Shows / Skeptoid
Skeptoid
The true science behind our most popular urban legends. Historical mysteries, paranormal claims, popular science myths, aliens and UFO reports, conspiracy theories, and worthless alternative medicine schemes... Skeptoid has you covered. From the sublime to the startling, no topic is sacred. Weekly since 2006.
Episodes
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #543: White Hat Journal Hoaxes
Sometimes the best way to scrutinize an open access journal is to hoax them. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #542: Photographic Memory
Pop culture tells us that some people have photographic memories, but the truth is quite different. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #541: Defusing India's Ancient Atomic Blasts
The facts behind an urban legend claiming a nuclear war in India some 12,000 years ago. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #540: Feng Shui Today
Feng shui is much more than just a debunked way to magically arrange furniture. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #539: Radiation Hormesis: Is It Good for You?
Some say that exposure to small amounts of dangerous radiation can protect you from cancer. No, it probably doesn't. Learn about your ad choices…
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #538: The Belgian UFO Wave
For two years, some say the Belgian skies were filled with triangular alien UFOs. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #537: Debunking the Moon Truthers, Part 3
The hard, testable, scientific proof that we actually did land humans on the moon. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #536: Debunking the Moon Truthers, Part 2
The science behind many of the specific claims made by Apollo moon landing hoax conspiracy theorists. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #535: Debunking the Moon Truthers, Part 1
The history of the Apollo moon landing hoax conspiracy theory, and those who believe in it. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #534: Earthquake Lights: Do They Exist?
One of those things everyone seems to believe in, but for which there's almost no evidence. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #533: Don't Try It Before You Knock It
Try it before you knock it… unless you want to know if it really works. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #532: Who Killed the Red Baron?
A look at which of the six competing claims for who killed the Red Baron was probably true. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #531: The Banjawarn Bang
Evidence suggests a doomsday cult may have successfully tested a nuclear bomb in Australia in 1993. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #530: No, You Shouldn't Question Everything
Pop wisdom continually reminds us to Question Everything -- an idea which is rarely either practical or useful. Learn about your ad choices…
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #529: Wrongy McWrongface
Skeptoid corrects another batch of errors from previous episodes. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #528: The Secret History of Majestic 12
These purported UFO documents changed the course of the culture of UFO belief. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #527: Conjuring Up the Warrens
The Conjuring 2 tells a story that is fictional in a way you might not have guessed. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #526: Sky Trumpets
From all over the world come reports of strange trumpet-like blasts from the sky. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #525: Autopsy: The Clinton Body Count
The surprising origins of the claim that the Clintons kill any who get in their way. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #524: Colony Collapse Disorder: Science and Pseudoscience
Everyone loves to point the finger at the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder; here's what we actually know. Learn about your ad choices…
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #523: How Do Homing Pigeons Navigate?
The latest and greatest research reveals that we still have no clue how birds accomplish this amazing feat. Learn about your ad choices…
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #522: Dark Watchers
The true origins of the Dark Watchers, said to go all the way back to Chumash Indian stories. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #521: The New Flat Earthers
The reinvented Flat Earth fad is less about geophysics and more about conspiracy mongering. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #520: Solving the Haunted Hoia-Baciu Forest
It is said to be the world's most haunted forest. Here's what we actually find there. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #519: Alien Implants
Some of those who believe they've been abducted by aliens also think they were left with a souvenir. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #518: Listener Feedback: Denial and Aliens
Skeptoid answers some feedback sent in by listeners. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #517: Antibiotics and Hormones in Beef
One of pop food woo's favorite claims is that drugs given to beef cattle pose a danger to humans. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #516: Demythologizing the Shaolin Monks
Just about everything you think you know about the Shaolin Monks was made up for tourists. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #515: All About Absinthe
This mysterious alcoholic drink is the subject of more urban legends than any other liquor. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #514: Your Thoughts on Making Skepticism Commercial
A proposal for how we can make skeptical programming more attractive to a larger audience. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #513: Why Musical Aliens Probably Use the Same Scale We Do
Reliance on universal mathematical principles may mean alien music is similar to our own. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #512: Decrypting Mother Teresa
It's popular to criticize Mother Teresa, but that criticism might be better directed at the real culprit. Learn about your ad choices…
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #511: Firestorm in Waco
The FBI did not deliberately murder the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #510: Student Questions: Multiple Intelligences and the Gender Pay Gap
Skeptoid answers another round of questions sent in by students all around the world. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #509: Ninjas Unmasked
These superheroes of martial arts lore may not be exactly what you thought they were. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #508: Demythologizing the Knights Templar
More pseudohistory than fact surrounds this ancient order's depictions in pop culture. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #507: No, Hitler Did Not Escape
There is no truth to the popular myth that Hitler escaped Berlin and went to Argentina. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #506: Bad Skepticism: Why You Should Challenge Popular Assumptions
From swamp gas and waterspouts to alternative medicine, the harm of not challenging popular assumptions. Learn about your ad choices…
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #505: You've Got to Be Wrong to Be Right
Skeptoid corrects another round of errors from past episodes. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #504: Growing Skeptical of Hair Restoration
As long as people lose their hair, the market will remain flooded with sham remedies. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #503: Bad Science on PBS
The reasons why PBS is so quick to promote pseudoscience informercials during pledge drives. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #502: Listener Feedback: Killing the Comments
Your comments on our decision to remove the comments from Skeptoid episode transcript pages. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #501: Schrodinger's Cat and the Bomb Detector
Whatever you think you know about Schrödinger's famous cat is probably wrong. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #500: A Little Curiosity
If you haven't yet found your curiosity in the first 500 episodes of Skeptoid, find it here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #499: The Hope Diamond: A Curse Deconstructed
Find out how the obviously false story of a curse came to be associated with this famous diamond. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #498: Did the 1914 Christmas Truce Really Happen?
Popular stories tell of WWI soldiers laying aside their rifles on Christmas 1914. The facts are not quite so simple. Learn about your ad choices…
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #497: A Skeptical Look at the Rorschach Test
The famous Rorschach inkblot test is not a window into the subconscious, and doesn't tell us anything useful. Learn about your ad choices…
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #496: The Russian Sleep Experiment
Russian test subjects are said to have done unspeakably horrible things when sleep deprived. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid: Bad Skepticism
A new live show from Skeptoid Media: Bad Skepticism! Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #495: Updated: Top 10 Worst Anti-Science Web Sites
The worst offending sites on the Internet for promoting bad misinformation. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #494: Black Mold: Peril or Prosaic?
Black mold is commonly believed to harbor many deadly diseases; but in fact removing it is often worse than leaving it. Learn about your ad choices…
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #493: How Real Is the Stockholm Syndrome?
While the Stockholm syndrome sounds like a mere media buzzword, it does actually sometimes happen. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #492: Pouring Cold Water on Cryotherapy
Questioning whether this new spa treatment provides all the medical benefits it claims. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #491: 420: The Cannabis Code
Myths and competing claims fog the origin of the term 420, a slang code for marijuana. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #490: Deconstructing the Tasaday Tribe
Some say this tribe of "gentle savages", discovered in 1971, was just a hoax. The truth isn't quite so simple. Learn about your ad choices…
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #489: The Science of X-Ray Specs and Sea Monkeys
These products advertised in the back of comic books promised improbable feats of science. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #488: Who Was Charles Fort?
This enigmatic author of the strange continues to confound. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #487: About That 1970s Global Cooling...
No, climatologists in the 1970s did not believe we're headed into another ice age. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #486: The Flying Saucer Menace
The true, interwoven history of flying saucers in American folklore. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #485: Holocaust Denial
Why some people think the Holocaust never happened, and what to do about it. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices