An Intelligent Designer Creates Opportunities for Mass Intelligent Deisgn

Sill Wright, designer of Sims, demonstrates his new game "Spore" at the 2007 New Yorker Conference.

Physicist Slows, then Stops Light: Harvard Video

Tough to be skeptical of scientific "miracles" when they do their best to explain and demonstrate how they preformed the feat. Lene Hau has two video in this list that describe how she gets light to do tricks for her. First watch "Light Stopper" then "Light and Matter".

Michael Shermer: Why people believe strange things TED Talk

In science you have to keep track of the misses as well as the hits.....

Colbert's interview of Harris

Although Stephen Colbert attests to his strong faith in yesterday's Parade magazine interview, I recalled that he gave a fair interview of Sam Harris.

In fact, Colbert took every opportunity to make his belief appear stubborn and foolish while giving Harris plenty of time to make important points. Go here and scroll down a bit.

The best answer to Pascal's wager

Long debate of Hitchens & Mark Roberts

Audio only.

Atheist Delusion

This made quite the splash: http://www.glumbert.com/media/atheistdelusion
Light and mildly sarcastic. The comments below are almost better, till they get nuts.

The Evolution of Morality

This Science Times article on the evolutionary origins of morality makes this supposition:

...liberals assigned much less importance to the three moral systems that protect the group, those of loyalty, respect for authority and purity.

Conservatives placed value on all five moral systems but they assigned less weight than liberals to the moralities protective of individuals.

So while conservatives fancy themselves the "rugged individualist", John Wayne-style, actually, they're simply expressing a collective protectionism towards their group.

Later in the article, the idea is challenged:

“It is obvious that liberals emphasize the common good — safety laws for coal mines, health care for all, support for the poor — that are not nearly as well recognized by conservatives,” Dr. de Waal said.

The researcher became interested in this social expression of an underlying evolutionary trait of humans to feel revulsion towards that which may make them less likely to survive. Disgust is important to our survival, and religion's systematizing it lead to the success of those groups. Interesting.

Early statement of scientifc skepticism; Turner Interviews Sagan

Dawkins - Why are we here?

This is the big question that's a stumper for the skeptic. Dawkins tries to answer it here. No, wait - we all are going to answer it. Get out your blue booklets.
Inspiring if you follow him.

Hitchens at Google

Question: What's the event in Washington in October that he refers to at around 30 minutes?
Also, his weakest answer is at around countdown 14 minutes when the young lady asks about the absence of community in most atheist's upbringing. Ethical Culture has fitted my kids well. He should be kinder to these types of organizations.