i have coming up on all the shows. it's your chance to get to know me, it's kind of a popular pastime for tens of tens of people. morr.s for watching, see you jo: john: republicans vote, to raise the minimum wage. >> alaska, nebraska, arkansas, nebraska voting in favor of raising it. >> some americans say be hurts poor people. >> might be the problem that creates so many poor people. john: famous actors tell united nations that fossil fuels will kill us. >> here right now. john: it is? in people believe all kinds of things. >> do you believe in ghosts? >> i do. >> yes, people have seen ghosts. >> i don't need proof. john: no proof. >> be reasonable, ha is our show

tonight. john: we like to think we're rational creatures, logical. >> you could krurz ing your a rl person. >> i am. >> very. >> i don't know about him. >> so many americans believeus . do you believe in ghosts. >> yes. >> people have seen ghosts. >> the house i grew up in los angeles had a ghost. >> since my mom died, i believe she is around, i feel she is around, and my mother-in-law, i don't need proof for it. john: she doesn't need proof for it, more than a third of americans believe in ghosts, almost as many believe in astology, their futures can be predicted based on positions that stars were in when they

were born. do you believe in astrology? >> absolutely. >> yeah, i am deep into it. john: why? it makes no sense, dozens of studies have debunked astrology. first, why do so many people believe? let's ask editor of skeptic magazine. michael schumer, he wrote the book, the believing brain, we construct beliefs and reinforce them, our brains are faulty? >> they are not faulty but they believe in nonsense because we believe just about everything we hear or see or read about or told by others, there is a reason for that, imagine you are a human on plains of africa millions of years ago, you hear

a. the grass moving, you believe it is the wind, it turns out it is a predator could you are lunch. you have just been taken out of the gene pool. >> and you don't give birth to people who give birth to us. >> we're descendents to those who are most likely to believe everything is real, just in case it is. our brains are like lawyers, marshals the evidence to form your case. whatever it is. you just fine evidence to fit it, you ignore the evidence that does not fit it. john: believe believe in ghosts and global warming but aliens? about a third of americans believe in ufo's. do you think there are aliens? um, yes.

>> aliens, yes. >> absolutely. >> yes. >> yes, i do. >> 100%. john: i mean kpwharbg is that about what isthat about? >> aliens are like, gods or something bigger than us, people think that everything happens for a reason, that way things unfold in life are designed there is manage out there that kind of tries to make sense of the whole universe, makes sense directs and controls things, aliens are a version of that. there is somebody out there that knows about us, and is watching us that thing. john: i look at numbers, they are appalling to me. 42% ghost, 36% ufos, astrology, witches, reincarcarnation, it ms me wonder why do people become

democrat or republicans? >> it is a tribal believe, you gravitate toward the world view that is best for you, then you find evidence to fit it. john: what your parents believe or friends believe, how does check plain us libertarians. -- how does that explain us libertarians, i think the liberal soup i have been swimming in no longer made sense to me, are i logical to become a libertarian. >> they are a tribe, we stand for a particular set of core beliefs, involving of the individual, we' to be left alone but nevertheless, if you veer too far from the core set of ideologys like i did, you know i got a lot of angry letters from libertarians saying, you are not a member of our tribe, they said you don't believe in the

constitution, so, there is that emotive sense, like you violated our tribe. that is pure emotions, there is no logic there. john: and just to be clear, you say believe in climate change, climate does change, but it is a catastrophy? >> those who think that world is coming to an end, i don't think so, when you make these projects out a century or two, the error margins door wide. john: we'll cover that later, thank you michael schumer. >> i want to believe in people are ration always money is at stake, if you hire someone, you want to make sure that new employees are competent, but job recruiters are not rational about farther, once in my abc days i spend pairs of actors out to apply are in same job, i gave them the same resume, told them to say the same things, they

did, there was a difference, one was especially good looking the other was not. we had a make-up artist increase the give repbgts, touche differ. we touched up the lookers, and other we added blemishs and bags under the eyes, they applied for the same sex teriathe secretari. >> you could hear the warmth in his voice. and said the same thing but, his tone is less friendly. he tells here there is a lunchbreak. with good looking donia that is more flec flexible. he told tonia she was likely to

be hired. >> you are in the lead right now. >> really. >> he offered her the job. he never called amy back. >> pattern continued with employer after employer. we did the same test with male actors, same result, the good looking people did better. we hear about people being racially biassed or sexist but lookist? we have all kinds of basis we don't think about. he has a blog called overcoming bias, do you buy this lookest by ased? >> yes, he probably thinks he is doing it for the company. john: what is the boyne of your blog, overcoming -- what is the point of your blog overcoming?

>> a lot of us seem to be blase, but we think, kids are kids whatever, but some of us say, oh, my god, i think biassed. i could be wrong about everything. john: are we wrong about things? >> a lot of things, about who he' to hire, who we like and think are better for jobs. john: the picture, why? >> so seductive. we think we're better than others, prettier, and moral and smarter, and he knew he could not count on himself to listen to what he said, he had on constrain himself. john: he begs the other crew members. >> please, please, they had wax in their ears, so they could not hear, that is what we need to do. john: for students they evaluate

teachers in college, you found an interesting bias. >> well-known that if the class is in a nice time, easy class, you give out more a's you get better student evaluations, university could correct that if they want but they don't bother. john: do you think it because the person is a better teacher. john: >> it feels like that. >> to the rateer? >> like recruiter. probably felt this was a better employee, that was not really part of the eval. john: when a person says something, if they have high status, we're more likely to agree with them. >> you are at a party, a physicist, he is pontiff kateing about education, and other side of the room, the grade schoolteacher who disagrees, so who you are going to agree with. john: sometimes there is not a

base in movie reviews. >> a place like fox owns a lot of different outlets, some review movies, and are movies made by fox. john: 20th century fox makes movies. fox also owns "wall street journal," "new york post," they have reviewers, you tell me they gene give better are you -- they don't give better reviews to fox movies. >> they don't, why. >> readers care about fair reviews, there is a discipline. a market discipline, you need to supply customers with what they want. want. want. >> why aren't they bias? they have an incentive. >> to please the audience. john: prediction market help

people do that. >> bet on it, have you been in a conversation, you take -- get pompous and you make big claims somebody says, let's bet on it, you feel it, oh, wait, what are we betting on. how are we wording that? i didn't mean that part, you back off and you clarify because you kind of know, now you are on the hook, innocenttives change your mind. john: prediction market are groups of people doing that as locations like predictive.com or bet fair, beting on future events they are more accurate than pundits. >> if you want the most estimate on a question, there is a betting market it go look at odds. >> follow me on twitter to join this discussion. or like my facebook page. i want to know what you think. >> coming up, most people

believe a minimum wage helps the poor. most peep believe charity helps the poor more than investment. they are irrational, that is next.

>> raise the wage. >> one of the fastest ways to help folks get ahead is by raisings minimum wage. john: that sounds reasonable to most americans, even people in conservative states like alaska, south dakota, nebraska voted to raise the minimum wage, americans support laws again price gouging and monopolies but if you pay attend sthoeupb free market, you know that monopolies are not really a market today, and laws again price gougeing deprive people of good things. if minimum wage hurts people, economist garrett stkwroepbs say there are sjones saysthere are myths. >> give workers a raise to make them better off for people to

keep their jobs that is true, if you think about it, if one person is losing their job. one person is, that means less stuff is getting made, our pie is getting smaller. the minimum wage will make us poor overall. john: price gouging laws, should there be laws again that in they say yes. >> especially after a natural disaster, with a few businesses with flashlights and water and batteries, should they be allowed to charge more, but problem is after a crises that is just when you need more supply, when you need some guy with a pickup truck, a hundred miles away to throw a bunch of bottles of water in the back of his truck and drive into the disaster aircraft, price gougeing laws keep them from doing that.

they are not letting the invisible hand do its job. john: most schools say that monopoly is a place you where market failure. if one company gets too big they raise their price as much as they want and rip us all. >> a great economist taught us when somebody sees a monopoly other businesses want to get that monopoly and steal it away. every time there is one company with power there are 5 or 10 or more that are hot on the heels. >> government called ibm a monopoly and microsoft's monopoly. >> they have shrunk and los shat center of our lives, microsoft people said they would run the internet i think number of people using their browsers is small. small. john: natural resources is what makes a country rich. >> a lot of people take it for granted. but if you look around, at world's richest economies and

that have started from poverty and boosted up. brackets, like japan, with almost no natural resource but our most important resource is minds of our people. john: have you poor country with a lot of natural resources like nigeria. >> often wind up in a world of civil war, people are fighting over that scarce form of wealth rather than building up the human mind. john: finally, everyone knows is true, what really helps people, poor people is charity. >> when helps people more charity for capitalism. >> charity. >> oh, my god, i would say charity there charity. >> charity. john: people assume that. >> if that were true, then you know, people would not be getting richer in capitalist

countries, the capitalist nations that make people more prosperous, and building up a sharing a bigger pie is a great thing to do but first you have to have a big pie. john: as we approach christmas we think of ebenezer scrooge, he did more good for people who he invested. >> he is saving money, he is keeping money in the bank that money is being lent out to investors who want to building homes and to people who need po borrow money. john: imitation of him uncle scrooge, from comics playing in his pile of money, but that is not what entrepreneurs do with their money. >> whether they put it in a bank or invest it they help to grow the pie for someone else, leave it to the invisible hand to allocate his health to whoever can do the most with it.

john: to million, thank you garrett jones. >> coming up, do you trust authority? what would you do if an authority told you to give a man with a heart condition, a horrible electric shock. >> he might be dead in there some people can't take the shop, sir.

john: 70 years ago when most of world learned about holocaust, people were shocked so many german soldiers were willing to torture people, with eichmann went on trial he said, i was just doing my job, one called that the banality of evil, you say even reasonable people in a certain situation may become cruel? >> this happens all of the time, people will turn on their unarmed and defense less

neighbors, and murder them. so, this led scholars to try to figure out, is there something wrong with millions of people's brains in terps of their disposition or can situational forces lead people to do this. john: they conclude that power of the situation in other people was powerful, a fine campbell, you see this -- example, you see this card with a line on it, how long is a line, which of these three is the same length. tell us what happened. >> this was an experiment by salomon ash that happened after the holocaust, he wanted to figure out how people are influenced in their opinion by other people, the other people in the room with you would pick the wrong answer, and say a line not equivalent was not right answer most people will change their answer because of the

social context. john: a professor, his student became a psychologist, and run most famous demonstration how good people do not always heed reasonable part of their brain. >> teacher who read a list of world pairs to you -- world pairs, try to remember each pair. john: 50 years ago, yale psychologist conducted this nasty experiment. >> if you get it correct, fine, if you make an error, you will be punished with a electric shock, he call the shockers teachers. >> incorrect. >> get a shock of 75 volts. >> test subject kept making mistakes. >> 150 volts. sad face. >> that is wrong gets me out of here, i told you i had heart trouble. >> the man did not have a heart

condition, and was not receiving the shock. that was a recording. >> let me out, still most teachers, kept giving the shocks. >> that is incorrect. this will be a 330. >> most also resisted. >> i don't want to go further. >> the experimental had no real power over teachers, he was not their boss or commanding officer, most still did what they were told. >> who will take responsibility if anything happens to him. >> imresponsible. >> continue, please. >> 120 volts. 435 volts. 450. >> he might be dead in there. some people can't take the shock, sir, i don't mean to be rude but you should look in on him. >> they told the test subjects the truth. >> god bless you, you had me shaking in here. >> nice to see you.

john: i understand a group of psychologists was asked to predict how many people would give the maximum voltage they thoughtless than 1%, it was half of the people. >> about 65% of people went all way to the very top. and gave highest level of shock even though they thought person on other side might be dead or unconscious, men and women, most of them went up to the top. john: later stanley made a documentary about it video we played was parts of it, i like the way he ended it. >> if in this study, a anonymous experiment or can command adults to subdue a 54-year-old man and force shocks against him against his protest one can conle only r who a government with command of its subjects.

john: i wonder too. >> milligram was jewish, and after the holocaust he like the rest of the world, was trying to figure out how these things happen, how you get a lot of people to attack and kill their unarmed neighbors, he found that if you put the subject closer by, then people are less likely to go to the top, if you put experiment or the guy in white lab coat farther away, people are less likely to go to top. john: i wonder if this could be done today because some of the experimenters were traumatizeed ed by giving the shocks and this might not be allowed today. >> it is not taught as much as it was when it first came out, i think most purpose thing that everyone generation, learns this, and understands this. so that when they for a situation with authority, they

recognize the patterns in the experiment, like you set up simple rules, you give people titles, a teacher or a guard, like that. there are some sort of goal happening make exit cost high. there is a diffusion of responsibility, you tell the person i am responsible not you, they are necessary ingredients for a population to have blind obead yens obedience. >> frightening thank you. >> coming up, climate change protesters, but they were not reasonable. >> excuse me. excuse me, this is private property. this private property. this is mine. ♪ music

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one question got most yes, answers. >> is global warming a big problem? >> yes, it is. >> i think a huge,er we're all killing ourselvess. >> it scares me, it should scare everyone. >> look how bad fires get, we're killing ourselves? there have been nasty storms, this fall, a well-known environment alec pert saial exp. >> here right now, droughts are intensifying, our oceans are acid fiing. we're seeing extreme weather events. decades ahead of scientific projects. none of this is rhetoric, none of it is hysteris fact. john: fact. extreme weather events, rising up, we're told all scientists

agree that we got to cut back on use of fossil fuel. but then i see this book, moral case for fossil fuel. how they can be moral? apalex ep stein wrote the book, what you are talking about? a dogma that earth is perfect without us, we don't mess it up, but, as we made world warmer, assume being have climate deaths are down. >> yes, idea of perfect is right, i called it the perfect planet premise, nature gave us a perfect planet, all we can do it mess it up, if we went to someone 300 years ago, we asked them, did you have a perfect climate, they were terrified of

climate, we have mastered climate, that is why so new few team die of climate, dicaprio should learn this. john: they are down? >> incredible, last year we heard record, record, climate related deaths were at a record low, in supposedly worst climate in history, under 30 thousand, compared to 1931 with 3.7 million. this is a incredible achievement of fossil fuels. john: and in terms of death before the '70s there may have been more deaths we did not know about. >> now if we have a disaster everyone knows about it, it is amazing. john: people were in a drought in bangladesh or a tornado we

did not know. >> think about today with all aid, what is incentive to over report a death, you get money to populatreport death. >> environmenta not something to submit to, it is something to master. john: problem with the hype is that our lives are okay. but, half of pea people on earth don't have the fuel they need. >> they means they have no machines to do work for them, that is a rough way to live. john: onlyning that is affordable, people think they can get it from wind or solar power. >> not one free standing solar wind plant in the world, germany, gets 6% from solar and wind combineed they cannot rely on it, that is why they rely on more coal and wood. john: this is cruel to poor people. alex likes to take his argument to colleges, and environmental

groups, he is at a people's climate march, at one point demonstrator got so angry at his i love fossil fuel sign they tried to rip it out of his hands. >> excuse me, this is private property, this is private property, this is mine. john: i am not sure she heard those words strupblging it before. >> america secretary of state seems convinceed that climate change is a big problem, says that science is certain. >> science of climate change is leaping out at us like a scene from a 3-d movie, compelling us to act when 97% of all scientists agree on anything, we need to listen. john: what do you say? >> he is equateing climate impact with climate catastrophy, that string in that speech he

gave to indonesia, he starts from impact then says they all agree with my policy, not with 97% agree with kerry's political policy,. >> are not a climate change skeptic but a climate cataal chy -- refuteer at this point. john: coming up, the thing that finally convinced my to become more reasonable. so,as my personal financial psychic,

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john: i have to admit until 20 years ago, i wasn't so reasonable, i was a consumer reporter, i fell for just about every his ter rah that came up. government must regulate airline prices, get tough on illegal drugs. after years of reporting did i realize that activists were wrong about love canal, and government regulations usually makes problems worse, and so does the drug war, i was confused. i stopped reading liberal media, so devoutly, and turned to conservative publications, but i read them, i thought that i want to police my bedroom, and the whole world that does not seem

reasonable to me. finally, i discovered this magazine called, reason. it was cell cap of -- skeptical of left and right, the more i read it the more it made sense, they understand life better than i do. these people were not matt welch, and nick gillespie. current editors of reason, you may have been barely out of diapers by then, if you are even now. how did you become reasonable so much more quickly than i did. >> for me, my brother who is older than i, went to college, and foundeed it in college bookstore it was like, i was hearing a lot of stuff that, right, you know right is always right or left is always right. and none spoke to me, you know reason magazine that talks about free minds and free market,

founder hated hippies and cops that beat up hippies. john: he did not like hippies he thought they were emotional and foolish. >> and totalitarian in the way they tried to senator free speech. >> it came home to me after liveing in central europe for 8 years in late 90s, i came back looking for same politics saw there people pa hated communism, they loved free market, they thought there should be personal freedom to do what you wanted to do, i looked for anyone with that sense of beliefs it does not exist. i became across "reason" magazine, that kind of was about politics but hated politics and s and speak in human speak. >> in a way i think that is what attracted me, a political mass screen that hates politics, we think that most interesting

things in life lap beyond, that in businesses like uber, and air bnb ory oy on the internet or wd groups that people arming in. -- people form together. so much more stuff that is interesting than in places like washington, d.c. john: but you have arrogant tight. the reason, implying --? founder, he thought we could dose the national debate with rationalty, he said in his editor's note announcing first issue logic, not legends. he real believed this is a naive believphraoef webelief we still. john: speaking about hysteria issues, one of the big first big articles, that got a lot of national press was about love canal, and we had a reporter go there, he showed --

>> back up, love canal a place in upstate new york. >> niagara falls a neighborhood that was built on a toxic chemical dump, and it was -- it was in late '70s a indicator of all that was wrong with corporate america. corporate america was making money by poisoning people by selling them property on toxic companies. companies. john: giving people cancer. >> right. our reporter said it was the school board of niagara falls that was bad actor they bought the property from chemical company, they said, don't let anyone build on this, the they d it because they could make money, and turned out to science was bogus. john: two fronts, no 1 caught a cold from anything at love canal, there is no cancer epidemic in america but people still think there is.

>> get to a set of facts that we can agree on then have the argument rather than just arguing from emotional points of view, saying that facts don't mattematter what matters is my t of view. john: that airline prices were something that had to be controlled by government. >> and even food they serve on planes. >> right. >> if there is going to be a new route between new york, and houston, then, the existing airline that flew that route had to approve someone else flying that, weirdly enough they never did. john: it was just accepted. >> yes, until a cover story we did that existing regulation of airline did not make sense, if you deregulate them, prices would go down, competition would fluorish and they will be soar safe, that was seen as insane at the time. but that began a process which only 5 years later with help of a lot of liberals like ted kennedy, and jimmy carter, and

others led to airline deregulation, one of early and great examples of deregulation helping everyone. >> upper class people were only people who flew before question regulation. >> thank you, matt and nick, coming up, people believe in astrology, i showed college students, i told them was their horoscope, but it was this mass murderer's horoscope, i'll tell you what happened when we returned.

john: al said about a third of americans believe no astrology in times square it seems like most did. >> live astrology. >> it is rational? >> absolutely. everything happens from the stars. >> yeah, i am deep into it. john: why? by what logic do the position govern your personality, let alone predict what will happen to you, it is not reasonable. i 1 paid a famous astrology to do a chart on this man, ed kemper. now kemper is a serial killer. who murdered 6 hitchhikers, his grandparents and his own mother, i gave his horoscope to a class of college students, we gathered their birth dates before, i said

don't look at your neighbor's copy this is personal your 24 page horoscope, they read the same 25 pages and said, wow. i didn't believe it inn astrology before but this is amazing no one could have known these things about me, i am a believer. why would they think that kemper's horoscope was theirs? because ast roll jeres and -- ast roll jeres gists and fortune tellers are good at it, i can do it to you, think of a name of a country that starting with the letter d, now second letter and think of an animal with that letter. got it? i bet you think of an elephant, right? >> i am psychic. i know what you think?

or more reasonably, if you ask people to think of a country that begins can d most is denmark. second letter ise, elephant. maybe you thought i could read your mind. you have jupiter in your 7th house, people collaborate with you to help you. security is important to you. you have an above average sense of humor. well, most americans think they have an above average sense of humor. also, someone says a lot of stiff like that, kemper's her scopehoroscope is 24 pages, thee bound to hit on some things that say, that is about me, this wap did my horoscope, and this year she said, eclipses will have a dramatic effect on people with certain zodiac signs.

>> taurus and citicorpio and leo -- scorpio and awar acuarios an. >> they also flatter people, these three planets make you intuitive. and you have skills that have not been tapped. they give some specifics, something may happen to your leg next month, have you a bunch of old magazines around the house. evolution trained our brains to have confirmation biassed. a lot of in we folk toys things that are true -- focus on things that are true. you forget the misses the dozens of misses, astrology is fun but

reason is better. i wish people applyed reason to more parts of their lives and in the voting booth that is our show see you next week. the following is a paid advertisement from the new face of time life: starvista entertainment. heeeeeeere's johnny! from the moment he stepped on stage... hey-oooo! ...until the day he said goodbye. i am taking the applause sign home, putting itn the bedroom.... the king of late n.... was johnny carson. so this is old john, eh? gng right into all homes, across america. mom, i'm on tv! i've been doing the show behind that desk so long you don't know how, you know, you don't know whether to sit like this, or like this. introducing the best of the tonight show starring johnny carson, from starvista entertainment and time life. do you like my dress? what there is of it is uh...