Speaker 1: Monster House presents.
Speaker 2: It's actually quite unlike anything we've ever seen before.
Speaker 3: A giant, very creature party part.
Speaker 4: In Luckness, a twenty four a mile long bottomless lake
Speaker 4: in the Highlands of Scotland.
Speaker 1: It's a creature known as the Luckness Monster.
Speaker 2: Monster Talk.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters. I'm
Speaker 1: Blake Smith.
Speaker 5: And I'm Karen Stolsner.
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome back to part two of our two part
Speaker 1: chat with doctor Phillip Center about his new book, The
Speaker 1: Real Story of Dinosaurs and Dragons. It's funny how sometimes
Speaker 1: when an idea is in your mind, you'll start seeing
Speaker 1: it everywhere, and psychology will tell you that's a kind
Speaker 1: of observation bias, your brain looking for patterns. This gets
Speaker 1: even worse when Internet ecosystems like Google scour your emails
Speaker 1: looking for patterns that might interest you, or when news
Speaker 1: outlets discover a story is getting a lot of traffic
Speaker 1: and reporters start posting similar stories, which creates this public
Speaker 1: feeling that something must be going on, and that's going
Speaker 1: to be exacerbated even more soon by the advertising arbitrage system,
Speaker 1: which is forming a deeply lucrative relationship with large language
Speaker 1: models that can generate hot articles from thin air with
Speaker 1: convincing photos. We're in for a ride, folks, and I
Speaker 1: don't think we can stop it from happening, because at present,
Speaker 1: the ecosystem of content generation has become uncoupled from any
Speaker 1: value for whether the said content is, for lack of
Speaker 1: a better word, bullshit or not. I said last week
Speaker 1: that this is an epistemological war, that there's different ways
Speaker 1: of deciding whether someone believes something or not, and I
Speaker 1: come down hard in the camp that values evidence based approaches.
Speaker 1: But I also believe that people may have a biological
Speaker 1: reason for wanting simple answers that conform to their existing beliefs.
Speaker 1: I'll be exploring this in my book about technology. But
Speaker 1: even if I'm wrong about the deep causes, it is
Speaker 1: evident in many scientific disciplines and even folk wisdom that
Speaker 1: our biases always nudges to the answers that fit our
Speaker 1: existing beliefs. I've never heard it more succinctly explain that
Speaker 1: in Simon Garfunkel's song The Boxer, when the lyrics say
Speaker 1: all lies in jest. Still a man, here's what he
Speaker 1: wants to hear and disregard to the rest, I know
Speaker 1: people have a tendency to think in terms of culture
Speaker 1: war these days, and that implies there's two sides and
Speaker 1: that one will eventually win, which brings me to another
Speaker 1: insight from my work on technology. People crave simplicity and
Speaker 1: will take a simple explain nation that feels good over
Speaker 1: a hard, complex answer that more closely hues to reality.
Speaker 1: We work on models in our brain, and there's probably
Speaker 1: no simpler explanation for the magistic complexity of the world
Speaker 1: we're in than God did it. That kind of naive
Speaker 1: simplicity is very satisfying for folks who want to believe
Speaker 1: they understand the world. But it's the kind of simple
Speaker 1: answer designed to make one stop asking questions and has
Speaker 1: the big capital letter truth, which is very satisfying to
Speaker 1: some fold. This isn't a judgment against such people. I'm
Speaker 1: here today because of such people and because they love
Speaker 1: me and cared for me. But they're not the kind
Speaker 1: of people who want to solve medical problems, for example,
Speaker 1: or maybe they have a hybrid view that includes going
Speaker 1: to the doctor, but they also pray, and when they
Speaker 1: finally get better, they curse the thousands of dollars in
Speaker 1: medical expenses in medicine and they thank the Lord for
Speaker 1: his miraculous healing. We don't hear as much from the
Speaker 1: purists who reject medicine entirely for prayer, because on average
Speaker 1: they end up dead quicker, and that's quieter. But taking
Speaker 1: the science side of things means acknowledging complexity, and you
Speaker 1: don't get the big capital T truth there. Even though
Speaker 1: statistically an evidence based rational worldview gives you more reliable models,
Speaker 1: science truths are always provisional. Yes, scientists are people and
Speaker 1: they have their biases, but the methodology itself insists that
Speaker 1: we have to change our models to comport with reality
Speaker 1: and not the other way around, and that is hard.
Speaker 1: But again, the real world is complicated, and many scientists
Speaker 1: aren't atheists, they just don't have a naive iron age
Speaker 1: view of the world. Scientists, when faced with a difference
Speaker 1: between their faith and their evidence, have to acknowledge the evidence.
Speaker 1: This battle already happen. Literalist interpretation of creation myths just
Speaker 1: don't stand up to scrutiny. They could be beautiful and
Speaker 1: moving and poetic and exciting, but they're not useful for
Speaker 1: understanding the complex process that created the world we live
Speaker 1: in today. Science tells us with a great deal of
Speaker 1: certitude that the Earth is billions of years old and
Speaker 1: the universe even older. And with these evidence based theories,
Speaker 1: we can make testable hypotheses. And we live in a
Speaker 1: world with satellite communication and nuclear power, incredible medical capabilities,
Speaker 1: amazing technologies, chemical insights that have allowed us to expand
Speaker 1: agriculture and grow our population to billions without starvation. All
Speaker 1: of these things can exist in a world of faith
Speaker 1: and a belief in divine care. But we would not
Speaker 1: have any of this, nor would any of you likely
Speaker 1: be alive, if our species had stopped with God, did it?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 1: I guess I get annoyed at creationists because they get
Speaker 1: all the benefits of this network of interconnected discoveries while
Speaker 1: proudly rejecting the science that allowed this to come into
Speaker 1: existence in favor of three thousand year old myths. Anyway,
Speaker 1: litteralists want simple answers, but the world is not simple.
Speaker 1: And when they come after the science books, it's a
Speaker 1: direct attack on the very system that allow us to
Speaker 1: discover more about the world. And when they come after
Speaker 1: cryptids and monsters, I can't help but feel us a
Speaker 1: direct attack on Monstrutle.
Speaker 3: Well, welcome back.
Speaker 1: We're going to continue our interview now talking about the
Speaker 1: rest of your book and kind of the heart of it,
Speaker 1: which is how creationists are using dragons to promote anti
Speaker 1: science narratives. Kerrien, why don't you kick us off?
Speaker 5: Yes, we'll do well. Phil, welcome back, and let's get
Speaker 5: in the second part of our discussion. So your book
Speaker 5: refers to dinosaurs being used by creationists as missionary lizards.
Speaker 5: So can you tell us a bit about what this
Speaker 5: phrase means and how dinosaurs strategically are employed in Young
Speaker 5: Earth narratives.
Speaker 2: Well, the phrase missionary lizards, if I'm not mistaken, is
Speaker 2: the brainchild of ken Ham, who is the head of
Speaker 2: Answers in Genesis, and it refers to the fact that
Speaker 2: they can be used as a proselytizing device to sort
Speaker 2: of bring people to the faith. And the specific version
Speaker 2: of the faith that Answers in Genesis promotes is one
Speaker 2: in which Genesis and the Biblical timeline are both taken
Speaker 2: literally as a historical fact. And if that is correct,
Speaker 2: then the earth was created about six thousand years ago
Speaker 2: and all the different kinds of animals were created simultaneously,
Speaker 2: which means that humans and dinosaurs encountered each other.
Speaker 3: Well to Jorassic Book.
Speaker 2: If we take this to its logical extreme, then maybe,
Speaker 2: just maybe dragon legends are based on human in count
Speaker 2: with live dinosaurs. And where it gets very entertaining for
Speaker 2: me is the idea that fire breathing dragon legends are
Speaker 2: based on human encounters with fire breathing dinosaurs. And that
Speaker 2: is just so fun to write about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you actually dig into that quite a bit, So
Speaker 1: you delve into what we call the fire breathing hypothesis,
Speaker 1: which ranges from methane vents to electric eels. What's one
Speaker 1: claim that really stood out to you as wild, wildly
Speaker 1: implausible but still pretty widely repeated. Which is easy to
Speaker 1: write but hard to say.
Speaker 2: But one of my favorites is the pyrophoric chemical idea. Now,
Speaker 2: so far, no younger creationist writer whose writings I have
Speaker 2: read has used the term pyrophoric, but they describe it
Speaker 2: the the term Pyrophormit. Pyrophoric has to do with any
Speaker 2: chemical that will spontaneously cause flame when it's exposed to oxygen.
Speaker 2: So the idea is, if a dinosaur is producing a
Speaker 2: pyrophoric chemical from its throat or its nose, then a
Speaker 2: fireball will emerge from the mouth or the nose, And
Speaker 2: it is incontrovertible that if a dinosaur did produce or
Speaker 2: if any vertebrate produced a pyrophoric chemical and great enough
Speaker 2: quantity from its nose in its mouth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it would produce a flame. The problem with.
Speaker 2: The hypothesis is what happens next, Because if there's a
Speaker 2: fireball in your nose, or a fireball in your mouth,
Speaker 2: or a fireball even at the edge of your nose
Speaker 2: or your mouth on the way out, there are serious
Speaker 2: health issues that will result in mediately. Just ask anybody
Speaker 2: who's had facial burns or oral burns. They are They
Speaker 2: are both clinically serious conditions that if you don't get treated,
Speaker 2: death is almost inevitable. So if a fire breathing dragon
Speaker 2: truly existed, it would have had the opportunity to earn
Speaker 2: its name once.
Speaker 5: Yeah, these are such creative ideas and I always feel
Speaker 5: like I need to apologize for ken Ham whenever anyone
Speaker 5: talks about him being a fellow Australian. In analyzing biblical
Speaker 5: monsters like a Leviathan and Behemoth, how do you separate
Speaker 5: literary or metaphorical interpretation from more literalist misreadings. And how
Speaker 5: does biblical scholarship help here.
Speaker 2: Oh, biblical little scholarship helps a lot. If you've studied
Speaker 2: the Hebrew language, it makes a huge difference, because it
Speaker 2: is almost useless to read the Behemoth passage in Joeb
Speaker 2: forty in English. It is the most mistranslated passage line
Speaker 2: for line in the entire Bible. And the translators did
Speaker 2: not know what sort of creature the ancient poet was
Speaker 2: talking about, and they tried their best, but you have
Speaker 2: to know the ancient context in order to translate those
Speaker 2: lines correctly, and very very few people are familiar with
Speaker 2: the mythological context of the Behemoth passage. Thankfully, I live
Speaker 2: in an age in which translations are out there and
Speaker 2: interlibrary loan is out there, and I can get my
Speaker 2: hands on this stuff.
Speaker 3: It's great.
Speaker 2: Some of the Yugaritic texts, for example, from where Syria
Speaker 2: and Canaan that's kind of the border between them. In
Speaker 2: ancient times, the city of Yugurt was right in that area,
Speaker 2: and the the people there left a whole lot of
Speaker 2: clay tablets with a cuneiform writing on it that in
Speaker 2: some cases was medical tacts about dispelling demons. And one
Speaker 2: of the things we learned from those is when you
Speaker 2: when you dispel a demon, you you you tell it
Speaker 2: to go to the mountains and stop feeding on this
Speaker 2: person's energy and instead go to the mountains.
Speaker 3: To feed on plants.
Speaker 2: And you may even specifically mention reeds. And what do
Speaker 2: we see in the Behemoth passage. He's been banished to
Speaker 2: the mountains and he's surrounded by plants, and what is
Speaker 2: he eating grass? And so this is it's a passage
Speaker 2: about a creature that is of the supernatural variety, that
Speaker 2: has been treated like a demon or like a dangerous
Speaker 2: entity and been told go to the mountains and stay there.
Speaker 2: And in fact, there's another part of the Behemoth passage
Speaker 2: that says that the animals in the flat areas mock him.
Speaker 2: It's as if they're going, yeah, and yeah, you can't
Speaker 2: get us now, you know, you've been banished a way
Speaker 2: over there. But this has been mistranslated as play, and
Speaker 2: it makes you wonder why are animals playing. It doesn't
Speaker 2: really have anything to do with the rest of the passage,
Speaker 2: but when they're mocking him, now, okay, now it makes sense.
Speaker 2: And there's other examples to within the same passage that
Speaker 2: demonstrate this is a supernatural thing. For example, his maker
Speaker 2: approaches him with the sword, And why would a deity
Speaker 2: approach something like a crocodile or a or an hippopotamus
Speaker 2: or any ordinary animal, including a dinosaur, with a sword.
Speaker 2: Why is God going to fight a sauropod or a hippo.
Speaker 2: It doesn't make any sense. It's got to be a
Speaker 2: dangerous supernatural being that only a very powerful deity could
Speaker 2: keep control.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was a dinosword. Those translations are trinking. I
Speaker 1: should mention here you have a lot of commentary about
Speaker 1: this idea of dead varmint vision, which I think is
Speaker 1: just such a fun term, and it's something that we
Speaker 1: see a lot, not just in cryptozoology and with the
Speaker 1: idea here is that people in modern eyes are looking
Speaker 1: at ancient art and seeing creatures that they think might
Speaker 1: be real. But it also comes up in upology and
Speaker 1: people seeing images that artists know exactly what's going on.
Speaker 1: Medievalists know exactly what's going on, but modern ancient aliens
Speaker 1: theorists are like, oh, it must be a spaceship. That's
Speaker 1: not a commet. Comets don't have little people in them,
Speaker 1: you know, just really misunderstanding the art. But can you
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about did Varmit vision?
Speaker 2: Yes, Dead Varmit vision is all about misunderstanding the art.
Speaker 2: It's all about ever having read a book on medieval
Speaker 2: art and what it means, and then going to medieval
Speaker 2: art with your brain as a blank slate, and then
Speaker 2: trying to interpret things without without having a little knowledge beforehand,
Speaker 2: and then you start to see stuff and it's it's
Speaker 2: so exciting because it is. It is a great example
Speaker 2: of this. It isn't a medieval one, but my favorite
Speaker 2: one is from ancient Egypt. There's these cats, these long
Speaker 2: necked cats. For some reason, their necks have been exaggerated
Speaker 2: in length. But the rest of the animal is a cat.
Speaker 2: It's got a kitty cat head, it's got kitty cat haunches,
Speaker 2: it's got a kitty cat tail, they've got kitty cat pause.
Speaker 3: It's a cat.
Speaker 2: From stem to stern, but its neck has been exaggerated,
Speaker 2: and several Young Earth creationist authors are calling it a
Speaker 2: brontosaurus or some other soropod dinosaur. Obviously they are seeing
Speaker 2: only the neck and they're not seeing the rest of
Speaker 2: the animal, which to me is like having a tarantula
Speaker 2: with a little bit of frosting on it and seeing
Speaker 2: the frosting calling it a wedding cake.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a problem, and I don't know why. I mean, obviously,
Speaker 1: the concept of abstract art, you know, it's not new.
Speaker 1: You look at those ancient rock paintings. Those are very abstract,
Speaker 1: They're very figurative, and they there's nothing quite literal about them.
Speaker 1: Yet again, in a different field, ufology, ancient aliens that stuff.
Speaker 1: People were like, look, those must be aliens because they
Speaker 1: don't look like real people. And it's like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: some of the stuff that Picasso did doesn't really favor
Speaker 1: real people. Abstraction didn't develop in the nineteen twenties and thirties.
Speaker 1: It's been around for human history. You know, it's a
Speaker 1: hard lesson to tell people.
Speaker 2: Yes, quite a few critters in ancient are are aren't
Speaker 2: even meant to look realistic. They're they're meant to you know, Well,
Speaker 2: they have stylization, which the ancients would have understood, their
Speaker 2: ancient audience would have understood it, but we moderns require
Speaker 2: some study to understand it. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well, this talk of of moments, and I keep thinking
Speaker 5: of usimity Sam and loony tunes.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's fuck too flopping and slimy farm at
Speaker 1: this time?
Speaker 3: Or my name made yo semity sound.
Speaker 5: I keep saying creationists as cartoonists, but I dug.
Speaker 2: Gress so well, the level of silliness between the creationist
Speaker 2: literature and Yosemite Sam is rather similar.
Speaker 5: Oh I'm glad you said that.
Speaker 2: Phil.
Speaker 5: So you write that some creationist authors are using this
Speaker 5: dragon dinosaur equivalents in grade school textbooks. So how significant
Speaker 5: is this for science literacy and what kind of misinformation
Speaker 5: is being taught to our kids?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm hoping very very few people use these particular curricula,
Speaker 2: but I don't know. I've actually tried contacting one or
Speaker 2: two of the publishers and asking how how many copies
Speaker 2: of this are, you know, are in circulation actually being taught,
Speaker 2: and I could not get a straight answer. But there
Speaker 2: are at least two different curricula from one from Bob
Speaker 2: Jones University, one from Pensacola called.
Speaker 3: A Becca Book b E Ka Becca.
Speaker 2: And both of them at least at one point in
Speaker 2: this century had science textbooks in which they were saying
Speaker 2: that dinosaurs breathed fire, and they were proffering suggestions as
Speaker 2: to how the fire could have been produced. Oh let
Speaker 2: me throw a disclaimer in there too. When I mentioned
Speaker 2: the textbooks I had the Flaming Dinosaurs, I might have
Speaker 2: misspoken about a Becca book if I remember right, they
Speaker 2: endorsed the idea of dinosaurs as dragons without the fire thing.
Speaker 2: And it was two different editions of the Bob Jones
Speaker 2: textbook that was advocating the fire breathing. It's sad to
Speaker 2: see that in a science book. It's also sad to
Speaker 2: see dinosaurs being touted as the dragons of legend in
Speaker 2: these so called science books, considering that dinosaurs went extinct
Speaker 2: sixty six million years ago. So these are the sorts
Speaker 2: of things that are being taught that.
Speaker 1: Tell me about you know, there are animals that have
Speaker 1: explosive properties, and I maybe you should we should talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about how creation is. Talk about the
Speaker 1: Bombardier Beetle.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, Oh that is a wow capital W.
Speaker 4: Wow is the.
Speaker 2: Word that comes to mind with their their literature on
Speaker 2: the Bombardier Beetle, which is full of misinformation, but.
Speaker 3: It's so exciting to read.
Speaker 2: Look, all the Bombardier Beetle does is shoot hot liquid.
Speaker 2: That's it. Of course it's hotter than usual for a
Speaker 2: liquid that comes out of an animal's body.
Speaker 3: But it's just hot liquid.
Speaker 2: There's no explosion, there's no spark, there's no flame, there's
Speaker 2: no fire, there's none of that exciting stuff. And yet
Speaker 2: when you read the younger creationist literature on the bombardy
Speaker 2: or beetle, whenever the dragon comes up, almost every single
Speaker 2: mention of it will say either there's a spark, or
Speaker 2: there's an explosion, or it generates flame. And one one
Speaker 2: author even said that if these two chemicals met inside
Speaker 2: the animal's body, it would blow itself to smithereens.
Speaker 3: That's an actual quote.
Speaker 1: It is, it is, I've seen that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yes, and loony tunes again.
Speaker 2: Right, there's no basis for any of that.
Speaker 3: In reality.
Speaker 1: All it does I accidentally stepped on a bomb of
Speaker 1: your beetle and it blew my foot off.
Speaker 2: I guess that's what they're expecting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so, I really do. I think that's
Speaker 1: what they think would happen. Yeah, but what really happened.
Speaker 1: Sorry I didn't mean to interrupt.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, all that happens is the the the animal
Speaker 4: has two chemicals that meet inside it its body or
Speaker 4: very close to the exit and when they meet, they
Speaker 4: react and it's an exothermic reaction, so it generates some heat,
Speaker 4: and so when the resulting liquid flies out, it's hot.
Speaker 2: But you know it's not going to give you third
Speaker 2: degree burns or anything.
Speaker 3: It's it's not that hot.
Speaker 2: It's like if you have a dry leaf nearby, it
Speaker 2: will not catch fire.
Speaker 1: Uh, it's so not Starship Troopers, it's not.
Speaker 3: Okay, the point, if.
Speaker 2: You're using the Bombardier beetles as a basis for saying,
Speaker 2: look what animals can do, then the most you could
Speaker 2: say about what a dinosaur might have been able to do.
Speaker 2: That's like what a bomber deer beetle does is maybe
Speaker 2: yack up some liquid that's just extra hot and could
Speaker 2: keep your hands warm and toasty in the winter. But
Speaker 2: you know they won't be burned as the the flesh
Speaker 2: won't be coming off your fingers and there will be
Speaker 2: no smoke there. I look at the videos of the
Speaker 2: the Bumbardier beetle on YouTube and you'll see that when
Speaker 2: the when the liquid comes out, if it's back lit,
Speaker 2: it ultimately becomes this fine spray that it's rather lovely.
Speaker 2: When back lit, it's this nice mist but you know
Speaker 2: there's there's no smoke.
Speaker 3: There's no fire.
Speaker 2: Wow, how coolould cool would that be if there were?
Speaker 1: But'd be fantastic? Yeah, yeah, I mean in sex are well.
Speaker 1: I mean biology is amazing, evolution is amazing, and and
Speaker 1: I love you know, we haven't talked about it much.
Speaker 1: I'll probably talk about it in the intro to these episodes.
Speaker 1: But natural selection is such a beautiful explanation for diversity,
Speaker 1: but it needs a lot of time, and so arguing
Speaker 1: for a young Earth is one way to argue that
Speaker 1: if it can't be true, there hasn't been enough time.
Speaker 1: So that which is interesting in its own but wrong.
Speaker 1: And yes, I think, you know, I get the appeal.
Speaker 1: That is an exciting world that they live in. It's
Speaker 1: just not the real world. I mean, it feels like
Speaker 1: we're What we have ultimately is an epistemological difference for
Speaker 1: where do you get your evidence and what do you
Speaker 1: think constitutes truth? And I liked it when we started
Speaker 1: this show. There was a lot of argument to be had,
Speaker 1: but I didn't feel like we were in danger of
Speaker 1: losing to lunacy. And it feels like the rational evidence
Speaker 1: based epistemology has sort of been subverted, and I think
Speaker 1: this is just one of many battlefronts where it feels
Speaker 1: like we're losing, And I wonder what do you think
Speaker 1: about our chances here? Like is your book? I mean,
Speaker 1: I think your book is great and be really useful
Speaker 1: for finding this one particular front, and I hope people
Speaker 1: pick it up for that purpose. But how do you
Speaker 1: think about the bigger picture? You know, what do you
Speaker 1: think it is we're sliding into this pseudoscientific framework all
Speaker 1: across the world right now.
Speaker 2: Well, if you take a look at the literature of
Speaker 2: past centuries, and I think you will find that probably
Speaker 2: the ratio of people who base their opinions on observation
Speaker 2: and fact versus the the folks who base it on
Speaker 2: what's exciting and unrealistic, the ratio is probably held constant
Speaker 2: through the centuries. At least that's my impression.
Speaker 1: I hope you're right. I hope you're right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think it's getting worse. I think it's
Speaker 2: just staying the same, and we can try to make
Speaker 2: it better, but I think that's a futile effort. So
Speaker 2: what we should be doing instead is just giving the
Speaker 2: other side no excuse and that's what this book is about.
Speaker 2: I know I cannot convert people who have made up
Speaker 2: their minds, and I'm not trying to, but I do
Speaker 2: want them to have no excuse.
Speaker 1: Wow, that is a noble approach. I hope, I hope
Speaker 1: this works. Yeah, it's it's there's no winning conditions. As
Speaker 1: as my friend and colleague art friend of the show
Speaker 1: Daniel Watson likes to say, this is not a task.
Speaker 1: It's a chore. It has to be revisited constantly. It's
Speaker 1: a garden that has to be tended constantly. So I
Speaker 1: thank you for doing some gardening. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it just say so happens at this particular
Speaker 2: form of weading.
Speaker 3: I just find it fun, So try and stop me.
Speaker 2: I mean, if somebody's having fun at something that that
Speaker 2: that's an intrinsic motivator. It's very difficult to get them
Speaker 2: to quit.
Speaker 5: Nice like, did you have any questions?
Speaker 1: Or Oh, I think we can. I think we're good here.
Speaker 1: I think we could roll into our final question. And Phil,
Speaker 1: I think I really appreciate your book. It's a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. It's got some great images in it, a
Speaker 1: lot of good info, It's well written. Easy reads, not
Speaker 1: super long. I'd urge our listeners to pick up a copy,
Speaker 1: go to battle, take this book with you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think most most of our readers are going
Speaker 5: to be interested in this book. And this has been
Speaker 5: a really interesting discussion and to look at the two
Speaker 5: sides of this book as well. But Phil, we've got
Speaker 5: a final question. We're starting to wrap up the show
Speaker 5: now and we always like to ask our signature question
Speaker 5: at the end, and that is what's your favorite monster?
Speaker 2: Oh? There is no contest, hands down. It is Cookie
Speaker 2: Monster from Sesame Street.
Speaker 3: See it's for cookie.
Speaker 1: That's good enough for me. See it is for cookie.
Speaker 3: That's good enough for me.
Speaker 2: Oh really absolutely? How can you not love those googly eyes,
Speaker 2: the pupils that just a roll in his head every
Speaker 2: time he moves. And the poor guy he's he's cute
Speaker 2: as can be and always hungry. And the reason for
Speaker 2: that is he has no throat, and so you put
Speaker 2: cookies in his mouth and they just fall right back
Speaker 2: out and he never gets to swallow.
Speaker 3: But you know it doesn't stop him.
Speaker 2: He keeps trying. There's you got to admire that.
Speaker 1: Oh you do as I tell my doctor when I
Speaker 1: go to my diabetes checkup. A one C is for cookies.
Speaker 3: That's and from cookies. That's right.
Speaker 5: Good love that four year old language and the love
Speaker 5: of cookies. But I think that's the first time we've
Speaker 5: heard that for sure.
Speaker 1: Sure, Yeah, yeah, he's a great monster though.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, And can I share a little bit more
Speaker 2: about cookie Monster. My daughter Becca was taking violin lessons
Speaker 2: when she was in well grade school, and the violin
Speaker 2: cases that they had for these school violins were lined
Speaker 2: with blue fur. And when she brought this home and
Speaker 2: opened it, I couldn't help myself. Well I couldn't have,
Speaker 2: but I didn't, And I said, do you know how
Speaker 2: many cookie musters they had to slaughter.
Speaker 3: To make these things? And Becca thought it.
Speaker 2: Was funny, but her mother did not, And I found
Speaker 2: that funny anyhow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you talked a little bit about electric eels and
Speaker 1: Bobbeder beatles in the book, and I just thought I
Speaker 1: just was watching. Are you familiar with James Burke's documentary
Speaker 1: series Connections.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've heard of Connections, Yeah, they did.
Speaker 1: I think the first series started maybe in seventy eight
Speaker 1: or seventy nine, and then he did a few in
Speaker 1: the nineties and he just apparently did one like two
Speaker 1: years ago that picked up the series again, and it's
Speaker 1: just about connecting ideas. But I did not realize that
Speaker 1: Volta had used research on electric eels to develop the
Speaker 1: concept for his battery, which is really fascinating to me.
Speaker 1: So he looked at the cellular structure of electric rays,
Speaker 1: not eels, electric rays, which also you know have this
Speaker 1: you know, vertical column of specialized sales, and he basically
Speaker 1: duplicated that material form using different kinds of materials to
Speaker 1: make first dry cell battery, which is really cool. But
Speaker 1: I mean, evolution comes up with some really cool solutions,
Speaker 1: and I love it when we were able to use
Speaker 1: those as inspirations for innovation and invention. I just think
Speaker 1: that's really neat. So yeah, that's all that would just
Speaker 1: me rambling. I like technology.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and that is a pretty cool episode in
Speaker 2: the history of technology.
Speaker 3: It really is.
Speaker 1: It really is. I Well, I'm working on my own book.
Speaker 1: We'll get that another day. But anyway, Okay, Bill, thanks
Speaker 1: so much for spending some time with us. Talk about
Speaker 1: your work.
Speaker 5: Yes, just in closing that, Phil, what are you working
Speaker 5: on next?
Speaker 2: Hmm, I've got a project in the works that's almost finished.
Speaker 2: It's a book on taxidermic dragon hoaxes through the centuries,
Speaker 2: and the title is Bullshit Dragons nice right, these chapter
Speaker 2: is a different hoax, and it's got it is profanity riddled,
Speaker 2: so you've got to have a problem with that to
Speaker 2: read this book. Bullshit is in the title, Bullshit is
Speaker 2: in every chapter. And yes, I am a happily practicing
Speaker 2: Greek Orthodox Christian and this would not be a problem
Speaker 2: at all for my particular perish because the Greeks don't
Speaker 2: have a problem with profanity at all, even within the
Speaker 2: church building on Sunday morning.
Speaker 3: But that's really funny. That's really but my family, which.
Speaker 2: Is all Baptists, will look upon the title of the
Speaker 2: book with a little trepidation. Monster.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to Monster Talk, the Science show about monsters.
Speaker 3: I'm Blake Smith and I'm Karen Stolsner.
Speaker 1: You just heard part two of our interview with Philip
Speaker 1: Center about his new book, The Real Story of Dinosaurs
Speaker 1: and Dragons Science Sets the Fossil Record Straight, which details
Speaker 1: how creations try to use dragons to undermine the science
Speaker 1: of natural selection and evolution. I hope you'll check it out.
Speaker 1: Links in the show notes. Oh and there was a
Speaker 1: well timed new article in New Lines magazine about creationists
Speaker 1: hijacking Machilley Mabimbay that perfectly lines up with doctor Center's book,
Speaker 1: so I put a link there for that to check
Speaker 1: it out. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of Monster Talk.
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Speaker 3: Are they bullshit or not?