Dot Calm's Page of Truth & Sedition: Welcome to Science Monday!

Poor ol' me...

I had been putting together goodies for this post in a notepad file when my computer crashed (I hates Windows!!!!!)...all gone. Sad wah-wah. So I am starting from scratch. The upside is that, as I started populating this post with videos, I decided to give today's its own theme: science! Maybe, since the science vids are a little chewier and less humorous than some of the other vids I've been posting, I might throw in a few funnies in between.

Like this one.

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If Steve Harvey's ancestors came from Africa,
then why are there still Africans?

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YouTube hosts many wonderful simple-but-effective videos explaining aspects of science that too many Americans get from the pulpit instead of the classroom or reputable peer-reviewed science journals.

Let's sample a few videos on scientific topics that creationists and other Republicans have a hard time grasping: the age of the earth, evolution, and climate change.

Seth Andrews referred to YouTuber potholer54's "made easy" video series in one of his presentations. It's not easy to break down decades, sometimes centuries, of science into bite-sized 10-minute videos, but potholer54 does a stand-up job of it. Although he prepares most of his videos for adult or general audiences, he prepares some especially for schools to use. Here's one on the age of the earth:

Here's potholer54's "made easy" video on
natural selection:

And on the theory of evolution:

And human evolution (love the cameo of Patrick Macnee, aka John Steed in the 1960s The Avengers):

The full series of potholer54's "made easy" videos on our origin (consisting of eleven science presentations, one on the series itself, and two errata) is available on YouTube here. If you click on the link, you'll see that I jumped right into the middle, starting with the fifth video. They're all well worth watching.

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People overseas didn't go to Ivy League schools.
We are so sophisticated,
we think we've got everything figured out.
We know about evolution,
we know about Darwin,
we know about all these things
that says God isn't real,
we know about all this stuff.

-- Pat Robertson, telling a viewer

that the U.S. has scared God away,

so He now performs more "miracles"

in Africa than the U.S.

Pat is apparently unaware that

20% of Harvard students are international.

He is also apparently unaware

that only religious people think

they have everything figured out.

Scientists know better.

And people in the 1800s decided

that there were no more

fairies, pixies, or leprechauns

in the forests because

all the new buildings in the towns

had scared all the wee folk away.

Poor Old Pat...

NO MIRACLES FOR YOU!

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Now that you have more information on the age of the earth and evolution, let's check out some of potholer54's videos on climate change. What I like about his videos is that he simply presents the science, as simply as he can. Since he mentions his video on the ice age, let's start with that:

0.

1. The scientific debate on climate change:

2. The objections:

3. Anatomy of a myth:

5. (Yes, I'm skipping 4 for the moment.)
But isn't climate change natural?

Potholer54's full set of 32 videos on climate change is available on YouTube here.

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I was bitten by an octopus.

-- Ted Cruz

Crazy but still more likely

than his becoming President....

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If I get a lot of page views on this post, maybe I'll make a thing of Science Mondays and continue to post science shorts weekly.

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I will renounce any Canadian citizenship.
Nothing against Canada,
but I'm an American by birth
and as a U.S. Senator,
I believe I should be only an American.

-- Ted Cruz in 2013, either forgetting

he was born in Calgary, Canada (eh?)

or playing fast and loose with North America

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And now for something completely different...hey wait, it's kinda not...it's

Julia Child makes primordial soup!

Please please please click the link and watch the video! It is wonderful--only Julia Child could have made it so delicious. Sorry I couldn't upload it--I blame Blogger.

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Ted Cruz said,

"I'm a Christian first,

American second."
Imagine if a MUSLIM politician said that!

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Don't be fooled by Republican trolls

posing as progressives

to trash-talk your favorite candidate:

VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE!!!!!

ANY Democrat is better than EVERY Republican!

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Did you know that the "science" "experts" at Conservapedia "debunked" e=mc^2? How much more detached from reality can they get?!?? I'd like to show them this video by potholer54: "How to Argue with Assholes"....