Get Cynical

(Taken from Evil Bobby)

Did someone say evolution? (YouTube clips available on provided link)

The Dutch public broadcaster EO (Evangelische Omroep/Evangelical Broadcaster) has a reputation to uphold when it comes to broadcasting quality wildlife documentaries, both their own as well as series they’ve bought from other broadcasters like the BBC. One series they recently broadcasted was David Attenborough’s excellent (as per usual) Life of Mammals. However, something strange has happened with that series when it crossed the Channel: for some reason the Dutch version only has nine episodes, while the original has ten –and that’s not the only difference.

It turns out that the EO has deliberately removed all references to evolution from the series, as demonstrated by the three videos below. Which is not too surprising, considering the EO is after all a fundamentalist Christian broadcaster and adhers to the doctrine of the literal truth of the bible. What exactly the EO has censored in Attenborough’s series is now documented in several youtube movies

From BBC News:

BBC News website reader Lewis Bush has been inside a nuclear fallout shelter in Lucerne, Switzerland. Here we present his pictures and accompanying captions.

In my seminars, I enjoy teaching analytics because the fun is in finding effective and memorable methods to help people understand the concepts. One of my favorites is an analysis of the Red-Shirt Phenomenon in Star Trek.

What? You don’t know about the Red Shirt Phenomenon? Well, as any die-hard Trekkie knows, if you are wearing a red shirt and beam to the planet with Captain Kirk, you’re gonna die. That’s the common thinking, but I decided to put this to the test. After all, I hadn’t seen any definitive proof; it’s just what people said. (Remind you of your current web analytics strategy?) So, let’s set our phasers on ‘stun’ and see what we find…

(via Mental Floss)

A wonderful look at different themes from Doc EE Smith:

E. E. “Doc” Smith is today sometimes dismissed as “merely” a pulp science fiction writer who produced “cliche” space operas. What is not commonly realized is the extent to which he actually originated many ideas which were so widely copied by other writers that they became “cliche.” Here is a quick and brief listing of some of his most important ideas

(via SF Signal)

The universality of a belief does not even tend to prove its
truth. A large majority of mankind have believed in what is known
as God, and an equally large majority have as implicitly believed
in what is known as the Devil. These beings have been inferred from
phenomena. They were produced for the most part by ignorance, by
fear, and by selfishness. Man in all ages has endeavored to account
for the mysteries of life and death, of substance, of force, for
the ebb and flow of things, for earth and star. The savage,
dwelling in his cave, subsisting on roots and reptiles, or on
beasts that could be slain with club and stone, surrounded by
countless objects of terror, standing by rivers, so far as he knew,
without source or end, by seas with but one shore, the prey of
beasts mightier than himself, of diseases strange and fierce,
trembling at the voice of thunder, blinded by the lightning,
feeling the earth shake beneath him, seeing the sky lurid with the
volcano’s glare, — fell prostrate and begged for the protection of
the Unknown.

Robert Green Ingersoll – “Why I Am Agnostic”