My Alien Hunting Astrophysicist - Dr Shelley Wright

Summary

Tosh Show Episode Summary: "My Alien Hunting Astrophysicist - Dr. Shelley Wright"

Release Date: August 5, 2025

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1. Introduction to Dr. Shelley Wright

In this milestone episode of the Tosh Show, host Daniel Tosh welcomes Dr. Shelley Wright, an esteemed observational and experimental astrophysicist specializing in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Dr. Wright shares her extensive experience and passion for uncovering signs of alien civilizations, setting the stage for an engaging exploration of one of humanity's most profound questions.

Dr. Shelley Wright (10:26): "I have spent over 20 years and millions of dollars staring into space, hoping to find civilization on another planet."

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2. Understanding the Drake Equation and SETI

Dr. Wright delves into the Drake Equation, a foundational formula in SETI research aimed at estimating the number of active, communicative extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy.

Daniel Tosh (19:12): "It's the number of civilizations that are communicating with us right now. We know that one exists in the Milky Way. That's us."

Dr. Shelley Wright (19:22): "The Drake Equation involves probabilities like the number of habitable worlds, the emergence of life, intelligence, and the longevity of civilizations."

3. Challenges in Detecting Alien Civilizations

The conversation highlights the temporal and spatial barriers in communicating with potential alien civilizations. Dr. Wright explains the concept of the "Great Filter," a hypothetical stage in evolution that prevents civilizations from reaching a stage capable of interstellar communication.

Dr. Shelley Wright (20:23): "If there's no one coexisting with us, then there's likely what's called a Great Filter, something that's going to filter us out."

4. Current SETI Projects and Future Endeavors

Dr. Wright discusses ongoing and upcoming SETI projects, including the development of new telescopes near the Palomar Observatory. These instruments aim to capture high-speed images of the sky to identify possible interstellar communications.

Dr. Shelley Wright (23:29): "We're trying to build new telescopes that can take a picture of the entire sky all of the time at 1/1 billionth of a second."

5. Government Involvement and UFO Phenomena

The duo touches upon recent declassified Pentagon documents related to UFOs, exploring whether there's a governmental cover-up regarding extraterrestrial encounters. Dr. Wright posits that many unidentified objects might be natural or man-made phenomena rather than evidence of alien life.

Dr. Shelley Wright (28:44): "Potentially, but I don't think for the reasons that people suspect."

6. Best Practices for Stargazing and Astronomy

Shifting gears, Daniel and Dr. Wright offer practical advice for enthusiasts interested in stargazing. They recommend locations like Mauna Kea in Hawaii and specific equipment such as binoculars and advanced telescopes to enhance the viewing experience.

Dr. Shelley Wright (32:43): "High mountaintops like Mauna Kea or locations in Chile offer some of the best conditions for stargazing."

7. The Impact of Technology and AI on Science Education

The conversation addresses the growing presence of Artificial Intelligence in academia. Dr. Wright discusses how AI tools like ChatGPT are influencing teaching methods and academic integrity, leading educators to adapt their assessment strategies.

Daniel Tosh (17:09): "For a professor, it's about figuring out how to handle AI in teaching, possibly shifting towards more in-class quizzes and finals."

8. Pop Culture: Sci-Fi Accuracy and Personal Favorites

Exploring the intersection of science and entertainment, Dr. Wright and Daniel critique popular science fiction films and series. They discuss the scientific accuracies and inaccuracies in movies like Interstellar and The Martian, and share their preferences between Star Trek and Star Wars.

Daniel Tosh (24:28): "I like both Star Trek and Star Wars, but I prefer Star Trek for its positive and utopian vision."

Dr. Shelley Wright (25:54): "Interstellar infuriates me because the final third of the movie becomes too fantastical."

9. Personal Insights on Astronomy and the Search for Meaning

Towards the end of the episode, Dr. Wright reflects on the philosophical implications of astronomy, emphasizing the humbling perspective that human life holds within the vast universe. She shares personal anecdotes and experiences that fuel her dedication to astrophysics.

Dr. Shelley Wright (31:15): "I enjoy knowing that we don't matter in the scheme of things. It’s humbling."

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Conclusion

The episode concludes with Dr. Shelley Wright and Daniel Tosh exchanging gifts and light-hearted banter, wrapping up an insightful discussion that bridges the realms of science, education, and personal passion. Listeners are left with a deeper understanding of the complexities and aspirations within the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Dr. Shelley Wright (10:26): "I have spent over 20 years and millions of dollars staring into space, hoping to find civilization on another planet."

• Daniel Tosh (19:12): "It's the number of civilizations that are communicating with us right now. We know that one exists in the Milky Way. That's us."

• Dr. Shelley Wright (20:23): "If there's no one coexisting with us, then there's likely what's called a Great Filter, something that's going to filter us out."

• Dr. Shelley Wright (23:29): "We're trying to build new telescopes that can take a picture of the entire sky all of the time at 1/1 billionth of a second."

• Dr. Shelley Wright (28:44): "Potentially, but I don't think for the reasons that people suspect."

• Dr. Shelley Wright (32:43): "High mountaintops like Mauna Kea or locations in Chile offer some of the best conditions for stargazing."

• Daniel Tosh (24:28): "I like both Star Trek and Star Wars, but I prefer Star Trek for its positive and utopian vision."

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This episode of the Tosh Show offers a captivating blend of humor, scientific inquiry, and personal storytelling, making complex topics like SETI and the Drake Equation accessible and engaging for all listeners.

Transcript

[Daniel Tosh]

This is an Iheart podcast.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Tired of the price of everything going up these days? Groceries, rent, you name it, it's all going up. But not at Metro. They've got your back. Metro has lowered their prices and are giving you a five year price guarantee on talk, text and data. One line now 20% lower. Family plans also lowered. Oh, and you also get a free 5G phone, all with no ID required and no activation fees. Stop by your neighborhood Metro store, visit metrobytmobile.com or call to find out about their Amaz offers. Bring your number. Not available if currently at T Mobile or with Metro in the past 180 days. Guaranty covers monthly price of on network Talk, text and 5G data for customers activating on an eligible plan. Exclusions apply. [e-mail] do you believe there are things that the United States government isn't telling us about possible alien life forms? You have a bad poker face. Paw show, show, Toss show from show. All right. Welcome to toss show. This is our 100th episode. Is that true or no? No. What are we at? What are we at? What number are we at? Oh, this actually, it's Ballpark it. Ballpark it.

[Daniel Tosh]

It's ballpark.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Yeah. 89. 20 past 69. Eating a snowman's. That's what that is. Good stuff. How you doing, Eddie?

[Daniel Tosh]

I'm doing good. How are you doing, buddy?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I'm well, I'm doing great. I'll tell you why I'm doing great. Our friend of the show, Dr. Jocelyn, My wife's best friend, just had her baby. Healthy baby girl.

[Daniel Tosh]

All right.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

14 pounds, 6 ounces. Large baby.

[Daniel Tosh]

That's a big girl.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Big girl. Hopefully that, hopefully she loses some of that.

[Daniel Tosh]

Yeah, a little baby.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

That'll be a rough go if she's just always in the 100th percentile of weight. No. So she has a healthy baby girl and things have just been going well and she was stressed out. You know, she's like, I, I, she's so good at taking care of other people's babies that are born premature that she almost doesn't feel worthy of having such a healthy baby girl. And, and sure as she had a beautiful baby girl and they named her, I don't think she, she probably wouldn't mind me saying this on Daniel. Danielle, I believe they're calling her. Very nice. Named her after me. That was nice. Danielle Dwight. Beautiful, beautiful baby girl named Danielle Dwight. 14 pounds 6 ounces. And my wife, of course, because she's a good friend. She's like Oh, I feel guilty I'm not there. And she's like, should I go there? I'm like, yes, you should go there. She's like, oh, I don't know. So I forced my wife to leave last night. She took a red eye to Charlotte, North Carolina. Got her direct flight left at 9:45 on American Airlines. There's three red eyes direct to Charlotte, North Carolina on American Airlines from LAX every night. Now go ahead, explain that to me.

[Daniel Tosh]

Unexplainable.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

What? Who in the. Why are so many fucking people going to Charlotte, North Carolina every single day on a red eye? That just means there's hundreds of people every day are just walking around Charlotte just real sleep deprived. Hornets, man.

[Daniel Tosh]

Yeah.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

All for a Hornets game?

[Daniel Tosh]

Yeah.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Huh? All for the Panthers, you say yes. You ever been to a Panthers game? Maybe the worst franchise to go to ever. They just play this weird Panther roar after any play that was remotely like, oh, they only gained seven yards on this first down. We picked up six yards on a screen. Awful. What was I talking? I was talking about John. She also immediately called to ask if I was, if I was going to be the godfather. Now I'm, I'm the godfather to her first child and now she, she's wanting me to be the godfather to her second child. And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know.

[Daniel Tosh]

I feel like that makes sense. You don't want two godfathers?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

No. Okay. So I have to do it. I have to do both of them.

[Daniel Tosh]

Divided family.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

So you had to become Catholic. Oh, do I? I don't know if I'm their godfather. She hasn't actually officially asked. I, I read into things. I know she wants me to take the kids if, if her and her partner die.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

That seems more important than the godfather thing.

[Daniel Tosh]

Yeah. Well, hey, how to, How'd your wife's red eye go?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Oh, okay. So my wife, I get on a direct flight. First class, guys.

[Daniel Tosh]

Hello.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Huh? Hey. I don't know if it's lay flat. I didn't check, but it's 9:45. Anyway, we start getting the notifications as she's driving to the airport that the flight is going to be delayed. And then about one in the morning, that's when I turned my phone off. I couldn't, hadn't taken off. I, well I, I, I typed stop to. So I stop the text. Not, not to my wife.

[Daniel Tosh]

The updates. Yeah, right.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

For the updates. I didn't want any more notifications. I didn't care that it was delayed anymore. I Was like, she left me with the kids. So it's like, listen, I got my own battles ahead of me.

[Daniel Tosh]

I love sleep. Text her.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Stop. No, I didn't. I didn't text her, stop. I told her. Told her, go, you'll get on a plane eventually.

[Daniel Tosh]

Yeah.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Anyway, she got there, so I got the kids and I've got my in laws. And you're like, oh, the in laws? Well, that makes your wife's gone. That's not so hard. I disagree. When it's just me and the kids, just clear sailing, easy as can be. But when I've got the in laws, I'm just. It's just different versions of taking care of people.

[Daniel Tosh]

Yeah. You have four kids.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I have to. I have to. I have to make sure that they eat, because if I don't, they'll just. They'll just sit around the house and just stare at their phones. So I got to get them to go do stuff. I'm just coming up with activities. What are you doing with them tomorrow? I'm taking the crew to the BMX park, and then we're going to sit at a little small airport that has a little restaurant and watch planes take off and get milkshakes. And everybody couldn't be more excited about this. Speaking of dates, Amanda, my wife's cousin that we're trying to get hitched to an available man, I was going to set her up. We're going to come up with a reality show or we're going to do it on this show. We're going to where we find potential suitors, fans of the shows that want to go through me and eventually become a family member. Now, she went on a date that wasn't sanctioned by me the other day. And the person that set it up was a friend of ours that we can all. We all know where they stand politically.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

So I'm like, oh. I go. So I'm like, you're going out with a MAGA guy? And she's like, no, not at all. Anyway, she goes out with this guy. I go. I go, is he short? They said, he's average. I'm like, that's. That's what short people say that. That are trying to be like, oh, no, 5, 8 is the average height. Say, whoa, Average to me is six feet. Six feet is an average height. Now if you're seven feet, oh, my goodness, you're tall. Yes, that's a tall person. There are seven foot people. Okay? So they get tall. Six feet gets average. And then any one under six feet, dwarfisms right. It's different levels of dwarfism. You're on the spectrum of dwarfism.

[Daniel Tosh]

Calcium deprived cities.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Right. You didn't drink enough milk. And that's fine in some cultures. It's, it's an honor to be that small.

[Daniel Tosh]

It's useful.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Anyway, so she goes out, this little fella, she's five, eight. All right. And apparently they hit it off and they were having some banter and then they kissed and I'm like, oh. So the next day I start messing with her. My, you know, he's a trumper. And then she, she text a few things and he's like, he wrote back something about like I, I really like the way he's shaking up the system. And then she was like, oh no. And she wrote back, I think he's like an awful person. And then he wrote back, I don't want to. I'm not looking for anything serious. And that was the end. She never texted again at that point.

[Daniel Tosh]

Wow.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

No. But as soon as I was like, don't write it. If you actually like the person, don't ask because you're going to be real disappointed. He was loaded. He was rich. That's the upside. Makes him taller. That's what. Right. Maybe if he stands on his money, he could kiss her without having to be on his tiptoes. I mean, I could have told her that that date wasn't even work before she went on it. But whatever. She dusted the cooch off. Good for her. Wasn't in the stars. Now today's guest knows something about stars. Enjoy. Tired of the price of everything going up these days. Groceries, rent, you name it, it's all going up. But not at Metro. They've got your back. Metro has lowered their prices and are you a five year price guarantee on talk, text and data. One line now 20% lower. Family plans also lowered. Oh, and you also get a free 5G phone, all with no ID required and no activation fees. Stop by your neighborhood Metro store, visit metrobyt mobile.com or call to find out about their amazing offers. Bring your number. Not available. If currently at T Mobile or with Metro in the past 180 days. Guaranty covers monthly price of on network Talk, text and 5G data for customers activating on an eligible plan and exclusions apply [e-mail] Paw Show. I will not be asking today's guest to dumb her responses from my audience, but don't be surprised if I spend a good chunk of the interview blankly smiling and nodding. She has spent over 20 years and millions of dollars staring into space, hoping to find civilization on another planet. And at the time of this recording, the has found nothing. Please welcome observational and experimental astrophysicist Dr. Shelly Wright. Thank you for joining us today on the Flat Earth News Network.

[Daniel Tosh]

I'm delighted to be here.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

You ever meet any Flat Earthers?

[Daniel Tosh]

I have not.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Oh, really?

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

You don't hang out with idiots?

[Daniel Tosh]

Well, you know, we could. We could, you know, just go on a sailboat and fix that pretty quickly.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

But my son asked me, oh, man, I needed you recently. He did just. He's six, asked me about the. He goes, the Earth is round. How come the water. How does the water stay? And I just kept going with gravity. And I still wasn't completely confident at things I was saying of why I'm like, it curves, it's curving, but it. How do you answer that one for me?

[Daniel Tosh]

Well, just like the air stays, right. So every location, it's just going to push down like a blanket everywhere across it. So doesn't matter if I'm here or there, it's going to push down.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Okay, but here's what is water in just a small bowl. Is it technically curving?

[Daniel Tosh]

Goodness. Technically. Man, we're already going to get to some like, infinity level discussion. Oh, goodness, yes, yes, yes. But I. Nothing to where we could measure it.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Well, of course.

[Daniel Tosh]

I keep going and going and going and going.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I just want to know. All right, first question. I haven't even started. Do you believe in ghosts?

[Daniel Tosh]

No.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Second question. What sign are you?

[Daniel Tosh]

Ooh, Scorpio.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

You grew up in Hawaii?

[Daniel Tosh]

I did.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Were you born there?

[Daniel Tosh]

I was. I was born in Honolulu.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Michelle, we was offended when I said Oahu is the worst of the Hawaiian islands. Do you agree or disagree?

[Daniel Tosh]

Disagree.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

What's your favorite island?

[Daniel Tosh]

Big Island. But Oahu's got great things.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I agree that.

[Daniel Tosh]

Surf, good scuba diving, good hikes. It's got little pockets of everything.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

But is it the best island? No.

[Daniel Tosh]

No.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Well, that's what. Can you speak pidgin?

[Daniel Tosh]

I probably do on occasion. I don't know. I grew up there and I've been told that I don't quite speak English.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

As a kid, were you always interested in aliens?

[Daniel Tosh]

Always interested in astronomy? Yeah, probably. Aliens. Yeah.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Where did you go to college?

[Daniel Tosh]

UC Santa Cruz.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

You have a PhD in horoscopes and a minor in Scientology?

[Daniel Tosh]

Yes.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

What are your thoughts on Scientology? I mean, it seems in theory, that would have been right up your alley.

[Daniel Tosh]

Really?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Why don't they believe that we are? They?

[Daniel Tosh]

I was an Alien major alien, Xenu or.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Yeah, I mean it's all alien based, right?

[Daniel Tosh]

I didn't get that in my schooling.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Oh no. You also lived in Haiti for a while.

[Daniel Tosh]

Yes, I did.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Your mother was working?

[Daniel Tosh]

She did reform work in Port au Prince, Haiti and all through the country and I went through part of my high school there.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Did you enjoy that?

[Daniel Tosh]

Yes and no. Yeah, it was hard times actually.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I mean, I can imagine it was formative, but were you the whitest person in both Hawaii and Haiti?

[Daniel Tosh]

That pretty much sums it up.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

You met your wife in your astrophysics PhD program. Would you say it was love at first contact? No, These are the end of my joke questions.

[Daniel Tosh]

Hate that answer, but no.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Do you work with your wife ever?

[Daniel Tosh]

Sometimes we talk about work, but we don't. We stay on different projects.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Like. But do you work in the same.

[Daniel Tosh]

We're in the same building, different floors. We ask for different floors.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Do you go to work at the same time?

[Daniel Tosh]

We used to. But then you have like two kids and a dog and then you want to commute but you don't because someone's got to pick up the kids here and there. Uh huh, yeah.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

What a. Just a constant juggle is what that seems like. Who's the better astrophysicist? Do you guys have that fight all the time?

[Daniel Tosh]

She is.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Who's working on the better projects?

[Daniel Tosh]

Probably she is, yeah.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Do you guys get competitive over what you're working on?

[Daniel Tosh]

Everyone asked this question. We've never. I don't think so. Okay. I don't think so.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I don't know.

[Daniel Tosh]

Yeah. And then of course people think we come home and all we do is talk about astronomy, but we don't talk about astronomy that much.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Let's dive right into your dissertation, which was about the development and use of adaptive optics instrumentation to explore high redshift star forming galaxies. No, I'm kidding. I have no idea what any of that is. Oh man, that is impressive.

[Daniel Tosh]

No, no question there in that. No.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Well, I mean I just go to my questions. Have you ever shit your pants as an adult?

[Daniel Tosh]

No answer.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Good. Before we talk about aliens, explain to me how insignificant human life is compared to the scale of the universe.

[Daniel Tosh]

The classic like there's more grains of, you know, more earths in the universe than there are grains of sand. And you as a surfer knows there's a lot of sand out there. So you know there's hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe and every galaxy is like billions of stars.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

What chapter in Genesis is that? Do you believe in Aliens?

[Daniel Tosh]

Yes.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Is there intelligent life out there?

[Daniel Tosh]

Likely. It's a big universe. Are we intelligent? I always say this in class, right?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I mean, I think there's an argument either way. I think we are. I mean, despite my disdain for so.

[Daniel Tosh]

Many of them, Earth is just one of many worlds, even in our own galaxy. But I have to ask, do you believe in aliens?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I don't. No. No, no, no. Sorry, I jumped the gun there. Do I believe? Sure. I mean, I can wrap my head around anything like that.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I don't. I mean, yeah, I have no issue with there being. I like whatchamacallit.

[Daniel Tosh]

Have you ever been asked about alien ghosts? You know, I was thinking about this question of like, do you believe in ghosts? But if you do believe in ghosts and then you believe in aliens, or they're just the whole cosmos filled with alien ghosts.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

No, aliens can't have ghosts.

[Daniel Tosh]

They got no souls.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Aliens.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay, sorry.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Aliens don't have souls. No. What about alien abductions? Alien abductions? Where yet?

[Daniel Tosh]

No.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Oh, give me the date. Your day to day on a normal work day.

[Daniel Tosh]

Dog wakes me up 5:45.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Oh, it's too early.

[Daniel Tosh]

Go downstairs, pop the golden retriever in the car, drive out, go to a dog park, let it run around for an hour, kind of just, you know, chit chat with the other dog park people. But then I go. Then I go to work and I go to a lab and then I build things in the lab. So I work with engineers. We try to build cameras and spectrographs and things that go on. Telescopes, I like to build telescopes. And then I go teach, you know, like, you know, you're at a research university, you're doing research and then we go off and I really do enjoy teaching, but that's like only a small part about my, of my job.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

How large are your classes?

[Daniel Tosh]

If they're freshmen, non majors, they can be a few hundred, like intro to astronomy. You know, I have a class full now of like 18 and 19 year olds. And what's fascinating right now is like for a professor is how to deal with AI, right? You put something out and everything's like chatgpt.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

And is that. Is everybody just.

[Daniel Tosh]

Everybody's stealing and cheating, everybody's using it. And so now it's like, what's the.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Workaround as a professor?

[Daniel Tosh]

You more in class quizzes and finals. But I think like, you know, there's some older professors who are like, we can't do this, we have to stop this. But I think we just know that they're using it and then have to teach them how to use it in an intelligent way. Where they're still learning. I don't know.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

We're still figuring it out in room one on one. Verbal tests.

[Daniel Tosh]

Oh, gosh.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Your nightmare. Are kids horrible? Are you still encouraged by, you know, every year you're like, oh, a little bit of both.

[Daniel Tosh]

Nah, they're good kids.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

What's the ratio? Girl guy ratio?

[Daniel Tosh]

It's probably about 30%. Women, okay, like physics and engineering, you know, dwindles. Biology can be 50, 50. But when you go into physics and engineering, the number of women drop.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

What about when you and your wife were in school?

[Daniel Tosh]

Ooh, I think that was probably about 20% or 25%. Yeah, when we were. I was. When I was a physics major at UC Santa Cruz, I think it was like 15%. So it's climbing.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

In addition to teaching at UCSD, SETI research is your focus. Can you discuss what SETI is, or is it top secret?

[Daniel Tosh]

I can discuss it. It's the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Actually, you know, seti's looking for aliens that are communicating with us. Okay, Right. And then we're trying to, like, look for ways and detect ways that they could be communicating across interstellar distances.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

SETI was founded by Frank Drake. His Drake equation is considered the second most famous equation in science, after E equals MC squared. What is it and why have I never heard of it?

[Daniel Tosh]

It's the number of civilizations that are communicating with us right now. We know that one exists in the Milky Way. That's us. Is there a second one, a third one? Thousands of them? It's all about, do they coexist at the exact same time? And if you look at the Drake equation, it's got a bunch of little probabilities, like the number of habitable worlds, the number of those habitable worlds that have life, the number of those that have intelligent life, the number of those that are communicating. And then the most important factor is called L, which is the lifetime of a civilization.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

And how long is a civilization good for? Because I feel like I'm just right on the cusp of the end of it. Is that not the case?

[Daniel Tosh]

Right. No, this is big. So let's say you detect two, you detect a second one. The probability that they've lasted hundreds of thousands of years or millions of years is huge because you've coexisted in our hundred years with them. And that's profound because that means that what they can do is survive themselves, survive nature, survive asteroids or whatever. And that should give us Hope. But if the answer is there's no one coexisting with us, then there's likely what's called a Great Filter, something that's going to filter us out. Right, and that's what you're alluding to.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Well, I just got sad about the Great Filter.

[Daniel Tosh]

And to answer seti, that's the Drake Equation, you have to know how many communicating civilizations are existing with us right now in our galaxy. And to do that, you gotta do a whole bunch of probabilities.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Right. So that I can. I mean, when I say I can wrap my head around it, please bear with me, but. So you're saying we've only actually been able to communicate or try to communicate for the past hundred years? I don't know. Right. And so the odds that some other life form is in that exact same window of our hundred is absurd. Or maybe it's not.

[Daniel Tosh]

No, you've like hit the nail on the head. That's the issue with the entire Drake Equation. Or the issue of whether we can talk to or have a pen pal right now, because cosmic time is billions of years.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Sure.

[Daniel Tosh]

And then we're like a little sliver of a hundred years.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Right.

[Daniel Tosh]

And so we have to be at the exact same time coexisting in probably a similar part of the galaxy. And so are they there? It depends on, is habitable worlds common? Does evolution just a natural part of nature? And then, you know, do they make technology to communicate like we do?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

This is why I've never. I don't give a shit about Tom Brady, okay? Are you to call him the goat? The greatest of all time. I mean, in a sport that's only been played for however long, in a blip time of civilization, you really who care. I would love for us to finally reach another civilization and then go, and this is Tom Brady, he's the greatest of all time. And they're like, okay, at what? It wouldn't be that impressive. My point is, quit being so cocky.

[Daniel Tosh]

I'm just curious, like, how often are you guys getting signals that you think could be alien?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Dylan wants to know how often you're getting signals that could be something else.

[Daniel Tosh]

We try to set how well we can detect something just at that threshold. And so we're looking at large patches of the sky. This is both at radio wavelengths or visible light wavelengths. We run SETI experience, so I would say we get little candidates, you know, a couple times a month. And then the job is to figure out what is that noise essentially and chase that down and understand it, because you want to operate just at the cusp, Right.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Is it ever anything interesting?

[Daniel Tosh]

No. Sometimes maybe an astrophysical source that becomes interesting. One of the reasons why I like SETI research is that we think about how to take pictures of the night sky in a completely different way. Right. We're not trying to detect stars or galaxies like traditional astronomy. We're trying to detect interstellar communication. So we have to kind of tweak our instruments slightly different. And I think the opportunity is actually most likely you're going to discover something new about nature. And so I get excited about the astrophysical discoveries as well.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Is there a big telescope that you're working on right now that will do something different?

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay, so in the SETI realm, we're trying to build a new SETI telescopes here close to Palomar Observatory. It's like probably a two and a half hour drive. Of course, no traffic. And we're trying to build up these new telescopes that are able to take a picture of the entire sky all of the time at 1/1 billionth of a second. So we're taking really, really, really fast frames to look for something unique in the sky.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

And who's gonna sift through all this?

[Daniel Tosh]

Students and data and computers. I mean, okay, yeah, so we're doing that and that's exciting. That's what I'll be doing this summer.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

What's the risk that whoever receives our messages aren't going to come and destroy us?

[Daniel Tosh]

I guess there's always risk for that, right? How far away are they? Do they have light travel? Can they go faster? Do they have like warp drive?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

These are all great questions.

[Daniel Tosh]

I don't know, like the just. The just. Yeah. What are we?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

You true or false? You think Star Trek is amazing and Star wars is horrible?

[Daniel Tosh]

False. Oh, I like both.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Do you like them the same?

[Daniel Tosh]

No.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

You like Star Trek better, right?

[Daniel Tosh]

Yeah.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Okay, well I always trust people that say Star Trek better more. I don't know why, I'm always like, I don't care.

[Daniel Tosh]

It's such a positive thing, right? They get to like cruise around and we're all like, United Federation of Earth. There's a beauty on that.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Wait, wait, didn't you teach a class using a lot of sci fi movies and stuff?

[Daniel Tosh]

I just started a class called Astronomy and Science Fiction and so the idea is.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Well, you just made up a class.

[Daniel Tosh]

Yeah, we like put in a proposal to make a brand new class. What I realized is that all the students attention spans last for a minute or two. So I was like, what if we just use Media. So in my lectures, I would like lecture five or six slides and then show them like a two minute film clip that mimics what I'm trying to teach.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

And that worked.

[Daniel Tosh]

They were like, okay, they seemed into it, but yeah. And then no, they had to critique it. So we had to watch like, you know, like the Martian. Did you see the Martian?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Did I.

[Daniel Tosh]

Or Interstellar. Did you see Interstellar?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Oh, don't even get me started. Okay, yes, I've seen Interstellar. It makes me so mad.

[Daniel Tosh]

Good. Right?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

The movie infuriates me.

[Daniel Tosh]

All right, I want to know why.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Because you know why.

[Daniel Tosh]

Like I. There are questions I asked the students. I said, why would they land on a planet that's right next to a black hole? And why didn't they think there would be massive tides? Right.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I mean, that was your problem with the movie. Mine was dad in the bookshelf.

[Daniel Tosh]

Oh, okay.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

The nonsense of the final third of the movie. I just was getting so mad that I was. Because I thought the first half or the first two thirds was so interesting. I was. At least. I was compelled. And then it just goes to Bonkersville.

[Daniel Tosh]

Cause he floats around bookshelves too long.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I don't care about any of that stuff. It was just so silly.

[Daniel Tosh]

Oh, he had to communicate with Murph.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Why do you remember their names? Do you have some kind of crazy. How do you remember Murph? I don't remember anybody's names in a movie because the.

[Daniel Tosh]

All I did was talk about poor Murph the whole time. Talk about it.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

She didn't say his son's name.

[Daniel Tosh]

Oh, goodness. I don't know. What was his name exactly.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

No one does. Okay. When you finished that movie, I just wanted to know if you and your wife looked at each other and high fived at the end of it. That was over. Amazing. They got it right finally. Or like I was just fuming going, I don't understand anything.

[Daniel Tosh]

There's some. There's some, you know, good. They took hard science, right. And then applied it, you know, in very Hollywood way. So it's a great, it's a great film clip to talk about. They talk about time dilation. Biggest problem with time, you know, interstellar travel. Right. You leave the Earth, hundreds years passed and you're like, you know, two years older.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Did you see the new Buzz Lightyear?

[Daniel Tosh]

No. Do they have time dilation?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

It's sad though, but my son and I like watching it together. But, you know, there's. Because he keeps coming back, trying to figure something out and everybody is getting older and older and then eventually people are young.

[Daniel Tosh]

Oh, I should have used that.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

What are your favorite sci fi movies?

[Daniel Tosh]

Like I should have an answer to this.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

It doesn't matter if you don't. What ones don't infuriate you?

[Daniel Tosh]

I really do enjoy a lot of the Star Trek. I think they like, they take a lot of the creative and imagination and then kind of push it forward in a more utopic way. I would say, like, how could you use technology, make the warp drive in these things? So I've always enjoyed science fiction from Star Trek.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

What about new movies?

[Daniel Tosh]

I enjoyed the Martian.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

All right, that was a good one. Why haven't I watched the Martian Makes.

[Daniel Tosh]

Potatoes out of his poop. I had so many essays about potatoes and poop from that movie.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

That seems unnecessary. Do you believe there are things the United States government isn't telling us about possible alien life forms? You have a bad poker face.

[Daniel Tosh]

No.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Oh my. How dare you.

[Daniel Tosh]

But I'm sure there's interesting things in the sky that.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

How many confidentiality agreements have you signed throughout your career?

[Daniel Tosh]

Zero.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Oh, okay.

[Daniel Tosh]

Is that.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I don't know. I don't know. Unless you're a pro here and you just lied about that. What's the deal with all these declassified Pentagon alien docs? Is it possible that there's a cover up?

[Daniel Tosh]

Potentially, but I don't think for the reasons that people suspect.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

What do you think might be the reason?

[Daniel Tosh]

There's just so many things in the night sky. Like people say, you know, UFOs on a dynamifying flying objects. But you know, is it adversarial? Is it our own technology? Right? When you go back and look at classified materials from the 50s and the 60s and the 70s, even those were, you know, we were detecting ourselves essentially, right? You know, there's like 10,000 balloons launched every single day. Like industry balloons, commercial balloons, your kids balloons.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I'm a big believer on not letting our balloons go into the air. I talk to my kids about, I make them panic about, we can't let any balloons, we'll kill everything.

[Daniel Tosh]

But there's just a lot of things up there. So I think things stay classified. Yeah.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

All right, my wife, I just want you to say that she's wrong, okay? And if you don't say that, we'll just edit it so that you do.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

No, when we look at stars at night, she almost every time she'll be like, I just saw a shooting star. And I call her a liar. I'm like, no, you don't you're not seeing a shooting star every time.

[Daniel Tosh]

She's got good eyes. Yes. They're in a dark sight.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Okay. But I mean I do see stars. But you shouldn't see a shooting star every night.

[Daniel Tosh]

You'd have to be sitting there a good. I don't know if you guys, every night just stare up at the night sky for like an hour or something maybe then. Because you know there's always like meteors coming through, small ones through the atmosphere. But yeah, that would. I could sit there for like 20 minutes and not see anything, right?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Well, I sit there constantly. I never see anything. And she is picking them off constantly.

[Daniel Tosh]

Has she seen Starlink?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

No, no, no.

[Daniel Tosh]

You know all of like the SpaceX satellites? Yeah, there's a lot of those now.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I don't know. Do you own a ham radio?

[Daniel Tosh]

No.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Telescopes?

[Daniel Tosh]

Yes.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

A lot of them?

[Daniel Tosh]

No, because I use big ones. Once you use a big one, you don't want the little ones anymore. Okay, yeah.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

What about binoculars? You got a pair of those?

[Daniel Tosh]

Those are the best to use. Yeah, yeah. If you're gonna go out camping or looking at the night sky, use a pair of binoculars.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I don't like binoculars. I like the one that's just a single eye.

[Daniel Tosh]

Uh huh. A telescope.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Well, is that still just a telescope? Just a little handheld one.

[Daniel Tosh]

You mean like a pirate?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Well, not a, not a viral. I'm just like. Somebody got me like a hiking one. It's just like a single tiny short little.

[Daniel Tosh]

Oh, a monocle. Like a mon.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I think that's what it is. I do better with that.

[Daniel Tosh]

Do you like stargazing?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

No, I don't, but I think it's beautiful. I like knowing that we don't matter in the scheme of things. I'm big, I enjoy that. But I don't, I don't know, I like to just daydream. I'm that guy. I stare up at the sky and just daydream.

[Daniel Tosh]

Well, there's lots of space there to stare at.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

You know what we did one time? This was crazy here in Malibu. One night we were looking out and we saw, I. We saw like a missile or something going. And this was like, like early, like at 9pm and then it exploded and then it mushroom cloud, huge. And then it started coming toward us really quick and it was as dumb as those movies where we're just standing there. I go, we're. I guess we're going to die right now. And it turns out that whatchamacallit, the naval base up the way was doing Some test launches, normally they do them at 3 or 4 in the morning. They did this one earlier and apparently forgot to send out a warning. Like, hey, this is just a total, you know, whatever. I don't know what they do, but it was terrible.

[Daniel Tosh]

They were just exploding it out off the ocean or something.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Yes. It was wild. Yeah, that was terrible.

[Daniel Tosh]

There you go.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I thought it was the end of day. I was gonna stand there and wait for the wave to just come hit us.

[Daniel Tosh]

And what was your last thought?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I don't know if I had anything. Nothing. Where are the best places to stargaze?

[Daniel Tosh]

High mountaintops. Gotta get away from the atmosphere. Dry. But the best place on Earth is Big Island. Mauna Kea.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Huh?

[Daniel Tosh]

You know, it's just sitting in the Pacific Ocean and air moves across the Pacific Ocean. It's like smooth, smooth, smooth, smooth. And then it just hits a little mountain and kind of ripples. So you want smooth air to look through. Otherwise the stars twinkle too much.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Ah.

[Daniel Tosh]

So I would argue Mauna Kea or Chile.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Oh, wow. These are like real answers.

[Daniel Tosh]

Yeah.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Okay.

[Daniel Tosh]

You go to space. You gotta go to space. Otherwise, are you.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Do you have a huge desire?

[Daniel Tosh]

Not really. I would probably, like, you know, get on the Vomit Comet or something.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Mm. I don't like that. Is that what it's called? The Vomit Comet? Yeah, I like that. I have no desire. I grew up in Kennedy Space center, and my sister was an engineer at NASA and my dad worked there and I just.

[Daniel Tosh]

Did you watch the launches?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

All of them.

[Daniel Tosh]

Were you blown away?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Even the one, the Challenger?

[Daniel Tosh]

Oh, my goodness.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

That's where I went to high school. I went to Astronaut High school.

[Daniel Tosh]

You did? So you could be an astronaut?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

No, no, no.

[Daniel Tosh]

What did they teach you?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

The other school was Titusville High School. And so our school was just called Astronaut High School, which a lot of people think meant it was like a private, cooler school, but it was not. It was just a. And if you go and check that, like the Zillow score of my high school, it might be a 4 or a 5 out of 10, which I'm told is really bad. I will say, as much as I hate them, Elon Musk.

[Daniel Tosh]

Watching the Falcon 9 launch.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Those are pretty.

[Daniel Tosh]

They're pretty cool, right? And you see there? You see the curvature of the Earth, right? Because it goes. And then people send pictures and they go, what is this? And it's like a comet looking thing that's going. Because the rocket launches, right? But the Earth is moving, so it goes like that to get escape velocity out of the Earth.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

You're just like a good teacher. Isn't that good? Because I was like, I don't know why it does that. And then I'm like, oh, that. That's why. Was taking the pale blue dot photo really Carl Sagan's idea?

[Daniel Tosh]

We always say this, and it's been said so many times. I hope that's not folklore, but I believe it was.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Are we still getting.

[Daniel Tosh]

But you know, they like, turn it around, like, you know, kind of like at the orbit of Saturn. Right. And you have this, like. I love the shot where you're like, kind of grazing incidents on Saturn's ring. And then you have to like, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom into the image and then you see the little speck. Right.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

It's pretty impressive. That's on. What was that on? What satellite's it on?

[Daniel Tosh]

Voyager 2. Oh, boy. I better get that. Right?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I don't know. But isn't it still going? Yes, but are we still getting images back?

[Daniel Tosh]

We get it pings back some information, like little pings, but it basically went out beyond.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

So, okay, it's left the solar system.

[Daniel Tosh]

It's left this. What's called the solar system, the heliosphere. Right. Because the sun has a magnetic field and it's like cruising through the galaxy and it's like leaves that kind of sheath of that protection into what we call interstellar. And we could actually see it drop. Like, we could see, like, the number of counts of particles go, whoops, bing. Like, it's out.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

When do we stop getting pings?

[Daniel Tosh]

I don't know. That's a good question.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I'm going to guess. I'm going to guess. We get pings for 10 more years maximum. Okay, start documenting.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Give me. Give me the answer. I want to know when it's going to stop. Oh, oh, oh.

[Daniel Tosh]

Wasn't it supposed to stop? I thought, yeah, A lot of these missions go on and on.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

No, this mission is going for, like, ever. It's going to fly forever. And somebody's going to catch it on the other side.

[Daniel Tosh]

Right. This is a message in a bottle, right?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

It's 100% a message in a bottle. This is what we're doing at this point. We're throwing. You don't have anything.

[Daniel Tosh]

2036.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

2036 is when it's going to stop giving us information.

[Daniel Tosh]

It's expected to continue transmitting until then.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Thank you very much. That's not. That's. That's.

[Daniel Tosh]

That is like 10 years. Goodness.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I don't think that it's going to continue. I think the batteries are dead.

[Daniel Tosh]

You know how so many of the Martian rovers were supposed to last five years and they just went on and on and on?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

You think that's because somebody up there was recharging them? Interesting, interesting theory that you brought there. How about everybody getting a voice now? Does that just drive you insane how these conspiracy theorists are just magnified and amplified because of technology and the Internet and all that stuff? Or does it make your job harder? Or do you just like that people are getting dumber?

[Daniel Tosh]

I like that people are curious. Right? Like, I just. I feel like that's a positive. But I. I'm a little. I'm always baffled that, you know, it's Occam's razor, right? Like, how do you're with these people that will be like, okay, and then. Then this and then this. And then it's because, like, the aliens are here. And I'm like, well, okay, you know, these are. These, you know, people see certain things in the night sky or you do that. I'm just using an example here, right. This can apply to everything, but somehow there's just this leap that happens when the simpler solution is overlooked. Right? That's Occam's razor.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I love the simpler solution.

[Daniel Tosh]

I really take note that wherever I go in the world, I've never met a person who's like, I'm not interested whether we're alone in the universe. Doesn't everyone kind of ask that question, like, what's the purpose of life? Or what's in the universe? Are there other beings with us? I. I feel like you go all over the globe and people ask this question.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Well, a lot of us, you know, believe that we all get to live in the clouds at some point. That's going to be fun. No. Did you grow up in a religious family?

[Daniel Tosh]

My mom was. My father wasn't. And I think that there was a conflict there.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

That usually causes a conflict.

[Daniel Tosh]

But so I had to, you know, I did have to, you know, go to church. And then I, at a young age was like, I don't like this. So, you know, but my mom said, okay. And then kind of like allowed that.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Oh, see, at a young age, I knew I didn't like it. And if I voiced that, I was going to be in trouble, so I didn't voice that. Just kept going until the day I finished high school.

[Daniel Tosh]

And I'm like, all the way through. At the astronaut school?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Yeah, it's not the astronaut school. Do you ever, like, look back at stories and like, oh, look, at the creation and just the plausible. I mean, talk about a leap that you have to just constantly take to piece that together. Is that ever something that you enjoy poking holes in or.

[Daniel Tosh]

No, no, because we really. I'm very agnostic about this. Like, I think there is a certain hubris to say that we understand any of that. Like, I think people. Science can coexist with people's faith. And I think people invent a conflict that there isn't one really. I think that you can coexist. We don't know if there's a God or. I can't prove either way. Right. Is there a God or not a God? They can't prove it either way.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Church of Latter Day Saints. Interesting to you? More or less than traditional, because depending on how well they do, they get their own planets and universes as well.

[Daniel Tosh]

Oh, yes. Yeah.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Right. Don't they? Yeah, I think so. One time I had a Mormon. He found out what I did. And we were talking. It was an older gentleman. And he told me. He said. And I'm like, I'm 50. And he says. He goes, Bae, aren't your parents a little ashamed of my comedy? That's what he said. He was trying to. He was like, are they ashamed of what you do? And I'm like, I just tell jokes. I don't think they're ashamed. But I enjoyed the conversation. Then he told me I needed to come over to his house because his wife is an excellent cook. And I'm like, what year am I in? I was just like, this is getting crazier and crazier. It just kept going. Yeah. Anyway, I never went over for dinner. I'm sure she's an amazing cook. I give everybody on the show gifts. I just give them stuff from my house. It's usually people don't get excited about it. First thing I'm gonna give you is. This is a Gucci box of shoes that.

[Daniel Tosh]

Did you make a pinhole camera?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Yeah.

[Daniel Tosh]

Wow.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

But out of a fancy Gucci box.

[Daniel Tosh]

Wow.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Cause I thought that was fun.

[Daniel Tosh]

That is incredible. Good job.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I want you to have that. I never wore this, but can I grab it here? Yeah. You're have to take all this off my desk at some point.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Is it good?

[Daniel Tosh]

Yeah. Yeah. We'll do this. Yeah, we're gonna have to do this. This is exciting.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Thank you. This is an Australian Open hat that's never been worn, but I went to the Australian Open.

[Daniel Tosh]

How did you know I like tennis?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I was told you like tennis.

[Daniel Tosh]

Wow.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Do you love tennis?

[Daniel Tosh]

I love Tennis.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I love it so much.

[Daniel Tosh]

Yeah. This is sweet. Thank you.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I'm trying to get Coco Golf's dad to be on this show.

[Daniel Tosh]

That would be awesome, because I like.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

To talk to parents that have kids that have reached the pinnacle because, I don't know.

[Daniel Tosh]

So hard.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Yeah, he doesn't. He won't be inside the stadium when she plays. He's there, but he won't be inside where he can actually watch.

[Daniel Tosh]

Is now superstitious, do you think?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Probably. But I also think it's really funny just to be that stressed out. It doesn't matter. I get way too into tennis.

[Daniel Tosh]

You watch a lot of tennis? I do, yeah. I watch it too.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Do you ever surf anymore?

[Daniel Tosh]

Last time I just felt like I was. I don't know. I still own a board. I do, I do.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I don't want this. You put it on your door to lock your key while you go surfing. Okay.

[Daniel Tosh]

Oh, you put this on your, like, truck or something?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

No, it doesn't have to be a.

[Daniel Tosh]

Truck or, like, a wall.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

It can be a Prius, for goodness sakes. But, yeah, you put your key in there, you roll your window up, it locks in your window, and then you don't have to have your key on you while you surf. You're gonna love this. There, you get that.

[Daniel Tosh]

Thank you. Wow.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

You ever been to the South?

[Daniel Tosh]

Yes.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Do you like the South?

[Daniel Tosh]

I love the food, yes. And people? Yeah. Yeah.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

You like the people?

[Daniel Tosh]

Yeah.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I despise the people. I despise them, you know? I despise you, too. My wife's good friend, she was kidnapped by her husband and forced to move to Kentucky. And now she has Stockholm syndrome and thinks that she loves it there, but I know that she doesn't love it there. And I constantly get on my soapbox and rant to them about how, you know, the politics of Kentucky are not good. How are you gonna raise your kids there? You know, stuff that you wanna hear from your good friend's husband. Anyway, so he recently. But he was like, you know, we do have whatchamacallit. Their governor, Andy Beshear, he's like, we've got a great Democratic governor. And he's trying to sell me on him. And he sent me this. He had them make me a colonel in Kentucky. So technically, now Daniel Tosh is a colonel, courtesy of Andy. But I'm like, don't you guys have bigger issues on the docket there?

[Daniel Tosh]

Wait, so you're a colonel? I don't understand.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Yeah, I don't know what it means. But anyway, I'm giving you. I'm giving you this because I don't.

[Daniel Tosh]

Wow.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I don't want any.

[Daniel Tosh]

Incredible.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I don't want the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

[Daniel Tosh]

I love this. This is great.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Well, anyway, yeah, so I'm a colonel, but I want you to have this. And hopefully. Listen, I hope Andy Beshear turns around all the nonsense in Kentucky and makes things better for people. This a woman that we had on the show, she sent me this. She makes basically adult toys that are jewelry. Okay. So this is a ring that also. It's never been. This is brand new. I don't have any desire for it. Well, it comes off slowly.

[Daniel Tosh]

Yes.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Well, you can open it. I think it's a box in a box.

[Daniel Tosh]

Pleasure jewelry.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Yeah. No, this is a. It's like a ring, but it's fashionable, but you can wear it. But then it also will. You know, it'll also vibrate.

[Daniel Tosh]

Daniel's a father. Amazing. Thank you.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I hope it's.

[Daniel Tosh]

Whoa. Whoa. It fits.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Oh, good.

[Daniel Tosh]

This. I mean, when, you know, we make contact with aliens, this will be.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

If you have that. That might be the peace offering that saves our planet from destruction. I didn't even think about that. Imagine they go to touch you. Did you like E.T. when you were a child?

[Daniel Tosh]

I loved E.T. did you like E.T.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

No.

[Daniel Tosh]

Really?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Well, here.

[Daniel Tosh]

I mean, there's so many scenes.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I was. Am still, so I pretend to not be. It was very emotional for me. It made me sad. I was just. I thought it was a sad movie. I didn't like sad movies.

[Daniel Tosh]

I thought, isn't that the point?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Yes, but I don't enjoy watching that.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

And as a child, it would just make me sad. And I was like, oh, no, that's horrible. I get that you're supposed to like it. And then to know that. That Drew Carey or. Drew Carey. Drew Barrymore. When I think of Drew Barrymore's life.

[Daniel Tosh]

That would have been a different film.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Imagine E.T. with Drew Carey. I mean, it probably wouldn't have been so sad. Kind of a young Ohio kid walking around, dealing young Cleveland rocks. That really tickled me more than I thought it was. In the scientific community, Arthur C. Clarke, considered one of the greatest minds of the 20th century. Agree. No.

[Daniel Tosh]

Yeah. I think that's. Yeah, yeah. Quoted a ton, right? It's always quoted.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Quoted. What about Elon Musk?

[Daniel Tosh]

Oof.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Do you think he's one of the greatest minds? Can scientists determine exactly why none of his children love him? Is it the ketamine addiction? You don't have to answer any of My questions.

[Daniel Tosh]

I'll never get funded again.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

No. At least we enjoyed the question. There's probably one of his kids likes him. No, they all hate him. Yeah, that speaks volumes. Are you worried about the current administration cutting science funding?

[Daniel Tosh]

Ooh, yes. The NASA budget right now, it's dismal. Like, what is it? It's about 50% cut. And to me, NASA is like an American treasure. Right? We grow up idolizing the Apollo missions, all the things we've done in space. Hubble Space Telescope, now the James Webb Space Telescope. And I just. I know I'm biased. I'm an astronomer, but I just. I. Even from a national security perspective, I just can't. I just can't imagine it like America without NASA and its science mission.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

F. Marry, Kill. Do you know the game?

[Daniel Tosh]

No. Should I know?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

You should.

[Daniel Tosh]

Oh, gosh.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I mean, you teach children.

[Daniel Tosh]

Oh, no.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

One you have to f. And you know what that stands for? Sex. Okay.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

One you have to marry, one you have to kill.

[Daniel Tosh]

Oh, okay. Yes. Sorry.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Einstein, Feynman and Sagan. Is it Sagan?

[Daniel Tosh]

Oh, God.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Okay.

[Daniel Tosh]

I have to do that. Do you know these people?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Well, you have to tell me who Fineman is. That's who. I have no idea who.

[Daniel Tosh]

Richard Feynman. Oh, man. He was. He wrote a lot of books. Like, Surely you're joking. But he loved women, so I guess. An app there. I don't know. He was a little player. He's known for it.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Okay.

[Daniel Tosh]

But I. He was. You know, he came up with ideas about, like, field theory, how to. Particle physics, how to connect particles. Everything has an antiparticle, how things connect between it.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Okay.

[Daniel Tosh]

Yeah.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

So you are. You're okay.

[Daniel Tosh]

But I. You know, he was. He liked the play of the scene. That's what he was known for. But he's no here no longer. Carl. Did you ever watch him talk? Do you know how Carl talked? Did you ever watch the cosmos as a kid?

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Yes.

[Daniel Tosh]

Yeah.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

So is that your Mary?

[Daniel Tosh]

I don't know. Yeah.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

You're gonna kill Einstein.

[Daniel Tosh]

No, I'm gonna. I would marry. Yeah. Einstein. Einstein probably had it all. He was more complete package later.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

You're gonna marry Einstein?

[Daniel Tosh]

Yes. Yeah. I don't know. This is a hard game.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Well, and it's not meant to be an easy game. Dr. Wright, thank you for being on our show.

[Daniel Tosh]

Thank you for having me.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

My pleasure. Tired of the price of everything going up these days. Groceries, rent, you name it, it's all going up. But not at Metro. They've got your back. Metro has lowered their prices and are giving you a five year price guarantee on talk, text and data. One line now 20% lower. Family plans also lowered. Oh and you also get a full free 5G phone. All with no ID required and no activation fees. Stop by your neighborhood Metro store. Visit metrobytmobile.com or call to find out about their amazing offers. Bring your number. Not available if currently at T Mobile or with Metro in the past 180 days. Guaranty covers monthly price of on network, Talk, text and 5G data for customers activating on an eligible plan. Exclusions apply. [e-mail] Car Show I want to thank Shelley for being on the show. I sure hope there's other life forms out there. He doesn't seem impressed. Carl. He doesn't care. Carl does not care at all about anything to do with space. Do you buddy? It's not your thing. You think there's dogs? Other dog planets? No, not interested. I would be. We got some plugs. Thetossowstore.com we got Eddie and I doing some tours. We're heading up to NorCal this fall. Got some Vegas dates. What else? The free plug. We're still doing this bit. Let's hit the music. Is that from the makers of the Tosh show theme song? Okay. This is about a storm causing damage in a synagogue. Now they're asking for donations to help with the recovery. So today's free plug is for the congregation of Agnes. One more time. Agnes. Agnes. Agnes Agudas akam. Which means they need the funds to help cover the cost of water remediation after major flood damage their holy spaces earlier this year back in May. If you'd like to help them replace their carpet and repair the damage so they can serve our community in the highest possible capacity, consider making a donation. Don't they have insurance? How does that work? All right. Either way, Tosh Nation, we're going to help out. I'm told that it is a time honored Jewish tradition to make a donation in honor or in memory of a loved one or to express gratitude for any event. It's like tithing, but it's Jewish. Tithing is always tricky because. Do you guys go gross or do you go net? I go net. You go net. Yeah. Huh.

[Daniel Tosh]

Five bucks.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

You can just go five bucks. You just go cash.

[Daniel Tosh]

Five dollars.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

I haven't been to church in a minute. Do they do Apple pay?

[Daniel Tosh]

That's good. I bet. Yeah.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Are you telling me the deacons are now walking around with a little scanner? You just pass the scanner I hope. I hope the deacons are walking around the scanner and. But then they do the thing when they. When you're, like, gonna press which amount, they, like, do that thing where they don't look.

[Daniel Tosh]

Right.

[Dr. Shelly Wright]

Yeah, yeah, that would be nice. Oh, man. I tell you what. It's been a while since I've talked to a deacon. We'll have one on the show. We gotta get a deacon on the show. If you're a deacon and you watch this show. Sorry that this is. We shouldn't be talking about deacons while we're plugging. You know what? Forget the deacon conversation. We'll get to that. Let me get back to this synagogue. That's the Congregation Agudas Akim in Austin and their Storm Recovery fundraiser. All right, see you next week.

[Daniel Tosh]

This is an iHeart podcast.