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The Baloney Detection Kit
I am a big Michael Shermer fan and have read many of his books. This video is a nice little introduction to skepticism, something I have been passionate about for some time now.
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STS-125 Hubble Release
This video of the STS-125 astronauts releasing the Hubble is incredible. It makes me wish I lived during a time when space travel would be more likely for me. I like every kid dreamed of being an astronaut when I grew up. Sadly it didn’t happen. Very few people are lucky enough to go into space. Thanks to the internet, now we can sorta see what it’s like up there.
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Science is Great
I have always been a Skeptic. Long before I ever even heard the term Skeptic, I was one. I don’t remember a time when I believed in Santa Claus. I faked my belief to receive more presents. Even as a young kid I understood the logistics in visiting every house in the world in one night, even with so called “Magic Flying Reindeer”. I was the kid that went swimming right after I ate just to see if you really could get cramps, and you know what, I never did.
I have always been a critical thinker. I wish they taught critical thinking is school. People believe so many things that they shouldn’t. Just because you hear something doesn’t make it true. Everybody needs to stop and just think if things make sense. It drives me crazy when someone says they caught a could because they went outside without a hat on. Everyone knows colds are caused by bacteria or viruses. They have nothing to do with being cold. You are not going to get sick for not wearing a hat when it’s cold out. You might feel uncomfortable, maybe get frostbite, or hyperthermia; but never a cold.
The first time that I ever heard about the Skeptical Community was back in 2004 when I started listening to podcasts. There are many skeptic podcasts that get your brain thinking critically. My favorites are Skepticality, The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe, Skeptoid, and QuakCast. I am obsessed with learning from people that are much smarter than me. My spare time is filled with listening and reading about science and skeptical topics. I have a hard time watching TV now. I just can’t find enough smart shows on TV. Watching TV makes me feel like I am getting Dumb.
People sometimes think skeptics are close minded because of the many things that don’t believe in. Real skeptics are ready to change their mind as soon as there is scientific proof. We don’t believe things “just because”. We need scientific evidence. Science is great. The way the scientific method works is amazing. Scientists are constantly learning and science evolves as they learn. Scientists aren’t good marketers though. That is why all the pseudo-science, and alternative medicine crap exists. The people pushing the crap are good marketers and have money to make. People tend to want to believe in “magic” solution to things instead of the boring truth.
When I have nothing else to blog about, I might start blogging about some of the skeptical topics that I am passionate about. I might not have many readers, but getting the truth out to people one person at a time can’t be bad. In the meantime, Rebecca Watson recently blogged about a bunch of skeptics that are on Twitter. It is a great list of smart people to follow. I follow most of them. These are my “celebrities” on Twitter. Much better than Britney Spears.
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Obama & Stem Cell Research
It is so great to finally have a President that isn’t so anti-science in office. It was great to hear Obama lift the ban on stem cell research. Why anyone would want to ban any kind of research boggles my mind. There is so much we don’t know yet. Scientists are discovering new stuff everyday. Why would you want to prevent that? Knowledge and learning can never be a bad thing.
Obama gave a great speech before signing the executive order to lift the ban. He showed his commitment to science, which is a really cool thing. You can see a video of it here. It also personally cool seeing a fellow lefty as President, but I still find it weird using all the different pens.
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Response to Cali Lewis on Global Warming
Over the weekend Cali Lewis made a comment about global warming on Twitter. She really stirred up a frenzy of comments. Half for her had half against. I didn’t feel like adding to the chaos, so am just blogging about it. I felt a little sorry for her, but she kind of deserved it. Science doesn’t prove global warming doesn’t exist, just like it doesn’t prove that it does. Science doesn’t prove anything. Science just provides the data and facts. Scientist will be the first to tell you they don’t know everything. They are always finding new and cool things. That’s what’s so great about science. Also, calling global warming a hoax is a little extreme.
Science shows that global warming does exist, and humans may have some blame to it. The real question is how much are humans affecting it, and how much we can really do about it. I don’t think anybody really knows the answers to those questions.
Cali did reply with a blog post that explains herself a little more. She changed he wording to being more skeptical of global warming. That is a big difference. It’s good to be skeptical. Being skeptical means you are looking at the data and coming to your own conclusion and are willing to change your mind if the data changes. I can handle someone being skeptical of man-made global warming. Calling it a hoax, no way.
I think Al Gore did more harm than good bringing global warming more to everybody’s attention with is book and movie. Just by who Al Gore is, half the population isn’t going to believe anything he says. Al Gore is a also little extreme. He is all doom and gloom. In reality it’s not that bad, yet.
I know a little bit about water treatment and I relate our air pollution to water pollution. Years ago, when our populations were smaller, we just dumped our raw sewage into rivers. It was no problem then. Nature took care of it. As populations got bigger and bigger, nature couldn’t keep up and sewage treatment plants were required. The still pretty much just use nature to treat the sewage, they are just helping it out. As the worlds population grows we will have a similar problem with air pollution and global warming.
I love Cali Lewis and was worried by her tweet. I know I disagree with her on politics, I was hoping I didn’t disagree with her on this. Her blog post cleared things up for me. I still disagree with her, but not as much. I can see where she is coming from.
In the end everybody really wants the same thing. Clean air, blue skis, and green grass (or in our case white snow). Trying to be more green can never be a bad thing.
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Happy Darwin Day
On this day, 200 years ago Charles Darwin was Born. Who would have thought that so many people would still not believe in his theories that makes perfect common sense. I wonder how long it took people to believe in the theory of gravity? There is a great opinion article in the NY Times today about Darwin. I never realized before that Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born the same day. Lincoln gets all the hype, so I am going to spend part of the day reading about Darwin. Learning is fun, and science is cool. -
You Really Won’t Go Blind
I have a little geek crush on Rebecca Watson. She runs Skepchick.org, and is also on a great podcast, The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe. She is cute, smart, and hilarious. She just started selling an awesome shirt on her site. Too bad I don’t have to balls to wear one though.
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Global Warming is Real
One of my biggest pet peeves are people that automatically don’t believe in global warming just because they are having cold weather. It’s called “global warming”, with the emphasis on GLOBAL! The Earth in general is warming. You are still going to have your seasons. You are still going to have colder local tempatures.
Actually, more snow could be caused by global warming. Global warming doesn’t necessary cause more storms, but it does increase the severity of storms. The higher the ocean temperature, the more energy there is out there to drive storms.
Global warming deniers drive me crazy. Global warming is a fact. It is happening. How much we are affecting it is the real question that nobody knows the answer to. It is pretty obvious that the amount of CO2 that we are releasing to the atmosphere can’t really be helping it any though.
I am not for drastic, expensive changes, but if we gradually reduce out CO2 emissions, we can reduce the human impact. It’s not like global warming is an emergency, but we should get a handle of it before it gets out of control.
Decreasing our CO2 emissions is a no brainer. If it lowers our impact on global warming then good, if not, a cleaner atmosphere isn’t a bad thing either.
I think newer technolgies will arise that will make decreasing our CO2 emissions easier, if not, then our demise might be sooner. It will be a long time before humans become extinct, but that day will come. The Earth was here long before humans, and will be here long after us.