In this compelling episode, Fred Williams and Doug McBurney explore the phenomenon of ‘brain rot,’ a concerning trend linked to endless digital consumption. Learn about the implications of doom scrolling and the steps you can take to protect your mental health. As they debunk myths about aliens and explore the concept of the universe’s center, the hosts provide a refreshing perspective on scientific dialogues. Don’t miss the chance to be part of Real Science Radio’s Project 2025, an initiative aimed at spreading truth and knowledge in the coming years.
I don’t think they could do a Mrs. Pibb. This would be quite a crisis in marketing. The his or her, they Pibb. It would be they Pibb. His, her, them, they Pibb. That’s it. We’ll try and figure that one out.
SPEAKER 07 :
Scholars can’t explain it all away.
SPEAKER 1 :
Get ready to be awed by the handiwork of God. Tune in to Real Science Radio.
SPEAKER 07 :
Turn up the Real Science Radio. Keeping it real.
SPEAKER 04 :
Greetings to the brightest audience in the country. Welcome to Real Science Radio. I’m Fred Williams.
SPEAKER 05 :
And I’m Doug McBurney, Bible student, science geek, amateur comedian. Fred, people may not recall, but Bob Enyart launched this broadcast as Real Science Friday. in response to NPR’s leftist propaganda, dressed up in scientific garb and painfully doled out every Friday like gruel at a Soviet soup kitchen by Ira Flatow and other propagandists. You know, Fred, NPR calls it Science Friday. And keeping that in mind, it’s good to be with you again, Fred, talking about real science on Friday.
SPEAKER 04 :
Happy New Year, Doug. It’s the new year, and we’re going to give our top three New Year’s resolutions for science.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, I love it. I love it. Well, Fred, same to you. Happy New Year. I’m excited, by the way, to tell our audience that we have big plans for 2025. For starters, we have some pretty big-name scientists that have agreed to come on the show, but I’m not ready to spill all the beans yet, Fred.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, well, you know, Doug, one of these guys, I’ll just give the audience a clue. He had a video on TED Talk. You know, the TED Talk channel is really popular. So you’re doing really well if you get on TED Talks. And he got banned. They kicked him off of TED Talks.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, sounds perfect for us.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, he upended the apple cart on some mainstream science. And, of course, the secular world isn’t going to like that. So he’s going to be a guest that we’re going to have on. We’re also going to have a molecular biologist on the show. who’s going to help us deal with one of the claims that Professor Dave just keeps doubling down on. It just amazes me that he does this. And by the way, for those who missed our tussle with Professor Dave, you can go back to last week’s show. In fact, we dealt with two of the problems of the, I think there’s at least 26 to 29 problems that he has that he’s wrong about. We dealt with the two that we thought were the funnest to attack right away. So go back last week and you’ll see our response to Professor Day’s response to our debunking of his alleged debunking of creation science.
SPEAKER 05 :
I think you got, I think you followed the chain all the way back, Fred. Great job. Great job. That’s right. That’s right. Professor David James, as his mom calls him, you know, when she catches him in a lie. Now, Fred, we’ve got the ball rolling here. He’s going to have to answer real challenges to his his propaganda dressed up as science whenever he promotes the Big Bang and evolution and millions and billions of years. Anyway, later in the show, we’ll mention ways, by the way, that you can help us. You can invest in this ministry, a ministry we intend to reap eternal rewards as we continue to grow and we reach more of the lost and edify more of the saints. I mean, right now, Fred, we’re approaching 5,000 subscribers. And with the help of you out there in the audience, we have a stretch goal to double that. In the next six months, we want to reach… Well, I guess 9,000. No, we want to break 10,000. And we just want to respond to more atheists of renown so that we can reach their audience.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, so let’s get to the top three science resolutions for the new year. And just for our audience, you know, we get a lot of news stories. We get it from our producers. We get it from the audience. We just get it from watching news feeds ourselves. And we always try to pick the jewels of the bunch because, Doug, if we went with all the ones that are just great, we wouldn’t have time to do it. You only have so much time to do a show. Right. So we try to pick our best ones. So here’s our top three that we pick that we think are, hey, they’re good New Year’s resolutions.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, and Fred, before you do that, at the end of the show, we’re just going to share a little bit of a letter that we’re going to send out to some of our longtime supporters. Just wanted to give a heads up. We don’t want to forget that.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, so number three, stop rotting your brain. So this is from just last week, Doug, December 29th, right?
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, well, Fred, the election’s over, so at least some level of brain rot must have fallen away. Yeah. No, this is different. This is serious. This is a clinical study.
SPEAKER 04 :
So this is from a story on December 29th, so just last week. A warning issued over brain rot, the 2024 habit that’s on the rise, and this was reported on Australia’s leading news site. So doctors are warning those guilty of a bad habit that’s booming in popularity to be careful so it can seriously damage our brains. The doctors are issuing a warning that after brain rot was chosen by the Oxford University Press as its word of the year. Now, that’s the Oxford University Press, Doug, and that is the word of the year. This is two words, brain rot.
SPEAKER 05 :
So that’s… So aside from that, you know, that’s… They have some trouble counting at Oxford these days, but don’t be alarmed about that.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, you know, they say there’s three kinds of people in the world. Those who can count, those who can’t, but I digress. So… So the phrase has boomed in popularity among Gen Z, largely as a direct result of young people’s lack of moderation when watching online material. Yeah, no shock there. So far from being a new slang word, the term refers to the potential medical impacts of continuously scrolling through social media apps like TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter. It’s a habit known as doom scrolling.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, doom scrolling.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
I’ll tell you one thing about Gen Z. They certainly have a way with words.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, they do. So according to the Oxford University Press, that same group that doesn’t know how to count, brain rot is defined as the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state after the overconsumption of material considered to be trivial or unchallenging. And, you know, Doug, we’ve been told, we know that there’s an attention span problem. And even with YouTube, you know, to try to get your videos listened to, you’ve got to try to get to the point right away. And that’s part of why we started doing shorts. So Real Science Radio, you can start watching shorts, which are one-minute videos, one minute or less. But we actually try to have things that aren’t trivial or unchallenging. And I know, Doug, you could attest to that with just some of the interesting facts of the week. They’re not trivial. They’re not unchallenging.
SPEAKER 05 :
They’re certainly not unchallenging since I miss most of them. Hey, Fred, so one thing my dad taught me is that real men are never seen in shorts. I mean, unless you’re on vacation, like in the Riviera, but we’re doing them for the sake of the younger audience. But Fred, this isn’t just young people because I think I’ve experienced this myself. In fact, I’ve developed a habit of, Of forcing myself to get up out of the chair and get outside of the house or outside of the building. Literally, I force myself outside whenever I realize. And it’s usually because my backside’s getting numb. And there may be a direct correlation to if your backside’s getting numb, there’s a pretty good chance that this side’s getting numb. And maybe you should… Get up and get out from behind the screen, right?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, it may be another form of neuroplastic atrophy. And so there’s a study, such as the one in Frontiers in Psychology from 2023. It has shown that endless passive consumption of trivial content can lead to what’s called neuroplastic atrophy. Translation, your brain gets lazy. Instead of building robust neural connections through challenging activities like problem solving or learning, It weakens from too much mindless swipe and scroll. So there’s a behavioral neuroscientist, Dr. Kyra Bobinette, and she just had a clip show up on Fox Digital Science News. And let’s play that clip really quick.
SPEAKER 02 :
It’s in the zeitgeist that people have really difficulty with their attention span. They feel brain foggy. They feel less concentration for what they want to do. They can’t do deep work. And then there’s also this epidemic of loneliness layer that has been kind of sitting on the heels of this because we can’t really focus on anything, including relationship building. And so that stuckness that people feel with brain rot is really the habenula going on because it’s been shown to go on when you doom scroll. It’s been shown to be triggered by those kinds of activities. And so when we’re online too much and we don’t find what we need or we feel dissatisfied, even in a tiny way, if this activates, then we’re not going to feel motivated to do anything for ourselves for the rest of the day.
SPEAKER 04 :
okay so that was dr kyra bobbinette she’s the author of unstoppable brain so and as she mentioned in that clip you know people they their brain starts feeling foggy they have less concentration and they have less motivation i mean it sounds like like our marijuana shows doug
SPEAKER 03 :
If you think about it.
SPEAKER 04 :
So this is just another thing that kind of affects the brain. And we want to let our audience be aware. Watch out for brain rot. We know we’ve got a lot of listeners, maybe have kids going to public schools, and Lord willing, they yank them out of there and send them to Christian school or homeschool them. But there are remedies for this, right, Doug? There’s a doctor came up with some things you can do.
SPEAKER 05 :
But hey, Fred, before we get to the doctor’s solutions, I just wanted to quote one of the authors in the clinical article from Frontiers in Psychology who said that this… this practice of mindless scrolling, endless consumption of trivial content, I think is what they called it. He said, quote, it’s like feeding your brain a steady diet of candy when it’s begging for veggies and protein. The result is reduced attention spans, impaired memory, difficulty focusing. And then he says this is a phenomenon sometimes nicknamed digital dementia. So… I don’t know about you, Fred, but my brain, my body has never begged for veggies and protein ever. I’ve pretty much always had to force the veggies and I’ve always had to force the good stuff in. I’ve always had to make a conscious decision, especially if there were Froot Loops available. If there’s Froot Loops available. So I think what the psychologists may not fully comprehend is that there is no begging for veggies and protein on the part of our body or our mind. And this is one of the reasons welfare is so evil and corrosive, Fred, is that for most people, if you give them an opportunity to endlessly consume trivial content, That’s what they’ll do with their life, and that’s what we have to be careful about.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. Yeah, so this Dr. Zach, he gave a list of things to do to kind of try to prevent this, so let’s just quickly go through them. He suggests move your apps off your home screen, so out of sight, out of mind. Set screen time limits so phones have the ability to do that. Doom scroll with intention. So if you must scroll, set a goal. Are you looking for news updates? A cute dog video. And then schedule screen-free zones. You know, no phones at dinner, things like that. So we’re going to leave it up to our very bright audience to figure out how you’re going to deal with this with both yourself and with your loved ones. I mean, I know I’ve caught myself sometimes… I don’t do the scrolling through shorts and stuff, but sometimes I just get into this… brainless stuff, some of the brainless stuff I’ll watch. Yeah, of course.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, and so typical of liberals is that all of these psychologists, they give you a list of rules to make for yourself so that you can’t. Well, I’m telling you that you can’t set rules for yourself that make it so you can’t. That doesn’t work because we’re sinful and we’re fallen. What you need to do is become otherwise interested and motivated. Get interested and motivated in other things by getting up off the chair and going and doing something else. You might be surprised. You might find it interesting.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right. Okay, so Doug, we’re going to get to number two. All right. And before we do, and this has to do with aliens, we did want to quickly mention our RSR Project 2025.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s right, our very own Project 2025. And Fred, we didn’t hire any outside consultants for this. We did not have a committee funded by donors working on our Project 2025. This is an organic project.
SPEAKER 04 :
It is, and it’s kind of our in-house advertising for this video. We’re going to advertise for ourselves because we want your help. Our number one priority at Real Science Radio has always been sharing the truth of the gospel with as many people as we can in order to hasten the fullness of the Gentiles. So why RSR? Why Real Science Radio? So we put heavier emphasis on the more tangible sciences of genetics, biology, and chemistry. and to some degree physics, as opposed to the more subjective and abstract sciences such as baromology, paleontology, geology, and geophysics, that honestly and frankly, we believe that some of the dear Christian brothers, our creation friends at CMI, Answers in Genesis, ICR to some degree, and definitely CRS, they seem to be a little too top-heavy in these more abstract sciences. And so there’s the famous creationist apologetics verse from Romans 1.20. So we want to make a biblical case of why we take the approach we do. And that’s God’s invisible attributes are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made. And the word made could just as easily read designed. Right. or engineered. In Hebrews 3.4 it says, For every house is built by someone, but he who built all things is God. People know every house has a builder, and therefore will know that even more complex living things must also have a builder. And finally, Jesus also taught, But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, Believe the works. Jesus’ works were 100% concrete miracles that people witnessed with their own eyes, not something described by theory or mathematics. So we believe there’s much truth in Nikola Tesla’s words. We’re going to throw in a secular reference that he said this, Today’s scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation and eventually build a structure. which has no relation to reality. So while we say that, we also highly value both historical and forensic science, and we believe both are capable of providing sufficient proof of that which is being investigated. So we actually here at Real Science Radio, we resist the claim that you can’t prove anything that isn’t a repeatable experiment. So we don’t adhere to that. We think historical and forensic science can prove things like Jesus truly rose from the dead.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 04 :
We have concrete proof of that. And Bob is always careful to present topics that have been carefully vetted. So we do the same thing. We’ve continued that tradition. And we have a production team that helps us with choosing speakers and topics. And while we do often partner with our friends in the intelligent design movement, we’re more aligned with their approach in certain ways. We also hold strongly to the historical account of Genesis that places the earth at roughly 6,000 to 7,000 years old. Both of these, both appealing to design God’s invisible attributes and the historical account in Genesis, we believe are both critical to reaching the lost who have been indoctrinated in both millions of years and evolution. We don’t place any requirement on our speakers that we bring in to hold those views as long as the reason for their appearance is to either bolster or in a way debate a position that we support. So we will always stand by Genesis. That’s our foundation. And finally, Bob is always resistant to having guests on the show who do not provide something new unless it was something we believed worth consideration that was otherwise suppressed or censored by groupthink. And believe me, groupthink happens everywhere, and it happens in creation circles, too. And we’ve witnessed that with many of the things we’ve talked about here. Now, again, I want to make it clear, though, we are dear friends with all the major creation groups. But what RSR does is we fill a void for those descending creationist positions, such as the hydroplate theory and plasma cosmology theory. So at Real Science Radio, our primary emphasis will be on observable phenomena with a secondary focus on the more abstract and subjective areas such as geology and paleontology. This is how we believe we can more effectively reach the lost, just as the Apostle Paul outlined in Romans 1 and Hebrews 3. Amen!
SPEAKER 05 :
So anyway, one of those things that we can observe, by the way, is the Bible, which is one of the keys to understanding origins and creation sciences, the Bible. And back to Romans 1, Fred. Because we have the Bible and because we have the things that we can see that were obviously created, the Bible says of all of us, they are without excuse. There is no excuse. And we’re here to help people realize that they are without excuse when it comes to the creation, especially.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right. So we’ve sent out an email to people who we had their email addresses. If you want to get this letter, our RSR Project Plan 2025, please contact us, provide us your email, and we’ll get you a copy of that Project 2025 for RSR. So, Doug, number two, number two on our scientific New Year’s resolutions. Stop getting spooked by Spock.
SPEAKER 05 :
Spook by spy. One of my favorite topics, aliens. And I’m so glad, Fred, that we made it through November without the deep state unveiling the aliens. I was actually concerned about that because we talk about brain rot and where people are these days and what they might fall for. And you just never know. So we have an article from another one from Fox News. Luis Elizondo. Are you familiar with Luis, Fred?
SPEAKER 04 :
I think I’ve heard of this person. And by the way, this is from Christmas Day.
SPEAKER 05 :
Christmas Day. Yeah. And it’s Louise with a Z, not with a S-E. Louise is a guy. How do we know he’s a guy? Look at his picture. He’s chunky. He’s got something of a beard and a bunch of tattoos. He looks very masculine, Luis does. Now, Fox News says he’s the former head of the Defense Department’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. He and other witnesses, Fred, testified before the Congress back in November about an alleged group within the government hiding the fact that, quote, we are not alone in the cosmos. And Luis Elizondo said of that fact in his testimony, he said, quote, I believe that we as Americans can handle the truth! And I think he said it just the exact same way that the actor said it. His name escapes me. That’s embarrassing because he’s a very famous guy. Actually, that’s a point in my favor, Fred, that I can’t remember the very famous actor’s name because it’s been so long since I consumed any media.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, good for you, but that was Jack Nicholson. Jack Nicholson.
SPEAKER 05 :
How do you forget Jack Nicholson for crying out loud? That’s pretty bad. It could just be that I’ve got either brain rot or… Early stage Alzheimer’s. But let me just comment, Fred, real quick on Mr. Elizondo. So the fact, Mr. Elizondo, that you claim that you finished your career in a defense bureaucracy initiated by the godfather of the deep state, Harry Reid, initiated this defense, whatever it is, department, sub-department of a department of a department at the aerospace threat identification, whatever it is. So it was started by Harry Reid, and then it was signed off on by America’s dumbest president, George W. Bush. There’s no doubt about that. So just that, I mean, that gives me some pause as to taking you seriously. And then the fact that he got into this bureaucracy and somehow remained politically correct long enough to get to the top of the pile in the bureaucracy, mostly during the Obama administration, by the way. And then finally, the fact, Mr. Elizondo, that you have a book out that you’re promoting, it just doesn’t make your testimony particularly compelling to me. And then second, the fact that you quote a fictitious character from a movie. Now, the movie, I remember the title, Fred, A Few Good Men. You can’t handle the truth, right? I got that. Anyway, the fact that you quote that in your testimony, I mean, it makes me wonder if you’ve maybe suspended disbelief one time too many and you’ve just gone totally around the bend.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, you know, Doug, I don’t know if you remember the number one first thing that the Clintons did when they got in the office was they were going to unveil the Roswell, the alien landing. And you know what? So if there really was something with Area 51 and there really was aliens there, I guarantee you the liberals would be pushing that all over the media. There would have been somebody, you know, we got to keep it top secret because of this and that, you know, the technology. No, they would have leaked it to the media, to somebody, because they love, they want there to be aliens. And I tried to think of an analogy, Doug, and one that, I don’t know why it came to my mind, but it’s like the KJV-only crowd, you know, the King James Version-only crowd. Oh. That it’s the one only true translation of the Bible. You know, Bob Binyard had a really good debate with a KJV-only guy, and Bob actually went out and he looked at the original KJV, King James Bible, used that as part of his debate. And, well, the guy he was debating quit, so that kind of gives you an idea who won that debate, right? I mean, I think that thing just ended. Yeah, so anyways, for the King James only, it made me think, okay, too bad for the Japanese. So I guess God favored only the people who understand English. So how does this relate to this whole alien thing? And by the way, I met our fantastic producer for our radio show, the guy who puts all of our content on KLTT, the blowtorch of the Rockies. And yes, Professor Dave, we are on the radio. We have been for many decades. That’s right. So Jamie, yeah, I met him in a booth at a fair in downtown Denver, and he was debating somebody who was a KJV-only guy, and Jamie did just a fantastic job of showing him why the King James only isn’t the only true translation of the Bible. So anyways, here’s the analogy. Too bad for those aliens since the Earth, really the scientific evidence shows that we are the center of the universe. So the aliens are then coming from somewhere that isn’t the center. You know, I guess unless they’re maybe in our Milky Way, but too bad for them because we’ve had this scientific data. You can go to rsr.org slash center. That’s right. And the quantized redshifts continues to be a problem for those who hold to the, you know, the secular world tries to tell you, oh, the universe doesn’t have a center. Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
Which is just like, are you smoking dope?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, and you can go to our page and we quote secular scientists who admit that that claim is philosophical and not science. So we’ll leave it up to the listener on the radio and to you watching this on YouTube. Go check out that webpage. And we’re also showing a paper from 2024, September 2024, Quantized Redshift and Challenges to Big Bang Hypothesis. And then this other guy publishes a study supporting century-old theory that challenges the Big Bang, etc.
SPEAKER 05 :
So, Doug… Well, Fred, so if the universe doesn’t have a center, it’s the only physical thing that doesn’t have a center, right? And that’s not philosophical. That’s deranged. That’s deranged to think that.
SPEAKER 04 :
It is.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s what happens when you get too far down the rat hole of atheism.
SPEAKER 04 :
You live out in California. The Golden State Warriors, for a long time, they were winning championships without a center.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, man. Okay, so I digress.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s a bone for all of our sports fans out there. Good one, Fred. That’s pretty good.
SPEAKER 04 :
Now we’re down to the number one New Year’s resolution for science. But before we do that, Doug, we almost forgot. We got to do our interesting fact of the week.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yo, interesting fact of the week, Fred. I almost forgot. Having so much fun. Okay. All right.
SPEAKER 04 :
What causes an aurora? An aurora. Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, there’s a city like Denver that gets too big, and then eventually they have to do a suburb, and also in Chicago. No. Do you want to take another shot? Okay, so you’re talking about an aurora in space where you see, let’s say you have a body in space, but then there’s glowing around the body.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, aurora borealis. Think of that. Now, what could cause that? You know, speaking of aliens and whatnot, you know.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, so what would cause that aurora would be… Heat and light energy emitted from the body and then interference by particles between us and the body. Okay, not bad.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s kind of close. Okay. So it’s charged particles from solar winds.
SPEAKER 01 :
Stop the tape, stop the tape. Hey, this is Dominic Enyart. We are out of time for today. If you want to hear the rest of this program, go to rsr.org. That’s Real Science Radio, rsr.org.
SPEAKER 07 :
Scholars can’t explain it all away. Get ready to be awed by the handiwork of God.
SPEAKER 1 :
Tune in to Real Science Radio. Turn up the Real Science Radio. Keeping it real. That’s what I’m talking about.
