The Rationable Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

This time, I'm interviewing Sanal Edamaruku, one of the big guys in the Indian rationalist movement. He is the founder and president of Rationalists International and President of the Indian Rationalist Association. He has done so much over the years to fight for scientific temper and rationality in India. In fact, Sanal had to leave India when a group of Christians in India started threatening him when he debunked their claim that their statue of Jesus was weeping. It turned out that the weeping Jesus was not a miracle. In fact, the truth of what was seeping out of the statue is a lot more…troubling. In this video, we talk about his origin story, the importance of scientific temper, and the whole account of what led to his leaving the country, the latest updates on Rationalist International and his advice to the new sceptics and rationalists of India who are fighting superstition every day.

Important links: Weeping Jesus story on TV9 Part 1: https://youtu.be/kUqhq9MuRG8 Weeping Jesus story on TV9 Part 2: https://youtu.be/TfJ6_ftih0s Guru Busters: https://youtu.be/EoiNhwq-BD8 BBC Documentary on Homeopathy: https://youtu.be/fTZMMMP8jC0 BBC Documentary on Homeopathy 2: https://youtu.be/unPoTTdATDM More about Sanal Edamaruku: https://www.sanaledamaruku.com/about Website of Rationalist International: https://www.Rationalists.net Website of Sanal Edamaruku (English): https://www.SanalEdamaruku.com ◼️ Rationalist application for mobile phones - Links to download: 📱 For Android mobiles (on Play Store): https://bit.ly/Rationalist_app_on_PlayStore 📱 For iPhones (on the App Store): https://bit.ly/Rationalist_app_on_AppStore #atheism #rationalist #indianathiest

Questions, suggestions or just want to get in touch? Find me on Instagram and Twitter @berationable. Join the conversation on the Rationable Conversations Facebook group or the Telegream channel, Rationable. Contact me at abhijit@berationable.com. For more content like this, visit www.berationable.com. Support and get involved with Rationable on Patreon at patreon.com/rationable. 

Krish Ashok has dedicated a lot of his spare time to understanding the science behind the foods we eat, in general as humans, and specifically as Indians. In this interview, he shares mind-blowing facts and busts many myths and pseudoscientific ideas that we all have encountered about the food we eat. This has been one of the most fascinating conversations I've had to date. If you are a foodie, this episode is a must

Krish on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_masalalab

Krish on Twitter: https://twitter.com/krishashok

Masala Lab by Krish Ashok: https://amzn.to/41lRWO3

Krish's Music

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/krishashok Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2tNJmxQOh8PxU1OUdqwS9E?si=tET8zeEoR1uURxUJ56-_Fw

Questions, suggestions or just want to get in touch? Find me on Instagram and Twitter @berationable. Join the conversation on the Rationable Conversations Facebook group or the Telegram channel, Rationable. Contact me at abhijit@berationable.com. For more content like this, visit www.berationable.com. Support and get involved with Rationable on Patreon at patreon.com/rationable. 

Dr Haryax Pathak, MBBS, practising in Vadodara, Gujarat, India, has been busting myths about COVID-19, its treatments and the vaccines on Twitter. He was kind enough to join Rationable to dispel myths about the vaccines and help us understand which one to choose, what the dosage interval should be, and lots more.

Here are a the updates:

1) Immunocompromised people should also get the vaccine

2) The central government has increased the period after which one should get Covishield’s second dose to 6-8 weeks

3) People over 18 will be allowed to get vaccinated from the 1st of May onwards

Intro and outro music: Heat by Distill

For the full transcript along with links to citations and further reading, please visit www.berationable.com. 

Questions, suggestions or just want to get in touch? Find me on Instagram and Twitter @berationable. Join the conversation on the Rationable Conversations Facebook group. Contact me at abhijit@berationable.com. For more content like this, visit www.berationable.com. Support and get involved with Rationable on Patreon at patreon.com/rationable. 

I’ve investigated the claims of Evocus and other alkaline water and found they aren’t true. Evocus Black Alkaline water is just a dodgy product that will only be a very expensive, rather ineffective antacid and nothing more. I will get to each of these claims and a few other generic claims I’ve found about alkaline water in this episode, so you can understand why I say this. 

Intro and outro music: Heat by Distill

For the full transcript along with links to citations and further reading, please visit www.berationable.com. 

Questions, suggestions or just want to get in touch? Find me on Instagram and Twitter @berationable. Join the conversation on the Rationable Conversations Facebook group. Contact me at abhijit@berationable.com. For more content like this, visit www.berationable.com. Support and get involved with Rationable on Patreon at patreon.com/rationable.

There are a lot of questions we have about the COVID-19 vaccines that have been released by Moderna, Pfizer and others. Dr Paul Offit is here to answer them! He is a paediatrician with expertise in virology and vaccines. Dr Offit has written several books on the topic of vaccines, alternative medicine and medical science.

Get in touch with Dr Offit: https://twitter.com/DrPaulOffit

Or visit his website: https://www.paul-offit.com

And check out his work and educational content at https://www.chop.edu

Intro and outro music: Heat by Distill

For the full transcript along with links to citations and further reading, please visit www.berationable.com. 

Did you like this episode? Share it, subscribe to the podcast and rate it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify so that more people can find it.

Questions, suggestions or just want to get in touch? Find me on Instagram and Twitter @berationable. Join the conversation on the Rationable Conversations Facebook group. Contact me at abhijit@berationable.com.

For more content like this, visit www.berationable.com. Support and get involved with Rationable on Patreon at patreon.com/rationable.

Rationable speaks to Anant Bhan and Dr Sumaiya Shaikh about the recent proposal by the Indian Government to allow Ayurvedic practitioners to perform certain types of surgery. We dig into the pros and cons and find a lot of nuance in the topic that feels like it's black and white.

Your body's pH balance is a fascinating mechanism but it's often misunderstood or miscommunicated to sell ideas like the alkaline diet.

In this episode, we get a basic insight into how your body handles its acid-alkaline levels through the kidneys and the lungs and what happens when it goes wrong. I also get into why it’s so hard to change the pH of your blood or any other part of your body, especially through food.

References & other links:

Acid-base homeostasis: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4670772/ and https://opentextbc.ca/anatomyandphysiology/chapter/26-4-acid-base-balance/#:~:text=The%20kidneys%20help%20control%20acid,systems%20work%20predominantly%20inside%20cells

Disorders of Acid-base Balance: https://opentextbc.ca/anatomyandphysiology/chapter/26-5-disorders-of-acid-base-balance and https://www.healthline.com/health/acid-base-balance#metabolic-acidosis

pH Imbalance: https://www.healthline.com/health/ph-imbalance

Digestion in the stomach: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zwqycdm/revision/5#:~:text=Bile%20is%20secreted%20into%20the,the%20lipase%20enzymes%20can%20work

The Detox Scam: https://www.berationable.com/rationable-blog/2019/8/27/detox-an-introduction-to-a-scam?rq=detox

Ketogenic Diet: https://www.berationable.com/rationable-blog/2018/11/19/is-the-ketogenic-diet-the-best-way-to-lose-weight?rq=keto

Intro and outro music: Don't Stop performed by Nothing More, from their album, The Stories We Tell Ourselves. The sound clips have been used with their permission.

For the full transcript along with links to citations and further reading, please visit www.berationable.com. 

Questions, suggestions or just want to get in touch? Find me on Instagram and Twitter @berationable and on Facebook @Rationable. Join the conversation on the Rationable Conversations Facebook group and email me at abhijit@berationable.com. For more content like this, visit www.berationable.com.

It’s a special honour to have a Rationable Interview with Leonard Tramiel. He a good friend of Rationable, of course. You might have seen him in the Rationable Conversations group on Facebook if you’re a part of it. Join in if you’re not.

He’s also an accomplished sceptic in his own right. He’s a member of the board of the Center for Inquiry (CFI). This is an organisation of sceptics that publishes the Skeptical Inquirer magazine and holds the annual CSICON sceptics’ conference in Las Vegas, which is where I first met Leonard.

Leonard is also on the Council of Advisors for the Search for Extraterrestrial Life (SETI)! Yes, that SETI. He has worked with the California Department of Education to help them improve the quality of their textbooks. That’s not surprising at all when you know he’s been a volunteer 8th-grade astronomy teacher as well.

Last but not least, Leonard started his career working under his father in Atari, developing their very first gaming platforms. Yes, that Atari!

So we had a nice long chat about his early life, his passion for physics and astronomy, his family life and being the son of Jack Tramiel, who revived Commodore International and enabled the creation of one of the very first PC microchips that contributed to the dawn of personal computing. We also talked about his time at Atari, his encounter with Jill Tarter of SETI (who inspired the character of Dr Ellie Arroway in Carl Sagan’s novel Contact), his pet peeves with science literacy and much much more.

I would love to do another interview with him so if you have any questions, be sure to drop them in the comments or mail them to abhijit@berationable.com.

Reference Links

The story of Commodore and the 8-bit generation | Leonard Tramiel | TEDxMidAtlantic

Leonard Tramiel and the 6502 chip - 8Bites - #TheCommodoreStory [4K]

Why Jack Tramiel left Commodore by Leonard Tramiel (2015)

Leonard’s interview with Jill Tarter: https://centerforinquiry.org/conferences/csicon/2016/interview-tarter.html

Intro and outro music: Don't Stop performed by Nothing More, from their album, The Stories We Tell Ourselves. The sound clips have been used with their permission.

For the full transcript along with links to citations and further reading, please visit www.berationable.com.

Questions, suggestions or just want to get in touch? Find me on Instagram and Twitter @berationable and on Facebook @Rationable. Join the conversation on the Rationable Conversations Facebook group and email me at abhijit@berationable.com. For more content like this, visit www.berationable.com.

Richard Saunders, a life member of Australian Skeptics and a CSI fellow, is a world-famous sceptic from Australia who has been doing activism, speaking, podcasting and promoting sceptics from around the world for decades. Other than that, he is just a fun, chilled out guy who loves origami and cats. In this interview, we chat about UFOs and ancient aliens, psychics, astrology, Power Balance bands and lots more.

Richard has been kind enough to air interviews with me and promotions for The Rationable Podcast on The Skeptic Zone. He does this for a lot of sceptics all over the world and without asking for anything in return. Now that’s being just a wonderful human being, don’t you think?

I met Richard through Brian Dunning of Skeptoid.com, who I had met at CSICON 2018 in Las Vegas, NV, USA. That event has seriously changed my life. If you haven’t gone, you should definitely try to. But first, you should come to Skepticon 2020, which promises to be a brilliant virtual convention for sceptics around the world.

Links & references

Attend the Skepticon sceptic’s conference: https://www.skepticon.org.au

Richard Saunders on Dragoncon’s Skeptic Track: https://youtu.be/-ZHWCD9i9L8

Rationable’s talk at Dragoncon’s Skeptic Track: https://youtu.be/eFLM0UzVrFY

The Skeptic Zone Podcast: https://www.skepticzone.tv/

The Skeptic Zone Podcast Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/skepticzonepodcast

Challenging the Astrologer, Milton Black: https://youtu.be/q-fjymxOrGE

Debunking Power Balance Bands: https://youtu.be/yd0Gb9EgkHA

Richard’s Origami Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuzfqFJyj3esv0N6DlEzLzCzNwWb1Ocgb

Intro and outro music: Don't Stop performed by Nothing More, from their album, The Stories We Tell Ourselves. The sound clips have been used with their permission.

For the full transcript along with links to citations and further reading, please visit www.berationable.com.

Questions, suggestions or just want to get in touch? Find me on Instagram and Twitter @berationable and on Facebook @Rationable. Join the conversation on the Rationable Conversations Facebook group and email me at abhijit@berationable.com. For more content like this, visit www.berationable.com.

In the final part of my interview with Dr Sumaiya Shaikh, we discuss her work as a science communicator. She founded Altnews Science to challenge pseudoscience in India.

She has noticed how much alternative medicines like Ayurveda, Homoeopathy, Naturopathy, Siddh and Unani have grown in our country and the dangers they pose to us and the ones we love.

So she founded Altnews Science to debunk misinformation and share the real science behind the news. For example, she has written several excellent articles regarding COVID-19 and even the Patanjali Scam that tried to take advantage of people during the pandemic.

All that and a lot more await you in this episode. Enjoy!

References and links:

Altnews Science: https://www.altnews.in/topics/science/

Arsenicum Album to fight COVID-19: https://www.altnews.in/homeopathic-drugs-such-as-arsenicum-album-30-promoted-by-ayush-do-not-boost-immunity-against-covid/

Patanjali’s Corona Kit: https://www.altnews.in/no-patanjalis-coronil-has-not-been-approved-by-ayush-ministry/

Rationable’s Take on Patanjali’s Corona Kit: https://www.berationable.com/rationable-blog/2020/6/coronakit-or-con-examining-patanjalis-coronavirus-treatment

Donate to Altnews: https://www.altnews.in/donate/

More about Dr Sumaiya Shaikh

Twitter: https://twitter.com/neurophysik?lang=en

Website: http://sumaiyashaikh.com/

Altnews Science: https://www.altnews.in/topics/science/

Intro and outro music: Don't Stop performed by Nothing More, from their album, The Stories We Tell Ourselves. The sound clips have been used with their permission.

For the full transcript along with links to citations and further reading, please visit www.berationable.com.

Questions, suggestions or just want to get in touch? Find me on Instagram and Twitter @berationable and on Facebook @Rationable. Join the conversation on the Rationable Conversations Facebook group and email me at abhijit@berationable.com. For more content like this, visit www.berationable.com.