The Rational View podcast with Dr. Al Scott

This episode is a rant about why people don’t have time to become better informed about the issues. It is about why people are rushed. It is about why people feel mistreated by the system. The Rational View is going to rant about inequity and highlight the growing resentment amongst the struggling middle class at the elite robber barons of capitalism. Capitalism is about greed. It is about gloves-...

This episode is one of my favorite interviews. A great chat that was part of my series on consciousness—are we biological robots? I’m getting into some real science talking to a biophysicist who brings the esoteric world of quantum mechanics to bear on the topic. His groundbreaking work in the lab provides us with some real measurements that provide tantalizing hints at the previously unknown quan...

In this episode I am interviewing a returning guest to the show to examine the economics surrounding Ontario’s foray into renewable energy.  As is typical in divisive topics such as this, the government has made it very difficult to track down the actual costs of ideologically driven policies such as Ontario’s 2009 Green Energy Act that brough in juicy Feed In Tarriffs on 20 year contracts for ren...

In this episode I have a special returning guest, the famous Dr. Michael Shermer on the show to discuss the interesting times our neighbours to the south are experiencing.  I’m hoping to discuss the polarization and the bias that have catalyzed conspiratorial thinking emerging around the Trump assassination attempt. Dr. Shermer is the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine , the host of the podcas...

In this episode I’m responding to the political tension we are witnessing in the US with a historic election looming on the horizon. Many see this as some sort of battle royale between good and evil. But for some reason the options on the table for our neighbours to the south are four more years of increasing inequity in a reasonably well-off country vs. a wrecking ball to the heart of the institu...

Today I’m taking a step back from science and addressing politics. I know certain of my listeners do not like to hear my opinions on this topic and I respect that, so if you need to stay in a silo to protect your political narratives please stop listening. This is your trigger warning.  It was recently announced that the Supreme Court has ruled that it is inadmissible to use evidence from a presid...

In this episode I will be discussing the topic of abortion with a philosopher who has studied the moral arguments on both sides of the issue. I am interested in rational bases of moral decision making. I’d like to be able to work out moral rules from a set of socially acceptable first principles, but often I find that my moral intuition conflicts with what I derive as a rational morality. Is our m...

In this episode I’m delving into the weaponization of space. The space race was originally a military flexing competition between the US and the Soviet Union. Since that time space has been consistently used for surveillance, similar to early airborne operations, but weaponization of space has been off limits through treaties.  Now the space race seems to be evolving. China, Russia and the US have...

This episode is a recording of a live social media broadcast on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Riverside.fm where the Scott brothers revisit their previous disagreements over manifestation and magical thinking. Will they come to an agreement or will it come to fisticuffs? Manifestation is the idea that by aligning our thoughts and expectations with our goals we can better achieve success. Many pe...

In this episode I’ve decided to wade into another highly polarized topic, the morality of abortion. This has become a hot political topic with the Republicans stacking the supreme court to overturn Roe v Wade. In many people’s opinion this is a large step on the way to Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale where women’s rights to self determination are overridden by making them subservient to the grea...

In this episode I will be talking to an author and screenwriter who has taken up the potentially poisoned chalice of popularizing nuclear energy for the world. Let’s see what he is planning to share with the world. The son of a career naval officer, Mike Conley has lived in Japan, Hawaii, and all over the US and has backpacked through Thailand and Cambodia. Out for Blood is his first solo effort a...

In this episode I will be talking more about how to debate Creationists. I have taken this topic on in the past, in my original episode on how to debate Creationists, and I have also interviewed well known evolutionary scientist Dr. Niles Eldredge who was one of the founders of the Punctuated Equilibrium theory of evolution alongside Stephen J. Gould.  Today I will be interviewing someone who I sa...

In this episode I’m continuing my investigation into Universal Basic Income as the natural solution to the AI and robotics revolution. One day we should be able to work because we want to improve the world and our situations, and not do it because we are under risk of death. The problem is that the intermediate period between having all of our needs taken care of by our robotic assistants, and hav...

In this episode I’m going to be exploring the science behind learning with an author who has been exploring this topic for almost 20 years. How do we learn, and reason, how can we be more rational, and what can we do to make learning easier? Scott H. Young is the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Ultralearning, a podcast host, computer programmer, and an avid reader. Since 2006, he has pub...

In this repeat episode I chat with Dr. Ben Heard about environmental advocacy and communicating science-based viewpoints in a polarised debate. Dr. Heard provides his assessment on the rationality of the anti-nuclear lobby. Dr. Ben Heard is recognised as a leading voice for the use of nuclear technologies to address our most pressing global challenges. It certainly didn’t start that way. Back in t...

In this re-released episode I interview religious studies scholar Dr. Janet Tulloch to discuss the Big Bang, and other origin stories. Let's go explore where science and religion collide. I hope you find it an interesting journey! Janet Tulloch is an adjunct research professor in the College of Humanities at Carleton University in Ottawa. She is a cultural historian with a PhD in Religious Studies...

In this episode I’m looking into a particular issue of government waste. Specifically I’d like to dig into the funding of religious schools in Ontario. Is this a good investment for society, or a ruinous subsidy to a single religious minority? This is a polarizing issue in Ontario that has been too hot to handle for politicians.  The last time a political party in Ontario sought to propose a chang...

In this episode I continue my investigation into the pros and cons of Universal Basic Income as a potential solution to the ongoing increases in automation from robotics and Artificial Intelligence and subsequent job losses. In one of my earlier podcasts ‘Income Inequality: We’ve botched it” I showed how the benefits of significant automation and productivity increases afforded by robotics have be...

In this episode I am discussing the economic impacts of the AI revolution, and whether or not it is time for UBI. AI will take over jobs and increase productivity per remaining worker to compensate. We are bound for a situation where owners will be able to squeeze more profits from a declining workforce, while the working class continues on the path to extinction and increasing hardship. Corporate...

I recently ran a pair of episodes investigating claims of the health effects of deuterium, a stable heavy isotope of hydrogen. The first interview was with a Naturopath, and the second was with a real medical doctor publishing peer reviewed papers on the topic. And my focus in this effort is on drilling through the BS to get to what the evidence says.  This takes sustained skepticism, and it doesn...

In this episode I’m digging deeper into the purported health effects of deuterium, a stable isotope of hydrogen. Deuterium has twice the mass of hydrogen, and it exists naturally in water.  A hydrogen atom in H2O is replaced by deuterium in about 150 out of 1 million atoms. This trace compound interacts chemically as hydrogen, but because of its weight it has different dynamics. Why is this an iss...

This episode is based on feedback from a listener who suggested I investigate the science of Deutenomics. The impact of heavy water on health.  Apparently it’s a thing. Is it snake oil or is it real? Deuterium is an isotope of hydrogen that is twice as heavy. It has a neutron plus a proton.  Chemically it should be identical, but the reaction dynamics can be different due to the mass. I’ve found a...

In this episode I am welcoming a returning guest, Zion Lights, to the podcast to discuss the growing influence of degrowth. This philosophy encompasses a wide range of thinking from return to nature Luddites to  mild anti-capitalist zeitgeist. Zion Lights is a Science Communicator who is known for her environmental advocacy work. She is founder of the evidence-based climate activism group Emergenc...

In this episode I’m continuing my series on human enhancement. I’ve previously interviewed Guilia Dominijanni on her experiments on how people adapt successfully to adding a third robotic arm. Technology continues to advance in robotics, computing, and brain-machine interfaces opening a huge pandora’s box on the potential for future enhancements. To explore this I’m going to chat with a distinguis...

In this episode I want to return to the theme of critical thinking. How can we teach people to immunize their minds? In the past I’ve interviewed two of the co-founders of the Mental Immunity Project, Andy Norman and Lee McIntyre to get their feedback on how to fight the pandemic of misinformation and disinformation that we are fed on social media. The Mental Immunity Project is an effort to vacci...