Wow, I seem to be taking over YouTube lately. I just found out that the talk I gave at James Randi’s The Amaz!ng Meeting 2 in 2004 has been put online by Randi’s group. I covered a lot of ground in the talk, debunking silly claims by Richard Hoagland, silly things about Planet X, silly New Age claims, and more. I even show my infamous Lenin shower curtain.
It’s cut up into seven parts since YouTube limits clip length. The first part is my friend Hal Bidlack introducing me, and me warming up to the talk. The actual talk itself starts in Part 2, so here it is:
For completeness, here are links to Parts 1, 2, 3 (this has audio but no video for some reason), 4, 5, 6, and 7.
Once you go to the YouTube page you’ll see links to other talks at that meeting, including great speakers like Genie Scott, Penn & Teller and many more. This ought to give you something to do this weekend!
And don’t forget, The Amaz!ng Meetings 5.5 and 6 are coming up fast. Check ‘em out. If you like my blog, you’ll love these events.
November 5th, 2007 at 9:37 pm
Oh sweet, material to watch while I’m working tomorrow
November 5th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
off topic, didn’t see a post on this
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/11/05/brighter.comet.ap/index.html
November 5th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
Um, Kelkyen, search this blog for the word “Holmes”.
November 6th, 2007 at 12:01 am
Richard C. Hoagland - that’s that dude who has a recurring role on George Noorey’s Coast to Coast?
I don’t agree with you on climate change. I think you make a mountain out of a mole hill regarding intelligent design. But someone who takes the starch out of spiritualists and tarot card reading phonys Noorey regularly holds up as scientists is alright in my book.
Rock on.
November 6th, 2007 at 8:40 am
Completely off-topic as well: At about 6am central time, was that the space station I could see near the moon? I was driving into work when I noticed it.
November 6th, 2007 at 8:50 am
Also a little off topic, but I was reminded of it from the Lenin shower curtain. Did anyone else see the image of Han Solo on Everest at Slumbering Lungfish? I thought that was pretty cool, and now it’s my desktop image as well…
http://slumbering.lungfish.com/?p=500
November 6th, 2007 at 11:03 am
I would really like to see you live on stage once. But I guess there is not a big chance that you will come over to Germany.
Very good speech! Indeed!
November 6th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Gnaton: The space station moves pretty quickly. It goes all the way across the sky in a few minutes, and it sounds like what you saw wasn’t moving. Venus was above the moon this morning, so that’s probably it. It would have looked a lot like a star, but far, far brighter.
November 6th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
I’m looking at this google page on Hoagland - http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Richard+C+Hoagland&btnG=Google+Search - about 367,000 references calling him a humbug.
On the otherhand Steve McIntyre was practicaly alone when he pointed out that Mann, Hansen, Gore, the IPCC, and the RealClimate gang, are worse humbugs. Worse because this set of humbugs are given the credibility of a political movement, and their flim flams are causing real deaths, and real suffering and really, really, bad legislations.
If the Bad Astronomer had any self respect, he would put a permanent link up urging his followers to vote for Climate Audit.
Steve is fighting for you, whether you admit it or not.
November 6th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Thanks Dan!
November 6th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
Is it just me but the Lenin Curtain (TM) looks rather like Randi with one of his “fierce” faces on, doesn’t it…?
November 6th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
papertiger, you’ve missed the target by a wide margin here.
First, I was comparing Hoagland to Junk Science, not Climate Audit.
Second, I disagree with the bit about self-respect. That’s just a bizarre thing to say.
Third, Mr. McIntyre may indeed think he is fighting for us, but having read many of his articles, I disagree that he is correct.
Fourth, and this one is important– you posted this comment to the wrong blog entry.
November 6th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
Did I miss the complaint section?
Steven Milloy doesn’t deserve that comparison either.
How is it a bizarre thing to question your integrity, when you are here recycling a refutation of Richard Hoagland - as if anybody with one eye and half a brain would believe there are archeological ruins on the moon.
It’s an easy thing to sing in a choir.
Try bucking the system - then tell me about how persuasive you are.
Or better yet, since you disagree with McIntyre, back up Micheal Mann’s hockystick graph, with some real evidence. Or Hansen’s world temperature record for the 1930’s, when Antarctica, Greenland, Africa, and South America had no surface temperature stations.
What did he extrapolate that world graph from?
November 6th, 2007 at 11:25 pm
papertiger, maybe you missed the last point I made: this is the wrong blog entry for your comment. There already is one about Climate Audit. And if you’re defending Steve Milloy, then there’s not much I can say anyway.
November 7th, 2007 at 3:44 am
Mr. Astronomy, I am not surprized you have nothing to say in support of the hockystick or the temperature record. You haven’t the faculties to support them. That’s not a knock on your scientific expertise. The best statistician in America couldn’t reproduce MBH98 using Mann’s own files downloaded directly from the University of Virginia’s computer.
This leads back to that sticky integrity thingie. In science when a result can’t be reproduced independant of the author what do we call it?
Like when that Korean scientist created room temperature fusion, why aren’t we all running our Hyundai with Mr. Fusion generators?
I am sure it will come to you if you think about it.
November 7th, 2007 at 9:14 am
Oh PaperTiger, what the Bad Astronomer has tried to explain is that the blog has a thread for everything and everything should go in its thread. This is the correct thread:
http://badastronomy.com/bablog/2007/11/05/science-blog-awards-and-bad-logic
It is hard to take someone with such poor reading comprehension seriously; anyone can accidently post in the wrong section, but you continue to do so even after having the mistake pointed out to you multiple times. Frankly, you give the impression that you are as dumb as a box of hammers.
November 8th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
Perhaps I am as dumb as a box of hammers, but I’m not the one claiming credit for being a science debunker while accepting blindly the scientific advice of a politician who could only muster a “C” average throughout his school years.