Why Smart Women Podcast
Welcome to the Why Smart Women Podcast, hosted by Annie McCubbin. We explore why women sometimes make the wrong choices and offer insightful guidance for better, informed decisions. Through engaging discussions, interviews, and real-life stories, we empower women to harness their intelligence, question their instincts, and navigate life's complexities with confidence. Join us each week to uncover the secrets of smarter decision-making and celebrate the brilliance of women everywhere.
Why Smart Women Podcast
Ghost Busting with Ben Radford. Pt.1
What happens when our supernatural beliefs influence real-world decisions? Science-based paranormal investigator Ben Radford takes us on a fascinating journey through the psychology of belief, exploring why we're drawn to the unexplained and how this affects our decision-making.
🎙️Ben's Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/squaring-the-strange/id1226273233
🙋♀️ Meet with Annie - go.oncehub.com/AnnieMcCubbin
All they do is sell their own supplements, and I think RFK had his own supplements, didn't he?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean he's been peddling all sorts of stuff. I mean, in fact, you know he's been on our skeptical radar for a long, long time.
Speaker 1:You are listening to the why Smart Women podcast, the podcast that helps smart women work out why we repeatedly make the wrong decisions and how to make better ones. From relationships, career choices, finances, to faux fur jackets and kale smoothies. Every moment of every day, we're making decisions. Let's make them good ones. I'm your host, annie McCubbin, and, as a woman of a certain age, I've made my own share of really bad decisions. Not my husband, I don't mean him, though I did go through some shockers to find him, and I wish this podcast had been around to save me from myself. This podcast will give you insights into the working of your own brain, which will blow your mind. I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land in which I'm recording and you are listening on this day. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. Well, hello, smart women, and welcome to this week's episode of the why Smart Women podcast.
Speaker 1:Today, I'm very, very excited to have one of my favourite sceptics on to talk to me all the way from the United States, and I'm just going to give you a very, very, very quick rundown on who he is. So his name is Ben Radford and he's an American writer, investigator and fabulous skeptic. He's contributed to thousands of articles and columns and his thing is around the paranormal, critical, critical thinking, mass hysteria, which I'm very interested in, and media literacy. He's written what have you written?
Speaker 1:His book mysterious New Mexico miracles, magic and monsters in the land of enchantment was published in 2014 and is a scientific investigation of famous legends and folklore in New Mexico. He's regarded as an expert on the bad clowns phenomenon and I'll be asking you about that, ben, because I didn't know that there was good and bad clowns. But there you go, I have something to learn. He's appeared on pretty much everything Good Morning America, cnn, etc. Etc. And he characterizes himself as one of the world's few science-based paranormal investigators and he's done firsthand research into exorcisms, miracles, bigfoot, stigmata One of my personal favorites. I've always been waiting to see if blood will appear on the hands. He's a contributor to the website Snopescom and also your podcast. Why isn't that on wikipedia? Your podcast, ben?
Speaker 2:I, I, I don't know. I'll need to talk to somebody uh, do you? If you know anybody who, who uh edits wikipedia, maybe we can get a hold of susan gerbic oh, that's right, susan does that. I forgot.
Speaker 1:No, I knew who's coming on next week. So he debunks folklore and a variety of popular myths, including the amicable horror and also the claim, which I'm particularly fond of, that humans only use 10% of their brains. So hello Ben.
Speaker 2:Hello.
Speaker 1:Hello, I remember the amicable horror. I can remember when the film came out and I was living in London at the time and between the Amityville Horror and the Shining I was so terrified I slept with my light on for a year and even though I've always had a severe doubt about the paranormal, the supernatural and ghosts, it still somehow managed to really take hold in my brain and I guess I'd like to talk to you today about the notion of the supernatural, paranormal ghosts and why we are so prone to believing and what that says about us.
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, it's a fascinating topic and that's you know. In some ways that's sort of the core of my research. I've been with the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Today is actually my anniversary. I've been there for 26 years. Ben, you don't look old enough.
Speaker 2:Thank you, it's the filters. I've got the AI filter on, but no, I mean it's just a case of where you know I grew up as every kid does, you know just fascinated by the paranormal right. You see stories about UFOs and you know dramatic stories and TV and magazines and all these sorts of things, and the Yowie would read stories about crazy. Yeah, all sorts of things.
Speaker 1:Chapacabra. Is that what its name is? Chapacabra, chapacabra, chapacabra. I read your book. It was really good.
Speaker 2:Thank you. It's funny. Of all my friends, the Australians had the most difficult time pronouncing it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know we're useless, we're useless. No, no, you're not useless. We're semi-illiterate and under-educated over here in Australia, not compared to us. Let me tell you.
Speaker 2:But no. So basically what happened was that I grew up as a wide-eyed kid. I grew up as a wide-eyed kid. I would go to the local used bookstore and just buy scads and scads of books on the paranormal and mysteries and crystals and healing and crop circles and all sorts of things and I was just fascinated by it. And then as I sort of got older and I was reading more books, I realized that most of these books there was very little actual investigation. It was mostly just so stories it was.
Speaker 1:It is said that yeah, yeah, yeah, but is that what prompted you to move into a sort of investigative space? The fact that it wasn't at all evidence-based? Is that what did it? Why that? Why that area?
Speaker 2:I think there's two reasons. One is that I began to recognize that most of what was being regarded as canon or self-evidently true by a lot of people who were just reading these uncritical books. Someone would go to a used bookstore or a magazine, they would see TV shows you know, that's incredible or just these sensational stories. And I'm thinking, well, hold on here. If this is true, then this is interesting and important. If there really are Yahwehs and chupacabras and Loch Ness monsters and if people can actually, you know, heal with their hands and move objects with their mind, if these things are real, then they deserve more than just this tabloid sensationalist treatment. But if they're not real, then we also need to know that because we can exclude that and not waste our time and energy and limited resources on those sorts of things. So that's part of it. Yeah, on those, sorts of things.
Speaker 1:So that's part of it. Yeah, so let's just say I mean, in my experience, I come from an arty world. You know, I'm an actor by trade. So I would say that in my experience, there's an awful lot of people who believe in the supernatural, paranormal, and what is the actual problem with that? Like, so what? Why are we doing? What's the problem?
Speaker 2:no, that's a great question and you know, of course, that's one of the core issues among skeptics is is you know, where do we draw the line between harmless personal beliefs about random things that aren't true? I mean I random things that aren't true. I mean I believe things that aren't true. Like what I don't know which ones they are. That's just it right. It's like we all hold beliefs that are just factually not true, that we believe them because we want to believe them.
Speaker 1:Motivated reasoning right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely Motivated reasoning and confirmation biases and things like that. So the fact that people believe things for which there isn't good evidence isn't inherently a problem, because we all do it on some level. The problem comes in when you start making important decisions based upon those beliefs, like what? Well, for example, the most obvious example that I can think of would be alternative medicine.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:If you believe that a faith healer or crystals or homeopathy can heal you and instead of going to an evidence-based practitioner, you do that, then that can literally kill you, yeah, so, yeah, I mean, there's other examples, like you know, someone say, well, what if you know, like the moon landing hoax? Right, if you, if, for whatever reason, you believe that we haven't landed on the moon, um, in some ways it doesn't really matter, right, it's not going to affect, I mean, it's, it's not going to affect your day-to-day life. Um, you know, it's a weird belief, it's, it's factually false. But if you, if, for some reason, you think that nasa faked the whole thing, then then that's, that's one thing. On the other hand, right if you believe, um, that, uh, in conspiracy theories and of course, many people do. Unfortunately, the current american political system under trump is rife with conspir theories.
Speaker 1:Well, you've got RFK, oh yeah, which is just the most devastatingly terrifying thing. As you know, a lot of my sort of the context in which I discuss things is around alt-med, yeah, and I just I'm stunned by the fact that you have an anti-vaxxer as the head of your medical what's it called over there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is remarkable. A couple of years back I got a master's in public health from Dartmouth and I did two years in the program and of course all my colleagues, most of my colleagues are medical doctors and to a person, the ones I'm in touch with, they're just horrified and the way that the dr Fauci has been marginalized and demonized at the elevation of RFK, jr and and these sorts of things. And especially it's especially problematic because in public health the gains are incremental, easily lost. So, for example, you talk about vaccinations, you talk about public health measures, cleaning up wells, anti-malarial prophylactics and so on.
Speaker 2:To make a difference, to save people's lives, these measures, you have to keep going at it, you have to keep pushing it, you have to keep making progress. And if you plateau and even worse, if you go backwards all of a sudden, all the time and effort is lost because, for example, you lose herd immunity in the case of vaccinations and things like that. So that's why it is so. It is so devastating to see, uh, to see just the it. It's just just careless, just disregard, it's, it's almost it's, it's frankly negligence oh, it is um.
Speaker 1:What is the head of so rfk? What's his official position? What is it called that? Your head of um public health, or what's he called?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah so he second, so he would be secretary of health, secretary um yep, yeah, and so, and, and of course that covers a lot of ground, uh the some it ranges from, I mean the the doh department of health has quite a few different tendrils. Some of the most visible ones are, of course, the cdc, uh the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Speaker 1:Disease Control yep.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So I heard I was listening today. We get a lot of American media here. If you choose to plug in, many people don't, because it makes them want to lie down with a you know scotch, just the idea of it. But I heard today that he was talking about the fact that you know, if you eat properly and exercise, you're less likely to get measles. That's what he said today, something along those lines. Yeah, well, like the hygiene thing. They love the hygiene thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, part of the reason they love the hygiene thing is because it puts the responsibility back on the patient and certainly you know the patient does have some responsibility. I mean, you know you have to exercise, you have to get vaccinated, and so on, but he's saying you don't need.
Speaker 1:he's sort of implying vaccinations are redundant, yeah, and.
Speaker 2:I think the real problem here is that Trump, for all his talk of DEI, hires and and the silliness of inclusion, things like that, he is stalking his cabinet with people who are self evidently unqualified for the job. Yep, the, the, the, the, the for for education, he's got. He's got wrestling promoter Vince McMahon's wife, who has no discernible background experience, degrees Same with RFK Jr. He's a lawyer and not a pretty good one. So this is. The problem is that in Trump's world, competency is irrelevant. The question is can you do something for me? Are you promoting me? Are you scratching my back? It's the Elon Musk factor, right?
Speaker 1:The Elon Musk factor? Absolutely. I know that someone, a friend of mine, yesterday, sent me a message saying that he had to have a triple bypass because of three blocked arteries. That he had to have a triple bypass because of three blocked arteries, and he sent me a link to this doctor called Stephen R Grundy, I think, or Gundy, who was saying that the whole problem with heart disease is leptins. And my friend was saying so maybe I don't need the surgery, maybe I can just take leptins out of my diet. And I was like no, no, no, and I sent him the link. And of course, all they do is sell their own supplements and I think RFK had his own supplements, didn't he?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean he's been peddling all sorts of stuff. I mean, in fact, you know he's been on our skeptical radar for a long, long time. He especially came on during COVID, partly because he was part of the. Do you remember the plandemic?
Speaker 1:Oh, definitely, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, so I wrote about that and I worked with Dr Paul Offit on that.
Speaker 1:Do you want to just explain?
Speaker 2:to people what the plandemic is? Sure, yeah. So for those who don't remember, basically there was a viral video that came out about, I'm going to say, three, four years ago and it was titled Plandemic and it's a reportment of planned epidemic Very clever, but not really, and the whole thing was this whole. In effect, it was basically an advertisement for a book. It was a book promotion, and who wrote the foreword for the book? Rfk Jr, wow and the entire. I think it was like an 18, 20-minute video. It went viral online and skeptics and public health officials were trying to get it taken offline because it was misinformation and hurting people yeah and that was framed as oh.
Speaker 2:Why are they trying to get this removed? Why are they sent? Why? Why is this being? Censored yeah and it was just frustrating because, like you're not being censored, you're, you're spreading misinformation that can hurt people. Yeah, uh, and but of. In that case, it's just so odious because it wasn't simply medical misinformation because there's plenty of that it was a very cynical attempt to promote a book.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but the thing is, people's critical thinking skills are so low and that's the that's the problem. Right, we have, um, uh, we had a show here I think it was master chef, wasn't master chef? One of those cooking shows and pete evans was on it, and then, for reasons which I don't know, are beyond most of the skeptical community, he then leapt you dramatically into the conspiracy theory alt-med, paleo, don't get vaccinated, just use this heat lamp. And he was running retreats honestly, these terrible retreats and selling his products. And of course it was all natural and organic. You know the whole, the whole kit and caboodle. Anyway, he was sort of he's now persona non grata here in australia. But what's happened since? Rfk has been um elected, he's now over in america, he's consulting with rfk so they can get back on the supplement paleo. You know, bullshit train and it's really depressing. It's really, really depressing.
Speaker 2:It is. And, again, you know, part of the reason that you and I spend so much time in alt medicine is because it is one of the fields where misinformation is self-evidently harmful. As, as I said, it matters less whether you think goes to real, it matters less whether you think crop circles are man-made or not, but when it comes to medical misinformation, especially these days, it is so it is so crucial and and especially, you know when, when we have, you know, due to global warming, for example, we have diseases that are becoming more and more prevalent, because what's happening is that as the earth warms just to pick one example, is malaria is moving to new areas.
Speaker 1:Wow, I did not know that.
Speaker 2:Because insect-borne diseases such as malaria, parts of the world which were cooler, which 20 years ago were too cool for those insects, are now warm enough that they're migrating upwards and this is introducing diseases into areas which previously didn't have them. And same thing with Ebola and bird flu and various SARS, COVID there's all sorts of different ones out there and the fact that we've only had one pandemic in the past couple of years.
Speaker 1:Did you mean plandemic? You meant plandemic, didn't you? Yes, plandemic, it's just you know.
Speaker 2:but people you know, people you know. I mean, if you ask any public health expert, they will say the question isn't you know, is there going to be another pandemic? It's. When? Is it next month, is it 10 years from now? It's coming. Have an institutional government, certainly in the states, which in many ways is is up until recently, was helping lead through the who, the cdc, the nih and so on. It's helping to lead this, and now we have the, the americans basically abandoning some of the cutting-edge research. That doesn't just benefit americans. It helps to improve public health worldwide.
Speaker 1:And I think that's such an interesting point that this notion of just being very sort of parochial, having a really sort of patriotic, nationalistic focus, it's really dumb, because we are interconnected. We are interconnected by travel, we're interconnected by trade and we're interconnected, you know, by media, so of course everything's going to spread. It's so dumb. And is it true? Tell me that the CDC is no longer, which everybody that's um, not in America. The CDC is a center for disease control in the states. Is it true? They're not allowed to make public statements anymore about outbreaks, or is that rubbish? I heard this so yeah.
Speaker 2:So part of the issue here is that, as everybody knows, trump has basically flooded the zone and issued enormous numbers, unprecedented, unprecedented numbers of presidential positions and statements and and and executive orders and so on, and and so it's hard.
Speaker 2:So at one point I think it was true that that basically they had, they had been told not to update uh.
Speaker 2:Now now that may have changed, because what's happening, of course, is that he issues, trump issues things, and then he takes them back a day or two later or a lawsuit comes along. Yeah, it's impossible to keep track and I think that's partly by design. So my understanding is that the last I heard and again, it sort of varies by the day is that there was a weekly newsletter, that there was a. There was a weekly newsletter, uh newsletter which I used to get as a public health student, which basically uh, once a week it would update people on basically epidemiology, where are diseases emerging? Uh, bird flu, measles, outbreaks there's several in here in my home state of new mexico just in the past couple weeks and things like that and that had stopped and so people, they were no longer being sent out. Another way, of course, that's happening is through Trump's attempt to purge anything that smacks of diversity, inclusion, equity, so not just trans, but just anything related to race.
Speaker 1:And it's just so short-sighted. Doesn't think women should be in charge of things, does he? Because we're too emotional? Anything related to race? Jim Day's not happy with women. He doesn't think women should be in charge of things. Does he Because we're too emotional?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, unless, well, he's happy to put in place his conservative Supreme Court Justice, amy Coney.
Speaker 1:Barrett.
Speaker 2:He's happy to have attractive blondes speaking for him at press conferences, but no, I don't think he holds much regard for that.
Speaker 1:Women in general. So, if I can just cycle back a minute, we know that if you believe in one conspiracy theory, like if you believe that the pandemic wasn't real and that COVID is a hoax, you might also then believe that the earth is flat, like we know that once you suspend disbelief or believe something without evidence, that generally can compound on itself. So, in terms of the supernatural and the paranormal, etc. Um, because we're talking about the fact that some things aren't, it doesn't matter if you believe in, you know that, crop circles or yaoi or whatever, but in another way, does it indicate that and can it then open up your sort of thinking to believing in, like going more towards alt med? Is there any sort of crossover in that sphere in that way?
Speaker 2:There is, and there's, quite a bit of interesting research on this. So when you look at paranormal beliefs, they tend to break down, certainly along ideological lines and also to some degree along gender lines. So for example, at least here in the States, men are more likely to believe in Bigfoot.
Speaker 2:Wow why, that's so funny Women are more likely to believe in astrology and psychics and so on. So I think that. So there's a couple reasons. One is well, for example, I was recently doing. I recently saw a couple reasons. One is well, for example, I was recently doing. I recently saw a documentary film called Look Into my Eyes, which came out a couple months back, and I'm actually going to be writing about it for the magazine soon.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's about a group of New York psychics and their clients and all of the, well, virtually all of the psychics are women and and the of the few men, uh, most of them are gay men, which which actually represents the, the, the, the breakdown by by and large. So it's interesting. So so again you have, and part and part of the reason for that is interesting because a lot of it has to do with empathy. So typically in in a psychic situation, a medium situation, there's lots of interaction, there's come to me, tell me about your problems, I'm seeing your future, I'm seeing what you're going to have in your future, and so there's a very strong emotional bond between the sitter and the client, the psychic and the sitter that you don't really see in UFOs, for example, you don't really see that in Bigfoot. So I think women tend to be more drawn to areas of the paranormal that are more empathy-based, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Well, it's interesting as well because, for instance, with naturopathy or with homeopathy, which, prior to my conversion to scepticism, I, unfortunately I had an illness and they couldn't work out what was wrong with me. And I had a lot to do with them and you know, I sort of shopped around until someone would tell me what was wrong with me. And to a person they were all highly relational, so everybody was friendly, everybody was warm. So everybody was friendly, everybody was warm, everybody was listening to my problems and really interested. And the other thing they were and I have spoken about this before on the podcast is they were certain.
Speaker 1:And that certainty, especially when you're ill, is very, very appealing, whereas, as we know, um with with doctors, they will, they will, they're in an analytical place, they're looking for evidence, so they're not going to say, oh, I know what that is, I can fix it, but just don't have any gluten, don't have any dairy and have some, you know, have some oil of whatever and a crystal and you'll be good. And and I think that's right, it's interesting that those that the supernatural is, or the paranormal is, divided into those two areas. That's so interesting, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm really glad you brought that up because I think that that certainty is definitely one of the axes that they come across, right. So, exactly as you said, scientists by their nature don't deal with certainty. That's not, you know, no scientist worth his or her salt is gonna tell you something is 100% certain. Yeah, because that's not how science works, but is exactly as you said, right. So so if someone goes to a doctor and says what's my prognosis, the doctor will look at the data. Hopefully they're up on the data that their specialty and they will. They will know in the back of their head Well, given your demographic, given the age of the, given your age different, given the progression of the disease, you have, say, 70 percent chance of remission, right.
Speaker 2:So hopefully he or she will go ahead and tell you that. But we'll be honest and say I don't know. But I mean, obviously I can't predict the future, but this is the data. And, exactly as you said, an alternative medicine practitioner will have no compunctions at all about frankly lying to your face and saying oh, you can be fine, yep, nope. Just, you know, your your candle, you know. So you need some crystals.
Speaker 1:Uh just some smudging yeah oh, sage smudging, I love sage smudging. We moved into this apartment about um I don't know two months ago and one of my um sort of in my circle I go to a gym and she said do you want me to come over and do a sage smudging? I was like no, I think I'm good. Plus, it's only like five years old, so I don't know that really ghosts have had a chance to take up residence here. I don't think they're going to be okay.
Speaker 2:I think you just scare off the ghosts, annie. I don't think that they're probably too smart to hang around your place, and I do think there's also that link.
Speaker 1:Besides the certainty of the alt-med, there is that thing about I am special, like I can see a ghost. It's like an identity, right. I can walk into a room and I can sense I can sense there's something here. My dog was at the gym I take him with me every day and anyway he was barking into the void. You know he's a dog, he can smell stuff and you know he just barks. And somebody said to me oh, he can sense, he can sense there's something in the gym. And I was like I don't think he can, I don't think that's right, I think he's just barking because he doesn't like that guy's hat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that guy's hat, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, it's the thing I have. Uh, you know, I have a cat. I, I like, I love cats and I have cat currently, and that's what they do they. They stare at things in the and and partly it's because they have better vision than I do. So what, what? What I or someone else interprets as a cat staring at nothing? Yeah, they're probably seeing because they have better vision and smell than we do. They're probably seeing because they have better vision and smell than we do. They're probably seeing some insect that is right there, we just can't see it because the light isn't good enough.
Speaker 2:That's right, and we misinterpret that as being some sort of, you know, animal psychic ability or something.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, and it does. It makes people feel as if they're the ones in the know, right, and it's the same with all the conspiracy theories. You're an idiot, Ben, because you're believing all this crap, but I'm in the know right and in fact I mean in my investigations and research.
Speaker 2:I will have to tell you that some of the most vitriolic, nasty people I've encountered I've even gotten death threats over the years tend be, uh, conspiracy theorists, and at first I was baffled by that. I mean, obviously, you know I I researched any number of claims and you know ghost bigfoot I mean just the up and on the list, but, but, but the the the largest pattern is is when conspiracy theorists accuse me of either being part of, you know, being a paid shill, or this and that A shill yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I figured out why. And it's because in the conspiracy worldview, you have, you have the people in the know, as you just said, and you have, you have the sheep, sheep we're sheeple, you also have the the sheeple, but you also have the sheeple, but you also have people who are actively promoting it.
Speaker 2:So, by virtue of me being a writer, a podcaster, writing articles for Discovery News that are debunking conspiracy theories to them, it's clear to them that I know the truth and the truth that I'm intentionally covering it up. So, so they, they don't think that I'm misled, they think that I'm. I'm evil. Ah, you're evil, ben. What would but understand why? Right? So a lot of conspiracy theories involve, uh, you know, human trafficking, and you know pedophiles are obsessed with pedophiles, right?
Speaker 2:oh, yeah, yeah and this is why you had the guy in comic ping pong pizza who went to this pizza place thinking that, uh, that hillary clinton was had stashed traffic, children, things that. But here, here's where we're going with this Is that, in their worldview, if you are trying to debunk their conspiracy theories, it's because you are part of it. You are actively, you want children to be hurt, you want children to have their blood drained from them Blood drained, have them being abused and things like that. Because in their mind, you're with us, you're against us and by virtue of being a skeptic, we naturally fall into the enemy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, people don't like me either very much. I'm awful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're adorable. I don't know why people wouldn't like you Exactly.
Speaker 1:I am adorable, thank you. Can you let all the people that hate me know that that would be really good. Yeah, we've got one. We've got one. We've got one. Uh, we had one recently about someone was digging tunnels under the synagogue the jews. That's right, because now we get into the the anti-semitic stuff as well. Right, someone had tunnels dug underneath the great synagogue in sydney, apparently, and was taking children's and was taking children's baby's adrenals out or doing something with them. It was like okay, this is Also the notion that somebody is taking children just randomly from parents and the parents are like, okay, I guess I've lost one there it's like whatever we can make another.
Speaker 2:It's like insane, know whatever we can make another, it's like insane, it is just bizarre. I don't know if you've been following, not that I have that much, but you know, roseanne Barr has just completed the complete slide into just insanity. No, and a couple years back she was on a podcast and she said yeah, you know Hillary Clinton, the Democrat and the Democrats they're, they're eating babies and who's babies? Right, like you're like waiting for the punchline. She's like no, really like you. Okay, you really think that you really think?
Speaker 2:they're literally eating children. Yeah, okay, wow, I mean, how do you even address that? But that's the problem?
Speaker 1:There's no, and this is the thing. When the conspiracy theory becomes part of an identity narrative and I guess you'd have to, um, look at someone like rosanne bar who, you know, during her heyday was enormously, had a very high profile and was very successful and I do wonder if there's a phenomena where people start losing relevancy and it's like, quick, I'd better get that relevancy back again. And then it becomes part of then identity narrative. And don't you dare question my identity narrative, right?
Speaker 1:Because you're not just because you are virtually saying I'm a liar, which is in fact what we are saying, because that is nuts.
Speaker 2:In that case, yes, Well, you know it's interesting. I, you know, I've met dozens and dozens of sorry yes, I was saying before I was interrupted by an ex-girlfriend. We can cut that, Okay.
Speaker 1:Oh, ex-girlfriend, I want to know about that. Well, that was the end of episode one of my two-part interview with Ben Radford, and he focuses on conspiracy theories and debunking the supernatural and paranormal. So tune in next week and we'll hear about what happened when he dated a psychic. Thanks for listening. Bye for now. Thanks for tuning into why Smart Women with me, Annie McCubbin.
Speaker 1:I hope today's episode has ignited your curiosity and left you feeling inspired by my anti-motivational style. Join me next time as we continue to unravel the fascinating layers of our brains and develop ways to sort out the fact from the fiction and the over 6,000 thoughts we have in the course of every day. Remember, intelligence isn't enough. You can be as smart as paint, but it's not just about what you know, it's about how you think. And in all this talk of whether or not you can trust your gut, if you ever feel unsafe, whether it's in the street, at work, in a car park, in a bar or in your own home, please, please respect that gut feeling. Staying safe needs to be our primary objective. We can build better lives, but we have to stay safe to do that. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast and share it with your fellow smart women and allies. Together, we're hopefully reshaping the narrative around women and making better decisions. So until next time, stay sharp, stay savvy and keep your critical thinking hat shiny. This is Annie McCubbin signing off from why Smart Women See you later.
Speaker 1:This episode was produced by Harrison Hess. It was executive produced and written by me, Annie McCubbin.
