Dr. Dan Wilson, Covid-19 Mask Science |490|

Dr. Dan Wilson has a doctorate in biology, but misfires on the science to public health policy link.

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Audio Clip: [00:00:00] Hold. For what? Explain your sneeze. I’m sorry. Do you have allergies? No. Is there too much pepper on your salad? I don’t put pepper on salads. I’ve heard enough sit over there. I don’t want to sit by myself. That’s what typhoid Mary said and clearly her friends buckled.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:00:19] I have a really interesting interview coming up with Dr. Dan Wilson. Interesting to me because going into this, I thought it was going to be a hardcore discussion about COVID-19 mask science. And what it really turned into maybe is just a discussion of how far the science cow has left the barn.

Dr. Dan Wilson: [00:00:46] I would say that when it comes to mask use you know, there are general principles that we can pull from the literature. And we know from a laboratory setting that face masks reduce the number of infectious viral particles that escaped from the nose and mouth into the environment. That is perfectly logical.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:01:04] I have to interject. I know you’re making that remark but I kind of nailed that. I mean, who cares? That doesn’t, just that we get, and the fact that it gets repeated over and over again, like you just did with some kind of mantra mesmerizing thing. It’s science bullshit. It doesn’t have anything to do with answering the question am I safer wearing a mask? It doesn’t answer that because it doesn’t relate to how it works with other humans. It’s just, it’s science bullshit.

Dr. Dan Wilson: [00:01:34] Well I would disagree, I think it’s a really important part of the puzzle. You know, like you said at the beginning, it’s important to see whether or not something works in a lab setting. And that’s usually the first thing that scientists do before going and testing it further with more research…

Alex Tsakiris: [00:01:48] But no one had any doubt whether it would work. Its home ice, no one had any doubt that if I put, if I do that, it does the same thing. If I cover my mouth when I cough, stuff doesn’t come out. To elevate it to this level of advanced refined science to say that if you cover somebody’s mouth, they stuff doesn’t come out of it when they sneeze is a total head fake bullshit way of kind of wrapping all this nonsense in science, the conclusion is it was inconclusive. The conclusion is at last year’s Super Bowl when the Chiefs won, no one had to wear a mask because no one was told to wear a mask, because that’s what the best science said, and there hasn’t been a wave of science that would change that. Welcome to Skeptiko where we explore controversial science and spirituality with leading researchers, thinkers and their critics. Boy oh boy, I have a good one today. Really been looking forward to this. Dr. Dan Wilson, Debunk the Funk with Dr. Wilson is his YouTube channel. He is joining us today to have a COVID-19 mask science, throw down, knock down, drag out. Dan is a PhD in molecular biology from Carnegie Mellon translate as he’s really, really smart.

Dr. Dan Wilson: [00:01:48] I don’t know about that…

Alex Tsakiris: [00:03:19] You will find that he is really…

Dr. Dan Wilson: [00:03:23] I took a particular path and spent a lot of time doing it so…

Alex Tsakiris: [00:03:28] You know I mean, let’s be you know, for real because it is important, we’re gonna have a scientific discussion. One of the things you know, you kind of pride yourself on, which is great, is being a science, you know, you’re a science professional. But you’re also a fan of science an advocate for science, you’re interested in debunking to the extent that you want to get to the bottom of what’s real and what isn’t real. And hey, that’s where I’m at to and even though we might come to different conclusions we share that which I think is what it’s really all about. So I’m showing here your YouTube channel and as folks can see, you’ve done a lot of videos on COVID-19. A lot of people on there, we’re going to talk about in a minute, but why don’t we start by just you know, kind of the basics. Tell us a little bit more about your background, about, share as much as you want about what you do but in particular, why you created this YouTube channel and why you felt the need to publish so many videos on COVID-19.

Dr. Dan Wilson: [00:04:41] So as you said, I earned my PhD from Carnegie Mellon University. I earned it just last year actually. And you know, I always have been interested in skeptical topics such as pseudoscience, paranormal, conspiracy theories, all that kind of things I’ve been interested in it from a very young age. And so it’s always been something I would read about you know, watch YouTube videos about, I kind of had my own little research forays into all these different topics. And so when I was getting towards the end of my PhD I thought, you know, what do I really want to do with my degree? Do I really want to sit at a lab bench and try to feel like I’m being, trying to really feel like I’m contributing to society by doing these really niche, special projects that it’s hard to see the grander benefits from?

Alex Tsakiris: [00:05:52] And maybe you want to interject a little bit on your dissertation, which I did not understand at all. But we’ll give people a sense for how much we don’t know about what you know, and do kind of …

Dr. Dan Wilson: [00:06:04] Sure yeah. So for my PhD work, I investigated how cells build the little nano machine called Ribosomes. So if you remember from biology class, proteins get made by ribosomes. But ribosomes themselves are made up of protein and RNA, and they’re actually really complicated structures, and the cell has to build them. So it has mechanisms to do that which are very, you can spend obviously a whole dissertation on it and only really focus on one protein out of hundreds involved in the process of making ribosomes. And so that’s what I did, I focused on how the role that two particular proteins have in actually building the ribosome. And so you know, it’s basic biology, it’s stuff that contributes to our general understanding of how the molecular world works. And the hope is that one day, that basic knowledge can help contribute to a medication or some kind of understanding for a treatment for a disease. But you know, when I’m working to further the point I started talking about just a little bit ago, it’s hard to see you know, 10 20 years, 10 20 or so, even more years down the line and say, the work I’m doing now is definitely going to have an impact later. It’s definitely important but it takes a certain personality to really be okay with just that kind of work you know. So not everyone is fulfilled by that kind of hope of distant gratification, even though you know your work is important, it can still be hard to get all the film that you want out of that, if that makes sense.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:07:58] Sure. So that’s what kind of led you to do more, to kind of publicly relatable kind of YouTube channel?

Dr. Dan Wilson: [00:08:08] Yeah, so I always was interested in science communication. something I explored during my PhD and that’s where I really got fulfillment, is by communicating science to people, whether it’s teaching in a classroom or you know understanding how people misunderstand science and trying to help them understand it. That was where I got a lot of enjoyment and so I just decided towards the end of my PhD, why don’t I just try putting myself out there? Why don’t I just do this thing I’ve always really wanted to do and just start a YouTube channel just for fun and see where it goes. And so that’s really what motivated me to start my YouTube channel. There were other circumstances in my life that made me decide, okay, now’s the time, I want to actually try to do this thing I’ve always thought about but that was the general reasoning behind it. And so it started out just with anti vaxxers because that’s kind of where my expertise fit you know, in molecular biology, understanding vaccines and immunology, that’s kind of in the same umbrella as molecular biology. So that’s where I focused, it’s what I already knew a lot about in terms of like what the claims that people make and the relevant information regarding those claims so I started there, and then the pandemic happened. And so I kind of started to focus more and more on COVID things week by week. Until I was just flooded with, you know all of these different things that people were saying. And you know, the cold pandemic has affected all of our lives one way or another, whether the disease has affected us or someone we know or any of the precautions that we now take have changed our lives in any ways, our jobs, etc. So it’s important to really understand what the science is about COVID. And you know, seeing all of these things that I was seeing over the past few months really made me think that I should focus on COVID related topics on my channel. So that’s what I’ve been doing.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:10:30] Right on to that, this is perfect, just go right up my alley. So let me grab control on this a little bit, but you take it back whenever you want. I got one of my favorite high school students, very close to me, to put together some slides for me so we’re going to use those slides. And what we decided to do inside of a science discussion that we’re going to have, very science based because I think I like you, have a passion for science you know, a little bit of background on me. I was a PhD student in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Arizona before I decided, hey man, I gotta follow the money. I knew AI , AI was taking off, started company but I always had this passion for science and spirituality, it led me to podcasting, It led me to writing a book, Why Science Is Wrong About Almost Everything, kind of a cheeky title that gets at sciences complete dropping the ball of consciousness and misunderstanding of really quantum physics implications for the observer effect, and what that means for consciousness and what that means for scientific materialism. And in the process of interviewing some pretty misinformed and ill informed scientists, I became somewhat of a science advocate, watchdog, kind of in the same way that you are only kind of from a different perspective. So this is an opportunity today, we decided to kind of focus in on one thing and this topic of whether or not do masks work. And I have to say, I have to give credit here because I was really prompted to do this by my friend Rick Archer from Buddha at The Gas Pump. It’s Rick’s picture from when he was on my show and Rick is just a fantastic communicator and contributor and you know, his Buddha at The Gas Pump show is phenomenally important. But at the same time, Rick is kind of one of these, just doesn’t understand science and just kind of falls for every New World Order science trap that he can lay his hands on, at least that’s my take of it. But here’s where I want to start because to me, this is like one of the most important issues we could possibly talk about, related to this. And this is the topic of science in free speech. You know, you were nice enough to fill out this hokey little questionnaire that I do about… you did it. You’re very nice about doing that. You seem like a very open guy and I really appreciate that. And you know, one of the things, one of the questions on there is conspiracy theory and are conspiracies dangerous? And you like most people said Yeah, I think sometimes conspiracies are dangerous. And I was wondering you know, I looked through some of the people that you’ve very rightfully and fairly challenged in your YouTube channel, whether it be James Corbett or Dell Bigtree, he’s on there, who else? I don’t know if you have Robert Kennedy Jr. on there.

Dr. Dan Wilson: [00:13:53] No, he’s yeah… Sorry go ahead

Alex Tsakiris: [00:13:55] No, I’m saying he’s probably coming up, right?

Dr. Dan Wilson: [00:13:57] Yeah, he’s on my list.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:13:59] He’s on your list. So are any of these, and so I’m going to be on the other side of your issue. Is anything I’m going to say dangerous? Should any of these people be banned? I mean Dell Bigtree is banned, he’s banned. Robert Kennedy has been banned. Should anyone be banned for talking about this science?

Dr. Dan Wilson: [00:14:21] I mean, that’s a little bit of a policy question. You know that, I don’t think I have a final answer to it. It’s whether or not someone should be banned for speaking about misinformation. You know that’s something that I would consider myself to have uneducated opinions on, I don’t think about that day in and day out. However, I will say that there does come a point where spreading misinformation becomes harmful and you have to weigh whether or not it’s worth it to let people who have these audiences of hundreds of thousands of people say things that their audience is going to believe, but will ultimately you know, end up harming either themselves or people around them. So it’s an important question.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:15:18] It’s important because it’s in our Constitution, it’s the first amendment, it’s freedom of speech, I mean who would decide? Who would you have deciding Dan? Whose talk, whose science should be banned and what science should not be banned? Who would decide that?

Dr. Dan Wilson: [00:15:36] Oh well, according to the First Amendment, not the government. So, you know…

Alex Tsakiris: [00:15:42] But you just said, you just thought it was okay if somebody’s got you know, 200,000 300,000 million followers and they’re spreading quote, unquote, misinformation. Which, like you’re spreading, I would maintain at the end of the day that you’re spreading misinformation. Rick and you would maintain that I’m spreading misinformation. We’re both reporting on the same science right? You sent me papers, I sent you papers back. Who would decide in that? Where’s the misinformation? Who decides who’s endangering the lives of 1000s of people? Because if I’m right then you’re endangering the lives of 1000s people. If you’re right then I’m endangering the lives of 1000s of people. So who decides?

Dr. Dan Wilson: [00: 16:24] Well ultimately, if you’re asking me who decides who gets banned you know, again, that’s a policy question. But if we’re talking about who’s right, that’s a science question and I think that’s a lot more straightforward at least for me to answer. And I don’t, I don’t necessarily believe that everybody should get banned for spreading misinformation. I just said that you do have to at some point weigh the fact that you know, misinformation can be harmful in making the decisions…

Alex Tsakiris: [00:16:58] Right and I’m just saying I’m not gonna belabor this point. But I’m saying that’s why the First Amendment is the First Amendment, is you just don’t want to introduce that and particularly from science, I find it troubling that you would even go down that path. I mean, this is the extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof nonsense. There’s no such thing in science as extraordinary claims or extraordinary proof. Science is about removing our biases so that we know we are prejudice, we know we have bias one way or another, to remove those so that no meta knowledge of what’s extraordinary comes into play. And the same thing here I mean, I expected Rick to say yeah, ban them, ban them, ban them but you’ve been through the PhD program, I didn’t expect you to jump on board that anyone who’s having a scientific discussion, they should somehow, that their information should be deemed as quote unquote, misinformation and it should be removed from the public sphere which is what it is, because when it’s removed from YouTube and Facebook and Twitter all at the same time, I mean that’s like you know, in the olden days, removing it from all the newspapers and all the TV channels.

Dr. Dan Wilson: [00:18:16] Well, I want to clarify again, I didn’t say that people should be banned for misinformation. I think it’s a policy question and that is not for me to decide and that’s why I think that I personally have uneducated opinions. I’m not a policy expert, I don’t know who would make that decision, I don’t know how you would execute such a policy. You know, it’s right now, it’s up to these private social media companies to make those decisions. And we can agree or disagree on their decisions. But you know, I don’t necessarily think that people should be banned for spreading misinformation, I want to make that clear. However, like again, like I said, there does come a point where you have to start weighing each individual decision, how exactly, how harmful is this? How much traction is it picking up? How much actual measurable harm is it causing? So I think those are things to consider but again, I am not one to make final decisions on that.

Alex Tsakiris: [00: 19:20] Okay we’ll leave that, we’ll leave that be for now. I would just say the same thing over and over again but that’s not going to help us any. You know, what I would go to kind of this other issue because you mentioned a couple times policy in what you where saying. And one of the things I think is interesting about this discussion is the interface between science and public health policy. You know, I mean, I don’t care Dan if you wear a mask, I don’t care if anyone wears a mask, if they feel safe wearing a mask for psychological reasons or for you know very good reasons because they’re around someone who has COVID-19 I don’t care. What I care about is the science policy making interface. How public policy is made and how science informs that public health policy. So when we’re talking here and we’re going to talk about masks, whether masks work, we’re not talking about it from a personal level, right? We’re talking about it from how science should interface with public health policy. And I guess what that stirred up for me is when you said that’s a policy issue, that’s a policy issue in regarding, quote unquote misinformation. Well I’d say this whole discussion we’re having is about policy issue because otherwise, I don’t care if you want to sit there in Pittsburgh and wear a mask or not wear a mask are we in sync on that?

Dr. Dan Wilson: [00:20:47] Absolutely. Yeah.

Dr. Dan Wilson: [00:58:24] I have some of his papers but we already went over that one. But yeah, so the use of face masks respirators to prevent transmission of influenza. He had this on his list and he had this to say about it, that he picked out that there were 17 eligible studies, none of the studies establish a conclusive relationship to the master class respirator use and protection against influenza infection. But in the study if you read it, it says that none of the studies can establish a conclusive link. But some evidence does suggest that mask use is best undertaken as part of a package of personal protection. And that mask use is, the success of mask use is likely linked to its early and consistent and correct usage. Because in this study, they did control for factors such as like, did healthcare workers wear their masks for their entire shift or did they not? And when they found that, when they looked at that and saw that mass health care workers who wear their mask the entire shift did have a statistically significant lower outcome, lower disease outcome. That is what they’re reporting here. They’re saying that it’s likely linked to consistent and correct usage. But moving on to his other studies…

Alex Tsakiris: [00: 59:42] Can I reject something there. Your point is well taken to a certain extent but if this science part of this discussion can be useful to anyone, one of the things that I know about these kind of studies is a lot of times they feel it necessary to report on their speculation about what their study might be, but it really isn’t within the game to kind of change the goalposts during it, right? So if you don’t go into the study initially and say okay, we’re going to control for how long they use it and wear it during the study, then you can’t really at the end of the day say hey, we did notice this little statistical difference and we should pursue it further. I’m not saying that that isn’t a potentially important conclusion or an important point that needs to be studied further and controlled further. But I don’t think Denny on the other hand is really misrepresenting the science when the scientists say hey, we have a speculation that it might fall this way or that way. But what we found was not statistically significant.

Dr. Dan Wilson: [01:00:50] Oh, again, there are statistically significant findings but…

Alex Tsakiris: [01:00:54] Yeah, but we’re talking about this study. I mean yes but we’re talking about this study, right?

Dr. Dan Wilson: [01:01:00] Sure and inconclusive findings does not mean statistically insignificant, it’s just…

Alex Tsakiris: [01:01:04] Right but it doesn’t mean that it is significant and it doesn’t mean that if you didn’t control for it a different way or if you didn’t look at the adverse effects, it would counterbalance it. So this is a good discussion because it’s how, where we keep coming back to, science is complicated. And therefore my conclusion is policy making should be equally complex, complicated and in particular, transparent and that’s where I come down.

Dr. Dan Wilson: [01:01:31] Sure but so if we look at you know the other papers on Dennis’s list, so this study is comparing N95 masks to surgical masks. And what he ends up saying is that there’s no significant difference between them. And he goes on later to say that if masks do work, then you would expect N95 to work better than surgical masks but that’s really a misleading claim. It’s not necessarily going to be that way because you know if a mask is, masks aren’t 100% effective, masks are going to block most of the viral particles that come out of someone’s nose and mouth but you aren’t necessarily going to see a difference between N95 and surgical masks in every situation, especially when it comes to the one zone, which spreads your aerosols more readily than certain other viruses.

Alex Tsakiris: [01:02:39] So that is a great point. But that really kind of goes back to my point, I’m going to ask Denny about that. I don’t know him really well I mean, I just had a couple email exchanges with him and I read his paper but I’m gonna ask him about that because your point in this case is the point I keep making, is we can’t make inferences that propel us beyond the known science. So if you’re saying, if the study is comparing N95 and masks then you can’t extrapolate and say, oh well then that means this for that. Well, I’m saying the same thing. If you have a study and it is ultimately inconclusive and not statistically significant, you can’t say, oh gee or it’s really close or since this virus is really, really bad we should jump on board anyway. Did you have any kind of concluding kind of thoughts or remarks on this?

Dr. Dan Wilson: [01:03:29] I would say that when it comes to ask use you know, there are general principles that we can pull from the literature. And we know from a laboratory setting that face masks reduce the number of infectious viral particles that escaped from the nose and mouth into the environment, that is perfectly logical, we can all see that if someone is wearing a mask and they sneeze or cough, that they’re not going to expel as many snot, saliva as there are particles from their nose and mouth that could potentially be carrying viruses, that logic holds right. So in a laboratory setting, this is demonstrably with corona viruses, we can see that when someone’s not wearing a mask, they expel plenty of viral particles and included in droplets and aerosols but when someone wears a mask that number drops to almost zero. That’s repeatable and several studies where masks block of really, really high percentages of viral particles from coming out of someone’s mouth and nose, repeatable, repeatable, repeatable, and then when we carry this over to…

Alex Tsakiris: [01:04:44] Okay but Dan I have to interject, I know you’re making sure he’s in the mark but I kind of nailed that, I mean who cares? That doesn’t, just we get, and the fact that it gets repeated over and over again like you just did with some kind of mantra mesmerizing thing. It’s science bullshit, it doesn’t have anything to do with answering the question am I safer wearing a mask? It doesn’t answer that because it doesn’t relate to how I’m using it, how it works with other humans. It’s just, it’s science bullshit.

Dr. Dan Wilson: [01:05:15] Well, I would disagree, I think it’s a really important part of the puzzle. You know, like we said at the beginning, it’s important to see whether or not something works in a lab setting and that’s usually the first thing that scientists do before going and testing it further with more…

Alex Tsakiris: [01:05:29] But no one had any doubt whether it would work, its home ice, no one had any doubt that if I put, if I do that, it does the same thing. If I cover my mouth when I cough stuff doesn’t come out, to elevate it to this level of advanced refined science to say that if you cover somebody’s mouth, they stuff doesn’t come out of it when they sneeze is a total head fake bullshit way of kind of wrapping all this nonsense in science. The conclusion is it was inconclusive, the conclusion is at last year’s Super Bowl when the Chiefs won, no one had to wear a mask because no one was told to wear a mask because that’s what the best science said, and there hasn’t been a wave of science that would change that.

Dr. Dan Wilson: [01:06:17] I disagree. So let’s see. Yeah I mean, I think it’s an important point to still make that masks actually physically stop viral particles from coming out of your nose and mouth, because part of what we’ve seen you know, quote unquote, experts say is what I’ve encountered in making my videos, this weird analogy that wearing a mask is like, trying to keep mosquitoes out with a fence and that’s not the case, and we can demonstrate that in the lab. So it’s important to, what I want to convey here is that this these lab experiments are an important step, an important piece of the puzzle to make a proof of concept, a proof of principle right. That viral particles can be blocked from your nose and mouth if you put a mask over your face. Therefore it’s not really much of a leap to say okay, if we have a community of people who are blocking bio particles from coming out of their nose and mouth we have a, you know, groceries of local people who, instead of sneezing into the open air, they’re sneezing into their masks, they’re talking into their masks, coughing into their masks, it’s not a leap of logic to say that there are going to be fewer viral particles out in the environment that the rest of the community can encounter and thus spread the virus. So if we test that assumption right, so science is all about continuing to tests, if we test that in a community setting with more clinical setting, with health care workers we can consistently find statistically significant, albeit incomplete evidence that face masks are effective, that that principle carries over to the community and the clinic. So we can see that throughout the literature, we can see that throughout you know, trends that have happened throughout the pandemic, where communities or countries that implement massive mandates early, they are associated with better outcomes. Of course, this doesn’t take into account what other tactics the countries implemented. But again, that’s hard to study perfectly in a complicated, chaotic pandemic.

Alex Tsakiris: [01:08:31] There’s also evidence that contradicts that, there’s countries, counties and states that didn’t have mask mandates or had less restrictive mask mandates that do not show a statistically significant difference in incidence of COVID-19. So I’m really, I was with you just letting you kind of do your spiel there as well but this is kind of very deceptive. It talks about cherry picking, we just do not have a handle on what that would mean. And maybe in a year we will if the data really comes out but the indications in terms of events too, in terms of large gatherings you know, when Notre Dame wins the big football game against Clemson and 30,009 mask wearing kids stormed the field and there’s no big outbreak afterwards. You know, we have these anecdotal accounts that kind of support a counter conclusion. So I like where we’re at before, I just don’t like this. If you give me back the screen, let’s wrap this up because you’ve really been a tremendous guest and I mean that. I tell you folks, I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve tried to engage with super smart, well qualified people that have a different opinion than I do on this and they just won’t engage and with Dr. Dan Wilson we had full engagement addressing the issues, we didn’t have to agree and he didn’t seek agreement, he just kind of laid out his case in a very strong, compelling way and I really, really honor and respect that. So Dan, tell folks what you’re working on because I know your interest goes beyond just COVID-19 even though I could understand how you’re sucked into that vortex. So where do you plan to go with this science, education, enlightenment kind of project of yours?

Dr. Dan Wilson: [01:10:35] Sure, yeah and I just want to thank you for having me on as a guest, first and foremost. I appreciate the conversation and the willingness to engage, I think that’s of course really important. What I’m working on now, I mean, well, I earned my PhD last year and have since started a new job. And my hobbies, I’m continuing to just cover whatever I really feel like with my YouTube channel. Honestly, the list is still dominated by COVID related topics but I’m interested in all sorts of things. You know, let’s see, I have one of my videos on my channel I talked about a book by Bruce Lipton, Spontaneous Evolution. So that realm of it, in my opinion, pseudoscience is always on my radar. Things that have to do with anti vaxxers of course, we mentioned RFK Jr in the beginning of this, he’s on the horizon. I covered a lot of Dell Bigtree back in the early months of my channel and that’ll probably come back. But I’m going to stay in the realm of you know, vaccine science, evolution science, let’s see cancer cures as part of the Bruce Lipton book I just showed. All that content is stuff that interests me and what I’ll probably be covering at some point in my channel, I only make one video a week so I can only cover so much.

Alex Tsakiris: [01:12:17] I hear you. I’ve gotten sucked into doing more, I used to do one every two weeks. But anyways fantastic, would love to talk to you again at some point. The Bruce Lipton stuff is primarily interesting to me from a consciousness perspective. I believe that most biologists are completely misinformed about basic science, like the double slit experiment and its implications for consciousness and for the observer effect, which is fundamentally what Bruce Lipton is kind of reaching for. And I particularly like point out the Six Sigma result that was consistently got by Dean Ray, Dr. Dean Raiden, replicated in multiple laboratories not only replicated in his laboratory but laboratories around the world. It’s a science that most people who are uninformed about consciousness kind of skate around completely. But if you get there, if you get to that point and if you want to talk about it, I’d love to because you’re really a great guest and I really admire your intellectual chops, you’re a smart guy and it’s been great having you on. Thanks again Dan.

Dr. Dan Wilson: [01:13:29] Hey, thanks a lot Alex, appreciate it.

Alex Tsakiris: [01:13:31] Thanks again to Dr. Dan Wilson for joining me today on Skeptiko. I don’t know if we’re going to have much discussion on this or not. But if we do, I guess I’d like to focus on why no one seems to care about the science by edict part of this. I mean to me, it’s the worst possible outcome of where science could lead. See the bright side, I know there’s a bright side in there someplace. Let me know your thoughts, Skeptiko forum. Got some good shows coming up. Stay with me for all of that. Until next time, take care and bye for now.

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