CARL KASELL, host: From NPR and WBEZ-Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!, the NPR News quiz. I'm Carl Kasell. We're playing this week with Kyrie O'Connor, Peter Grosz and Paula Poundstone. And here again is your host, at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL: Thank you, Carl.
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SAGAL: Thanks everybody. In just a minute, Carl eats all of his rhyma beans in our Listener Limerick challenge. If you'd like to play, give us a call at 1-888-Wait-Wait. That's 1-888-924-8924. Right now, panel, some more questions for you from the week's news.
Peter, a luxury designer has created a special edition iPad. It's solid gold. It's encrusted in diamonds. But in case that's not exclusive enough for you, it's also inlaid with what?
PETER GROSZ: Gold and diamonds already on there.
SAGAL: Yeah, it's got gold, it's got diamonds. That's old school. That's not fancy enough. You know, to make it really fancy, really special, really - that sort of thing that nobody but you has, it's also got what in it?
GROSZ: Your DNA.
SAGAL: No, that's a good guess though. It's the Jurassic iPad, 65 million years in the making.
GROSZ: It has dinosaur...
SAGAL: Dinosaur?
GROSZ: DNA?
SAGAL: Close enough...
GROSZ: Bones?
SAGAL: It's got dinosaur bones.
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GROSZ: Bones.
SAGAL: It's got tyrannosaurus rex bones. Yeah, even among the one percent of the richest people, there's one percent that are dumber than the rest.
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SAGAL: And created especially for them, it's the Stuart Hughes 8 million dollar iPad. Eight million dollars seems like a lot. It might be worth it if it came with a protective case made of eight million dollars.
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SAGAL: But no, this comes, you know, with diamonds and gold and shards of dinosaur bone. Are we so bored with precious gems and stones, the metals that we now need dinosaur bones to impress each other? Like the great predators that once ruled the earth, they're now reduced to being bling?
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SAGAL: Was that a comforting thought as they passed into extinction? It's okay, some day some rich moron will play Angry Birds on us.
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SAGAL: The T-Rex was happy. It was like, well, great, at least somebody found something to do with my arms.
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SAGAL: Paula, Professor Diederik Stapel is one of the most prominent research psychologists in the world. He has done study after study proving, for example, that just thinking of eating meat makes people more selfish, and that being in a messy room makes people more racist. This week, a little flaw was discovered in his work. What?
PAULA POUNDSTONE: He doesn't - his sample group is one.
SAGAL: No.
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SAGAL: That actually is not far off the case.
POUNDSTONE: He uses a doping goat.
SAGAL: No.
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POUNDSTONE: He smokes a doping goat.
SAGAL: I'll give you a hint. He's sort of the James Frey of social scientists.
POUNDSTONE: It's not true.
SAGAL: Right. He made it all up, basically is what they discovered.
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POUNDSTONE: Oh, I feel awful.
SAGAL: Yeah.
POUNDSTONE: I can't tell you how many people I've accused of racism.
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SAGAL: Professor Stapel published all kinds of studies about the intricacies of human behavior and moods, the kind of things we often feature on this show. And it was all nonsense. Staple apologized. He said he was ashamed of his actions. But he explained that when you put men in prestigious well paid academic jobs and allow them to hang around attractive young students, studies show they tent to start making stuff up.
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POUNDSTONE: Yeah, this kind of vindicates my way of thinking for a number of years now, Peter, which is that a lot of the studies - I remember one, one time there was a study about cat food and it was by the Whiskas Foundation. Do you remember that?
SAGAL: I do remember that.
POUNDSTONE: Yeah, a lot of times I've found the studies to be a little faulty.
SAGAL: If I remember correctly, that study indicated that owners were jealous of their cats.
POUNDSTONE: Yes, I recall that. And after having a bowl or two of Whiskas...
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SAGAL: You were like, this can't be true.
POUNDSTONE: I became suspicious.
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SAGAL: Well, we thought in particular, Paula that you would like this, that your skepticism, at least in this guy's case, has been vindicated. Kyrie?
KYRIE O'CONNOR: Yes.
SAGAL: Kyrie, this week a new cable station launched in Pittsburgh and it's all what all the time?
O'CONNOR: A new cable station? I have no idea. It's all cat videos.
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SAGAL: Worse.
O'CONNOR: Worse?
SAGAL: I'll give you a hint. it's like it means that 24/7 you can call in and get your "Antiques Roadshow" feather duster premium.
O'CONNOR: Whatever you call those things, the things where you have to phone in money.
SAGAL: Exactly. To who?
O'CONNOR: PBS.
SAGAL: Yes, it's all PBS pledge drives all the time.
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POUNDSTONE: Whoa.
O'CONNOR: Wow. Like from around the country?
GROSZ: I want to move to Pittsburgh.
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SAGAL: Now, an all pledge drive channel does raise questions. Like, where the hell is the remote?
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SAGAL: And when will sweet, sweet death come for me?
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SAGAL: Station manager Deborah Acklin says, quote, "A lot of people really like pledge programming," unquote, which may be the saddest thing ever said about America.
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GROSZ: A lot of people really like pledge drives sounds like something that that woman's mother told her.
SAGAL: Yes.
GROSZ: She was like what do you do? Well, I organize pledge drives. A lot of people really like pledge drives.
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SAGAL: Well, apparently they do, because PBS, as you may know, for their pledge drives, they program things other than they normally broadcast. They've got the Suze Orman financial specials and Three Tenor concerts. And that brings in an audience who are willing to give money when people in tuxes ask them to.
And apparently, people actually like pledge drive programming on PBS because it is not the usual programming on PBS. They're like what's this Frontline nonsense? Where's my John Tesh concert interrupted by begging?
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POUNDSTONE: What if they end up just with way too much money because people like it so much?
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POUNDSTONE: What if it turns out that they just discontinue their programming altogether, you know, and...
SAGAL: And then go to just all pledge all the time?
POUNDSTONE: Yeah, just have an empire of collecting?
GROSZ: Yeah, they'll be like we have to raise money for great shows like pledge drives.
SAGAL: Right.
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(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.