@jakecrump I hadn't either and was just in awe the whole episode.

@dannyfiorentini As I was listening to the show, my feelings changed from awe to extreme suspicion. I happen to personally know a pretend doctor/top neuroscientist in the country/child prodigy/math genius/chess master/Guinness record holder who was later found out to be guilty of fabricating his entire persona, medical degree, photographic memory demonstrations, and operating on people without a license and killing a few in the process. He is now awaiting trial and I remember being neighbors with him and falling for all the fabrications and crazy childhood stories. The arrest and overwhelming evidence was a huge wake up call. Fun fact: this guy's fabrications started to fall apart only after he claimed to have defeated one of the top chess engines in the world (Rybka), and people in chess forums got very suspicious and started investigating, leading to a year-long journalist investigation. As I was listening to the episode, I couldn't help but get suspicious, so many stories sounding incredibly similar. Having stumbled on the same links online, I was disappointed to not hear any of the fraud claims being addressed or any sort of vetting process mentioned. However.. I also happen to have won the $10,000 memory challenge organized by Tim & Ed Cooke by learning to memorize a shuffled deck of 52 cards in under 1 minute in about 5 days, having no prior experience (but enjoying a very good short term memory ever since I was a child). This story may also not sound very credible to people, but I happen to know it being true first hand :) So, who knows.