An extremely patient Dad explains to his vulgarian of a son that Santa doesn’t exist. I’m an ex-sailor and I don’t use the word “fuck” that many times in a week, much less a single conversation. You may need to pause here and there to catch everything said.
Spanish with English subtitles.
Enjoy!
Category Archives: Skepticism
Yes Javier, there is a Santa Claus
Whadda ya know?
There are three types of people: those who “don’t know”, those who “believe” and those who “know”.
Those who “don’t know” are open to dialogue and examination of the facts as they are presented. A person who says they don’t know is more likely than not a person you can turn your back on without fear.
Those who “believe” are wild cards. Given one set of circumstances they could follow the path of rationality. Given another set of circumstances they can be easily influenced to commit acts of barbarity. Most people are believers.
Those who say they “know” are also saying that given the right circumstances they will kill to make their point.
Beware those who “know”.
NCSE’S Scott Honored in Special Edition of Evolution: Education and Outreach
In honor of the upcoming sixty-fifth birthday of NCSE’s executive director Eugenie C. Scott, the latest issue of Evolution: Education and Outreach contains essays by some of the greatest minds involved in the defense of science education today.
Read more about it HERE.
Soy made me Gay!!!
A simultaneously hilarious and scary post from Woo Fighters covers the claim that consumption of soy products by pregnant mothers turns their male fetuses gay and…gives them small penises. Some of you may need to call your mothers…
Read it HERE.
*Video*God to redefine Physics in 5 days? – Thunderf00t
Remember the short-lived The Flash television series of 1990? No? You’re not alone, not many folks watched it past the 3rd episode. Why? The villains sucked, that’s why. Crappy villains make for a crappy show.
The video I’m posting today is the latest challenge from YouTube’s Thundef00t to asshat creatard Nephilimfree. In regards to the whole atheist vs creationist thing on YouTube, this is starting to get lame.
Seriously, don’t creationists have anyone better than Nephilimfree to put forward as their champion? It’s common knowledge that a good (as in really bad, smart, capable, etc.) villain makes for a good film, comic or novel. The same goes for these YouTube “showdowns”.
Without a good bad guy, there’s no real threat, no challenge. Without a threat or real challenge, it becomes nothing more than shooting fish in a barrel. Still, like when passing a car wreck, I can’t help but slow down and check out the carnage…
A great post from Woo fighters
Ever hear a claim that just didn’t sound quite right, but you couldn’t put your finger on why? Well, Woo Fighters can help you with that:
Warning Signs That Something is Not Scientific
Free Book Excerpt from the NCSE
Full chapter excerpt from “Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk” by Massimo Pigliucci, courtesy of The National center for Science Education.
Many thanks to Robert Luhn, Director of Communications for the NCSE
Catastrophism for Dummies
If you are 40-something or older, you may from time-to-time receive one of those generic saccharine emails from well-intentioned friends or family members that drone on for 500 or so words about how great things were when we were growing up.
If you are not familiar with what I’m referring to, here is an example:
“We did not have Play Stations, Nintendos and X-boxes. There were
no video games, no 150 channels on cable,
no video movies or DVDs,
no surround-sound or CDs,
no cell phones,
no personal computers,
no Internet and no chat rooms.”
And so on and so forth, ad nauseam…
The sender of this screed (a former coworker) implores me to at least read the quote from Jay Leno at the bottom of the email should I choose to ignore the rest of it. Here’s that little gem of wisdom:
“With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?”
What eats the lining out of my stomach is that the sender (or Leno, it would appear) didn’t stop to think that if “God” had been doing his job as Leno seems to define it, why did we have to deal with all of these issues in the first place?
But there’s an even bigger issue with that quote. Leno never said it. What he really said on September 20th, 2005 was this,
“As you know, Hurricane Rita is headed toward Florida, Texas and Louisiana. Another hurricane! It’s like the ninth hurricane this season. Maybe this is not a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance.”
Huge difference. There’s at least two things one can walk away for this with. First, this is one of many undeniable proofs of the religious nutbag predilection for twisting facts and quoting out of context in order to make a point. Second is that there will never be a shortage of gullible folks who will accept (and pass on) things without questioning them, as long as they neatly fit their own preconceived notions of how things should be.
This is just more ammunition for my argument as to why we need to start teaching critical thinking skills and ethics at a young age in public schools.
The email ended with this:
“For those that prefer to think that God is not watching over us…go ahead and delete this.
For the rest of us…..pass this on.”
After copying it to a Word document, I went back to the email and hit “Delete”.
Free Book Excerpts From the NCSE
In late 2009, the National Center for Science Education started offering free evolution book excerpts on their web site as well as on their Facebook page. Some of these excerpts are complete chapters. This is a great opportunity for anyone who is into evolution and wants to “try before you buy.”
Many thanks to Robert Luhn, Director of Communications for the National Center for Science Education.
Click on the images to link directly to the excerpts.
Evolution vs. Creationism, 2nd edition (Greenwood) by Eugenie C. Scott
Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be (Kids Can Press) by Daniel Loxton
Evolution: The story of life (UC Press) by Douglas Palmer
Evolution, Second Edition (Sinauer Associates) By Douglas J. Futuyma
Evidence of Evolution (Abrams Books) by Susan Middleton and Mary Ellen Hannibal
The Tangled Bank (Roberts and Company) by Carl Zimmer
Rapture Ready! (Scribner) by Daniel Radosh
Charles Darwin's On the Origin Of Species: A Graphic Adaptation (Rodale) by Michael Keller
If you haven’t yet donated to the NCSE, please considering making a small donation via PayPal right now using the link in the right sidebar. Even a dollar will make a difference. It’s fast, it’s easy and you will be doing a good thing for yourself and your country.
Martin Gardner (1914-2010)
Martin Gardner died on Saturday, May 22nd, 2010 at the age of 95.
He was a prolific science and math writer as well as a magician and debunker of the paranormal.
While creation science had already been confronted in scientific and university publications, Gardner was the first to do so in a book that was intended for the general public. In his groundbreaking Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (1957, Dover Publications, New York), he describes The New Geology, published by George McCready Price in 1923:
It is a classic of pseudo-science. So carefully reasoned are Price’s speculations, so bolstered with impressive geological erudition, that thousands of Protestant fundamentalists today accept his work as the final word on the subject. Even the skeptical reader will find Price difficult to answer without considerable background in geology. (Gardner, 1957, pp. 127-28)
Though Gardner was not an atheist (he was a philosophical theist or deist), he was a trailblazer for later pseudo-science debunkers such as James Randi as well as popular science advocates like Carl Sagan.
The world was left a better place for his being here. James Randi wrote a touching tribute to his friend on the JREF blog. The National Center for Science Education did a nice write-up on him as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Gardner
Technology the eventual undoing of faith?
There’s a new app for iPhones and iPods from the Methodist Church in the UK. Apparently it allows users to view bible studies and offers daily prayers. That might seem to be of benefit to believers, but what value does it have as a tool for conversion? Which brings me to a bigger question: who benefits more from the internet, believers or non-believers?
I’m not convinced there would be a right way to answer that until more evidence is in. I can say that that unlike religion, atheism does not rely on the ORGANIZED participation and interaction of others in order to grow. Religion does. Is this yet another way in which the internet contributes to the lessening influence of religion in the West? It would be ironic, if in an attempt to be relevant through the use of technology, religion cuts its own throat.
*Video*Dr. Eugenie C. Scott: Science and Skepticism
How are science and skepticism related? Is skepticism a part of science, or is science a tool of skepticism? Genie Scott discusses these questions, and explores the importance of teaching both science and skepticism.
Many thanks To Robert Luhn, Director of Communications for the NCSE!
From the SkeptiCal Conference, Berkeley, CA, April 24 2010
Help the National Center for Science Education defend the teaching of science from attack by extremists.
Pervert Pontiff Sacks Science – says fake shroud is real
President of the “Bad Touch Club”, Pope Benedict XVI, has dispensed with the findings of modern science and declared that the Shroud of Turin is:
“…a burial cloth that wrapped the remains of a crucified man in full correspondence with what the Gospels tell us of Jesus.”
…”an icon written in blood”.
In other words, he says it’s real.
Wow, what a shocker. Who’da thunk the Patron Saint Protector of Pedophile Priests would make shit up?
This dickhead is the Catholic equivalent of GW Bush and Dick Cheney combined. Actually, no…he’s worse.
Here are some links for a more realistic (as in…evidence based) take on the “shroud”.
http://www.skepdic.com/shroud.html
http://www.freeinquiry.com/skeptic/shroud/
Science versus Religion
Guess which one comes out on top in this great video from The Thinking Atheist?
james randi officially comes out
At the age of 81, he finally comes out. Good for him. Hear Randi talk about it here.
