My daughter (and I, when I’m too lazy to work on writing like I should), watches a lot of Discovery Kids Channel. It has a lot of non-U.S. programming that’s a few years old, but much of it is educational or at least semi-educational while still being entertaining. Well, I discovered a couple of days [...]
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Atheists experience transcendent wonder and awe at the magnificence of the universe and the fact that we’re part of it. We just don’t think these experiences have anything to do with God, the soul, or any sort of immaterial entities or forces. Pass it on: if we say it enough times to enough people, it [...]
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“Can science provide a morality to change the world? NO.” This is from a recent blog post by biologist and outspoken atheist, PZ Myers in the posting: A priest, a scientist, and a Communist discuss morality. It’s a really interesting post about a talk he spoke at (with the aforementioned priest and Communist) on the [...]
READ MORE »Here’s a nice little video with Dr. Ben Goldacre on the power of the placebo effect…and a little on how it can be put to good use! (Beyond as a control for research)
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Over the couple frigid weeks I’ve seen more than a few comments on the Intertubes mocking “global warming” because of the unusually cold weather. A few on Facebook, some on Twitter, a few blogs, and even a Web comic I follow made a snarky global warming mock. If the mockery is meant as an ironic [...]
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A few days ago, Rebecca over at Skepchicks posted a post featuring some videos of songs from They Might Be Giant’s new album: Here Comes Science. It’s a kid’s album (that can be thoroughly enjoyed by adults!) extolling the many and varied benefits of science. The first YouTube video she posted is for the album’s [...]
READ MORE »Bruce Sterling is a favorite scifi author of mine. Granted, his CRYPTONOMICON had some serious storytelling flaws, it was still brilliant. And SNOW CRASH is classic. I still need to read ANATHEM…. Anyway, he writes SF so brilliantly because he understands the notion that for the future, or alternate-tech, to be believable, it needs to [...]
READ MORE »Brian of skeptoid.com recently posted a listener mail response episode. He makes good points, and you don’t have to have read/listened to his past episodes to get something out of this one: http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4169 The best part of the whole thing, though, is at the end when he summarizes thus: “That’s what I think is the [...]
READ MORE »Last week, on Earth Day, during my university’s day-long thingie on “social development” and environmental concerns, SF author Kim Stanley Robinson spoke for a bit on social responsibility for humanity’s future. He said some great things, I took notes, he signed a book of mine and we had a very brief conversation. Here’s a summary [...]
READ MORE »…the year after nothing happens. Hooray for CNN.com! Usually I tear my metaphorical hair (it’s the only hair I have left) at CNN.com for their almost consistently credulous “reporting” of “unexplained” events. UFO sightings, ghosts caught on film, angels, psychics to the CEOs….all met with not just an open mind but heads with brains that [...]
READ MORE »I came upon the subject through a blog entry on Skepchick: Creationist Comeuppance on YouTube I started watching the video apology the creationist is “forced” to give for unethically and possibly illegally invoking DMCA to try to extort a critic of his to remove his critical videos. I got bored and stopped watching it. While [...]
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The first privately funded, non-governmental, liquid fuel rocket reached Earth’s orbit this last weekend! Phil Plait comments on it in his Bad Astronomer blog: Space X makes it to space! It’s kind of funny, when you go to the company’s Web site, the illustrations of the craft look so sci-fi, or like a page from [...]
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I’m listening to an episode of The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe where they podcasted from the recent DragonCon, and one of the early cool things discussed on the panel is how telescopes from around the Earth were “linked” together to form a giant virtual telescope the size of the planet, and examined the center [...]
READ MORE »The last few weeks there have been a slew of postings and releases (to feature only a couple) regarding the rise of deadly measles and other once fully contained contagious diseases in the U.K. and the U.S. due to people not vaccinating. Enough people in some places have stopped vaccinating as to weaken the “herd [...]
READ MORE »A quickie: Here’s a great and even amusing post by Harry McCall in which he uses his experience with guitar salesmen, vacuum tubes, and personal biases to explain how people see “truth” as relative and its criticism often off-limits to those “not a part of it” Truth: Absolute or Relative? I’ve had some heated discussions [...]
READ MORE »Not long ago I posted an article, “On the issue of privacy and protecting civil liberties“. Since then I’ve heard Cory Doctorow discuss more frequently how the underlying problem with the loss of personal data and thus a real threat to our lives (and livelihoods) goes beyond the loss of collected data into the wrong [...]
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When discussing and criticizing New Age, New Thought, pseudoscience beliefs (like The Secret, crystals, homeopathy, chiropractic, ESP, psychics, Tarot, astrology, chi, feng shui, ghosts, reflexology, etc. ad nauseum) people often say “Oh, what’s the big deal? It’s harmless; let people believe what they want,” it’s often because they themselves have some belief or three that [...]
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…with one of these great tees! ♦ Wear Science- Teach the Controversy (Thanks BoingBoing!)
READ MORE »The latest Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe podcast is really fantastic. ♦ Skepticast #150: 6/4/2008 It starts with a wonderful criticism of the anti-vaccine/autism movement versus reasoned thinking. For example, one of the main tactics of the anti-vaccine movement is to claim vaccines contain known dangerous chemicals. But to do this, they scan ingredient lists [...]
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These pictures from the Bad Astronomer are…amazing! Properly awesome. ♦ When galaxies collide This is one of my favorites: These are pictures of galaxies colliding. Galaxies. GALAXIES! Not billiard balls, not smoke rings, not anything you can hold in your hand… things that contain BILLIONS of stars and hundreds of billions of planets! Zooming through [...]
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