Gerald told us about a video the other evening. It’s a clip from the BBC1 documentary ‘Science Friction: Creation’ circa 1996. This is Dayton, Tennessee.
The last comment by the student is the best (worst). It’s painful to watch but sadly funny at the same time.
I have four videos to share with you, and they all have to do with Sam Harris, one of the Four Horsemen (Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett are the other three). Remember the other day I posted the actual TED talk Sam did about science and morality.
The first video is on CNN Opinion and therefore it’s just a link to its page. Sam talks to CNN (at the TED conference) about how religion discussions distract us from truly important issues. It’s almost 4 minutes long. If you go there to the page, it has a lot of what he said under the video.
Project Reason, which Sam Harris helped start, had a video contest recently. So here are the winners.
Winning Video: The Values We All Stand For
Sam Harris gave a talk at TED recently and it’s now available. He talked about morals and how science doesn’t have to stay silent when it comes to what is best for conscious beings. It was very interesting. Please share it around if you like what he has to say. I’d love to hear your opinions in the comments.
About the talk:
Questions of good and evil, right and wrong are commonly thought unanswerable by science. But Sam Harris argues that science can — and should — be an authority on moral issues, shaping human values and setting out what constitutes a good life.
Sam’s project: Project Reason
His homepage: SamHarris.org
Cross-posted from Heaving Dead Cats
Brian Dunning offers this 4o minute video to introduce critical thinking. From his site he says, “Most people fully accept paranormal and pseudoscientific claims without critique as they are promoted by the mass media. Here Be Dragons offers a toolbox for recognizing and understanding the dangers of pseudoscience, and appreciation for the reality-based benefits offered by real science.”
Thanks, Gerald!
Brent sent me a list of his favorite internet radio stations and podcasts to share with you. I listen to several as well so I will add them below:
~Edit: I’ve added descriptions for you!
Brent’s Favs:
Neece’s Favs:
~Edit:
Tim’s Fav:
Here’s one from Gerald:
Feel free to contribute your favorites!
I found this 2 part video Richard Dawkins did for the BBC in 2006. It’s a very good overview of his ideas and concepts of religion, evolution and atheism. See below for the descriptions of each episode.
I thought this would be good to see more of what the “religion is a virus” concept was all about, right from Dawkins, since we’re reading The God Virus this month for the book club.
The Root of All Evil? Part 1: The God Delusion. (Richard Dawkins, 2006) – 47:51
The Root of All Evil? – The Virus of Faith (2 of 2) – 47:58
Here’s a description of the first episode: Read the rest of this entry »
At Sunday’s meeting, Brent talked about John Maynard Smith and a talk he gave to the Royal Institution in 1995. He was a British theoretical evolutionary biologist and geneticist.
So here is that video. It’s about an hour long and quite interesting.
A few of his books include: Read the rest of this entry »
Dave told us about this video at our meeting last Sunday. This is Julia Child cooking up a batch of Primordial Soup. Here is the description:
Julia Child cooks up a batch of primordial soup and explains how these simple ingredients produce amino acids – the building blocks of life. This video played in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Life in The Universe gallery from 1976 until the gallery closed.
I never watched her cooking show, but I’ve heard she never took herself too seriously, always made fun of herself a bit, and seemed to have fun. She is quite endearing in this video. I hope you enjoy it.
Brent sent me a link to a page on the web. It’s a conversation with Robert Sapolsky, a quiet, funny, apparently brilliant professor of biological sciences at Stanford University and of neurology at Stanford’s School of Medicine. Professor Sapolsky has written several books such as:
The link Brent sent me was called TOXO and he suggested it to me, to share with you, because we’re reading The God Virus: How religion infects our lives and culture, by Daniel W Ray. Now the video on that page was Robert Sapolsky talking about a most interesting parasite called Toxoplasma. This is what pregnant women need to worry about, and why they avoid cats and cat feces. It can wreak havoc on their unborn baby’s nervous system.
If you’re reading The God Virus, which talks about parasites and viruses as an analogy for religion, I highly recommend watching this video. If you aren’t going to read the book I still recommend the video. The transcript is underneath it too, which will make it even more accessible for you. But the video is longer than the transcript. So take 25 minutes and enjoy it. Here’s another link to the video. I’m telling you, it’s fascinating. As I mentioned, the video is longer than the transcript. He goes into telemeres and molecular age, which I heard a study about recently confirming what he is explaining.
What he’s talking about touches on evolution, common ancestors, parasites and how they go about getting where they need to be, motorcyclists and speed freaks, and schizophrenics, as well as the government’s interest in this parasite. A wild ride indeed! Read the rest of this entry »
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