This video is one from a series called The Periodic Table of Videos by the University of Nottingham. Candles are impressive.

Like all of Tauriq’s writing, the review is informative and most importantly, it makes we want to read Kaku’s book.

If you aren’t subscribed to eSkeptic yet, do so here. I highly recommend it. It is a great dose of skepticism, science, and rationality in your inbox, weekly.

This video is from a real ska band called Sonseed.

I tried to find lyrics of this song online, but I couldn’t find any. However, courtesy of me, I transcribed the lyrics of song! (Further proof that I have no life.)

Jesus is My Friend by Sonseed

Jesus is a friend of mine
Jesus is my friend
Jesus is a friend of mine
I have a friend in Jesus

Jesus is a friend of mine
Jesus is my friend
Jesus is a friend of mine

He taught me how to live my life as it should be
He taught me how to turn my cheek when people laugh at me
I’ve had friends before and I can tell you that
He’s one who will never leave you flat!

Chorus

He taught me how to pray and how to save my soul
He taught me how to praise my god and still play rock and roll
The music may sound different but the message is the same
It’s just an instrumental praise his name

Chorus

Jesus is a friend of mine
Jesus is a friend of mine

Once I tried to run, I tried to run and hide
But Jesus came and found me and he touched me down inside
He is like a mountie, he always gets his man
And he’ll zap you any way he can. Zap!

Chorus

He loves me when I’m right, He loves me when I’m wrong
He loves me when I waste my time by writing silly songs
He loves me when I’m quiet and I have nothing to say
He’ll love me when I’m perfect if I ever get that way

Jesus is a friend of mine
Jesus is my friend
Jesus is a friend of mine
I have a friend in Jesus

Jesus is a friend of mine
Jesus is my friend
Jesus is a friend of mine
I have a friend in Jesus

Jesus is a friend of mine
J-J-J-Jesus
Jesus is a friend of mine

That was frightening, but I did enjoy this part of the song:

But Jesus came and found me and he touched me down inside
He is like a mountie, he always gets his man
And he’ll zap you any way he can

http://www.transitional-fossil.com/

It is pathetic how many creationists are out there. It is even more saddening that they don’t even know what evolution is! Not one creationist I’ve ever spoken to has ever ever ever defined evolution correctly. They are arguing against a straw man. But the worst of it all is that they do not even listen when they’re told that they don’t know what evolution is. They never bat an eyelash. They just move on as intellectual zombies, slaves to their religious beliefs that don’t let them see reality.

So, I have a suggestion. If you ever encounter a creationist, don’t debate about evolution. It is a pointless exercise when the creationist does not even know what evolution is. Instead, it would be more useful to either leave the guy alone or try to educate this person about what creationism really is. Only do the second option if you yourself are well informed about what evolution is.

On a side note, I doubt that link will change any creationist’s mind.

Anyway, let’s still give three cheers for the Tiktaalik.

Our 1000th comment was from commenter MPL and he/she commented on this post Video: CFI Skeptics Trounce 9/11 Truthers on Ontario’s “The Agenda” .

Thanks to all who are commenting and contributing to Edger!

[youtube]_o2_U0ggvb8&fmt=18[/youtube]

I quoth the CFI site hosting the video:

The methods and values of scientific thinking have expanded our knowledge about life and our place in the universe. This modern knowledge—based on experience and evidence—has brought enormous benefit to humanity, yet many people still choose to rely on ancient texts and beliefs to guide their lives and their nations.

The Center for Inquiry exists to change this situation. We are here to promote the scientific outlook, to expand the methods and values of science into all areas of human endeavor.

We invite you to learn more about the ways we are using education, outreach, and activism to advance reason and human values around the world. Then, if these values are as important to you as they are to us, we ask you to join CFI.

Let your voice be heard. With your help, we can ensure that our time—your time—will be a time of science and reason.

Some of the brightest lights or our day are in this video. It contains Steven Pinker, Daniel Dennett, Susan Jacoby, Ann Druyan, Laurence M. Krauss, Damon Linker, E.O. Wilson, Jennifer Michael Hecht, Richard Dawkins, and Paul Kurtz.

The video is fantastic and for very good reason. Lauren Becker, a field organizer for CFI, along with Rich Blundell, president of Omniscopic and CFI supporter, produced the video, and I, yours truly, created all the graphics used in the video.

However, there are some observations I would like to make about the video. Again, it is awesome, but that is mainly due to the fact that I greatly respect and admire the work of everyone featured in the film. I am not entirely sure what the target audience for that video is, but I think in future promotional videos, younger student leaders need to be featured so that the video will appeal to a younger generation. I guess this has been a long-standing problem with CFI and the skeptical/secularist movement in general. There needs to be a greater showing of the many young people who are part of the movement. Plus, I have no idea how appealing this video will be to people who are not already familiar with CFI’s mission.

Nevertheless, I love this video. Lauren and Rich did a fantastic job and I am proud of them and CFI.

On a side note, if you noticed that Dawkins’ head was too close when he was shown for the second time in the video, don’t fret. Due to the contraints in time that was the best shot available.

First, I, along with the 1,066 members of the SSA’s Facebook group received the following message from Alison Bates, Field Director of the SSA, on September 4 at 11:24pm PST:

Subject: SSA sexually harasses employees and is corrupt

Message: The Secular Student Alliance executive director, August Brunsman watches porn at work and sexually harasses his employees. The organization is going to be shut down soon.

I seriously doubted Alison would send such a message since I know her to be a very nice person. The other factor that made me doubt it was her sending such a message was that she undoubtedly has access to all SSA e-mail contacts and would have also sent out this message over e-mail to everyone in SSA’s databases. My first conclusion: her account was hacked.

I started doing some sleuthing and found out from one source that Alison had recently quit the SSA this past week. This of course worried me because now it was more likely that the message actually had been sent by a disgruntled Alison. But again, the fact that this was not sent out as an e-mail to all people in SSA’s databases calmed me down somewhat.

I stayed up until 4:30am PST discussing this with some people and waiting for people on the East Coast to wake up so that I could ask them what the hell was going on. But alas, my body is weak, and I went to sleep. When I woke up I found another message from Alison, part of it went like so:

[...]Менеджеров по торговым маркам, менеджеров по продукту, директоров по маркетингу и рекламе, маркетологов и менеджеров по рекламе.

В результате обучения группа приобретет знания и навыки:
[...]

It was in Russian! Clearly it was a spam message. But to be sure, when I translated it with Google Translate, it said some things about marketing and whatnot. It was definitely spam. Plus, her Facebook profile has been defaced and is all in Russian now.

Conclusion: Alison’s account was hacked.

This conclusion was verified when August Brunsman, Executive Director of the SSA, sent out a Facebook message:

Hello SSA Facebook Group Members,

We apologize for the messages sent to the group members this morning. It does seem that the messages were sent from a hacked account. We have removed the account from the group.
[...]

However, there was still issue of Alison having quit her position at the SSA. It turns out this was true as well. When you look on the SSA Staff page, Alison is listed as being a former staff member. She resigned this past Wednesday, September 3, and did not give a reason for her departure. However, she says she did not send out those odd Facebook messages.

Now, of course this looks very odd. Alison resigns from her job, and then *boom* her account gets hacked and sends out a libelous message about the SSA’s Executive Director. However, let us just look at the facts:

• A strange message unbecoming of Alison is sent out to all SSA Facebook members, but NOT to all SSA contacts on their e-mail database.
• A message in Russian is sent from her Facebook account and her Facebook profile is now all in Russian.
• Alison says she did not send those messages with her Facebook account.

Our best conclusion at the moment is that her account was hacked. Until any other evidence comes to light, this is the best fit scenario and should be taken as what really happened.

So, to conclude:

• Alison resigned from her position at the SSA this week. And,
• Her account got hacked.

There’s no use in speculating beyond that. It is expected that she will make a statement sometime this week about the situation. If anything else comes to light, I’ll report it.

Enjoy!

I found out that she:

• is the governor of Alaska.
• is a mother of 5.
• is an evangelical Protestant.
• is pro-life and a member of Feminists for Life.
• is a creationist.
• is a creationist who wants creationism taught along with evolution.

I shall let her speak for herself:

In an interview Thursday, Palin said she meant only to say that discussion of alternative views should be allowed to arise in Alaska classrooms:

“I don’t think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class. It doesn’t have to be part of the curriculum.”

(…)

Palin said she thought there was value in discussing alternatives.

“It’s OK to let kids know that there are theories out there,” she said in the interview. “They gain information just by being in a discussion.”

That was how she was brought up, she said. Her father was a public school science teacher.

“My dad did talk a lot about his theories of evolution,” she said. “He would show us fossils and say, ‘How old do you think these are?’ ”

Asked for her personal views on evolution, Palin said, “I believe we have a creator.”

She would not say whether her belief also allowed her to accept the theory of evolution as fact.

“I’m not going to pretend I know how all this came to be,” she said.

From Anchorage Daily News

Again, this is the usual tripe creationists try to push: “Teach both sides!” “Teach the debate!”

There is NO debate. Evolution is fact. I bet you Palin won’t be able to define evolution if you asked her to. In my experience, almost all deniers of evolution do not know what evolution is. It’s rather pathetic that they would deny something without knowing what it actually is.

Wired also had this to say about her:

Palin’s statements track with the official Alaska Republican Party platform, which support creation science and intelligent design by name, and says that “evidence disputing the theory should also be presented.”

According to Fordham Institute science education expert Lawrence Lerner, Palin’s nomination is less worrisome in terms of education than the broad relationship of science and government.

“In the direct sense, vice presidents don’t have much to do with what goes on in classrooms. But a person who’s a creationist doesn’t understand science and technology at all,” said Lerner. “It doesn’t bode well for science, and doesn’t bode well for interaction between science and government.”

From the Wired Website

Personally, if someone believes in creationism, it does not bother me. If their belief does not have negative effects on my life, then I don’t mind it. BUT this is just not the case with regards to Palin and most creationists. Their unscientific demeanor does have negative ramifications. It does affect me negatively. How could they possibly make informed decisions about scientific policies when they are scientifically illiterate? They are dangerous people. Palin is dangerous.

So…who wants to move out of the US with me if McCain gets elected?

Lori Lipman Brown, the Secular Coalition for America’s director and lobbyist in Washington D.C., will be featured on The Colbert Report segment “Better Know a Lobby” most likely today, Thursday, August 28 on Friday, August 29.

From the Secular Coalition for America’s site:

Secular Coalition for America director Lori Lipman Brown is being featured on The Colbert Report’s “Better Know A Lobby.” The two-hour taped interview with Stephen Colbert in his New York City studio will be condensed to a six-minute, or less, segment. We hope the final product will be humorous and possibly even informative. The Comedy Central show, which airs at 11:30pm (10:30 central time), is expected to be broadcast on Thursday (8/28).

Too bad it will be only 6 minutes long. However, this looks like it will be good exposure. Tune in and watch!