"The film includes interviews with celebrities and other influential people who support the work of these controversial speakers, including:

Ricky Gervais
Woody Allen
Cameron Diaz
Stephen Hawking
Sarah Silverman
Bill Pullman
Werner Herzog
Tim Minchin
Eddie Izzard
Ian McEwan
Adam Savage
Ayaan Hirsi-Ali
Penn Jillette
Sam Harris
Dan Dennett
James Randi
Cormac McCarthy
Paul Provenza
James Morrison
Michael Shermer
David Silverman
...and more.

www.unbelieversmovie.com"

3 more comments have been lost in the ether at this killed duplicate.

@kymbos

>> ^kymbos:

Every now and then Maher says something really uninformed. Remember when he went on about immunisation causing disease, or something like that? I was gobsmacked at the time. If I remember correctly, he was genuinely telling people not to immunise their children. Madness.
This one is right up there. Lots of kids are named Mohommad, therefore England will be a Muslim state soon enough? Wow.


I was amazed by that too. For someone who says he is rational, he sure adheres to some very retarded and unscientific views. His clips on vaccines:






An Open Letter by Michael Shermer to Bill Maher on Vaccinations

Bill Maher's response, which is much more nuanced than how his views looked on the show.

I love Michael Shermer, I just wish his books were a little more enjoyable to read. Dawkins writes with such finesse and passion. It always seems like Shermer is writing a treatises rather than a book designed to reach a large audience.

He's a good speaker, though.

Welcome to the *debunked channel! I have started invocating a few classics that came to mind, and I look forward to more delicious debunking being put in there, typical, great examples of debunking would be James Randi's classic debunking of Uri Geller on Carson, (just about anything with Randi is appropriate i guess, this channel is dedicated to people like him) or Michael Shermers classic TED talk, and not least videos of magic stuff that just doesnt work, like the hilarious video of an atheist being cursed on indian TV.

So again, welcome to all, if you post or watch a video related to debunking, don't hesitate to invoke the channel, I dont have time to backtrack the entire VS library, but I've started off with a few good examples.

There's so much wharrgarbl going on in there I almost popped a blood vessel.

Contrary to the "Idiocracy" belief that our society is being "dumbed down", as it were (and, believe me, I still find myself saying this is the case) evidence suggests the opposite is the case. In first world nations across the globe intelligence quotients are rising (and plateauing in some cases, while minority's IQs are still rising), and belief in silly religions and superstitions are falling.

Yes there is Mercury in Thimersol, but it isn't the horrific kind.
Bad Mercury: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylmercury
Thimersol Mercury: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethylmercury

The key words there are "Bioaccumulate": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioaccumulate

For a look at the whole "Vaccines/Thimersol causes Autism" wharrgarbl, I rebuke with a video I posted to the sift a while back: http://videosift.com/video/Do-Vaccines-Cause-Autism-A-Detailed-Examination

Oh, and hey! How about the fact that Dr. Wakefield, the father of the whole Vaccine/Autism debacle with his article published in The Lancet was discredited finally!

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/02/02/and-now-the-antivax-failure-is-complete-the-lancet-withdraws-wakefields-paper/

As for the whole "Flouride" wharrgarbl I'd just recommend reading the Wiki's Article on Water Flouridation, in particular this section right around paragraph 3: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation#Ethics_and_politics

(Emphasis mine)

"Conspiracy theories involving fluoridation are common, and include claims that fluoridation was motivated by protecting the U.S. atomic bomb program from litigation, that (as famously parodied in the film Dr. Strangelove) it is part of a Communist or New World Order plot to take over the world, that it was pioneered by a German chemical company to make people submissive to those in power, that behind the scenes it is promoted by the sugary food or phosphate fertilizer or aluminum industries, or that it is a smokescreen to cover failure to provide dental care to the poor.[19] One such theory is that fluoridation was a public-relations ruse sponsored by fluoride polluters such as the aluminum maker Alcoa and the Manhattan Project, with conspirators that included industrialist Andrew Mellon and the Mellon Institute's researcher Gerald J. Cox, the Kettering Laboratory of the University of Cincinnati, the Federal Security Agency's administrator Oscar R. Ewing, and public-relations strategist Edward Bernays.[84] Specific antifluoridation arguments change to match the spirit of the time.[85]"


The video is right; let's get the facts. And if your facts only support your "New World Order", "omfg they're trying to control our minds" nonsense, well then, those are your "facts". There's a funny thing about why smart people believe weird things; read about it in Michael Shermer's "Why People Believe Weird Things". It showed me the error of some of my foolish beliefs as well.

And I'm at the point where I wonder why I bother doing this, I'm talking to walls and making friends with no one. I guess I just care too much about seeing fear mongering bullshit like this peddled as if it has any rational backing whatsoever.

http://christophersisk.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/thestupiditburns.jpg

/downvote

Here are the lyrics for you sing-alongers out there:

Lyrics:

[Michael Shermer]
Science is the best tool ever devised
For understanding how the world works

[Jacob Bronowski]
Science is a very human form of knowledge
We are always at the brink of the known

[Carl Sagan]
Science is a collaborative enterprise
Spanning the generations
We remember those who prepared the way
Seeing for them also

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]
If you're scientifically literate,
The world looks very different to you
And that understanding empowers you

Refrain:
[Richard Dawkins]
There's real poetry in the real world
Science is the poetry of reality

[Sagan]
We can do science
And with it, we can improve our lives

[Jill Tarter]
The story of humans is the story of ideas
That shine light into dark corners

[Lawrence Krauss]
Scientists love mysteries
They love not knowing

[Richard Feynman]
I don't feel frightened by not knowing things
I think it's much more interesting

[Brian Greene]
There's a larger universal reality
of which we are all apart

[Stephen Hawking]
The further we probe into the universe
The more remarkable are the discoveries we make

[Carolyn Porco]
The quest for the truth, in and of itself,
Is a story that's filled with insights

(Refrain)

[Greene]
From our lonely point in the cosmos
We have through the power of thought
Been able to peer back to a brief moment
After the beginning of the universe

[PZ Myers]
I think that science changes the way your mind works
To think a little more deeply about things

[Dawkins]
Science replaces private predjudice
With publicly verifiable evidence

(Refrain)

I'm not sure if this is technically a dupe since it's just a snippet taken from minute 13 of the full length TED talk by Michael Shermer:

http://www.videosift.com/video/Michael-Shermer-Why-People-Believe-Weird-Things

I'll leave the dupiness decision to others. Either way, great clip, check out the whole talk.

This video has been declared a duplicate; transferring votes to the original video and killing this dupe - dupeof declared by Stingray.

*dupeof=http://www.videosift.com/video/Michael-Shermer-Why-People-Believe-Weird-Things

Sorry mate, but this is a dupe:
http://www.videosift.com/video/Michael-Shermer-Why-People-Believe-Weird-Things

>> ^EndAll:
there's a lot more evidence for a conspiracy in witness testimony, evidence already buried, confidential files not yet released, and the like.


If you have any respect for people like James Randi, Michael Shermer, or anyone who uses scientific methods, then you already understand that witness testimony is possibly the most unreliable way of getting at any truth, and more often than not, completely opposite of the truth.

>> ^cybrbeast:
I really like Bill Maher, but I hope he takes his time off to ponder his stance on real medicine and alternative medicine.
Michael Shermer from Skeptic's Magazine wrote an open letter on the subject to Bill Maher. I hope he listens.
http://richarddawkins.net/article,4465,An-O
pen-Letter-to-Bill-Maher-on-Vaccinations,Michael-Shermer


Hear, hear, Bill Maher is batshit crazy when it comes to vaccines and medicine, ranking right up there with the reality-deniers he makes fun of.

PZ Myers:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/10/bill_maher_still_doesnt_get_it.php
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/10/another_thing_that_annoyed_me.php

I really like Bill Maher, but I hope he takes his time off to ponder his stance on real medicine and alternative medicine.

Michael Shermer from Skeptic's Magazine wrote an open letter on the subject to Bill Maher. I hope he listens.
http://richarddawkins.net/article,4465,An-Open-Letter-to-Bill-Maher-on-Vaccinations,Michael-Shermer

While there are interesting ideas within Ayn Rand's books, I would highly recommend a small treatise on her, and her "movement" as detailed by Michael Shermer in his book "Why People Believe Weird Things" - Part 2: Pseudoscience and Superstition, Chapter 8: The Unlikeliest Cult: Ayn Rand, Objectivism, and the Cult of Personality.