Randi on TV ??

[easycruise]

Also, as a geologist, I am aware that landfills have a significant degree of danger to the environment. Even well-constructed landfills can have failures which will contaminate ground water, and of course, many old landfills are not well constructed at all. Add to this the problem that many people do not use landfills at all, so making it worth the time to recycle, even if it is not cost effective from a manufacturing standpoint, can have a very positive effect on the amount of litter on the streets, requiring less expense for clean-up..

I recently read somewhere that if a hole was dug that was 40 miles square and 100 feet deep, it would be big enough to handle the entire trash output by all the humans on earth for the next 100 years.

 

[xenxabar]

On January 11, the Penn & Teller: Bulls...! episode, "Signs from Heaven", is scheduled to rerun on Showtime. Check your local listings for time (and possibly date). Randi has the most airtime on this ep of all his other appearances if I recall correctly.

 

[Reno]

You Could always buy P&T's DVD..I bought season 1 & 2 and it is well worth the cash.

 

[ungoliant]

We get the Penn & Teller show here in the UK . The one about Recycling struck a very bad chord here in the UK and I would guess nearly everywhere outside the USA . Everybody in the world seems to accept we have a problem except Bush and co and I was surprised to see such level headed folk like P & T falling for that wishful thinking .

maybe you didn't undestand their point. it's not the idea of recycling they had a problem with, it is its execution.

plus, people who believe in BS tend to have a strong reaction when presented with the fact that what they believe in is actually BS.

 

[opqdan]

We get the Penn & Teller show here in the UK . The one about Recycling struck a very bad chord here in the UK and I would guess nearly everywhere outside the USA . Everybody in the world seems to accept we have a problem except Bush and co and I was surprised to see such level headed folk like P & T falling for that wishful thinking .

I think that they did a great job. As a (skeptical) environmentalist, I see this kind of woo (can I call it that, I don't quite know the definition, I'm new here) all over the place. They did a good job of pointing out that recycling (other than metals) costs money and is not good for the economy. They also did a pretty good job of pointing out that in a lot of cases it is worse for the environent to recycle than it is to produce a new item. The idea of recycling is not bad, as we should be conserving out resource for future generations, but the execution makes it seem like recycling is this cure-all for our environental problems and that it is always good, when in reality it is simply a "feel good."

Granted, I am not trying to defend P&T at all. Many times they have resorted to appealing to emotion rather than logic and reasoning. In the most recent episode that I have seen ("Endangered Species"), they used anecdotes about not being able to build an orphanage, and a person with cerebral palsy could not build a house, because of endangered species living on the property. These choices of orphaned children, and disabled person were obviously chosen to illicit a reaction out of the viewers. I doubt using a prison and a rich white republican would have had the same effect.

I am really glad to see a show like Mythbusters (it appeals to a larger audience than P&T, and doesn't require premium channels), doing well. I was suprised and delighted to see them featured in the most recent Skeptic magazine. Not only does it promote science and a fairly good scientific method, but it does so in a way that even children and those that are not science-inclined can enjoy. It is shows like this, that start from the lesser myths (floating a boat with ping pong balls, dropping a quarter from the Empire State building etc), that will pave the way for the debunking of much wider held beliefs (psychics, mediums, ID).