean,
these are things that you can start to point to
and say, you know, if it happened before, you know,
why couldn't happen again. This presentation is brought to you
(08:46):
by Intel Sponsors of Tomorrow because human beings depend The
way that the human species has survived for so long
is really based on the ability to detect patterns and
to think critically and abstractly about the future, or to
(09:06):
let the precedent set from those past experiences influence our
attitudes and behaviors when confronted with information that seems similar
or seems to again coincide with what we had believed before.
And this can lead to a funny little thing. And
(09:26):
by funny little thing, I mean one an enormously influential
theory of psychology, uh that we call cognitive dissonance. Yeah,
it's the bread to the butter when it comes to
conspiracy theories and how we try to explain to ourselves, um,
how this could happen? And I will you know, I
do want to say, like I'm not making fun of
(09:48):
conspiracy theorists. And I'm not making light of UM any
of this, but I do think that we all have
a little bit of a conspiracy theorists inside of ourselves. Sure,
And it doesn't necessary really have to be UM for
something like it doesn't necessarily have to be for something
like the idea that the world is ruled by freemasons
(10:08):
or reptilian aliens or anything. It can be, it can
it can be a small sort of theory as uh.
I think we talked about a little bit before on
the air where you say, you know, uh, that person
is after me, Yeah, yeah, or my cat, My cat
is purposely you know, perpetrating this crime against me. I
just know it. I just need to get that camera
(10:30):
in my house hooked up and then I'll have evidence. Well,
cats are are actually vengeful creatures. So I don't know
that example, right, But I mean, basically, when you bring
up cognitive dissonance, what we're talking about, and in more
high salutent terms, is that when actions conflict with our beliefs,
they can produce a phenomenon called cognitive distance, and it's
(10:52):
essentially a way of dealing with a discomfort that arises
when your brain is trying to parse out two different
cognitions which can and be manifested in our beliefs or
our actions. And uh, here's the if if I could
take us with a historical sidebar real quicks. Okay, So
this term cognitive dissonance. We we get this from the
(11:12):
nineteen fifties by a social psychologist named Leon Festinger. And uh,
the interesting thing is his his research came about because
he was trying to understand why a UFO doomsday cult
uh increased trying to proselytize new believers when their prophecy failed.
(11:33):
So this actually does come from a study of conspiracy theory. Okay.
So and so his he kind of sat there and went, hey,
now that that, um, it's obvious that the UFOs maybe
didn't have the evidence that that this group thought there
was why in the world where they continue with their beliefs, Right,
he was like, what's going on here? Excellent question for
(11:56):
for the we'll do the reader's digest version of this.
So basically, there's, uh, this person, this cult leader who
begins receiving messages of course, uh, intangible messages from a
UFO telling her about the end of the world, gathering
up followers. These she forms a cult. These people are
(12:19):
um together, united in their preparation for a coming apocalypse
with a definite date. And the date comes and it
goes and nothing. The world surprisingly does not end. But
the cult leader, uh strangely enough, gets a new message
that says, due to their the good works of the
(12:41):
cult and the good intentions or whatnot, um, they have
saved the world, which means that their religion is now
not disproven but further validated, which means that they have
somehow um. This this kind of attempt to even out
(13:03):
or balance the gap between the knowledge that they have,
which is that the world is not ended, and the
actions that they took, you know, um, and to make themselves,
I don't want to say, feel better, but to sort
of rationalize the distance between those two. I don't know though,
I think that's the crux of it. I mean, because
that is the discomfort they're feeling, right, Yes, that's the
(13:25):
cognitive distance. Okay, they're like that is not matching up.
And and all of a sudden, the cult leader, in
automatic writing, right, which is like so eighties, um, you know,
gets this message and then they're all relieved of that
discomfort and that relief outweighs the chance I suppose for
(13:47):
true knowledge in this case. And so they're they're going
to be tied to that because at least they're feeling better,
and it's all squared to their logic and life is
normal again, at least for them, whatever normal is. And
and then with as Fastener was exploring this, you know,
he said that there are that this dissonance produces a discomfort,
(14:10):
and correspondingly, there will arise pressures to reduce or eliminate
this dissonance. And you know, he goes on to analyze
the ways in which this dissonance occurs and how it resolves,
and he found that there are several ways to to
find this. Uh, there are several ways to deal with
(14:32):
this cognitive dissonance, and I'll tell you what they are. Um,
a person may try to change one or more of
their behaviors or beliefs. That's the first way. The second
is that a person may try to acquire new information
or beliefs to increase the consonants, which will lessen the
overall dissonance. I mean, that's that's obvious in the case
(14:54):
of the UFOL cult. And then the third is that
a person may try to forget or play down the
importan the cognition that butting up against the contradictory cognition.
And there's our smoking example again, right, there's a there's
a great example of smoking. Um. And this is from passenger. Again,
I'm quoting a passenger. Uh. He says, for example, a
(15:14):
cigarette smoker who believes that smoking is bad for his
health has an opinion that is dissonant with the knowledge
that he is continuing to smoke. He may have many
other opinions, beliefs, or items of knowledge that are consonant
with continuing to smoke, but the dissonance still exists too,
and because of that come because of that discomfort, you know,
because humans want patterns. We want all the pieces of
(15:36):
a puzzle to fit. Because of that, this smoker in
this question may try to change a behavior belief, may
try to quit smoking, for instance, UH, may try to
learn new things that will increase the consonants, something that says, well,
smoking might be bad for other people, but for me,
it's actually genius, um, you know. Or may just try
(15:57):
to forget it or play it down, you know, never
mind them young, or I'm under a last stress. Yeah, yeah,
and the forgetting part right, I may have to say,
I have to admit that when I was a smoker,
I oftentimes, you know, sort of willfully forgot the fact
that I was doing all sorts of crazy things to
my poor cells in my body. Um. So, I mean
it happens, right, And that's why I say it's it's
(16:18):
really this. This is so fascinating because there is a
little bit of cognitive dissonance going on with us, all
of us at some level, every day with with the
things that we're dealing with. And then you just see
it in really extreme forms and stuff like conspiracy theories
revolving around the moon. Sure sure, or we we could
(16:39):
also see at times, um, cognitive dissonance can really come
out in uh decision points, you know. Uh. For for instance,
you will often hear that people will say a a
public figure or a politician or a large, um, very
influential business owner is saying things that seem to be hypocritical.
(17:01):
But how much of that is actually how much of
that is um malevolent or calculated? And how much of
that is just these poor folks functioning under cognitive dissonances. Yeah,
so and basically funneling those perceptions through right, so this
is really interesting. There is a neuroscientist named Cameron Carter
at the University of California Davis and UM. This is
(17:24):
actually information pulled from a Newsweek article titled Wired for
Hypocrisy by Sharon Bagley UM. Carter used volunteers to study
their brains basically during cognitive dissonance UH, and he did
that with fl MARI and the volunteer spent forty five
minutes doing a really rope task inside fm R I
(17:45):
tube and then afterward they were asked to answer questions
about their experience, which, of course the board across the
board they did not like, which seems obvious, right, You're
stuck in a tiny little tube doing something boring and
you're really gonna probably so I would highly dislike it.
That's what I would check highly disliked UM. But they
were asked to answer the questions again that they had
(18:09):
answered after their first experience, and this time half of
the volunteers were told that their answers were going to
be read by a nervous patient who needed reassurance about
undergoing an fm R. The other half were told that
they were going to get a dollar each time they
answered the questions as though they were enjoying the scanner kitching.
So as though, so that's the that's the important part,
(18:31):
to answer the questions um with two sort of present
an opinion publicly that does not match with their personal
opinion or experience. Yeah, and of course I'm just gonna
ask which do you think which narra do you think
was more effective? Hmmm, that's you know, that's a question
for me. That's tricky because it seems, you know, on
(18:54):
the offset, just with this information, it seems like there
may be a difference between the people who am angst
us are profiteers and who amongst us are nurturing people. Okay,
but you know what, for just just for guessing, just
for the sake of guessing, I would say that the
people who are the people who are motivated by the
(19:18):
money probably think that the probably actually think that this
might be a better thing. No, no, no, no, wait,
oh I don't know, I don't know. Oh, I don't know.
I think you just revealed your your black capitalist heart.
I did. I'm a profiteer, yeah, you're a profitier. Actually,
it was the people who were most concerned about a
nervous patient and the exciting thing about this whole thing,
(19:42):
UM wasn't necessarily that they could see the neural correlations
what was going on inside of their brain when they
were lying, because they also took f M R I
when they were UM, when they were essentially lying on
those tests to see what was going on, all of
those brains, All the areas in the brain were active,
all those areas that are trying to square two different
(20:04):
pieces of information. Yes, yeah, that was definitely happening, and
that is interesting in and of itself. But the really again,
the really interesting thing was that it was the people
who um who were trying to yeah that this this
phony patient that it was okay. Those were the people
who have the most activity. And then those were also
(20:26):
the people who afterward continued to say that they had
a good experience and that they changed their brain essentially,
like they changed their actually their actions and their beliefs
based on this. Julie, there is there is a fan
of Orwell somewhere out there on the internet listening to
show right now, and they're waiting for us to say
it you win, double think. It's it's almost it's it's
(20:49):
kind of similar to that, and it sort of makes sense,
because if you think about it, your cognitive dissonance is
sort of your brain asking why is this happening? Why
am I doing this? Um? And now that I have
that answer wrong, it makes sense that the people who
are receiving an external reward or an external justification for
their line will find themselves uh less uh, you know,
(21:15):
with less of a desire to internally retrofit their ideas.
So they can say they can say, you know, well,
of course I'm lying to these people. I'm getting a
dollar every time. Let me lie to some more people. Yeah, sure, yeah,
they don't really have any skin in the game emotionally. Yeah,
that's a good point. But when you're trying to be involved,
um and motivate someone, I guess in a in a
(21:39):
in a qualified way, whether when your reward is something
that is qualitative rather than quantitative. In this case, right,
they're trying to make somebody feel better, and in the
process of saying all these it's not that bad, it's
not that boring, you're gonna have fun. In the process
of that, they're starting to um. So sort of pull
(22:00):
the move that Merlin pulls in a Connecticut Yankee King
Arthur's court. The Mark Twain book, Merlin makes the mistake
of a lot of magicians and believes that his stuff
is actual magic. And uh so you start to believe
yourself as you sell these days. Well, I will tell you.
I'll give you a personal example, and it'll be a
short one. But when we were at south By Southwest,
(22:22):
I was at the Austin Airport and I was coming home,
and it was overbooked, of course, and I had not
had a seat confirmed yet, even though you know, I've
had my um my arrangements made well in advance. And
so what happened is I got bumped from that plane
and I was rerouted to St. Paul, Minnesota, and then
back down to Atlanta. St. Paul. Yeah, it was mad.
(22:46):
It was steaming mad, understandable. It was like a love
ster that had crawled out of the pot and I
was seeking revenge. Um And they said, okay, well, and
I'm not gonna tell you how much they paid me
for my inconveniences, but they paid me a considerable sum.
And at the time I was like, yeah, whatever, money
doesn't matter. You're awful. But I can't tell them are
(23:08):
awful because it's the principle of the things right, I did.
I didn't actually say it's the principal thing, and thanks
a lot and whatever, um, And I have to say
that ever since then, I applied that money to a
mini vacation and the experience feels a lot less awful
than it was, because it was it was like then
it was, you know, another eight hours of travel, um,
(23:29):
and so I want and so forth. But I'm going
to tell you that that sort of cognitive dissonance was
dispelled by the folks at Delta. So I know that
they're studying this, and you're now you're reaching the state
of consonants where things are starting to fit together. Things
are fine, but kind a mini vacation. But here's the question.
Oh and and just for the just for the goodies,
(23:50):
for the people who love the love the specifics and
the anatomical Yeah, yeah, we should. We should talk about
the parts of the brain that that are letting up
during that from R I, So, cognitive dissonance engages the
dorsal anterior singulate cortex and anterior insula. Yes, these are
the parts that These are the parts that light up.
If you want to look on a map of the brain,
(24:11):
will not light up. I don't mean like someone's brain
is made of LEDs. Right, but this is the blood
is rushing to those parts of the rain. Sure the
activity increases there during these cognitive dissonance things. And Julie,
I have to ask you, um, do you think that
this experience uh in your personal life has given you
(24:32):
a confirmation bias? Uh. I don't know that it's given
me a confirmation bias, but I can tell you that
I've certainly felt or or have my own confirmation biases
in my own life. And when we talk about confirmation bias,
it's really similar to cognitive dissonance, and that again we
can't help but create patterns out of random randomness. Yes,
(24:55):
like the like the Supreme Court of the United States,
the the human species. The human brain places a great
value on precedent and on expectations that the past should
match the president in the future. Right. And there is
a really interesting book, uh, Leonard Metal metalon though excuse me,
(25:17):
only try that a gang, because I'm sure that at
least his his family would appreciate that I pronounced it correctly.
But Leonard Mallette. Now it's called Drunkard's Walk, and it's
a book about randomness, and it turns chaos theory UM
and Medlow is also the co writer of A Brief
History Time with Stephen Hawking and for those of you
that are interested in this, he's also the victor of
(25:39):
a YouTube face off with Depac Chopra on quantum entanglement
and spirituality. And I know some people are going to
love to check out that way. It's really it's actually
pretty great. Um. I definitely recommend it. But he talks
about the confirmation bias UM and he says that when
we are in the grasp of an illusion, or for
that matter, whenever we have a new idea, instead of
searching for waste prove our ideas wrong, we usually attempt
(26:03):
to prove them correct. Psychologists call this confirmation bias, and
it presents a major impediment to our ability to break
free of the misinterpretation of randomness. Uh. And it goes
on with to make matters worse. Not only do we
preferentially seek evidence to confirm our preconceived notions, but we
also interpret ambiguous evidence in favor of our ideas. This
(26:24):
can be a big problem because data are often ambiguous,
so by ignoring some patterns and emphasizing others, our clever
brains can reinforce their belief even in the absence of
convincing data. Yeah. So, I mean that's what I think
is interesting about confirmation confirmation biases. It is like cognitive dissonance,
but this is more behavioral. I suppose um and and
(26:44):
again stems from our experiences and pointing back to what
our expectations are. And I thought that was so fascinating
about the not looking at the ways that we're wrong,
because we always assume that we're right. Yeah, and and
a lot of and a lot of people, myself included,
at times. You know, it's nobody's favorite thing to be wrong. No,
no's just around saying like, how are how am I
(27:06):
wrong in the following ways at this very moment. You know, Now,
I I tried to do that when I'm working on
something really important right before I put it out, because
you know, that's just but that's just sort of a
way to proof read or cross check yourself. And in
the natural world, in informal situations that doesn't really happen.
(27:27):
People want to know if you if you, for instance,
believe that the moon landing is faked. When you're reading things,
you're reading things science proves that you are reading things
that will tend to reinforce your beliefs rather than denigratee
or erode those beliefs. Right, You're often going to seek
out information that that corroberates what you're thinking. Essentially. Yeah, um,
(27:52):
but I wanted to give you an example actually of
confirmation bias. I think that we have year perpetuated by me.
And this is from a listener emails from Russ Smith
and he says, hey, guys, Russ and Alliance, ohio here,
I love the show. I'm a college student and listen
to your podcast all the time walking to and from class.
(28:14):
But as a side note, you should always be aware
of your surroundings, especially when you're walking by yourself or
in the dark. That's true. Just a small correction though.
In one of your recent podcast you mentioned the lorax
cutting down needs. The lorax was speaking for the excuse me,
I flew up that, I'm sorry, um, cutting down trees,
(28:34):
not needs and causing the environmental change. In fact, it
was the onceler who cut down the trees to make
the needs. The Lorax was speaking for the trees against
the onesler all the best, Russ. Okay, so that was
me Um, and I do this all the time. Always
when I mean to talk about the on Sler, I
always talk about the Lorax because in my mind it's
(28:57):
acts cutting down or and I cannot square it. And
it drives me nuts because honestly, I read this book
at least once a week to my two year old,
not just my own personal reading. So anyway, so confirmation bias,
confirmation bias right there. Well, actually that's not conformation, that's
cognitive dissonance. Excuse me. So yeah, I mean there, that's
(29:18):
in action right there. My brain is trying to square it.
So myth mufford move on my part. Oh, but that's
just part of the human conditions. So now we have
a final proof, Um, as some of the conspiracy fans
of asked me, we have final proof that at least
one of the people who works at ausup works is
not a robot or an android. Yes, that is a
real letter that I received. Yeah, but I mean you're
(29:43):
kind of shimmering a little bit. I mean, how do
I know that you're not, you know, a Hall of
Graham like beamed in here by the illuminati. That's a
that's a great question, and that might be that might
be a podcast that goes uh more more on my end.
Uh we have we have you guys. So, um, well,
some people would say that, uh. Some people say, A,
(30:05):
that's that's ridiculous because the technology doesn't exist. But people
who already believe that, of course, would say, no, person a,
you're being ridiculous because that technology does exist, and it's
obviously been suppressed for thousands of years. Insert various building
blocks of existing thought or existing school thought there. Um,
(30:25):
people will uh in almost you know, it's easier to
describe this in terms of conspiracy theories, but this is
a common phenomenon in the human brain, both cognitive distance
and confirmation bias. I don't know, I just you're shimmering again.
And now I'm starting to think maybe you've just been
(30:46):
sent to talk about this and maybe make me think
that the moon landing actually was not a hoax and
you were sent here, weren't you. Well, that is a
very interesting question that we cannot answer completely. I am
not at liberty to divulge that. And all right, fine,
well you're confirming or denying it. I have some uh,
(31:10):
some great news, which is that our own science guru,
Robert Lamb, will be returning uh very soon. That's right,
that's right, and we'll be talking about what should be
talking about Flange's next week and why we have five
on each hand, which is such a good question. It
is it Actually, it's really fascinating, so we'll explore that.
(31:30):
But before we wrap up today, I just wanted to
give a really quick shout out to Rich Miles. It
is your birthday. Happy birthday, birthday, March one. Um. He
is in Laramie, Wyoming, and Nicole and his uh girlfriend
Mica actually wanted to to give you a shout out, so, um,
(31:52):
it's your birthday, your birthday. We won't do that too much,
but really, I hope you have a wonderful birthday. And
thank you so much for listening. And I would love
to know Ben Bullen. Yes, Julie, can you tell us
where people can reach you, how they can find you
and your various forms holographic forms. Oh yes, yes, you
(32:12):
can find you can find car stuff stuff then want
you to know um and stuff of genus on Facebook, Twitter,
We've got got blogs. Um. Also, let me pass the
shout out baton to our own John Fuller, of course,
who has written this excellent article about the moon landings.
Now you can. You can find John's article, along with
(32:35):
several other interesting, fascinating articles, on the website how stuff
works dot com. You've probably heard about our handy search bar.
That's right, just pop it in there, and you can
also find stuff to blow your mind at blow the
mind at Facebook and Twitter, and you can also drop
us note let us know what your favorite conspiracy theory
is at and blow the mind at how stuff works
(32:56):
dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
visit how stuff works dot com. To learn more about
the podcast, click on the podcast icon in the upper
right corner of our homepage. The how stuff Works iPhone
app has a ride. Download it today on iTunes
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