Discussion on the Science Counterpunch Podcast (The Urgency of Science Communication)

If somebody is a lying piece of [ __ ] fraud profiting by telling lies that kill people, then they're a lying piece of [ __ ] fraud who's profiting from telling lies that kill people. And I will say that exact phrase because that's exactly what it is. And people need to hear that, right? I think that there's been too many nicities over the decades. overly good faith and just overly charitable, you know, talking about creationism and evolutionary biology as though they're competing theories. They're not. It's science and pseudocience. This is lies. They're frauds. Pedaling lies for money. That's it. That's what's happening. And I will say that vigorously and emphatically. Welcome back to the science counterpunch. — I'm Sam Greggson. — And I'm Philip Marklin. — You know what the show is about. Every week, we take the biggest swings from anti-science influencers, and we hit back with evidence, context, and the scientists who know their fields best. So, let's step back into the ring and see who our guests are this week. So, today we got a heavy weight of the YouTube arena, Dave Fina, which rhymes coincidentally. — Well done, Phillip. Well done. Dave is better known uh by his YouTube channel uh Professor Dave Explains. He's a science educator with a BA in chemistry and an MA in science education who spent about a decade teaching before taking his education and the fight to YouTube where his channel now reaches millions. He's dismantled everything from flat earth fantasies to creationist talking points to medical hoaxes as we just talked about off uh offline on his YouTube channel. and he's also wrote a book on spotting misleading science. Is this Wi-Fi organic? So, if denial is a blooming cottage industry, Dave, we believe that you are the building inspector. Uh, and you came with a sledgehammer, right? You came with an absolute sledgehammer. — Yep. We're doing a full demo here. — Dave, welcome to the science counter punch. — Thanks for having me. — So, let's start big picture. You know, you've been in science communication for a very long time, longer than most. And from your vantage point, you know, what the hell is happening in the science communication ecosystem? I mean, we seem to be Blake now with pseudocience, grifters, attention seekers, and you know, you name it. Online, is it the golden age now of professional nonsense? — It is. I would say that's exactly the right way to phrase it. Um, I think that the problem is that I mean there have always been grifters, right? You go way back in the day, there were these snake oil salesmen. They would go around town to town and hawk this uh this cure all for what Elia and gullible people would buy it. Um the problem is that now in this information age, right, we have the internet, everybody, we're globally interconnected and so something really insane can spread like wildfire because of the interconnectedness. And we're only I mean if you think about it it's only been about 30 years that people have been using the internet and really only about 20 like really intensely using it. And in that 20 years or so uh charlatans have gotten better and better at um at building businesses from online grifting from selling snake oil um in digitally. And um it's gotten so bad that it's gotten so profitable when it starts teaming up with like uh with the podcast space with like your Joe Rogan and things like that. And it's gotten so bad in fact that it has now infected our federal institutions. So this Trump 2. 0 I know administration is the first time that we are seeing state sanctioned science denial to a degree where it has uh it has ins snared every single institution right with Bobby Kennedy uh over NIH and then everyone under him in CDC FDA everybody that he's filled up there all of the official uh information coming from these um institutions is pseudocience now that's never happened before you know it used to be some wacko on the internet now it's really it's gotten so — so why couldn't a why tell us — exactly yeah it Uh I I don't So that's why we're here. I mean that's why we're talking about what we can do about it, I think. Yeah. So how do I mean you have a big YouTube channel. So how do you monetize you know pseudocience online if you're like a YouTube grifter? Uh what's what are the various ways? I mean we know some of them is like clicks and YouTube ads but you know usually when you have a big platform there's many other avenues selling supplements. What are the common — what are the ways they've worked out to game the system? cuz it seems like you mentioned there like you know this used to be one wacko you know in a pub and they go oh that's just Dave I shouldn't have your Dave that's just Jeff in the corner you know — but now loads of people can hear it what how have they game the system what are they doing that has allowed them to to go so viral

— I mean it's not that new like it to be clear a lot of it is the same old snake oil tactics right they are I just did one on Peter McCulla and is spreading misinformation all over the internet to funnel people over to the wellness company and sell a bunch of supp supplements. It's literally snake oil. Um so that part's not any different. But the thing is that um just viewership alone can be profitable. So staying in that arena, you got somebody like John Campbell who I to my knowledge doesn't like sell supplements or anything. Maybe he does or he has a something going on. But it's he's like the amount of AdSense revenue he earns is 10 times more at least than he could possibly have been making with whatever nursing job he was doing or whatever's going on before that. So for an individual, I mean then there are institutions that take advantage of people for political purposes. But for just one guy like even the pseudoarchchaeology stuff like uh you know Jimmy uh um Corsetti or whatever I mean just these kind like all it is like I can go on YouTube and spew a bunch of uh crap that makes people feel smart and special an anti-establishment narrative that people can latch on to um and earn — I don't know 200k a year or something and that's better than you know whatever lame entry level corporate job I would get for 70k. Okay, that I hate, you know, and then I can be this little celebrity and this little ecosystem, this little grifter ecosystem. Um, it doesn't take that much. It doesn't even take that much profitability for it to get over that activation barrier of somebody wanting to do it. And then they just kind of grow and grow and then you get these conferences. Pseudo Archaeology has conferences, quantum mysticism has conferences, and they charge 500 bucks and you get to go meet your little hero from the internet. And then they have um seminars and and retreats, meditation retreats, and you know, Deepo Chopra is worth like whatund $150 million or something. Um it's very profitable. So that's the answer. — I mean, and some sorry Sam some of these dynamics also I mean it seems a bit like cultish right to a certain extent. Yeah, all of them. I mean, they kind of the the end of the trajectory is a cult. Uh flat earth is a cult. Um Antivax is sort of becoming a cult. Uh pseudo archaeology is definitely a cult. Um so there's a lot of variables, but I mean, and you know, a sociologist would have a field day kind of like talking about which groups are cults and which aren't. That's not so much my field. I'm kind of making the call from afar, but um it is very cultish definitely in terms of the psychology. Do you think Dave, you sort of alluded to it, you mentioned it, that there's a big overlap with the kind of the political messaging that is now proving successful. So we saw it over here in the UK. Um populist messaging on the right. We see it in America now. different countries around the world where, you know, it's simple messages. Elites are lying to you. You can feel empowered by listening to this simple message. You can push back on these people who are keeping you down. I see a lot of parallels between the kind of messaging that I see from populist politicians and the same people who are telling you scientists are lying to you, scientists are stealing your money for their new collider, scientists are, you know, keeping their cozy jobs above you. Um, what do you make of that interplay there potentially between the types of messaging? — Yeah, and ironically it's now a one and the same because that type of messaging is coming from within the American government, right? from like Bobby Kennedy is like, "We're raging against the system. " You are the system. You're the head of [ __ ] NIH. What are you talking about? Um, you know, Trump is like, "Oh, I'm outsider. You're the godamn president of the United States. " — It doesn't work so well when you've come into power then. Doesn't plaguing this outrage. — It's Yeah. But I mean the the like the tone of the messaging is always the same, right? There's always some kind of faceless amorphous evil. So it's big pharma or it's big physics or you know like it's laughable how you can just slap the prefix big on anything and you know big archaeology they even say um and we're raging against this thing and so don't listen to the experts. Don't listen uh uh universities are woke indoctrination camps. So don't go to one. Don't get an education first of all. That would be a horrible idea. And don't listen to anybody who teaches at one or has a degree or anything like that. Listen to this one jerk. um either is totally uneducated or you know is like a whistleblower you know uh u Andrew Wakefield or Peter McCulla or these kinds of figures right um believe this one sensational uh story from this one fraud don't listen to the consensus of the global scientific community with millions of people working in different countries under different governments public sector private sector etc um that's what it is that's the propaganda because it's an uphill battle right to get people to simply scoff and deny scoff at and deny wellestablished science requires brainwashing. So you have to you have to instill in them

a knee-jerk reaction like a Pavlovian response to go oh consensus that's bad consensus means corruption or that's a university shill um you know listen to this jerk on — Joe you're all working in a group that's communism isn't it yeah — right yeah — and communism is bad because it's the opposite or it's not hyper predatory capitalism that fuels the uh oligarchs who are deliberately spreading this uh this rhetoric. So yeah, — and just quickly before we move on, how much of do how much of what we see, for example, on YouTube, on Twitter, on social media, how much of it do you think is kind of ground up? It's people being confused on Facebook. It's grifty influencers, like you said, trying to make a quick buck, and how much do you think is top down, so paid for by dark money, oligarchs tweaking algorithms and such to try and get their own way? What do you think the kind of breakdown of that? It's an excellent question. Um I think that there's probably I mean I think there's an endless synergy there. I think that from the top you can kind of look at what's going on the bottom and capitalize on it. Oh look, everyone's confused about this thing. Let's confuse them even more about it. Um but to be honest, I think that it's more the latter than we initially thought. In other words, I think that there are a lot more figures that are funded kind of secretly by oligarchs than we would have uh anticipated. And you know I continue to get push back when I label Sabina this way but I genuinely believe that I genuinely believe — about this payroll you know. — Yeah. But we have a good example for this is for example Bragaau right on YouTube. It's like this huge channel with like billions of views. That's an information operation that's you know dark money funding this alternative reality producing content creators to just you know I mean calling themselves like a university. They are not. They're like a a I think a nonprofit or a for-profit even I don't know media operation trying to pose as an educational institute institutions denying you know anything from climate to vaccines to economics to you know whatever the right-wing talking points of the day are — heritage brownstone these kind of institutions as well right — and the thing is I feel like those are so transparently institution I mean their names are are indicative of them being institutions that um olig arcs want to kind of capitalize on that obsession with like this one rogue rebel that's like going and so that's where you get the genesis of figures like Eric Weinstein who is playing that part of like I'm the super duper smartest physicist ever and I and the universities are censoring me because they can't handle my super hot truth. Now the problem with him is that we everybody knows that he's on Peter Teal's payroll and everybody knows what a piece of crap Peter Teal is. So that's why it it's constantly shifting, you know, that like some I genuinely feel that someone like Sabina is meant to take the place of Eric Weinstein as he is now kind of the laughing stock of the internet. Other figures like John Campbell and stuff like I don't know what's going on back there. You know, all we can do is identify how their rhetoric continues to slip further and further into anti-science um uh talking points. is that audience capture and it's just a rogue, you know, one person making money. Totally. Some of them are um but I think that many of them are not. You know what I mean? — If you reach a certain kind of size and influence, I'm sure they're going to get message private message saying, "Hey, can we do something? " I mean, we saw we saw, you know, a Tim P and others that, you know, ah, somehow Russia is paying me $10 million to kind of perpetrate pro-Russian narratives. They started with their own pro-Russian narratives and then you know that the money comes just in the back you know and they're not you know not asking right and so that — in the end it kind of doesn't matter does it because the impact is the same right it's which political narratives are they feeding into which political narratives they end up being uh supporting and pushing forward whether there's you know a check in the mail or they're just doing it off their own back to make their own money the pollution is — is the same. Yeah. The difference is the amount of money and political power behind the individual. That's the only difference. The the net effect is the same on terms of public perception. Yeah. — So, let's interrogate the really painful part for kind of us scientists. Um why does factual discourse lose to this absolute waffle? Why does a, you know, a 30-cond conspiracy Tik Tok out compete someone with a decade of study, a mountain of peer-reviewed evidence? Are we just too boring for YouTube? Am I YouTube, Dave? Why? Why can we not compete? Why can the evidence not shine through on its own? — Because people are dumb and lies are sexy and fun. It's just as simple as that. I mean, look, you do a thing. — That's our clip. Phillip, take that. Like it's just so

like the pyramids aren't what we were told. They were built by aliens and there's a thing under them and it's a magic transistor of the blah blah. Who the [ __ ] I mean, think imagine the average person in your head and imagine them watching that versus them watching an archaeology lecture. And that archaeology lecture might be super boring or it might be as engaging as is humanly possible to present archaeology content. It's never going to be as sexy and fun as this sensationalist [ __ ] that people come up with different USP. Yeah, — absolutely. — Yeah. For me, the idea is always like, you know, there's very limited amount of ways you can tell the truth, but there's a million ways to optimize the lies for the audience, right? — Yeah. — So, you can play into any political leaning. You can turn in you can play into any confirmation bias. You can kind of it's almost uh tell your own story using the science and the facts behind it as a kind of you know things to hang on your own narrative. — Yeah. And learning science is difficult and timeconuming right to get a basic conversational knowledge of any scientific field is probably easier than most people think but it's still you can't you know get it from a half an hour YouTube video. So, um, people take the easy way, you know, and say, "Oh, oh, you know, this video told me that all of science is wrong. So, I'm going to accept that because then I don't even have to learn science. It was all wrong anyway. So, I'm better than all of science because I, you know, watch this one video that said all the physics is wrong or whatever it is. " And, uh, people just go with that. — So, why are you still doing on your channel your lectures? because you have I don't know thousands of really science education lectures like classroom style lectures on you know short topics maybe 10-minute videos about ah this is you know the periodic system or I don't know some ancient I don't scripture whatever it is it's crazy so why are you doing that — I'm going to be honest with you I I had like a mini nervous breakdown yesterday because I continually ask me this ask myself this question why am I still doing these tutorials and because the you know the debunks are very impactful and they earn they generate more revenue for me. So I think that it's a couple of things. Number one, they are evergreen content that does generate income over long periods of time. Um and I also occasionally can uh license them. I do get royalties from licensing educational content to third parties that then uh implement them in various curricula. So it is still a source of income for me. Um, number two, I feel that it complements the debunk so much because if I'm doing a debunk on like vaccines or vaccine misinformation or stuff like that, I get to go, "By the way, I have this 20part immunology series. If you want to learn this stuff, like here you go, man. Like just ju it's, you know, it's a couple hours, but you'll really know the the basics well here from this. " Um, and then number three, it's just purely an image thing. I feel like it just kind of lends my channel more credibility. like here are these lectures outside of any specific political or debunking context. Um this, you know, textbook information and that sort of um yeah, it compliments my debunking content. But — I've noticed I need to get away from it sometimes, right? I did a couple on Sabine and Eric and afterwards — I kind of felt like I wanted to shower. I just wanted to go back and talk about some science because, — you know, I'm sick of dealing with these characters as well. So, it's nice to get back to the science sometimes as I'm doing particle physics uh content right now and it's talking about all those like symmetries and things that like Eric, you know, rattles off like, "Aren't you so impressed that I said SU3, you know, U1 and like all these uh you know, gauge transformations and stuff. " And that's funny because it like anybody who watches those and it's like, "Oh, that who also watches my debunk, they're like, "Oh, now I know what Eric Weinstein knows about this thing. It's not that crazy just cuz I haven't heard of it before. You just learn about it in a tutorial. " Um but I regularly I'm kind of like should I just stop and just do debunks you know maybe one day I will — I mean you have to pace yourself at least a little bit right because I mean you I think and I seen different interviews you gave in preparation for this one you said that you're burned out basically constantly because you're creating so much content and it's clear I mean you're doing so many different fields where you do the standard scientific lectures and I mean every teacher would tell you they have like one or two kind of area of expertise you're doing like you know five six And then you do all the debunks that go also, you know, five, six, seven, eight different domains. I mean, I don't know what's going on in your brain at this point, but it must be like, — well, I mean, when I am when I'm covering educational material that's way outside of my expertise, I'm working with someone in the field, either a PhD holder or a PhD candidate in that field that's working with me to generate scripts for — uh for 101 level tutorials on that. But the timeconuming thing is the post-production. I'm here. I have to you know edit the videos and

everything. Um but yeah it is incredibly laborious and it like right now I'm in a phase where I am uh pivoting to like backload a bunch of tutorials so that I can then pivot back and focus on debunks. It's this like endless — um push and pull where you know I need the debunks for my income because you know we're a single income family and I you know I live in Los Angeles and uh I you know yeah AdSense revenue is like 80% of my income. So, it's like I can't like honestly January was a very bad month, like the worst in a while. And I kind of kicked me in the butt a little. I'm like crap. I have to like pause this tutorial backloading so that backlogging so that I can pump out three or four debunks and make sure February makes enough money cuz you know this is the cost. Like if you go all in and do full-time science communication, whatever media you choose to focus on has to earn you a living, right? I don't have the [ __ ] you know, Discovery Institute funding or whatever, Christian nationalist, you know, billion dollars, billionaires funding me here. I'm just some guy doing this stuff cuz I feel like it and I figured out how to make it profitable enough to do full-time. But, um, — there's always that kind of like, oh boy, what's going on? What if YouTube disappears tomorrow? What the hell am I going to do? Uh, yeah. I'm so glad to hear you still do your own editing, so you understand the horror of having to do all that just dragging little frames about. — Yeah, I mean I'm insanely efficient at it now. I've been doing this for 11 years, 12 years, but um but it is still like you just got to sit in front of your computer and do your do the work image text think about how do I want to display this information you incredibly timeconuming. So — So I you already mentioned that you also work with other scientists and we have a question a bit later. So we put a pin in that because the next part I really want to go towards you know how do you punch back because I mean you are maybe the most punchy science communicator out there and you know your style is quite different and I would say you know you kind of have an unapologetic clarity when you're in your debunking video specifically and I think we should go a bit deeper into the philosophy behind this combative way of communicating but maybe first you know what's your ideal psych approach. If you were to choose, you know, what you would like to do, what's your ideal psychome approach? What do you think is most effective? Uh, and and how much does your actual output match your ideal? So, how much is necessity and how much? — Well, I've chosen, right? I do what I do because I think that's the most effective way that I can do it. Um, I think to speak a little more broadly, I think that, um, it works for me because it's very authentic, right? This is a currency that scycommerce deal in is au authenticity. Um and I think that there are other science communicators that do it very differently from me that is also very effective because it's authentic to them. So I think you know doing psychiccom it's a weird thing because som is still such a nent field. There are so few people that are engaging in siccom and even fewer that are doing it like full-time as a career. Um, so I feel like it's going to be like uh standup comedy in the 80s where like everybody starts out kind of like doing an impression of the handful of standups that are around, you know, Steve Martin and George Carlin or whatever, and then they kind of gradually find their voice. And now where we are today, there's so many unique standups that have a very uh precise way of telling jokes and things like that. So I always encourage scommers like you know find what works for if you want to do an impression of me or Neil Grass Tyson or impression of whoever to kind of like figure it out. You start with that but then do what works for you. This works for me because I've always been or at least in my entire adult life for as long as I can remember been a very um nononsense tell it like it is kind of person. Um, if somebody is a lying piece of [ __ ] fraud profiting by telling lies that kill people, then they're a lying piece of [ __ ] fraud who's profiting from telling lies that kill people. And I will say that exact phrase because that's exactly what it is. And people need to hear that, right? I think that there's been too many nicities over the decades. overly good faith and just overly charitable, you know, talking about creationism and evolutionary biology as though they're competing theories. They're not. It's science and pseudocience. This is lies. They're frauds. Pedaling lies for money. That's it. That's what's happening. And I will say that vigorously and emphatically. — So, you're a bit in a different um situation because most science communicators are actually scientists that are often still working in the field. And I think there's this idea among scientists that you kind of should sit there politely and not along, you know, listening to whatever is your opponent when they tell million of viewers that, you know, vaccines rewrite your DNA or the earth is shaped like a pancake, you know, and by the way, the scientists are lying to you and they should be at Nuremberg 2. 0, right? So — interesting perspective. I have a bit of a different opinion on this, you know. Yeah. — But that's the idea, right? that we should just sit there and well people are saying you know you created this

virus you know you are pumping poison into people's veins and you're just you're supposed to sit there and go I'm sorry but the evidence suggests that I'm not doing that rather than you know kick the [ __ ] out of them back as you say — yeah and in my humble opinion we need to be done with that [ __ ] I don't care if you're a career science communicator or a scientist dabbling in syclcom or whatever it is we need to take off the kid gloves And you don't have to throw around expletives like me, right? You don't have to say this [ __ ] piece of [ __ ] You don't have to do that. You can just say this person is deliberately sharing false information. You can say it like that. That's fine. Um but it's gotten as bad as it is today. And it is so much worse than it was even 5 10 years ago. Um because that is the prevailing attitude among academics. — They know it's going to be that. And so they know they can push the line. they can get away with a lot because there's not going to be the right hook coming back the other way. — Exactly. It's not going to be there. And so they can even when they get access to an academic who who's qualified to combat their lies, they just spew a fountain of it. The other person responds to maybe 5% of it. So the viewers are like, "Look, he couldn't even debunk all he couldn't even reply to all the stuff he said. " It's just it's a completely different skill set being able to stand up to that kind of stuff versus knowing the science. Um, and so I really over the past couple years have been trying my best to encourage the scientific community, especially within academia. You don't need to copy me. do exactly as I do, but please be more vocal and be more direct and be more deliberate and be more active and get even if it's just getting on Twitter and and uh say, "Nope, this is false. Here's how we know. " it just they saturate social media and it's a a 10 to1 or 100 to1 ratio of liars to people who know what they're talking about. We need to put the numbers in there, get in the trenches and do this stuff because this is why it has gotten as bad as it is as mainstream. The these anti-science beliefs are now completely mainstream and it has infected the federal government. It is the language of the government at this point is lies and pseudocience and we like it's too late. uh to prevent that from happening. So now we need to like root it out and and dig in there and you know go through the gutters and get all the sludge out. And it's like we could have prevented this, but we didn't. So — I think people are fearful as well, aren't they? I know if I do a little bit of debunking work or dunk on, you know, Eric Weinstein or someone on Twitter, I know I'm going to get inundated with with crazy stuff. How do you deal with that? And how would you suggest people just sort of you have to get in the fight and that's what you're going to have to deal with. What's — Yes, I look I understand that I have this uh kind of weird superpower. I think that I I'm probably level one autistic. Um my kid is level two autistic and in learning about the like therapy and stuff with him, I kind of like, oh, me and my dad and my sister I think are all level one autistic. So I have this kind of like emotional detachment. So, like this stuff doesn't hit me as much as like my wife would crumble in 10 minutes. Like she cannot would not be able to handle that kind of antagonization, the constant antagonization. Um, so number one, like just toughen up a little bit. Like it's going to happen. It's not that bad. It affects you as much as you let it. Especially if you're just somebody commenting on Twitter. I get it way more and I can handle I mean it bothers me definitely sometimes. But um just kind of be aware that that's what's going to happen. try not to get intimidated, but then realize that the more of us that do this, the more the scale starts to tip. And I mean, it's there are isolated threads. There are isolated moments. It may be a common thread on my video. particular Twitter thread where one jerk is saying something stupid and eight people are dog piling with like, "What are you talking about, you idiot? Look at this, blah, blah. " And it just that kind of feeling you get from that. That's what we need the whole internet to feel like. And it's only going to happen if people, you know, grab their weapon and put on their helmet and jump in the trenches and like do the work. And it can be doing social media. It can be making YouTube content. It can be helping science communicators with their YouTube content. Uh making a quick appearance to state some facts that can be used in the vid, you know, whatever it is. But um you know, as many people as possible within academia that can find some way to contribute. We need you in this fight. We need you. So help out. — Absolutely. So I want to come a little bit to kind of potentially what are the limits of your style. So let me press on the ethics for a moment because critics love to say you know oh Dave is too harsh. He's too direct. He's too mean. He's getting into ad homonyms. This is horrendous. um you know because

harmonous — because being ethical is you know letting Sabine Hosenfelder tell you you're stealing money or allowing Eric Weinstein to say string theory has been propped up by the government or whatever crazy thing they're saying. So the question is where's the ethical line for forceful communication? When does calling out nonsense with a bit of spice become a moral duty and when does it risk backfiring? So basically, do you stay ethically how grounded while telling someone their argument has the structural integrity of a wet straw? How do you do that? — Yeah. Well, that's ne I mean, telling the truth is never an ethical violation, no matter how you dress it up. And when we're talking about, you know, a live debate with Pierre Corey, who told lies that killed people, there is not a single thing out of my mouth. I could be spewing racial slurs. I could be encouraging people to murder him. anything like that, it would not hold a candle to his ethical violation of disinformation that killed people. So there's no worry there about uh ethics. I think the more interesting question is efficacy, right? At what point does my aggressiveness turn people off instantly? There are people who cannot handle reality and will instant I cannot tell you how many hundreds and thousands of trolls are infesting my channel every day uh whining about a video that they did not watch and will never watch. did not even press play, didn't even see the first frame. They whine about my long hair because they didn't they look at my channel icon and didn't know that I cut my hair eight years ago to this length and the first frame of the video would show them my hair. Like, you know, we know for sure that they will never engage. Um, — but it honestly doesn't matter because there you can look at any tone, any cadence, any way of presenting this information. If they want to reject it, they will. And people who are more polite, they stand a shot at getting them to watch a little longer, but in the end, you go to the comment section down there and they say, "Wow, they were so polite and that's how these conversations should go. " Ultimately, they didn't convince me of anything and I don't agree with anything they said, but wasn't that such a nice polite show of politeness? — There's a lot of crocodile tears, and there like a lot of fake. If only they were nicer, kinder, then maybe they'd convince me. actually that the audience that still believes that Eric Weinstein is this paragon amazing person and who is ready to be convinced by you know an hourong video on particle it's vanishingly small. — Yeah. And here's the thing. So Eric Weinstein specifically I made that first I mean I've trounced on him like five or six times but the first one I did on the brothers together I put a lot of stuff in there. A lot of people had not seen that um that call on uh what was it called? — Oh, the um the one with Keing and it was on um — yeah, I just can't remember what that platform was called that people were in a minute, — but he was acting like such a little child. So, it's like part of it is just taking all of this like here it is in one package. This guy's a fraud. I'm demonstrating to you how as clear as day that this guy's a fraud. And there are so many people that were kind of in the middle that are just like see information like, "Oh, he said that interesting thing and okay, here's another video over here. " And you just sort of start to chip away, chisel away at the volume of people that are available for, right? It's just each figure is this little magnet. You've got all these iron filings and you've got a magnet and Eric Weinstein is a magnet. And people who are kind of uh prone to falling for someone like that, they're going to get sucked over there. and then I'm this magnet over here and people are and then there's people in the middle who are just like well that's okay now I'm getting sucked over there you just you have all of this content on the internet and there needs to be a large volume of content debunking that uh that misleading content to pull people over there um we just kind of have to saturate the internet like every single charlatan needs 50 videos on them and every sing anytime RFK says this thing or anytime this guy says this thing there needs to be 10 videos they're just like nope completely full of [ __ ] everybody in their different tone, different language, different social media platform, whatever it is, it needs to be there like you touched on, right? Because some people will respond, maybe they're young, they respond to a bit more of a an aggressive style, a bit more on the nose, a little bit more short form content, and then maybe, you know, I'm being horrendously sort of stereotypical here, but maybe — older people respond a little bit more to a bit of a, you know, karma debunk, you know, long form content, whatever it might be. — Different people respond differently. different voices, different kinds of content as well, isn't it? To reach different audiences. — Let me jump in on, you know, who is a deserving target. I mean, I think we agree that, you know, people that get people killed with whatever they are spreading or selling are like the worst of the worst. And, you know, they deserve to be, you know, as harshly criticized as humanly possible. They should be there should be consequences. But, I mean, you got to start and, you know, we're going to also be critical of you. You got to start criticizing I think flat earth people like what's the

harm of those people right is it do you believe that you know maybe you have been too harsh to them given you know the targets you're going after now or is it something that you believe like you know it's a gateway drug if you stop you know going in into the same tropes and narratives with this person they're going to get sucked into this anti-science ecosystem and go from there — yeah well to be clear flat earth is not a gateway that's the bottom of the earth everything else is a gateway and flat earth is the end point that you the furthest you could possibly go. Also, it is a despicable cult full of complete scumbags that deserve nothing but mockery uh all day and every day. Um but so no, okay, to answer your question, because it's a valid one, the problem is that the public has zero ability to compartmentalize science, right? They don't think about, well, we've got molecular biology over here and astrophysics over here, and these are different fields with different uh professionals working in them. No, what they do is they hear uh JWST proved the Big Bang isn't real, right? And therefore, look at these scientists. They think they know everything, but they don't. And so they're lying about Big Bang, and they're lying about vaccines, climate change. Every single form of science denial, especially when it's packaged with this anti-establishment, anti anti-academia bite, leads to widespread science denial. There are so many ways in from the pseudoarchchaeology thing to the quantum mysticism slash you know Eric and Sabina crap and u you know antivaxers and just everything and all of it leads to everything else. So there's no science denial that should be ignored not even flat earth — interesting. Yeah, I I had similar discussions in the past about you know homeopathy which is you know in the German speaking realm it's like ah it doesn't do harm you know the normalies carried you know what's the harm but it's like for us it's very clear that you know once you start buying into this uh and homeopathy is not without harm by the way because people reject medic real medical treatment and then it gets worse yeah but uh you know the idea that ah it's a harm you know it's a belief that you know it's not based in evidence so what's the harm I think it's a dangerous slippery slope in this What percentage of homeopathy advocates are antivaxers? — It's probably nearly it's 100% you know um and so that kind of person like the type of rhetoric that is used to substantiate something like homeopathy is going to be anti-establishment anti-science anti-basic principles of chemistry. So if you start engaging in that, it will radicalize you against scientific explanations for what a pandemic is, where a virus came from, what the best way strategy is to combat it. Right? There's no kind of science denial that is exists in isolation. It will yield other types of science denial. — Interesting. I have um another one, Dave, just uh push back a little bit. Um, this will maybe shock some people because I'm going to play defense attorney for someone I find to be incredibly odious, the uh, venerable Sabina Hosenfelder. So, — Dave, you've claimed that Sabine is uh, potentially being paid by Peter Teal to spread propaganda for fascist oligarchs. Um, this is a claim that I see up see pop up quite a little bit uh, in my comment sections on YouTube. Um, now I can certainly understand why someone would think this. She fawns over billionaires. She uncritically calls for science to be placed in private hands. She undermines scientific institutions and the building of scientific consensus. And all of that definitely plays into political narratives that damage science and scientific institutions and forward the nefarious interests of people like Peter Teal. Um, and that's why my colleague Tim Hanker and I have said that Sabina is the archetype or queen of the science populace. Um, however, I don't know if we've actually seen the payment stubs of Sabina's shifts for Teal. So, is this a claim where you may have gone slightly too far? Is there a danger that when you're in a pmical flow state, you can potentially cross the line? How do you feel when people bring that up? — I don't think it's crossing the line. I mean, I never said I've seen the payubs and I know it for effect. I like this is like I made a video when she did the video defending Eric Weinstein after the fallout with Sean Carroll on Pierce. Um she did this terrible video — unbelievable video um propping him up and just going down the line point for point every single talking point, every single bit of propaganda that an oligarch like Peter Teal would spew um who pays Eric Weinstein coincidentally. Um and uh all of it is this anti-academia, right? Universities are bad. All the science should be in the private sector. I identified moments where she lied about research coming from the private sector when it was actually from like Max Plank Institute and stuff. Um using communism as a buzz word buzzword, which is an obvious um

way of programming people uh to not fight against hyper predatory capitalism. Um Zionism, she spewed Zionist rhetoric. Eric spews Zionist rhetoric. All of it is 100% aligned with the rhetoric of the oligarch with the propaganda of the oligarch spew. So I say it every time. I'm not like I know for a fact. I'm just like isn't this interesting? 1 2 3 4 5 6. All of them perfectly aligned with the rhetoric of a guy like Peter Teal. That's all I'm saying. Um you know I don't I'm not an investigative journalist. I'm not a hacker. I don't know how to get into her bank account and prove it. But whatever. Like the here are the facts. Here's what she says. Here's what they say. here's why it's wrong. Here's the explanation. This is the simplest theory to correlate all of this data and explain why she would say the things that she's saying. — Yeah, — definitely. — So, I have a different hypothesis. Um, and this is that, you know, once you are an oligarch, you kind of shape the whole incentive structure of an ecosystem that, you know, it's you kind of, you know, incentivize people to see the world your way to a certain extent. And I don't know if it has to be a direct communication or if it's something that you know a Tim Pool situation where it's like you know ah you know we just you know we financed that guy because he anyway says what we want. — Basically if she isn't being paid by Peter Thiel she probably should be being because she's doing everything that he would — he's getting the freebie of a lifetime. I think I said in my video right she's paddling his exact agenda for free. It's troublesome that you know you cannot even differentiate if you know what would she would do differently if she were indeed paid or — nothing it'd be identical. So that's why I would suggest that and continue to defend that assertion. — Uh but yeah, — one final spicy question. We kind of we've kind of covered this quite a bit, but does it matter to you at all those people that you immediately alienate? Do you worry that entrench that it entrenches opposing views? So, for example, you know, if you're laying into Eric Weinstein, Eric Weinstein supporter who exclaimed, you know, Dave is just throwing ad homonyms, you know, what a loser, I can't listen to this. — Are you worried that the approach um, you know, risks entrenching opposing views, or do you think that audience is just so small that it doesn't matter and it'll be catered to maybe by other communicators anyway? — Well, that audience isn't small. I mean, it's pretty sizable, but we're seeing it dwindle. Here's the thing. When I put out the content I do that so undeniably and so directly exposes frauds, what it does is there's this ripple effect. It arms people with the knowledge and the talking points to further discredit these frauds and they do so in social media and personal interactions and everything. So that person who is incapable of watching the video, they will find themselves more and more surrounded by these people who actually know what they're talking about and can refute everything that they say. And the second part of this is that people like Eric Weinstein and Sabina in particular, as well as James Tour and Discovery Institute, some other people that I've debunked, I have seen their influence measurably lessened from my content. I feel like that's undeniable. I feel like Sabina's numbers are down. I haven't even paid honestly. I haven't looked at her channel in three or four months. Um I don't even know what she's doing at this point. But uh Eric is kind of universally known to be a joke at this point. That wasn't only me. That was a team effort. Um James Tour was pretty much just me. Discovery Institute was — it was a team effort where he was largely involved in creating his own demise as well. But yes, — but it's just I at this point doing this so long I cannot deny like I feel like it's pretty empirically uh there's an empirical basis to show that my content is lessening the influence of some of these frauds. Not all of them, right? not RFK, not people who have political power and stuff, but um there are definitely, you know, Avi Lo like you put Avi Loe on the YouTube search. My two videos are right there at the top. Um so much so that he has taken to recently making a YouTube channel and mentions me not by name in his introduction thing, but like there are people saying that blah blah. So I have to it's like great, bring it on, man. I will dunk on you every time. Um it's — they don't seem to understand the Strand effect, do they? There's a there's a few of them who do this. I know Sabina does it. She likes to kind of try and push back on the things you said, but she'll be like, "Some guy said doesn't want — some guy who earns a living uh you know, talking crap on people on YouTube. " That's what you do, Sabina. You do you make a living talking [ __ ] on the entire scientific community. And not just physics, by the way. All of science. Uh but that's what you have to do. I had to like Sabina was the one out of all of my debunks where initially I got push back of like wait Dave what are you doing not this one and it was like you guys look at this let me play you a medley of the most heinous things that and indefensible things that she says and after two or three videos people like

— okay sorry you were right — some bad motives — yeah I did that to her you know what I mean and I did it to James tour these other people and um I'm going to keep doing it. So, — so one more thing and I think maybe this is a bit of a meta discussion. So, uh how much is you having an impact because you're just better at this YouTube game. You're dishing you know how to dish out better. punch back better than those people punch one way. How much is it um really like you know cultivating an authentic audience and kind of spreading the world and showing there's another reality out there than what these people are pushing? So, how much is it really about, you know, you as a personality and how much is it that you would recommend other people start doing it? — Yeah. I mean, look, I'm not going to lie, not to toot my own horn, I do think I'm very good at what I do, but I don't think that I'm the only person that could do what I do. It's just that I'm this kind of weirdo that gained a pretty reasonable amount of scientific knowledge through education. You know, I don't have a terminal degree. I'm not an expert in any field, but I'm very conversant. I mean, I'm I know a lot about chemistry and adjacent fields. Um, and so that is important. But because I'm an artist, I didn't go into academia and science and I never tried to get a career in science cuz I don't want one. But then I started doing psychic and I was very because I was used to being a poor musician. I wasn't freaking out about um income and I did the slow game and and slowly generated. So now I'm in this position where 10 years in, 11 years in, I'm earning good uh income. I can do this for a living and support my family and everything. Um, and it's such a nent field. So few people even consider it as like a thing that they could possibly do. Um, so I I I'm kind of like obviously I'm nowhere near the first science communicator. You have Carl Sean, you have Neil Degrass Tyson, those kinds of people, but I'm one of the first like career science communicators that's earning a living — doing it only this. — Um, and so I try to go to universities like look, it can be done. And maybe in the future when we have a an administration that that's more amendable to to science that's that's that you know accept science there could be federal subsidies or something like we could find a way to encourage people to try to make a living doing science communication because it's such an unbelievably important thing to be to happen right now. There's nowhere near enough people doing it. And I think that there are people in academia who are getting riled up by the current uh by the current environment, the current uh anti-science sentiment and want to do something. And the problem is that even no matter how much they want to do it, they've got a job, you know, and uh I am very sympathetic to the fact like how much time can you take away from your already underpaid job to try and do this thing. Um, and so that's why I'm always like, look, just make a make um, get to know a scientist five minute profile piece and I'll publish that practice. Do it like that. Appear uh, do a 20-minute Zoom conversation with me and I'll pop it at the end of one of my videos and then you'll get accolades, right? Every single time I uh, you know, Phil, you for me in the lab leak video and u, I just did one Peter McCulla John Striker gave me 20 30 minutes at the end of that. every time people are like, "Wow, like that's what a real scientist sounds like. " They are they know what they're talking about. They are, you know, it's just and it makes my content better. It gives them a shot at uh playing with how they want to communicate science to people. Um so more of that, more of that definitely. — This is a really good segue actually, Philip, because I think you want to talk about what we can kind of do going forward, right? What's the positive? — Exactly. So I think and this is why very inspiring because you know Dave is like you know I'm going to start platforming scientists. You know this is one of the things that because of your uh earned platform that you have now you can do that has a huge impact on getting some pro-science narratives out from people that know what you're talking about. And so we I maybe we start with this and then I want to kind of go towards what are other solutions that you see? You talked about maybe the government has a role maybe journalists have a role. We can talk about that. But now individually, what do you think is your role? What is your solutions that you can offer uh going forward in to fight back? — Because we've noticed you doing this more and more, right? The platforming of scientists, you said working with scientists to make scripts, bringing them on, giving them a voice. What was the was that a conscious choice? What was the aim there? And would you like to see more high-profile communicators who have a large audience — kind of allowing that shortcut to happen? because, you know, I'll put out a debunk of Sabine, but, you know, I'm relatively small and it might not get as much play. Definitely won't get as much play as her channel will. So, was that a conscious choice? And do you think that's really helping to kind of shortcut those algorithms and give scientists a voice? — Yeah, absolutely. I mean, yeah, that is the problem like it did take me a decade to court the algorithm in this way that I can rely on a few hundred thousand

views. Uh although honestly I got to be honest, my Peter McCulla video got like 50k views on the first day. It's like seriously throttled. I don't know what the hell is going on. That's an aside. Um but yeah, the point is with these platforms, you do have to spend unbelievable amounts of time um according to the algorithm. Uh but my my reaching out to the scientific community is not like a calcula. I mean it's calculated, but it's also a necessity. Um — nobody everything, right? It's — Yeah. I want to enhance the credibility of my content. So, when I spend an hour explaining science and then I cut to an expert in the field corroborating what I say and adding additional perspective, it makes my content better. It gives them a voice. Um, and hopefully encourages them to continue to be more vocal. Um, other than that, it's hard for it's like I don't know anybody that works more hours than I do. I'm sitting here seriously 12 to 16 hours a day, — seven days a week doing this. Um, so I I barely It's like I little um little errands pile up because I'm just get so obsessed with this that I'm like, "Oh crap, I have to like I forgot to do that thing. " It's just I'm so like uniformly preoccupied with this that it's hard to kind of like I'm always rowing the ores. So I very rarely get to go up into the crow's nest and like, "Okay, where should I go next? " — Once in a while you have to do that because I need to know where I'm aiming my labor. But um it's just so laborious and timeconuming that it's hard for me. I feel that what I'm doing is effective. It's one thing that's very effective and I'm going to keep doing it while also encouraging everybody else to try literally [ __ ] anything to help. — So this is — Do you see it just sorry Philip just before you we move on to the next question. Do you see it then Dave as a kind of moral and or political duty as well the work that you're doing? — I feel a tremendous sense of duty. I mean it's like I'm not going to lie like I this like this is how I make a living and but I feel very fortunate. So few people can say that they what they found to be the most lucrative thing for them is also the thing that has the most positive impact on society and I found that I really feel like what I'm doing is making an impact. There's so many people on like the lab leak video that we worked on. There were hundreds of people like wow like I just kind of took it for grant I thought it was a lab leak. I don't know like I then your video like and then that can slowly manifest in starting to doubt other narratives that are being pushed you know as political propaganda and it can have really you know true political uh ramifications and um that can be it can contribute to a movement that will get you know the current administration out of power and people like them um and steer us more towards rationality and and you know focusing on public health and things like that. So, um I'm yeah, I'm doing what I need to be doing. I wish I could do more. Uh maybe I will find out a way to do that at some point as I continue to get more efficient and I don't know. We'll see what happens right now. — So, one interesting thing is that you started kind It's like you're like a startup, right? I mean every YouTube creator has kind of a bit of a startup but um I've been also inside academia inside the institutions and there is now the you know now that [ __ ] hit the fan there's the big kind of question mark what should institutions do and one model that I've been advocating for is exactly what you've been doing is like go to influencers provide them with access to your knowledge to material you know write a script with them whatever you can do and use their platform to you know have some quick fixes there and there has in let's say a lot of um or not a lot of t takers but now that has been shifting so there's also kind of no now there's more interest given how everything uh worsened so dramatically in 2025 um — how do you see the role — system as it is right the system is what it is and we have to do our best with it — so I mean usually it was like you know ah maybe we can do you know a press release or something is it's how scientists think about — the government is pushing forward and it's like No, you have to go where the people are and the people are on YouTube. So, how do you think what how do institutions have to change from you as somebody on the outside? What do they need to do? What can they do? Uh, you know, with creators like yourself. What would you wish they do? — Yeah. Well, they need to be aware of what you just said that this is an avenue. It doesn't have to be the only avenue, but it is an important avenue. And where whereas I initially saw some reluctance from scholars to do this kind of stuff, I I've seen that reluctance pretty much entirely dissipate and now a lot more willingness to um to correspond with me. But what I want to make clear is that, you know, while it is uh while a greater percentage of scholars reply to me and are willing to assist in my content, um I'm waiting for everybody to to contact me. If you're a physicist or or a doctor or whomever, reach out. If

you're like, "Hey, I think that we should tackle this. Do you want to tackle this? " Go for it. You know what I mean? Like, I'm here. I'm ready to go. And anything that we can collaborate on that, you know, if it's a true collaborative e effort, that lowers the activation energy for me to produce the content because I have someone, you know, we're working together on it. — I think I emailed you to say like, "Thank you for the Sabedan video. " And you were like, "Oh, by the way, next week we're doing a video with five physicists. Should we make it six? Do you want to come on? — You want to talk about it? Yeah. Come on in. Right. The more the marrier. Oh, six physicists. If they were right, it all you would only need one. Yeah. Well, you didn't watch even one of them. So, what the [ __ ] are you complaining about? Every troll in that video. — Um Oh, poor woman being attacked by the six men. — It's amazing. It's amazing how they go to the um the social justice sexism stuff which they usually absolutely revile. — Hate. Right. And by the way, I had two female physicists in the previous video on her and they didn't watch that either. So, um, but sorry to to continue what I was saying. Um, this is an avenue and I think that more and more like unfortunately has it has taken this administration to knock some sense into academia. But, but academics are now completely aware that the erosion of the public perception of science, the public, you know, trust in in the scientific community has brought that administration into power. that has then slashed their funding and limited their ability to do science. They are now aware in a way they were not precoid um that if we do not rehabilitate public perception of science in the scientific community this is going to perpetuate. We have to take care of this now. This is the focus because all everything that's happening politically is a ramification of what the voting base is saying they want, right? And uh all the science denial, right? The big bang stuff and the and the pyramids and the COVID and whatever, all of it is one thing and it is all polarizing the public against scientific facts and the scientific community. And that is problem number one. It is the number one problem facing human civilization. If we don't figure this [ __ ] out, out how to help most people know what's true, we will not see the 22nd century. I promise you. So, this is a very sobering note. I have one more uh kind of maybe idea to kind of share with you. So, I mean, we cannot go back to the world that used to be that you know, science is in the ivory tower and you know, there's gatekeepers and they make sure that you know, information remains factual. So what what's the future you want to see built? Is it that you know science comm that the you know the ivory tower gets down that there's more flux of people coming in and out um what future should we build because and then disruption is always also an opportunity to build something new and better and we have to build something better um I think going forward. So, so what would you advise to people now in institutions, people that now have at least some power of institutions? What should they build for to towards? — I mean, there's a couple parts. One is to just finally be holding bad faith actors accountable for their actions have serious consequences. If there's not going to be any legal ramifications, if people like Pierre Corey and Andrew Wakefield aren't in jail, which they definitely belong in jail. If that's not going to happen, then they should just be publicly humiliated and ridiculed until they shut up forever and go into exile. Um, so that is a grassroots thing that has to happen bottom up. And so that's what I kind of uh push. And I think that as that happens, there's a bit of a reverence for science, right? We used to have a reverence for science in the 50s and the 60s. Science was gleaming and glistening and it was Tomorrowland at uh at Disneyland and it was the Jetsons and it was uh you know, robots are coming and all this cool stuff. That's that was public perception of science only, you know, 60 years ago um before our time, but um you know, not that long ago. And I feel like we can get back to that. kind of a reverence for science. It doesn't have to be monolithic or or a church of any kind. It just has to be an acceptance that this is a body of scientific knowledge. The people in the scientific community are the ones that are curating this knowledge and all of this knowledge is available to me if I choose to engage with it. learn about I don't have to, right? I can be a lawyer or I can, you know, own a hardware store or whatever I want and that's totally fine, too. But, but to kind of lessen the tendency of mass, you know, huge amounts of the public to go all of science is wrong because it hurts my feelings and I don't like it and I'm going to listen to this guy and Joe Rogan instead. If we can rehabil rehabilitate that, we can just get just in general most of the public realigned with reality and factual information. That's the key. That's really — I'm going to still pile on this because you know there's a lot of kind of mayor Kula within the scientific community some of it justified. How much do you think is the loss of trust in science driven by outside actors and how much is it because scientists have not been super great in some things either over claiming results hacking peer

review um you know doing a mill hacking whatever it is um — that you know there's a lot to clean house insight as well right and I think every journalist will say we'll first jump to what do scientists need to do differently to gain trust and I think it's also you know we have to do two things destroy the people that do the distrust but still do something to increase trust. you guys are in the machine, so I'm not going to step on your toes about it. And yeah, sure. Okay, let's you know, somebody's doing Yeah. like statistical analysis a little bit wrong. Okay, fine. But 98% of it is from the jerks on the outside going CERN is a demonic. They're opening a portal to the other dimension of hell or what. That's the problem. Not that I mean, look, there's always room to do better science. I'm not gonna say that there's not. Um, and there are, you know, people within the scientific community that are acting um, dishonestly and things like that. But that's not the primary issue. The primary issue is these bad faith actors that promote abject science denial for profit for either for profit or for political power. So, um, let's take care of that. Let's go let's go, you know, 10 to one, right? You guys help the scientists be a little better. I'm gonna be chiseling away at this monstrous edifice of charlatanry that has taken over human civilization. — Sounds good. Dave, we have one more question if that's uh okay with you. So, — sure. — At the individual level, what's the most impactful thing a viewer who is watching this can do this week to defend reality? So, we always like to end on an empowering and positive note. What can someone who's listening to this right now get off their seat and go do this week to help support an evidence-based worldview? — I mean, there's a few things. Number one is to just kind of be a little bit more combative. Get in the comment section of my video. the video, the videos of the frauds. Uh get on Twitter, get on the social media, and just kind of like spar a little bit. Um it does help. I mean, the these this is the foot soldiers. These are the infantry, right? This is just kind of that first wave. Um just kind of go out there and like, you know, do a little bit of damage. It's not the nuclear blast, but it's um it matters, right? You know, you have a huge infantry, you're going to probably win a battle. Um so there's that. And then just try to um amplify the voices that are doing it, right? So, you know, if times are tight, you don't necessarily need to be, you know, hit up my Patreon or membership or anything like that, but um just, you know, share the videos on socials and uh you know, kind of put them in the faces of the people who need to see them and shame them if they refuse to, etc. Yeah, it's definitely great to have like repositories of stuff for people who are in a time pinch or don't necessarily have those skills themselves to say, "Look, here is something that you can go and look at when you're hearing the voices from these uh from these people. " — Dave, thank you very much. That's it for today's Science Counter Punch. Thank you very much to uh Dave Fina for stepping into the ring and showing us how we can come out swinging against the science grifters. — Thanks for having me. And Dave's YouTube channel is called Professor Dave Explains and his book is this Wi-Fi organic? We will link it in the description below along with some of the highlights from his educational playlist on chemistry, physics, biology, and more. Uh I think they are really good watching some of them and you know they should also sharpen your BS detector. So give it a try and remember you don't need a PhD to defend reality. You just need the receipt. So, hit like, subscribe, and click the bell so evidence doesn't get buried under algorithmic outrage. — And yeah, stand with the evidence, stand with communicators like Dave because they are in the digital trenches holding the line for all of us. Thank you, Dave, again once more. — Absolutely, Dave. Thank you very much. Keep up the good fight. — I will. — Thank you very much, buddy. We appreciate Heat.