Monthly Archives: January 2010

Skepticism and Race

On the next episode of Skeptically Speaking, a panel discussion on skepticism and race. Is the face of modern skepticism really as monochrome as it appears? How do we make our message appeal to a broader, more diverse audience? And how do racial demographics influence belief in pseudoscience and the paranormal?

Our panel includes LaVerne Knight-West, Stephanie Zvan, and Girl 6.

This Friday!
Details here.

Religion and Science: The Non Debate

There is an interesting conversation developing on The Intersection (What Should Science Organizations Say About Religion? Answer: A Lot) to which this is my response:

The conversation you have modeled here (people talking past each other … see the original post) is very close to what actually happens in an NCSE like conversation, except that someone following the NCSE approach (as I usually do in this context) also mentions that for most religions this is not an issue, etc. etc. (I usually throw in a few quotes from this or that pope).

And, noting that many religious people have no problem with evolution, and that people are complex thinking beings who can often hold viewpoints that at some level are incompatible and other levels not, are both things I’ve seen new atheists say (including PZ Myers himself!)

All of which leads me to conclude that most of us are not that far from each other on what we are saying and thinking most of the time.

The famous Shorewood High School Lip Dub Video (Hall and Oats)

This was a project by a high school video class. As you watch, you’ll see objects doing things that they should not do as students take turns singing a Hall and Oats song while they walk/dance along the halls of their high school.

The entire thing is filmed backwards, which explains how paper air planes unfly and bubbles unblow and baloons unpop and stuff unfalls. But if you watch the lip syncing students, you’ll notice that they are lip syncing correctly … their lips are matching the words as well as lip syncing does. But how did they make this happen if they were filming backwards?

Watch the video:
Continue reading The famous Shorewood High School Lip Dub Video (Hall and Oats)

Yellowstone: She’s gonna blow!!!

Well, not really.

But, as noted in Eruptions, there is a new swarm of little earthquakes underneath the Yellowstone Caldera. You’ll remember we discussed this here last time that happened. Since that time, of course, we’ve gotten to see what it would actually look like if the world’s scariest caldera (maybe) actually went off:
Continue reading Yellowstone: She’s gonna blow!!!