I has a preview for my youtube channel
28 Jul 2010
news
27 Jul 2010
sorry for the delay in new entries. they will resume tomorrow. my daughter hurt her leg yesterday, so I have been sidetracked.
ON 2012
25 Jul 2010
I have started an axis of youtube
25 Jul 2010
One of my best friends is going to school for computers and he has agreed to help me edit and put together some decent quality youtube videos. So watch OrderoftheWhiteHand in the months to come.
I am starting a blogTV channel.
23 Jul 2010
I just started a blogTV channel. My first episode was poor quality and I had the jitters. I will get better equip and relax as time goes on though. Once I figure out how to edit videos, I am going to open up a youtube channel.
This should create a feedback loop with my twitter and this site. Here is hoping.
Intro to Bayes’ Theorem
22 Jul 2010
In the mid 18th century, mathematician and minister Thomas Bayes (1702-1761 CE) proposed a formula for adjusting probabilities. This methodology, now known as Bayes’ Theorem, has become an essential tool in both statistics and analytic philosophy. This video is an excellent introduction to its application.
Skepticism for Beginners (index)
21 Jul 2010
This is the index for a series of posts on introductory skepticism. I thought it would be appropriate to open up this series with an anecdote from Michael Shermer’s Why People Believe Weird Things.
On Monday, October 2, 1995, for the first time in its ten-year history, the Oprah Winfrey Show offered a psychic as the featured guest. She was Rosemary Altea (a nom de plume), who claims to communicate with the dead. Her book about this extraordinary assertion— The Eagle and the Rose: A Remarkable True Story—had been on the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal best-seller lists for several weeks. (”The eagle” is a Native American Indian—Altea’s spirit guide—and Altea is “the rose.”) Oprah began with the disclaimer that she was doing this show only because several trusted friends had described Altea as the class act of the psychic world. Next, the producers rolled several minutes of video, taped the previous day, that showed Altea working a small audience in a Chicago flat, asking countless questions, making numerous generalizations, and providing occasional specifics about their dearly departed. Altea then began working the audience in the studio. “Did someone here lose a loved one in a drowning accident?” “I see a man standing behind you.” “Was there a boat involved?” And so on. Unlike most psychics I have seen, Altea was bombing. The audience was not feeding her the cues she needed to “divine” her information. Finally, well into the program, she struck pay dirt. Calling out to a middle-aged woman partially hidden behind a studio camera, Altea said the woman had lost her mother to cancer. The woman screamed and started crying. Furthermore, Altea noted, the young man next to the woman was her son, who was troubled by school and career decisions. He acknowledged the observation and recounted his tale of woe. The audience was stunned.
Oprah was silenced. Altea pumped out more details and predictions. After the taping, one woman stood up and announced that she had come to the studio to debunk Altea but was now a believer.
Enter the skeptic.
1. What is skepticism?
is gravity a social construction?
20 Jul 2010
“Anyone who believes that the laws of physics are mere social conventions is invited to try transgressing those conventions from the windows of my apartment. (I live on the twenty-first floor.)”
physicist and skeptic of post-modernism, Alan Sokal
Tea Party Signs You Won’t See on TV
18 Jul 2010
props CommonSenseAtheism
This article is part of a collection of short pieces on climate change.
I recently listened to an excellent interview of Massimo Pigluicci conducted by Luke Prog. Out of all of the interesting topics discussed, one subject in particular really caught my attention: libertarians and climate change denial.
I find this topic interesting because I noticed a startling observation a while ago: I have never talked to a libertarian that believes in climate change. I think the main reason behind this logic is that libertarians hate intervention in the market. By admitting that there is man caused climate change, they think that it would make capitalism morally accountable for harming the Earth. This terrifies them.
There are also another two minor reasons: (1) many libertarians are conspiracy nuts (truth’ers, birth’ers, etc..) and (2) many libertarians are disgruntled republicans and harbor anti-science sentiment. The conspiracy nuts think global warming is a conspiracy to create a new world order and the ex-republicans see it as another “scientific lie”, like Darwinism.
While there is also ignorance and being mis-informed, I really do not count these as reasons, because they have no real motivation.
You probably have already noticed, thinking “I don’t believe in X, because it would entail Y” is also the same model creationists use to deny evolution. To me, this filtering of the facts is bullshit. People who think through a filter are not concerning themselves with truth, but what conforms to their already held beliefs.
This method of thinking is not only irrational, but it is dangerous. The facts are what matters and they should dictate worldviews, not the other way around.
