The Rational View podcast with Dr. Al Scott Al Scott

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. She is also a member of the Ottawa centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. She was the recipient of two awards from RASC-Ottawa one for her writing about ancient religions and their connection to the night sky and one for her interpretation of the night sky through visual art.
Support the podcast at patron.podbean.com/TheRationalView
What did you think of this episode? Let me know on Facebook @TheRationalView
TwiX @AlScottRational

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 change to the system (John Tory’s conservative party proposed in the 2007 election to fund all religious schools) their party was hung out to dry by the voters.  Proponents of the special status for Catholic schools note that funding of their particular religion is enshrined in Canada’s constitution. Section 93 of the Constitution Act, 1867, protects the Catholic school system. Opponents note that Ontario is the only province that funds just one type of religious school.  Let’s get the facts. My guest today has published articles calling for the Abolition of publicly funded Catholic school system in Ontario.
David Moscrop is a columnist and the author of Too Dumb for Democracy? Why We Make Bad Political Decisions and How We Can Make Better Ones. He is a political commentator for television, radio, and print media. He is also the host of Open To Debate, a current affairs podcast, and Left Looking In with CUPE Local 416. He holds a PhD in political science from the University of British Columbia.
Support the podcast at patron.podbean.com/TheRationalView
Give me your feedback on Facebook @TheRationalView

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 been funneled into the hands of the top 1% of society, leaving the rest of us in a declining standard of living with most families having to go to dual incomes with less free time just to make ends meet.
In the last episode I interviewed Karl Widerquist to discuss the likely economic impacts of the ongoing AI revolution, and the feasibility of introducing UBI. In the past I’ve also interviewed Mr. Floyd Marinescu, CEO and founder of UBI Works on the feasibility of this concept.  Today I’m interviewing a recognized authority on UBI and I’ll be challenging him on some of the more controversial aspects.
Scott Santens has been researching and advocating for the concept of unconditional universal basic income (or UBI) since 2013. He is the Founder and President of the Income To Support All Foundation (ITSA Foundation) and also serves on the board of directors of the Gerald Huff Fund for Humanity and as the editor of Basic Income Today — a daily UBI news hub. Scott was acknowledged by former U.S. presidential candidate Andrew Yang as one of those who helped shape his thinking. He has recently published a book entitled 'Let there be money', about UBI and how to pay for it.
Support the podcast at patron.podbean.com/TheRationalView
Send me your opinions on this episode on Facebook @TheRationalView

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 profits need to keep increasing to pay shareholders, and corporations have been able to use the threat of offshoring jobs, while having to compete with more unscrupulous companies to hold wages down.
I am a proponent of some sort of UBI but I recognize that the path from here to there is not obvious. I fear that if we don’t find a peaceful means to distribute the increasingly concentrated wealth created by robotics, and AI, that the uprising is coming. People are getting restless. Despite being significantly more productive than our parents generation, we have less real wealth. Less purchasing power. Less free time. Less leisure. AI and robotics were supposed to free us from the grind. Make life easier. Instead we have to compete with robots in a dwindling job market to make ends meet. It doesn’t have to be this way. Is there an equitable and peaceful path to more widely share the benefits of automation or are we rushing headlong into upheaval?
Dr. Karl Widerquist has a Ph.D. in economics from the City University of New York. For several years Widerquist pursued both music and economics. He played in several indie bands in New York in the 1990s. He was a Hoover Fellow at the Université Catholique de Louvain. Widerquist received a second doctorate in Political Theory at the University of Oxford and then worked as a Fellow at the Murphy Institute at Tulane University and as a Visiting Professor at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom. He is a Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University-Qatar specializing in distributive justice. Widerquist has been the co-chair of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) since 2008.
Support the podcast at patron.podbean.com/TheRationalView
Support the discussion on Facebook @TheRationalView
Twix @AlScottRational

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’t always make friends. Many people are turned off by the methods of science. It reminds me of why I never liked the TV series X-files. The scientist was always being appropriately skeptical of phenomena that have, at best, only breathless anecdotal support. But she was constantly being shamed by the male character for not ‘believing’ that the truth is out there.  But believing extraordinary claims without sufficient evidence makes you gullible. You have the choice of being a friendly fool in believing that astrology or alternative medicine, homeopathy, or other superstitions should be given equal standing with experimentally tested scientific knowledge.
So in this episode I want to give you some tools to identify bafflegab, gobbledygook, and pseudo-science, while reviewing some of the reactions I received. 
Support the podcast at patron.podbean.com/TheRationalView
Give me your feedback on Facebook @TheRationalView
Twittter @AlScottRational

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 issue? Excess deuterium has been found to impact cell division.. When it gets incorporated into proteins in the body it can mess with their functionality. Yet at such low concentrations it seems like it wouldn’t be a significant issue. Let’s get to the bottom of this.
Dr. Laszlo Boros is a retired Professor of Pediatrics at the UCLA School of Medicine, the Co-Director of the Stable Isotope Research Laboratory at the Lundquist Institute for Biomedical Innovations and Investigator at the Clinical and Translational Research Institute at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. He is the inventor of the Human Deutenome Project in order to map the distribution of deuterium in the human body with structural and functional interpretations as it relates to disease and health.
Born and educated in Hungary, his medical background includes a focus on pancreatic cancer and stable isotope technologies to study diabetes and cancer cell growth in vitro. He researches the influence of metabolic processes and disorders on aggressive cancers and vitamin transport. He is an internationally recognized expert of metabolic water biochemistry as well as deuterium mediated kinetic isotopic effects in health and disease. His most recent studies target 'deupletion' and 'deuposition' related mechanisms as the result of intra-cellular hydrophobic lipid membrane nanoconfinements via the Quantum Destabilization of Protons in metabolic water.
https://www.laszlogboros.com/_files/ugd/aeaa87_81191bea9f9643a7b40ed99f0052394d.pdf
Support The Rational View at https://patron.podbean.com/TheRationalView
This was an interesting discussion. What did you think? Let me know @TheRationalView on Facebook.