Welcome to 15 Credibility Street, the podcast of Doubtful News. The show is produced by Sharon A. Hill and Torkel Ødegard.
The podcast feed page is here. Subscribe using Itunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or the podcast player of your choice. To subscribe manually use the feed: http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:250119991/sounds.rss
Write to us. Email: credibilitypodcast(at)gmail.com
Logo by Celestia Ward. Music by Cherry Teresa.
EPISODES (For additional show notes go here.)
1: The Phantom Clown Menace (October 17, 2016)
2: Rather Rigged (October 30, 2016)
3. FTC and Homeopathy (November 19, 2016)
4. A virtual flood of news – bad, good, real, fake and otherwise (November 22, 2016)
5. UFOs over Turkey and I ain’t too surprised (December 4, 2016)
6. A load of barnacles (December 18, 2016)
7. Big old problem: They might be giants (December 31, 2016)
8. We only see what we wish to see (January 15, 2017)
9. I’m the only one (January 29, 2017)
10. Mind the Gap (February 12, 2017)
11. It’s One Louder (February 26, 2017)
12. Twitter Verified (March 12, 2017)
13. Some Particular Place to Go (March 26, 2017)
14. An Imperfect World (April 9, 2017)
15. Bombs (April 23, 2017)
16. You’re Fyred (May 7, 2017)
17. Blow Up the Outside World (May 21, 2017)
18. Crystal Clear Consideration of Claims (June 4, 2017)
19. Leaping to Doubtful Conclusions (June 18, 2017)
20. A Mummy-bundle of BS (July 2, 2017)
21. Exaggerated and Unlikely Evidence (July 16, 2017)
22. We’re not saying they made this stuff up but… (Aug 13, 2017)
23. The Sound and the Fury (Aug 27, 2017)
24. Feeling out of this world (Sept 10, 2017)
25. A spray a day keeps the monsters away (Sept 24, 2017)
26: Stand me up at the gates of Hell (Oct 8, 2017)
27. It’s not right, it’s surrealism (Oct 22, 2017)
28. Defense against the dark art of scare-mongering (Nov 5, 2017)
29. Amateur Hour (Nov 19, 2017)
30. Bear with us, Yeti again (Dec 3, 2017)
31. Put some feathers on those dinosaurs (Dec 17, 2017)
32. Weirdshitology with Jeb Card (Jan 14, 2018)
33. Anomaly Porn (Jan 28, 2018)
34. Credible vs Un-Credible (Feb 11, 2018)
35. That’s not how this works (Feb 25, 2018)
36. Jonesing for the Apocalypse (Mar 11, 2018)
37. STEVE is Octarine (Mar 25, 2018)
38. The Danger is Overblown (April 8, 2018)
39. Tabloids and Tropes (April 22, 2018)
40. In Search Of…credible paranormal popular media (May 6, 2018)
41. Earwitness Testimony (May 20, 2018)
42. What the Hell is That? Scientists not actually baffled (June 3, 2018)
For episode 36 – I read Jonathan Kay’s book Among the Truthers and he said that one of the reasons conspiracy theories float to the top of search results is that search algorithms tend to follow links and promote the material that has the most links pointing to it. The world of conspiracy theorists is very self referential and all of them link their sites and other materials to each other in an endless daisy chain. The intensive cross-linking boosts the conspiracy materials and gives them priority over credible material, which loses out because people who produce credible material aren’t as obsessive about linking to each other.
On YouTube, the algorithm favors the people who are the first out with their videos. It’s easy to be the first out when you have no intention of doing any research or fact checking, and all you’re going to do is rant on your talking points. Because they’re the first out when the crisis is the top of mind for everyone, they have the best chance to be influential.
Conspiracy YouTubers are also cunning in the way they insert clips from credible news sources in their rants. The algorithm sees the clips and it boosts them in the rankings.
I saw a possible solution in the Google Scholar search site, which returns results based on being in reputable, peer reviewed journals. Perhaps there could be a YouTube Scholar Collection restricted to channels from accredited schools, colleges, universities and cultural institutions. YouTube can then place results in this collection at the top of search results.
Excellent points! Thank you.
I’ve noticed that when I listen on earbuds, some of the dialogue seems a little clipped. Is this an artifact of recording/editing? I don’t seem to notice when I listen in the car or on the computer.
We will be a bit more careful with the editing. Thanks.
Love the show. I have listened to every episode. Thanks for updating the links on this page as I don’t check my Facebook feed that often. I only hear Yanny. My wife an son could only hear Laurel.
Sharon,
In episode 42 you mentioned that ultrasound is only used for things like viewing a fetus. That’s not quite right. Ultrasound can be used to break things apart – like kidney stones (see Extracorporeal Shock Wave Lithotripsy). Of course it’s pretty silly to think that someone is using a gigantic ultrasound brain frying machine.
Thanks for the great show.
George