World End?

[Squ!rrel]

For those who think the world will end in 2012.

Despite the publicity generated by the 2012 date, Susan Milbrath, curator of Latin American Art and Archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, stated that "We [the archaeological community] have no record or knowledge that [the Maya] would think the world would come to an end" in 2012.

"For the ancient Maya, it was a huge celebration to make it to the end of a whole cycle," says Sandra Noble, executive director of the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc. in Crystal River, Florida. To render December 21, 2012, as a doomsday or moment of cosmic shifting, she says, is "a complete fabrication and a chance for a lot of people to cash in."

 

[rousselle]

An interesting little article about the Large Hadron Collider:

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4109

And here's a little ditty explaining the Mayan calendar misunderstanding:

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4093

And here's a live webcam showing how things are going at the LHC:

http://www.cyriak.co.uk/lhc/lhc-webcams.html

In all seriousness, you'll find that many magicians (not all!) eventually understand enough about misdirection and drawing incorrect conclusions that they begin to adopt a serious set of critical thinking skills. Many become champions of the "skepticism" movement. The Amazing James Randi (see http://www.randi.org), Penn & Teller, Banachek (spelling?), DJ Groethe and others have dedicated their careers to promoting skepticism and critical thinking.

I highly recommend the following podcasts to anyone on this forum who is interested in knowing more about the reality behind interesting and wild claims like those about the Large Hadron Collider and the Mayan "doomsday prediction". Each of these is very interesting and entertaining, and you'll find there's quite an overlap with the magic community (as well as the science fiction community, scientific community, etc., etc.):

The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe
Skeptoid (which publishes text transcripts of each show)
Skepticality
The Amazing Show (with James Randi)

...and, for those who like to throw religion into their critical thinking bag:

Point of Inquiry

You can look all of these up on iTunes or your podcast aggregator of choice, or you can google for their home pages and read more about them there. There's also a fun little book you may want to consider reading:

Crimes Against Logic by Jamie Whyte

And a television show on the Showtime cable network:

Penn & Teller's Bullsh*t (warning: this one can get political)

It is my firm belief that the extent to which any and all of us work on improving how we think, we will improve the quality of what we do. We will improve how we approach learning magic (let alone the other areas of our lives), how we practice, and how we perform. We also will be less likely to be taken in by deceptive or ill-informed claims.

I hope you'll give some of these resources a try.

--Allan

 

[Squ!rrel]

An interesting little article about the Large Hadron Collider:

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4109

And here's a little ditty explaining the Mayan calendar misunderstanding:

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4093

And here's a live webcam showing how things are going at the LHC:

http://www.cyriak.co.uk/lhc/lhc-webcams.html

In all seriousness, you'll find that many magicians (not all!) eventually understand enough about misdirection and drawing incorrect conclusions that they begin to adopt a serious set of critical thinking skills. Many become champions of the "skepticism" movement. The Amazing James Randi (see http://www.randi.org), Penn & Teller, Banachek (spelling?), DJ Groethe and others have dedicated their careers to promoting skepticism and critical thinking.

I highly recommend the following podcasts to anyone on this forum who is interested in knowing more about the reality behind interesting and wild claims like those about the Large Hadron Collider and the Mayan "doomsday prediction". Each of these is very interesting and entertaining, and you'll find there's quite an overlap with the magic community (as well as the science fiction community, scientific community, etc., etc.):

The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe
Skeptoid (which publishes text transcripts of each show)
Skepticality
The Amazing Show (with James Randi)

...and, for those who like to throw religion into their critical thinking bag:

Point of Inquiry

You can look all of these up on iTunes or your podcast aggregator of choice, or you can google for their home pages and read more about them there. There's also a fun little book you may want to consider reading:

Crimes Against Logic by Jamie Whyte

And a television show on the Showtime cable network:

Penn & Teller's Bullsh*t (warning: this one can get political)

It is my firm belief that the extent to which any and all of us work on improving how we think, we will improve the quality of what we do. We will improve how we approach learning magic (let alone the other areas of our lives), how we practice, and how we perform. We also will be less likely to be taken in by deceptive or ill-informed claims.

I hope you'll give some of these resources a try.

--Allan

This is a brilliant post, I completely agree with you.

Critical thinking skills and skepticism are something I believe everybody should have, they give you a far better understanding of the world. People with these skills are far less likely to fall for stuff about the LHC destroying the world, religion, supernatural nonsense etc.

 

[ElisG]

WHy didn't the world end 26,000 years ago then?

I'm pretty sure they believe it did, they believe the world ends and is recreated every now and then. Theories have emerged about the alignment of the planets causing an extremely fast polar shift which would lead to global cataclysm.

Extremely interesting stuff, but not true obviously.

 

[OwnerM]

An interesting little article about the Large Hadron Collider:

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4109

And here's a little ditty explaining the Mayan calendar misunderstanding:

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4093

And here's a live webcam showing how things are going at the LHC:

http://www.cyriak.co.uk/lhc/lhc-webcams.html

In all seriousness, you'll find that many magicians (not all!) eventually understand enough about misdirection and drawing incorrect conclusions that they begin to adopt a serious set of critical thinking skills. Many become champions of the "skepticism" movement. The Amazing James Randi (see http://www.randi.org), Penn & Teller, Banachek (spelling?), DJ Groethe and others have dedicated their careers to promoting skepticism and critical thinking.

I highly recommend the following podcasts to anyone on this forum who is interested in knowing more about the reality behind interesting and wild claims like those about the Large Hadron Collider and the Mayan "doomsday prediction". Each of these is very interesting and entertaining, and you'll find there's quite an overlap with the magic community (as well as the science fiction community, scientific community, etc., etc.):

The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe
Skeptoid (which publishes text transcripts of each show)
Skepticality
The Amazing Show (with James Randi)

...and, for those who like to throw religion into their critical thinking bag:

Point of Inquiry

You can look all of these up on iTunes or your podcast aggregator of choice, or you can google for their home pages and read more about them there. There's also a fun little book you may want to consider reading:

Crimes Against Logic by Jamie Whyte

And a television show on the Showtime cable network:

Penn & Teller's Bullsh*t (warning: this one can get political)

It is my firm belief that the extent to which any and all of us work on improving how we think, we will improve the quality of what we do. We will improve how we approach learning magic (let alone the other areas of our lives), how we practice, and how we perform. We also will be less likely to be taken in by deceptive or ill-informed claims.

I hope you'll give some of these resources a try.

--Allan

Dude. You are my hero.

 

[dummyisdumb]

a tiny black hole won't do s***

You're retarded.