As my awesome podcast Squaring the Strange (co-hosted by Pascual Romero and Celestia Ward) comes upon its one year anniversary, I will be posting episode summaries from the past year to remind people some of the diverse topics we’ve covered on the show, ranging from ghosts to folklore to mysteries and topical skepticism. If you haven’t heard it, please give a listen!

This week Ben looks at some updates to the blue whale suicide game / moral panic discussed in episode 6. The death of Isaiah Gonzales has been attributed to the game on secondary media sources, but actual reports have no evidence supporting this. Pascual discusses the “cancer sunscreen myth” reported by Paul Fassa and sourced from NaturalNews.com. By completely misrepresenting a credible study, the article categorizes sunscreen as a dangerous carcinogen and urges readers to get more sun exposure for health benefits. It also contains a common red flag to watch for in bogus medical articles: make sure the doctor quoted is a medical doctor and any degrees listed are from accredited universities. Then Ben and Pascual discuss the main topic of pedantry. Being called pedantic is not ever a compliment, and skeptics frequently come under fire for this behavior. When is pedantry better avoided, and when is it beneficial? Ben points out the necessity of being a pedant when it comes to editing and publishing: articles should be fact-checked and errors corrected. Rather than aiming for a “gotcha” moment, good pedantry should aim to improve precision and sharpen an idea. The enemy of truth is often ambiguity—and this type of ambiguous communication is on display in President Trump’s statements, which seem deliberately vague and evasive (though he is certainly not the first politician to employ such verbal tactics). Law is another arena where specificity and pedantry is a foundational pillar, as vagueness or minor errors can have disastrous results.

You can hear the show HERE!

You can find more on me and my work with a search for “Benjamin Radford” (not “Ben Radford”) on Vimeo, and please check out my podcast Squaring the Strange!