um but But sure, there's

a narcissism there, certainly.

Yeah, it was really bizarre.

He tried to rope me back into more interaction.

He did a video like, I know what you did.

And he looked at the tags on one of my video.

And they were just the tags of what is in the video.

There is a lot of problem with the american and western elite so how do we navigate both trying to maintain the credibility of something like science these institutions while also at the same time transforming them to serve the interests of people over the other

Visit salesforce.com slash go agentic.

to be spoken to, and so trolls come at me with troll energy.

They don't watch the content, and I mirror their troll energy back.

I even mirror their language, like I'll call them beta cucks and stuff like that, right? I take what they're trying to do and reflect it back to them, just because I think somebody needs to do that, right? They go around on the internet with this toxicity and it's just consequence free because it's the internet, right? But so someone pushing that energy back to them, I think it's an interesting experiment, right? To see what they do with it.

And they just completely unravel because when you press them over and over and over again, where am I wrong in this video? Where am I wrong in this video? Where am I wrong in this video? They can't do it, right? They didn't watch the video.

They don't know what's going on in the video.

And then obviously the charlatans that I debunk are not happy about it.

like mirroring their...

So I

always find that fascinating.

Yeah, it's like you're the oligarchy.

You're an oligarch and you want the government to work in your favor, not the favor of the general public, right? So you're very interested in consolidating authoritarian power, right? Because if you can buy off a president or if you can get a president into power that will work for you, Right.

Right.

Right.

So that's why we're going in, Bobby Kennedy's going in, and he's getting rid of all the corruption at CDC and FDA and NIH.

Even more than Wakefield?

and protein machines by invoking a supernatural designer is to explain precisely nothing because if you're trying to explain something that's complex and you invoke something that's more complex then you haven't you've just created i

mean that that's obviously the enormous fallacy that they commit but we don't even need to get into that i mean it's like yeah obviously yeah you're you're creating something even more complicated to try to explain the complicated thing so that's idiotic but We don't even have to talk about it because there's so much to talk about with the science.

Again, Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist.

He doesn't know a lot about systems chemistry and probably didn't even bring it up in that book.

I haven't read the book, and that's okay.

It's not his field, right? But systems chemistry is a field of study that has absolutely exploded in the last 20 years or so, 20, 25 years.

I think Gerald Joyce got the first self-replicating RNA strand, first autocatalytic ribozyme in like 2000, somewhere around 2000.

in here as well and then the only the only thing i was just kind of curious if you'd ever heard of this again this was 40 years ago that this book was published just about but he talks about a scientist named cairns smith who had an idea about uh clay crystals possibly being a catalyst for you know the first self-replicating molecules have you ever heard of that

There's almost nothing you can do with that, Dave.

Yeah, I mean, that's obviously a valid point.

I think that it just depends how thoroughly you eviscerate them.

So I think that if you really, really do a good job, the information gets out there and then you have people that...

Two things happen.

Number one, you have people who are not familiar with what's going on and they're ready to be influenced by whatever media they see.

So you better make sure they see yours first and not theirs because theirs is manipulative and full of lies.

Yeah,

Yeah.

There are many ways it could happen, and, and we have to be prepared for all of them, right? Uh, uh, the classic example is, like, the asteroid comes, you know, 'cause that's happened before.

That's caused a mass extinction event before.

And, uh, so you don't go, "Nah, it'll never happen." You think about it, and you prepare, and then ideally, I mean, I think we're not that far away, maybe a few decades, from being able to handle something like that, an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, whether we deflect its path, uh, gently or blow the thing up or whatever it is.

Um, and then pandemics, we have to prepare for, uh, the event of an, of a deadly pandemic, and this is just another one in that list.

Like, it's just another thing that could go wrong to kill us all.

And another thing that all, all, everybody's saying is like, "Just pull the plug.

Uh, tell me about that group.

Dave, do you feel like you are any closer now to understanding what the CTMU is?

And it's probably different every single time.

[laughs] No, I'm not any closer, 'cause it's not a thing, and his answer hinges on his ability to obscure the fact that it's not a thing.

But it, it's just...

The, the funniest part to me is just se- he knows that people are enamored by physics, fundamental physics.

So he can't stay away.

He's always using words like quantization and things like that.

... that science, which is making the assumption that there's a mind-independent objective reality, why would that assumption lead to so much empirical success if it's not true? [laughs]

Sure.

But stepping outside of his expertise and trying to address origin of life research, which he does not understand, even five years, however many years later, still absolutely does not understand this field, um, and was spewing these, uh, abject falsehoods.

And so I made a pretty gentle piece, just, you know, here are some flaws in some of his reasoning.

And, uh, he absolutely, uh, just, just...

The, the reaction was insane.

He, with the help of his handlers at Discovery Institute, which is a Christian propaganda mill out of, uh, out of Seattle that, uh, that produces, uh, pseudoscientific, uh, propaganda to try to undermine, um, you know, uh, the, the biological sciences and, uh, has tried in the past to get, uh, uh, creationism taught in public, public school science classes, things like that.

Very much part of the Christian right, uh, you know, trying to erode the separation of church and state.

And I'm curious, so when you, when you look at debunking, do you ever try to first find out what the motivation is? And if so, does that, does that influence your approach as to whether or not to go really ham on those people or to be gentle with them?

It makes sense when you're talking with children to kinda open their eyes and, and say, "Hey, anything's possible," but in today's world, we need to actually objectively explain how science is done, and we just gotta get, cut to the point sometimes, you know? We can't-

Sure Yeah, a- and I mean the, but the other point is that there's a difference between somebody who says something very speculative and sensationalist, but that does not contradict empirical science, and grifters who pretend they are just, "I'm just, you know, Graham Hancock or Avi Loeb.

Here's a..." Well, no, you're actually lying and you're specifically contradicting empirical evidence.

That's different from just saying, "I think that there are aliens on some planet around Proxima Centauri, because I just think that." Okay, uh, sure.

O- I don't know.

That's different from, "I know..." Like, this is what's going on with a lot of, like, [laughs] you know, rigidly specific claims that are contrary to evidence.

That's, those are two, two totally different, uh, things-

Mm.

I think if like -- if Trump's -- like if Trump's approval numbers were like really, really bad, like, I don't know, like in the twenties or something, then I think that would be a pretty good metric that like, you know, the country was kind of like united in opposition to him as opposed to, you know, the line that we always hear, which is that it's very polarized, right? I think just partisan stuff like that could be a good indicator.

I mean, the th- I, I think like, uh, Mamdani is a perfect, uh, representation of like what the Democratic Party could be and what it should be trying to be in order to...

Like, Mamdani got this little wave of a, of a, of a thing going, and I just think that Democrats are idiots if they don't capitalize on that and like amplify that energy by reinforcing his policies and talking points and like putting forth more candidates like him.

Um, but I...

it just speaks to what the Democratic Party is.

Like, what percentage of it is captured by corporate wealth, you know, whether it's half or ninety percent or I don't even know.

But it's just...

Do you think we're gonna make it millions of years?

[laughs]

I mean, maybe in the 1600s or something, but, um, that's not going to ever be true.

That's not going to be true that one thing is going to make all of physics wrong, because physics is right.

We know because we use it to create technology that works, so physics is right.

We can, uh, amend certain details and expand into new areas of understanding.

Um, but that kind of hyper-sensationalist, uh, uh, language, rhetoric is, is your primary red flag.

Um, and, uh, it's, it's clickbait.

Y- so, uh, I guess, uh, final things, uh, do you, do you think every scientist has an obligation now to speak publicly through social media, or do you think it's better to leave it to professionals like yourself? Like, what, what are your thoughts on that?

What do you think about that?

I think it's a defensible, it's a defensible position.

I think that you then begin to have to kind of quantify the degree of sentience, right? Is an, is a human sentience worth the same as a dog? Is that worth the same as a termite? Is that where...

You know what I mean? Like, 'cause there's a lot of different kinds of animals, and do we assign all of them, uh, equal value? Um, but I definitely, like, uh, I eat meat, but I try to do it as ethically as possible.

I do not like, like, you know, factory farming is hugely unethical.

I do not wanna eat meat from an animal that was, that was tortured and mistreated.

I try my best to do, like, free range and everything.

Yeah.

Of course

... living organisms that don't display what I think, I think that any of us would recognize as sentient, sentience, right? You, you, um, described like bacteria and stuff like that, and I think we could probably all agree on that.

Now, there, there are two models of, um, like assessing whether organisms are sentient.

I'm not entirely familiar with them.

Uh, there are...

I know there's other people who are more familiar w- with those two, two different models.

But, you know, I don't think we necessarily need like experts to necessarily determine, you know, like who may or may not be sentient.

Absolutely.

Is it the golden age now of professional nonsense?

It, it is.

I would say that's exactly the r- [laughs] right way to, to phrase it.

Um, I think that the problem is that, I mean, there are, have always been grifters, right? You go way back in the day, there were these snake oil salesmen.

They would go around town to town and, and hawk this, uh, this cure, this cure-all for what ails you, and gullible people would buy it.

Um, the problem is that now in this information age, right, we have the internet, everybody, we're globally interconnected, and so something really insane can, can spread like wildfire because of the interconnectedness.

And we're only ...

... people now in institutions, people that now have at least some power over institutions, what should they build for- for- towards?

... super difficult.

Yeah.

I think in order for somebody to pull away from that mind frame, they're, they have to have spotted inconsistencies and hypocrisies and already have, in their own minds, begun to sow the seeds of doubt.

And then they are open to alternate information.

And then once they s- you know, are ready, like, obviously, i- if you're, if you watch, you know, I have v- videos debunking creationism and stuff, and it's like, it's very easy to under- [laughs] Like, it's very crystal clear if you're open to that information.

And so once that change has occurred within somebody, then they're kind of ready to, to depart.

So it sounds like that's what happened with you, because you probably don't subscribe to some of the more conservative aspects of, of the Christian, Christian culture, um, whatever kind of, maybe some sort of bigotry or, or whether you felt it was leveled at you or s- other people you know or, or what happened.

[laughs]

Okay.

Uh, and that was formulated kind of in the '90s and then in the aughts, the early 2000s.

Some of these, uh, some of these guys, um, you had Dembski and Behe coming up with these, um, you know, genetic entropy and, uh...

None of that stuff was possible in the early 1900s.

The, the field of genetics didn't exist.

Um, you know, it, it, it, it...

They try to...

And also, also, I would also say that it's odd the way they try to deny things like, or they'll try to say, "Well, these evidences are strong, therefore no God," or, "Therefore no divine possibility," or you know what I mean? That's what I find-

Whatever you do in your bedroom is yours"?

Well, so that's the irony is that I feel like, you know, w- we've gone through this with the homosexual community.

Around the 1970s, 1980s was when they first began to be, m- uh, recognized and start to scramble for their rights to the point where I...

When I...

I'm 42 years old, so I grew up in the '90s, and I witnessed the change within the '90s.

Like, when I was a kid, you could still use gay as a pejorative and, and gay people were harassed and kids were afraid to come out, um, in school.

And then by the time I was, like, kind of graduating high school, the shift had sort of started to happen where, like, "No, we don't make fun of gay people," and you can come out and you can be gay in school and stuff like that.

What's in the background if, if then, if the, if the fundamental reality isn't real in the terms of the, what we know what real is? It's tangible.

... became popular.

I mean, to be clear, I think Rogan is of average intelligence.

I don't think he's specifically dumb.

Um, he can say smart things, but it's just that he is so heavily entrenched in his own anti-establishment bias that all you have to do, some jerk goes on there and go, "Big Pharma blah, blah, blah, so listen to this," and he's like, "Tell me the fact." Like, there's just zero, uh, ability to, uh, to apply scrutiny i- in all directions, right? Um, and so it's like, you know, and then there are, there...

Like, I recently went on the Danny Jones podcast, which I was kinda surprised to be invited on there.

Like, he, that's sort of a situation where it's, it's a Rogan atmosphere, but he, I, I feel like he's trying to not go that way.

He's struggling 'cause most of his audience wants that, but he's like, um, I agreed to do it because I did some content on, on moon landing denial where I debunked, uh, this guy Bart Sibrel, and Bart, Bart went on the Danny Jones podcast and I commented on those episodes.

When you're making your content, do you have a, um, like an audience in mind or a persona or, in mind? Or like how, how do you approach, uh, some new content?

And Dave, what do you care about?

I guessed m- uh, I guess most narrowly, I care about science, and I care very specifically about public perception of science.

As a science communicator, my job is to act as kind of a conduit between the scientific community and the general public to help the public understand what's going on in science, who scientists are and what they do, things of that nature.

To zoom out, the reason I care about that is because I care about humanity and the future of the human species and, uh, society and everybody's right to pursue happiness and freedom and things of that nature.

And, uh, I think science is tethered to that, and I especially think that, um, uh, the way the public views reality is tethered to that because that determines their voting and consumer behavior and so forth.

So that would be it.

Yeah.

So nucleons become possible after it cools sufficiently.

Right.

So perfectly valid question.

Why didn't we land? Okay, so the answer to the question is, do we want to do what the Apollo missions did? We do not.

We already did that, right? The Apollo missions sent down a tiny little lander that...

I mean, Apollo 11 was just, "Can we put a human person on the Moon?" That was it, and they walked around for a few hours and took some pictures and looked at some stuff, and that was it.

Then Apol- from Apollos 12 through 17, so 13 was a mishap.

They didn't get to land.

Yeah

Mm-hmm

... feel free to pry and get more, more information.

Um, I guess I would say, so I studied chemistry in college, uh, and then in grad school as well.

Um, but, uh, ultimately, all I really wanted to do was play music.

So from the beginning of college, I knew I wanted to be a musician.

I was playing in bands, really obsessed with that, and, uh, but decided to be a chem major anyway.

[laughs] I, I apparently I was very practical in that regard.

[laughs]

... with what I'll just say, but what concerns you so much?

Okay.

So you just asked three separate questions, so I'll answer each of them.

Uh, number one, he absolutely is a crackpot.

Uh, he has pushed miasma theory, terrain theory, pushed ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine.

He promotes raw milk.

Uh, he continues to push lies about vaccines causing autism.

You know, the big picture point was about why, if the experts have been so expert, why is America so unhealthy?