Earth is moving at 67,000mph around its star, and still people insist there's no such thing as progress! This site is about looking at rationality and reason, and challenging dogma.
One of my personal heroes, and author of the mind-blowingly brilliant and easily understandable Bad Science, explains what exactly is the placebo effect:
Ben is a magnificent communicator of science, health and logic-related concepts in a manner than can be understood by anyone, and he’s very active in the skeptical scene — including speaking at the inaugural TAM London last October and a recent appearance on Robert Llewellyn‘s often fascinating CarPool video podcast — though seems loathe to label himself as such. (Perhaps he’d prefer we consider that our realms of interest often coincide).
The time between posts here is an unfortunate side-effect of having to study like mad for the archaeology course I’m doing that is rapidly coming to an end, and numerous projects I’m either doing or starting. Never enough time in the day — particularly when you have to work a day job and maintain a social life, too.
And I’m trying not to just fill the posts with random gibberish or “cool stuff wot I found on the internets” — unless you’re okay with that? (Seriously, please let me know).
So, doing just that I thought I’d take a moment to post something to do with my hero, Carl Sagan. YouTube is a wonderful medium not only for the inevitable popular (and normally copyright-infringing) snippets from popular films and TV shows, but also for historical pieces that are hard to get and for mashups and other creative exercises.
And this is one of the latter — a brilliant homage to Carl Sagan featuring none other than his brilliant British counterpart, Stephen W. Hawking:
Finally got around to watching a YouTube video someone sent me a while ago and I’m stunned to find God’s Checklist 2.0 by Scott (aka TheoreticalBullshit) underlines and italicises so much of my argument with religion, particularly Christianity.
It’s done in an entertaining, thoughful, and challenging way, but not in a manner that would insult a reasonable theistic viewer. That’s a difficult balance to manage.
I expect some people will react to the video negatively (the video’s comments section on YouTube is ad hominem central — not that YouTube comments have a habit of being sane or rational at the best of times), and others of a mind for apologetics will offer up modern reasons why these Bronze Age inconsistencies exist. But the fact remains that Scott has done an excellent job in outlining the problem with the “party line” of many religions.
I’m looking forward to checking out more of his stuff.
