Be sure to watch this documentary. Your immortal soul depends on it.

(YouTube page is here)

Intelligent Design creationists keep babbling about how the eye is “irreducibly complex”. As this clip shows, it isn’t. This shows how the eye could have evolved. It isn’t proof that this is how it did evolve. However, it does disprove the irreducible complexity claim.

The IDiots keep putting out one unsupported claim after another. Their so-called “theory” is bankrupt. There is no evidence behind any of it, and it predicts nothing. It’s worthless. It isn’t science.

(YouTube page is here)

As you all should know by now, I went to the Amazing Meeting 6 in Las Vegas last weekend. Here are a few thoughts and reactions.

The best reason to go is to meet all the different folks. Some of the highlights were connecting or reconnecting with PZ Myers, Phil Plait, Hal Bidlack, and Adam Savage.

If I have a complaint, it’s that it’s actually very difficult to connect with most of the speakers. Attendance this year was a record-breaking 900. With that many people, it’s hard to get more than a few minutes with any of them.

Of the many ordinary attendees I ran into, I did get a chance to converse with Robert Lancaster, who runs the Stop Sylvia Browne website. I also got to talk to Comedy Jesus.

The Presentations

Here’s a brief rundown of my reactions to some of the presenters:

Neil deGrasse Tyson. Once he got rolling, he was very good. He talked about a variety of things that tick him off. My only complaint with him is that he scooted out pretty fast after his talk was over. All of the other speakers stuck around for most of the weekend, so you could talk to them if you wanted to.

Richard Saunders talked about a variety of things, but the best part was his demonstration for teachers in how to use a dowsing demonstrations to engage their students in science and critical thinking.

Penn and Teller are valuable members of the skeptical community, but their contribution to TAM 6 was low key. They just took a few questions from the audience. The more I hear Penn speak, the less I like him. His abrasive personality and extreme Libertarianism are best in (very) small doses. It’s interesting that Libertarianism is so disproportionately over-represented in the skeptical population compared with the general population. I haven’t completely figured out why.

P.Z. Myers talked about evo-devo. Although I enjoyed the talk, I would have preferred it if it had been more directly related to skepticism.

Michael Shermer talked about some ideas he has for his next book. I remember it was a very good talk; I just can’t remember any of it. I guess I’ll have to wait for the book.

Sharon Begley, Senior Editor for Newsweek, told us that we shouldn’t expect the news media to educate the general public in science and skepticism. The better ones try, but there is only so much they can do.

Steve Novella was brilliant. He’s a neurologist, host of The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe, and a contributing editor to Quackwatch. He told us about some great brain research.

Phil Plait gave an excellent talk about how the universe is so darn cool, you don’t have to make up crazy things about it.

Adam Savage gave us two vivid examples of just how compulsive he is. He went to great lengths to create a complete dodo skeleton model and the world’s most accurate Maltese Falcon replica.

Psychologist Richard Wiseman is a hoot. I think he enjoyed his talk more than we did, and we enjoyed it immensely. He talked about this YouTube video of a card trick he made:

(YouTube page is here)

Then he passed out spoons, and we all participated in the world’s largest spoon-bending.

Other Stuff

During lunch on Saturday, they showed the pilot episode of The Skeptologists. It was pretty good. They investigated ghost hunting and wheat grass. If you want to know how those investigations turned out, you’ll just have to hope that the show gets picked up by one of the cable networks. My only complaint about the show is that it only has one woman among its seven hosts. Girls are very heavily socialized away from math and science in our society, and the casting of this show isn’t helping matters any.

TAM 7 will be July 9-12, 2009. I’m telling you now, so you won’t have any excuse for not going next year. (OK, Las Vegas in July is almost a good excuse.)

I’m leaving for TAM 6 in a couple of days, so I won’t be able to post much this week. I’ll cheat by posting a couple of great videos.

The first one was recommended by Sarah. It’s called “Noah’s Ark and the Cheetah”. It’s made by DonExodus2, who has a lot of other great videos that you should check out. In this video, we see how the lack of genetic diversity in the cheetah disproves Noah’s Ark.

(YouTube page is here)

Next we have a video by one of my old favorites, cdk007. This one is the last of a five-part series called “Why Young-Earth Creationists Must Deny Gravity”. If you enjoy it, you should look up the other four.

(YouTube page is here)

From Evolved and Rational, we find this:

(Break page is here)

Not long ago, Conservapedia named their article on atheism as their article of the year. A YouTube user named Shane Killian has produced a video to examine that article and see just how good it really is:

(YouTube page is here)

In that video, he references an earlier video he made on Intelligent Design creationism. Here it is, for your enjoyment:

(YouTube page is here)

Here’s a video of John Huckabee McCain claiming not only that America is a Christian nation, but he is also (apparently) implying that Barack Hussein Obama is Muslim.

Huckabee McCain is also saying that only Christians are qualified to be president. If Obama really were Muslim, McCain is saying that would disqualify him outright.

In fact, it’s even worse than that. Notice McCain says he wants someone who has a “solid grounding” in Christianity. He’s implying that even if Obama isn’t Muslim, he’s not a true Christian, because he’s been contaminated by his exposure to Islam.

Do we want such a massive religious bigot in the White House?

(YouTube page is here)

(via Atheist Media Blog)

Douglas Adams died seven years ago today. I thought it would be fitting to direct you to Richard Dawkin’s eulogy of Adams.